This is my final chapter for The Last Weapon. I know what you were expecting. You were expecting that final moment, the sacrifice. However, there is much more to this story that will require another book, which is called Shadow of Death - find it on my profile!

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Damon's POV

When I walked into Jeremy Gilbert's room, it was emptier than when I'd walked in on him kissing Annice. Ouch. I was still fuming from that, but not at Jeremy. I was angry with myself for driving her into the arms of him. Or was it even my fault? Maybe she'd always had feelings for him, and I was too ignorant to notice.

He'd had a letter. Nearly all of it was burnt, lying on his desk in a small piles of ashes with a faint smell of seared paper and the even fainter smell of her. Like spices and flowers. Unexpected combination. She was unexpected. When I looked at the paper, I knew that I would be able to read the few paragraphs left on the paper, but I couldn't. From the certain look Jeremy gave me, and from the fact that Annice had left a note on the desk back home, I knew I had one of my own, and for once I didn't want to betray the privacy of someone else. Because Annice had to do with that certain privacy.

I was gone before Elena had a chance to ask why, knowing that Annice had left but anguished at the fact that I would never know where she had gone. I felt like somebody had shot me through with a wooden bullet, and it wasn't healing. I couldn't hear anything, and I could barely see. So I ran. I ran until I was crashing into the guest room that had once been hers and picking up the letter she had left there, thinking not of the night behind me, but of the night ahead, and the nights after that.

Would I ever see her again?

The letter was two pages long, front and back, and I could not read it fast enough, but my brain was so frightened and jumbled that it made it difficult, which made me frustrated, which made me furious.

Dear Angelface,

It has been a while since I called you that. And you are mon ange, now and forever. I know I'm leaving. I know it hurts. But I have to. I came here with a purpose, and I cannot be allowd to change that now.

I am going to wait until the night of the sacrafice, and do not doubt that there will be one. Your only problem should be how to keep Elena alive afterwards. The obvious answer is not one I would recommend. So on the night of that sacrafice, I will find the rest of my family and kill them, and then I will kill my brother Elijah, I will kill Niklaus, and then... You know what happens after that. I will die.

Do not worry yourself with how to save me. I cannot be saved. You are the angel and I am the demon, and I will forever be lost to pits of hell. It is my way.

So go on, mon ange, and fight for the things you should be fighting for. Like Elena. Do not think, for even a second, that she does not care for you. She does. And eventually, even she will realize that she loves you. Fight for her, even if you must fight your brother, for even if Stefan leaves, he will forgive you in the end, because it is his nature. He loves you, too.

I don't know if you know this, but I was there when you first met Elena Gilbert. You were lying in the road, and you called her Katherine. That was funny. It was funny because she was so absolutely nothing like Katherine. Do you remember what she said?

"Nothing bad happens in Mystic Falls."

Too much bad has happened to Mystic Falls. And most or all of it is due to my family and I. Do not deny it. And I remember what you said as well. You told her exactly what she would want in a man, and you were right. I know Elena's type, and you know Elena well. She might choose Stefan in the end, but you will always know that she wanted you, too. She will never stop wanting you. That is the highlight and the pitfall of love. In the end, she will know what she wants. But no matter the choice, she will always have that love that "consumes her".

So you will fight for her.

Do not take this letter as an excuse for the fact that you might never see me again, because I know you will. Maybe. But for sure, you will see me staring right at you when I fall to the ground and the life finally drains out of me, once and for all, as it should one thousand years ago. I am tired, Angel. I am so tired of half-living.

But I love you. Never doubt that.

I never planned on loving you, and I'm sure you can say the same thing. You slept with me for information. You slept with my best friend. You even got that girl, Andie Star. I'm sure you find a lot of women during your existance, and you will say none of them will be me. But... I want you to be happy. Which is the exact reason I'm telling you to fight for the girl who said "It will always be Stefan" because I have a feeling that, even if that statement proves true in the end, it will falter. One day, though not today... there will be a day when you walk into the same room as her, and it will just consume her.

I'm not that type. I'm not the famous heroine who gets caught up in a triangle of love stories and epic love songs. You knew that when you met me and I threw you into a field of corn. I'm so sorry for making you think that I would be here to kiss you when I really knew I had to die.

This is not goodbye forever, but goodbye until you see me on the day where my goodbye will be eternal. And even on that day I will love you.

On another equally unhappy note, you may be confused as to the involvement of Jeremy Gilbert.

Yes, I was.

He happened to come here one day when you were at the college researching information I already knew about Katerina Petrova, or Katherine. He knew you would try to keep him out of it. And so, he came searching for information from me. He is smarter than you give him credit for.

