New chapter! My lovely beta Mara (the artist formerly known as AnglcDmn1986) was so much help with this one. I probably would've spent at least another week agonizing over getting everything right if she hadn't been waiting eagerly for me to send her little bits of it as I went. Plus, the Grey's Anatomy reference was only possible because of her expertise. :P Enjoy a chapter that's almost twice as long as normal, and please review!
Richard made a wild grab for Vicki, but she had already tumbled out of the car. A stream of expletives pouring from his mouth, he slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching halt. He barely had the presence of mind to shift into park before leaping out. Why did the stupid girl have to fight him? What had he told her that wasn't the truth? She would've been home in three minutes if she had just kept her damn mouth shut and accepted his words. But then again, she probably never got any discipline at home from her tramp of a mother, so why should he have expected anything better?
As he walked towards the spot where he thought she would've rolled, a series of very strange sensations rushed over him. His whole body began to feel unbearably warm, and his senses sharpened almost painfully. It was as if someone had turned the volume in his ears up to a hundred, so that the sounds of insects, birds, and rustling leaves in the surrounding forest were now deafening, and the dark, winding road suddenly looked like it was lit by the midday sun—though strangely without color. And smell? On a single breath, he scented a thousand different forest smells, plus the asphalt, rubber, and exhaust lingering about the road. A violent shudder traveled from the nape of his neck all the way down to the base of his spine, and his insides twisted sickeningly, dropping him to his knees.
As quickly as these symptoms had arrived, they all vanished. Richard got to his feet, staring down at his hands. He flexed them into fists, then opened them again. He felt powerful and energized, like he could run a marathon or climb Mount Everest. Shaking himself, he continued on until he reached Vicki. She was lying facedown twenty feet from the road, limbs splayed awkwardly around her. One leg was obviously broken, and the opposite arm was bent the wrong way at the elbow.
"Miss Donovan?" he said, crouching down and rolling her over. Her head lolled grotesquely and her eyes stared upward, dull and unseeing. "Miss Donovan?" he said again, louder, but she didn't move or blink. He reached for the wrist of the arm that wasn't broken. There was no pulse. He tried to find one on her neck, but even that much contact was enough to make her head sway in that same jointless way it had before.
Richard staggered away. His stomach lurched and he clapped a hand over his mouth. He could feel the contents of his stomach coming up. He stumbled a few yards away from her and retched violently.
She was dead.
It took a few minutes for him to regain his composure. He stood and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Then he took out his phone to call the police. It had been an accident, after all. She had fallen—had practically jumped—out of a moving vehicle, and he had tried to stop her. He was the Mayor. No one would think it had been his fault.
But after dialing the number, he slowly moved his thumb to hit "cancel" instead of "call." He could call. He could call and tell Liz exactly what had happened. There would be a lot of paperwork and attention on him, but with his connections, it would all be smoothed over in a matter of weeks. His money, power, and reputation would shield him from any scandal or serious legal entanglements.
On the other hand….
Well, whatever happened, he thought, it would hardly make any difference to the girl. She was already dead. Why not put an unfortunate situation to good use? He thought of Grayson Gilbert and the reason he had even driven out tonight in the first place. Rage leapt up inside him, but it was followed by cold decisiveness. Yes, he knew what he would do now.
X
Tyler lay on his bed, tossing a football into the air above him and catching it. The side of his face stung where his father had struck him, but he knew he wasn't going to get off that easy. He felt a throbbing, twisting mass of frustration settle in his chest. He often got beatings from his father, generally after much less provocation than what he'd offered tonight, but it was always behind closed doors. He was pretty sure even his mom didn't know. But this time, his father had reduced him to a cowering, scared little boy in front of a girl he'd been trying to impress. What if she went and told everyone how Richard Lockwood treats his son, and how that son just takes it without a fight? What if she told Matt? Matt was his best friend, but Tyler didn't want his pity. Plus, Matt didn't know about him and Vicki, and he'd like it to stay that way.
He thought about sending Vicki a text; she was probably home by now, and he definitely owed her an apology if he ever wanted her to sleep with him again, but the humiliation was too raw. It could wait until tomorrow.
Just then, he heard a car rolling up the drive. He tossed his football aside and stole out of his room as quietly as he could. He made his way downstairs and stood behind one of the pillars in the foyer. But though he heard the engine of the car die, his dad didn't immediately come inside. Instead, he heard what sounded like the water turning on at the side of the house. He waited. About a minute later, it shut off.
Tyler frowned. His dad was not a man who took pride in maintaining his own property. Just the opposite, in fact. That was what the groundskeeper and gardeners were for. A few seconds later, Tyler heard the side door open with a loud creak. Why was his dad coming in that way?
He was starting to think that he should just go back to his room. However, no sooner had he thought that than his dad appeared around the corner, so he hastily stepped back behind the pillar, then peeked out from around the side of it. For some reason, his dad had taken off his suit jacket and dress shirt so that he was down to just his undershirt. The removed clothing was draped over his arms, and his hands appeared to be wet. He didn't look around the foyer at all as he walked, but headed straight into his office and shut the glass paned doors behind him.
Tyler crept closer, ignoring the voice in his head that was trying to remind him of what had happened last time his dad caught him snooping. He watched as his dad fumbled with his jacket until he had retrieved something from one of the pockets. This, he deposited in his desk drawer. Then he tossed the jacket over a chair and strode over to the fireplace with the dress shirt, which he threw on top of the logs before picking up the box of matches on the mantel and setting it all alight.
Tyler wasn't sure why, but watching all of this made him feel very uneasy. His dad seemed extremely absorbed in what he was doing, so maybe he'd forget about him for the night. He slipped back to the staircase and quietly returned to his room.
X
Elena woke from dreams of jazz music and silent films and horse races when a soft beam of morning sunlight touched her face. She felt a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped around her and realized that her pillow, which moved steadily up and down, was a rather solid chest. She opened her eyes to see Damon's sleeping face, the lower half of which was lightly dusted with morning stubble. She smiled. His black lashes brushed the tops of his cheeks and his mouth was slightly open. He looked so serene and relaxed. She wished she could stop time and stay right here forever, but she could feel herself beginning to blush. One of her hands was tucked under her chin, but the other was on his waist, and their legs had somehow ended up tangled together as they slept.
