I Don't Belong ch. 6

Minnie frowned slightly and looked down at her feet.
“Well, no. But my parents have talked to me about it, and I know that I carry the werewolf gene. They don’t like to talk to or about your family at all, and I know that vampires are supposed to be our mortal enemies, so when I saw all the blood on you I just put two and two together. It’s okay though, I won’t stop being your friend just because you’re a bloodsucker.” Minnie attempted to joke, but Scarlett didn’t laugh.
“I’m actually a vampire/werewolf hybrid, so we have more in common than you think.” Before Minnie could answer Scarlett suddenly gasped.
“That means that I just triggered my own curse…I should be able to shift at will now!” The excitement that flowed through Scarlett seemed to be contagious and Minnie squealed.
“That’s so cool! Oh Scarlett please, please shift! I want to see!” Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“Minnie, your parents can shift, why don’t you just ask them?” The darker haired girl folded her arms in a pout.
“Only my father can shift at will, since he is a vampire/werewolf hybrid like you are. My mother has to be locked in a cellar each full moon, she can’t control it. Dad won’t let me watch mom phase, and he never phases at all unless he has too, and if he does have too I’m never around to see it. They are so overprotective.” Scarlett snorted.
“You’re lucky. I was overexposed to vampirism as a child, no one ever sheltered me from what I was, and I was taught to drink straight from the vein like a normal vampire and avoid the animal alternative that my father had chosen. Maybe that’s part of the reason someone is dead because of me now.” Minnie walked over and pulled Scarlett into a hug.
“It’s alright, Scar. You and I have been besties since like, kindergarten. You, me, Lily, and Penelope, we were all best friends. Only now, the difference between us and them is that we don’t have secrets between each other anymore, so now we can be each other’s closest friends, isn’t that awesome? If you need to talk about it, let it all out, we can do that now.” Scarlett analyzed her friends lonely face and realized that Minnie didn’t get to confide in a lot of people, just like her, and that somehow really did make them closer.
“Well, I wanted to make Colt jealous so I took Blake home and some stuff happened…” They had a two hour long conversation about Scarlett’s new status as a ripper and what all that meant. Scarlett cried on Minnie’s shoulder, and the two of them fantasized about how awesome it would be to run the streets as wolves together. Eventually, the two were bouncing on her bed and slapping each other with pillows, forgetting their supernatural powers and taking a little bit to just be teenage girls, which was something Scarlett desperately needed. However the girls’ laughter had floated down the stairs and to Tyler’s sharp ears, who was soon banging on the door.
“Minerva Mary-Jane Lockwood, who’s in there?! Unlock this door right now!” Tyler’s enormous voice echoed through the room and Scarlett suddenly thought of Damon and Klaus’s dislike for him. Minnie quickly went to open her door and a tall beefy man stood in the doorway, he had jet black hair and brown eyes like Minnie’s but his face was red as a beet and anger shone brightly in his eyes.
“What the hell are you doing with a Salvatore in the house? Do you have any idea of the trouble you’re getting yourself into?! Sheriff Bridgeford is onto them and our family doesn’t need to have suspicion raised about us too!” Scarlett’s eyes narrowed and her face became cold and calculating.
“What do you mean, Sherriff Bridgeford is on to us? What do you know that my family is unaware of?” Tyler stormed into the room and glared daggers at both teenage girls.
“I’ll tell you what. Your stupid cousin got caught going to school without a car, perfectly on time and not a drop of sweat on him. The Sherriff has suspected your family for months after finding out the ages of your parents, and Sebastian’s little speed running to school stunt was the final nail in your family’s coffin. Lucky for us, the council is blissfully unaware of the werewolf population and is convinced that Hayley and I are paying for anti-aging injections every month. As for you, I’d high-tale it out of town before I was shot with wooden bullets. You’ve been warned. And you,” He said turning to his daughter.
