Chapter 5

The next day, Meredith was back in George's office early in the morning. She wasn't going to be easily dissuaded from the whole truth this time; she intended to find out everything he knew. No matter how painful it might be. Her grandfather wouldn't have spoken to her through Bonnie if it wasn't vitally important, Meredith felt certain. The sense of urgency in his words had told her to take what he'd said very seriously.

One of the tasks he'd given her was easily accomplished: talk to George Watkins again. Check. The other might be slightly more challenging to fulfill. How did one stop an entire vampire cult and its leader?

To stop one vampire had taken the combined effort of vampire brothers, the spirit of her best friend, and an entourage of civil war ghosts. On one level Meredith figured she was royally screwed, yet on another she knew that her grandfather wouldn't just feed her to the wolves.

Despite the fact that he'd tried to kill her when she was five, she knew deep down her grandfather would never have done that if it wasn't for Klaus' attack. It had taken her awhile growing up to reconcile the truth with the overwhelming fear she'd felt as a child. Her parents had been afraid of taking her to visit him at first, concerned that it would be too much for her young mind.

When Meredith was seven, they'd encouraged her to accompany them to the institution. She could still remember the terror she'd felt walking down those sterile hospital corridors, her heart beating in her chest like a trapped bird. Even at such a young age, though, she'd done her best to be strong despite being certain that when her grandfather saw her he'd try to attack her all over again.

Finish what he'd started two years ago.

That hadn't been what happened at all. He'd been so drugged up (Meredith later learned the hospital staff did that before all their visits) that her grandfather could barely focus on any of them. Mostly he'd stared at the bone white linoleum, completely oblivious. Occasionally a bit of drool would run down his chin and a nurse would come along to wipe it away.

In that first visit, Meredith's initial fear had been quickly replaced by pity. It had still taken her years to try and determine why he'd tried to kill her and her grandmother, something that made sense. Finally, she'd come to realize that the man who'd attacked them both was not the same one she'd known growing up.

Something—Meredith had known even at seven that whatever it was had been very bad—had caused him to be driven mad. He'd been so out of his mind that he couldn't recognize his loved ones from the enemy. Once she'd recognized this as the truth, she'd been able to forgive him and chose to remember him as he was before the attack. The loving and kind granddad who'd taught her how to tell time, who she'd built bird houses with, and who'd taken her on fishing trips.

Klaus had brought those peaceful times to a clashing, jarring halt. And maybe he hadn't been alone.

"Back so soon," George said, bringing Meredith abruptly back to the present. He was smiling as he set a cup of tea down in front of her, but she had a feeling he wasn't the least bit pleased to see her come back so quickly. Perhaps he realized the true intentions behind her hasty return. "Did you remember something else you wanted to ask?"

Meredith had to choke back a laugh. "Where to begin," she murmured. Adding cream and sugar to her tea, she stirred slowly while contemplating how best to broach the topic of her mother's death. There really was no easy way and it wasn't as though subtlety had ever been her strong suit.

"Why don't we start with the death of my mother? That seems like a good place to begin."

George, in the process of sipping his tea, swallowed the steaming liquid too quickly. It looked as though he was almost choking for a moment before he managed to clear his throat and recover. There was a brief pause as he gathered his thoughts, probably trying how best to broach a touchy subject. "What do you know about her death?" he finally asked.

"Only what my father told me. That she was in a bad car accident when I was just a year old. 'Killed on impact' was how he put it...Somehow I think there's far more to the story than that, though."

"What makes you think that?"

Meredith knew it wouldn't be wise to mention she knew because her grandfather had spoken from beyond the grave through her best friend. George would probably have her put back in the same room at the Hadsforth Institute that her grandfather had recently vacated. Instead she'd concocted a story that sounded believable. It was a gamble, but it would pay off if she was right.

"What you told me about the Dark Veritas. If they were as powerful and influential as you say, I have my doubts that they would let my grandfather run away so easily. He must have known a lot of their secrets and with all that work he did for them…"

As Meredith trailed off, she saw that George had taken the bait she'd cast out. The furtive look in his eyes faded entirely and his shoulders slumped in defeat. In one sense she felt victorious that her hunch had been right; in another she felt completely horrified.