She'd never woken up so intertwined with a guy before. With Matt, whenever a movie date had ended with them falling asleep against each other on the couch, one of her parents would wake them up to send him home and her to bed before they could quite get to this stage with the cuddling. And in terms of other things, she and Matt had gotten to where they were pretty comfortable with second base, but not much farther. They had made half-formed plans about getting a room somewhere for the night after the spring underclassman ball, but despite all Caroline's cajoling and sly promises that she wouldn't regret it, Elena had ultimately chickened out. She'd already started having doubts about her relationship with Matt by then, and she definitely hadn't wanted to explain a hotel reservation to her parents. Though Matt had seemed slightly hurt when she told him she wasn't ready to take things to that level yet, he was still very gentlemanly and understanding. The breakup had come less than a month later.
It occurred to Elena then that even though she'd been thinking of Matt, she hadn't felt any twinge of guilt about dumping him. That was a first. She remembered what Damon had told her by the quarry, about how it had been a clean break—the best thing for both of them. He'd been right. Her smile widened a little. She felt so warm and happy. She continued to watch Damon sleep. Her eyes were drawn to his lips. She wondered if he would wake up if she kissed him. Probably. Super senses and all. But oh, how she wanted to. She could imagine what Caroline and Bonnie would say if they knew the situation.
"Just go for it!" said imaginary Caroline. "Kiss him until he wakes up, and then have your way with him until he doesn't even remember that Katherine skank ever existed!"
"How will you ever get him to choose you over her if you don't show him how you feel?" said imaginary Bonnie.
No matter what these figments told her, she couldn't show him and she couldn't go for it. Maybe eventually, like the day before the comet, when she no longer had anything to lose by admitting it. She wasn't quite sure how she was going to make it that long—or how she would be able to go on if she went for it and he left anyway. But she didn't want to think about that. She wanted to live in the moment for as long as it lasted. Especially this particular moment, when they were safely tangled up together and the rest of the world was still asleep.
After a couple more minutes like this, Elena saw Damon's nose twitch slightly—his first movement besides the rise and fall of his chest. Then the skin below his eyes rippled and dark veins slowly rose to the surface. Before Elena could do much more than frown, he was suddenly in motion, and the next thing she knew, he was no longer beside her, but on top of her, his hands clamped around her wrists and pressing them into the cushion over her head, his face buried against her neck.
"Oh, God, do you have any idea how amazing you smell?" he groaned in a rumbling voice that was still thick with sleep. His stubble tickled and scratched her throat with every movement of his jaw.
To say Elena was surprised would have been the understatement of the year. She trusted Damon completely, but she never expected this to be the first thing he did when he woke up. She'd been looking forward to seeing his ridiculously beautiful eyes up close and hoping that he'd smile when he saw her. Instead, he had her pinned beneath him in what could only be described as a highly suggestive position. Imaginary Caroline would've had a lot to say about that, but Elena was too dazed to listen. She could barely breathe, let alone think, with his breath on her neck and his weight pressed against her. Her heart was pounding and she felt like her entire body was blushing. Maybe she was insane, but she didn't want him to move. Did he know it was her, or did he always act like this when he woke up wrapped around a human girl? And for that matter, how often did he wake up wrapped around human girls?
"Um, does that mean you want breakfast?" she asked, and she was almost as surprised to hear how normal her voice sounded as she was by his actions.
He pulled back sharply from her neck. He was still on top of her, but he'd released her wrists and was now staring at her, looking a little confused as the crimson faded from the whites of his eyes. "Elena?" he said, blinking sleepily.
"Good morning," said Elena, offering a tense, weak smile.
His brow furrowed. "Please tell me I'm delirious from sleep and only imagined that you just offered me you for breakfast."
"Well, aren't you hungry?" said Elena. "Because I'm no expert but you kinda seemed hungry, and as far as I know, I'm the only human here."
This got a brief chuckle out of him, which helped Elena feel less anxious. "It doesn't matter if I'm hungry. You, Miss Gilbert, are not breakfast." With that, he made to move off her, but she stopped him by putting her hands at his sides and holding on.
"But I don't want you to be hungry if I can help," she said, almost feeling indignant. "I don't care if it hurts." Yes, she was definitely insane. Especially because, now that the shock had worn off and she could think again, she knew that she actually did want him to do it.
Damon was staring at her as if she'd sprouted a second head and he couldn't decide if it was comical or horrifying. "You'd rather be in pain than let me be a little hungry?"
Elena nodded. "You showed me the '20s, and it was amazing. This is the least I can do."
Damon winced. "Elena, I didn't do that so you'd tap a vein for me, I did it because you wanted me to."
"Well now I want to do this," she said simply.
He cocked his head to the side, still staring at her intently. "There doesn't have to be any pain," he said slowly. Something in his tone made her think he was starting to consider it, and she couldn't suppress a slight shiver of anticipation.
"How is that possible?" she asked.
"Not all vampires know how, but I can make it feel good. It's what I should've done the first time, but I was starving and out of my mind. I'm sorry about that."
Elena felt a rush of affection for him. She reached up to touch the skin under his left eye where the veins had appeared. "So make it up to me now," she said.
For a few seconds, he looked like he was still debating, but then he said, "On one condition."
"What?" she said, trying to keep her voice even and not sound too eager.
"You have to let me heal you after."
"You mean with your blood?" she said, her eyes widening.
He nodded.
She swallowed. "Okay."
He did not immediately move back down to her throat. Instead, still watching her, she assumed, for any hint of fear or that she wanted to change her mind, he let his features slowly transform. Her eyes darted in fascination from the veins to the red pooling back into his eyes, to the lengthening, sharpening tips of his canines. He may be looking for fear, but all she felt was a renewed desire to kiss him. Letting him drink from her might be the closest she would ever get to that. She tilted her head to the side, and he leaned down.
