A/N: We're down to more reasonable chapter lengths xD Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.


The remainder of Rory's first week back at school passed with far fewer dramatics. There was a fight between two sophomore softball players she had to help mediate on Wednesday during lunch, and Mr. Tanner seemed determined to make every single student detest him on every level this year by calling someone out every class period—and at home Jeremy was barely around for dinner and Jenna and Elena kept gossiping about why—but aside from those few events, no drama occurred.

The afternoon of the annual party at the Falls most of Student Council had been excited for, Rory gave Mackenzie a ride to Blackbird Books, a shop both of them frequented and where Mackenzie worked on weekends. "You're not going to that stupid party at the Falls, are you?" asked Mackenzie as Rory parallel parked the Bronco a few storefronts down. "I would, because it'll be memorable if nothing else, but…"

"I'm not going," Rory confirmed. Last year she would have, but this year she just wasn't interested in the same conversations and the same gossip as every other party she'd attended. Not to mention Mackenzie was probably right—parties at the waterfall in the woods were bound to be trouble. Rory would be genuinely surprised if no one injured themselves stumbling around drunk. "Why?"

Mackenzie shrugged as Rory shifted the car into park. "A few NHS people asked if I was going after my shift."

Both of them unbuckled their seatbelts and climbed out of the car into the thick, warm afternoon air. It was heavy with the humidity of oncoming rain, though the only clouds in the pale sky were wispy. "Anyway," Mackenzie added as Rory rounded the car to join her on the sidewalk and wander back toward the bookstore, "I don't need to witness Tucker James doing a keg stand and then either throwing up or hitting on every girl in a two-mile radius. Or, God forbid, doing both at the same time."

The mental image made Rory let out a startled laugh. "That would take talent."

"Which Tucker definitely doesn't have," said Mackenzie, and she moved to swing open one of the glass double-doors to the bookstore and hold it for Rory.

Blackbird Books had started as a cute corner bookstore, but over the years it had expanded into the lot next door and spread out. It was massive now and packed with bookshelves on two floors, each bookshelf a little crooked, vintage armchairs set out at intervals and interesting old photographs and portraits on the walls. Mackenzie left to start her shift at the register and Rory made a beeline for the paperback mysteries.

She trailed up and down a few aisles, pausing to occasionally remove a book and skim the back cover and sometimes flip through it. When Rory had actual free time, she tended to spend it either painting or reading—she loved mysteries, especially cozy ones, in part because it was fun to try and solve the puzzle and in part because she'd grown up obsessed with Nancy Drew and watching Murder, She Wrote reruns with her mother. It was the only thing they'd really done together, since drawing and reading were both kind of solitary and otherwise Rory's long-lasting hobbies had all been outdoors.

Rory detoured to check out the fantasy shelves, because Mackenzie kept recommending fantasy novels, and wandered over to the classic novels, too. She was lingering on one of the classics aisles and reading the back of Northanger Abbey when she caught a glimpse of sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She automatically glanced to her right—

And she saw the most striking man she was sure she'd ever seen.

He was—he should have been handsome, but that wasn't quite the word, Rory thought as she openly stared at him, surprised. He was ghostly pale and tall, with messy black hair and an angular, unforgettable face, and he seemed to saunter toward her rather than walk. "Ah," he said, eyes focused directly on her. She couldn't seem to look away. "That's a good one."

For a second Rory couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about—then she glanced down at the book still in her hand. "Oh," she said. The man halted a little closer to her than was polite and she took a small step back. There really was something strange about him. She imagined he'd escaped one of the Victorian or Civil War novels from the historical fiction aisle a few rows over. "Have you, um. Read it?"

"Of course," said the man, giving Rory a charming, crooked smile. He had very blue eyes. "And I definitely recommend it." He leaned against the bookshelf with one arm and tilted his head a little. "So are you the famous Elena?"

That seemed to shatter whatever spell Rory had been under. She pushed the book back into its place on the shelf. "No," she said, keeping her tone polite with some effort. "I'm Rory. The, um, lesser-known twin."

"Really," said the man with dawning surprise. "I hadn't known there were two of you."

