Wes was surprised to see her.

"Maribel," he said, blinking several times to make sure it was her. It appeared he'd sustained a small head injury when Jesse made his escape.

"You're going to answer my questions and you're going to answer them honestly," she said angrily. "Or I'll make you watch as I destroy every last piece of your work... before I hand you over to the vampires so they can decide what to do with you."

"You're unhappy," he noticed, as if this was a surprise to him.

"You have been on my ass about morality and honesty in research for as long as I can remember. The whole time, you're performing illegal and secret experiments on vampires? What the hell is wrong with you?"

She forced him to sit down, grabbing a scalpel and holding it out threateningly. "Do you know why Caroline is a vampire? She was turned by an evil five-hundred-year-old bitch who wanted to use her as a sacrifice. She never asked for this, but she's made the best of it. Want to know why Elena is a vampire? An evil thousand-year-old vampire caused her to sustain a cerebral hemorrhage. My idiot sister gave her vampire blood without her consent and because of her being linked to my sister's ex— who was also turned into a vampire against his will— said thousand-year-old vampire's sister ran her car off a bridge and left her to drown. She has tried so hard not to hurt people and admittedly, she went off the deep end for a while, but she lost everything so I don't even fully blame her for it. Both she and Caroline are just trying to lead normal lives because they have put up with what was forced on them."

She held out the scalpel. "There are severe ethical guidelines when you perform any kind of research. There are standards you observe with cells, with mice, with people. And you've violated all of it. All of it. What kind of doctor are you? What kind of researcher are you? You are cruel and I can't believe I ever trusted you."

"You're wrong, Maribel," he said, shaking his head. "I've violated nothing. Vampires aren't people."

"There are rotten vampires out there, but nobody deserves to be kept prisoner and experimented on. What about Jesse? Jesse was innocent. He's never killed anyone in his life, and you forced him to become a vampire. You don't get to play God and decide who lives or dies. You don't get to decide to end a person's life like that. It is not your place, it is not your choice. None of these kids had a choice! And that is immoral, that is unethical, even by non-supernatural standards. Do no harm. But from what I'm seeing, you've done plenty of harm. You are a liar and a cheat and you don't deserve your research money, you don't deserve this lab, you don't deserve anything."

The door opened behind her, revealing Damon had arrived. "You struck me as a kinky bastard, so," Damon held up some ropes. "Time to be restrained."

Maribel stepped back, allowing Damon to tie him up. She seated herself on one of the lab benches, allowing Damon to take his turn with the questioning.

"What do you want?" asked Wes, staring at Damon boredly.

"What I want," said Damon, venturing to a nearby refrigerator, "is to be drinking copious quantities of booze and making out with my girlfriend, but unfortunately, I can't do that until I get a bunch of answers out of you." He opened the refrigerator door and withdrew a tray of vials. "Whoa!"

Wes tried to reach out, "Careful with those!"

Damon feigned innocence. "These?" He held up the tray as if he was going to drop it. "These, right here? What? I mean, we're on a college campus, right? Full of students? I mean, I can't imagine an M.D. with a bunch of infectious diseases just lying around."

"M.D., Ph.D," corrected Wes sharply. "I'm a researcher."

"That explains it," said Damon. "I know a lot of people like you. Science over medicine, right? Let me guess. You use these," he directed his attention to the vials, n your little vampire lab rats, don'tcha?" Wes didn't reply. "Not in the mood to talk? Fair enough." He plucked up one of the vials, "We're going to play a little game, where I inject you with whatever the hell 'necrotizing fasciitis' is."

"Flesh-eating bacteria," said Maribel.

Damon scrunched up his nose. "Gross. So, I'm going to do that and I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions, and if you answer me correctly, I'm going to give you some of my delicious vampire blood and we'll heal you on up. If you don't answer me correctly, we're just gonna have to see how much flesh these little guys can eat."

Wes let out a yelp as Damon injected him with the vial.

"Give it a second to start kicking in," recommended Maribel.

Damon wagged a finger at her. "I knew you were a secret sadist, Baby Fell, just like your sister."

"Shut up," she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't like being lied to and I don't like finding out that my research partner was conducting illicit experiments on his ward's roommate. Jesse trusted you, too. And now thanks to you, he's not going to have a normal life ever again."

"Research partner?" said Wes dryly. "Flattering."

