The Vincentio II

Chapter Twenty One

Roseanne's Involvement

Tristan's POV…

I opened my eyes when Val closed her bedroom door. Truth be told, I never really went to sleep. I felt the need to protect her since my sister was in town. My sister wasn't like me. We were raised together but I was always the golden boy which meant she always got left behind. So after the incident we both changed and she didn't change for the better.

I climbed out of the bed and headed to the door. I wanted to see if she was okay but then I remembered that Val liked to be on her own. She liked to get out and sit by herself. If I followed her she would think I was too clingy. I am a little clingy but that's only because I want to protect her.

I paced for a little while thinking to myself until I heard two people speaking which cut me from my thoughts. It didn't take me long to realise who they were.

"Val, what are you doing up?" her mother asked.

"I couldn't sleep," she replied.

I didn't believe it but I also did believe it at the same time.

"Okay, is something bothering you again."

"I was wondering something," she paused. "How did James die exactly?" she asked.

Granted I never liked the guy but I did try to like the guy and he shut me down countless times. Anyway what I mean is that I didn't know how he died and I wanted to find out.

"Well…" her mother paused. "His death was a little suspect if you're asking that," she continued.

"But how did he die exactly? What was the cause of death?" she asked.

I instantly got a chill. For some reason I could tell from this that his death wasn't a good one.

"It's probably best that you come with me," her mother said before I heard walking.

When I knew they were both no longer in the living area I stepped out of Val's room and followed them. I made sure I was unseen because I didn't need either one of them knowing what I was doing because I hardly even knew what I was doing.

"This will tell you everything," her mother said.

I stopped by the garage door and listened to their conversation.

"This says that he died from blood loss and…" Val paused.

"Unplanned heart removal," her mother said.

I didn't have to ask to understand what that meant.

"What the hell does that mean?" she asked.

"It means when someone gets their heart removed unplanned and normally without professional surgery," her mother said.

"So someone removed his heart and left him to die," Val asked.

There was silence for quite a while and I was a little worried that they had finished and that they were coming back out of the garage. But they didn't they remained in the garage a little longer.

"So who did it?" Val asked obviously worried for reasons unknown to me.

"The authorities never found the killer, but…" her mother paused.

"But you have an idea."

"I have an idea, yes. But it is a nameless idea," she said.

I stood there and started to think. Someone removed his heart and killed him six months ago. Someone that hated him and I was the only person alive that sort of hated him and I didn't do it. What if it wasn't someone that hated him just someone looking for something? I started to link my sister with James' death. It wasn't too much of a stretch.

She came to this town looking for something, an artefact. If the artefact had been in the town the whole time then she would have found it years ago unless it was never in the town until recently. She was capable of killing someone and she liked to remove someone's heart.

"Tristan sort of stole it from the Lockwood mansion at that party," Val said.

The mention of my name brought me back to the real world. I was glad because I didn't need Val or her mother coming out and finding me. They would eventually find out about Roseanne and there was a reason I didn't tell Val's family that I had a sister.

"He figured that after what happened with Damon that it would help if I had something from James," she continued.

So they are now talking about James ring? I continued to think about it and Val just having the ring now meant that the ring wasn't what Roseanne was looking for if Roseanne was the killer. But she had to be. It made sense.

I decided that I should go back to Val's bedroom before they came out of the garage and caught me. I jumped back onto her bed and pretended to appear like I was asleep or something close to it.

Val's POV…

I slowly walked back to my room with the envelope in my hand. For some reason I couldn't let it go. Even though the pictures and information inside was about James' death I couldn't let it go. Anything about James was all I had left of him.

I stepped back into my room and found Tristan still asleep but he had moved. That was normal. When we were dating he somehow knew if I wasn't in the bed anymore but he wouldn't wake up.

I placed the envelope on my desk and climbed back into my bed next to Tristan. As I lied there Tristan moved in his sleep. He draped his arm over me as if he was protecting me even though he was asleep. Eventually I fell asleep and all my thoughts about who killed James disappeared. Somehow being close to Tristan again made things better.

It was really odd because my brother hated Tristan but somehow being around Tristan now made everything about my brother okay. I instantly felt like I didn't have to worry about his death anymore. But I knew that in the morning that I would start to think about it because that's how my brain worked. I needed to find out what happened and I didn't care how. I needed answers.

In the morning I woke to find myself lying on my bed. I heard the shower running in my ensuite which meant Tristan was in there because my mother had her own bathroom. Granted it was a little weird that he was using my shower but my mother could have been using the bathroom and he probably thought he could get in and out before I woke.

I ignored the envelope of my desk on purpose but it wasn't that hard to ignore it.