How? Rory thought. That seemed to imply he'd known the Gilberts had at least one daughter, but how could he know that and not realize—? "I'm Damon Salvatore," the man added.

Rory almost choked on her spit. How the hell could there be two guys this good-looking in the same family? I guess that explains what's weird about him, Rory thought. Stefan seemed a little out-of-place too. "Nice to meet you," said Rory. She couldn't resist adding, a little sarcastic, "I hadn't known there were two of you." Though she sort of had, considering Stefan's brief mention of one or more siblings at lunch earlier that week.

Damon arched an eyebrow. "You know my brother."

"You know my sister."

"Only through my brother," said Damon with a vague gesture. "He's been talking about her all week."

Rory managed not to roll her eyes. "Elena has that effect on people."

"I find it hard to believe you don't."

Rory studied him for a second. He was still focused intently on her and she couldn't determine what his angle was here. He just seemed—there was something unnerving about him. She realized belatedly that he might have been pretty, but it was in the same mesmerizing, dangerous way that sharp knives could be.

She needed to end the conversation and leave. "Well, believe it," said Rory, and she glanced back toward the closest end of the aisle. "It's easier to be popular when you're never a smartass."

"Tell me about it," remarked Damon with what might have been the most sincerity he'd used in the entire conversation. "Stefan's always been the good one." He gave Rory a once-over that made her take another step back toward the end of the aisle. "What about you, Rory? Are you into heroes?"

Rory took a larger step backward. "Um, how old are you?"

"Does that matter?" Damon asked, stepping after her.

"You look twenty-eight."

"I'm twenty-five."

Yikes, thought Rory. "I'm seventeen, so I'm gonna go," said Rory, and she turned to face Damon more as she backed away, down the aisle. "Say hey to Stefan for me, I guess?"

Before she could make her escape, Damon moved closer so quickly he almost seemed to appear in front of her. Rory flinched, startled, and Damon leaned in close enough that she could smell his cologne. "You're charmed by me," he said, staring into her eyes. "You want—"

"Step back," Rory ordered, raising her voice and backing out of range. Damon blinked at her in what might have been surprise before his brow furrowed in confusion. "You have problems. Please see a therapist."

At that point Rory was out in the main aisle, and she turned on the heel of her white high-top to hurry away. She dodged down a few aisles with people on them and took a few extra turns and backtracked once or twice in an attempt to lose Damon before she dared to return to the register, where Mackenzie was still working. Rory perched on the threadbare armchair nearest the register and tried not to bounce her leg, though her nerves seemed tangled with jittery energy. What a creep, Rory thought. No wonder Stefan preferred not to discuss him.

Rory only remained at Blackbird Books half an hour longer, a little to ensure Damon didn't appear from thin air to flirt at Mackenzie. When Rory had done a quick sweep of the bookstore and discovered that Damon seemed to be gone, she walked back to chat with Mackenzie for a minute before she left—unusually with no newly purchased book in hand. As the sun set below a cloudier and cloudier late afternoon sky Rory drove home, blasting her mother's Grease mixtape and drumming her thumbs on the steering wheel, still half-expecting to check the rearview mirror and find Damon in the backseat.

At least she managed to wind down at home. Jenna was the only one there, and after they both had dinner and watched a couple episodes of The Bachelor, Rory excused herself upstairs to her bedroom. It was on the right side of the house, between Elena's bedroom and Jenna's guestroom.

Rory walked in and threw her backpack into the antique floral-patterned armchair she'd situated a foot from her bed, and after a second of consideration she stepped back to swing her door shut. With that done she wandered over to drop onto the edge of her bed, on the white-and-blue floral comforter, and after a long minute of breathing in the summery, almost rainy air that had swept in through her cracked window, Rory leaned over to turn her radio on. Although most of her classes had spent the first week back on syllabi and summers she did have some homework for AP US History, and the sooner she finished it, the more time she'd have that weekend.

She'd been done with her homework and had been touching up a watercolor at her desk for twenty minutes when her phone started vibrating. Rory leaned over to snatch it up from where she'd set it on a stack of half-filled sketchbooks and check it. She furrowed her eyebrows. The softball team's group chat was blowing up.

