[Location: The Salvatore Boarding House – Library] [Time: 9:30 PM]
The front door opened. The heavy oak groaned, followed by the sound of rapid, anxious footsteps.
"Damon?" Stefan's voice echoed from the foyer. "I checked the woods. There was nothing there. If this is another game..."
He walked into the library.
He stopped dead.
The room was a disaster zone. The bookshelf was shattered, books lay spine-up on the carpet like dead birds, and shards of glass from a broken lamp glittered in the firelight.
And amidst the wreckage, I was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, wiping a speck of blood from my lip.
Stefan stared at me. He scanned the room—the violence of the destruction, the empty thermos on the table, and finally, me.
He inhaled. He smelled it instantly. The lack of a human heartbeat. The cold stillness. The scent of blood—not spilled, but consumed.
"Adrian," Stefan whispered, his face draining of color.
"Hey, Stefan," I said. My voice was calm, but it carried a new resonance—a deeper, predatory timbre that I hadn't learned to control yet. "You were right. Damon was in a bad mood."
Stefan rushed to me, stopping inches away. He looked into my eyes. He saw the dilation, the sharpness.
"You're turned," Stefan said, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "He killed you."
"He snapped my neck," I confirmed, rubbing the spot. It felt perfectly smooth now. "I provoked him. I pushed him about Katherine. I wanted to see if he'd snap."
"Why?" Stefan demanded, his eyes wide. "Why would you do that?"
"Because I knew I had insurance," I said. "I had vampire blood in my system."
Stefan froze. "Whose blood? Mine? Damon's?"
"Pearl's," I said.
Stefan took a step back. "Pearl? The 500-year-old vampire from the tomb? Adrian... what have you done?"
"I leveled the playing field," I said, standing up.
I moved.
It wasn't walking. It was gliding. One moment I was in the chair, the next I was by the fireplace. The speed was intoxicating. It felt effortless, like breathing.
"I couldn't stay human, Stefan," I said, looking at the flames. "Not with the Tomb Vampires out. Not with the Council hunting. Not with Klaus coming. I was a liability. Now... I'm an asset."
"You died," Stefan said, his voice trembling with anger and guilt. "You let yourself die. You're... you're a monster now, Adrian. Do you understand that? The hunger? The heightened emotions? It never goes away."
"I know," I said. "I feel it. The fire in the throat. The way the sound of that clock ticking is driving me insane." I gestured to the grandfather clock in the hall. "But I also feel... clear."
"What's all the noise?"
We both looked up.
Damon was standing at the top of the stairs. He looked disheveled, holding a fresh bottle of bourbon. He looked down at the library.
He saw me standing there.
Damon blinked. He rubbed his eyes.
"Okay," Damon muttered. "I definitely need to cut back. I could have sworn I killed you."
"You did," I said.
Damon walked down the stairs slowly, his eyes locked on me. He sensed the change too. He walked into the library, stepping over a broken book.
"Well, well," Damon smirked, though his eyes were wary. "The Boy Wonder has fangs. I assume you had a supply in your system? Sneaky."
"You snapped my neck, Damon," I said coldly.
"You asked for it," Damon shrugged. "Literally. You were begging for a reaction. Congratulations. You got one."
He stopped in front of me. "So, did you feed? Or are you just a walking corpse waiting to desiccate?"
"I fed," I said.
"Good," Damon said. "Then you know the rules. Don't get caught. Don't eat the locals. And if you make a mess, you clean it up."
He turned to walk away, dismissing me. To him, I was just another baby vampire. A nuisance.
"Damon," I called out.
He stopped, turning his head. "What?"
I didn't speak. I moved.
I channeled every ounce of the new power in my veins. The 500-year-old blood of Pearl acted as a turbocharger for my transition. I wasn't just a newborn; I was a prodigy.
I blurred.
Before Damon could blink, I was in his personal space.
I drove my fist into his jaw.
CRACK.
It sounded like a gunshot.
Damon flew backward. He smashed into the heavy oak desk, flipping over it and crashing into the wall behind it. Pictures fell off the wall.
Stefan stared, stunned.
Damon lay in the debris for a second, groaning. He touched his jaw. It was dislocated.
