𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉
ミ★ ( lion and the lamb, act one ) ★彡

Hazel should've guessed that the day that the other vampires would come out of the woods would happen sooner rather than later. She just had no clue how close they actually were. One minute she's at home, reading a good book in her room, and the next, she's being whacked over the head by Jeremy's mysterious girlfriend, Anna, that she had yet to actually meet. Turns out, there's a good reason for it, and it isn't because she was nervous to meet his family, it was because she's been the one orchestrating the stalking that Hazel and Elena had been experiencing over the last few weeks. They should've noticed that the stalking coincided around the time that Jeremy started somewhat seeing her.

Hazel woke up with a gasp, quickly bringing a hand to her head from the source of her headache where Anna had hit her head and once her vision returns to her, she spots Elena telling her to be quiet and directs her attention to one of their captors sitting in a chair by the end of the bed, sleeping.

Hazel recognises him instantly as Ben McKittrick. He used to attend Mystic Falls High School, being two years their senior and was set to be a football star before he injured himself right before college intake. His scholarships were sadly taken away since he could no longer play football and he now spends his days working at the Mystic Grill; serving tables and making drinks. Football was his life until it wasn't, and he never tried to do or make anything else of himself besides it, which was why Hazel was trying so hard to help Matt so he didn't follow in Ben's footsteps. Despite all that, she used to think Ben was really sweet. He would look out for them and even give them a few free milkshakes when no one was looking because he knew them. So, when Bonnie had come forward to say she was into him, Hazel was all more supportive and told her to go for it—that was, until this happened.

Elena gestures her to be quiet again as she searches for a way out and stares at the front door, before looking back at Ben, estimating if they can make it without waking him. The twins look at each other nodding before quietly sliding off the bed and slowly stepping over Ben's outstretched leg. They slowly backs up to the door, keeping an eye on Ben. Elena unlocks the deadbolt on the door while Hazel looked back at Ben occasionally.

     Elena turns the lock on the door and prepares to open it, but they freeze when they hear Ben, "I wouldn't." The twins gasp and turn around to face him standing right behind them. Ben inches towards Elena and uses his compulsion on them, "Don't try to escape. Don't even move. Do you understand?"

      Ben must've been newly turned because they were both wearing vervain, and a seasoned vampire should've known that. But, fearing for their safety, they pretended to comply, "I understand." They respond blankly in unison.

       Ben scoffs, impressed with himself that his attempt at compulsion actually worked, and then turns around to get a bottle of blood out of the mini fridge. They waited a moment, letting him get comfortable with the thought of them not being able to get out before Elena turns around and opens the front door quickly and the twins bolts out, only for Anna to block their escape. Anna grabs Elena and Hazel by their hair and pushes them back into the motel room.

      Anna looks at Ben with an annoyed glare, "Seriously?!"

      "I told them not to move!" Ben exclaims as Anna shoves them away, "I did that eye thing that you taught me!"

      "And forgot the lesson about vervain! One of them dates a vampire, Ben. Duh!" She snaps, "And you can't compel two people at once, idiot!"

      "Who are you?" Elena fires off questions as Anna pushes them up against a wall while they tried to fight her off and opens the bathroom door, "What do you want?"

      "Does it matter?" Anna responds as she forcefully pushes Elena and Hazel into the bathroom and shuts the door behind them.

     Hazel flips the light switch and calmly searches the room for another exit. Elena looks over towards the bathtub and sees Bonnie lying in it, unconscious. The twins rush over to her, "Bonnie?" She asks as she lifts Bonnie's head up, "Oh, my God!"

      Hazel quickly wets a cloth in the sink and places it on Bonnie's forehead. Bonnie slowly opens her eyes, "Bonnie?" Hazel whispers cautiously, wondering if she was coming to or not, unsure if she maybe has a concussion from the blow.

      "Elena?" Bonnie asks back with squinted eyes. Hazel's mouth pressed together in annoyance but Bonnie was just coming out of unconsciousness, it's not her fault.

      "I'm right here." Elena says as she kneels down beside Hazel, "You're okay."

