Ruins || The Vampire Diaries [2]

19: Rescue Me

   I never imagined my life to be so strange, but I was a vampire and a dopplegänger—everything was bound to be strange. In front of me sat a man that looked like Stefan. It wasn't him, or Silas, but a dopplegänger that had been living in Atlanta. His name was Tom, Tom Avery, and he was a paramedic at the Atlanta Metropolitan Hospital. What shocked me the most was that he looked more like Stefan than Silas did, but it was because of the generosity that appeared in his green eyes. 

   When Caroline, Enzo, and I found in him in a house that used to belong to a witch—Enzo killed her by throwing the doorknob at her head—Tom Avery was in a coma-like trance in the basement. I couldn't do it, so Caroline began to strangle him to kill him. It was then when he woke up, when he began to take deep breaths and glanced around the room in fright. His eyes landed on each person for a couple of seconds, but when they landed on me, it was as if he had seen a ghost. He slowly stood and walked over to me, laying a hand on my cheek and asked if I was real.

   At that moment, I didn't know what to say, or what to feel. Why would he ask me if I was real? Did he know me? Had I known him before? It was strange, because his touch on my cheek felt a lot like Stefan's touch, but not the same. It was warm and gentle, but not as warm as Stefan's. I took a step back and turned to Caroline, wide eyed and my heart hammering against my chest with so many thoughts running through my head. 

   "Calm down," Caroline compelled him. "You can trust us."

   "Bonding with him will only make it harder on you," Enzo said from behind us. "You too, Clara."

   "Shut up," I said, waving a hand in his direction. I was too distracted by Tom Avery, by my thoughts about this man.

   "Your our friend," Caroline continued to compel him. "Your our friend and you mean the world to us. Do you trust me?"

   Tom nodded. "Of course."

   "Good," Caroline smiled. "Now, I promise, you won't feel a thing." She sped back and snapped Enzo's neck, surprising both Tom and I. 

   "What's going on?" Tom asked, scared.

   "We're getting you out of here," Caroline said, glancing back at me. "There's a lot of things we need to figure out."

   I nodded. "Like, how the hell does he know me?"

   "Yeah," she breathed, running a hand through her hair. She turned to Tom and gave him a smile. "Come on. I know where we can go."

   It was strange being in a car with a man that looked exactly like Stefan. I wondered if that was how Stefan and Damon felt when they saw Elena for the first time. They must have felt like this, strange and confused and wondering how could they look so alike. I didn't feel like that when it came to Silas because there was something different between him and Stefan: Silas was pure anger while Stefan was just generosity and love. Tom, on the other hand, was generosity and love, but he was also something Stefan wasn't. Human. That was the difference between the two, one was human and the other was a vampire.

    We ended up sitting in the diner we were first at when we arrived to Atlanta. I sat besides Caroline, watching Tom Avery gobble down the food. She had asked him several questions about how he ended up in that house, and his answered were all muffled with his mouth full. He raised a hand and chewed thoroughly.

   "Hazel seemed nice," he said, referring to the witch Enzo killed, "so you know, uh, why not have dinner? So I showered, picked her up, and that was it—that was the last thing I remember for four months."

   "She kidnapped you that night," I said with a sigh. "Had you locked up ever since, and hid you away from anyone that knew magic."

   "Yeah," Caroline nodded. "Okay, now to what we're really wondering: how do you know Clara?"