𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑
you'd lose your mind trying to understand mine

SNORING FILLED THE small hospital room and Liz looked over at the couple in amusement. Damon was fast asleep in the chair while Echo was on his lap, slumped against his chest.

The sheriff chuckled to herself and spoke up, causing them both to stir awake. "I paid extra for this room to be a single."

"Huh—?" The huntress questioned, disoriented, and cut herself off with a yawn.

Damon sat up slightly, absently running his hand through her hair. "Well, you clearly underestimate the number of women who'd die to spend a night with me."

Echo scoffed earning an offended look from him and a chuckle from Liz. "Well, I'm not dead yet. Any word from Ric?"

"They won't say much to one another, and if they do, they're arguing," Echo answered the cancer patient, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "It's very frustrating."

"Ouch," the blonde grimaced from her spot in the hospital bed. "Have you at least managed to patch things up with Ric?" She asked her male vampire friend.

Damon shrugged with an uneasy expression on his face. "Well, baby steps. Step one: allow him to turn my house into Hogwarts. Step two: call in a favor from the Sheriff. Ask her to put out an APB on a super-charged serial killer named Kai Parker," he explained with his usual smirk.

Liz nodded while checking her phone. "Yeah, I already had my guys on the lookout. No one matching Kai's description popped up overnight."

"What the hell is he doing?" The Salvatore asked under his breath and Echo sighed heavily before standing up.

Just then, Caroline entered the room with a cup in her hand. "Bad news is: the employee kitchen didn't have a juicer. Good news is: they do now," she said with a smug smile while handing the cup to her mother.

Liz looked at the green liquid and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "What is this?"

"It's a kale smoothie. It's good for DNA cell repair—" The blonde vampire explained and Liz looked over to the couple, who both shrugged. "—and for slowing cancer," she babbled then her eyes widened in worry. "Oh, are you warm enough?"

"I'm fine," the older Forbes assured her daughter.

"Let me just get you another blanket," Caroline insisted while moving to get a blanket out of a drawer.

Echo raised an eyebrow at her friend while Damon looked at the other vampire incredulously. "So you can literally smother her?"

Caroline rolled her eyes at him while covering Liz up. "I'm just trying to help here, since apparently, modern medicine takes forever," she responded passive aggressively. "I don't understand why we can't skip all the guess-work and go straight to something that works. Like vampire blood," she said, sending a glance her mother's way.

Liz sighed lowly and rolled her eyes before looking at her daughter. "We are not having this conversation again, sweetheart," she informed her in a stern yet soft manner.

Caroline nodded and sat at the end of the bed with an anxious look. "Okay, then what do you want to talk about? How the doctors can't operate, how chemo won't work, how radiation won't shrink the tumor?" She interrogated frantically then looked at the Salvatore. "Damon, feel free to jump in with your support here at any time. Echo?"

Echo's eyes widened and looked at her best friend with a frown. "Well, I—"

Damon cut her off by shrugging and saying, "Well, I think that would require you having my support, Caroline."

"You don't think that our blood will work?" She asked in shock and offense. She couldn't believe her best friend wouldn't try to help her out with this.

"For 170-odd years, I've never known an instance where our blood cured cancer." He answered with a reluctant shrug then looked over at Liz. "But hey, sheriff, if you want to be a guinea pig in an experimental study involving weird, unpredictable magic... Far be it from me to stop you." He sarcastically assured her with a bitter smile.

Liz sighed and glanced at her daughter. "Look, sweetheart. For now, I would like to put my faith in science. Which means going home on doctor's orders, having a nice, quiet day and waiting for more MRI results."

Damon stood up from his chair with a slight mocking expression. "See? Ahh, mommy knows best. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make sure those witches aren't destroying my house. Feel better." He winked before walking out of the room.

Echo sighed and walked over to Caroline with a small smile. "I'll try to do some research to see if I can find anything to help. But, Damon is right, it's unpredictable, so please be careful." She kissed the blonde on the cheek before walking away, offering Liz a wink as well.

JO WAS PRACTICING magic by levitating a book when the couple entered the house, breaking her concentration and causing the book to fall to the ground. "That doesn't count. I was distracted," she said glancing at everyone to make sure they knew.

Echo looked around with raised brows, seeing items scattered around, along with a burn mark on the wall beside her: "Well, this looks like a downgrade of Hogwarts, but I like it. So, who are you, Harry Potter? You're just missing the scar and glasses." She looked over at Jo who shook her head at her.

Damon looked over at Liv with a confused expression. "Are you wearing my shirt?"

