[from here]

Kirk ran into the main hallway and found nothing there except more pink light coating everything. His gut feeling said that if something was happening, it should've happened already, but he was a loss to explain what was going on. The system (if he could call it that, vague as it was to describe the whole Landel's torture/experimentation assembly line) had broken down at least once already, on that night when I.R.I.S. had first(?) appeared, and the whole of the building flickered like a malfunctioning hologram. Was that what the glowing cover was for? To prevent... he didn't know. Something. Something bad enough to warrant a Code Red.

(What had killed that creature?)

Waiting around here was already bad enough on normal nights, what with it being an open space with high traffic, but he'd picked it because it was the quickest and most obvious meeting place for all of them. Now with the whole area lit up like the inside of a strip club, Kirk was starting to feel like a lone piece of meat wrapped in a gold ribbon and tossed out for the wolves. He made a face for a second as he considered the unfortunate implication of mixing those similes, then decided that the dumb thoughts which crossed his mind ranked considerably lower in priority than, you know, paying attention to his surroundings and not getting himself killed.

Kirk swung the lead pipe in his hand once, just to focus, and shook his head as pain rippled out from the still-healing gunshot wound on his right arm. Take it easy, Jim, he admonished himself silently. It was still early in the night. Someone would be along shortly. And if not... he was giving his crew one minute. One minute, and then screw it, he was tracking down everyone himself.

[KIRK TO ENTERPRISE]

Castiel never came to dinner. It should've been a relief, in a way, except if there was only one benefit having his ribs broken, it was that Stefan didn't have to worry about harming his roommate. Stefan spent the time in silence, too restless to nap or eat, pacing a little in the small space between his desk and closet. He didn't consider wandering into Castiel's half even once — doing so would be like admitting that the man wasn't coming back, as irrational as that was.

But his roommate didn't show, and Stefan didn't get a hint about his whereabouts until the intercom piped up again. A few of you were fortunate enough to be selected to help us... Trepidation filled him as he stood before the exit, his knife in hand. What did that mean? Right now, Stefan was probably the only person who could know Castiel had been "selected" — should he find someone who knew him? Leave a note? He knew Castiel had friends, from what he'd read on the bulletin board...

Stefan didn't get long to consider it. He'd scarcely stepped out into the hall when, out of nowhere, alarms blared and a woman's oddly cadenced voice began chanting warnings over and over. The sound rattled uncomfortably in Stefan's finely tuned ears, but his focus was now taken up by the pink light which rushed through the hallway next. Pain, he expected now. Debilitation. Confusion. Danger.

In the stillness which followed, he didn't get any of that. In fact, he felt... Weird was the wrong word for it. Weird, he realized, was what he'd been feeling before. His skin itched under his bandages, and almost without thinking, Stefan unbuttoned the top of his shirt and reached in to peel them off his shoulder, and knew before he did what he would see.

His wounds were completely gone. Torn skin and muscle, bruises and cracked bones. Gone. And not just that. His hearing, his sense of smell, all those little things he'd taken for granted after 145 years of being a superhuman monster... He was himself again.

There was a moment's guilt at the first emotion which Stefan registered. Elation and amazement, close enough to that rush he'd felt after he'd turned, drunk on blood and the power of being a vampire, that he wanted to recoil from himself. But it wouldn't last. It hadn't for Edward. He was likely to go back to being deafened and crippled in the morning... but until then. There was no point to feeling guilty about the plus sides. Lexi had taught him that. It wasn't all a curse.

Stefan smiled and ran, becoming little more than a blur as he sped through the hallways to Elena's room.

[to here]

[from here]

It was nice to be inside of a bathroom, and Ramona took great care to get right to the sink to start washing off her flashlight. The surroundings seemed eerie enough, but most bathrooms had that kind of air to them when it was dark. Thankfully, despite the spread of the guts over her flashlight, all of it came off with little effort, making it usable again. After she got some soap from the dispenser and spread it over the flashlight, anyway.

