"Alright then — tomorrow let's pick a place and decide for sure whether to open the grave," Ron Mills said after a moment's thought. "Even if we decide to open it, there's a lot we still need: spellbooks — which you probably haven't found yet — and a witch. Right now in Mystic Falls there's probably only Bonnie left who fits that role, and we'll need her consent."
"Ron, where's Damon?" Stefan asked at that moment.
"Damon? Didn't he leave yesterday? I was wondering why you were still here. I gave you more than enough time to leave," Ron replied with a trace of mockery.
"Sorry, Ron. With other vampires in town now, you know I couldn't just leave Elena here and be at ease." Stefan sounded apologetic but his words made it clear he already suspected Damon was in Ron's custody.
"Let's not get into that now. Meet at the bar tomorrow. Seven o'clock. Bring all your people — every last one. If I find out you lied to me later, believe me: you and your mother won't be walking out of Mystic Falls." Ron said the time casually, then turned to Anna with a warning.
"Okay. I will," Anna answered.
"Alright, it's getting late. Elena, tell Bonnie for me. I have to go." Ron rose to leave.
"Ron — you really don't know where Damon went? He came back with me; if you don't know, we should look. I don't want to think he's off somewhere doing something bad," Elena said, fishing for information with a weak excuse.
"I'm not wasting time hunting him down. If I see him, he's finished. As for what he's done… besides killing Sarah when he came after me, the others — Zack, Tanner, Vicki — I've barely spoken more than three sentences to them. Why should you care? What's it to me?" Ron snapped, looking at the group who clearly expected him to report on Damon.
"Enough. This masquerade ball is totally not my style anyway. I'm going home to rest." Ron, seeing the two of them fall silent, left without another word.
After leaving the ball, Ron drove straight to his cabin. A fresh batch of vervain had just arrived, and he needed to prepare more weapons — dealing with twenty-seven vampires wasn't a small task.
"You know what? We might have found a way to open the grave. And we're planning to open it." Ron entered the cabin to find Damon. Though weakened from lack of blood, and after having been dosed with vervain, Damon was more lucid than before.
"You're feeling charitable now?" Damon gave Ron a dubious look.
"Anna — do you know her?" Ron baited Damon. "She said her mother is trapped in the grave. The method to open it came from her."
"If Bonnie agrees tomorrow, I'll probably go along with opening it to get her mother out," Damon said. "You went to see Bonnie already, didn't you? You were trying to smooth things over with her when you captured me."
"Impossible. Stefan wouldn't let you open the grave. And opening it doesn't seem to benefit you in any way," Damon said, skeptical that Stefan would consent to Ron's plan.
"Maybe. But if Anna agrees to me, she'll give up the other twenty-six vampires besides her mother. Do you think I'm going to pass up the perfect opportunity to fix this massive problem?" Ron said with cruel relish.
"No. You can't hurt Katherine." Damon shouted the moment Ron mentioned it.
"Don't worry — after we deal with those vampires you'll be dried out anyway. I'll send you into the grave to be with Katherine. Whether she's alive or dead then, I can't promise." Ron said, and then gave Damon another shot of vervain.
Ron processed the newly arrived vervain and unboxed a small crossbow he'd ordered online a few days earlier when he decided a crossbow was better for stealth attacks.
He tested the crossbow and found it surprisingly accurate — it was a compact custom model built for small bolts. The bolts had been soaked in a concentrated vervain solution so when they penetrated a vampire the vervain would take effect. The small bolts were hard to pull out, and with vervain soaked in they could drop a vampire with a single strike.
Ron packed away the crossbow, soaked a supply of bolts in the vervain concentrate, and, satisfied with his preparations, went to the cabin to sleep.
The agreed time the next day came around quickly. Ron drove to the bar.
"Hi, Bonnie." He spotted her sitting alone as soon as he walked in.
"Hi Ron — you made it." Bonnie waved.
"Are we really going to open it?" Bonnie asked the moment Ron sat down. Considering there were twenty-seven vampires locked away, her fear was understandable.
"We'll see after we talk it through," Ron said, nodding subtly toward his ear and signaling they'd speak privately later.
"Okay." Bonnie nodded in understanding and didn't press further.
Not long after, Stefan walked in with Elena and Caroline.
"Caroline — what are you doing here?" Ron asked Caroline, but his eyes were on Stefan.
"I wanted to come. Bonnie and Elena are here — there's no way I'd miss it," Caroline explained.
"Since you dragged them into this, you'll take care of them," Ron said to Elena and Stefan, the unspoken message being that if Caroline got hurt, Ron would hold them accountable.
There was no point trying to dissuade Caroline — Ron knew their relationship was over and she had brought friends along to take the risk. Who was he to stop her?
As they were talking, Anna arrived with someone else.
"Ben?" Bonnie was surprised.
"Looks like he's the backup you were planning to use if Bonnie agreed to act," Ron said, understanding immediately.
"Yes. I had Ben approach Bonnie beforehand to understand how to get her to agree to break the seal," Anna admitted directly.
"Alright, let's start. Here's the situation — we'll discuss questions or conditions, then vote on whether to open the grave," Ron explained the plan.
"I won't waste time with speeches. I'll say my terms and conditions straight away. There are over twenty vampires in that grave. If we leave them sealed, there won't be an immediate danger, but there will be long-term consequences: vampires deprived of blood suffer and don't die — if they break out unpredictably later, it'll be a disaster." Ron spoke his mind plainly.
"So I think opening the grave is acceptable, but I have three conditions: one, only your mother gets rescued from the grave; two, when I go in I'll personally kill the remaining twenty-six vampires to eliminate future risk; three, after you come out you and your people may not kill ordinary humans for blood — I don't ask you to be like Stefan, but you must only feed from hospital blood bags. Any questions or other demands, speak now." Ron listed his conditions.
"If we find Emily's spellbook, I need to take it. Emily is my ancestor; it's rightful to return it to its owner," Bonnie said.
"That's fine — I'll agree," Ron responded immediately. The others didn't object: a spellbook wasn't that useful to most of them, and Ron's fists made it impractical to protest.
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