Jeremy was walking hurriedly, following the trail in the ground, waiting with a sick feeling of longing to find the object that got carried outside the cabin. It must have been something big and heavy for vampires didn't have the physical strength to pick it up and had to drag it.

Very soon Jeremy got to the end of the trail and exceptionally pale, stared at his own reflection in the depths of a river.

"Oh shit…"

He looked back at the ground to make sure that whatever he was searching for was in fact disposed inside that river straight in front of him. He paced around thinking again and again what should be his next move, though he already knew all too well what was the one thing he had to do.

Damon was still in the house. He couldn't just stay there and wait for Damon to finish torturing that vampire. He had to see what was in there for the trail looked fresh in the ground and depending on how heavy the object was, the force of the water couldn't have the time to drift it too far yet. He was on his own in this one. Plus, by the time Damon was finished torturing that poor man, Jeremy would be out of the water and Damon never had to know.

The boy ran to the car and used his keys to open the trunk, knowing that Damon always carried a spare tool kit. He took out Damon's favorite 100ft climbing rope and went back to where the traces disappeared. He tied the one end of the rope around a tree near the river and the second around his waist. It was mid-January and the snow was still crispy under his toes as he kicked his shoes and socks off.

The moment he reached the frozen water and sunk his feet inside, he realized that his seemingly brilliant idea might not have been his best one after all. Though he had no other choice and anyway it was too late for second thoughts.

It felt as though countless needles pierced through his skin as he walked inside the river, sinking deeper and deeper with every little step he took, until the water got on the same level with his chest. Wanting more than anything this freezing hell to be over, he pushed aside a couple pieces of ice floating next to him and dived underwater.

For a few seconds it was peaceful, as though his heart completely stopped beating. He opened his eyes and in horror looked around him, suddenly very aware of the doom surrounding him.

He shook his head trying to chase away his fear, as well as the water getting inside his nostrils and swam along the river fast as he could, considering that every part of his body was fairly numb.

With his eyes wide open he searched down the dark river, going up every now and then to take a breath. It was only then when he realized for a first time how useful were all the miles he ran around the Salvatore property. Now he could hold his breath for longer than two minutes at a time and his body was so used to the physical exhaustion and low temperature to the point that it didn't bother him as much after the first ten minutes of being in the water.

He swam for about twenty minutes and had gone exactly in the middle of the river, where the depth was counter at around 17ft, when he dived again. He looked carefully around, trying to locate anything that could be considered suspicious. Everything was so dark he only wished he had the common sense to grab one of the ten flashlights Damon had in his trunk. Damon, the name popped into the boy's head. Damon would probably be over by now, he would be looking for him, and he didn't have time to keep searching something that was probably not there. Those trails must have been accidental and even if there was a chance that he was right, that object must have been pushed away by the river. He would never find it, for all he knew it could be anywhere.

He was about to swim back up, since he was growing slightly out of breath, when something shinny got his attention from the bottom of the river. He immediately dived deeper, all the way to what he thought was an out shaped rock.

He yelped in frustration, but instead of a sound, bubbles came out of his mouth as he realized that he was looking at a coffin.

Why would somebody throw a coffin in a river? He couldn't help but ask himself as he was struggling to open it, but that turned out to be impossible. He examined the lid; there were runes on it, Latin as well as Ancient Greek. This wasn't an accident; somebody deliberately tried to get rid of that coffin, though why?

Jeremy made attempt to pull it up and at once realized how stupid that was. The casket was heavy, made out of a medal, hence why it was shining, it must've been silver and the words were carved with gold. He untied the rope from his waist and wrapped it around the coffin several times, so Damon could pull it up later.

The boy was growing fast out of air, his lungs started to hurt and very soon he felt the familiar sense of getting choked. Being drowned was definitely not his favorite sensation and he couldn't allow himself to die this way. He had fought and lived through a lot worse than that. He had to do something, the ring wouldn't work and he would die if he just stayed there doing nothing. He pulled the rope, to make sure it was tight and with his last remaining strength, he kicked the ground.

Getting back on a dry land was a lot harder than he expected. His lungs were burning in every breath he took and he felt a lot dizzier than before. By the time he crawled out of the water he had almost lost his sight and hearing. His teeth were clattering, as he pushed his wet hair out of his face and lay on the ground, his chest heaving.

He could swear he wasn't laying there for no longer than five minutes, but when he half opened his eyes and looked through his eyelashes, he noticed that everything was dark and he wasn't outside anymore. From the roof above him, he could tell he was in Damon's car that was still parked in between the same trees he remembered from hours ago. All his wet clothes were missing and instead he was wrapped in a blanket.

Slowly regaining all his senses, he could hear voices from somewhere near. One undoubtedly belonged to Damon, while the second had to be Stefan's. He couldn't tell what they were saying but none of them sounded very pleased.

He heard the door of the car open and felt immediately somebody staring over him. The boy opened his eyes just in time to see Damon's palm slap him across the face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Jeremy jumped up, banging his head on the top of the roof, "I was already awake!" He shouted, holding both his cheek and his head.