With it smelling clean and fresh, she turned it back on and checked herself out. The combination of the hair color (blue), the uniform (mostly black), and her hair length (pretty short) made for what might've been a cool Halloween costume outside of a place like this. Or, like she thought before, something to match one of Julie's themes. Then again, it wasn't like she normally bothered with matching those themes too well. A good dress could go a long way, especially with the right boots to go with it. For that reason, it was a little weird to be wearing this right now, but at least, as she just found, she could move easily enough in it. She just doubted the military guys would be keen on make-up anytime soon.

She shrugged, fixed a few hairs that were out of place so they framed her face better, and headed back out.

[back out to here]

Whoa, was that supposed to be normal? Alarms were going off, and the next thing she expected was some dudes coming in with heavy artillery to give her a hard time. This was pretty unusual, and it left Ramona on alert. In a way, she half-expected this to be some point in the story when there was a time limit keeping her on a set restriction. If she didn't beat the clock, she'd be screwed—and that seemed like a likely scenario. But though she idly waved her hand over her head curiously, she didn't find anything there; there was no dissipating clock telling her that if she didn't move fast enough to get out of this joint, she was going to blow up. Or that she had to find the box before the time ran out. Or—well, that was enough scenarios!

But whatever it was, she didn't feel terribly at ease about it. Sure, she wasn't freaking out, palms sweaty with uncertainty as she tried to figure out her next step, but she wasn't exactly raving about this course of events. No one mentioned alarms going off and codes. Was there a code purple, she wondered? Or a code pink? Maybe the overly-ridiculously-sweet-like-candy-corn girl—and man, it'd been a long time since she had some of that, damn Toronto and its lack of addictive orange, yellow, and white colored sweets—just meant this. Maybe this was normal!

But hey, she had to grant it something. It definitely set the "night is different than daytime" mood. There was the air of intensity and the feeling that things were bad. Whoever was in charge of this place definitely knew how to mess with people's heads. It felt like she stepped into ... what was actually a little like her Saturday afternoons recently, minus the ridiculous themed parties. Though Ramona really didn't put it past Julie Powers to decide on a pseudo-militaristic-mental-hospital theme. She just didn't think her apartment could take the redecorating.

Either way, she had done enough dawdling thinking about it. Ramona snatched up the flashlight from the place she was told it was held at, and started out. First off, she had to test her strength, and then—oh, she glanced over at her desk. Well, it wasn't long and ... people could read a lot of Freud into her choice of weapons, but it looked heavy enough. Ramona set the flashlight back down on her bed and moved over to the desk. She stood in front of it curiously before she counted to three and then bent down to pick it up. In fact, it moved too easily, and her eyebrows knit together. Ramona lifted it up over her head, put more weight on one arm than the other, and still—it was fine.

Ramona carelessly dropped the desk back down—well, it wasn't like she had any attachment to it—and she found herself surprised it didn't ... receive any damage. But then again, she figured this place wasn't going to bring people there against their will and then furnish them with things from IKEA. That was way too easy to break. It was just too bad she couldn't drag a desk around with her. That would look formidable if it wasn't going to fall apart, but she didn't want to have a hard time getting through doors.

So, Ramona snatched up her flashlight eagerly and set out. If they were limiting her, maybe they just got rid of subspace and that was that. She could handle that.

[to here]

Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress he'd made had been washed out of his memory.

He tried not to be disturbed by the deja vu, but it wasn't the sort of thing one was in full control of. And yet, his heart didn't race. His nose didn't bleed. His hands were shaking, but with a different tenor than the last time he had concentrated on them. Everything felt still, and whole, and maybe not right, but for the first time in weeks Billy breathed without trouble. There was no weight of a terrified, dying universe crawling over his shoulders and clamoring for attention. He laid there in bed for a long time. Victory. Not his victory, but someone else's, and that was good enough. He hadn't needed to be the one who saved it, he was just doing what he had to. Truthfully, he was glad to have not seen it. There was a lot Billy wished he hadn't seen.