“You are grounded. I have told you to stay out of supernatural affairs; I don’t want you in any of this mess. You are going to live a normal human life and that’s the end of it, do I make myself clear?” Minnie hung her head and nervously picked at a bug bite on her arm.
“Yes Father.” Tyler turned on his heels and added “And stop picking at your arm, the last thing I need is for you to be bleeding in front of a leech.” Scarlett glared at him as he walked away, murmuring “Damn hypocrite.” She turned to Minnie and sighed.
“I’m sorry that I got you in trouble, I guess I’ll go home now.” Minnie grabbed Scarlett’s arm and looked up at her with pleading eyes.
“No. Scarlett, I know you know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong somewhere, we just spent all night talking about it. I want to be in a place where the supernatural are accepted…I want to be able to accept the supernatural part of myself. Please, take me to Klaus. You’re house is huge, I’ve seen it…there is room for me.” Scarlett was in shock for a moment, looking for any trace of a joke on her friends face. There was none.
“Minnie…you don’t want this life. I killed Blake Cleery, my uncle killed Jessica Henderson, there is no telling who you would get a hold of, who you’d have to feel guilt over. Besides, think about it. You have the biggest crush in the world on Penelope’s brother Leland. Leland is human, if you trigger your werewolf curse you get the job of watching him grow old and die while you stay young and beautiful, is that what you want? And you heard your father, there is a big wanted sign looming over my family’s head, which means we might have to leave town.” Scarlett’s voice was harsh and tears filled Minnie’s eyes, but her resolve didn’t crumble.
“Exactly. If you leave I’m going with you, I’m not letting the only person who understands me skip town and leave me with my secretive and detached parents. Either you take me as a werewolf or you take me as a vampire, but I’m not staying here. Penelope and Leland can come with us too; they’re our friends and deserve to know the truth about us. And Lily and her siblings also.” Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“You’re so naive. We can’t just up and take all of friggin Mystic Falls! My family consists of my mother, step-dad, their twins, my aunt and uncle, Ian and his siblings, Klaus and his wife, his brother Elijah, The Saltzman’s, and then Colt’s family. It’s already going to look odd when not only the Salvatore’s, but the Mikaelson’s, the Donovan’s, and the Saltzman’s all move at the same time. But it will look even weirder if the Lockwood’s, Fell’s, and Forbes’s move too, that’s all the founding families moving out of the town they founded!” Minnie pouted again and then stamped her foot.
“Fine! We’ll leave them behind, but please, please don’t leave me here.” Scarlett sighed.
“Okay, I’ll take you to Klaus, and whatever he says goes from there on out okay? That means if he sends you home you go home, do you understand?” Minnie nodded and flung her arms around Scarlett.
“Thank you!”
Meanwhile, back at the boarding house Elena was having a very morbid phone conversation with Mrs. Cleery. Damon had already compelled the kids into believing that he and Elena had found them wondering around near Drowning Creek and that Blake was nowhere to be found. Damon overheard Elena tell the woman that they had already notified the police and that they were out looking for her eldest son. Elena looked at Damon a moment later and mouthed “she said there was another call beeping in from the police station.” Damon raised his eyebrows.
“Well, they found the body awfully fast. I guess the current wasn’t strong enough to take the pieces farther than the middle of the river.” Elena shrugged and then went into full on comfort mode when Blake’s mom returned to the line hysterically. Sebastian came walking down the stairs and sat beside his father on the couch.
“Are the kids going to be taken care of?” Damon sighed.
“Your Grandpa Ric said he would adopt them if Mr. and Mrs. Cleery are unable to take care of them. Your mother is finding that out right now. How is Poppy?” Sebastian shrugged.
“Fine I guess, she’s still passed out but she’s breathing. I tucked her into my bed and left a light on for her so she isn’t scared when she wakes up in a house full of vampires with all the lights off. There is a damp cloth on her forehead and I left my daylight ring on the nightstand so she’d know where she was.” Damon grinned at his son.