He snapped it back into place with a sickening pop.
He stood up, spitting blood. He looked at me with pure shock. A newborn shouldn't be able to hit a 160-year-old vampire that hard.
"Pearl's blood," I said simply. "It has a kick."
Damon wiped his mouth. He looked at me, then he started to laugh. It was a dark, impressed laugh.
"Okay," Damon said, dusting off his jacket. "That was a good hit. I deserved that."
"We're even," I said. "Now, we have a problem."
I walked to the window and pulled the heavy velvet curtain aside slightly. The moon was high.
"In about eight hours," I said, "the sun comes up. And I don't have a ring."
[Location: The Salvatore Boarding House – Kitchen] [Time: 10:15 PM]
We held a war council over the kitchen island.
"You're trapped here," Stefan said, leaning against the counter. "Until we get a ring, you can't leave the house during the day."
"I can't just disappear," I argued. "My parents will call the police. The school will call. If I vanish the day after a 'suicide attempt' rumor starts, it looks suspicious."
"So we spin it," Damon said, holding an ice pack to his jaw. "You were in a car accident. Or you got mono. The kissing disease. Very high school."
"I'll text my mom," I said. "I'll tell her I'm staying at a friend's house to study for a few days. I'll say I lost my phone charger so I can't call. It buys me 48 hours. After that... I need to walk in the sun."
"We need a witch," Stefan said. "Bonnie."
The room went silent.
"Sheila just died, Stefan," I said quietly. "Bonnie is grieving. If I go to her now and say, 'Hey, sorry about your Grams, but can you make me a magic ring so I can be a vampire?'... she'll light me on fire."
"She hates us," Stefan agreed. "She blames us for Sheila."
"She blames you," Damon corrected, pointing at Stefan. "She blames me for existing. But Adrian? She likes Adrian."
"She liked Adrian the Human," I said. "I don't know how she feels about Adrian the Vampire."
I paced the kitchen. The hunger was a dull thrum in the back of my mind, manageable but present.
"I have the Lapis Lazuli," I said, tapping my pocket where I kept the ring I had bought weeks ago. "I have the Grimoire. I just need the spellcaster."
"Or," Damon suggested, "you ask your new sugar mommy. Pearl."
I looked at Damon. "Pearl is laying low. If she starts doing magic in town, the Council finds her."
"Then you're stuck," Damon said. "Welcome to the night shift, roomie."
"Roomie?"
"You can't go home," Stefan explained gently. "Not yet. You need to learn control. You need to learn how to be around humans without eating them. If you go home now, you'll kill your parents the first time they cut themselves cooking dinner."
I froze.
The image of my mother, Sarah Cross, bleeding in the kitchen. The smell hitting me. The loss of control.
"You're right," I said, looking at my hands. "I can't go home."
"There's a guest room down the hall," Stefan said. "It has blackout curtains. You stay there. We train you. When you're ready—and when you have a ring—you go back."
"Training montage," Damon muttered. "My favorite."
[Location: The Guest Room] [Time: 3:00 AM]
The room was sparse. A bed, a dresser, and heavy velvet drapes that blocked out the world.
I couldn't sleep. Vampires don't need much sleep, and the adrenaline of the turn was still coursing through me.
I stood in front of the mirror.
I practiced.
Veins out. My face distorted. The predator emerged. Veins in. Just a teenager.
Fangs out. Fangs in.
I focused on my hearing.
I could hear a cricket outside in the grass. I could hear Damon snoring upstairs (he passed out). I could hear Stefan writing in his diary in his room. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
It was overwhelming. The world was too loud.
I closed my eyes and focused on filtering. Block the cricket. Block the fridge hum. Focus on the room.
Silence.
I opened my eyes.
I pulled the Moonstone out of my satchel (which I had brought with me).
I held it up.
"I'm stronger now," I whispered to the stone. "But not strong enough."
To become an Upgraded Original, I needed to die again. But not as a human. As a vampire. The spell required the subject to drink the serum and then be killed.
But that was years away.
For now, I had to survive High School as a creature of the night.
My phone buzzed.
Text from Mom: Okay honey. Study hard! See you Friday. Love you.
I felt a pang of guilt. I was lying to them. I was effectively dead to them, even if they didn't know it yet.
