Briana's POV

I couldn't believe it. He just- just... used me! It's like I was a Google search engine! All that knowledge came back to bite me in the ass in the form of an insanely attractive vampire who was only about a century and a half old. He was a newbie, and I hadn't even known what he was doing.

"Gosh, how could I be so stupid!" I bellowed and smashed my fist into the wall. The was a deafening crack and a small hole punctured the wall, splinters digging into my flesh. I recoiled and shook the shards of wood from my fingers with a grimace.

There was a long creak of aging floors, and I froze. I could here breathing downstairs, and the faint sound of rushing blood. My hunger spiked, but I ignored it. In a millisecond, I was down the stairs and standing directly in front of the intruder: Jeremy Gilbert. He gave a little "Agh!" and fell back, and I let out a deep breath. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back to his feet.

"Hey, I can get up," he complained, his brown hair falling over his eyes. What an adorable young human.

"You wouldn't have needed to could you control your fear around vamps. You should be used to us just... popping up. We have super-speed." He rolled his eyes and plopped down on the couch.

"I'm not afraid. I just didn't know anybody was home." My eyebrows pushed together.

Then why," I said, "are you here?"

"Because everyone's out either getting information on Katherine or training Caroline Forbes on how to be a vampire."

I knew this. Last night, Katerina Petrova- her real name- came over and sent Damon off the deep end. I had to see what would happen, see if Katherine would tell Damon anything, but all she'd done was break his heart. She had walked out hiding her satisfied grin and yanking her black dress back on. It took all the strength I had not to jump down and bite her right there just for putting that expression on his face. I couldn't describe it with anything but emptiness. Everything, the endless searching, the pretending to hate her, she'd thrown it all back at him with the simple answer to his question: "I never loved you."

The fact that she had always loved Stefan was true. Whether or not she never loved his demonic older brother was a mystery. When he was left alone in the living room, he walked zombie-like over to the liquor cabinet and began drinking. Two bottles of Scotch later, he went to Elena's house. I followed him, once again to know. I was flippant and impulsive, barely able to ever resist the call of useful information. However, Elena rejected him too when he tried to kiss her.

"You're hurt," she said, while Damon sat on her bed, "and you've been drinking." He held up his pinched fingers about a centimeter apart. And the he'd made the advances. Called her a liar. Said there was something between them. "I love Stefan, it's always going to be Stefan!" Enraged, he walked over to Jeremy and things got worse.

"You want to be a vampire? It's easy, just a flip of the switch and-"

"No!" Elena's cries still echoed in my ears from when Damon snapped his neck. He hadn't known the kid was wearing his undead ring. My heart fractured in a thousand places while Elena sat crying with her brother cradled to her chest, just staring down at the ring with horror. I hadn't had anything to say to Damon except, "He's alive" when I got home. Elena hated him now, sure, but at least Jeremy was alive to see her doing it. The glass shattered in a somewhat beautiful way, pieces flying all over the wall, blood and alcohol splattering finely.

Which brought me to now. Katherine had killed Caroline because Stefan rejected her. Damon, Alaric and Elena (bad mix) had gone off to Isobel's office at Duke to read over her research, Stefan was giving a Vampire 101 speech and the Gilbert boy was left out of the loop. More fun for me.

"And I'm assuming you want to know what's going on so you can help, blah, blah, blah..." He nodded. "What are you willing to offer me?" He pulled back his sleeve and pushed his wrist forward.

"Or you can take it from the neck," he said, "I don't care. You can take some of my blood, give me some of yours to heal me. I know you like it fresh, and as long as you don't kill me I'm fine." I smiled devilishly.

"I like you. It's good to see someone who would give anything for information. The facts are more important than any witchy artifact or supernatural quality you could possess." We both gazed at his hideous ring. "Unless, of course, you piss Damon off. Too bad for you, I don't have vampire blood in me which I prefer you wouldn't tell Stefan or Elena." The rabid thought of Damon sucking my blood entered my mind and my face warmed. "The other Salvatore already knows. If I bite you, I can't heal you.

It might have been his crestfallen expression or that I saw something that reminded me of, well, me in him. He would do anything to know the situation, get the info, and I found it extremely enticing.

"Which is why I have this." I pulled a thin vial of reddish-brown vampire blood from the inside of my jacket and his expression lightened. "I know you're not too good with trust so I'll give you the information I assume they're going to find out at the college." I didn't mention how the main thing they'd find wouldn't be true. I'd already gone through her things.

