6| Save Her.

 After Elijah chased Damon away, he didn’t go back to the party; he just went straight to his house.

But he was really restless and wondered what those vampires had done to Angel. He wanted to contact Chloe and tell her what had happened to Angel, but he stopped himself from doing so because that would only cause his identity as well as Angel’s to be revealed. 

Driven by curiosity and after giving it so much thought, he decided to go back to the woods and check what had happened there. He took off, and with his vampire speed, he was able to get there in no time.

The sight that greeted him was devastating. Angel was bound to a tree, unconscious, and her wounds refusing to heal.

Immediately he saw the rope that was used to tie her up; he recognized it. It was the sigil rope used mostly by vampire hunters to weaken vampires and make them powerless.

He quickly untied her and tried to wake her up, but her condition was dire. She was very weak, and she needed to feed on blood in order to regain her strength. Not just any blood; she needed human blood.

As Damon was also an animal blood-drinking vampire, killing humans was out of his policy, so there was no way he could go on the streets and kill a human to get the human's blood for her.

He was so confused, and he didn’t know what to do. But first, he knew he had to take her out of that place. The vampires that did that to her might return, and he didn’t want to be put in a situation where he might be killed for intervening.

Driven by the desire to save her, he carried her in his arms and moved her to his house.

She was weak, and if he kept her there without doing anything, she would die. He needed to contact her family and hand her over to them. They might be able to get human blood for her, he thought.

He quickly dialed Chloe’s phone number. He didn’t want to involve her, but he had no other option because he knew nothing about Angel. And Chloe was the only way he could get to her family.

"Chloe, do you know where Angel’s house is?" He asked immediately she picked up the call.

"Angel?" Chloe asked. "Do you know where she is?"

Before he could reply, he suddenly heard a strange voice speak over the phone. "Who are you, and do you know where my daughter is, please?"

That must be her father, he thought and replied. "Yes." 

"Where is she, please?" Jake asked.

He suddenly fell silent. He wasn’t sure what to reply with. What if her parents weren’t vampires? What if Angel was a newly turned vampire living with her human parents? What if they didn’t know her true nature?" He thought.

"Why aren’t you saying anything?" Jake asked, tensed.

"Nothing." Damon replied and cleared his throat. He needed to make sure that her dad knew her true nature. "First, I need to ask you something." He continued. 

"What? And who are you?" Jake asked impatiently.

"Do you know who your daughter really is?" Damon asked. "Like, I want to ask you whether you know what she is."

He didn’t want to say the word out, knowing that if her father knew who she was, he wouldn’t be confused by his question.

…

Immediately after Damon had said that, Jake understood what he was trying to say, so he stepped away from Chloe. He didn’t want her to listen to the conversation.

"Who are you? And what the hell do you know about my daughter?" Jake asked after making sure that Chloe couldn’t hear him.

"You need to calm down." Damon told him. "I am only trying to help save her here."

"Save her? What happened to her?" Jake asked quickly.

"I don’t know who they are, but some vampires attacked her and trapped her to a tree with the sigil rope." Damon explained. "She is unconscious right now, and she needs blood—human blood."

Oh, no. He thought he was free from them after he quit being a vampire hunter. He would hate himself if anything happened to his daughter.

"Please, where are you?" He asked, perturbed.

"If you tell me where your house is, I will bring her to you." Damon offered.

Jake told him the house address, and they ended the call. He returned to where Emily and Chloe were standing afterwards.

"Is she okay? What happened?" Emily quickly asked.

"I would explain it to you on our way home." He said, then flicked his gaze at Chloe and handed her her phone.

"Is Angel okay?" Chloe asked, concerned.

"Yes." Jake sighed. "We should get going; we would drop you off at home."

Without wasting time, they departed from Jame’s house and made a quick stop at Chloe’s residence, ensuring her safety, before resuming their journey to their house. En route, Jake explained everything that Damon told him to his wife, and she panicked.

On getting home, they saw Angel lying unconscious on the living room floor. Standing beside her was a stranger, whom they believed to be Damon.

Taylor was also in the living room, staring at his unconscious sister with tears streaming down his cheeks.

"He wouldn’t let me go close to her." Taylor cried immediately after he sighted Jake and Emily. "What happened to her? Why does she look so pale? Why is she unconscious?"

"You were supposed to be sleeping," Emily said as she rushed to him.

"Yes, I was sleeping when I heard the door banging. And when I woke up, I realized that no one was inside the house, so I proceeded to go and open the door." He explained. "I was terrified when I saw a total stranger holding Angel, and she was unconscious."

"Take him inside." Jake ordered.

"Okay." Emily said as she grabbed Taylor’s wrist. "Let’s go up, honey; your sister is going to be okay."

Taylor tried to protest at first, but when Jake gave him a frightening glare, he quickly obeyed and followed Emily.

After Emily and Taylor had disappeared from sight, Jake walked up to Damon and asked. "Who did this to her?"

"I don’t know them." Damon said. He went on to explain what transpired between Angel and the vampires in the woods before was ordered to leave and how he went back there to meet her in that state.

Jake didn’t need to ask any further questions. He knew who it was. Elijah! As if turning her away wasn’t enough, he tried to kill her. He was going to pay for what he did, that he would make sure of!

"Okay, thank you very much for the help. I so much appreciate it." He told Damon. "You can leave now."

Damon knew Jake wasn’t one of their kinds, so he warned him. "She needs human blood. And she has to take enough; if not, her first instinct would be to kill; she won’t be able to control herself."

"I know all these things already; you can leave, please; it’s almost sunrise. Thank you." Jake crouched down and carried Angel in his arms, lifting her up.

"Sure." Damon swiftly exited the room as he wondered how Jake and Emily, who were humans, seemed to embrace their daughter’s vampire nature.