Though he had said it wouldn't hurt, as soon as she felt his stubble against her neck again, she couldn't help flashing back to what it had been like last time. So she was very surprised when the next thing she felt was his lips. He was kissing her!
"What are you doing?" she said, this time failing to keep her voice from going up an octave or so.
A laugh rumbled out of him, vibrating against her torso as it left his chest. "I'm just trying to help you relax; you're stiff as a board." He pulled back again to look at her with one eyebrow raised. "I guess I could always tickle you instead, but I'm not sure it would have the same effect. Should we find out?" One of his hands shot down to her ribs and she squealed in protest.
"No! No tickling or I'm calling off the whole thing!" she yelped, trying to grab his hand and hold it away from her. He laughed louder and moved the hand out of reach. Rather than assailing her ribs again with his fingers, he brought them up to tunnel through the hair at the base of her skull, gently cradling her head in his palm. He dropped his head back down to her neck and resumed attacking the spot just above where it sloped out to her shoulder with open-mouthed kisses.
She no longer needed to work at making her muscles go slack. Now that she knew to expect it, the kisses were turning her to jelly. She managed to swallow the moan that tried to escape her, but the next second, he bit down, and any thought she had of keeping her responses as platonic as possible evaporated. Her hands mirrored the path of his; one shot up to tangle in his hair and the other wrapped around his back, and she clutched him to her as hard as she could.
It was nothing like last time. If there had been pain when his fangs first punctured her skin, it was lost in a sensation similar to the wonderful hot, tingly feeling of a scalding shower that's just barely not hot enough to burn. And when he began to pull slow, deep mouthfuls of her blood, the scalding tingles burst outward, shooting through her veins, upward to dance as blue-white sparks in her vision, and all the way down to curl her toes. Every pull sent a fresh wave of them crashing over her, and she heard herself gasping his name. Was it like this for him? She wanted to ask but couldn't remember how to string words together.
She lost all track of time, but eventually the tingling started to change temperature, like the hot water running out, and just when it began to feel like the prickles of limbs going numb, Damon let go. He lifted his head far enough to be able to look at her. They were both breathing hard, and he looked stunned. His gaze drifted to her lips. For a long moment, Elena was convinced that he really would kiss her there. She waited breathlessly, but he only rested his forehead against hers. "Thank you," he said.
Elena's eyes drifted closed.
"You okay?" he asked hoarsely.
"Uh-huh," she said. "You?"
"Uh-huh." They didn't move again for another minute or so. Then he slowly shifted to the side and sat up, bringing her with him. Next, he brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit into it, then held it out to her. She took the offered forearm in both hands and sealed her mouth over his wound, trying not to think about what she was doing.
Damon's blood tasted normal, like hers did whenever she'd sucked on a small scrape or cut to stop it from bleeding. The only difference was the way it hit her stomach. Blood always made her feel a little queasy, whether it was from a minor injury of her own or from eating a steak that was more rare than medium. Damon's blood didn't make her stomach feel anything, good or bad. It just was.
Just when his wound began to close and the blood stopped coming, she felt a fresh little burst of hot tingles at the spot where he'd bitten her. Damon moved his wrist away from her mouth and tipped her head to the side to peer at the bite mark.
His face was back to normal now. To her surprise, he leaned in again and pressed a final kiss to her neck. "There," he said, pulling back. "Good as new."
"Was, uh, was it supposed to feel like that?" Elena asked timidly, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"It's different for everyone," said Damon.
"What was it like for you?"
"As breakfasts go, I'd give it five stars," he said, flashing her his smirk. But then he looked at her very seriously. "Elena, no matter how much we both enjoyed that, it can't happen again."
"Why not?"
"Because as good as my control is, I don't know if I could prevent the outcome from being very different next time."
Elena went bright red and her heartbeat sped up. She knew he wasn't talking about the risk of accidentally taking too much blood.
"And as much fun as that would be," he went on, "I don't want things to get complicated between us."
Elena's blush faded and her heart sank. She looked down at her hands. "Yeah, complicated would be bad." She could feel the vamp blood headache coming on. She didn't want to be here anymore.
"Besides," said Damon lightly, "I'm pretty sure your dad would stake me if he ever found out."
"My dad?" said Elena. Her stomach seemed to leap into her throat. "Oh, crap!"
"What?" said Damon.
"I forgot to call home last night! My phone's still in my car." She ran her fingers through her hair. "They've probably called like fifty times. I said I was going to Bonnie's, but I didn't say I was sleeping over!"
Just when she was about to jump up and go dashing out to get her phone, someone banged on the front door. Elena looked at Damon in panic. He stood up, but whoever was at the door had already opened it.
"Damon, are you here?" came Jenna's voice from the entrance hall.
"Please, let yourself in," said Damon as he headed to the bar behind the sofa, where he poured himself a generous measure of bourbon.
"I need your help," said Jenna, "Elena's mis—" At that point, she came into view and spotted Elena sitting on the couch. The panic on her face turned into bewilderment, and then confused suspicion. "Here, actually. Elena's here."
"Yep," said Damon flatly, tossing back the bourbon. "Safe and sound. Glad I could be of assistance."
"Hey, Aunt Jenna," said Elena.
"Elena, could you come outside with me, please?" said Jenna. She sounded just like Elena's mom whenever she or Jeremy got in big trouble but the coast wasn't clear yet to start lecturing.
"O-okay," Elena stammered, wrapping her arms around her middle and walking towards her aunt. She snatched up her vervain bracelet off the ottoman on her way and slipped it back on, hoping that Jenna hadn't seen that she wasn't wearing it. At the edge of the parlor, she looked back over her shoulder. "Bye," she said to Damon.
Damon's annoyed expression melted for a second. "See you soon, if you're not too grounded."
Relieved, Elena smiled back. "Yeah, see you," she said, and then turned and hurried after her aunt.
Once they were outside, the door closed behind them, and had walked almost all the way to Jenna's car (Elena had parked hers around the side of the boarding house in an attempt to keep her presence a secret from Damon until the surprise party began), Jenna rounded on her.
