My mom- my real mom- always said to stay away from hitchhikers. Never imagined that I would ever be that person, but it's hardly the weirdest thing about this whole mess. I suppose living a second life is weird enough on its own, but when you add the complicated layer of the supernatural on top of it? There's no contest.

"You cold, hun?"

Standing outside for hours in the early September night should be mildly chilly, and I fumble with my watch for the umpteenth time. I'm honestly hungrier than anything else, but by now, I'm not far from town.

"No, ma'am."

The elderly woman chuckles, gripping the wheel tighter. "You're blessed with youth, son. These are old bones. I'd have been freezing."

I had a feeling that it could be the middle of winter, and I'd still be fine. It took a strange amount of willpower to not demonstrate why. Can't use up the minimal resources I have.

"Oh, ma'am, I don't think you look old."

Honestly, she doesn't look old. I guess she's in her early fifties, but maybe she'd had work done? I look around the clunker of a car and frown. Probably not that option. She just looks young.

She laughs. "Oh honey, you flatter me. I'm much older than I look."

A tiny twinge of paranoia rushes through me for several seconds. If that fear is justified, what in the hell is she doing driving an old nineties Corolla?

If she is a vampire, the odds of her knowing about me are negligible. But still, I can test it. I study her for a few quick seconds, earrings glimmering in the light. They are a dark stone wrapped in sterling silver, which sets off all my warning signs; it could be a coincidence, but I'm getting closer and closer to Mystic Falls. If real life there is at all like the television show depicts it, then the odds of meeting a vampire is ridiculously high.

I put on a solemn expression. "My mom had earrings like these." I reach up to touch them, brushing the tip of my forefinger against her cheek ever so slightly. Long enough to initiate contact. For that ever so brief moment, I nudge my abilities.

Nothing happens. Nothing from the earrings or from her skin, and I'm so relieved. Truly would have been rude to have to kill her. I'm a little disappointed truthfully; draining magic is ridiculously addicting. The rush of all that power at my fingertips, even if for so brief a moment, is pure intoxication.

My addictive personality was not made for this.

"Oh really?" The woman thankfully does not call me out on the creepy skin contact from her hitchhiker. "What's your mom like?"

Ooh. Loaded question of the day. Do I tell her about the retired Alabama schoolteacher from my old life, or the tarot card reader from Seattle from my new one? Eh, I'll settle for the new one.

"Mom's a basket case. Thinks she's psychic or something." Well, she is, but this woman doesn't need to know that. "Owns a shop, does some palm reading. I couldn't handle the crazy anymore, so I left home." Megan actually is a little weird, but you can't help but get attached to people when you live with them for eighteen years. She's still my mom, just maybe not my actual mom. Reincarnation is weird...

The woman looks at me with compassion. "Oh, sweetheart. That's… I don't know what to say. What about your-"

"Never met him, died when I was two." Probably shouldn't tell that story. "Decided for a huge change of pace, picked a random spot on the map. Virginia seemed good enough." Not true at all, but I'm going to be lying quite a bit. Might as well start crafting that alibi now. My memory is fuzzy, but as far as I remember, Sheriff Forbes is actually not bad at her job.

The woman frowns. "I'm so sorry. I… lost my own father when I was young, to cancer." I nod in sympathy, looking ahead as the woods grew thicker. Any minute now, I expect to see the welcoming sign as I cross the town limits. Wonder if it'll look like the one on the show? "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Logan. And you?"

"Savannah," she says with a compassionate smile. "What's your plan when you get into town?"

I shrug. "Probably check into a hotel." Need to get a job soon. Probably at The Mystic Grill, most likely, for plot impact. "Thought I might see some of the historical sites, enjoy the comet festival later this week." I planned to really enjoy that.

"What about long term plans? College?" the woman asks in earnest. "There are a couple of schools nearby. I wouldn't trade my degree for anything!"

Like Whitmore? Reminds me to look up Professor Shane. Wonder if there's a way to perform Expression as a Siphoner and avoid the nasty side effects? Probably without the ritualistic sacrifice, I suppose.

"I'll definitely look into it." I pause, knowing that she's likely going to ask. "I'm not sure what I would study, but I've heard that… Whitmore, I think, has an Occult Studies program. When I found that out, kinda made me wonder if there's more to what Mom was doing."

I should be a terrible liar, but years and years of practice have crafted something truly special.

Savannah turns toward me briefly, studying my face. "You never know, son. God works in mysterious ways." Right. This is the South. Probably should get used to that again. "But I thin-"

Something smashes into the back right side of the vehicle with a cacophonous sound, and the car flips off the road, spinning through the air. My head smacks hard against the passenger window before I can even think to do anything at all, the same glass shattering as the vehicle lands upside down, smoke billowing from the engine.

