MYSTIC FALLS
Elena Gilbert avoided the restaurant host's patient gaze, trying to think what to say, hyper-aware that he was waiting, one hand on the back of the chair she was to sit in. The Mystics was one of the best fine dining places in Mystic Falls and this kind host had led her to a lovely little window table. An orchid stood sweetly in a vase at the centre of it, and the view of bustling town centre of Mystic Falls was amazing.
To anybody else, it would look like the best table in the place.
To Elena it looked like Russian roulette.
She was quite familiar with the game. It always used to be Russian roulette whenever her step uncle John Gilbert beckoned her over to his easy chair, because there would be no telling whether he meant to hit her or kiss her. It was Russian roulette back when she used to report him to the local cops for battery, because you never knew which ones were in his pocket. It was Russian roulette whenever she had tried to escape him, because it might mean freedom, but it could just as easily mean the horror of being dragged back to him after defying him. It had been Russian roulette when she had helped that FBI agent gather evidence to put John in prison, because it was either the end of her problems or the beginning of worse ones.
Elena was so done with Russian roulette.
"I would like to sit at the back if possible. I want privacy," she said, thanking him profusely and asking to sit in the back. She pointed to a table in the dark corner near the EXIT sign. The host shot her a questioning glance. She gave him a sunny smile. Always best just to smile.
He led her to the gloomier but safer corner.
"This is perfect. Thank you," she said with a little nod. An ultra-polite thanks.
When the waiter came by, Elena gave him her order plus money for the bill and tip all at once. This got her another questioning look. She responded with another sunny smile. What could she say? She was the kind of gal who liked to flee a restaurant with a clear conscience.
A full two years she had been in Mystic Falls with no sign of John's thugs, but you would never relax your guard with John and his thugs.
A friend had once suggested that John was the wrong name for him, because it sounded too pleasant. John Gilbert was the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing—or python in sheep's clothing, as John would likely put it.
John charmed you with his smiles and money and manners, and once you realized he was squeezing the life out of you, it was too late.
John was so powerful that even being in an Arkansas prison couldn't stop his muscular and veiny arm from circling the globe in pursuit of her.
Even dining outside the safety of the house where she had lived and worked these past two years was a gamble, but it was her birthday, dammit! And she was careful, wearing her tinted glasses and taking the gloomy back table.
It was just as she was taking a sip of her expensive chardonnay that she saw Trevor, John's right-hand thug, entered the restaurant and walked up to the host's stand.
She nearly choked on her drink.
She couldn't be sure it was Trevor—she only caught a flash of his face before he turned, but you didn't wait around with a man like Trevor.
You ran.
She put back her tinted glasses and rose from her seat—slowly. Fast movements attracted attention.
She strolled casually toward the back EXIT sign, heading down the dark little hall beyond it, picking up her pace.
She passed a little door set into the wall and continued on, heart racing. It had to be him. Even the way he stood had set off alarm bells, and you had to trust alarm bells. Sometimes alarm bells were your only friends.
She rushed on and saw the EXIT sign at the end of the long, dark hallway. Calm down, she told herself. She would attract attention if she panicked and she couldn't risk it. She slowed, walking along the hallway, heart pounding. She could discern a door at the end, but did people use it? Could it even be opened?
Still she went forward. Sometimes it was all you had left. When she hit the door, she turned the knob and pushed with all her might.
The door gave a titch, then stopped dead. Boarded up on the other side. She rammed it with her shoulder.
No go.
She spun around, overcome with the instinct to freeze in the dark like a rabbit, to be very small.
No. No freezing. Move, move, move.
She pulled her gun from her purse.
Nobody coming.
Maybe it wasn't Trevor out there. Or maybe he hadn't seen her.
But if it was Trevor, and if he had seen her, he would know she was trapped. He would be sitting out there relishing her fear like a twisted connoisseur, enjoying its rich, robust undertones and high notes of hysteria. Trevor had enjoyed mind fucking her almost as much as John had. And if he caught her, he would bring her back to the Richmond and straight to John's prison. For the conjugal visit from hell.
