Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

99. A Year Without Pain

"Bonnie's back?" Riley asked, repeating the information that Damon told her the next morning. "Bonnie's back." She said again, pacing around the Salvatore living room. "Bonnie's back, and I should be focusing on her."

"I-" Damon started.

"I should be focusing on her, but I can't," Riley ignored him. "One of my best friends just came back from a 1994 prison world and I can't focus on her because my vampire sister turned her humanity off."

"Fl-" Damon tried to interrupt, staring at her with a worried expression.

"She turned her humanity off because she couldn't cope. And I didn't notice. She just lost her mom, and I didn't realize that she wasn't coping." She raked a hand through her hair. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

"Nothing's-"

"You know what's wrong with me?" she ignored Damon again. He was starting to wonder if she even knew he was there. "I'm selfish. I'm so freaking selfish. I should have gone home with her after the funeral, I should have stuck to her side like 'Krazy Glue' until I knew that she was okay."

"You're not-"

"And now she's probably killing as many people as she can get her hands on, because every vampire we know goes crazy when they turn their humanity off. And there's nothing that I can do about it because I'm human, and she could kill me in less than a second," she continued breathlessly. "Oh my God, that's gonna be my legacy! Here lies Riley Fletcher – the selfish, stupid human girl who meddled in supernatural business until she got her neck snapped by her grieving humanity-less vampire sister!"

Damon grabbed her by the shoulders, putting a hand over her mouth to stop her from speaking. "Will you please calm down?"

Riley nodded, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths to steady herself as she ran over the morning's events. Neither Stefan nor Elena had seen Caroline, but she had cleared her stuff out of both the house and the dorm.

But the bigger surprise was that, using the magic that she'd found on Silas' island, Bonnie Bennett had finally come home.

"What if Caroline leaves town and I never see her again?" Riley asked Damon, her voice low and soft.

Sighing, Damon wrapped his arms around her. "Blondie is the most controlled vampire in the history of the world. She'll probably bring herself back without any help from us."

Riley nodded, pressing herself against his chest and allowing him to comfort her. If anyone could get through a period of no-humanity, it would be Caroline.

"Aw," a voice said jovially. "Am I interrupting something?" Riley turned to see Kai standing behind them, noisily crunching his way through a bag of chips. "Is this one of those 'couple' moments? Are you about to make out? Should I look away?"

Riley pulled away from Damon so that she could gauge his reaction. Unfortunately, he didn't look as surprised as she wanted him to.

"What is Jo's evil twin doing here?" she asked him. "Shouldn't he have skipped town after killing Luke?"

Kai raised an eyebrow, amused. "Wait, you haven't told her yet? So you're keeping secrets from your brother and your girlfriend?"

"I'm not his girlfriend," Riley said immediately. "And I'm also gonna stop being his best friend unless he tells me whatever secret he's keeping, right now."

Damon looked at her sheepishly. "There wasn't a good time to bring it up."

Riley rolled her eyes, looking back and forth between them. "Well, now's as good a time as any."