The Vampire Diaries: Trinity

Chapter Forty Five: The Birthday

Tennessee

A woman walks outside the house. "Rudy!" She whistles. "Rudy. Come on! It's too hot to make me come looking for you." She bends down and picks up a toy. When she turns around Klaus suddenly appears in front of her.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He says.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, my car hmm, my car ran out of gas a couple of miles back. Eh I feel like I've been walking forever yours is the first house I come to so I was just hoping I could use your phone?"

"Don't you have a cell phone?"

"Huh, yeah." He holds it up. "Battery died. Look I promise I'm not a serial killer I just wanna use your phone."

She sighs. "Sure."

"So." He drags the word out. "I can come in?"

"No, I'll get the phone and I'll bring it out to you."

"I thought you country folks were supposed to be more trusting." He says, annoyed.

"I'm from Florida."

"Well, that explains it." He grabs her throat and compels her. "Now show me a little southern hospitality, sweet pea."

Trinity and Stefan sit in the car. "I don't want to do this." She says.

"You won't have to." Stefan tells her. "I'll do it for you."

She shakes her head. "He's gonna be watching me. He wants to see me do it."

"We've been able to avoid this for months-"

"Exactly! Something's telling me that his patience has run up."

"Trinity-"

"We told him that we would do whatever he asked of us." She says with tears in her eyes. "You know what will happen if we don't."

Stefan looks down and pulls her against him. "I'll help you through this."

"We'll help each other."

"What are you going to do?"

"He want's something brutal. A predator."

Inside the house, another woman is cooking and walks over to the counter with the frying pan. "I bet you a hundred dollars that dog ran off to a house with air conditioning." She turns around and sees her friend and Klaus entering the kitchen. "What's going on?"

"Please don't be alarmed." Klaus tells her. "I was told Ray Sutton lives here."

"He's almost never here. He's on the road mostly."

"But I expect he makes it home, once a month. That's what I thought. Where is he now?" She doesn't answer. "If I have to make you tell me it's going to be infinitely more painful for you. Hmm." He smiles.

The woman runs out of the kitchen and opens the door but Stefan is in the doorway. "Aaah!" She screams.

Klaus and the other woman come up behind her. "I love it when they run!" He grins.

The woman gives up. "He's in Toll. It's near the border. A bar called Southern Comfort, it's on Highway 41."

"Thank you my love." He pets her friend's hair. "Now, may my friend come in?"

"Yes." She cries. Both of the women look terrified.

He looks at Stefan and pushes the woman into his arms. "Kill this one quickly." He turns to Trinity, who walks into the home in the form of a lioness. He points to the second woman. "And make that one suffer. I'll be in the car." He leaves.