The seconds crept on. She couldn't go back through the restaurant. But she couldn't stay. If somebody turned on the hallway lights, they would see her and raise a fuss.
Elena remembered she had passed a little door. Was it a closet? She could hide in there and call for help. She could defend herself in there.
She crept back down the hall and tried the knob. Open. She slipped in, eased the door shut, and flattened against it. When she turned on her phone light she saw it was a linen closet. Dry storage. She spied the hanging string for an overhead bulb, but she didn't dare pluck it. Light would show through the crack under the door.
She thought Mystic Falls was a safe place but she was not sure right now. She had been located.
Her intuition had been telling her something was wrong these past weeks. And this was a whole lot of wrong.
Two years. Elena had almost been feeling like herself again.
She got up her contacts screen, scrolled to Caroline's image, and hit the call button.
"Hello."
"Caroline," Elena whispered, comforted just to hear her voice. Caroline was her best friend and saviour.
"Elena! What? Is something wrong?"
Elena stared into the darkness. "I think I saw Trevor."
"Are you sure?"
"No. Well, my gut is surer than my eyes. No, I think it is him. I don't know. Crap!"
"Where are you?"
"In the linens closet of the Mystic Falls," Caroline said.
"You are in town centre? What is going on?"
"I got extra paid. I thought I would have something nice to eat. Just as a treat..." She didn't say it was her birthday; Caroline would feel awful to have forgotten it. "I saw him and I beelined for the exit but it was locked. Now I'm hiding like a freak. If it is him…Caroline…"
"It is not him. It couldn't be," Caroline said. "Breathe."
"What if it is?"
"I'm coming over there. I will recognize that jackass anywhere."
"Wait—what if he recognised you?" Elena said.
"He won't."
"Caroline, wait!" Elena was frantic now. "This is serious. What if you attract his attention?"
Caroline snorted. "It is not him anyway. If he is in Mystic Falls, it means you have been found. He would already have you."
"Maybe he is waiting for backup."
"It doesn't make sense. I'm getting in my car right now."
Elena gave her layout details, told her about the door, and described Trevor's clothes, not that Caroline needed it. She had seen Trevor and she would remember the man.
"Just take a look in the front window and tell me if it is him," Elena said. "Do not put yourself in danger, okay? I got away once, I will get away again." A lie. Trevor would never let her get away so easily again.
"If it is him, Klaus will kick his ass. Mystic Falls is our town. You don't mess with the Mikaelson in Mystic Falls."
"If it is him, you walk away."
"No, I will send Klaus after him and pry the boards off that back door myself, in which case you owe me a manicure."
"With jewelled decals," Elena said. "What is wrong with me? Letting myself get trapped. Walking around without being realised I'm being followed. I let myself get a false sense of safety."
"What is false about it? There is nowhere safer than Mystic Falls." Caroline reassured her. "Trust me, it is not Trevor. I'm just around the corner. I will be there shortly."
"A gal likes options," Elena said.
Caroline snorted, but Elena was serious. Her passport had expired months ago. It was silly of her not to get a new one. What if she had to bolt?
Elena grabbed a stack of linen napkins and put them over her gun. The napkins would act as a silencer if Trevor busted in.
She had only known Caroline three months in Richmond, but Caroline had taken up her cause like a warrior when she realized what danger Elena was in. It had been like a suspense movie, the two women outwitting Trevor and then Caroline had talked her into really disappearing—in Mystic Falls. Caroline had finished her degree by then, she was on her way back home anyway, but still, it was a big thing that Caroline had done, getting her away from Trevor. Elena and Caroline had travelled to Mystic Falls together and Caroline had cajoled her gangster lover into giving Elena a singing job at the Mystic Grill. Together the women had come up with an old-fashioned nightclub singer getup that involved a hat with netting, which concealed Elena's face and added a note of torch singer mystique. Caroline was like a sister to Elena. More than a sister. Elena owed Caroline everything.
Elena slid to the floor with her knees to her chest, feeling the top of her sheer stockings. Her birthday present to herself—she had passed a shop selling them and couldn't resist.
