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At one point or another, a person will deviate from their normal behavior and do something completely out of character. Sometimes these abnormal actions will bring favorable outcomes and the person will feel a sense of accomplishment and reassurance that it's okay to go off track once in a while. Other times the results will be undesired and unappreciated. Say, a football player did some play that they had never done before and ended up losing the game due to it. What Alice did might have lost her much more than a football game.
Alice had diverged from her normal persona as the quiet, soft-spoken, and gentle person her friends knew her as. She still didn't know why she had been so blunt and rash at the party last night. Something about thinking of her friends being in danger had woken something up inside of her. A need to protect. But now she feared it would have the opposite effect.
A vampire's instinct was to hide in the shadows, waiting and watching for the perfect time to pounce. They stalked, they hunted, and then they killed; all in secret. Anything or anyone that posed a threat to their life in the darkness would be taken off the board.
Stefan Salvatore seemed like a good, composed person. Like someone who wanted nothing more than to live their life in peace and surround themselves with things that made them feel good. But he was still a vampire. And she had just walked up to him and announced that she knew the truth and that she was a threat to his way of life.
She wasn't an idiot; she knew that there was a target on her back now. But even with the danger, she found herself going about her life. When– not if –either of the Salvatore vampires came looking to get her out of the picture, it wouldn't do her any good to be hiding. Last night had gained them an invitation into her home. She supposed she could sleep over at Bonnie's, seeing as she was the only one of their friends to not have invited a vampire into their home.
She looked over at Bonnie in consideration of that idea. The girl in question was currently holding and intently staring at a candle she had found in Caroline's bedroom. Alice could almost feel Bonnie coming into her abilities; she was on the cusp of figuring it out.
"I remember the party," Caroline offered. "Damon came up behind me and he was kissing my neck or biting my neck. I passed out. It's like there's holes in my memory lately. It's just weird. Maybe I let him bite me."
Bonnie stopped staring at the candle and gave Caroline a flat look. "Why would you do that?"
"Can we just not talk about it, okay?" Caroline begged and Alice's brow creased in sympathy. "I don't want to talk about Damon. I don't want to talk about any of it. Just want to go back to normal."
"It's okay, Care, we get it. You don't have to talk about anything unless you want to." Alice reassured her, smiling comfortingly. Caroline smiled back at her, clearly grateful for the support.
"What are you doing with that candle?" Caroline asked Bonnie as she applied more foundation to cover up the bite marks.
Bonnie startled and put the candle down like she had been caught doing something bad. "Um... nothing. What's this?" She asked in regards to an amber crystal that was hanging from a necklace chain. Bonnie watched it dangle in front of her as she picked it up off the side table.