The witch smiled over at him but didn't say anything which made Echo glare over at her. "Are you seriously wearing my boyfriends shirt?" She then smirked as an idea came to her. "We had sex when I was wearing that one." She watched in amusement as Liv looked disgusted and tore it off of her, not caring that she was only left in a black bralette. "Ah, that's much better." Sure, she didn't really like Liv that much, but she had a nice body.

Damon scowled, but before he could say anything, Echo's phone began ringing. She went to answer it, but he grabbed it from her. "Magic camp. How may I help you?" He sarcastically greeted as the huntress snickered to herself.

"Whoa! Elena?" Damon questioned in shock and confusion, attempting to process everything she had just said. There was a loud crashing in the background of the call before Elena quickly hung up. "What the hell?" The Salvatore looked at his phone to see the call had ended and furrowed his eyebrows in a small amount of worry then looked at Liv. "You're coming with us."

Echo straightened herself and gave her boyfriend a wide eyed look. "What's wrong with Elena?! Is she okay?"

"Kai has her trapped in the school, we're going to save her. Come on." He didn't give Liv any time to argue before they walked out of the house.

OUTSIDE OF THE high school, Damon, Echo, and Liv pulled up in his Camaro.

"To think, a day almost went by where I wasn't roped into saving one of your friends," the witch sneered in annoyance while unbuckling her seat belt.

Damon rolled his eyed as he climbed out of the car. "Cry me a river. Just do this stupid cloaking spell so we can go grab Elena and you can get back to wrecking my mansion."

"Exactly!" Echo exclaimed as she twirled a dagger in her left hand. "If you don't help us save my sister, I will use your own magic against you and make you rip out your own heart." She smiled sweetly with a glint in her brown eyes.

Liv sighed before following suit. "Fine." She then started setting up candles on the hood of Damon's car, preparing the spell as Echo placed her dagger in her boot.

Damon glanced at the wild haired blonde with a perplexed scowl. "What are you doing? The back door's right here." He motioned behind him with his thumb.

Liv shook her head quickly still setting up. "I'm not going in there."

"What?" The Salvatore questioned incredulously.

"If Kai even gets a glimpse of me, I'm dead. I'm strong enough to do the spell from out here," she explained seriously with a shake of her head.

Echo glared at her as she picked up her bow and arrows. "So... do it."

Damon rolled his eyes at Liv and placed his hands on his hips. "Whatever. Hope you cloak better than you teach," he snapped causing Liv to roll her eyes. "'Cause from the looks of my living room, Jo's not learning very much."

"Relax," the blonde mused with a sigh. "With a bit of practice, she'll be merge-ready in no time." She then looked as though she didn't believe that herself, but turned back to do the spell. "Phasmatos radium cara. Phasmatos—" Suddenly, the chanting stopped and it became quiet.

Damon turned around to see that she was gone. "Liv? Hey! Liv!"

Suddenly, Luke appeared out of nowhere and gave him a sheepish look. "Sorry."

Damon glared at him at him in surprise and spat out, "What the hell are you doing here?" at the same time Echo harshly questioned, "What the hell is your problem?!"

"She doesn't have time for this," Luke responded with a stern look on his face before mumbling a spell. "Invisique."

Then he disappeared in thin air as the couple gaped in aggravation and disappointment.

"Son of a bitch!" Echo snarled in annoyance, stomping her foot.

"No!" The vampire yelled in protest then clutched his hands into fists before dialing quickly on his phone. "So, Liv's gone. I need a Plan B," he said as soon as the recipient answered.

"What do you mean, she's gone?" Ric questioned, confused.

"Her wonder twin took her and I can't just go blazing in there; Kai will kill Elena just because he can. I need a witch," Damon answered sternly while pacing back and forth.

"I can do it," Jo confidently spoke up from the other end at the boarding house.

"You can barely light a candle," Ric argued sternly, wanting to protect her more than anything in the world.

"Cloaking is one of the first things they teach you as a Gemini. I learned it when I was a kid," Jo explained as though it were no big deal.

"But?" Ric questioned, expecting a catch to go along with the good news.

The bright blue eyed doctor hesitated for a moment before answering, "I'll have to stay beside Damon while I do it, which means I'll have to go inside."

"Okay, look. There's gotta be some other option," Ric stressfully commented as everyone on both ends moved to think of another alternative.

Then the sound of footsteps echoed and the voice of the youngest Gilbert rang. "There is. Right here."

Damon rolled his eyes in expectancy. "Let me guess, Jeremy's holding a crossbow."

Echo bit her lip to stop from smiling in amusement because she knew it was true.