"Elena, you can't do this. You need to be where you say you are, and you need to answer your phone. I told your parents you were going over to Bonnie's like you told me when you headed out, and that makes me responsible. Do you have any idea how scared I was when Bonnie said she hadn't seen you? What if something had happened to you?"
"Aunt Jenna, I'm sorry! I wasn't planning on being out all night, but after Damon's birthday party, I guess we just fell asleep on the couch, and after that it was already morning."
"So lying about where you were going—it was just for a birthday party? Why couldn't you tell me about that? Or was it one of those parties with drugs and orgies?"
"What? No!" said Elena, scandalized. "No, it was quiet and simple. I found this really sweet letter Damon and Stefan's mom wrote to one of my ancestors in 1844, and I wanted it to be a little more special when I gave it to Damon than just handing it to him, so I got cupcakes and hats, and I got Stefan to come too, even though the two of them don't really get along."
"And again, why wasn't this something I could know about?"
Elena bit her lip and shifted her weight. "Well, I know you and Mom and Dad are on their side now, but you still don't really like them, do you? I didn't think you'd be happy to know I was hanging out with them."
"Being happy about it doesn't matter. What matters is that we communicate. You—you're acting like you trust them more than your own family!"
"No!" Elena cried. "Of course not. I do trust them, but I wasn't trying to pick sides or something. I thought we were all on the same side. It was just a birthday party." She was very close to tears now.
Jenna stared at her for a few seconds, deflating. "Stay out here. I need to go talk to Damon."
X
Damon drank another tumbler of bourbon. He eyed the bar, trying to decide if its entire contents would be enough to make him forget what he'd just done, or if he'd have to drain the wine cellar too. Sometimes, having a vampire metabolism was more of a curse than a blessing. This was unquestionably one of those times. Not let things get complicated? They were already complicated now, because he was an idiot. He should've woken her up last night and sent her home instead of letting himself fall asleep. She was his friend, probably the best friend he'd ever had, but every time he saw her from now on, he was going to have to force himself not to think about the way she'd said his name when he was drinking from her, the way her heart pounded against his chest in time with his, the way she'd felt pressed against him.
"Why the hell did I think that was a good idea?" he muttered to himself.
"That's what I was wondering." Damon turned and saw Stefan watching him from the bottom of the stairs with an extremely judgmental expression on his face. "You fed off her," he accused.
"She wanted me to," said Damon curtly.
"That doesn't mean you just do it. She didn't know what she was getting into. And then you make jokes about what'll happen if her dad finds out, but he absolutely will kill you if he does."
"He won't find out."
"Why did you do it, Damon?" said Stefan, getting louder with every word.
"Because I had to show her that I'm better than what I did to her the first time, okay?" Damon burst out. He drank the rest of the bourbon, then set the empty tumbler down so hard that the wood dented and the crystal cracked. "You know, the time when you stuck me with vervain and starved me in the cellar?"
Stefan looked like he'd been struck in the face.
"You might want to clear out," said Damon. "I think Elena's aunt wants a word with me."
X
Stefan went upstairs again, but then sped around down corridors that couldn't be seen from the parlor or entrance hall, took the back stairs, and exited the boarding house through the dining room door. Elena was standing over by her aunt's car, her hands in her pockets, idly kicking some of the larger chunks of gravel. As he approached her, he made sure to let his shoes crunch on the gravel so that he wouldn't startle her.
When he was about twenty feet away, she glanced up at him.
"Hey," she said, looking down again and aiming a kick at a particularly large rock amongst the small, rough stones.
"Hey," he said. He looked closely at her. She seemed preoccupied but physically okay.
"Did you want something?" she mumbled.
"I heard everything," he said. "Vampire hearing makes it kinda hard not to eavesdrop."
She scowled at the ground. "Then you should try harder. That was private."
"Why would you ask him to do that to you?" said Stefan.
He watched as her cheeks turned a brilliant pink. "I just wanted to help him. Now he won't have to go off somewhere and compel himself breakfast from someone who didn't want to give it."
This response surprised Stefan. He'd been convinced that she must have some pretty thick rose-colored glasses on where Damon was concerned, but she'd obviously given this some thought. She knew what he did to survive, but it changed nothing for her. "Elena, he's the one who chooses to live this way. You don't need to sacrifice yourself like that."
"I wanted to," she said. She met his eyes again. There was something desperate and sad about the look in hers. "I'd do anything for him."
Stefan stared at her, and a heavy weight seemed to settle in his chest as realization dawned. "You're in lo—," he began, but she cut across him.
"Please don't say it." Her voice cracked on the third word. "If you say it, it'll be out there, and I…I just can't."
Stefan nodded. "He'll be gone with Katherine in three months," he said. "Nothing you say or do will change that." Just like nothing I say or do will change that, he added silently.
"I know," said Elena. "But even though three months are all I can have, I still want them."
X
Jenna strode back into the boarding house. This day was such a mess. Of course, she was relieved that Elena was fine. When Elena hadn't been at Bonnie's, Jenna had thought that she would have to recruit the vampire who had threatened to kill her a month ago to help her rescue Elena from some untold peril, as if her life was a horrible travesty of a buddy cop movie, and that she'd have to accomplish this before Grayson and Miranda found out anything was wrong. Thank God all of that would be unnecessary. Still, it was extremely unsettling to find Elena calmly sitting in the same room with the vampire who had threatened to kill her a month ago, and for Elena to act like he was the one who needed protecting from her.
"Did you come back to repeat what you said to me at Whitmore?" Damon asked when she returned to the parlor. He was standing in front of the fireplace now.
"No," said Jenna, cautiously walking closer. "Grayson told me all about the times you've saved Elena's life, so I won't tell you to stay away from her."
"Then what do you want?"
His abruptness made her pause. She didn't want to let him see how much he still scared her. "I want you to promise me that you'll call me or her parents whenever she's spending time with you," she said. "She's a teenager, and she thinks she's entitled to privacy about where she goes, but she doesn't know how much danger she's in."
"God, you people are such morons."
"Excuse me?" said Jenna angrily.