He couldn't bring himself to react much to the fact that he was still here. Billy glanced around a couple times, vision blurred without his glasses, but saw that the room was basically the same. This time lit up, of course, although it didn't help him to gather many precise details. He would have almost said his aimless adventure with Captain Kirk during the night had been a dream, but it was all wrong, thematically speaking. Maybe if Kirk had been a squid dressed in gold lamé, he'd believe it. It really didn't matter what his dreams meant anymore, though.

( Kraken spoiler cut for those who mentioned wanting to read it. )

Any further thoughts were interrupted by a soldier he hadn't noticed entering.

"Get dressed."

Billy stared at the military blues from the night before. Clean and fresh, no sign of any blood, not that he'd been the one injured. There was even a little hat that he had missed the night before. He was going to look ridiculous, he could feel it.

"I think you'll probably find I'm not actually registered here," he tried to tell the guard, who was not impressed by Billy's claim. The soldier wasn't even moved by Billy pointing out that the dog tags didn't have his name on them. (Frederick Aldrich? An eerie coincidence that made Billy quietly comply with demands for a few minutes.) The man spoke in nothing but orders, which were easy to follow when you weren't particularly attached to any final aim. Billy was listless. Flotsam and jetsam. Getting back to London was an eventual goal, but he'd put in a call to someone later, and go back to whatever. His life, he supposed. He was already exasperated by the taciturn and far too serious military man. Once upon a time he would have wanted to gain purchase with him through inoffensive smiles and falsely friendly comments. Today, he could only give the man a tired look and equally brusque answers that didn't hide his irritation. Did he really look young enough to be pressed into a military academy?

He was led down cleaner versions of the hallways he had seen the night before, and into a large cafeteria, basically devoid of anyone beside himself and the assembled guards. Billy uncomfortably found a seat, and took a few seconds to just hide his face in his hands and block everything else out. The tray he had been given was immediately forgotten, just to the side of him, and he blamed his turning stomach on the adrenaline that was still working its way out of his system. It was so fantastically quiet in the large room, he wanted to drown in it. He only peered through his fingers when someone else in powder blue passed close to his table.

[For Castiel.]

[from here]

The room he walked into was larger than he'd expected, but it wasn't hard to guess its purpose, not with the very deliberate arrangement of long red pews. A chapel. Stefan's grip on his knife still didn't relax as he wandered further inside. He'd been in a few churches in his time — what faith in God he'd possessed as a child had waned with too many decades of undead existence, but... call him cliché, he liked Gothic architecture. In his worst moments, he'd enjoyed hunting for victims in church, for the spice of ironic pleasure in knowing they believed themselves to be in a safe house, protected by all those popular fiction vampire deterrents. Save for wooden stakes, fire and the sun, they were all myths. Not that there were any crosses he could see from his cursory glance from the door, or even...

Holy water.

In the dark, the liquid burble of the fountain could've been confused for normal water — or, to the least, one of the less threatening noises in the hospital. You could even convince yourself that the sinister shape rising out of the water was something else from this distance, but Stefan, being able to see in the dark, had no such luxury. Still, the demonic face of the statue barely registered to his mind as he came closer to the fountain. He walked slowly, circling around it, unaware of what he was doing. All of his attention was fixed on the liquid churning in the fountain. Black, blacker than water should've been in the darkness. A deep red flooded the whites of Stefan's eyes. His gums itched. The scent of blood — human blood — hung so heavily in the air around him, he could hardly breathe.

Of course he could tell. Damon might joke that his taste buds had shriveled up after so many years of his diet, but it might as well have been the difference between white wine and vinegar. Human blood and animal blood. And it hadn't been so long either since the last time he'd had a taste of the former, fresh from the vein...

...but he couldn't do it again. Never, no matter how desperate he was. He was starving, yes, four nights and counting, but if he started it up now, under these conditions... There was no guarantee he could reclaim himself again. And he thought of his brother, trying to scheme his way out for all of them, and of Elena, putting on a brave face for their sakes, and of adding another burden on their shoulders. Stefan slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, which helped just enough to let him turn his face away.

