20. Ready or Not, Here It Comes

            It’s funny how people joke around saying that they’ll kill their friend or even themselves when they’re exaggerating. People use death in jokes because they don’t fear it. I couldn’t use death in a joking manner, because I was going to meet it head-on tonight.

            While it took me one second to understand Bonnie, it took Jeremy two minutes longer. His brown eyes widened, a wave of shock and horror crossed his face.

            “No!” he cried. Bonnie jumped, Elena flinched. “Bonnie, t-there has to be some other way. She can’t—she can’t…”

            “Jer,” Elena said softly, reaching for him. He shied away.

            “You’re actually agreeing with Bonnie on this?” Jer’s voice was a hiss. “You actually want Faith to die?”

            “You know I don’t want that! But we’ve looked over everything, and that’s the only option.” Elena shrugged. “It can’t be done a normal way.”

            “Of course it can’t,” Damon scoffed.

            “It needs to be done by magic, to make sure that the demon will go too, not just Fay.”

            “What makes you so sure it’ll work?” Jeremy retorted. His body shook, he looked about ready to take his rage out on the house.

            “Bonnie is the only one that can do it, and I know she won’t let the demon survive,” Elena said strongly.

            “What you’re saying—it’s sick, Elena. How can you just decide to kill someone, especially family?!”

            “There’s no other choice,” Stefan chimed. “It’s either she dies now or later. You need to take into account how Faith feels, Jeremy. You don’t know what she’s going through. You don’t have a demon lodged inside you, slowly killing you from the inside. It can’t be a fun experience.”

            “It’s not,” I agreed weakly.

            “You need to put yourself in her shoes. Would you want to let the demon keep killing you from the inside, or would you rather want the suffering to end and rid the demon of having the satisfaction that it now has a body to use?”

            Stefan was swaying me. I really didn’t want to stay like this. I was either going to die tonight, or sometime in the near future. I was in bad shape as it was, and I couldn’t hang on much longer. So why suffer when—like Stefan said—I could be put out of my misery right now?

            Jeremy said nothing for a while.

            “If you go through with it, I’m not going to stick around and watch,” he finally said thickly. He stomped away.

I wanted to call Jeremy back here, but there seemed to be no point in trying. If he was that upset, he wouldn’t listen to me—even if I was technically on my deathbed.

            “Regardless of your say in it, Faith, it’s happening,” Bonnie said gently, her eyes flickering to where Jeremy left. “You can take as much time as you want before I do anything. That’s the least I can do for you since I know you can’t—and probably won’t—fight me when I do it.”

            I nodded in thanks. I looked at Elena. Immediately, as if she read my mind, she kneeled at my head, stroking my hair. She sniffled. I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

            “It’ll be okay,” I whispered, reaching for her face. “You know it will be, Elena.”

            “I hate when this happens—when the person who’s dying tries to comfort the person who’s grieving over them,” she whined. “You shouldn’t have to go through this. You should never have had to.” Her lower lip quivered.

            “I’m actually glad I did, strangely enough. Despite all the danger and whatnot, my life has been the best it’s been in a long time,” I realized out loud.

            “This will bother me to no end, when you’re gone.”

            “If you feel guilty, don’t. I kind of want it to happen.”

            “I wish you didn’t say that.” Elena’s voice thickened.

“Well, I’m dying anyway, so what’s the point in suffering it out? I’d rather escape while the torment is mild.” I wheezed a giggle.

Elena blinked away tears. For some reason, this wasn’t as heartbreaking for me as it was for her. Was it because I was too weak to cry?

“Come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t say the same thing if you were in my position,” I snapped lightly. “Besides, this is for the better. The demon will die; it won’t be able to hurt anyone ever again.”

“How is it for the better?” Elena sobbed. “You’re about to die willingly! I don’t know too many people willing to do such a drastic thing by choice.”

“Would you rather me die unwillingly?”

“Yes, because it would mean you didn’t give up!”

Elena’s body shook, and Stefan was right there next to her. Since he was close by, I figured I could tell him the only things I could think of.

            “Keep her out of trouble for me, will you?” I teased.

            “I will,” he vowed, rubbing Elena’s arms. “I just wish there was more time for you.”

            “Eh, well, when you live in a world like this, things tend to get in the way.” I shrugged minimally.

My eyes snapped to Damon. While Elena was pulled away by Stefan, Damon replaced them. He immediately grabbed my hand. There was the faint urge to go after him, but it dulled quickly. There was no point in going along with the urge when I had barely any strength to carry it out.

“No snide remarks for me to remember you by?” I taunted.

“Not today,” he said seriously.

“I’m actually kind of scared.” My voice lowered to barely a whisper.

“Why? Death shouldn’t be a scary thing. You’ve faced worse.”

“I hardly think vampire hunters, witches, and demons count as worse things than death,” I retorted, coughing. Damon stroked the side of my face.

“It won’t be as intimidating as you think, dying.”