John would have hated the stockings. He had always made her dress up like magazine pictures he had shown her. She had gotten good at being a fashion chameleon, which came in pretty handy on the run. She knew how to blend in.
The sheer stockings had appealed to the girl she had been before John had come along. They had appealed to the songstress poet full of funky style.
Her birthday present to herself. And like hell she would take them off.
Footsteps. Heavy. A man.
She wrapped her fingers around the Ruger .22, feeling the little dots on the grip and fixing the napkins over it. Quiet as a mouse, she slid up to a standing position against the wall behind the door.
Her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears she barely heard the handle turn.
The door swung open. She backed tight to the wall, hand out, using her fingertips to ease it to a gentle stop so it wouldn't bang into her. The light went on.
Rustling fabric. Paper.
And just like that, the light went off and the door slammed shut.
Her shoulders sunk in relief. Just a staffer grabbing napkins or towels.
You are okay.
Except she wasn't. Everything was wrong these days—eerie in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.
When the footsteps faded out, she sat back down and risked the flash of light to check her email on her smartphone for the twentieth time. Still nothing from her brother. That was something eerie that she could put her finger on.
Jeremy had forgotten her birthday.
She and her brother were close as peas in a pod, and he had forgotten her birthday. Jeremy was a major birthday celebrator.
Jeremy had sounded odd in his emails all month, but this was a new level of odd. Again that belly-twist of fear.
She pressed her phone against her chest. What if Jeremy was sick? In trouble? Had John gotten to him? No, Jeremy would have given her the signal. Her mind chased in frantic circles.
You are between a rock and a pointy place, John always said to her, eyes lit with glee. He loved to change around sayings like that, and whenever he had delivered one of his changed-around sayings, he would stare at her afterward, expecting her to react. He fancied himself a poet of sorts, but he was no poet. Poetry was about connecting with people, not hurting them or isolating them. The dusty old poets Elena so loved—Keats, Byron—they helped her feel less alone, as though she was linking with another soul across time. That was poetry.
No matter how bad things got, she had always had poetry. And now she had her gun, too, and she damn well knew how to use it. Klaus had allowed her to use the shooting range in the basement of the Mikaelson's tower—one of the upsides to the Mikaelson family being a little shady. You didn't find a shooting range at the Hilton. What the hell; Elena was shady these days, too, what with her fake life story. Even her appearance was fake. She had high-lighted streaks of red on her dark brown hair.
Not twenty minutes later, there was a soft knock at the closet door, followed by a quick triple knock. Elena let her eyes drift shut with relief. Their old signal. Caroline always remembered things like that. Elena stood and creaked open the door.
Caroline Forbes stood there smiling in a floral printed dress that set off her blond hair. "Coast is clear."
"Did you see him?"
"Yeah, and it is not Trevor."
"Thank you! Uh!" Elena shoved her gun in her purse and threw her arms around her friend. "You are sure? You got a good look? I was so sure it was him. He even felt like him."
"It wasn't."
"You saw the one I meant, though, right?" Elena asked, tidying up the napkins. "He was wearing a bright green and white-striped polo shirt."
"I know. And jeans. I passed right by the guy. I looked in his eyes. He probably thought I was hitting on him. I see why you thought it is him, but it is not."
"Is he still out there?"
Caroline shrugged. "He looked like he was leaving. He only had a beverage."
Beverage.
Caroline talked in restaurant and hotel lingo. She had been in the Richmond to get her hospitality degree. Destined to manage the Mikaelson's family hotels.
"You are sure," Elena said. "I was sure it was him."
"For the millionth time. And, think about it—it was always John's investigators who found you first, and Trevor would come after. If an investigator had found you, you would know about it. And Trevor wouldn't be sitting on his ass in an overpriced tourist restaurant."
Elena closed the closet door, smiling at Caroline's little dig. "Though I was looking so forward to that mushroom steak."
Caroline pouted. "You don't like the food at Mystic Grill?"