Keep fighting.

Stefan spun around, almost faster than humanly possible, and ran.

[to here]

[from here]

The first difference Kurogane noted in comparing this hallway with its lower counterpart was how open it appeared. The usual walls of the Sun Room were absent, replaced with new hallways bordering a railing that overlooked the Sun Room - another area that he had made a point of avoiding after one too many incidents. Above that opening the dim glow of the night sky filtered through the windows, improving the visibility enough to see that no other patients were around. Their absence furthered the feeling of openness and set the ninja even more on edge than he'd been upon entering the hall. He was so used to the enclosed spaces and shadows of the lower floor that made movement easy. This hallway had nothing of that, and created too much vulnerability.

Moving more cautiously, the ninja kept his weapon ready, concealed beneath his cloak as he turned down the first of the hallways. Out of his peripheral view he spotted the Chapel doors positioned behind the back railing and moved for them as he kept a watch on the open hallway and the area over the Sun Room. He didn't know what was in the below room, but he knew something usually took up residence there, and couldn't overlook the possibility that it might move at him.

[gone here]

[ from here ]

The hallway in front of them did not seem much different from those downstairs, or the one which he had followed last night - there were more doors, in different locations, but the corridor itself had no real identifying characteristics, nothing that marked it as different from any other place in this facility. Sesshoumaru was growing thoroughly sick of the sight of blank white walls, the stinging scent of the disinfectant, the artificially smooth everything.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly in frustration, but he was working to find his way back to freedom, which was all that mattered for now.

The first doorknob, as with last night, smelled of rust and seemed weak, breakable. And so he broke it, as he had last night. Poison dripped along the weak metal, aiding in the corrosion - though not like it might once have. He paused for a moment, clenching his fist to keep his hand from shaking with the effort that it had cost him, and then pushed the door open.

[from here]

Snow reached the top of the stairs within moments. This was the part where he was supposed to start raising hell and kicking in doors. If he had still been as infuriated as he had been when first leaving his room, he probably would have done that immediately. Right now, there was a slight delay. Maybe it was just an after effect of... the thing he wasn't thinking about, but he found himself being slightly more self-conscious right now. Or at least a little more aware of his surroundings.

There were two generally irrelevant issues at hand here. One was that the upstairs split off in several different directions, and he'd have to pick one first before he got started. That one didn't much matter since he was probably going to be searching every place possible anyway, so who cared which way he started from? And two was that he was pretty damn sure there were guards patrolling the upstairs. This is where they kept things hidden, right? So there had to be guards. Right now, he was kinda hoping there were. He could really, really use the catharsis.

...Though maybe he should be trying to get some information out of whatever guards he found rather than using them as punching bags, but meh.

So Snow only took a few steps away from the stairs before stopping entirely, crouched forward slightly and ready for an attack. He was listening for the sounds of footsteps or conversation. Something that indicated where soldiers might be wandering around.

Come on. He knows you're there. Don't hide. Bring it on. He wanted it. Just give him one damn excuse.

[Nataliaaa]

[from here]

The confusion had fizzled out his anger momentarily. But that didn't make him any less determined to press forward. If anything, Snow was treating it like a random lapse of concentration and was plenty ready to forget about it. Which was pretty damn easy once he got himself focused on a particular subject.

He ran up the stairs (the completely pitch black stairs) with a renewed fervor, taking them two at a time as he went along. How he didn't miss, trip, fall, and break his neck was anyone's guess. Call it the power of love. Call it the power of a hero's heart.

...Or call it the power of idiot luck. Whichever.

[to here]

[ from here ]

Sesshoumaru had not been in the building for nearly long enough to really know it, and his knowledge had not been expanded yesterday as it might otherwise have been, because of the poisons that had been fed into his system - poisons that somehow worked, which had been a disconcerting and unpleasant experience. In the end, though, all it meant was that he had one more person to kill - whoever it was who had invented the poison capable of subduing him.

