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On my way to my locker, I caught sight of Stefan amongst the packed crowds of students. I waved to him, to get his attention. He nodded and came over to me.

"Hey, Elena," he greeted. His voice was low, serious, and yet pleasant.

I smiled. "Hello, Stefan. Listen, I wanted to ask you about something."

He shrugged and readjusted his backpack strap. "Fire away."

A loose strand of hair fell over my face when I titled my head down to view Stefan's hand—or, more specifically, his middle finger—; I tucked it behind my ear. "That ring you wear. Do you know where it came from?"

A muscle in his jaw constricted. "Why do you ask?"

I scrambled for a convincing excuse. "Uh, I—It just looks familiar. I'm a little bit of a history-nerd. I could've sworn I've seen that somewhere."

His eyes softened with his bare smile. "You're right, actually—it traces back all the way to the eighteen sixties." The warning bell rang, frustratingly, interrupting him. He shifted his position again, and I read the body language keenly.

"Well, I'd love to hear more about it sometime," I said, wrapping up our conversation.

"I'd love to tell you about it." His eyes were sincere, but I asked just in case:

"Are you sure? I know it's kind of a weird question."

His smile grew a little, and it was lopsided. Cute. "I'm certain."

"Thank you. I've just been really curious…in fact, what period do you have study hall?"

He puckered his brow in thought. "Sixth…I think."

I nodded. "I have lunch then, can I meet you in the library?"

"Absolutely."

We bid our goodbyes a bit awkwardly, and I rushed to my locker, nervous to be late. I wasn't really watching as I threw books in and out of the locker, so when I closed the door and ran into a muscled form, I gasped in surprise.

I looked up into grey-blue eyes that matched the falling snow outside. "Oh, my gosh, Matt, I'm sorry, I didn't see you." It was then that I realized there was something very off in Matt Donovan's expression (and not the wow-this-is-awkward off type of off). "Matt?"

"Elena! It's Vikki—and Jeremy—come on, we have to go." He sprinted towards the doors, and I followed on his heels, a horrible, crushing panic straining against my chest.

I couldn't lose Jeremy. There was only so much a person could take. My heart raced, and my breathing was painful.

I could see the glass doors to the back of the school—where all the crack-heads hang out—just around the corner. I pushed my legs harder. Tears choked in my throat. Oh, God, I would die before I lost Jeremy.

The walls began to cave in, and the doors got closer, and closer until we burst through. There were sirens in the distance. Jer and Vikki were lying on the sidewalk next to each other, in pools of blood.

I flung myself to them, adrenaline tripling my normal speed. I was next to them in a flash, and then I was on my knees next to Jeremy, and I cried from the intense relief that wracked my entire being when I saw the heavy lifting a dropping of his chest. He was breathing. But…Vikki wasn't.

I cleared the tears from my eyes. Once my vision was no longer blurred, I could see the source of all the blood was coming from two deep marks on each of their necks.

I frowned. They almost looked like…bite marks.

I fell backwards, feeling the horrifying image wedge itself permanently into my mind.

It could have been an animal…if this hadn't happened on school grounds. What kind of animal would attack in the back of a high school? They didn't come out into the open like that—or did they? It seemed ridiculous.

As I sat out there, I wished I'd worn something warmer. I was shivering head to toe, but there was absolutely no way I'd leave Jeremy.

I was grateful that the snow had stopped, but I was still kneeling in the smooth, uninterrupted blanket of it, and my pants were getting soaked. Jeremy was, too; I worried for him. His lips were turning blue…Vikki's were white.

I looked over to Matt, and his face was…empty. Blank, emotionless, dead,

I got up and shook him. "Matt."

Nothing.

"Matt!" He was scaring me now. "Matt, you're in shock." I even slapped at his cheeks, and pushed him—hard. He stumbled, but otherwise didn't respond to any of my attempts to bring him back.

I went back to assessing the damage done to Jer and Vik.

Her whit lips twitched suddenly, and I frowned. "Vikki?"