I was upstairs and I heard him. He convinced me to tell him by offering his own blood in return. Of course I took some, used a vial of vampire blood (as you well know that I do not have such things in my veins) and healed him, and then compelled him to forget I'd done it. Another day he showed up when I was having one of my black moods, screaming and thrashing and wondering why the duty to kill my own family befell me. I did not want to. That would explain the holes in the room from where I'd punched the walls unknowingly.

When I looked around the room, I now noticed several holes in the old, wooden walls of the room that I had never seen before. I don't know how I could've missed them. I turned back to the entrancing letter.

He found me and calmed me down. When I sat on the floor, sobbing, which I don't often do except for when I'm in this damned town. He picked out the shards of wood from my hand and asked me for a favor. I won't tell you what it was. That is for him to know and tell if he wants to. In exchange for the favor, I asked for a kiss, which he reluctantly gave. In fact, I kissed him the first time I met him, just like you. But it was much different. He was all play.

I really did love you.

Anyway, when I ran out of your house with my trunk and my things, I went to his house, which I'm sure you now know. I called him my friend now, and he was all I had to run towards. I convinced him to let me stay in exchange for the 'truth', but I only told him what any other smart vampire might know. I told you the truth once, but it was jumbled and you probably forgot some of it. Jeremy knows the truth now, the real truth, and I don't think he will ever be able to tell you until the day you know it yourself. I'm not sure.

It is none of your business why I kissed him, let me make that clear. However, I'm allowing you to know that it was not out of romantic love, which neither of us hold for each other. We are the greatest of friends, which is why I gave him a letter, too. He is my sanctuary, and you are my angel. But I can't spend too long here. I will only lie. I was raised by a witch and I know not to disturb the balance of things, and I know that if I stay much longer, I will only upset it more.

It is my duty to leave and wait and kill and die. There is nothing you can do to save me.

Which is why I write. I know that if I ever say it to your face that you would say it back and the I would never go. I would never do my duty. And I have to. Face it. You say I'm better than this, and I believe you, but only because you are the one who said it. Yes, you have broken my happiness, and I know you will carry that guilt, but I hope what I say now will take that guilt from your arms. You gave me a new happiness.

One day, months ago, I thought I would die knowing that my only loves were dead, and I had accepted it. I did nothing but watch and wait and listen. What life is that? I had a thousand years to live, but only you and Jeremy showed me how to do it in the last half year of my life.

Although I was never the religious type, I remember something certain. From Psalms maybe, if you even know what that is.

"And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me..."

It was supposed to be about God, but I'm applying it to you. I'm going to die one day, quite soon, but I do not fear it anymore like I did, even though I said I didn't. You are with me. I love you, Angelface. I know it does not seem like it. I'm leaving you. How can you love someone and leave them?

Once, when I was with my witchy friend, she told me something. It didn't seem very important back then, because I already thought I was in love. But that was not love. My friend told me something about love.

She said that when you meet your one love, you will know it. The one you love, she said, is the one that will make you fear nothing but parting from that person, and in that, you are fearless.

When I had a nightmare, you woke me, and you made me forget my fears of sleeping and darkness. And now, when I am leaving, I fear nothing but how painful it will be. I do not fear death anymore. You have made me stronger than I ever thought I could be. I don't need my indestructible bones or my useless heart or my defenses or any of that. I am better than all of that, all because you said so.

And so this is my goodbye, but not my final one. You will know my final one soon enough. I have lived, and it is time that I went away, for I am done living.

I love you. I really do.

And with all that sincere love, I say goodbye.

-Annice, the girl you didn't love

P.S. I will always watch over you. Do not fear anything but losing who you love.

-Briana, the girl you did

And the letter ended there.

I did not move from that spot at the writing desk for a very long time. There were countless rings from my phone, but I ignored them. Throughout the house, there was not a sound. Silence. I could not think, could hardly breathe.

When I did dare to move, my muscles seemed sore and stiff and my mind was dazed, as if I had slept for days. I didn't know what to do. What could I do? So I just moved about the house. I jsut walked around, picked up books, started a fire in the hearth. After a while, empty and aimless, I drifted into my bedroom. Maybe I would just lie down, sleep for days, until I didn't care anymore.

I quite gently sat on my bed, kicked off my shoes, and reclined on my pillows. My phone rang again. I pulled it out of my pocket and threw it across the room, where it shattered against the wall. Finally at peace, I nestled into the pillows and looked up at the ceiling.

I came to discover that Annice knew much more about me than I believed.

On the ceiling was written, in dark marker:

Don't be alarmed, my dear soldier. I am just a woman strolling through the woods, looking for peace.

The End, for now.

Don't forget to read Shadow of Death, the next epic installment in The Last Weapon series!

I love you all and thank you sooo much for reading this! Hopefully, I'll see you reading the next book! Bye!