"Hence the slap!" Damon snarled at him, "I leave you alone for ten minutes and you go for a swim? What are you, five?"

"I didn't go for a swim" said Jeremy indignantly, "did you see what I found? It's a –"

"A coffin" Damon completed his sentence for him, "you found an empty coffin at the bottom of a river"

"Empty?" Jeremy repeated stupidly, "why would somebody throw away an empty coffin in a river?"

"Why would a sixteen year old jump in a river to retrieve an empty coffin?" Damon asked in response and before Jeremy had time to say anything, Damon stepped out of the car.

"Doesn't it seem weird to neither of you how over a dozen vampires, all of them members of a cult are found dead at the exact same time when somebody tries to get rid of an empty coffin?" Jeremy got too out of the car to face the two men, still wrapped in the blanket. "What did the vampire say?" he turned to Damon.

"He doesn't know anything, he wasn't there when it happened" said Damon slightly frowning.

"What did he say about the cult?" Jeremy kept pushing for answers, striving to understand.

"He would rather bit off his own tongue than say anything" said Stefan, checking to see if Jeremy's body returned to his normal temperature.

"What if whoever killed them all wasn't here for the stone?" asked Jeremy, mostly speaking to himself. "We never actually had evidence that they stole it, we only assumed" he realized the truth of his words as they came out of his mouth. "Oh crap" he staggered back a few paces, and leaned against the car.

"What is it?" Stefan asked interestedly, earning himself a disdainful glare from Damon, who clearly just wanted for Jeremy to stop talking.

"Kol told me that for the resurrection spell you need a body and blood" Jeremy said in rush

"Jer," Stefan started cautiously, feeling the boy again to make sure he didn't have hypothermia, "when Kol mentioned a body I'm pretty sure he meant a real one, not a decapitated corpse" he said slowly, as though he was afraid that his words would hurt the boy.

"Not the body! The blood!" Jeremy shouted impatiently, throwing Stefan's hand off of him. "What if by blood he doesn't necessarily mean blood, but any kind of DNA?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Damon sounded fairly exasperated, while Stefan on the other hand looked confused and concerned for he thought that Jeremy's brain must have become an ice cube after all this time underwater.

"DNA! For the resurrection spell you need the stone, you need DNA from the person you want to resurrect and a body to put the soul in!" he yelled in frustration for nobody seemed to understand what for him was so obvious. "Think about it, it all makes sense! Somebody came here, killed those vampires, stole the bones and dumbed the coffin in the river to hide the evidence!"

"I think Stefan agrees when I say, no more TV for you" said Damon mockingly and took a couple steps forward. He opened the car door and motioned for Jeremy to get back inside but the boy was more than unwilling.

"Why don't you believe me?" he asked, watching Damon with nothing less but pure disappointment. He expected from Damon to be mad, but so far he never refused to hear him out, now he barely paid any attention to his words.

"Get inside" Damon nodded him to the car, but Jeremy remained rooted to the spot, staring from Damon to Stefan waiting for one of them to say something useful.

"Are you both brain-dead?" he yelled in frustration, "I'm telling you, whoever was in that coffin is getting resurrected in four days! We need to do something!"

"You'll need to be resurrected in four days if you don't stop talking, now get your naked, delusional ass in that car and shut up!" Damon yelled back at him.

Jeremy rolled his eyes but obeyed this time, "I always knew you were a dick, but I never thought you were stupid" he said bitterly as Damon shut the door behind him.

After emptying the motel room in Atlanta and relocating all of their belongings in the trunk of the car, everybody took their seats and braced themselves for a long ride back to Mystic Falls.

This time Stefan called shotgun first, mostly to spite Jeremy and the boy ended up lying on the backseat, still exhausted and cold, but at least now he was clothed.

Soon he fell asleep, since both Salvatore brothers refused to speak to him and he couldn't play with his PSP, due to the fact that Damon threatened to shove it out of the window while it was still attached to his hands.

"I think he has a point" said Stefan in a quiet voice, careful to not wake Jeremy up.

"I know he has a point" said Damon through clenched teeth, "why you think I compelled that courier to bring the coffin to Mystic Falls?"

"Are you going to tell him that?" Stefan nodded back at Jeremy.

"No and feel free to beat him up senseless" Damon glanced sideways at his brother with a little smirk.

Stefan's face hardened as he distractedly straightened up Jeremy's blanket to make sure the boy was warm. "He has no respect for me" he said bitterly.

Damon laughed at his brother's miserable expression, sure that Stefan was joking. "Wait, are you serious?" he asked, his grin fading, "why do you even care?"

"He lives in my house" Stefan shrugged, "how can I not care?"

"I don't care" Damon pursed his lips, his eyes darted up front avoiding to look at Stefan.

"Right" said Stefan sarcastically, "then please explain this to me, he dived in a frozen lake—"

"River" Damon cut him off, "it was a river"

"He dived in a river" Stefan continued as though there was no interruption, "to get evidence and please you. He came up with a reasonable explanation and basically did a hell of a job, so why are you angry at him?" he said with a self-righteous smirk upon his face that Damon chose to ignore and kept driving in complete silence.