      "My head." Bonnie groans painfully and Hazel gives her a sympathetic look as she helps pull her upright and pressed the washcloth on where she was holding. Bonnie's eyes then widened as she realises what had happened, "Oh, my God! Ben is a—"

       "Shhh!" The twins both hush her in unison. Hazel then gestures at her ear and points toward the door, "They can hear." She whispers as she stands up and turns on the tap to muffle their conversation from prying ears.

       She kneels back down next to Bonnie and Elena when Bonnie sighs, "I'm so stupid!"

      "No, he had all of us fooled." Elena shook her head. She also thought he was a good guy, and he made Bonnie happy for the short time they were seeing each other.

      "What's going on? Why are we here?" Bonnie asks in a whisper. While the tap is on, she's still not taking any chances.

      Hazel isn't sure either and wonders the same thing. She doesn't know Anna, and she doesn't know what she could possibly want with them. She notices Elena's guilty look that she sends her way, however, and watches her shrug meekly, "It must have something to do with the tomb and Emily's spell book."

      "What tomb?" Hazel asks, remembering hearing Damon asking about the tomb to her vampire stalker.

      "And what spell book?" Bonnie also asks.

      Elena's guilty face only deepened and she sighs, "Damon said Emily's spell book could be used to open the tomb—the one from 1864 that held all the vampires and Katherine after the founding families rounded them up back then." She finally confesses and Hazel's eyes widened in shock that she had no idea about this but was putting the pieces together as to why she was hanging out with Damon so much and the guilty faces she was making because she was keeping this secret, "They need a witch to break the spell and let the vampires out."

     Bonnie gasps and shakes her head, knowing that they're planning on using her as the witch and that's why Ben was showing interest in her, "No way!"

      "Why didn't I know about any of this?" Hazel asks her sister, almost hurt that she kept it from her and her voice was no longer in a whisper because she didn't have the energy to keep it that way.

      Elena doesn't say anything and looks over her shoulder to make sure they weren't listening before leaning back against the wall, "I was trying to keep you out of it, you were dealing with a lot and I didn't want to stress you out thinking about it."

       "Well, I'm stressing now!" Hazel hisses, "We just got kidnapped because of this, and have you not thought about the consequences of having our freaking triplet running around town!? There's going to be questions, Elena!" Hazel wants to pull her hair out from the lack of thought she and Damon had. If Katherine was out of the tomb, that meant people were going to notice another Gilbert lookalike, and then the secret of vampires would come out of the woodworks. That absolutely could not happen, "Why did you not tell me about this, Elena?"

       Noticing the pressing look from Bonnie and the hurt look from Hazel, Elena knows she needs to come clean, "Because you can't lie." Elena confesses and Hazel blinks in surprise, "Stefan and I were pretending to help Damon get Katherine out of the tomb, but, we actually weren't going to go through with it." She continues and Hazel's eyes widened that Stefan was apart of this all along and that they were in cahoots with each other behind her back—and that Katherine was alive, "We were going to destroy the spell book so Katherine and the other vampires could never get out of the tomb, and we couldn't risk Damon finding out about it in case he came to you, so, we just... never told you."

       Hazel doesn't like to hear that Stefan and Elena were plotting behind her back, and that they were doing this to snub Damon. She just doesn't agree with their choice to lie about it, although, with that, she can see why they chose not to include her with her choice of stance on the matter.

      Suddenly, Ben bursts through the door and Elena grabs Bonnie's shoulders protectively while Hazel stands in front of them both. Ben simply turns the tap off, ignoring their glaring eyes.

      "You're wasting your time." Bonnie states, shaking her head in refusal, "I'm not gonna help you."

      Ben smiles devilishly and grabs the twins and Bonnie reaches out to try to pull them back, but Ben manages to pull them away from her, "That's why they're here—motivation for you to behave." He informs her before leaning down at her, "You know, you shouldn't be so desperate. You made it too easy." Ben then pushes Elena and Hazel out of the room roughly, causing them to stumble into the motel room where Anna was, "She wants to talk to you two." He tells them, shutting the bathroom door behind him to not let Bonnie out of the room after she got up from the tub, locking the two of them in there together.