He either avoided or ignored the memory of last night, of Niikura telling him he might as well be a human now. Avoided thinking of how weak he had become.

Sesshoumaru absently flexed his fingers, and felt his poison began to pump. If he was not still immune to toxins, surely his own venom would burn him, sear his veins and his hands, but it did not appear to have any more affect on him than it had ever. Just like always, the poison might as well have been blood, or water, for all the harm it did to him personally. This was not a double-edged sword. It was designed to harm others, not the wielder.

A thread of sweetness curled through the bite of the cleaner as Sesshoumaru stood for a moment, his claws becoming saturated with their natural poison. In any case, claiming that he was - that he could be - so weak as that was ridiculous. He was Sesshoumaru.

[ for Terra ]

((From here.))

As he stealthily moved through the hall, Spock noted that it was quiet and dark. He didn't detect other patients, nor any hostile lifeforms. Perhaps the rest of the way leading to Dr. McCoy's quarters was in a similar state.

Regardless, it was best to move as quickly as possible. The early portions of the shift tended to be the quietest, which meant Spock needed to take advantage of the still hallways while he could. He hadn't forgotten about the military's cryptic message, or the unusual silence toward the end of their meal period. It was possible something would interrupt their plans later, which made time of the essence. If they were caught in the middle of a meld, the results could be disastrous.

Walking at a brisk pace, Spock allowed his light to illuminate his immediate path and continued ahead.

((To here.))

For some reason, the way that lights out came about was downright unsettling. He was used to a voice coming on to acknowledge that the day was over. Of course, his memories of this time of the day were all pretty fuzzy, seeing how it was right around now -- after dark -- that it all got really strange. In the day he could at least understand that he'd simply been talking nonsense, but it was in the nighttime hours that his insanity was even harder to believe.

As the lights shut off, Michael sucked in a breath. Nothing was going to happen. He could just move from his desk over to his bed and everything would be --

Click.

For a moment, he wondered if he'd imagined it. It had to all be in his head. He swiveled in his chair and stared at the door, as if waiting for it to swing open on its own. He shook his head. "No, it isn't--"

But before long Stefan had gathered his things (including that knife) and headed straight through the door as if it was completely normal, leaving Michael to sit there and fight with his instincts. It didn't help that he didn't know what was the stronger urge -- to forget what he'd just seen and sleep the night away, or to look into this and get a lay of the land once and for all.

It was possible that he was hallcinating right here and now, but it all felt so real. More than that, he still felt like himself. It wasn't as if he was starting to believe all of that stuff about the Apocalypse and Lucifer and the Horsemen again. No, he was Michael and he was still seeing this, so maybe some of what he'd experienced the past week was real. Maybe the hallways had been open to them (for what reason, he couldn't understand) and it was just the monsters and coliseum fights that were fake.

Either way, when it came down to it Michael was a detective and his curiosity wasn't something he could fight off so easily. Eventually he stood from his chair, arms tensed as he went looking for the flashlight in his drawer. There it was. He flicked it on and was about to head out the door when--

He paused, remembering Stefan's knife, and glanced over his shoulder. There was no way he'd actually taken those drugs last night, was there? That had to all have been one huge delusion, and yet he realized that he didn't feel safe stepping out of the door without some sort of weapon on hand. Not for possible monsters, though; what if some crazed patient attacked him?

The man heaved out a sigh and then walked over to his bed, bending down to find that there was a metal box hidden under it. His eyes widened as he reached out to drag it into the middle of the floor and after a moment's hesitation, he opened it.

Pointing his flashlight beam down into it, Michael saw that it was as he'd half-expected: a short blade was sitting there, the shape somehow familiar. He tried to shove that thought away, grabbing for it and then closing his eyes as he realized that it felt right in his hand.

