The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unmasked

by L. J. Smith

  Her expression was stiff and resentful, and Elena wondered at how she had managed to not notice then how much the other girl hated her.

  Elena shrugged and laughed a little, feeling awkward. “Paris was nice, but there’s no place like home.”

  For a moment, she tried to focus in on Caroline, to read her aura, but it was hopeless. Elena wasn’t a Guardian here, and so she didn’t have those powers anymore. It was a strange, helpless feeling to lose them.

  Then Bonnie flung her arms around Elena, her red curls tickling the taller girl’s chin, and Elena relaxed.

  “Do you like my hair? I think it makes me look taller.” Bonnie fluffed up her bangs and smiled.

  “Gorgeous,” Elena said, laughing. “But maybe not tall.”

  Once Bonnie let go, Meredith moved forward for a warm hug. Raising one elegant eyebrow, she considered Elena. “Well, your hair is two shades lighter from the sun … but where’s your tan? I thought you were living it up on the French Riviera.”

  Wait. Elena remembered this. She lifted her own pale hands and said, “You know I never tan.”

  “Just a minute, that reminds me!” Bonnie grabbed one of Elena’s hands. “Guess what I learned from my cousin this summer? Palm reading!”

  There were a few groans, and someone laughed. Elena’s breath rushed out of her. Of course; she had almost forgotten. This was the first time Bonnie had shown her Power. She’d seen the future in Elena’s palm. Slowly, Elena flattened out her hand, opening it to Bonnie’s gaze.

  “Laugh while you can,” Bonnie said serenely, peering into Elena’s palm. “My cousin told me I’m psychic.”

  There was something Elena had said then, the first time this happened, but she couldn’t remember exactly what. It didn’t matter anyway. What had mattered here was what Bonnie had seen in her hand: Stefan.

  “Okay,” Bonnie said, frowning as she traced the lines on Elena’s palm with one finger. “Now, this is your life line—or is it your heart line?” In the crowd around them, someone snickered. “Quiet. I’m reaching into the void. I see … I see …” Bonnie frowned. “I don’t get this. It says you have two loves, Elena.”

  Elena’s chest tightened. This wasn’t right.

  Bonnie touched one end of the line running across the center of Elena’s palm. The line forked there, splitting into two lines wrapping around the side of Elena’s hand. “See? Your heart line divides into two.”

  “Greedy,” Caroline said, not quite jokingly.

  Elena blinked, bewildered. Bonnie should have started talking about Stefan. She was supposed to say he was dark and handsome, and he had been tall once. But instead Bonnie must be seeing something of what had happened in the time after this, the truths of Elena herself, the one who didn’t belong here.

  “I can see the two loves,” Bonnie went on. “But there’s something else here. …” Her eyes widened, and, with a quick, sudden movement, she dropped Elena’s hand as if it had burned her.

  “What’s wrong?” Elena asked, suddenly frightened. She reached out to her, but Bonnie backed away, tucking her own hands behind her back.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Palm reading’s silly anyway.”

  Elena was having trouble catching her breath. Bonnie’s Power was incredibly strong, although in this time she didn’t know how to use it. If there was something in Elena’s future that frightened Bonnie this badly, then Elena should be frightened, too. “Bonnie?” Elena asked anxiously, reaching toward her again. “Tell me.”

  There was something panicked in the smaller girl’s face, and she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s a dumb game.”

  Unsure of what to do, Elena wavered. She couldn’t make Bonnie tell her anything. But if what Bonnie saw in her palm had changed, maybe it was a clue to how her plan was going to work, how things would turn out differently. It might be important.

  But maybe it was just showing all the awful things that had already happened to Elena after this moment—the future that hadn’t yet appeared for Elena of the past. The future she was going to change.

  Elena swallowed hard. That was it, it must be, she reassured herself. Bonnie was seeing things she didn’t understand, frightening things. But it wasn’t Elena’s future, not now.

  “We should head into class,” Meredith said, sounding slightly irritated as she glanced at her watch.

  They were turning toward the school building when the roar of a finely tuned motor stopped them in their tracks. The group of girls swung around to look.

  “Well, now,” Caroline said, her green eyes speculative. “Quite a car.”

  “Quite a Porsche,” Meredith corrected dryly.

  Elena didn’t look; she kept her gaze firmly fixed on the brick façade of the school. But she could hear it, the purring of the sleek black Porsche’s engine as its driver searched for a spot, and her heart pounded wildly in her chest.

  A new student had arrived, one she’d been waiting for despite herself.

  Stefan.

  Elena’s heart clenched. She had to look. She couldn’t help herself.

  Talking to Stefan, touching Stefan, wasn’t an option. But she was going to take this chance to at least see him, a chance she had thought would never come again.

  The purr of the engine died, and she heard the car door open before she glanced up.

  “Oh my God,” Caroline whispered.

  “You can say that again,” breathed Bonnie.

  Oh, Stefan.

  He was alive. He was here. He looked just as he had that last night they’d been together. Elena wanted to run to him and wrap herself around his lean body, run her fingers through his wavy dark hair, kiss the sad curve of his mouth. Sunglasses shielded his face like a mask, but Elena knew Stefan well enough to see through the protection they provided. She could sense the misery that had driven him to enroll in school, had made him try to act like a teenage boy so that he could have some brief human contact.

  Everything in her pulled toward him. But if she ran to him, everything would lead straight to where she had come from. Stefan dead, Elena dying, Damon broken.

  Elena bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, and stayed where she was.

  “Who is that masked man?” Meredith asked, and everyone giggled.

