Briana's POV

Time passes slowly when you're waiting for someone to die. At first, there is absolute surety that they will be okay, that everything is going to be alright- but they're not. A split second later an icy cold fear grips your heart and it's so powerful it steals your breath away. It infiltrates you, creeps up, grows on you like mold, vines. It paralyzes you. As everyone has something to love, everyone has something to fear. Sometimes, they're the same thing. Sometimes, it's fear of what will happen to that one person you love. I'm not really sure what it is for me.

I was still wary of Damon. I didn't trust him completely, but I knew he couldn't take any more from me. I'm pretty sure he knew it, too. But... but I still fear for him. If I was correct, then either an Original or their puppy dog servants who line up to be in their good graces took Elena Gilbert. I honestly couldn't care less about the girl, but she was the doppelganger. If she was taken to my brothers, then Klaus would become what I hate the most about him, and it would be even more difficult to kill him. Plus, she had heart. Elena may seem sort of blind when it came to what she could and shouldn't do, but she's persistent , stubborn and smart.

However, she's one of them. The people who fight for love. I'm sick of love being the noble cause. Love is what I didn't have from my mother. Love is what took me away from my village. Lack of love has made me kill and murder and be.. me. Lonely me. I'm sick of love, and everyone who thinks that it can save them. What is an idea against an army of supernaturally enhanced species? What is an emotion against one of the strongest, most cunning creatures who ever lived? What is love to the girl who can kill him?

Love is exactly what is going to get in the way. Because everything has something, someone to love. Mine is in a car heading towards the very thing I've grown to hate.

"FUCK!" I screamed, and then softer, "Everything is falling apart."

I writhed on my bed, silk sheets tangling me up in a suffocating, claustrophobic knot, only shrieking. My words become unintelligible strings of fury, filling the house until my throat was raw. I didn't need to breath, so I just kept screaming, bellowing, dangerous sound erupting from my mouth. Everything that I had experienced, all the pain and suffering and anger and dread, it was all blurring into one frightening echo. And then it all cut off.

"Briana!" somebody said. I couldn't see straight. All objects in the room were swirling into one another, colors become one befuddling grayish brown. My face was wet- that I could tell. Everything hurt, wounds felt like they would never close, physical or psychological. That's it: I was weeping.

"Who- who's there?" My voice was weak and breaking, as brittle as a feeble old woman. Slowly, ever so slowly, shapes started spiraling back into their original positions, split profiles converging. There was a boy in front of me. Tall, but not too much so, pale, dark hair, maybe...

"You can't see? It's me," he said deeply, and his voice was familiar, "Jeremy."

I rubbed my eyes rapidly, not believing that the one person who bothered too hear me and break me out of my delusional stupor was the human kid. But eventually, his features began to clear, showing dusky eyes and a cynical half-frown, that black hoodie and a backpack full of vampire murder weapons. An unexpected giggle sprung from my lips, and I silenced myself immediately. I shouldn't be laughing while people were in danger, but then again, weren't people like us always in danger?

"W-what d'you want, Jer? I'm kind of b-busy," I croaked. A racking cough shook my entire body, an acidic burn in the back of my throat.

"Doing what? Screaming your brains out? Yeah, I don't think you got much better to do." I glared at him, but I'm sure my sickly form didn't make me seem very menacing.

"Look," I snapped, "I'm not in the best of places. What do you want?" There were several resounding cracks as I shook myself out of bed, landing with a thump on the Persian carpet. I looked around.

In the walls, there were several bloodied holes. I glanced at my hands, and then looked back. Where my fists should have been, there were two mangled messes, some parts still have scraps of flesh on them, some cut down to the bone. Shards of the walls still remained in my hands, keeping them from healing properly. I groaned and pressed them to my stomach, curling up into one pitiful ball. I don't think the tears on my face had dried yet.

"You want some help with that?" Lazily, my eyelids drifted back open and I glared at him sharply, my mouth screwing up in a bitter scowl.

"Yes," I cooed, my voice sugary, "I do. I'd rather not, you know, sit here and bleed out." Jeremy rolled his eyes and walked over to where I was slumped like an injured animal, hissing and snapping.

"You don't have to be a brat about it," he retorted and sat down next to me, pulling his pack around his arm and dropping it unceremoniously on the floor. The sharp commotion of noise made me flinch and rear back. "Now, hold still."

For a few minutes, we simply sat there in a dead silence as Jeremy painfully picked pieces of the Salvatore's wall out of my knuckles, the only sound the occasional growl of pain from me or the boy telling me not to be a baby. Baby? I'm, like, fifty times older than him. After an agonizingly slow process, he finally pulled back with a tiny, "You're done," muttered through pinched lips. I winced and shook my hand off, the skin crawling back over it eerily.