"What happened when Granddad came back to the States?" Meredith's voice came out stronger and steadier than she'd anticipated. To still hands that wanted to begin shaking badly, she grasped her tea cup with both hands and concentrated on drinking her tea.

"For a long time nothing happened. Your grandparents raised a family here in Fell's Church, including your mother. Everything was fine for many years. John was paranoid for the first few, though. He would rarely admit why that was, but you would often catch him looking over his shoulder or just looking worried."

"He figured the Dark Veritas would try to follow him?"

George nodded with a somber expression. "I was the only one he ever confided his feelings to and I think that's only because I'd met Klaus. I knew how persuasive he could be—how strong and fearless. After awhile, though, when nothing happened, John began to relax. He figured he'd truly been able to escape them."

"I'm guessing he was wrong," Meredith said dryly. Her face was expressionless, but she was drinking in every word as though there might be a test afterwards.

Who knew, if she pursued this to the end her grandfather insisted on there just might be. It might be the greatest test of, and potentially for, her life.

"The rest of this is pure speculation," George continued. "I have no way of confirming if John's version of events was true or not. He confided what he believed happened to Isabella just before he went completely insane. So it might just be the delusional ravings of a mad man but, well…he seemed pretty convinced."

"What did he say happened?"

"John thought the Dark Veritas had been there the whole time; watching, waiting, biding their time. He figured they waited to lure him into a false sense of ease so they could strike when he was finally happy and comfortable."

"When was that?" Meredith asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.

"A year after you were born," George said quietly. "John believed the car crash that killed your mother wasn't an accident. Like I said, it was impossible to confirm if he was right or not. There were no witnesses and, well…did your father ever tell you it was a hit-and-run?"

Meredith shook her head, a feeling of numbness spreading throughout her entire body. It was as though she were hearing the words George was saying from down a long tunnel. Everything felt surreal and far away. Part of her wanted to clap her hands over her ears and not hear the rest, but they remained grasping her tea cup. The wheels of truth had been set in motion and she knew that she was helpless to stop them.

"The car Isabella was driving was in bad shape by the time the ambulance and fire trucks got there. It caught fire—"

"Fire?" Meredith interjected. Bits and pieces of Bonnie's trance came back to her suddenly like déjà vu. She's trapped…there's flames all around…HELP HER!

George nodded slowly with a pained look on his face. "There wasn't much anybody could have done. Flames overwhelmed the car far too quickly. Your mother was trapped. By the time they were able to get to her it was too late…"

"And Granddad figured the Dark Veritas were responsible?"

"I don't think there was a single doubt in his mind. At first I thought he just wanted someone to blame, but I know that John also felt responsible for her death. The guilt that ate at him nearly destroyed him. He was devastated by Isabella's death. Everyone was shocked by it."

Four years. They'd let four years pass before they'd returned to attack her grandfather? Why? Why not just take care of him right then and there? That was if the Dark Veritas were involved in the attack. There was the possibility Klaus had been operating independently.

Gut instinct told Meredith that wasn't likely. Something had happened after four years had expired…something that required more than just "punishing" him. It was like a knife stabbing into her heart for Meredith, knowing that her mother's life had been nothing more than an easily disposable pawn in the politics of the undead. Fury, sadness, and pain threatened to overwhelm her. Only through perfect self-control did she manage to keep them at bay.

"Is there anything more?" she asked, as though her world hadn't already been shattered to pieces. "Anything else I should know?"

"I don't think so," George said, frowning thoughtfully. "After Isabella's death, John disappeared for several months. He never told me where he went, though, and he came back immediately when he heard you were in the hospital."

This news was startling and more unexpected than anything else she'd learned. "I was in the hospital? When? Why?"

"Your parents really did keep a lot from you, didn't they?" George's kind blue eyes were wrought with sympathy and pity. "It was shortly after your second birthday, I believe. You had an extreme form of anemia…basically you had contracted a virus that was destroying your blood cells faster than your body could make them. Even with near constant blood transfusions the doctors could barely keep up to the disease."

