5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes.

Tick tock, tick tock. With every passing minute the burden on her shoulders intensifies. There hasn't been a word from Noah, the vampire. While Elena should be glad, because maybe, for once, her problems have solved themselves. She highly doubts it. She doesn't feel relieved at all, even though Noah is gone, so is Jordan.

Not being able to handle the worry anymore, Elena walks over to Damon and Stefan who've retreated back into a corner, talking to one another in a hushed tone.

The two brothers stop talking immediately once they see Elena. They are both quick to catch anxiety radiating off of Elena.

"What is wrong? Did something happen?" Stefan takes a hold of Elena's hands. With his thumb, he soothingly rubs circles across the back of her hand.

Elena's eyes glide over the room. A minuscule part of her hopes to catch Jordan, so she can smile and tell Stefan 'nothing, just wondering if you wanted to dance'. But she can't. There is no speck of dyed blond hair, no ray of sunshine in a room full of glooming people. That's what Jordan is, Elena realises now. A ray of sunshine. The hope in dark times. Elena can't lose her.

"It's Jor, I-I think Noah has her."

Admitting it out loud is enough for Elena to collapse. Her knees buckle, not being able to carry her body anymore. Just when Elena is about to hit the ground, two strong, warm hands grab ahold of her waist. They pull her closer and engulf her in a hug.

"Stefan." Elena's voice breaks, along with Stefan's heart. He hates to see he woman he cherishes so broken, so vulnerable. "We have to find her, we have to help her. She might think she is strong, and she is, but she can't win. Not from a vampire. Not from someone who doesn't care if he hurst, breaks, and abuses. Not from someone who doesn't want to be saved, but only craves for the blood of his victims."

A voice in the back of Damon's head screams: 'This is about you. You're no good for her. She will be your salvation, but you will be her destruction. Jordan will be destroyed at your hands.'

Damon locks his jaw and clenches his fist. He ignores the voices screaming in his head, because now he needs to focus on helping Jordan. "Where did she go? After you and your little group of friends had listed all the lovely things about me."

"She went to the toilets. I wanted to stop her, to tell her to be careful and don't do something irrational. It seemed silly then, but now I wished I did." Elena says while still in the arms of Stefan.

"Let's go," Damon almost growls. Clouds of hatred and rage swirl through his mind, and his hands itch to kill something.

Stefan looks at Elena, eyebrows raised, silently asking if she wants to come. He hopes she'll decide to sit this one out, to let the Salvatore brother handle Noah, but Stefan knows his hopes will be just that.

"Oh, I'm coming. Definitely. She is my sister, I dragged her into this mess."

The trio slips away from the decade dance, having something much better to do than dance to old, stuffy songs. Damon leads the party. Stefan walks besides a disoriented Elena, who has sunken so far into the darkest corners of her mind, that the only thing she can think about is Jordan lying on the floor. Dead. With blood oozing out of two wounds in her neck. It makes her shiver in disgust and shudder in fear.

Damon knows exactly where he is going. He has blocked all sounds from entering his ears except one. Jordan's heartbeat sings to him. It lures him deeper into the school. Until he is standing in front of the cafeteria where he can not only hear her heartbeat pounding in harmony, but where the scent of her strawberry-vanilla tinted perfume drives him nuts. Damon motions with his hands to say: 'this is where he has her.', and Stefan's sensors are on high alert.

"I know you are standing behind the door. You can come in if you like, but one wrong move and the next thing on your agenda will be the funeral of the lovely Jordan Gilbert."

Damon bares his teeth and throws open the doors of the cafeteria. The sight waiting for the trio is one that is stomach turning and heart clenching. Elena cries out Jordan's name, but silence responds.

The only thing keeping Jordan standing is the hold Noah has on her shoulders. Her head is hung low and she looks like a rag doll.

"What have you done to he," Damon hisses. He doesn't take take a step further, afraid of sealing Jordan's fate.

The sound escaping Noah is one of utter disbelief, "What I have done to her?! I didn't do anything to her, she did this to herself."

The perplexing look on Elena's face is enough to make Noah laugh mockingly. "You have no idea what you've stumbled across have you?" And like all villains, they just have to boost and brag about their master plan, "I originally came here for Elena, I mean, the resemblance between her and Katherine? Striking. But what I found, or rather, found me, goes even beyond Katherine. It is pathetic almost, that you obviously have no idea that you're dealing with a unimaginable treasure."

Noah keeps his eyes fixated on Damon and Elena, not realising that someone is missing.

"Let me tell you a secret, a hint, on this quest." The next part he whispers, "Jordan isn't human. Now don't feel betrayed. She doesn't know herself."

Elena's eyes spring wide open and even Damon, who is a master of masks and disguises, cannot hide his surprise this time. Stefan isn't surprised, or shocked. He knew, from the moment she touched him, he knew.

Too late, Noah realises something is wrong.

"Let me tell you a secret," Stefan says, "you're dead." The stake pierces Noah's back and goes straight through his heart. Jordan, no longer supported, falls alongside Noah. She's headed straight for the ground. Stefan, however, is faster than the time Jordan has to fall, and he catches her before he hits the ground.

The next few minutes are silent, but in everybody's head thoughts are roaring. They have to process the information they just received from their enemy. Because it was from their enemy, their head is telling them it could a be a dirty trick, some pretty lies to deceive them. But in their hearts, they know that Noah was telling the truth.

Footsteps interrupt the tension in the air.

Damon offers to handle it, being glad to be away from the piercing eyes from his brother and lifeless body from Jordan for a moment.

♛

Jordan wakes up in a driving car. She lays the palm of her left hand on her pounding forehead. Her head is spinning in circles and she tries to remember what happened.

They were at the decade dance, looking for any sign of the vampire. Jordan found him. She found him and she blacked out. Her heart rate increases significantly and she presses her molars hard against one another. He has kidnapped me and is taking me to his secret lair, where he is going to lead me to his basement with only one light bulb. There he will strap her to a chair with cheap dirty, rope. First he will torture her for information she doesn't posses and then—.

A female voice rips Jordan out of her dishevelling thoughts. "Jordan! You're awake, finally! We were so worried. Noah captured you, and when we got to you, you were blacked out. At first we thought you had died, but you hadn't, and then Noah said you were even more mysterious than Katherine and he basically said you weren't human, but mostly I'm just so glad you are okay," Elena rambled on, and on, and on, and on, but the only thing that stuck with Jordan was the part where Noah said she wasn't even a human being. All the information was making Jordan's head spin in even faster circles.

"Wh-what do you mean 'I'm not human'?"

Elena stopped talking and she bit her lip.

"We will talk about that later, we'll be first taking you to the boarding house. Whatever happened tonight took quite a toll on you." Only now did Jordan notice Stefan was in the car as well.

Damon was waiting for them, or actually waiting for Jordan, at the porch of the boarding house.

The moment the wheels of the car came to a stop, Jordan threw open the door and raced at Damon, practically throwing herself into his arms.

Damon's eyebrows shut upwards, but he snaked his arms around her waist, giving her the comfort she needed. Hearing you no longer belonged to the pure human race could be a blow.

"I wished I could live in ignorance, but I no longer can't. I need answers, not more questions."