Rebekah's Daughter-Natalia Mikaelson (The Vampire Diaries)

Chapter 17

Never a dull moment in this town, today's festivities consisted of the Miss Mystic Falls beauty pageant. As per usual, the entire town is suppose to attend with the founding families on the frontline. Of course no one really tells me anything anymore, Uncle Nik only mentioned it when he was talking about where he could find Caroline to find out when their date was.

Once he left my phone chimed with a message from Stefan.

Want to help me with a project?

If it has anything to do with the pageant, then no. I replied.

It has to do with the Hunter's Mark.

When I read his message I decided to call him instead of having this conversation through text.

"Stop helping my uncle," I said the moment he answered.

"Can I ask why?" he said quizically.

"Because you're both on a fool's mission of false hope," I told him.

"So you don't think there's a cure," he stated rather than asked,

"I don't think it's something worth chasing myths and legends after. Nothing is as clear cut at you seem to think it's going to be."

"I'm taking all of this as you're not going to help me," he said, avoiding my warning.

"What is it that you're trying to do exactly?" I asked, curiosity taking hold.

"Well now that depends, are you going to help me or try to stop me?"

"I want to have nothing to do with any of this, so as long as you don't go and do anything uncharacteristically stupid I'll stay out of it," I answered.

He hestitated for a moment before answering. "I'm finding vampires for Jeremy to kill so his mark can grow."

"Hm, stupid but not uncharacteristically so. You would put him through that, though, your girlfriend's little brother?" I asked incredulously.

Even through the phone I could feel him tense up. "Elena and I broke up," was all he said.

"So that gives you a right to force her brother into a life of massacring vampires?"

"I need the map to the cure and the only way is to make Jeremy's mark grow and to do that he needs to kill vampires," Stefan explained.

"No," I argued. "What you need is to move on from Elena and leave her brother alone. Once someone changes, seldom are they able to go back to the way they were, no matter how bad you want them to. Put your desparation aside and cut your losses before you make things worse."

Seemingly unphased by my speech, Stefan didn't miss a beat and said, "Thanks for the advice, I won't bother asking for your help again."

I sighed in frustration when the line went dead. I spent a few minutes pacing around being angry at how no one was listening to me when I tried warning them before I decided that as long as they had a small window of opportunity to get what they wanted, then it didn't matter if I had Jesus himself here to back me up, they would still try. Stefan was defninitley one of those people, especially when it came to Elena.

I quickly changed and did a quick tracking spell to find out where Stefan was, but he was on the move so I had to switch directions a couple of times before arriving outside of the old Lockwood cellar.

I could hear groaning from inside and quickly made my way down the steps. I entered a dungeon-like room where Stefan was kneeling on the ground, clutching a stake sticking out of his stomach.