"Mason Lockwood, Tyler's uncle, is looking for a moonstone, something that supposedly bound the Sun and the Moon Curse. That curse is what a powerful Aztec shaman put on the vampires and the werewolves to keep the leeches bound by the sun and wolves slaves to the full moon. Two entire species are on the lookout for it, wanting to break the curse so that wolves could change when they wanted- and therefore never at all- and vamps could walk in the sunlight. You need five things. The witches were crafty." I held up a hand with my fingers outstretched and put one finger down for every ingredient. "A werewolf, a vampire, a witch, the moonstone and..."

"What? What's the last thing?" Jeremy asked excitedly. I hated to crush his hopes.

"The doppelganger. Your sister, Elena, is the last thing you need. As she is adopted, her bloodline was created to be the last part of the curse. Everyone thinks it ended with Katherine, but she had a child out of wedlock and it all led down to Isobel and then Elena." I sat on the couch across from him.

He didn't say anything for a long time. The poor boy just sat there, grieving, clenching and flexing his hand. I felt sorry for telling him so much, but he had to know first what he was up against: two entire supernatural entities, including my family. I couldn't tell him about the Originals yet.

"So... Elena is in danger? How many people know about her?" He looked like he wanted to run all the way to Duke just to shield his sister from anybody who wanted to hurt her.

"Not too many." He calmed. "But there had been a rumor floating around, and with Katherine back, people are going to be lining up. That's all I can tell you for now, and Damon can explain it to the others when he gets back. Your turn."

I didn't need to have blood but it was a delectable thing to drink anyway, and now I wouldn't have to unwillingly take it from anybody. Jeremy sighed, his info-craving sated, and murmured, "Take your pick." I walked toward him and put his face in my hands, gazing deeply into his eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"You held up your end of the deal, it's my turn now." He swallowed nervously and I smiled, probably not helping considering my fangs were stretching out.

"Good to know I can trust someone around here," and the I bit him. I chose his neck because, believe it or not, I'd learned over time that a practiced vampire can hurt a human less by taking the neck. Jeremy gasped a little bit but didn't move, and his blood filled my mouth. My fingers curled around his shirt and pulled him towards me a bit while I marveled at his bravery and ability to keep calm. Something told me he'd been bit before.

When I was sated, I removed my mouth a wiped the blood from his neck, a drop falling down my chin. I swiped it away. I snatched the vial off the side table and handed it too him. He popped the cap and within moments, his wound healed. There was the sweet aftertaste of blood on my lips and he scratched his neck slightly, probably worried it wouldn't heal correctly.

"Your smart. As long as it doesn't kill you, you should fight for the facts. I know they wouldn't have told you what I did; they would have wanted to keep you out of it. It's always fun to prove somebody wrong." I placed a kiss on his lips, something I preferred to give to those who I liked, and then looked into his dark eyes again, turning on the compulsion. "You do not remember me drinking your blood or that I do not have vampire blood in my veins. You only remember coming over and me giving you the information willingly."

"It was surprising. I thought you'd want something back for the info you gave me," he said, dazed.

"Take care of yourself." I walked back upstairs, and I heard the door slam shut behind me.

Mason's POV

I'd find it. She told me she loved me and if I find it, she'd love me more. But for now, I had to get ready. The chains were in place, and I already felt my insides tearing to pieces and reforming, shaping to that of a wolves. I took a sip of wolfs bane and I choked it down, spluttering. That was terrible. I had my limbs tethered to the floor, ready for the moon's curse, and then-

voices.

I knew it was Tyler. He'd been after me for days, always wanting to know more, but once you now, your jinxed. You can't get away from it, and then, before you know it, every bone in you body is breaking to the sounds of your screams and pain and curses. I muttered a few profanities. and hurriedly undid all the progress I'd just made. He was a Lockwood, incessantly curious, and that was going to get him killed or cursed.

The voices were getting closer, and I recognized a girl's this time. He was putting people in danger. I packed all my things away in a duffel bag and ran out into the misty night just before my nephew became visible. I kept running, horrible, searing pain in all my limbs, joints and muscles, until I reached the car. The moon was just coming out from behind the clouds, glaring at me. I linked as many chains as I could to the strongest looking tree I could find and crawled into the car.

I couldn't see straight. All I knew was the endless pain, the sick cracking of my bones as they snapped into positions they should never be in. Everything was blurring around me, shapes distorted, my shrieking faltering in my own ears. And then, it all stopped. There was the strangest sensation of euphoria, and then all I knew was instinct. There was a sound outside, and I stiffened. It was a man, looking into the window, and I knew his scent. It was the familiar stench of a vampire. A low, rumbling growl sounded in my throat, and I jumped out at him, a wolf. He fell back, and I kept running, following the smell of blood and undead. I didn't know who I would be chasing, but I would find them. That's what I must do, find them. And kill.