"Vampire3," she whispered in a voice so quiet, it almost got lost in the blowing wind. "What?"

But she was out cold, and now I knew what had caused Matt's freak out.

He believed her.

I waited in the snow next to Jeremy's heaving body until the ambulance arrived. Jer's hand was cold in mine, but I promised myself it was because of the temperature outside.

Before the paramedics, came the least person I expected to see.

Damon.

It was out of nowhere; one minute I was alone, and the next his large, warm, hands were on my cheeks, holding my face comfortingly.

"Elena?" He sounded a little…tortured. He was bent down in front of me, smoothing my hair under his hands, looking very concerned. His eyes were wide, lips left slightly parted open. He resembled an over-protective boyfriend—which, on some level, he probably was just that. "Elena, what the hell?" He demanded.

I nodded towards Jer. "My brother."

He looked behind him like it was the first he'd noticed of the two bloodied figures. He made an "oh" sound and went over to his side. Upon seeing the wounds on Jeremy's neck, he flinched slightly.

Snapping his fingers in front of Jeremy's nose, he called, "Hey, kid? You with me?"

There was a moan and my heart squeezed.

"Look here." Damon pulled his fingers up to his eyes and snapped them again. When Jeremy met his stare he went on, "You had an accident, but you're going to be fine. It was an animal attack—came out of nowhere. Okay?"

Jer's head bobbed up and down. "Out of nowhere," he agreed mechanically.

My emotions raced as I watched Jeremy's face blank the way Tanner's had when Stefan had spoken to him about closing the blinds.

"What is that?" I demanded.

"What's what?"

"That…thing you and your brother do with your eyes. That makes people repeat your exact words?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He moved on to Matt, taking his shoulder.

"Don't bother," I discouraged. "He's in shock or something. I already tried."

The words seemed to fly right over Damon's head as he proceeded to speak to Matt's unresponsive form. "Knock, knock. You in there, Matt?"

Matt blinked, and curls of suspicious unfolded in my core.

This time, whatever Damon whispered was too quiet for me to hear.

This brought me back to the term that Vikki had sighed in her own inaudible whisper: Vampire.

"Do you know who did this, Damon?" I asked boldly.

"Do you?"

I narrowed my eyes and avoided his question, instead asking one of my own (which wasn't really fair, but I wasn't in a very generous mood.) "Why are you here?"

"Why not?"

"Damon, I'm serious. How did you know what happened?"

He sighed. "I…am friends with Sheriff Forbes. I was at the station when she got Matt's call."

I frowned. "So how did you get here before she did?"

"I have a faster car," he replied smoothly.

Reluctantly, I accepted the answer. "Well, then…thank you, Damon."

His features pooled into a warm look of surprise. "You're welcome," he said simply.

The ambulance pulled up dangerously close to the bodies just then, with the cop cars tagging right behind it.

Damon snorted and stated dryly as the wheels of the cars just barely avoided printing tire tracks into Jer's ankle, "That would've been ironic."

He was right, and it was funny; getting run over by an ambulance would be like…choking to death on a Life Savor. I, however, was not quite in the mood for humor, and so instead of engaging in Damon's witty comment, I left him hanging like an old pair of tennis shoes on a telephone wire.

A slender, salt and pepper haired man approached me, wanting to know, "What happened?"He was dressed in an all white uniform, so I gathered that he worked at the hospital. There was something untrustworthy in his weasel-shaped eyes that I didn't like at all.

"I'm not sure, I didn't see any of it, but that's my brother and…" I pointed to Matt, "his sister."

"Names," he prompted.

"Jeremy Gilbert and Vikki Donovan," I supplied hesitantly. I wasn't particularly inclined to give the rude man any information. At least my answer had satisfied him; he nodded and whisked himself away, leaving me to my own devices.

I looked around, suddenly noticing that Damon was gone. Before I had time to ponder it too much, Sheriff Forbes, Caroline's mother, approached me. She had short blonde hair, kind features, and a maternal way about her. "Elena, what's happened here? Did you see anything?"