"You think you can protect someone by hiding the truth from them, but as long as Elena is out of the loop, I can guarantee you that this won't be the last time you lose track of her. Hell, this isn't even the first time. Ignorance protects no one. Your insane puritanical notions about preserving her childhood innocence aren't worth risking her life."
"It's not up to me how much she gets told," said Jenna, taken aback by his fierceness on Elena's behalf. "That's Grayson and Miranda's decision."
"Yeah," he snorted. "Just like it's their decision to keep me in the dark about what I'm supposed to be protecting her from. Are you ever going to give me the details? Or do you just expect me and my brother to put our necks on the line over a mystery threat?"
"That's not up to me either," said Jenna.
"Then you should tell them to reconsider. Just because I won't be staying in Mystic Falls long-term doesn't mean I can't still keep an eye out wherever I am, but I'm useless if I don't know what I'm looking for."
He was so different from that day at Whitmore. Jenna knew he meant every word he'd said, and she was starting to wonder if Grayson and Miranda were wrong about how they were handling this after all. Not telling Elena anything, not telling Damon everything, and the plan to double-cross him and Stefan on comet day. What would that do to Elena, if her parents were the ones who drove a stake through the heart of someone she trusted and cared about? And what if it went wrong, and Damon wasn't the one who ended up dead in that confrontation?
"What are you still doing here?" he said, making her jump. He sounded like he was about to lose his temper.
"Sorry. I'll go," said Jenna. "And I'll talk to them."
He picked something up off the mantelpiece. "You might want to take this too. I've done what I needed to do with it, and Grayson will be wanting it back." He tossed the object to her. She wasn't expecting it, but she managed to catch it without dropping it. It was an antique gold pocket watch.
"Okay, I'll give it to him."
"Good," said Damon. "Now get out."
X
Tyler came back from football practice to an empty house around noon. So far, he'd successfully avoided his dad all day, but pretty much nothing else had gone right. He'd botched leading the scrimmage so bad that Coach Tanner had yelled in his face. This was strike one; two more, and he would bench him for the season and make Matt captain instead. On top of that, a lot of the guys had given him weird looks about the bruise on his cheek, but luckily nobody asked questions. They all got banged up enough at practice now and then that they rarely paid much attention to things like that.
After he dumped his stuff in his room, Tyler went down to his dad's office, aiming for the bottles of scotch stashed in one of the filing cabinets. Whenever he wanted a buzz, he always took it from there. His mom was too good at keeping track of exactly how much was left in the bottles in the dining room bar and in the cellar, but she apparently didn't know about these ones, and his dad had never confronted him about the missing liquor. The trick was just to leave them all above half full.
By the time he'd swallowed about three shots' worth, he was starting to think it would be fun to get Vicki over here. They could do it on the antique leather sofa in the office. That way whenever his dad was a dick to him from now on, he could remember it and laugh.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he reached her name, then took another swig of scotch while he listened to it dial. A buzzing noise started up somewhere in the room. The call went to voicemail, and the buzzing stopped. Tyler frowned and glanced around, trying to figure out where it had been coming from. He looked at his phone. No way…, he thought. Just in case his hunch was right, he held down the call button until it redialed. After a few seconds, the buzzing started again. Tyler's heart beat faster. He remembered watching his dad put something into the desk drawer. Something rectangular and metallic. Something that could've been a phone.
He walked around the desk and pulled the drawer handle, but it wouldn't budge. Locked. However, the hidden liquor bottles weren't the only secret of his dad's that he'd figured out in recent years. He set the bottle and his phone down on the desk and went to the paintings of old dead dudes on the wall. There was a tiny key hanging from the nail behind the one of some guy with a neckbeard. He took it, replaced the painting, and turned back to unlock the desk drawer. Inside it, sure enough, was Vicki's phone. He picked it up. The screen was cracked, but it wasn't a touchscreen, so it still worked. He checked the recent calls. The two from him just now were the latest on a list that included five from Matt and three from the Grill. The last outgoing call was one to Matt sometime last night, but it hadn't completed.
Tyler dropped the phone back into the drawer as if it were a poisonous spider, shut the drawer, locked it, put the key back, put the scotch back, and got the hell out of that office. He tried to think of a way for this to mean something besides what it looked like, but he came up empty.
X
"What was that about?" said Caroline. She was sitting across from Bonnie in their usual booth at the Grill. Mondays worked well for these lunchtime get-togethers, because none of Caroline's committees met on Mondays, Bonnie wasn't scheduled for lifeguard shifts then, and Elena didn't generally have much on her schedule ever since Caroline kicked her off the cheer squad. However, Elena's spot was currently vacant.
"Elena said she can't make it," said Bonnie, dropping her phone back into her purse.
"Again?" said Caroline incredulously. "This is like the seventh time she's flaked out on us in the last month!"
"Caroline," said Bonnie wearily.
"What?" said Caroline. "You know it's true. What's going on with her? She's becoming a seriously crappy friend."
"Come on, she said she couldn't come today because she has to do a lot of extra chores at her house."
Caroline did not look like she considered this an acceptable alibi. Bonnie hesitated. It wasn't her place to tell, but she hated the way Caroline kept bashing Elena like this. "Okay, you can't tell her I told you, but I think she's been hanging out with Damon a lot."
Caroline's face lit up. "Seriously?" she said, putting her hands on the table and leaning forward. "That guy she was going to go to the swing ball with? The one she still hasn't introduced us to?"
Bonnie winced. "Actually, you met him," she said.
"What? No way."
"He was that guy who convinced the bartender to give you a real drink that one time."
Caroline's mouth fell open. "That's Damon? And a sweet little goodie-goodie like Elena is going out with a sexy mysterious older guy like him?"
Bonnie rolled her eyes. "They're not going out. After he stood her up for the dance, she gave him the cold shoulder for a while, and now they're back to being just friends."
"Ugh!" said Caroline. "That's so boring! We should get her to change her mind. And why didn't she tell me any of this?"
"Probably because she knew you'd want her to change her mind," said Bonnie.
Caroline made a face, then sighed. "Fine, she can be boring, but it's such a waste." She perked up again. "Hey, have you seen his brother, Stefan?"