I put the phone away.
I needed to secure the house.
I walked out of the room and went to the library.
I found the Grimoire on the table where they had left it.
I picked it up.
I wasn't a witch. I couldn't cast spells. But I could read.
I flipped through the pages until I found the Daylight Ring Spell.
Ingredients: 1. Lapis Lazuli. 2. Witch. 3. Sunlight (to bind).
I memorized the page number.
Then I flipped further.
I was looking for something else. Something Pearl had mentioned.
The Device.
Jonathan Gilbert's inventions were often enchanted by Emily Bennett. The Compass. The Ring. The Device.
I found a page with a sketch of the Gilbert Watch.
Spell: Aetheric Resonance. Function: Detection of Dark Energy.
But there was a footnote in the margin, written in a different hand.
Reversal: Can be overloaded to incapacitate.
This was the weapon John Gilbert would use on Founder's Day. The weapon that would drop every vampire in town—including me now.
I needed to make sure that weapon didn't work on me.
Or... I needed to make sure I wasn't there when it went off.
I closed the book.
"One crisis at a time," I muttered. "First, the Ring. Then, the Council."
[Location: The Boarding House – Exterior Porch] [Time: 7:00 AM]
I stood in the doorway, staying deep in the shadows of the hall.
The sun was coming up.
A beam of light hit the floorboards of the porch, inching closer to the threshold.
I extended my hand.
I let my fingertips touch the sunlight.
Ssssss.
Smoke rose instantly. My skin blistered and blackened. The pain was sharp, immediate, and terrifying.
I yanked my hand back.
The burn healed in seconds, leaving fresh pink skin.
"Okay," I exhaled. "Vampire weakness confirmed. Sun bad."
Stefan walked up behind me, holding a mug of blood (animal, judging by the smell).
"Breakfast," Stefan said, handing it to me.
I took it. I sniffed it. "Squirrel?"
"Deer," Stefan corrected. "It keeps the edge off. It doesn't make you a killer."
I drank it. It was... bland. Like tofu compared to the steak I had last night. But it silenced the hunger.
"So," I said, wiping my mouth. "I'm under house arrest."
"Damon is going to the school," Stefan said. "He's going to talk to Alaric. Keep him busy."
"And you?"
"I'm going to see Elena," Stefan said. "I have to tell her... something. Not about you. But about the tomb. About the lie."
"Don't tell her I'm a vampire, Stefan," I said quickly.
Stefan looked at me. "Why not? She's your friend."
"Because she's human," I said. "And she's judgmental. If she knows I'm a vampire, she'll look at me differently. She'll look for the monster. I need her to trust me."
Stefan hesitated. "Lying to her is dangerous."
"You lied to her for months," I pointed out. "Just tell her I'm sick. Please."
Stefan sighed. "Fine. You're sick. But eventually, she'll find out."
"Eventually," I agreed. "But not today."
Stefan left.
I was alone in the massive house.
I looked at the sunlight burning the porch.
I couldn't just sit here.
I went to the basement.
I found the Cellar. This was where they kept the bourbon and the blood bags. It was also where they locked up problem vampires.
I found an old workout bench and some rusted weights.
I lay down.
I benched the bar. It had 200lbs on it.
It felt like a toothpick.
I added more weight. All of it. 500lbs.
I pressed it. Up. Down. Up. Down.
Easy. Too easy.
I stood up.
I punched the heavy bag hanging in the corner.
BOOM.
The bag exploded. Sand spilled onto the floor.
"Okay," I whispered. "Physical stats: Maxed out."
But power wasn't just strength. It was influence.
I took out my burner phone.
I texted Anna.
Me: I need a favor. Witch related.
Anna: You're calling in the marker already?
Me: I need a Daylight Ring. I have the stone. I need a caster.
Anna: My mother knows a few freelance witches. It will cost you.
Me: Name the price.
Anna: Blood. Fresh. For my mother.
I looked at the shelf of blood bags in the cellar. Damon's stash.
Me: Done. Meet me at the back of the Boarding House tonight. 10 PM.
I put the phone away.
I was dealing drugs (blood) to buy magic.
The Salaryman was back in business.
[End of Chapter 23]