My phone started to ring so I reached over to my bedside table where I had left it. As soon as I picked it up I noticed that Jeremy was calling me.

"J-Dog," I said for no particular reason aside from annoying him as I answered my phone.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yep, I'm testing new names," I replied. "So what's with the early morning call?" I asked.

"Okay, I was going to go down to the police station to see if they have anything about Vicki," Jeremy said.

That's when I remembered that something was going on with Vicki. She was in transition to a vampire and I somehow knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself from drinking human blood whether she killed someone or not didn't matter. I didn't know Vicki that much but I knew her enough to know that she wouldn't let herself die and the temptation she felt would consumed her forcing her to feed.

I should have asked Damon about her last night but I hated saying this because she was sort of my friend. But I didn't care about her that much and I was thinking about myself too much.

At the mention of the police station I looked over at the envelope on my desk. I quickly got to my feet and grabbed the envelope before practically throwing it in one of the drawers of my desk.

"Okay I'm in," I said to Jeremy.

"Do you want to come over or should I come over to you place?" Jeremy asked as my bathroom door opened.

I had been thinking too hard to realise the shower turn off. Tristan stood in the doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist. He smiled at me innocently as he ran a hand through his wet hair.

"I'll come over to your place," I said.

"Okay," Jeremy replied before hanging up.

I started to lean on the edge of my desk as I placed my phone on my desk and looked over at Tristan. He ran his hand through his hair again and smiled at me as his head tilted towards the floor. I decided to keep a calm almost angry face. I wasn't going to fall for his 'you love it' face.

I crossed my arms as he continued to look at me with his 'you love it' face. I shook my head.

"Come on," Tristan said. "You can't be upset with this," he said.

"I'm not upset, I'm slightly confused to how you thought you could get away with it," I replied.

"It was worth a try," Tristan said. "So where are you going?" he asked.

"To Jeremy's place, we're going to spend the day together," I replied expecting him to say something coming along but he didn't.

"Okay, I have to go somewhere today anyway," he replied.

"Where?" I asked curious to where he would be going.

He seemed to go somewhere a lot. He didn't do it as much as in New York but that was New York but here he had to have a reason for going somewhere it was a small town after all.

"I just going to meet a friend," Tristan said. "They are sort of passing through but not passing through town," he added.

"Okay," I replied.

I believed him because he had heaps of friends and I knew that a couple of them always wanted to go on a road trip. The only thing that I didn't like about this was the fact that Tristan might decide to join them. There was nothing tying him down anymore and he didn't have to stay here.

After that I had a quick shower and got changed into something dark before heading over to Jeremy's place. I would have went inside but I knew Elena wouldn't have been too keen on Jeremy not going to school and possibly the whole 'Vicki is a vampire now' thing wouldn't be something Elena would like since Jeremy and Vicki were together.

I waited by the mail box until Jeremy came outside. I had brought my skateboard so as we headed towards the police station I rode and Jeremy walked.

Tristan's POV…

I got into my car and headed to the lake house where my sister would be hiding out since she didn't have any daylight jewellery like I did. She would be at the lake house because she didn't have anywhere else to hide and I knew she wouldn't leave Mystic Falls until she had what she wanted.

I pulled up outside the lake house and walked inside faster than the last time I came here. Once inside I noticed how all the curtains were covered over and how dark it was.

"Just because you can't go in the sunlight doesn't mean you have to sit around here in the dark," I said. "That's why lights were invented," I added.

"I live in the dark unlike someone else here," Roseanne said as she stepped out of the shadows.

"You can't leave and I can kill you so you're going to answer this question truthfully or the will torture you," I said.

"Go ahead," Roseanne said. "Ask away."

"Did you have anything to do with James McDaniel's death?" I asked.

Roseanne smiled slowly. That was all I needed.

"What is wrong with you?" I asked. "You can't just go and kill Val's brother," I added.

"I did and have," Roseanne replied. "I don't care about your pathetic little girlfriend and I didn't care about 'James'," she added. "But he had it coming," Roseanne said as she turned and walked into the house further.

What did she mean, he had it coming? I thought. I never liked the guy but he never did anything that was worth dying over.

"What did he do?" I asked as I followed Roseanne.

She remained silent.

"What did he do?" I asked again.

"He attacked me," Roseanne said calmly.

I snorted slightly because I didn't believe her. My sister lied a lot so it was possible that she was lying now but it was different to every other time she lied. It almost sounded like the truth.

"James wouldn't do that," I said.

"Oh really, how much do you know about James? Do you even know why he hated you?" Roseanne asked.

AN: So I'm pressing pause here for a couple of weeks which means I won't be uploading any more chapters for a couple of weeks. But I'll be back. I can't leave my story here.