Madeline circles the block again, enjoying her stroll around her new neighborhood.

"Madeline! Wait up!" Damon leaps off his porch to join her.

"Here we go," she mumbled under her breath. "I didn't take you for the casual stroll type..."

"I'm not," replies Damon.

"So you have a motive, then?" She asks.

"Always." He replies, quickly deciding that was the wrong thing to say in this conversation. "That-" he laughs at himself. "That is not what I was supposed to say."

"Nope," she laughs. "I just can't seem to crack you, Damon."

"Well that's your problem! I'm not a nut," he jokes. "It's really not nice to crack people."

Madeline laughs again. "I enjoy a challenge." She shrugs.

"Well!" Damon exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. "Then you are in for a real treat because I am as challenging as they come."

His comments earn a belly laugh from Madeline.

He holds his finger up to his lips to quiet her. He thought he heard something. "Damon," Madeline shakes her head. "This is what I mean when I say-"

"Stop saying things." He quiets her again.

"Okay," she raises her arms in the air. "I'm going home."

Damon speeds in front of her, getting there just before a familiar face can. She stands in front of him, smirking upon seeing him. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" She asks, pursing her lips.

"We aren't friends." Madeline mumbles under her breath.

"What do you want, Katherine?" Damon asks

"I just want to catch up with an old flame." She pouts, twirling her hair around her finger. Damon rolls his eyes. "Maybe we could get some lunch? She smells delicious." She licks her fangs and lunges.

Damon is quick and is able to dodge Katherine's attack, pulling Madeline along with him.

Madeline barely has time to mutter a scream before she finds herself back on her porch. "What just-"

"Inside. Now." Damon orders her, pointing to the door.

"What-"

"Get inside!" He shouts, scaring her.

"Oh!" She pulls her key out of her pocket and struggles to get it in the lock. Her hands shake with fear. She has no idea what is going on. She fights with the key in the lock, Damon pressuring her to go quicker.

She finally gets the door open. Before she can turn back and ask Damon what is going on, he shoves her inside the threshold. She falls to the ground, obviously. "Damon what the hell!" She shouts at him, removing the hair from in front of her face.

"Invite me inside!" He demands.

"No!" She replies, refusing to give into him when he has been nothing but rude to her, this afternoon specifically. She was beginning to forget about his treatment of her from last night but now it is all coming back to her.

"Invite me in, now!" He demands again, his voice urgent. He is running out of time.

Madeline is firm in her stance. She is not going to invite Damon to come inside. Though, she does wonder why he does not just push his way inside if he wants to come in so badly.

Damon looks over his shoulder. He does not have any time to react. She has found them.

Katherine pins Damon to the ground, grabbing his neck and smashing his head into the pavement of the porch. She looks up at Madeline and sees her petrified on the floor. She laughs and takes a chunk of firewood from the nice stack beside her, breaking the log like a twig and plunging the smaller half of it into Damon's stomach.

He groans in pain. Katherine bends down close to his ear so she can be sure to be heard. "Next time, I won't miss," She smirks planting a sweet kiss on his cheek before speeding away.

Madeline is terrified. She is too scared to move.

But Damon is clearly injured and she is almost certain he will die if she does not do something. She does not know if the scary lady is going to come back but she has to help Damon. She won't be able to live with herself if she just sits there and watches him die.

She crawls out onto the porch and looks at him, trying to process the best way to go about this. She thinks getting him inside will buy them some time in case she comes back for them. Madeline will lock the door once they are inside.

Damon laughs at the thought. "If Katherine wants inside, she will get inside." He replies to her thought out loud.

"What-"

"N-Nevermind. You have to pull it out." Damon instructs her, clearly having issues with the chunk of wood inside his abdomen.

"No way. That's like, med school 101. You are supposed to leave it in until you get to the hospital." She argues.

"This isn't med school and I'm not going to the hospital. Pull the damn wood out." He speaks through his teeth, the pain becoming unbearable.

"But-"

"Madeline! Just do it!" Damon shouts at her.

She panics, holding her hands above the wood in Damon's stomach. "Okay, uh," she slowly slides the wood out, clanging her eyes shut so she won't have to see Damon's guts falling out of him as she does it. The squishing sound is unbearable. She hates every part of this.

Fully removed from his body, Madeline chucks the wood as far as she can. Damon lays on the porch, staring up at the ceiling.

"Oh, what am I doing? I should have called for an ambulance before I did that." Madeline stands and moves to the door. Damon is standing in front of her before she can enter. "W-" she turns back to see the empty spot where he just was. "How?"