I shook my head 'no' and then gave her a rundown of how I'd found them. After my recount, she advised me to call Jenna, and then she went to talk to a very pale Matt.

We were in Jer's hospital room until eight o'clock that night. It was small and white and smelled of hand sanitizer mixed with something damp and moldy. Jeremy's heart monitor gave off a steady, reassuring beep.

I was nervous in his room. Harsh, cold memories came rushing back to me. I'd never wanted to see the inside of a hospital again after the crash. I hadn't been hurt enough when the car went over to stay in one of the rooms overnight, but still, all I could associate ERs with was the panic I'd felt that day. They'd brought me to the hospital to get me 'all checked out' and while I'd been fine, my parents hadn't even made it into the building. I'd been all alone.

I shook off the haunting memory and firmly reminded myself to, "move forward with life" and "focus on the present."

I scowled at the large white bandage on Jeremy's neck. It intimidated me, because—it didn't belong there. Yet, there it was, stuck to what little skin he had left in that area, taunting me. It was like being told not to forget how quickly things could be taken from me. The universe wasn't going to stop at just my parents. I had the morbid feeling that I had all-out bad luck, and that it was going to be a take one, take all type thing.

I wouldn't let that happen, though. I would fight for Jeremy. I could fight against it this time—some stupid animal with the nerve to make a meal out of my brother would not stand a chance against an angry, overly protective 'me'. I had not forgotten how to be a mean girl; I had simply chosen not to act like one anymore. I could change that very quickly, though. I could be very whiney when I wanted—and whining usually worked when you needed to get your way. I wasn't proud of it, but I probably knew that better than anyone. In this case, what I wanted was for every police officer in the county to be searching those woods for any animal that could've done this-assuming it was an animal.

I'd stayed all day as Jeremy drifted in and out. Each time he did awaken, he was loopy, and his hand, which I was holding in mine, was squeeze into a fist. The doctors said he'd lost a lot of blood, that it was another miracle for the Gilbert family that he'd even survived. This time I agreed with their definition of 'miracle.'

Looking at that bandage on his neck, though, all I could keep thinking, no matter how hard I tried to forget it, was 'vampire'.

Was it true? Could it be true?

I wasn't a believer. Mystic Falls may've had a crazy history, but those stories were all just stories, just legends that were dreamed up before we had science to disprove them.

Right?

But who was I to blindly instill my trust in logic? To simply cross my fingers and hope for the best? I needed to do a little digging, even if all I accomplished in the end was ensuring that I wasn't actually going insane.

I needed to have that meeting with Stefan…and then I needed to have one with Sheriff Forbes. I needed to get to the bottom of this, take it into my own hands. My family was a concern now, which meant that all my facts had to be solid, and all my explanations sound, without any dangerous slips or loopholes. I had people to protect-including myself.

Because I had a bad feeling that my sort-of boyfriend had a Hell of a lot to do with all of this, and so did his charming little brother.

At eight o'clock, they kicked Jenna and me out. Jer was expected to be asleep for the night. We'd been assured a thousand times over that nothing bad was going to happen overnight, and that we could, should, go home and get some rest because he'd still be there in the morning. We knew the doctors were right, and took the advice to heart; it'd been a long day, and it was best for us to go home and sleep off some of our panic and anxiety. When Jeremy awakened for good, he'd need some positivity around him. He'd be scared enough, finding himself minus a few quarts of blood, in an unfamiliar hospital room, with a machine hooked up to his chest.

Jenna drove me home, since I didn't have my own car with me. We passed by the school on the way. The streetlamps cast a bright glow against the dark blue sky, taking the place of the stars that had not yet come out. They shone on the High School, like the beacons you would find behind a singing angel, or the spotlights pointing out a performer on a stage. I could see the windows, all frosted over icily, and that little dots of salt were strewn up the walkway, in preparation for the crowds of kids that were sure to slip all over the place the coming morning. The building seemed normal…except for the red and blue flashing lights bouncing off the back sides of the it.

