79. The Long Goodbye

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"Hang on here," Matt said in disbelief. "Katherine's still alive? How is that possible?"

Riley and Caroline were filling Matt and Tyler in on what they'd worked out the night before. Bonnie and Jeremy were on the phone.

"Katherine is a passenger inside Elena," Caroline explained. "And none of us noticed!"

"She was at my house," Tyler reminded them, his mind going back to the party at the Lockwood mansion. "How did none of us figure it out?"

"Because she did what she does best," Riley said with a sigh. "Katherine has been cosplaying as Elena since she first came to Mystic Falls; she's good at it. The only difference between then and now is that she's taken over Elena's whole existence."

"This makes no sense," Jeremy said over the phone. "She saved my life, she gave me CPR when Enzo tried to kill me. Katherine would never do that."

"That's what made her so believable," Bonnie told him. "She played Elena to a tee. If she let you die, her cover was blown."

"Ugh!" Caroline groaned. "How could we be so stupid? She picked out my Bitter Ball dress. I let her use my toothpaste!"

"Well, did she lure you into a hotel room to make out with you?" Stefan said, walking into the room. Not that it was the first time that Katherine and Stefan had made out, but the fact that she was pretending to be Elena while doing it just made the whole event feel... gross.

Tyler looked up at Caroline. "She's the reason I found out about you and Klaus."

"Of course!" Caroline remembered. "Oh my god!"

"She dumped Damon, probably in the harshest possible way," Riley reminded them. "Which means that she's the reason Aaron's dead."

The mention of Aaron created a somber tone, the room becoming engulfed in sadness.

Finally, Tyler broke the tension. "So how do we kill the bitch?"

"Well, passengers can be expelled from the host," Stefan informed them. "All we have to do is stab her with the traveler knife."

Travelers were a sub-culture of witches, a faction that you had to be born into. Silas and Qetsiyah were the most powerful members of their time, and Katherine and Nadia had also been born into the community.

"I still have the knife Nadia gave me," Matt confirmed, happy to be of use for once.

"So we just act like nothing's wrong, get her to come over, and stab her?" Riley asked. The plan sounded too easy to work.

"Fat chance we'll be seeing her today," Tyler said, a slight guilty look on his face. "I'm pretty sure I bit Nadia."

Four pairs of accusatory eyes fixed themselves on him.

"What do you mean you bit her?" Matt asked.

"I mean, she was attacking Caroline, and I might have nipped her a bit," he confirmed. If Tyler was right, then Nadia was dying. And as heartless as Katherine was, she wouldn't leave her daughter to die alone.

"Katherine's not going to leave Nadia's side," Caroline said, a strange glint in her eyes. "Unless not leaving compromises her identity."

Riley smiled at her sister. "So we have to invite her to something that Elena would never say 'no' to."

***

"Hey," Riley said softly, walking into the cellar where Damon was chained. In her hand was a cup that held a small amount of red liquid. "Stefan's blood. Four ounces, enough to take the edge off."

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