Rory unlocked her phone to skim the texts—and she said aloud, "Oh my God," as she realized Vicki Donovan had been attacked in the woods.

As it sank in, as Rory couldn't help imagining Vicki lost in a maze of dark oak trees and surrounded by rabid wolves, she fumbled to call Matt—but she hesitated and gritted her teeth. Then she started to scroll up to Tyler's number, because she still had it, albeit saved under He Who Must Not Be Named—there was no way in hell he wanted to hear from her right now, though.

She did know Elena was at the party. Rory pushed her hand through her hair and returned to her Recent Calls. She had to scroll down to tap her last call with her sister, notably from back in July.

For a few rings Rory thought Elena wouldn't answer, but she did pick up. "Hey, Rory, oh my God. I can't believe you're not here—"

Rory waved her free hand dismissively as if Elena could see her. "What happened to Vicki Donovan? The softball team has been texting me nonstop."

"She—" Elena hesitated. "Well—Jeremy was drinking, because of course he was, and I followed him into the woods, but we don't actually know what happened. Just that Vicki was laying out there and all this blood was coming from her neck."

Rory leaned back in her desk chair. "What?"

"She wasn't even that far from the party," Elena continued. "And I don't know if she's okay, but paramedics came to get her."

"What did the injury look like?"

"What? How are you asking me that right now?"

Rory winced. "Sorry, I'm—thinking. I can't imagine any rabid wolf or mountain lion coming too close to people, especially if there was a bonfire at the party." She rose to her feet and started to pad barefoot around her bedroom as her mind raced, turning over the pieces and trying to fit them together. "And weren't there two people killed last weekend on the highway?" She was sure she'd overheard that mentioned on the news.

"Oh my God," said Elena, the dawning realization audible. "But—the highway's nowhere near the Falls." Before Rory could continue to try and work out an answer, Elena sighed. "Look, I have to find Jeremy. I'll see you later."

"Be careful," said Rory, and she pulled her phone away from her ear to find Elena had already hung up. She rubbed her temple and returned to her Recent Calls. It wasn't long before she was calling Lauren, because Lauren, who knew everyone, had to have been at the party, too.

Lauren answered almost instantly. "Dude, Vicki Donovan almost got killed in the woods."

"Yeah, the softball team's texting about it—and I just talked to Elena."

"Really? What'd she say? She was with Jeremy when he carried Vicki out of the woods."

Rory frowned. Vicki really had to have been close to the party if Jeremy had been able to carry her back. "Not much, honestly, just that there was a lot of blood coming from her neck."

"Those two people that were killed last weekend," said Lauren at once. "That was on the highway, right?"

"Yeah. I guess rabid animals that prefer not to completely maul their victims migrated from over there all the way to the Falls for some reason."

"Or," said Lauren, "there's another explanation."

Rory could already see the suggestion coming. Although Lauren was by far her sweetest, sincerest friend and she mostly watched comedies and listened to sunny pop, she was always into one conspiracy theory or another. "If you say it could be aliens or the government—"

"It totally could be, but I was gonna say what if there's a serial killer?"

Rory slowed as a chill unrelated to the cool night air still seeping in from her bedroom window crept down her spine. "I—really hope that's not it." She bit her lip. "But if it is, are they trying to send a message? They must've left Vicki alive on purpose."

"You mean, what if they're warning some enemy?"

"Yeah."

"That'd make more sense than a serial killer who doesn't know what they're doing," mused Lauren. "We should totally look into this. We can see if Vicki or anyone else from Mystic High is connected to those people who were killed on the highway."

Rory turned back around, facing one of her faded white bookcases—the one with a shelf full of yellow hardback Nancy Drew books. "You know what," she decided aloud, "I'm in."


That weekend, Rory, Lauren, and Mackenzie determined that the best way to go about solving the mystery of Vicki Donovan's attack would be to start by covering all their bases. Lauren volunteered to visit Vicki in the hospital and Mackenzie decided to look into animal behaviors, particularly when rabid. And between shifts at the Mystic Grill, Rory visited the public library to skim some of the archived newspapers in search of any mention of the Donovans or animal attacks in the town history.

