Chapter Fourteen: Adam Vaziri

Three and a half years ago

Mystic Falls, VA

New Year's Eve, 11:50pm

"Maybe she already left?" Adam suggested, switching on the lamp and noticing the discarded hospital gown.

Raid knocked on the door to the private bathroom. No reply. He entered. No Stef. "Damon wouldn't leave with Phoenix and not leave Stef here under Elena's care," Raid replied. "She'll be back." He closed the door, walked over to the bed, and took a seat in the high back chair next to her bed.

Adam pulled back the drapes. "Ten minutes until fireworks. Might as well make the most of it."

Raid propped his elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin resting against his knuckles, nodding slowly and wearily. "You think Stef's going to care about fireworks?"

Sitting down on a chair between the bathroom and a single beech closet, Adam took in the clinical surroundings and realized that maybe Raid was right. Staring at distant fireworks from the window of a hospital room when they were supposed to be at her boyfriend's party wasn't going to be the best mood-booster. "I guess not. I just feel bad for her. I messaged Cristian four times that Stef is in the hospital. You know what he finally replied? 'Damn, okay.' 'Damn, okay', Raid! That's it! I didn't tell him she had fucking gum disease – I told him she almost died in a fire! That's all he has to say about it? She's going to be crushed, isn't she?"

Raid chuckled. "Fuck, no, she was going to break up with him tonight." He looked pleased at the reminder, sporting a dreamy grin that he often wore when he spoke about Stef, but this time it appeared a little more smug and a lot more hopeful.

Letting out a gush of air from between his lips in relief, Adam relaxed. "Finally!"

Neither Raid nor Adam had ever liked Cristian. They tolerated him because he was Stef's boyfriend, but that's as far as it went. Their distrust of him started during their final year Back to School Party in the woods when they both spent the evening watching Stef as Cristian forced drink after drink upon her. At her first drunken stumble, the cousins had rushed to Stef's aid, which – to their relief – she accepted, telling Cristian to get her some water and an aspirin. Except Raid had never been watching Stef: he'd been watching Cristian. Which he continued doing. He watched him get the water. He watched him pay a friend for an 'aspirin'. He watched him drop it into her drink. He watched him collapse to the floor with a bloody nose – after punching him. Then so began the secret, bitter rivalry between Raid and Cristian.

Stef had unfortunately believed Cristian's story that it was a dispersible aspirin. Why wouldn't she when he was the injured party? But the Vaziris knew better; Cristian's friend was the local dealer and one aspirin didn't cost $20. After that, Raid became obsessed about Stef's safety around Cristian, and he followed them around, invited or not. It was the start of Adam realizing that his cousin had it bad for her. Maybe he would finally hear his confession.

"She's way too good for him," Raid added. "Cristian's an inconsiderate, slimy asshole, and she's a kind, amazing, ray of sunshine who deserves someone better."

A slight thump vibrated up the wall of the closet, causing Adam to straighten. He hadn't knocked it, he was sure of that. Maybe the noise had come from the wall behind? No, not possible; that wall led to the empty bathroom. Suddenly another potential source for the noise came to mind, but it seemed ridiculous. Then, after giving the size of the closet a glance over, Adam decided it was not only possible, it was extremely likely. The corners of his mouth twitched into a barely concealed grin as he looked back at Raid. This was going to be fun. "Who do you think Stef deserves?" he asked him. "Someone more like you?"

Raid huffed a laugh, shaking his head, amused by Adam's presumption. "No, she deserves someone better than me."

"She always did have one eye on your old girlfriend, Savannah Clarke," Adam said. "Perhaps a girl might be better for her?"

Raid shot Adam a look of disbelief. "What? She hated Savannah, you know that!"

"Well, maybe Stef's just in the closet," Adam suggested with a hint-filled grin.

The hint was not taken. "She's not in the closet – we both know Stef is bisexual – she just genuinely hated Savannah!"