Elena snorted. The Grill served the best pub food in Mystic Falls but the Mystics offered fine dining which was completely different. The atmosphere at the Grill was different as well. It was mostly the locals, and this week, a lot of the Mikaelson's scary business partners. Like a convention for sketchy characters.
"I hope I didn't pull you out of anything," Elena said as they headed out of the dark hall.
"In fact, I was quite bored waiting for Klaus to call me. I should thank you for this."
Elena put back on her glasses as they hit the dining room. The man who looked like Trevor was nowhere to be seen. Neither was her chardonnay. Her table had been set with new linens. Well, what did she expect?
The host looked at them funny as they walked through the half-full dining room.
They pushed out the doors into the furnace blast of air that was midday Mystic Falls during summer time. Cars and bikes careened by madly.
"Ask me to take you here if you want fine dining next time. Or ask one of Klaus' wingmen to accompany you." Caroline looked over at her. "You know, Elijah likes you. He will be thrilled if you ask him to go out."
Elena rolled her eyes. "Elijah is a nice guy but I'm not interested in a relationship at this stage."
"Why not?"
"I'm not sure how long I will be staying here," Elena explained. "Trevor is looking for me. I might need to leave this town."
"You are not leaving," Caroline said firmly. "Klaus and I will protect you. You are safe here."
"Jeremy is still in Texas."
"Has your brother emailed you yet?"
"No. And I'm worried."
"He probably has a girlfriend."
"Something's wrong. He sounds…wrong. What if John's guys got to him?"
"Has he used your code?"
Begonia. He was supposed to use the word begonia in an email at the first sign of John danger. Begonia. Be gone. "No."
"Well, then?" Caroline opened the door of her car. "He is probably busy. You worry too much, Elena."
Elena got inside the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt. "But what if he is sick? All he emails about lately is TV and current events. It is like he wants to email me, but not really email me."
Caroline stabbed a finger at her. "This is why you thought you saw Trevor. You are spooked about your brother. You watch. You will have an email from him tomorrow, I bet." She looked down at Elena's stockings, which looked perfect with her black sheath dress. "You look sexy, girl."
"It is not. This is just plain stocking."
"You should wear them for your show," Caroline said. "It looks great on you. You should wear stocking more often."
"I have always loved stocking but John…" Elena cut herself off. "Well, never mind."
"You need to forget about John and move on with your life." Caroline turned on the engine and drove away from the Mystics. "I like your singing."
"Thanks," Elena said. Nobody ever paid attention to her, anyway. She was background music. Music to have conversations by. Elena used to despair about being ignored because her songs were the only deep-down truth in her whole fake life.
Stupid.
When on the run from a murderous and rageful step uncle, you wanted to be ignored. That was the whole point.
"I need to renew my passport soon," she said. "This was a sign—be ready for anything. I think I have gotten too secure here at Mystic Falls. You don't know what it was like sitting in that closet. I kept thinking, what if I have to rabbit right now? Hardly any money. An expired passport."
"You worry too much," Caroline said. "You are safe here. I won't let anything bad happen to you."
"Still," Elena said. "I want to start carrying big money and a valid passport at all times. I'm thinking about moving to Atlanta…"
Caroline began to protest. "Elena…"
"I don't want to keep bugging you and Klaus," Elena went on. "I need a new passport. This was my wake-up call. I need to handle this."
"You want to end up in Atlanta by yourself?" Caroline scowled. "It is freezing there. No, I'm not letting you go. I will talk to Klaus again. I will make sure he keeps an eye here in Mystic Falls."
Elena nodded, unconvinced. "I need cash, too. Do you think I can get another job somewhere?"
"You have worked too hard already," Caroline exclaimed. "You need rest. You need to have a life."
"I'm fine, Caroline. I need the money, just in case…"
"There is no just in case," Caroline said firmly. "Trust me, nothing is going to happen to you."
"Okay," she said, dismayed.
Caroline smiled and chatted brightly as her car wove in and out of traffic.
Elena half listened, unable to shake the feeling of danger pressing in.
Maybe Caroline was right. She worried too much. Mystic Falls was a safe place.
But she still couldn't shake the feeling of danger and the cold she felt going down her spine every now and then.