"Oh yeah, I forget," she replied tightly, "you always thought be your subordinate. Even though I did so much of the work, even though I helped you discover so many things in your other projects, I don't get the title of partner, do I?"

"You don't have an M.D. or a Ph.D. yet, Maribel."

"I am still the reason behind your success with your tracer trials, the reason why you've been able to find cures for some of your patients... I'm the one staying up late doing the reading, I'm the one doing the wet lab work."

"That's what you do as a Master's student. You have no right to complain until you get a proper title."

"Ouch," said Damon when he saw Maribel scoffing and turning away. "So this is what research couples fight about?"

"That's enough time," said Maribel, waving her hand dismissively. "Ask him whatever you're going to ask him."

Damon leaned over Wes, who was starting to sweat. "Turning a kid into a vampire so you can experiment on him? Harsh. What is it about this place that turns people into mad scientists?"

"Human trials are a vital part of modern medicine," said Wes simply.

"Except they aren't humans, are they?" asked Maribel. "A second ago you didn't consider them people. You'd never do this with humans, you piece of—"

"Ah, ah, ah—" Damon shushed her. "Your turn is up, Beli. Back to you." He eyed Dr. Maxfield. "If they are such a vital part of modern medicine, then riddle me this: isn't this the kind of thing where people volunteer or sign waivers? Maybe get some dough for tuition?"

He stepped back to look through the vials again. Wes panted, "Sometimes you do what's necessary for the greater good."

Damon snorted. "I'm not the greatest guy in the world, but sounds like some Mengele-level crap that you're spouting out. So I gotta ask, what is your greater good?" He showed him the vial. "Rabies. Sounds fun, doesn't it? And appropriate, given the circumstances."

Wes cried out again when Damon injected him.

"Good luck getting a reaction out of that one," said Maribel. "The point is to cure him of one before you inject the other. He's in more pain from the previous injection, this will be nothing more for him."

"Well, then, rabies was a bust," said Damon, throwing away the needle. "I guess I'll find something a little more immediate."

"Are you deaf?" said Maribel. "Cure him first so he feels the full effect of it."

"You're not doing the questioning here, Baby Fell, calm down."

Wes decided to start talking, "I wanted to turn Jesse into a new kind of vampire." He looked at Maribel. "That's where I used your research."

If she were a cartoon character, steam would have been blowing out of her ears. "You did what?!"

"You were looking at CRISPRoff, long term repression of genes. You're working to alter genes and that's what I was trying to do to Jesse. Alter his genes."

"Well, that's awfully ambitious of you," said Damon.

Wes sat up pompously. "I am awfully smart."

Damon held up another vial. "Ebola. Why?"

Wes flinched, leaning back, whimpering as Damon inserted the needle again. "Your kind is dangerous to humans. You're dangerous because we're your food source. I want to change that. If vampires don't need to feed on humans, they're no longer a threat."

The vampire slammed his fist on the nearest table. "I'm not buying the good doctor bit."

"Human blood will only satiate Jesse temporarily until he gets a taste of what he really craves."

"No," said Maribel darkly. "Are you being serious?"

"What is he talking about?" demanding Damon.

Maribel glared at Wes. "You're using my research— without my permission— to turn vampires into cannibals?!"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," said Damon when Wes nodded.

"And once he gets a taste," said Wes, "he won't be able to stop."

Damon flicked out his phone. "I need to call Elena."

While he stepped out, Maribel reached forward to slap Wes across the face. "You thief. First you're all sneaky with your research, you don't even let me come into your lab without you being here because you think I'm going to steal your data or some bullshit like that and the whole time you've been leeching off of my work?"

"It's nothing personal."

"It's completely personal! That is my work you're ripping off and using for your twisted agenda!"

He didn't respond, allowing her to hear as Damon told Elena, "Okay, okay, okay, I won't kill him. Bye."

He walked back in, staring at Wes, knowing he heard it. "Problem is, I know people like you a lot better than you realize. If I let you live, you're just gonna do it again. You're gonna turn another vampire, you're gonna do another experiment. The only way to really handle you is just to snuff you out. You're lucky I don't feel like burying a body." He cut into his wrist, offering it to Wes to heal him.

The door burst open. "What the hell did you do to me?" demanded Jesse as he stormed in.

Damon tried to keep him from attacking Wes outright. "Easy there, killer."

Jesse continued, spitting in his face, "Wasn't bad enough that you locked me up and poked me full of needles? Now I want to feed on the girl I like?"