      Anna was leaning against a table, looking at the twins with an unreadable expression, "Well, well. Hazel and Elena Gilbert." She begins, tilting her head to the side, "You two really are Katherine's doppelgängers." She says before huffing a laugh, "You must have the Salvatore boys reeling."

       "Who are you?" Elena asks, stepping in front of Hazel as if she was going to protect her.

      "I'm Anna. Your brother may have mentioned me? I mean, we're like, practically dating." She says with a girlish sarcasm and a smirk on her face.

     Elena's face drops to a glower and she crosses her arms over her chest while Anna peers out the curtain, looking outside, "Bonnie's not gonna open the tomb."

     "Oh, I think she will." Anna replies, continuing to look outside.

      "Do you really want Katherine out that bad?" Elena continues to question, wondering what connection she had to Katherine that makes her do all of this to get her out of the tomb.

      Anna finally looks over at them, "Trust me. No one I know wants to see that girl again." She says with annoyance, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall, rolling her eyes, "Except Damon, the lovestruck idiot."

       "Then who is in there that you want to get out so badly?" Hazel asks curiously. If it wasn't Katherine, then it was simply someone else. Hazel is only just learning about the tomb, and she has no idea who could be down there.

      "My mother's in there." She answers and Hazel's eyebrows raised. Anna walks closer towards them with a shrug, "Katherine couldn't help herself. She just had to toy around with both of the Salvatore brothers. And when she got caught, so did my mother. I watched Johnathan Gilbert take her away."

       "I'm sorry." Hazel says sincerely. She couldn't believe that her ancestors were so knee deep in violence and betrayal, she just didn't think that the Gilberts were like this; but, she assumes it was because it from a different time. They must've been scared and did the thing they thought was best to protect themselves from harm, instead of possibly learning to accept other realities like she had learned to do.

      Anna analysed her, "You really mean that, don't you?" She concluded and Hazel nodded, because she knows it would've hurt to see her mother be taken away. Anna chuckles and looks down at her feet, shaking her head, "Yeah, I think we'll skip the dead mom bonding so you two can start serving a purpose."

      Hazel's eyebrows pull together, "Which is what?"

      "Leverage." Anna replies bluntly, holding up Elena's phone, "Which one of yours is this?" She asks the twins and Elena tries to grab it from her, but Anna pulls away, "Ah-ah!" She waggles her finger and walks across the room, dialing a number on the phone.

     The phone rings and Stefan picks up from the other end, "Elena? Are you okay?" Hazel's stomach drops from the way he sounds like he's scared for her life, and that he didn't even ask about her.

      "She's fine." Anna answers as she sends Hazel a knowing look, "For now." She adds with a smirk, "Tell me you have the grimoire and she and Hazel will stay fine."

      There's hesitation on the other line before Stefan replies, "I can get it."

      "Which means your brother has it." Anna realises with annoyance because Damon's loyalty is to Katherine and would be harder for her to get her mother with that in the way, "And I have the witch. So, one of you had better meet me in the very public town square in thirty minutes so we can safely discuss how fun it's gonna be to work together."

     Anna then hangs up and goes to walk on the bathroom door, "I'm leaving." She announces and doesn't wait for a response as she walks to the front door where her things were. Ben opens the door to the bathroom and leads Bonnie out, holding the witch by her arm, "Keep them buttoned down. Compulsion won't work. Just use violence."

      Ben purses his lips together, "Right. I got that." Anna then leaves and Ben pushes Bonnie onto the bed where Elena and Hazel were, "Sit. Behave." He orders before taking off his jacket as the motel room was getting stuffy. He then looks at Bonnie, "So, you're the key to this. Literally. The one who opens the door." He thinks out loud and sits on a chair across from them, "Tell me, how long have you been a witch?"

      "Is there anything to drink here?" Elena suddenly speaks up.

      Ben gets up and walks over to Elena with a crazed smile on his face, "Are you offering?" He asks her and Elena subtly scoots back away from him fearfully. She knows what it feels like to be drank from, and she doesn't enjoy it, "There's water on the night stand."