"No one is killing Kai," Jo sternly commanded of the group causing everyone to react differently.

"Well, we're not letting Kai kill Elena!" Jeremy spat out and Echo echoed an agreement.

"No one is touching my girlfriend!" Jack's voice in the background could be heard, along with some weapons rattling.

"Nobody's letting anyone die," Ric spoke up, attempting to calm everyone down.

"Anyone have any other ideas?" Damon asked curiously as a silence followed before Ric sighed in reluctance.

A few minutes later in the school hallway, Damon, Echo, and Jo were cloaked, looking for Kai and Elena.

"I can hear Kai yammering," the Salvatore commented in a whisper.

Jo looked at him curiously and watched his quiet tone. "What's he saying?"

"He said it's a shame you don't have vamp-hearing," Damon answered in a snide remark earning a snicker from his girlfriend.

Jo sighed quietly and glanced ahead of her. "I get why you don't like me, you know? You and Alaric were bros. A girl comes into the picture... It's awkward."

Damon scoffed with a shrug. "It's not awkward, it's annoying."

"Because he's looking out for me?" The one of many Parker witches questioned incredulously.

"Yes. At the expense of logic and reason," he snapped, making sure to still whisper to not get caught by Kai.

Jo rolled her bright eyes at his attitude. "Oh, let me guess: you've never done that for a girl before?" She asked sparing a glance at Echo, who smirked knowingly and winked over at her.

Damon ignored them and put a finger to his lips. "Shh."

At that moment, Kai walked around the corner, having heard their whispering, taking a drink of his soda. The three were standing right in front of him with an arrow pointed in his direction but he couldn't see them because of Jo's cloaking spell.

Shrugging, he walked past them and recycled his can. "O-kay," he said slowly while turning around and walking away.

Jo let out a deep breath of relief as the other two relaxed. Laughing to calm her nerves, she looked over at them with an awkward smile. "What do you know? It's working."

In the cafeteria, Elena was tied up where Kai left her, alone. Her skin was still sizzling from the vervain, but then her ropes suddenly disappeared. Echo then placed her hand on her shoulder revealing her, Damon, and Jo. "Hey."

Elena gaped at them in surprise while standing up. "How are you here right now?"

"Magic," Echo answered with a smirk.

Damon smiled at his girlfriend before answering Elena, "Jo's invisibility spell. If you can see us, that means you joined the party."

"... or it wore off," Echo commented which made them narrow their eyes at her.

"Come on, we need to get out of here?" Jo advised while looking pale and faint.

Elena looked down at her hand and began to panic. "My ring, it's gone. Kai melted it into nothing."

Echo quickly grabbed her sister's hand. "What?!"

"I hate to cut this awkward moment short, but meter's running on this spell," Jo informed them quickly in a stern manner.

"Let's go," Damon urged while moving to walk out the door, though he was worried about the fact that his friend didn't have a daylight ring anymore.

"Well, there's the tunnels under the school," Elena explained, slowly standing up.

"Good call. Boiler room. Stat. Come on," Damon said and they all headed for the door. As they walked, Jo's nose startedbbleeding and she looked as though she might pass out. He turned to Jo, whose back was now to him. "You good?"

"I'm good," she lied while wiping the blood from under her nose away, then continued walking quickly down the hall toward the boiler room before breaking out into a weak coughing fit.

Elena stopped and looked back at Jo, whose nose was still bleeding. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Four people is just a lot more to cloak than three," Jo explained while reaching for Damon and collapsing into his arms.

He easily caught her and attempted to help her stand up. "Woah. Why is your nose bleeding?" He questioned in concern while Echo's dark eyes widened at the situation.

"I have a guess," Kai suddenly said causing them to all look at him as he stood at the end of the hallway. "Magic's hard. Isn't it, Jo?" He mocked his twin sister.

Jo wiped the blood from her nose while crying lightly. "I'm so sorry."

"Crap," Echo hissed through her teeth. "I knew it. The spell failed."

"Don't sweat it. I want him to see me while I kick his ass. Now, get out of here, okay?" Damon said to the witch, who staggered through a door into the next hallway. He rolled his shoulders and grinned at Kai, clearly eager to fight him. Echo drew back her bow and aimed an arrow at witch.

Smirking, Kai made her invisible so, Damon looked around and saw that she had gone missing. "Where's Echo?" His heart started to pound in worry for his girlfriend. He then noticed that Elena also disappeared. "Elena?"

"Oh, are we not cloaking people anymore?" Kai questioned sarcastically. "I thought that's what this was."