Strangely enough, something in my core seemed to be dragging me into that back parking lot. It was as though I would miss something I if didn't go, something vitally important...so I made Jenna stop the car.

With a bewildered feeling in my bones and a determined one in my mind, I succumbed to the unusual urge and followed my body's instincts to the scene of the accident. As though obeying an order, I stepped out of the car silently and shut the door on Jenna, who was sitting in the driver's side looking just as confused as I felt.

The back driveway up to the doors had been taped off rather dramatically, and a few cop cars still lingered a bit ominously. There must've been an investigation going on…and the worried feeling that gave me made the back my throat heavy and thick so that I could barely swallow.

As I trudged on, a pompous officer warned me, with an almost amusing exaggeration about it, not to get too close. I complied willingly, because I could see everything I needed to from right where I was.

The snow.

There was a layer of it, still fresh from the morning. The police men and women's tracks were embedded in it all around the area that was taped off, leaving clear footprints.

There had been none when I'd found Jeremy early this morning, aside from mine and Matt's. To be sure that my memory served me right, I let my eyes wander up the concrete to the backdoors we'd come out of. My smaller tracks and Matt's clunky, uneven ones stood out obviously, and they led all the way under the tape.

But there were no tracks in there that didn't belong to Matt and I—Jeremy and Vikki's tracks had been erased.

Whatever "animal" that had attacked them had been smart enough to cover its tracks.

I got back into Jenna's car feeling as ice-cold and pale as the snow.

"Not to be cliché, but you look like you've seen a ghost," Jenna commented. No questions were asked about why I'd made her stop the car. She was just cool about it. I loved that about my Aunt; she trusted me to make my own decisions and to keep my own secrets.

I forced a convincing smile for her benefit. "I think I'm just a little chilly." I rubbed my arms up and down with the inside of my hands briskly, making a spectacle of trying to increase my body heat with friction. She turned up the heater for me, but I knew she was too smart to buy my excuse. She seemed to be letting me off the hook; she probably figured if she asked, she would only get herself trapped in a whole that she should've just camouflaged up with leaves.

We arrived home, and it was bright and warm, but it was not where I needed to be. I needed to talk to Stefan.

Damon had disappeared rather mysteriously after the police and the paramedics had come to the scene, and I hadn't seen him since. If I stalked down Stefan and invaded his house, I would not only be being rude, but I would risk running into Damon, and there was something strong and persistent in my head warning me to keep my investigation from him.

I weighed my choices in frustration. It really was just as likely that Damon was staying with Stefan, as it was that he wasn't.

I wondered, practically, if I could even find Stefan's house—someone had to know where he lived, right? Besides, I had a way of finding the Salvatore brothers when I wasn't looking. No, I didn't really think finding the house would be too much of a problem. The real issue was that my impatience could ruin everything, and it just wasn't worth the risk. Damon would discourage my plans if he knew about them and then I'd never know what he was keeping from me (because his 'secret' had to be tied into all this. It had to be.) Before Jeremy had been attacked, my curiosity was simply an annoying presence in the back of my mind, but now that the little family I had left was involved, I had a right to know what Damon was hiding.

Something told me Damon would think differently. I wasn't lying before when I'd said that I trusted him, but I was learning now that that faith had limits.

The safest thing for me to do was wait, and so, reluctantly, I locked myself in my room for the night. After sending out replies to some supportive texts from Bonnie and Caroline, I set my phone on my dresser and clicked my light out. The darkness was unsettling, and I tossed and turned in my bed uncomfortably. It was very cold, and my blankets suddenly felt inadequate. I frowned when I felt a gust of wind on my shoulders.

With a sigh, I realized I'd forgotten to close my window. I went to close it, but then, it hit me.

No. I'd closed it Saturday night. I knew I had, because I'd seen that snow was in the forecast for the weekend, and I hadn't been interested in getting frostbite in my sleep. Snow was rare in Virginia, so I'd made a point to remember to close that window. I knew I'd shut it.

Just like I knew I'd put my ring on that table.

My next shudder had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.