Rory discovered that although there were no mentions of the Donovans, there was one hell of a history of animal attacks. Mystic Falls, Virginia had been plagued by animal attacks on and off since the 1800s. There were numerous articles about bloodless bodies found in the woods and interviews with policemen who seemed either secretive or at a loss. Rory took a few photos of the articles with her phone to forward them to her friends, and she thought she needed to either have another conversation with Elena about what had happened at the party or she needed to talk to Jeremy.

After Rory's shift on Saturday night, she trotted upstairs to the second floor and paused. Both Elena and Jeremy's bedroom doors were firmly shut.

Rory glanced from one door to the other. Both siblings were bound to be irritated if she asked any questions. Might as well go as close to the source as possible, Rory decided, and she strode to Jeremy's door at the corner, near one of the hallway bookshelves. She half-glanced automatically back toward the master bedroom—the door was closed. Rory had only even looked in once since her parents had drowned.

Rory rapped her fist on Jeremy's door. "Hey, it's Rory. Can I come in?"

For a long moment there was no response. Then Jeremy answered, voice muffled but still audibly unenthusiastic: "Yeah, come in."

Rory turned the knob to let herself in and stopped still half in the hall. Jeremy's bedroom was a complete disaster; it rather resembled viral photos of the wreckage left behind by hurricanes or tornadoes. There were clothes strewn everywhere, several broken remote-control helicopters from Christmases past, and countless tangled wires and cords, and only one lamp was even on, creating a circle of dim yellowy light. Not to mention it smelled strongly of boy sweat and Glade.

Rory turned her head back into the hall to try and breathe before facing her brother's bedroom again. Jeremy was slouched at his desk with a pair of headphones around his neck. He'd always been pale, but he seemed to be the peaky kind, and his dark brown hair was messy. "What happened yesterday?" Rory asked him.

Jeremy glanced up from whichever comic he'd been lazily flipping through. He and Rory used to at least trade Marvel ones and chat about them, but they'd barely said a word to each other in months. "What?"

"What happened at the party yesterday? With Vicki Donovan?"

Jeremy snorted. "Why the hell do you care? Didn't your jackass of a boyfriend dump you for her?"

Rory almost laughed out loud. "Nice," she said dryly. "I'm curious. It's weird that any animal would get that close to people, especially if there was a bonfire and loud music."

"Well, it sounds like you were there," said Jeremy, "so I guess I don't need to tell you anything."

Rory managed not to roll her eyes. "Please just tell me how you found her and what you think happened. My friends and I are trying to figure it out." When Jeremy just glared at her with more emotion than Rory had seen from him in years, Rory added, "Look, I'll leave you alone as soon as you tell me."

That served as a decent tradeoff. Jeremy straightened, leaning forward in his chair. "Fine. It's sort of a long story, but she went into the woods by herself, and I found her when I was trying to avoid Elena." Jeremy hesitated. "She was—I thought she was—dead for a second." He fiddled with his headphones. "She wasn't, but there was…a lot of blood. From her neck."

"How bad was it?" Rory asked. Jeremy shrugged, avoiding Rory's gaze, and Rory persisted, "How far from the party was she?"

"I dunno, a few hundred yards," said Jeremy. He glanced back at Rory, brow furrowed again. "Now will you stop bothering me and get out?"

"Sure," said Rory. She stepped back, hand still on the doorknob, and decided to ask, "Is she gonna be okay?" Lauren hadn't had a chance to visit the hospital yet.

Jeremy blinked at Rory, startled out of his annoyance. "I—uh. They only let family members in to see her, but yeah, she should—she'll be okay."

"Good," said Rory, and she left, swinging Jeremy's door shut. She turned and wandered back toward her own bedroom, mulling over the situation as she did. From Mackenzie's research, rabid animals might have lost enough control that they would approach people, but why would a rabid animal not go all-out and eviscerate Vicki entirely? Why would any rabid animal from the town's past only drain its victims' blood?

As Rory walked into her bedroom she slowed further. Lauren was right, she thought. There has to be a serial killer in Mystic Falls.