"No," he snarled. "No, no." But even though he was rejecting the feeling, he wasn't stupid enough to leave it behind. Michael stood, blade in one hand and flashlight in the other, and then turned toward the door. It was now or never, and after taking a deep breath he strode toward the door, then through it, then down the hall. He tried not to think about how routine it all seemed.

[To here.]

The dinner announcement came as something utterly unexpected. Rather than Harrington's excited tones, the calm accented voice of the General drifted through the intercom speakers.

"Code 1-8. I repeat: Code 1-8. All personnel are to report to your stations. No exceptions."

The intercom clicked off, leaving no explanation behind. The staff appeared to take the words to heart, however, as evident by their thin-lipped faces and snappy tones to the slower patients. They were in an obvious hurry to get everyone back to their rooms.

For what cause, they refused to divulged.

[ Those participating in the forced drug trials, please ensure to read this lounge post before posting to dinner. Thanks! ]

She still hated experimental psychologists. Whether they lied or not, they only cared about results, and not the people that were their test subjects. Aguilar was just like the ones who'd created her -- if he really wanted results, he'd tell them what he expected. Not what to do;only the worst commanders had no use for initiative, and that was because a pants-wetting recruit could out-strategize them.

There was still a gaping hole somewhere about there, she thought, pressing her hand to her torso. Right in her middle, and it had nothing to do with her metabolism. They'd tried to rip her heart out, not once, but twice, and she didn't know why! She took a deep breath. It didn't make any sense, if they were trying to run this like a cell-culture lab, with subjects that didn't have feelings. If they didn't have feelings they couldn't be hurt, but then trying would be worthless.

Did the visitors give them something they couldn't do alone? They were isolated, but even in hard vacuum word spread.

She packed in the dark, quiet and determined. There wasn't much to bring. She wore the claw, and strapped the throwing star to her arm again. The materia went in a pocket, rather than her bag, and that was all. Travel light, travel fast, and hope that her companions would do so too.

[to here]

Varying opinions aside about the new caretakers, the efficiency of the military was worthy of some admiration. The Great Escape ended with minutes to spare, and the staff wasted no time in dismantling the equipment in the Sun Room. Visitors were kindly informed that visiting hours were over while patients were ushered to their rooms.

By the time the intercom clicked to life, most of the tasks had already been completed.

It was a male's voice that came on the speakers this round, one mild in temperament and laced with a modest Western accent. Only a handful were lucky enough to recognize the newcomer (as they likely could not forget his disciplinary measures back in Doyleton); the rest likely could not place his identity. Fortunately, he seemed willing to provide it for everyone's benefit.

"This is Nurse Harrington, filling in for Dr. Landel. Unfortunately, Dr. Landel is currently occupied with business and will not be seeing everyone off this evening," he spoke smoothly. "Anyhoo, we'd like to thank our family and friends for making it out here today. I would also like to commend everyone for being on their best behavior. Your continued efforts help make everyday in Landel's a day worth smiling about." The man paused, allowing the full impact of the statement to sink in.

"For tonight, we'll be having steak and fries with a slice of cheesecake for dessert. If you're not the meat type of person, there'll be vegetarian alternatives available upon request.

"'Enjoy your food and have a good sleep.'" With that pleasant end, the intercom turned off.

[ As a reminder, only patients with A or S Ranks get the delicious food. B Rank and lower still get the pink gruel. ]

Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't very familiar with Earth technology, she'd seen the little devices in the Music Room that could play recordings of people's voices. This had to be something like that.

It wasn't long before Anise was escorted to the Cafeteria, and then to the section where edible food was being served. As she filled her plate with waffles, fruit, and sausages, she looked to the other side of the counter with a look of sympathy. It was hard to enjoy her own meals while knowing what the other patients had to suffer through.

She wasn't about to refuse her meals just out of guilt, though. Anise needed her strength for tonight. There was still a bit of a nervous twist in her stomach whenever she thought about what could happen down in the basement... but she wasn't going to back down. Not after promising her friends they'd go together.

