Chapter Four

For a moment, Damon, for the first time in his life, was speechless. Not with shock, because he had known somehow that that was what Meredith would say. He was speechless because he honestly didn't know what he should say in return. Stefan had been the brother he had hated, despised, because his birth had caused their mother to die. Not that he would admit that to anyone. But since Elena had come into their lives, and they had been forced to work together, Damon's loathing of Stefan had lessened. Though he could never say that he liked his brother, he had almost begun to feel something like respect for him. Respect for the fact that he had always carried on, even though he was the weaker and more vulnerable of the vampire brothers.

And now he was dead? Damon didn't even know what he was supposed to feel.

Instead of puzzling it over, he peppered Meredith with questions.

"What happened?"

She took a deep breath. "A couple of weeks ago, two new guys

came to town. You see, Elena and Stefan had moved to this quiet little place in the middle of nowhere, where nobody knew them. Bonnie and I spent more time in that place visiting them than we did in Fell's Church. So we pretty much knew everyone there. And we knew that there were two new guys in town. Nobody really took much notice of them though; they were quiet, and they kept themselves to themselves." She raised her eyes to Damon's. "They were vampire hunters."

"When did you find out?"

"When they killed Stefan," she replied coldly. "We had no idea who they were until they attacked him one night."

"Attacked him? What did they do?"

"He was hunting in the woods. They took him by surprise; he never heard them coming. He tried to fight them off, but—"

"Why didn't he know?"

Meredith blinked. "What?"

"He should have heard them coming. Why didn't he hear them?"

She shook her head slowly. "I don't know…"

But Damon was continuing relentlessly. "He was feeding?"

"Yes."

"Then he was strong. At his strongest. He should have fought them off. Two humans against one vampire would have been hopeless. He should have torn them apart."

Meredith was staring at him. "Damon, you didn't see him. When we found him…" She shuddered. "It was almost impossible to recognise him. Whoever these guys were, there was no way Stefan would have been able to fight them off. I don't even think you could have fought them off together. It looked like they…" She had to stop and take a long drink before she continued. "Let's just say that they didn't kill him straight away." She closed her eyes, hands trembling.

Damon wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the floor, lost in thought. Suddenly his eyes snapped back upwards to her.

"Who's 'we'?"

Meredith's eyes opened. She was getting unsettled by his sudden questions. "What?" she asked again.

"You said 'when we found him'. When who found him?"

Meredith swallowed. "I wasn't the one who found him first, but I was there a few minutes after she was."

A flicker of emotion crossed Damon's face. "Who?" he asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

After a brief pause, Meredith said quietly, "Elena."

Damon's eyes clouded over momentarily. Elena found him.

Meredith was watching him, waiting for a reaction. "She'd gone to see where he was, because he was late. I had been staying at her house that night, and I tried to stop her; I told her he'd be fine, but she wouldn't listen. She seemed to know something was wrong. I told her to wait for me, and that I'd go with her after I'd changed my clothes, but by the time I'd got ready, she was already gone. So she got to him before I did."

When he felt able to speak, Damon asked distantly, "What did she do?"

Meredith looked at him in horror as she remembered. "She went crazy. She screamed and screamed—I thought she was going to do something stupid, like kill herself." She shook her head in distress. "The screams, Damon—they were like nothing I ever heard. She fell on the ground and started shaking and crying. But then she just stopped—stopped screaming, stopped crying, stopped everything. She just sat there, staring into space, and she wouldn't say a word. I kept trying to talk to her, tried to make her see that we had to get some help, but she wouldn't even look at me."

"So what did you do?"

"I waited with her while I called Bonnie and Matt and told them what had happened. Matt came with his car, and we… we hid Stefan's body in the woods while Bonnie stayed with Elena. Then we took her back to the house. That was a week ago, and she hasn't said a single thing since. The only thing we could think of doing was to come and find you."

Damon frowned. "And why is that?"

"Because you're the only person that might be able to break her out of it."

Damon didn't reply.

"Please, Damon. We don't know what else to do. And we need to find these guys before they find her. They'll probably realise that we were associated with Stefan and come after us next. We can't fight them on our own." She looked at him with pleading eyes. "If you won't do it for us, do it for Elena."

He drained the last of his drink and stood gracefully, leaning against the bar. "So how far away is this town in the middle of nowhere? Do we need a car, or can I fly?"

Meredith dared to smile thinly. "We'll need a car."

"Then it's a good thing I brought one with me."