"Yeah," said Bonnie. "Why?"
"Because he's gorgeous and looks like he's high school age. Which means he might end up in school with us. So while Elena's busy wasting her time being 'just friends' with McDreamy, I can move in on McSteamy." She grinned and waggled her eyebrows.
"I have to go to the bathroom," said Bonnie, and she slipped out of the booth before Caroline could say anything even more ridiculous. She already regretted spilling about Damon, but it was too late to take it back now. Maybe once Elena forgave her for telling, she could help her figure out a way to keep their unsuspecting friend from throwing herself at a pair of vampires.
She was halfway to the bathroom when she spotted Matt over by the door to the kitchen. He was having what looked like an intense and upsetting conversation with the supervisor of the Grill. As she watched, the supervisor went back into the kitchen, and Matt turned around, running a hand through his hair in frustration. Bonnie changed directions and headed towards him instead.
"Hey, Matt," she said. "Is everything okay? I thought you had a shift at the pool after football practice."
"I called in," he said. "I can't find Vicki anywhere, and Mom's too dr—uh, Mom's asleep, so I've been looking on my own."
"Was Vicki supposed to be working here today?"
"Yeah, her shift started at ten-thirty, but no one's seen her, and she didn't call in."
"That doesn't sound good," said Bonnie, frowning.
Matt shrugged helplessly. "She's disappeared before, but I can usually get in touch with her if I try hard enough. I don't feel good about this, Bon."
"Hey, I'm sure you'll find her," said Bonnie. She reached out a consoling hand to touch his arm. The moment her fingers made contact with his skin, the Grill and everyone in it vanished from her sight. She was suddenly standing in a forest in the middle of the night. There was something lying on the ground in front of her, and a shadowy figure standing over it. Moonlight came flooding through the trees, and she saw that the thing lying on the ground was Vicki, but she was broken and bruised, and her eyes stared at nothing. The shadowy figure was illuminated too, but with a howl of either pain or rage, it began to twist and contort before Bonnie could make out its face. The next second, it stood before her on all fours, an enormous wolf. Before she could move, it bared its fangs in a snarl and sprang at her.
The terrifying vision vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Bonnie was left standing in the Grill in front of a bewildered-looking Matt. She jerked her hand back, trying to get her breathing under control.
"Are you okay?" said Matt.
"I have to go," she said. "I hope you find Vicki." She turned and practically ran out of the Grill, deaf to the voices of Matt and Caroline calling after her in confusion. She needed to see Grams. Somehow, she knew with absolute certainty that Matt was not going to find his sister.
X
At about a quarter to eight, Grayson decided that he'd dragged out this whole pocket watch thing long enough. If he didn't take it to Richard soon, he'd be back pounding on his front door again. He'd found it sitting on his desk under a note from Jenna when he got home from work. Apparently Damon had given it to her that morning when neither he nor Miranda was home, which must mean that it would be safe to hand it over to the Council now without compromising him and Stefan.
When he arrived at the Lockwoods' mansion, it was Carol who answered the door. "Grayson!" she said, beaming at him in that special fake way only politicians' wives seem to know how to do. "Come in. Did you want to see Richard?"
"I have the watch," he said, unwilling to respond to that question in the affirmative.
Carol's eyes went wide. "Oh, good!" she said. "I think Richard has the other piece in his office, if you'll just follow me."
Grayson did as instructed. He neither liked nor disliked Carol Lockwood. On one hand, he had strong suspicions that she had only married Richard for his money and pedigree. On the other, that meant she had to put up with having Richard as a husband, so Grayson had to give her some credit. Miranda, who interacted with her more, frequently ranted about her infuriating habit of micromanaging at every planning committee she was a part of.
Richard was standing before the fireplace in his office, holding a glass of scotch. "So you finally brought the watch," he said.
"It arrived today," said Grayson.
"Right," said Richard coolly. Carol glanced from one man to the other, her fingers twitching slightly as though she wished she were the one holding that glass of scotch. Richard knelt down and rolled back the corner of the ornate rug, uncovering a small trapdoor. He opened it, revealing a safe. He unlocked this, bending over it so that he obscured the dial from Grayson's line of vision. When he stood up again a minute later, he was holding an oval-shaped ivory and gold box, which he brought over to his desk.
He held out his hand for the watch, and Grayson passed it to him. With a pocketknife, Richard popped the glass cover off the inside of the watch, tipped it over so that the clock face and gears dropped out, then set the casing aside. From the ivory and gold box, he withdrew a small compass. He set this into the watch casing and twisted it until it clicked.
"And now we have our vampire compass," he said. "Let's just hope we have it soon enough."
Grayson narrowed his eyes. He was used to Richard's bluster, but there was something off about him tonight. A sinister calm in place of the usual temper on the verge of boiling over. A strange gleam in his eyes. Whatever it was, Grayson didn't like it. But he didn't have much longer to think about it, because his cell phone started vibrating in his pocket. A second later, a bell-like alert noise came from Richard's direction, and another one sounded from somewhere else in the house.
"Excuse me, I think that's my phone," said Carol, and she left the office. Grayson and Richard both pulled out their phones. Grayson opened the new text, sent from Brian Walters, medical examiner. It read, "Council emergency. Meet at hospital morgue ASAP. Dr. Fell will let you in the north staff entrance."
"Maybe not soon enough after all," said Richard.
It cost Grayson a considerable effort to refrain from knocking his teeth in.
X
It was only eight o'clock, but Elena was exhausted. She trudged up the stairs to her room, ready to collapse on her bed, but when she opened the door, she found Damon already sitting on it, his back against the headboard, his ankles crossed, holding her teddy bear on his lap.
"Damon!" she said. "I didn't know you were coming over."
"I wanted to find out how grounded you were," said Damon.
"Well I've spent the whole day cleaning the house without being asked to, so Jenna decided not to tell Mom and Dad about the sleepover. Still, I don't think I should push it by going to the football thing with you and Stefan."