“Oh? And how would you know?”

“I died once, remember?” He smiled wryly.

“Yeah, but you woke up alive—sort of. I won’t. I’ll stay dead, forever. I’ll never wake up. I won’t breathe again, or walk, or talk, or sleep—”

“You’ll sleep all right, just for forever.” He chuckled. I rolled my eyes at him.

“I want to know something, and I want an honest answer.”

Damon never asked what my question was, because he already knew. He kissed me lovingly, making my fading heart sprint as fast as it would go. Blush flooded my pale cheeks, my brain pounded slightly. The room had gone eerily quiet.

I stared into Damon’s blue-gray eyes in wonder. The kiss was a good enough answer for me. Now I knew. This wasn’t just some little fling like he thought it to be a while ago, it was real. It was a shame though now, because he’d lose me forever. But I’d feel somewhat at peace, knowing that what we had was real for both of us.

Convince him or someone to change you into a vampire, then, if you want to be with him so badly, my mind sang. I immediately didn’t want to do that. One, I wasn’t supposed to know how a vampire became one in the first place. If I suggested that, Elena would kill Damon for telling me. I doubted I could get away with saying I researched how to become a vampire on the Internet.

 Two, I couldn’t handle that task. Even though Stefan, Damon, Caroline, and Elena were all vampires didn’t mean that it was easy for them to be. They all slipped up at one point in time, I was sure of it.

I knew why my brain suggested the idea, because I was afraid to die. Being able to stay with Damon would be a bonus if that idea followed through, but it wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to let myself become something that I was in love with.

I was split down the middle. Half of me was afraid to die, and the other half knew it was coming and was ready to welcome it.

“Don’t go insane over this, okay?” I told him. I smiled sadly. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Don’t start talking like this,” he groaned. “Don’t make this anymore emotional than it has to be.”

“This coming from the guy who doesn’t seem to be shedding a tear.”

“Just because I don’t show emotions doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything. I’m not heartless, you know.”

“I do know.”

“Faith?” Bonnie interrupted quietly. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” I stared into Damon’s eyes, trying to burn them into my mind. “I’m ready.”

Damon gave my hand a squeeze before backing off. Bonnie replaced him. My heart quickened. Bonnie hadn’t even done anything and I was already panicking.

“It’ll be painless, I promise,” she whispered, sitting on her knees at my head. “I wouldn’t dare put you through more torture. We’d all rather you go peacefully. Just relax.”