      Elena picks up the glass of water and starts to take a drink, but, before she can bring it to her lips, Bonnie asks, "Hey. Can I have a sip?"

     Elena pulls the glass away from her mouth, understanding what Bonnie plans on doing and hands over the glass. Bonnie takes it and tosses the water on Ben before turning the water into flames, the three girls making a run for it while Ben yells and tries to put the fire out on his arm by patting it down.

      Bonnie and Hazel make it to the door and opens it, ready to run out, but Ben grabs Elena before she is able to make it out, "Come back in! Shut the door!" He yells at them while Elena tries to fight against him.

      Hazel instantly jumps back into the room, "Don't hurt her!" She protests while Bonnie slides back into the room and shuts the door behind her.

      "Don't make me!" Ben snarls back at Hazel, causing her to flinch from the way he bared his teeth at her. Ben looks at Bonnie with a glare, "Lock it!"

      Bonnie deadbolts the door and the twins have officially accepted that they failed and they might not escape until Anna gets what she wants.

      Hazel, Elena and Bonnie quickly resume their seats on the beds, watching as Ben paces in front of them. Hazel can't tell if he's losing control or just simply losing his mind. It's clear he's been cooped up in this motel room for too long and he's struggling with everything, and it's just a pity because he can't see that Anna is using him as a pawn. She'll drop him the second that she gets her mother back, and Hazel can only be worried about Jeremy's safety in this matter—where does he fall in this? She wonders if Anna will harm him and throw him away like trash once she's done with him, or will she try to turn him too as a way to hurt them all, or she wonders if he's being offered up to her mother to a snack.

      Either way, Hazel isn't a fan of Anna. She doesn't care that it was all for love that she was doing this.

      "Witches don't have eternal life, right?" Ben questions Bonnie, "So, you guys can die."

       Bonnie looks up at him with a glare, "Yep. We can die." She confirms.

     Ben scoffs, "Huh. That sucks." He smirks and they can all tell that he plans on killing her once Anna gets what she wants and Bonnie isn't needed anymore for the stunt she pulled with the fire.

      All of a sudden, Stefan kicks the door in and Ben screams as the sunlight starts to burn his skin. Stefan rips the curtain open, allowing more sunlight to pour in before Ben could run to safety, the only place where the sunlight wasn't touching in the room was on the ground, in between the two beds.

      "Stefan!" Elena shouts with relief.

      "Guys, get outside!" Stefan orders the girls, and the three of them get up and dash out the door to sunlight—to safety. Stefan walks over to Ben, looking down at him while he cowers in the small dark spot in the motel room, "When the sun goes down, leave town. If I ever see you again, I will kill you." He says to him before leaving the house and taking the girls to Bonnie's Grams' house.

     Bonnie, Hazel, Elena and Stefan were sitting with her Grams at the dining table once they returned from the motel, "How did you know where we were?" She asked her.

     "Many things can fuel a witches power: worry, anger." Grams began to explain, "After Stefan told me they had taken you, I had a lot of both. Simple locater spell was easy after that."

      "I'm sorry." Bonnie whispers, "About all of this."

      "Not as sorry as they're gonna be." Grams says with a smirk.

      "So, what do we do now?" Hazel asks.

      "Well, for now, you need to stay here." Stefan informed them all.

      "A prisoner, in my own home?" Grams raised her eyebrows and shook her head, "I don't think so."

      Stefan shakes his own head, "I can't protect you if you leave the house."

      "We'll protect ourselves." Grams replies, referring to herself and Bonnie.

      "We need to let him have Katherine back." Elena suddenly speaks and Hazel looks at her with bewilderment, "He's not going to stop until he gets her. If we help him, maybe that ends it."

      "No! He doesn't deserve to get what he wants." Bonnie protests.

      "Not to mention, we won't be able to stop Katherine if she decides to get payback on everyone who wronged her in the past." Hazel mentions with fear, "Our ancestors might be dead, but, we're not. She'll take what she can get and kill us all if she wishes."

      "What other choice do we have?" Elena questions, "It's either Damon causing havoc, or giving him Katherine and they leave town together." She says, looking up at Stefan for confirmation if it's a good plan.

      He only looks away.