"Yeah, that's not happening tonight," said Damon. "Stefan's doing that thing where he doesn't talk to me but makes sure I notice him glaring at me whenever we're in the same room."
"Oh," said Elena. She was torn about what to do next. Should she keep some distance between them until she could be sure things wouldn't be weird from the fallout of that morning, or should she act normal? Since he had evidently decided that making himself comfortable on her bed didn't cross any lines, she opted for the latter. Affecting an air of confidence she didn't remotely feel, she walked right up to the side of the bed. "Move over," she said, then flopped down next to him and snatched her bear out of his hands.
"Gross, you smell like cleaning solution," he said, giving her a shove.
"Fine, I'll shower, you big baby," said Elena, laughing and smacking him with a pillow as she got back up. She got what she needed out of her dresser and slipped into the bathroom. Jeremy's door was open. With a jolt of alarm, she peeked into his room to make sure he had his headphones on as usual. He did. He was sitting at his desk, buried in his sketchbook, tapping one foot to the beat of whatever he was listening to. She breathed a sigh of relief, shut the door, and locked it.
X
What Elena had not realized was that Jeremy's headphones were only on for show. He'd run his iPod out of batteries a little while ago and had been too lazy to charge it yet, so he'd just been sketching without music when he heard Elena and Damon talking in her room through the open bathroom doors. As soon as he heard her say she was going to take a shower, he'd hastily put on his headphones and kept sketching. Seconds later, he heard the bathroom doors close one after the other, and then the sound of the water going on.
Immediately, he took off his headphones, got up, left his room, and went down the hall to Elena's door. For some reason, his parents seemed to be okay with Damon, but he doubted they knew he was sneaking into Elena's room after dark. Jeremy didn't trust him at all, and he wanted him gone. But when he opened the door and stepped inside his sister's room, nobody was there. His brow furrowed. He walked over to the open window and looked out. He checked the closet and even under the bed. No Damon. For a split second, it occurred to him to wonder if Damon was in the shower with Elena. He gagged, but dismissed the idea—she'd said she was showering, and it hadn't sounded like an invitation.
Jeremy scowled. Damon was here; he was sure of it. Maybe he'd heard him coming somehow. Still, if he thought he could out-sneak him, he was wrong. He had come up with a plan for eavesdropping on his parents to see if he could find out anything more about the weird business with the Mayor and the mysterious "investigation," but it would work just as well for this. He darted back out of Elena's room and went downstairs. Jenna was buried in some big psychology textbook, and his mom was in the living room putting together some kind of red, white, and blue streamer thing that would be part of Main Street's Fourth of July decorations. His dad had gone out on an errand a few minutes ago.
Luckily, both his mom and his aunt were very absorbed in their own tasks, so they didn't seem to notice him passing through, grabbing the cordless phones out of their charging stands as he went. He collected all three of the handsets from downstairs, then went back up and retrieved the fourth and final one from his parents' room. Then he took them all back to his own room. He removed the batteries from the first three and stashed them all in his desk drawer, but he put the fourth one on his desk and muted the ringer. That way, if anyone called the home number, the phone wouldn't ring anywhere in the house.
Next, he unplugged his headphones from his dead iPod and plugged them into the handset instead. Then he picked up his cell phone and turned its ringer off too. The chances that he would receive a call were even slighter than that someone besides a telemarketer would call the home number instead of directly calling the cell of the person they wanted to talk to, but he wouldn't leave anything to chance. With the handset, he called his cell phone. After accepting the call on his cell, he put it on speaker mode and the handset on silent.
Finally, he headed back to Elena's room with the cell phone. There was still no Damon in the room, but Jeremy was convinced he'd be back. He looked carefully around for the perfect spot to plant his phone-turned-spy-device, and eventually stashed it on the floor beneath the corner of Elena's nightstand. He sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork. The receiver was nicely exposed, so it should pick up most of the sound in the room, but you'd probably only notice it was there if you were specifically looking for it.
The water in the bathroom turned off then, so Jeremy hastily fled the room, closed the door behind him, and returned to his own, where he got in position with his headphones and sketchbook in case Elena checked on him.
If anything was going on between his sister and her creepy older guy friend, Jeremy would soon find out.
X
Damon had no idea what Elena's little brother was up to, but he didn't really care beyond being annoyed at having to vamp-speed out the window twice in ten minutes to avoid detection by him. There didn't seem to be anything missing from her room after the kid left, so Damon decided he was probably just snooping and gave it no more thought.
The main reason he'd come in person to visit Elena tonight, instead of just texting her or sending Edgar to check on her, was that he wanted to see how she would act around him, and if it would be any different now. But based on how she'd been before running off to the shower, she seemed largely unaffected by the events of the morning.
Which meant he was the only one with a problem. Great.
If it were any other girl, the solution would be obvious: get her out of his system. He'd sleep with her, feed off her some more, compel her to go on her merry way, and move on. But this was Elena, which meant that none of that was an option. Maybe if she was in her twenties and a lot more worldly, they could at least do the "friends with benefits" thing, but she was sixteen, very trusting, and very innocent. He was just going to have to suck it up and leave his shower at its coldest setting for the foreseeable future.
It took about ten minutes after the water turned off for Elena to reappear, dressed in cartoon print sleep shorts and a spaghetti strap top, her wet hair pulled back in a haphazard bun, and her face completely free of makeup. Damon couldn't help staring. It had been a while since he had paid attention to what made Elena different from Katherine, but this was a particularly vivid point of contrast. Katherine had never let herself be seen with so much as a hair out of place. Her every movement was calculated towards a specific end—usually a seductive one. Damon didn't know how her nineteenth century habits would update to the twenty-first century once she acclimated to the new culture, but he was prepared to bet the entire Salvatore fortune that she would not walk out of a bathroom in plain, casual pajamas, fresh-faced and hair dripping.
Such a shame. For all the care and attention Katherine put into her appearance, she had never looked this beautiful.
Startled by the direction of his thoughts, Damon gave himself a vigorous mental shake. Yes, this morning had definitely been a mistake. Hopefully sanity would return once all traces of Elena's blood left him.