"You feed on monsters, Jesse," said Wes, nodding to Damon's cut hand so Jesse could see it.

As soon as he noticed it, Maribel took several steps back. Veins rose under Jesse's eyes, and he lunged at Damon, who simply held him by the throat.

"In case Professor Forbes forgot to tell you in your training, sweetie," said Damon, "I'm a lot older than you, and that means I'm a lot stronger than you."

"Actually," said Wes softly, "that's not one hundred percent accurate."

Maribel shrieked and dove behind the lab bench as Jesse overpowered Damon, pushing him into a glass cabinet and shattering it. She started to breathe heavily, listening as they fought in the hallway, throwing punches and shoving each other into walls.

"What the hell did they do to you?" Damon asked in a strained voice. Clearly, he wasn't winning the fight.

Jesse snarled, and she heard Damon let out a loud yell. She dared herself to peek around the corner, eyes widening when she saw Jesse was feeding on Damon.

"Damon!" she heard Elena crying out on the other end of the hallway. "Jesse, Jesse let go. Jesse!"

"He's gonna tear my head off," gasped Damon. "Elena, please—"

Maribel heard a loud slicing noise, followed by a thump, then Caroline screaming. "No, no!"

She saw Caroline running up to cradle Jesse's body as he died. "No, Jesse! Jesse, come here. Hold on. Hold on. Just stay with me, please. Jesse, just stay with me, please. No." She glared at Elena. "What did you do?"

"He was gonna kill Damon," Elena tried to explain.

"But we promised that we would help him!"

"She didn't have a choice, alright?" said Damon. "Once he had the taste of vampire blood, there was nothing stopping him. Go ask Dr. Frankenstein. I'll go deal with him."

"Caroline," said Elena. "I'm so sorry, I—"

"Yeah, me too," said Caroline coldly. "Because the Elena that I used to know would have given Jesse a chance."

Though Maribel understood why Caroline was upset, she also understood why Elena reacted the way she did. Truth be told she would have done the same thing, not because she cared about Damon, but because Jesse as a cannibal vampire was a major problem when already latched on and feeding.

"What are you going to do with him?" she asked Damon when they were alone with Wes in the lab again.

"The better question is what are you going to do?"

"Cut off his funding, destroy his data, make sure he can't access my work again. He's just going to make the world more dangerous. I don't want to see him ever again. So... I guess compel him to forget everything and leave the university."

"Will do," said Damon.

She left him to handle it, returning to her apartment and taking a hot bath, trying her best not to cry out of frustration.

"Hi Mar," said Meredith when she called her that evening. "How are you?"

"Hey, Mer," she replied, still in the tub, having just slid over her tray with some grapes to snack on. "I am already hating life."

"Jeez. Are your classes already kicking your ass?"

"It's Wes," she said quietly. "Are you on your break right now?"

"No, I'm driving home already, I took an earlier shift. Danny has a surprise for me. I have time, go on, rant."

She told her everything she could remember, starting from what'd happened with the Monster's Ball. She even mentioned going into Mystic Falls and making the decision to sleep with Silas. Meredith was temporarily excited to hear more, until Maribel told her Silas was now dead.

"Damon's dealing with him now," she finished. "With any luck he'll be gone by morning. Which means I have to take over his lectures until another professor is found to teach the class. And I might get removed as the GSI for the course if that happens, and I just... I am so frustrated. My funding comes from Wes's lab. I have to cut it off after what he's done but I can't allocate that to myself. I'm going to talk to Aaron, I promised I'd never use his Whitmore connections for my benefit but I need this funding and I can't survive without it. I'll see if he can either help me see which PI has enough of a budget to support me as an add-on or I'll see if I can get a grant or something... problem is my entire lab could get shut down without a supervisor and if anyone learned of his research misconduct, I am so fucked. He used my research for this, Mer, he stole my data and my experiments. I guess it proves my research might actually be on the right track if the genetic editing worked on a vampire but still, fuck. If we were going to end in any bad way, I would rather he cheated on me and gave me herpes and chlamydia, not this. Not my research, not what I've been working so hard on. He's never considered me his equal and this just proved it. I didn't care before and I was so stupid..."