"Thank you," I said gratuitously, and meant it, "Not a lot of humans I know would have the balls to do that, and most of them would just do it to become a little undead leech, so, that makes you one of my friends." I beamed at him, while his eyebrows knit, bewildered.

"Wait, if we're going to be friends, isn't this a two-way street?" My grin immediately turned into a sultry pout.

"Are you saying you don't want to be my friend?" There was a beat of silence while Jeremy looked as if he was actually considering the idea. He nodded, his lower lip curled into something like a 'sure, why not?' expression.

"Well, I don't think it would be in my worst interest, though I'm not sure if it would be in my best." That pulled a smirk out of me. "Can I trust you?" I laughed out loud this time, and it was a mirthless, very sad laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. All my senses were nearly up to speed. I could hear the blood pumping in our veins, smell his cute Old Spice shampoo is his adorable wavy brown locks.

"Nope," his face fell slightly, and I leaned in very close to his face, "but then again, who in this town can we trust?" We shook hands, and I hauled him to his feet.

"When are you gonna realize I can get to my feet on my own?" he played, the corners of his lips finally pulling up a tad.

"When I feel like keeping my hands off you, Gilbert boy. Damon's a friend, but he is a total dick, and I need a new plaything." I bumped through an arrangement of bottles that I stole from Damon and picked a glass of something that looked yummy, savoring the sight of Jeremy, brave and bold, blush and recline on the chair in the corner.

"I'm, kind of, with Bonnie," he stuttered. The chuckle was ironic and spiteful this time.

"Oh, I know, Sweet Pea, but then again..." I swigged down what tasted like vodka and blood, "what is your track record with women? Two dead? One staked by Stefan, but all because of my Angel, and one because of that douche John Gilbert. Your uncle, hmm." His jaw clenched and he avoided my gaze.

"This was a bad idea-" I put a hand on his arm as he tried to walk out, my smile sliding off my face and falling, splat, on the floor.

"All I'm saying is that maybe you should pick someone who can't be killed, and can't be used to threaten you."

My voice was demure, but calculating. I was honestly curious in the intentions of humans. It had been so long since I was one, I honestly don't remember much of what it was like. But I remember it was better than this- being what I am. No matter how much I thought about it, I was glad I had human blood in me. I couldn't bear the thought of somebody having to live as long as me because I turned them. Boredom, revenge, and love. Those are the three reasons you do it. I try to keep those all under control. I keep myself busy- no boredom. No one knew about me save for Katherine and these Mystic Falls folk, and no one's made a move against me that would cause me to take revenge. And love? Love was the reason I was in this whole mess. Come to think, love was probably going to be the whole reason I end up doing something stupid. No matter what, being supernatural heightened the happiness and joy, but it also heightened the sadness, the pain and the anger. Grief, rage, fury, despair, and love. It will be the end of all of us.

"I'll tell you when the opportunity pops up, but for now-" he ripped his arm out of my grasp and I sneered, "let it go."

"Why are you here, anyway, Sweet Pea?" I struggled to keep myself calm. I was so lonely, and it was almost unbearable. Everyone has somebody else to love, and that left me out of the love octagon. I don't even love any one. As far as I know. As much as I'll admit.

"Stop calling me- whatever. I'm here because Bonnie passed out after a spell, got a-"

"Bloody nose? Then just conked out?" He nodded, a certain incessant need to know why sparking in his eyes. "And you want to know how it can be stopped."

"Uh, yeah. I don't think the vampires are leaving this town any time soon, which means they're going to keep pulling her into this. I need to see if there's something I can do to help her." I took a deep breath and pursed my lips. I was about to say something, and cut myself short. My mouth turned up in a devilish smirk and licked my lips.

"Ah, so you think I can help since I know, basically, everything. Actually, I might know something, but she might just be over exhausting herself. Oh, well," I drawled, turning languidly away and he placed a hand on my shoulder urgently.

"Wait!" There was another one of those irritated half-sigh-half-breath-of-anger things, and I looked at him with feigned innocence. "What do you want?" My blood red nail clicked on my precise pointed chin as if I were actually just now thinking about it.

"A kiss," I whispered, "All I want is a kiss."

For a moment he said absolutely nothing, just staring at me as if I'd requested he go steal the Eiffel Tower for me. My confidence faltered, as did his words every time he attempted to say something. Finally, he forced a sentence out. "I think you've already had a couple of those." I snickered.