With her tray in hand, Anise seated herself at an empty table in the middle of the room. She preferred to have company while eating, but it looked like she was one of the first patients there, so there was no one to sit with. Maybe if she minded her manners and tried to look her cutest, she'd attract someone handsome! Holding her utensils delicately, she began to cut her waffles into smaller pieces.

[For Battler.]

[from here]

Finally. The kitchen. Crowded as the room before, and just as dark. Stefan didn't bother experimenting with the light switch before stepping inside and searching again for some unnatural shadow or the scurry of bloody paws between the counters. Of course, if these hypothetical kitchen monsters were anything like the giant squirrel, they'd wait for them to start rummaging through all the drawers before jumping out to sink their teeth into them.

And there remained the question of Rose. He didn't know what it was that made him reluctant to discuss her. That brief moment of vulnerability when she realized they had no memory of her, maybe, or the long-suffering fondness in her voice when she spoke of Damon, the way Elena sometimes spoke of Damon. He didn't know. You shouldn't be so trusting, Stefan, she'd said. It was irrational, wasn't it, to feel the urge to protect her from his brother? Old habits were hard to break. Harder yet was knowing that if it came down a choice between Rose and Damon, there would be no choice at all.

"She said she was an old friend of Lexi's, and also mentioned someone named Elijah — a vampire, I guess. I did most of the talking," Stefan admitted. There had been too much to cover from his side, and he hadn't thought to pry for more details about what had happened in Mystic Falls. Rose did know something, but... he trusted Alaric better as a source. "I warned her about what we're up against here. She promised to be careful about... not putting us in further danger of exposure."

[from here]

The door clicked shut behind them. The room fell into darkness without the moonlight and it took a split second for his eyes to adjust again.

Not that being able to see led to any grand revelations. Cash register, trays, glass-covered cases—empty. So sparkling clean, it could've been a daytime commercial aimed at housewives and soccer moms. He flicked the light switch by the wall a couple of times, experimenting. Nothing. That fridge last night, though—that fridge had been up and running. What, did they keep two separate power sources just so they could shut the lights off while keeping the food nice and fresh?

The amount of effort put into this setup was what kept getting to him the most. Seriously, was there a point to it? Did these people not understand the meaning of efficiency? Because it was getting beyond ridiculous.

He went around the counter and made his way towards the door behind it.

"By the way," he said. "Our new non-Cullen vampire in town—though she has the hair. You met her this morning." It wasn't a question. The actual question—What did she say to you?—was left unspoken. He didn't expect she'd have said anything different to Stefan, but he wanted to bring her up. They hadn't had the chance to talk about her earlier and considering she knew more about them and their future than vice versa, she wasn't a topic to put on a permanent back-burner. People who knew more than he did was one thing; people who knew more about himself than he did was another entirely.

[from here]

Stefan's hand lingered on the handle as he peered warily through the slat of glass in the door, but there wasn't much to be seen on the patio except snow (and it was definitely a patio, from the ghostly shapes of snow-covered chairs and tables). They might be headed in the right direction, then, assuming anything in this place was laid out logically. He glanced back at Damon before wordlessly pushing his way outside.

The door came up against several inches of soft snow, but slid open without much resistance. Unlocked, unlike most doors he'd encountered at night. Stefan held it open for his brother and looked up at the sky, searching for the light of the moon. It was just as well that he wasn't technically alive, because the snowfall didn't seem to have stopped since this morning and his breath was coming out in visible puffs. He hoped their weakened states didn't also translate into a susceptibility to human colds, as he could imagine Damon wanting to rip out the nearest beating heart if he started sneezing tomorrow morning.

"A place to eat probably means there's a place to prepare food nearby," Stefan commented. He scanned their immediate surroundings a little more closely, and spotted another door a short distance away, along the same wall. "There..." And the dark shape of another, on the other end of the patio. "Or there." The first led back into the building — their most likely candidate if they were in search of a kitchen area — but the tower on the other side looked ominously important.