My Return (Vampire Diaries) (Book Seven)

This Woman's Work

The desiccation for Caroline was getting worse.

She had nearly been dead when Stefan found her in the hospital room.

They had to plan an emergency C-section so that we could get the babies out of Caroline now so we could still save all three of their lives.

I was in the Whitmore Medical Center, calling every hospital in the area where Damon had said that he had left Tyler for dead so that I could try and find him. "Hi. I was wondering if you had a patient by the name Tyler Lockwood. He's my boyfriend, and I haven't been able to find him. I think something bad might have happened to him."

"There is a Tyler Lockwood checked into the ER. He was brought in by a man with British accent. Said that he found him with his head bashed in."

"Oh. That's... disconcerting. Is Tyler okay?"

"He is fine. The same British gentleman that brought him in had him transferred to a hospital a bit more equipped to deal with his kind."

"I'm sorry. Did you just say 'his kind'?"

"His kind of condition."

"What does that mean? Where did he transfer him to?"

"A hospital out of state."

"Do you know what hospital?"

"I'm sorry. I have no further information for you."

"Please, it's very important that I find Tyler."

"I'm sorry. I have no further information for you."

"Yeah, you said that. I'm sorry, but I just need to find my--" I heard the dial tone of a disconnected line. "Hello?"

I sighed, hanging up, walking toward where Stefan was by the window to the surgery room.

A team of surgeons were preparing Caroline's body for a C-section.

Stefan looked at me in concern. "Any luck?"

"No," I answered. "The hospital had Tyler checked it, but a British man transferred him to another hospital, and the lady wouldn't give me the hospital name." I looked toward the surgery team. "What did you tell them?"

"Oh, I compelled the doctors to ignore all things medicine couldn't explain," Stefan answered.

"Good," I told him. "I compelled a doctor to shut down this entire wing. So it's just us. Didn't want a vampire C-section to draw too much attention. Has she regained consciousness?"

"No, not yet," Stefan answered.

"Valerie gave Caroline her magic," I told him in confusion. "She stopped the desiccation."

Stefan sighed, shaking his head in denial and self-loathing. "I knew she was sick, but I left anyway. It almost killed her."

"And what were you going to do?" I asked. "You came to help Damon and me, and you did help Valerie kill Julian. And you needed to be there for what Damon told us."

Stefan became angry at the mention of Damon. "My brother doesn't care about anyone or anything. He made that exceptionally clear yesterday." I sighed, looking down. Stefan turned to me in confusion. "What, you don't agree? Nikki, he nearly killed your boyfriend, and now Tyler is out in the wind without any way to find him."

"I'm not saying that Damon didn't make a mistake," I told him. "But you and I both know that he was going through hell and torment. Maybe you don't understand because you were drowning in a quarry when you were in hell, but Damon was reliving the first time he ever got blood on his hands. And he was reliving what he did to me. Stefan, I told you what happened to me when I had the hex and how much it drove me out of my mind. I had to turn my humanity switch off and start killing people just to take my mind off of the fact that I was losing my mind."