Everything is a blur, adrenaline flooding my system. There's an unknown amount of pain coming from somewhere on my lower body, distracting me from any significant ability to focus. I glance toward the driver, terrified of what I'll find.

The grotesque image of Savannah's blood flowing from her neck and dripping over her face, choking to death on her own livelihood, will forever be burned in my memory.

I flip away, fighting away the urge to vomit in all this goddamn chaos. Need to keep a level head. Level head, level head.

The fucking absurdity of high-top Converses stares me in the face through the cracked glass. My brow furrows, all my danger senses flaring, and I'm already draining the magic in the watch.

The vampire's face, the eyes discolored and fangs proudly on display, tips down as she reaches for me with her left arm. Don't know why she isn't bothering with her super speed, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A single word in bastardized Latin snaps her shoulder, twisting it in the most terrifying way possible. She grunts, biting back a scream. Another spell hurls her head toward the ground, then snaps her neck.

Don't know exactly how long it would normally take for a vampire's neck to heal, but the show gives the impression that it's at least a few hours. I should be safe.

'Course, I'm not going to give her that chance.

I shove the deflated airbag away from me, hold one arm to the roof, and then unlatch the seatbelt. I fall painfully, awkwardly, and when I finally get a chance to look at it, my thigh has a distressingly deep gash from a piece of glass.

Goddamn.

I lean against the car to catch my breath, staring at the vampire below. Dark hair, pretty, Asian features. Hello, Annabelle.

Not the first named character I've met before, but it's still weird to see actual characters from the show who happen to look like actors and actresses. An odd uncanny valley-type feeling that prevents them from feeling completley real until you get used to it.

I reach back inside the car to grab my bag, pulling out the kit. Carefully unwrapping two syringes from the pack, I uncap one and lean down toward Anna, ignoring the pain from my bleeding leg. Finding the vein and injecting it within her neck, I take some of her blood into the first syringe, and then carefully eject its contents in the skin around the tear in my jeans.

The wound closes within a few seconds. Any sane person who's aware of how this works would consider this a huge risk, but a person with my abilities? Not even a problem.

I fill up a second syringe and carefully re-cap it, consider the situation briefly, and then fill up a third while I've got her. Can't take any chances, because you never know when it might help to have more on hand. I'd give it to Savannah, but there's no way she's still alive. Wouldn't help, and I wouldn't want to waste this precious resource on trying to help a lost cause. Even if she's such a kind woman who did not deserve this.

That horribly gaudy ring on Anna's finger? I briefly consider taking it, or at least draining the spell fro it. Killing Anna would fix so many, many problems in the first season. However, I am not confident enough that vampire blood still retains its special healing or even turning properties when the vampire dies, and losing that wouldn't be worth it. And once she meets Jeremy, she evens out a lot. Might even be worth trying to keep her alive longer than in canon.

Instead, I reach down and touch her forehead. Red light briefly glows as I top myself off magically. That huge rush of power flows through me, and I bask in its radiance for several seconds before I utter the words of the pesky but useful storage spell. The magic flows into the watch on my wrist until I'm certain that it is at maximum capacity. The metal is… rusting from overuse at this point, but Mom always swore that there aren't very many better conductors for magical energy than a silver-palladium mix. Something to investigate.

I siphon more magic from Anna's vampiric nature until I'm certain that I have enough to last several days without having to drain from the watch. I'm not sure what it is about my nature that prevents me from holding magic of my own, even when I'm not used it, but magic often makes little sense. Siphoners just aren't born with the same mix of technobabble genetics that normal witches have. Honestly, if not for bigger and better goals, I'd off myself right now, wake up as a Heretic and never have to worry about that storage problem ever again.

I consider taking my phone to call it in, but an idea strikes me. I'm counting on Sheriff Forbes to be competent here. I pat Anna down until I find her phone. I raise my free hand and begin the chant to shove her body into the woods with my mind, then frown at such a wanton waste. Well, no reason to not drain her again afterward.

With a telekinetic shove, she rolls down the encampment and into the shrubbery. I keep pushing as I walk along, feeling my reservoir draining away with the effort. I must have moved her three hundred yards by the time I actually stopped, careful to avoid leaving any weird trails in the underbrush that a good cop might happen to notice. A brief but directed gust of wind blows leaves into the path that my footprints made.

Draining her a third time, I call 911 using Anna's phone and drop it on her chest, leaving the call open, and then trek back to the road.

The pointless death of such a nice woman. She possesses actual kindness in this universe, a rare quality that it seems only Bonnie possesses sometimes. I then head through the woods on the other side of the trees in the direction of town, keeping close to the road but deep enough to not be seen.

I find the welcome sign at around the same time the cops go speeding by. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."