"Yes, but both of those were random pecks of a kiss that you did not return," I pointed out, jabbing him in the chest with my finger. I don't quite know why I was doing this to him, forcing him to make a rift in his relationship with the Bennett witch, or, as I had heard her called, 'judgy', bitch-witch, and 'the witchy one'. Honestly, I was still wondering how those two had ended up together, and didn't expect it to end well.

"Nah, that's not right. I wouldn't do that to Bonnie," he began backing away slowly, and my heart constricted like a snake and slithered up and wound its way around it. Rejection. Playing nonchalant, I began searching through my meager things I still had in a violet bag next to the bed.

"All right," I pulled out a thin black box, "I guess I'll just hang on to these." That shot his curiosity up.

"What is that?" There was a small hush of his feet on the rug as he moved closer. I turned around, ending up chest to chest with him. Slightly flushed, he backed away again. I pouted.

"These are magiska tonisk, or magic tonic. A Swedish witch I knew cooked 'em up, say, fifty years ago in certain cases like this." I carefully opened the worn lid and pulled out a wrapped red hard candy, which looked something like a throat lozenge. "Of course, I don't think she was expecting a Bennett to get included in the... tedious affairs of the vampires, but it'll work."

"How does it work?" he asked, reaching for it. I pulled my arm back and stuck it in its case, barely throwing a look at the other various vials and tubes of potions, poisons and concoctions. Gently, I set the box on my bedside table and raised a brow at Jeremy.

"You tell her it's a candy. It tastes like cherry, anyway. For twenty four hours, she will have increased strength. Not enough to be nearly as strong as that old witch house she channels, but she will still be able to do some pretty kick ass spells." I grimaced and thought of how the Swedish girl had died, slit throat and torn out heart so some supernaturals could have a few potions she wasn't really willing to give. I killed them for that the next chance I got. "There are a few side effects: drowsiness after the twenty four hours, irritability, and a slight headache."

"Nothing too bad?" I shook my head. "Fine, I'll take it."

Smiling evilly, I warned him to only use it in dire circumstances and said sweetly, "I believe you have an end of a deal to hold up if you want to know."

He groaned and glared at me, worry and indecision all over his face. There was a moment of hesitation in which he thought over his choices. Either kiss me and lessen the risk of his girlfriend's pain- and possible death under a heavy bewitchment- or leave it to chance. As I though and hoped he would, his around curled around the fabric of my torn and bloodied tank top and forced me to him. We were crushed together, our lips moving as one, and I draped my arms around his neck. His lips were incredibly soft, no matter how cold he tried to make the kiss, and I tried to leave no space between any part of us. The temperature in the room seemed to rise a few degrees, and his hands pressed on my hips, making my entire body light up with this tingly, inflamed feeling. After a while, too short a time, he pulled back and stared at me with a smoldering look of hatred mixed with a shielded softness. I grinned with swelling lips.

"Now that was pretty nice, wasn't it?" He pinched his lips, as I could've sworn to hide a smile. There was one last heated moment, and then I picked up the White Ash box off the table. The temperature dropped again.

I plucked the candy out of its box and and set it in a short glass beaker, wondering if this was the best time to use it. Shrugging, I gave it to him, caressing his cheek with my fingertips. I was happy he didn't flinch away. He wrapped it in a scrap of cloth from the front of his pack and pocketed it.

"It was good to see you," I said, and he frowned. We began to walk out of the room and down the stairs towards the sitting room.

"Oh, and please stop calling me Sweet Pea," he complained gruffly, and I giggled.

"What would you prefer, Sweet Pea?" I called as he walked towards the door... "Honey Muffin?" he opened it... "Love Monkey?!" It slammed shut to the faint sound of his chuckles and I turned to the table of glorious alcohol and snatched a glass of Damon's classy red wine, my worries dimmed for the moment.

I could still feel it, though. That searing, disturbing burn that ate away at me, had screams bubbling up in my throat, made the fright in the pit of my stomach threaten to dissolve into tears. It was horrible, like everything, all the bad feelings I'd ever experienced were twisting into one monstrous terror that would crush me into a pile of ash and embers. But I would ignore it from now on, because I knew it was dread. I was going to die, and this was nature punching it into me. I had to realize that I couldn't go around making relationships in the last few months, weeks, days of my life. The thing about emotions, feelings, love, is that I've had a thousand years to experience it, and I've barely scraped the surface of how it could affect me, how so many things I could've missed out on. Every now and then, it occurs to me how useless information is if I'm going to be dead, and know so few people that I have no reason to use it. And I was so sick of staying hidden. I was tired of being the undead encyclopedia. I think it's time people knew what it was like to be in the inner circle who could save the last few people she cared about, and will have to murder the only few people she knew for sure she loved.

Love can go back to hell, where it's sent so many, and soon will be throwing me.