Damon sped over to Kai, but he disappeared and reappeared behind Damon, down the hall then whistled to get the vampire's attention. Damon turned and Kai condescendingly waved at him, grinning widely. He sped over, broke the handle of a mop and threw it at Kai, spearing him through the abdomen.

Kai then appeared beside his illusion of himself. "That's gotta hurt. I am definitely getting the hang of this. Cloaking spells, illusions. You know, it's all the same wheelhouse." He then removed his illusion to reveal that Damon actually staked Elena in the chest. Elena staggered and leaned against a locker.

Suddenly, Echo reappeared behind Kai and held a dagger to his throat.

Muttering a spell, he sent her flying into the wall behind them. Damon moved to go to her, but Kai used his magic on his head, incapacitating him for the moment. Kai then turned and headed after Jo, while Damon crawled over to Echo, who had sat up against the wall and moved to stand up.

Jo was crawling on the floor and Kai ran up, grabbed her arm and hoisted her to her feet, dragging her along with him.

"Now that I've got the kinks worked out, we can actually do this. Is there an upcoming celestial event that interests you? I'm partial to—" He was cut off by an arrow shooting through his shoulder. "Ugh!"

Kai fell to his knees causing Jo to collapse on the ground beside him. Ric ran over and injected Kai with something, knocking him out. Jo looked up to see Echo standing at the end of the hall with her bow. After lowering it slightly, she winced slightly as her spine healed from bending when Kai flung her against the wall.

Damon ran toward his girlfriend, grabbing her face to make sure she was okay.

"I'm fine," she told him before speeding toward her sister, quickly yanking the stake out of her chest. "Lena?" She whispered and tucked a strand of her sister's hair behind her ear. "You good?"

Elena smiled up at her sister. "Thanks for always having my back, O."

THEY WERE NOW back at the Salvatore house where they tied and gagged an unconscious on the couch.

Jo turned to Alaric with a smile. "Sure you're okay having a Pentobarbital-ed houseguest?"

He smiled back at her. "I am. If it buys us enough time to get you back into fighting shape."

Damon, Echo, and Elena were sitting at a table in the next room. Elena was trying to get the blood out of her shirt while Echo laid her head on her boyfriend's shoulders

Jo walked into the room and looked at Elena. "I can help you clean that if you want. One part Amonia, two parts meat tenderizer."

The Gilbert gave her an amused and shocked expression. "You invented a stain remover?"

"I'm not afraid of a little blood," she answered before turning to walk out of the room. Elena shrugged, smiled and followed Jo out of the room.

"What'd I tell you? She's a keeper," Ric said to the couple as he sat at the table, putting three glasses of bourbon on the table. "You know, I think she's gonna get a handle on this."

Damon sighed, absently running his finger through Echo's tangled hair. "Jo's not strong enough, Ric."

"Well, she wouldn't lie about it," the human stated with furrowed brows.

Damon shook his head and sipped his bourbon. "No, no, no. I don't think she's lying about it," he agreed then leaned across the table with a stressed look on his face. "He absorbed a spell the size of Mystic Falls, Ric. He changed the game."

Ric sighed heavily and sat back in his seat. "Look, we got Kai on ice. We'll just wait for his stolen magic to drain away and then she'll beat him." He believed in Jo more than anything.

Damon nodded with him but then held up finger and sipped his bourbon again. "What if she can't?"

"Well, she has to. She will," Ric argued sternly while shaking his head at his friend.

"Well, all right then. Here's to women who make crazy, screwed up decisions and loving them more for it," Damon said making a toast and they cheered, taking a drink.

"Hey!" Echo snapped and held her hands out to her sides incredulously. "What decisions have I made lately that could be considered crazy or screwed up?"

"Every decision ever," Damon answered with a smirk earning him a slap upside the head and a scowl from her.

"Assbutt," She grumbled before snatching her glass of bourbon, downing it, and walking out of the room.

When she reached Damon's room, she began taking her tank top off. As soon as she was standing there in just a bra and pants, muscular arms wrapped themselves around her waist from behind. They placed their lips on her bare skin and hummed happily. "I love you, little warrior." He moved his hands to her hips and spun her around to face him.

Damon's large, calloused hands ran slowly down her sides causing goose bumps to crawl across her skin. He noticed this reaction and smirked seductively then pressed his lips to hers in a slow, loving way.

Moaning in delight, Echo wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her while kissing him back in the same way. He walked them until she fell backwards onto his bed.

The huntress gasped at the sudden impact before giggling. He chuckled lowly and climbed over top of her, reattaching their lips.