"Can you get the lamp?" Elena asked. He reached over and clicked on the lamp on the nightstand while she turned off the light. "So what've you been doing all day?" she said as she resumed her previous spot next to him on the bed, snuggling right up to him.
"Nothing as exciting as cleaning to stave off punishment," he said.
"I just hope Jenna doesn't change her mind," said Elena.
"I could always compel her to forget about it," he said.
"That's not funny," said Elena.
"Who said I was joking?"
"Stop it," she said, frowning at him. "Me getting grounded isn't a big enough deal to justify mind control."
"But you wanting to take a hallucinatory stroll through past decades is?" There was nothing barbed about the way he said it; he was genuinely curious to know how her mind worked when it came to things like this.
"I asked you to do that," she said.
"You could ask me to tweak your aunt's memory."
"No, because it should be up to her what happens to her mind, not anyone else. Nobody deserves to be someone's puppet."
"So when would it be okay without permission?"
"I guess…if you need it to keep your secret. Maybe to stop someone from hurting themselves or others. Or even to just stop them from hurting." A cute little crease appeared between her eyebrows as she thought about it. "How extensive is compulsion, anyway? Can you compel away pain? You could be an awesome anesthesiologist without even going to school for it." She looked him in the eyes and wiggled her fingers in the air. "You will not feel any pain from what the surgeons do, and you will remain calm," she said in a spooky voice. "You will think of puppies and kittens and happy things."
Damon laughed. "Are you trying to be a vampire or a ghost?"
"Shut up," said Elena, smacking him on the arm. "But wouldn't it be a good idea, though?"
"Maybe," he allowed, "if the world found out about vampires and decided that instead of staking us all, they should give us jobs as close as possible to their sick and dying."
"No, wait, but that would be pointless anyway because you could just heal all the injuries and sicknesses with your blood, and then nobody would even need surgery," she said, ignoring his snark.
"Yes, because what vampire wouldn't love to be treated like a walking pharmacy?" he said bitterly, before he could stop himself.
Elena looked at him in surprise. "What?"
"Nothing," he said, avoiding her gaze.
"Well I wouldn't want it to be involuntary or anything," she said. "It could just be like the Red Cross. You know, 'every pint of blood donated can save three lives,' and stuff."
Of course she hadn't meant anything like those cells or that cold, metal lab table. He should know better. "You're thinking like your dad now," he said. "He's trying to isolate the part that heals so he can use it as a safe cure-all."
"Do you think it'll work?" Elena asked, sounding impressed and eager.
Damon snorted. "I think he's an alchemist chasing the Philosopher's Stone, but he doesn't appreciate it when I say it to his face. Which I have done several times. Something as good as a cure-all can never come without a price."
"Oh," she said, her eagerness fading.
He looked down at her. "Speaking of," he said, reaching over to tuck a few stray hairs behind her ear, "how's your headache?"
"Gone," she said. She bent to grab the blanket off the end of the bed and spread it out over herself. He tugged it over his legs too and held an arm out so that when she sat back, a little more reclined than before, she could lean her head against his shoulder. Her hair would get his shirt wet, but he didn't care. "When will you need to go hunting again?"
"Not until tomorrow."
"How does that work?"
"Are you sure want to know?"
"I promise I won't get grossed out or anything."
He smiled. How was it that he was having a perfectly calm conversation about the messier aspects of vampirism with the kind of girl who read picture books to sick kids in hospitals? "Well," he said, "the short version: most of the time it's like picking a girl up for a one-night stand, only with more fangs."
"But less sex?" she blurted, and then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Not usually," said Damon, amused. He could actually feel the heat coming off her cheeks.
"And, um, what happens on the not most-of-the-time hunts?" she said, her voice quavering with mortification. The hand she'd used to cover her mouth was now hiding her eyes.
"It varies, but playing possum out on a road always works," he said, deciding to allow the subject change instead of teasing her.
"Like the night we met?"
He chuckled. "That was the one time it didn't work."
"I'm glad my phone died that night. My parents would've just picked me up and we wouldn't have met." Her hand had slipped back down away from her face until it landed softly on his chest. He noticed that her eyelids were beginning to droop.
"Go to sleep, sweetheart," he said, straining his free arm to switch off the lamp without disturbing her. He felt remarkably peaceful. He pulled her a little closer and buried his nose in her damp hair. This, right here, was worth all the cold showers in the world.
"What era will you show me tonight?"
"It's a surprise."
X
Grayson, Richard, and Carol walked quickly to keep up with Meredith Fell as she led them through the hospital to the morgue. When they reached it, they found Sheriff Forbes, Brian Walters, and Meredith's cousin Logan already waiting for them. They were standing around a stainless steel table on which a white linen sheet was draped over the unmistakable shape of a human corpse.
"What happened?" said Carol.
Brian took a step closer to the table. "See for yourself," he said. He lifted the top of the sheet and carefully pulled it down until the head and shoulders of the corpse were revealed. Grayson's mouth went dry, and he heard at least two gasps from the people around him. It was Vicki Donovan. Her waxy white skin was scattered with yellowish green bruises, but all eyes in the room were drawn to her throat, which was so badly mangled and torn that it looked like ground beef.
"So Zach Salvatore was right," said Logan. "The vampires are back."
In the original outline for this chapter, Elena was just going to go home on Sunday night not long after the '20s dreamshare thing, but I started writing it, and it fought me so hard that it actually gave me writer's block for a couple of weeks. So last week, I changed it. First, it worked better for her to accidentally sleep over, and then sleepy Damon had his own ideas about what to do with the appetizing human he woke up next to, and things just kind of developed from there. I hope you liked the result. With it came everyone's favorite element of Damon/Elena: unresolved sexual tension! Hooray! So yeah, that will be driving both of them nuts for a while. In the meantime, we have the other plotlines. Yes, Vicki is dead and Richard has triggered his wolf gene. Yes, he messed up Vicki's neck to make it look like a vampire attack. And yes, Jeremy heard everything Damon and Elena said in that scene in her room. I am so psyched about what's coming up in the next few chapters with all this, you guys. Anyone want to share some theories?