"Don't say that, Mar," replied her sister. "You couldn't have predicted this. I still can't even wrap my mind around what you're saying regarding the experiments. Like that is... really next level. I did work with vampire blood, you know that, but stuff like that... I don't think Wes was the only one doing this, Mar. I think there are more people involved. You have to find out who is involved before you pair yourself with a new faculty sponsor. It could go the same way. Might I recommend finding a female PI this time? They tend to value their Grad students better, from my understanding. The men just walk all over you."

"Yeah, trust me, this is my last time working under a male PI. I saw a vampire die today. I-I sat back while Damon tortured him. This isn't what I wanted, this isn't what I asked for. I wanted not to be involved but now I'm involved anyway and I don't know what to think. Maybe I should transfer. Go back to Washington, they know me there, they love me, they begged me to stay there. I have my Masters, I can just go do my Ph.D. under my old mentor and just... be happier. Away from vampires. I know Portland has werewolves but Seattle was always safe for me. It was normal."

"You sound hesitant."

"I like it here. I like being close enough to visit Mom if she needs help or company. Dad wanted me to be here, he knew it was a good school to study in. He was killed by vampires who were angry and bitter and I-I don't know if I should leave, knowing what I do now. If you're right, if there are other people involved, I need to stop this from becoming a big problem. Vampires can be monsters but if my research is going to turn them into cannibals... innocent vampires will die, vampires like Caroline and Elena. And innocent humans could still get caught in the crossfire. I don't think I can transfer yet. If I leave without resolving this, I'll never forgive myself."

"It's okay if you wait a semester to transfer. With any luck, Wes will be gone soon and everything will be normal. Hopefully I'm wrong and no one else was involved."

"Yeah," murmured Maribel. "I'll let you go now, Mer. I'm starting to get wrinkly in this tub. I'll update you tomorrow on what ends up happening."

"Okay, Mar. Take care, please."

"You, too."

She tossed and turned the entire night, having horrible dreams about the awful things Wes had done to Jesse, and who knows how many other vampires.

She tried to have a positive attitude for the following day, preparing her text for Aaron about the funding and holding a post-it with all the passwords she knew to try and delete as much of Wes's data as she could. She found it odd when her phone chimed and his name popped up on the screen.

'Hi Maribel. Can you come by the lab so we can talk? I've made the decision to transfer to a different campus and I wanted to say goodbye.'

Well, it seemed the compulsion had worked. She messaged back that she'd be there soon and walked calmly to the Biology building, wondering where this other campus was. How nearby he'd be, what his plans were. She wasn't sure if Damon had connections to get him to leave or if it was just the compulsion making him do it all on his own, as quick as he could. Given how well-known he was, she didn't doubt new opportunities would come easily for him. That being said, she didn't imagine Whitmore would let him go without a fight.

"Hey," she said when she walked in and saw him packing some boxes filled with equipment. "Your Alma Mater came calling, or something?"

He smiled. "I received a job offer that I couldn't turn down. I wanted a chance to say goodbye and... I'm sorry, for not being more open to furthering this relationship. I wish you well, Maribel."

She tried to be civil, considering he didn't remember everything that transpired the day before. "I wish you well, too. Who am I getting handed off to?"

"Look," he said, holding up a small clipboard. "You can pick for yourself. I outlined faculty members working in genetics and who has access to the equipment you need."

She peered over, but flinched when she saw him lifting his hand, diving backwards just before he could inject her in the throat.

She tried to rush out of the room, but he was quick to pull her back, tossing her on the ground.

"No!" she snarled, kicking and punching to try and get him away. "Leave me alone—"

"Don't kid yourself," he said, seizing her arms and pinning her down. "You aren't as strong as me, Maribel."

She let out a scream, hoping someone was nearby and able to hear her. "Wes, no, no, please—"

She was still squirming too much for him to inject her, which led him to swipe the needle across her collarbone, causing her to shriek as she felt herself begin to bleed. "I'm begging you, please, let me go, please!"

He set the needle and syringe down to smack her across the face, making her cry out in pain. He injected her arm instead, and immediately he started to feel drowsy.

Hoisting her up, he dragged her down a door that she could have sworn had never existed. They wove their way through a dark hallway until they reached another door, which led down some stone stairs, the cracks between them filled with water.

He tossed her down the stairs, presumably to weaken her further.

Though her head hit the ground, she was able to register several cells arranged against the wall. In one of them was Elena Gilbert, unconscious. In the one beside her was Damon, wide awake.

"You wanted to be a vampire sympathizer," said Wes, grabbing Maribel and shoving her into the cell on the other side of Damon. "So I'll treat you like one."