Bonnie gently took my head in her hands. She closed her heads, dipped her head, and was mumbling words that I knew I couldn’t form or even understand.

~~~~

(Elena’s POV)

I kind of wished that I had left the room like Jeremy had so that I didn’t have to witness my best friend kill my cousin.

Stefan held me by my shoulders, just in case I couldn’t take it and tried to stop Bonnie. I wasn’t enthusiastic about this idea, nobody was. Still, it seemed to be the only option we had to keep ourselves safe.

While Bonnie hovered over Faith, doing what she did best, I stole a glance at Damon. I was afraid that Faith would get attached to him when she got here. Damon had his ways of attracting girls. Even I had fallen victim to him at one point in my life. I knew Faith would have been no different, falling for his charms and his looks. My fear had come true.

Only…when I looked at Damon as Bonnie worked her magic, it was hard to read his eyes. Was he really upset about Faith? Did he really love her? Did he just use her because of how she felt about him? Did he use her feelings when he kissed her goodbye, to make her believe that he loved her, when really he didn’t? Did he do what he did just to give her a sense of peace?

One moment my mind was jumbled with so many thoughts and emotions, and the next everything was cleared from my head as we all saw Bonnie get shoved towards the fireplace. Stefan, Damon, and I all converged on Faith immediately. I had expected Jeremy to come down to help, but I guess he was still upset to bother coming into the fray.

The demon knew its death was coming, so of course it would try and fight back. Stefan had mentioned there was a chance of that when we first thought of the plan.

Stefan seemed to be always right about everything.

Faith’s eyes were crazed. Even though we all knew it wasn’t really her, the way the demon made her body move was as if she wasn’t weak to begin with—like she was her old self again. With a chilling cry, the demon lunged for me, knocking me to the ground. It tried to get its hands around my neck. It had no wood to use as a stake, so the risk of any of us vampires dying was slim to none. Stefan and Damon threw the demon off me, trying to restrain it to the couch. Stefan had it straddled by the waist.

Acting quickly, I helped Damon hold the demon down by its arms. I bit my tongue in concentration, trying not to damage Fay’s body anymore than it already was. But what’s the point? She’s going to be dead anyway. I might as well tear her body apart. I shoved that thought aside, shuddering.

I would never do such a thing to Faith, even if the demon had control over her body. She didn’t deserve to have something like that happen to her; she had gone through enough since learning about the world that held vampires, witches, werewolves, and vampire hunters.

“Bonnie, hurry!” I called over my shoulder as the demon bucked. It thrashed wildly against all of us.

Thank God Bonnie didn’t hesitate to push through whatever pain she had been dealt to dash over and take Faith’s head in her hands again. She mumbled faster. Faith’s eyes grew wide, the demon was trapped. I gritted my teeth. Stefan extended an arm to help out Damon and me hold down Faith’s body.

I could hear Faith’s heart slowing. We could all feel the demon slowly tiring out…or dying. It tried to claw at anything it could reach of us.

“It’s working,” Stefan muttered.

It seemed that the moments were agonizingly long. Faith’s heart was even slower, just barely beating. Any second it would stop forever. I knew we were all dreading the moment. Nobody wanted to see her go. She was just another innocent victim of our world.

I had seen enough people die when learning about the world I lived in now. I never wanted Faith to become a part of that world. Well, then again, it did seem kind of inevitable for her to know about it since I was a vampire. When I had first known about vampires, I had kept it from Jeremy and Jenna for a while. With Faith, it hadn’t lasted as long.

Poor Faith, sucked into another dangerous world. I knew she had come here searching for a different, better life. She said her life had gotten better since coming here to Mystic Falls. Whether she was saying that just to be brave or not, I wasn’t entirely sure. I would never know.

With one last, agonizingly slow heartbeat, Fay’s heart stilled. It felt eerie, feeling the demon suddenly stop fighting the restraints. Faith’s eyes had shut, her head lolled towards me a little bit. Bonnie let go of Fay’s head, backing away. I released one of Fay’s arms, backing away myself.

I covered my mouth, turning the other way. It was done. Faith was gone. I flinched when Stefan rubbed my shoulders and hugged me from behind. I bit my quivering lower lip, trying to muffle my sobs. I was kind of glad Jeremy hadn’t stayed; he wouldn’t have been able to watch us hold Faith down as Bonnie tried to kill her and the demon.

The demon…

“It’s—it’s dead, isn’t it?” I whispered.

“I think so,” Bonnie replied hoarsely. She hugged me from the side, helping Stefan show comfort. “If it wasn’t, it would’ve been up by now, ready to kill us all.”

“Good.”

I couldn’t believe I had just said that. I mean, it was good, that the demon was gone. But it wasn’t good that Faith had to die just to kill the demon. She never needed all that torment, starting with Trevor—that bastard. It had only gotten worse from there for her. And here she thought her life had gotten better when she moved to Mystic Falls.

She was damn wrong. Compared to Mystic Falls, Maryland seemed like a safe haven, which was where Faith should have stayed to begin with. I hadn’t left the town where my parents died when they got into that fatal car accident—the car accident that I survived. I stayed here despite that memory. I wished Faith had learned to forget her horrible memory by staying in Maryland and moving on. She could’ve lived longer—found a boyfriend, bought a house, got married and had kids, and possibly grandkids.

I squeaked a sob just thinking about what life Faith could have had had she stayed where she was.

I dared myself to turn around to take a look at my cousin’s still body. I had to look away; it was too painful to look.

“We can’t just leave her on the couch,” Bonnie murmured.

“I’ll move her into my room,” Damon offered bluntly. I heard him grunt. Damon was no stranger to handling dead bodies, so Faith would be no different—just another corpse for him to move. Damon retreated down the hall with Fay’s body.

“We’ll give her a private funeral tomorrow,” Bonnie whispered, squeezing my hand.

“What am I going to tell her grandparents?” I moaned. “How am I going to explain it to them?”

“Let’s deal with that later,” Stefan said gently. “Right now, just take time to mourn, Elena.”

As if I hadn’t mourned enough in my life. I should’ve been used to death by now, what with all I’d seen since coming here to Mystic Falls myself. I knew the only reason why this was hard for me was because another family member had died in front of me. How much more could I take? Would I lose it completely when Jeremy’s life would get taken by this world? Would I lose it when Stefan, Caroline, Bonnie, or even Damon followed Faith instead of Jeremy?

My mind swam painfully.

Bonnie and Stefan stayed with me. Jer never came out to join the mourning group, neither did Damon. Maybe he did care about Faith, that could be why he hadn’t come back to join us. Maybe he was grieving over her, vowing to get revenge on the bastard who had done this to her.

My temper spiked. The witch—the one who had caused me pain the night the hunters attacked the Salvatore Boarding House.

            My thoughts went dark now. I wanted to feel the witch’s bones break under my hands. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes as I slowly squeezed his life from him. I wanted him to pay for what he did to my cousin.  I promise, Fay, I’ll hunt down and kill the witch who did this to you, I vowed. I’ll make him pay. I’ll make him regret putting that demon inside of you.

            Whatever the others decided to do after Faith’s funeral, they could do whatever the hell they wanted. I had a new objective now, one that I hoped to achieve sometime in my immortal life.

            I was going to give Faith the justice she deserved. 

**I couldn't warn you guys, it would have ruined for you. It wouldn't have made the emotion as in-the-moment.**