“You really do like this girl, don’t you?” Sebastian turned pink, but he nodded.
“Yeah but I doubt that she’s gunna want to be with a vampire.” Damon chuckled and ruffled Sebastian’s hair.
“Stranger things have happened; your mother was human when she met me. That certainly never got in our way.” Sebastian was about to retort when Elena walked into the living room with an exasperated expression.
“Mrs. Cleery confided in me that her husband beats the kids, and that the only reason Ryleigh and Genevieve had ever been safe was because Blake protected them. She asked me to bring them by the house so she could say goodbye and then for me to find them a better home. She also asked that the kids not attend the funeral and that instead of being told the truth that they are told Blake went to join the peace core like he’d always dreamed of doing and that their parents went with him.” Sebastian was suddenly very uncomfortable.
“And what do the police think happened to Blake?” His tone was so nervous that it caused Elena to narrow her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
“They think it was a mountain lion…why are you suddenly so concerned about the police?” Sebastian squirmed a little and couldn’t look either of his parents in the eyes.
“Sherriff Bridgeford told me she was on to us because you two don’t look like you’ve aged and the morning you were out looking for dad she caught me at school without a car, and when I told her I’d walked she noticed I wasn’t sweating and said there was no way I could have made it on time…” Damon’s face went rigid.
“Why the hell didn’t you catch a ride with someone?! I can’t believe you had the nerve to put us all in danger by running there!” Elena shot Damon a knowing glace.
“Damon, calm down. This was bound to happen eventually, it’s not his fault. We all knew we couldn’t stay in Mystic Falls forever.” Suddenly they all heard a very timid voice come from the bottom of the steps.
“Did you know that the Fell family founded another town at the other end of the state back in the renaissance? There was supposedly an enormous vampire problem rising several hundred years later so the family relocated at the start of the civil war and helped found Mystic Falls. I grew up there, I only moved here last summer. I think, maybe if you have to leave Mystic Falls, you’d find a good home there, and I could show you around the town.” It was Poppy, and she was gingerly holding Sebastian’s daylight ring. He quickly stood.
“Poppy, I am so sorry that you had to see that earlier, it must have traumatized you. I want you to know that I understand if you no longer wish to see me…” Poppy only smiled and walked toward him, handing him his ring and very lightly pecking his lips.
“It’s okay, Sebastian. While I’m slightly terrified that all the vampire legends I grew up hearing in Fell’s Church are true, I know how much of a gentleman you are, and I know you’d never hurt me.” Damon cocked his head to the side.
“Fell’s Church, that’s the name of the town?” Poppy nodded.
“People still talk about the legends, but there haven’t been any vampire problems in years, you’d be safe there if you play your cards right.” Damon smirked.
“I like you. Why’d you move? My son seems quite smitten by you so if you didn’t leave for a terrible reason why don’t you come with us?” It was clear that Damon was only trying to help his son, but Sebastian just wanted to die of embarrassment.
“Dad!” Damon looked genuinely confused.
“What?” Poppy giggled and turned a very deep pink.
“T-thank you for the offer, Mr. Salvatore, but I left because I was seriously bullied. I’ve never had much luck with other teenagers.” Sebastian grimaced.
“I could compel them to leave you alone you know…you could still come back with us.” Poppy smiled.
“Do you really think my parents would want to move all the way back again? Especially since I have a two year old little sister who hates moving.” Sebastian was becoming desperate.
“I can compel them too.” Poppy’s smile grew and she giggled again.
“You’re a sweetheart, you know that? How about…I say maybe and then make you take me out on a date?” Sebastian nearly exploded with happiness.
“Y-Yes, of course, it would be an honor.” He said, kissing the back of her hand the same way he had when he’d first introduced himself to her. Damon looked over at Elena and mouthed “He’s growing up” and Elena beamed and nodded, trying to hold back proud and happy tears.