Meredith felt sick at not knowing any of this. The dark, oozing sense of betrayal alone was nausea inducing. It seemed wrong that she should find out that she'd had a fatal disease from a complete stranger. Why had her father never mentioned this to her? Yet another secret buried in the muck and mire beneath her family tree.

"What turned everything around?" she asked. "I'm obviously fine now. What did they do?"

"That's the weird thing. You weren't doing very well for awhile. The doctors had never seen anything like you had before. Your father was devastated. Having you sick on top of what happened to your mother…Thankfully everything turned out fine where you were concerned. Shortly after your grandfather came back, you started to improve. Six months later there was no sign of the virus. It was remarkable."

Meredith took a moment to try and determine what this new piece of the puzzle had to do with everything else she'd learned—if it even had anything to do with it at all. Somehow she thought it did, but until she had time to look into everything further there was no way of knowing how or why her childhood illness fit in. As though there weren't enough mysteries on her plate already.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you all these things," George was saying, drawing her from her reverie.

"No, it's fine," Meredith reassured him. "At least someone is finally being honest with me. I owe you a world of thanks." She began to gather up her coat and purse. "You've given me a lot to think over, I'll admit, but please don't feel bad about any of it. I'm a big girl, I can handle it."

As Meredith left George's office for the second time in two days, she was aware of how differently she felt this time as compared to yesterday. Yesterday had been a shock, a revelation into her grandfather's character and history. It didn't change anything about her, though, except her understanding of who he was and why.

Today was different. Today she'd found out her mother had been taken away from her because of a group of vampires she'd never even known existed. Today she had discovered the root cause of why nothing in her life had ever been normal.

The worst part was learning the entire truth about the death of her mother.

This discovery hadn't fully sunk in yet, until Meredith slipped into her car and the despair hit her with the full force of a tsunami. If it hadn't been for the Dark Veritas, her mother would still be alive. Meredith could have grown up with both of her parents, a whole and happy family. Her father hadn't met Anna until Meredith was twelve. Until then, Meredith had been forced to cope without much of a feminine influence in her life. Henry had done his best and she loved him for it, but he was easily baffled when it came to Barbies, lacy dresses, and tea parties. Thankfully Anna had managed to help fill him in on many of the gray areas of being a girl from the time puberty hit or Meredith was certain her father would have run screaming for the hills.

Meredith's step-mother had tried valiantly to slip into the role of female confidant to a young girl on the cusp of becoming a teenager. By the age of twelve, however, Meredith was already too set in her ways. It wasn't that she hated Anna, they got along fine and she was glad to see her father with someone who made him smile again. Meredith simply did not open up to most people with the exception of Bonnie and Elena.

In a rare moment of self-pity, angry tears welled up in the corners of Meredith's eyes. She felt livid at fate, the Dark Veritas, and even her grandfather. How could he have been so foolish? He must have realized on some level exactly what he was getting himself involved with. Reaching in her purse where she still had the war time picture Meredith pulled it out and studied her grandfather as a young man. He had his chest thrust out with pride, arm thrown comradely around Kane's shoulders, and a devil-may-care smile. It was a smile that spoke of the follies of youth and brashly made decisions.

With a heavy sigh, Meredith realized the futility of being furious with her grandfather. Maybe he had known what Kane was and thought he could handle what he was getting himself into—until it was too late. And it wasn't as though there hadn't been consequences for his actions. Her grandfather must have been eaten alive with guilt when he alone knew the death of his daughter was no accident. Then he'd been attacked himself four years later, driven entirely out of his mind.

No, her grandfather didn't deserve her anger, Meredith realized. The Dark Veritas were the ones who needed to pay for everything they had cheated her of.

They had stolen her mother, grandfather, and turned her childhood into a nightmarish hell. Clenching her hands into fists, Meredith felt a newfound sense of determination slip over her. Not since she'd begun to unearth her family's twisted secrets two days ago had she been so certain of what she had to do. Even when her grandfather had spoken through Bonnie she'd felt only disoriented uncertainty.

Today was different. Today Meredith knew exactly what she had to do.