"And I just mean, maybe Stef is in the closet." Adam held his knuckles to the side of the closet, rapping out the first five notes to Shave and a Haircut. He grinned at Raid when Stef finished the tune with two taps from inside.

"I'm not coming out!" Stef's muffled voice quickly declared from inside the closet.

His eyebrows raised, Raid looked towards Adam for answers, but he only pursed his lips and shrugged. "Okay, so you're not coming out," Raid established, his expression perplexed. "In that case, I'm coming in." He charged confidently toward the closet, opened it to an extremely rattled and baffled Stef who took up most of the space, and attempted to squeeze himself inside.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted as Raid slipped one leg between hers and crouched three inches to put his head inside. "You're too big for this!"

"I'm too big for a lot of things, Stef, but not for this." Although Raid did see her point, now unable to manoeuvre any more of himself inside. He untangled his leg from hers, twisted his upper body so it was outside the closet, and tried to back into her instead.

"Nobody wants that angle from you, Raid," Adam pointed out, shaking his head.

"You're probably right," Raid replied, twisting again to go in diagonally. Balancing on one foot outside the closet, he slid snuggly in front of her, chest to chest, face to face, his forearm pressed against the back wall of the closet to avoid smacking the side of his face into it, and grinned in satisfaction at the stable yet awkward position he'd achieved. "This is like a game of Twister."

"More like a game of Piss Stef Off," she retorted, trying not to focus on how close her mouth was to his neck. How warm his body was against hers. How warm his blood might feel going down her throat.

"You want to explain why you're hiding from me in the closet?"

"I wasn't hiding from you," she huffed, pinching her eyes closed briefly, trying to delete the phantom taste of blood from her mind. "I was hiding from... everyone."

"Mission almost accomplished," he said in a consolatory tone. His eyes traced the outline of her, seemingly amused at how her outline blended into his own. She was almost trapped by him, but not quite. A couple of sidesteps and she'd slide free of him. She could leave; but she remained. This was the closest he'd ever been to her and yet she wasn't going anywhere. He suddenly felt very exposed. Despite his dark features being half-hidden within the shadows, Raid's sheepishness was clear. "So you overheard me saying that you're kind?"

Stef took a breath. She didn't expect him to mention that. "Yes."

"And that you're amazing?"

Stef suddenly realized that it was actually his mouth that was too close to hers. Her heart was hammering too hard against his chest. "Yes."

"And that you're incredibly weird?" he grinned.

She almost shook her head before deciding that small movement would angle her even closer towards his mouth. "That goes without saying," she smiled, biting her bottom lip.

That small movement unravelled him. It was possible she was the only thing now holding him upright. "Stef," Raid began, planning on directing everything he had to say to the bitten bottom lip that was driving him crazy. It was okay if it made him crazy. That's what he needed right now: to be driven crazy. Maybe if he was crazy enough, he might actually tell her how he felt.

Maybe if he was crazy enough, he might actually let his cousin live for choosing this moment to knock incessantly on the side of the closet.

"You two, it's New Year's Day," Adam announced. "You can see the fireworks outside."

Stef laughed quietly and whispered to Raid, "I don't care about fireworks."

Raid returned the chuckle. "I knew you wouldn't," he whispered back. "But he wanted to do something nice for you, so just play along." With that, he took her hand and guided her out of the closet. Even though, after bumping his head, he probably could have done with the guidance himself. Luckily, Stef never noticed.

The bangs and crackles from the fireworks became more prominent nearer the window. They were high up enough to see the fireworks from three separate celebrations. They shot up into the air, one after the other, a wave of colours splashing across the night sky. Stef stood with her arms crossed looking out into the night, her eyes fixed on one set of those fireworks in the distance, her mood suddenly solemn. She knew they were the fireworks from Cristian's party.

