ALIVE | K. SALTZMAN; BOOK ONE

20

˗ˏˋ CHAPTER TWENTY ˎˊ˗

Elena and Stefan eventually came out. Her mom was not with them, and they never saw her leave. Kalila tried to hide her disappointment, but it really didn't matter. It was written all over her face, and the looks of pity on everyone else's faces just proved it. She tried to ignore them, but it really didn't work all that well.

Either way, they found out that her mom was really after Jonathan Gilbert's invention that Pearl had given Damon as some sort of peace offering. None of them really thought all that much about it until her mom turned up and wanted it because it was a weapon against vampires, and they wanted to do anything but give her something like that. Only problem was she currently had Jeremy, also known as Kalila's only other friend in Mystic Falls, in exchange for the invention.

So now, there they were, standing in the study of the Salvatore Boarding House, waiting for Damon to come back with the invention from where he hid it in the house. Bonnie was also there purely because Elena asked her to remove the spell from the invention so her mom would never know the difference. Otherwise, Bonnie hated Stefan, Damon, and anything to do with vampires. It was almost comical. Kalila saw herself in the way Bonnie looked at them in disgust for being vampires. She'd come around.

"Okay, here it is," Damon said as he finally came into the room, holding up the invention, which really just looked like a circular piece of metal and honestly, nothing special. "We can't give this to her, so I say we toss into the fire. Tiny, get it started." She cocked an eyebrow at the command, but he just shrugged innocently. "What?"

"We're not burning it," Elena said, coming forward to stand in front of Damon. "Bonnie's going to take the magic out of it, and we're going to give it to Isobel so she leaves town," she explained matter-of-factly. Kalila very much wanted to hate her, but she didn't. She had the same shitty mom she did, so it was a little hard. "Right, Bonnie?" She looked back at the other girl, who just nodded quickly. For the life of her, Kalila couldn't figure out why Bonnie would agree to de-spell a weapon against vampires, but she wasn't going to question the help that they did get.

"No way," Damon said, putting the invention back in his pocket.

"Damon," Elena started, but didn't get to finish because Kalila interrupted her, knowing she could do a much better job of convincing him.

"Do you want to help me get my mom out of our lives for good or not?" He looked at her, hand on the invention in his pocket. "This is the only way to get Jeremy, and we get to piss her off by giving her a useless piece of junk. So are you in or are you in?"

He sighed, pulling the invention out of his pocket, finally relenting and handing it to Elena, who thanked him as Bonnie got to work removing the spell.

While they're waiting, Stefan followed Kalila out into the hallway where she was currently pacing back and forth, eyes trained at her feet. "You do remember I said you didn't have to be a part of this, right?" Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice, stopping in her tracks. "As in, you don't have to come with us if it'll be too much for you."

She sighed. "Oh, thank God," she whispered, taking a seat on one of the benches in the entryway. "If I have to make eye contact with my mom, I think I might actually lose it."

Stefan is silent, taking a seat next to her. "How are you feeling?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice. "You know, since earlier today?"

She rolled her eyes. "That bitch? Please, wasn't me." He didn't laugh. Instead, he just gave her a look that broke her down pretty much immediately. "Okay, fine," she sighed. "It's a little hard to be feeling up to par when your dad was right about your mom abandoning you all along, and you've been treating him like shit because how dare he make that assumption." She buried her face in her hands. "And I hate it." Her voice was muffled by her hands, but she knew Stefan still heard her.

"When Damon and I met Katherine, we had no idea the rest of the town knew about vampires," he told her, eyes looking straight into hers like he was searching for her soul. Kalila's breath caught at the thought, but she quickly recovered. "My father used us to capture her, and when we tried to rescue her, he shot us both dead."

"That's how you became vampires?"

He nodded. "And then I killed my father."

She tried to read him, but for as long as she knew him, she could never tell what he was thinking. Yet somehow, she knew he was telling the truth. "For killing you?"

"That, and he was a terrible father," he said with a chuckle, and Kalila laughed too.

"Alright, I think you might win the terrible parent competition."

"Thank you, it's a real honor, Miss Saltzman." A giggle escaped her mouth before she could stop it, and a smile broke out on Stefan's face. "I'm glad you're smiling," he said honestly, real genuine meaning in his eyes. She looked at him, trying to figure him out once again, but he was still a mystery to her, which was weird for someone so kind and welcoming.

"I am too," she said, returning his bright smile as a demonstration. "Thank you, Stefan."

He just shook his head, waving away her thanks. "I didn't do anything. That was all you." With that, he patted her on the leg and walked back into the study, leaving Kalila to wonder even more about Stefan Salvatore.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

Bonnie successfully de-spelled the invention, and when that sent Elena on her way with Stefan and Damon in tow, Kalila did the only thing that she could think of. And that was go talk to her dad.

She knew that he was at the school late at night. He's spent a lot of nights there grading papers since they've been fighting, but by the way he comes home smelling like bourbon, she figured he had to replace the bottle in his bottom right hand drawer a lot more often these days. And now, here she was, entering the high school where she spends way more of her time than necessary, and she suddenly felt like her day had come completely full circle. It was almost poetic that she was going to end it by making up with her dad instead of hating her mom. Of course, she was still going to do that, but it mattered a whole lot less.

"Kallie." Speak of the devil.

There's no way she heard that. She continued walking. There was only one person in the entire world who called her that. Her dad wasn't even allowed to use it anymore and instead shortened it to Kal. And yet...

"Kallie."

Kalila whipped around, coming face to face with her mom. "Mom?" she asked tentatively as the raven-haired woman she got all her features from nodded. Then, she snapped out of it. "I don't want to talk to you." She turned back around, but her mom was a hell of a lot faster.

"You might want to rethink that," she said as she slammed Kalila's body up against the lockers, her head being struck by an echoing vibrating sound as it made contact with the metal. She groaned, looking up at her mom who was just staring down at her, face completely unreadable.

"Damon was right," she coughed out. "You have no humanity."

Her mom's eyes narrowed as she just stared at her daughter before leaning in closer. "You will not remember any of this." Kalila could hardly believe it. Her mom was compelling her. Still, she played along. "If your dad were not in the picture, I would have given you up the same way I gave up Elena. I've never been a mother, and I never wanted to be." Kalila resisted the tears that were welling up in her eyes. "I left you to become a vampire, and I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be."

She was gone within seconds, Kalila's head still ringing from being slammed against the lockers. She didn't even get to watch her mom leave because she was a vampire.

And that was all she wrote on Isobel and Kalila Saltzman.