      "Witches being pulled down by vampire problems. As much as we tried to do to stay out of it." Grams scoffs to herself, "I'll open the tomb. You get your brother's girl and destroy the rest with fire. Then this will be all over."

      "We still have to get Damon to agree." Stefan points out and Hazel only puts her head in her hands at the fact that they're actually agreeing to this.

       "He already agreed once." Elena reminds him.

      "Yeah, and then we double crossed him. So, now he's angry." Stefan replies with a shrug. Knowing his brother, it'll be infinitely more difficult to get him to agree since he'll be on guard and not trust a single thing they say, even if their intentions are pure.

      "He's hurt. There's a difference." Elena corrects him, "I think I know what I have to do." She says and they all exchange looks, wondering what it is that Elena has over him.

      Damon was putting on his jacket, preparing to leave  his home when Elena enters the room and removes her scarf. Damon looks up at her with an unimpressed look, "I'm gonna have to change the locks." He comments as he picks up the grimoire he took from Giuseppe Salvatore's grave and tucking it under his arm, "You stage a jailbreak?"

      "Stefan." Elena says, informing him that she had help.

     "Ah, brother. Ever the white knight." He remarks, tapping his fingers on the table beside him.

     "I convinced Bonnie to help you." Elena suddenly confesses.

     "I doubt that." Damon replies quickly, with flared nostrils in anger at the memory of their last betrayal.

      Elena walks around the edge of the study towards the stairs, leading to the sunken part of the room where Damon is, "I'm not gonna say that I'm sorry we got the grimoire without you last night, because I'm not really." She shrugs.

      "Well, at least you're honest." Damon smiles sarcastically.

      "I was protecting the people I love, Damon. But, so were you, in your own, twisted way." She says and descends the stairs, "And as hard as it is to figure, we're all on the same side, after the same thing."

      "Not interested." Damon states and starts to leave.

      "Yes, you are, because you were willing to work with us yesterday." Elena argues to his retreating form.

Damon turns around at that, "Fool me once, shame on you." He whispers at her, pointing his finger at her direction accusingly.

Elena then throws her hands up, "Okay, when we were in Atlanta, why didn't you use your compulsion on me?"

Damon places the grimoire on a table and walks towards Elena, crossing his arms, "Who's to say I didn't?" He smirks, hoping to trick her into thinking he did.

"You didn't." She said confidently and he sent her a look, "I know you didn't. But, you could have." Elena pointed out in a confident tone, "You and I... we have something—an understanding. And I know that my betrayal hurt you; different from how it is with you and Stefan, but, I'm promising you this now, I will help you get Katherine back."

Damon groans, unconvinced, "I wish I could believe you."

Elena sighs unclasps her bracelet and takes it off, holding it in her hand and showing it to Damon, "Ask me if I'm lying now." She places the bracelet down on a table and waits for Damon to respond.

     He takes a second to look at her before deducting that she isn't lying and walks towards her, "You know Anna won't stop, by the way, no matter what I do."

     Elena lets out an exhale from how close he was, "Then we'll deal with it."

     Damon picks up Elena's bracelet and clasps it back around her wrist, "I didn't compel you in Atlanta because we were having fun." He admits to her, "I wanted it to be real." He adds before saying in a soft tone, "I'm trusting you. Don't make me regret it."

      Damon then walks away.

     Meanwhile, Anna walks back up to the motel room cautiously when she noticed that the door was wide open and that the Gilbert twins and Bonnie had escaped, "You've got to be kidding me." She scoffs to herself as she enters the room and looks over at Ben, who was still crouched between the two beds, his hoodie over his head to protect himself from the sunlight that was still peering into the room.

      "It was Stefan." He informed her, "There was nothing I could—"

      "Shut up! Stop talking." Anna snaps, holding her finger up at him and he lowers his head meekly. She rubs her face with her hands and sits down in a chair, "Without the witch, we don't have Damon or the grimoire." She then realises a new plan that she can take advantage of because of one singular fact and her eyes widen, "Damon's not gonna stop. He'll find a way in." Determination dawns on her face as she says, "And we're gonna be there when he does."