"Cristian's never done a damn thing for me." The words were a confession to Raid and Adam, but an emotional release for herself. From being rushed for tests, to her physical exhaustion, to the distress of finding out that she was transitioning into a vampire, she hadn't thought to contact Cristian. Then she found out Adam had. Yet Cristian was still enjoying his party, and clearly nothing – not even a hospitalized girlfriend – was going to ruin that. But maybe a transitioning girlfriend might. "Adam, can I borrow your phone?"

Sensing something was about to brew between Stef and Cristian, Adam nodded, handed Stef his phone, and stood back. A curious look passed between him and his cousin, like the fireworks were about to be set off right there in the room with them.

Stef dialled once, but when Cristian didn't answer, she calmly switched methods of communication and opted for a voice message. "Listen Cristian, you fucking piece of shit, I died – not that you'd care about that – but what you will care about is that I'm fucking one feed away from transitioning into a vampire right now. So that Trinity Link spell you once told me about – you remember, when you told me how much you hated vampires – you'd better get over here and perform that spell for me, else my first, last, and all the feeds in between, are going to take place at your precious party on all your smarmy guests. You've got one minute to respond before I start sharpening my fangs." Stef hung up.

Stef wasn't sure if Raid and Adam were more startled by the content of her rant, or the fact that she had finally unleashed weeks of bottled up anger onto her asshole boyfriend, but there wasn't time to explain as the phone rang again seconds later. Stef immediately picked up.

"Pass me to Adam," Cristian demanded.

"You've got a nerve –" Stef started.

"Pass me to Adam," Cristian snapped. "You're clearly in no mood to handle this kind of information."

Stef reluctantly, and without explanation, handed the phone to Adam.

Adam was more confused than he already was. What the hell could Cristian have to say to him? This was between him and Stef. "Why am I being brought into this?" he said into the phone.

"Is what Stef said true?" There were still party noises in the background of Cristian's call, becoming more distant in his attempt to find a quieter place to talk.

Is what Stef said true? He hardly even understood what Stef said. Vampires? There were no such thing. Maybe Raid would have been better to talk to about this, given his fascination of witchcraft. Adam wasn't the right person for this. He didn't believe in witchcraft. He didn't believe in vampires. He didn't believe in anything supernatural. But he did believe in something: Stef. For whatever reason she said it, he needed to back her up. "Yes, it's true," he confirmed.

"Okay, listen closely," Cristian said, slowly and tightly. "I have photographs of a spell, I'm going to message them over to you. This spell is commonly used as part of a purification ritual, created to rid people of three chosen sins that are then locked in a talisman. Two of the stones can then be plucked from the talisman so that only one sin remains. The participant can never be sinless; they must never remove all three stones, else it will result in their death. The same spell works differently for Stef. She needs to be bound by the blood of a vampire, human and witch. I can send you a witch, but I assure you now that witch isn't going to be me. I need either you or Raid to be that human; to provide Stef the blood, little more than a teaspoon is needed. That will fully transition her into a vampire. She then needs the blood of a witch to provide her with the magic needed to activate the cure in her veins. With the cure trying to end her vampirism and the vampirism trying to destroy her witch powers, she will be locked in a cycle until a piece from that link is broken. That link destroyed will allow the magic to cure her. She will no longer be a vampire."

This was overwhelming. How was Cristian so unfazed by this? How was he so prepared? It was all so crazy, but at the same time so precise that surely it had to be true. He had so many questions, but if he or Raid were going to be bound to this spell, then there was one answer he definitely needed. "What's the link that needs to be destroyed?"

Cristian sighed. "This is why I had to explain this to you and not Stef. She must never know this. She has too much compassion for their kind that I don't believe she would agree to it. You must convince her to go through with this, despite what I am about to say. I need your word."

Adam glanced towards Stef. She was firm, filled with anger and strong determination, but slight fidgets and twitches revealed a girl who was nervous and scared deep down. "Whatever helps her," Adam agreed.

"To break the link, we will need to kill whichever vampire fed Stefanie their blood to turn her."