Elena took the flashlight, even as her vision started to blur just a bit with the threat of tears. For some reason, maybe it was the fact that she was already scared out of her mind, the whole being compelled thing was hitting her harder than she thought it would. She knew it was always a possibility, but she couldn't think of a reason or what could have happened to make a vampire do that to her. There were no bite marks on her, no signs of any kind of struggle. Her throat burned with the effort to keep it together, knowing it wasn't going to help their situation at all if she stood there crying. Stefan was fine. And they would be fine too, if they could just find a way out.

"Right. Okay, yeah."

She took another second to convince herself that it really was okay, then turned back to the staircase. "Maybe we should just head up." Elena peeked back at Damon to make sure they were on the same page before starting up the stairs, trying to gain her focus back as she did so. She kept the flashlight angled up so they could see a few steps ahead of themselves, but the dark was pretty unnerving.

[to here]