  “Do you see that jacket?” one of the hangers-on asked. “That’s Italian, as in Roma.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never been farther than Rome, New York, in your life!” her friend answered.

  Stefan was heading toward the school, a few rows of cars between him and the group of girls. The rhythm of his steps hitched and paused for just a moment. Elena felt a jolt. He had caught sight of her, she knew. There was a moment when he just stared from behind his sunglasses, his gaze burning into Elena. What was he seeing, she wondered? Her uncanny resemblance to Katherine, certainly, but Elena couldn’t help hoping there was more to it than that. Even this early, could Stefan sense something more in her than the looks of his lost love?

  After a moment, Stefan began to walk again, continuing smoothly on. Elena stared after him, feeling raw and exposed.

  “Uh-oh,” another hanger-on said, a touch of envy in her voice. “Elena’s got that look again. The hunting look.”

  “New Boy had better be careful.”

  Elena pulled herself together and slapped on an expression of disdain. Tossing her head, she began to walk toward the school. “Hardly,” she said. “I’ve got big plans for this year. And they don’t include some random boy, no matter how nice his car is.”

  The other girls crowded behind her in a close-knit pack.

  “What kind of plans?”

  “Surely you can fit in Mr. Cute-Dark-and-Mysterious.”

  Without replying, Elena led them through the front door of the school. A long corridor stretched before them, and Stefan’s lean figure was disappearing through the office doorway just ahead. Some of the other girls were already drifting toward the office window, eagerly craning their necks. “
Nice rear view,” someone said, giggling. Caroline was with them, but she wasn’t looking through the window at Stefan. Instead, she was watching Elena speculatively.

  Deliberately, Elena avoided her gaze. “Do you have my schedule?” she asked Meredith.

  “Sure,” Meredith said after a pause, handing it to her. Elena remembered that her friend had picked it up for her when Elena had skipped orientation. “We’ve got trig on the second floor in five minutes.”

  A few of the girls who had been watching Stefan had turned away from the windows now, discouraged by Elena’s lack of interest. Good, Elena thought. She couldn’t have him, she knew, but somehow she didn’t want anyone else going after him.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Meredith.

  Meredith and Bonnie exchanged a look, and Meredith followed Elena upstairs. Just as they reached the classroom, Meredith laid a cool hand on Elena’s arm, stopping her.

  “Did something happen in France?” she asked quietly.

  Elena frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” Meredith said slowly, her calm gray eyes scanning over Elena. “You just seem different, that’s all. Distracted.”

  A semi-hysterical giggle rose up in Elena’s chest—Well, you see, Meredith, I’ve been sent back from the future to stop one of the vampires I’m in love with from killing someone, or I’ll die—and she choked it back and smiled at Meredith instead. “I’m fine.”

  All through trig, Elena shut out the teacher’s droning voice, taking the textbook that was handed to her without glancing at it. She knew for a fact that she was never again going to use trigonometry. Tapping her fingers idly against her desk, she tried to plan instead.

  She needed to meet Damon. But how? The first time they’d met, it had been partly because she looked like Katherine, but mostly because she was with Stefan, and the Damon she’d met then would be damned if he let his baby brother have her. But she couldn’t wrap herself around Stefan and wait for Damon to come.

  If Damon accepted that he was the one she wanted, if she could get him to love her now the way he would in the future, she could keep him from killing anyone. He wouldn’t be so angry. He wouldn’t be ready to strike out.

  “Can anyone tell me what the sine function is?” the teacher asked, breaking in on Elena’s thoughts. Mrs. Halpern’s eyes swept over the class, and Elena instinctively hunched a little, avoiding the teacher’s gaze.

  Meredith began to answer the question. She was so beautiful, Elena thought, with her olive skin and heavy black lashes. More than that, Meredith looked happy. And human.

  She’d had troubles in her life at this point already, Elena knew. A vampire had attacked her grandfather, stolen her brother. But this confident high school Meredith was barely aware of the horrors in her family’s past. She was already moving on.

  Here, in this classroom, Elena could see exactly how miserable Meredith was in the future Elena had come from. Elena had known, of course, that Meredith hated being a vampire. But Elena hadn’t seen this contentment in years.

  Elena sighed and thoughtfully curled a long, silky strand of hair around her finger. Could she fix Meredith, too, if she could keep Damon from killing Mr. Tanner? The road that had led to Meredith’s transformation was a long and twisting one, but it had started here. If Meredith was kept clear of the supernatural, if she never suspected the dangers beginning to descend on Fell’s Church, maybe she would leave. Go to an Ivy League college as she’d planned, have a successful, human life.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur. Stefan was in none of her early classes, thank God, although she knew she’d see him in history that afternoon. She couldn’t stop herself from looking for him in the halls. She didn’t see him, but she had a constant, exultant awareness that he was here—and alive.

  She tried to make plans, but she was constantly distracted. Everyone wanted Elena’s attention: Boys flirted with her; girls curried her favor with scraps of gossip. She had forgotten what it was like to be the queen of school. Matt was in one of her morning classes, and she met his smile with quiet panic. She didn’t know what to do with Matt yet. Her friend was going to have to get his heart broken … again.

  By lunchtime, she was sick of acting like she cared about the popularity, and she slipped down toward the cafeteria alone. Caroline was outside, posed casually against a wall in a model’s slouch. The two boys she was talking to nudged each other as Elena came toward them.

  Elena wanted to just walk on by. She remembered this, too, and all the awful things Caroline had done later. She had plotted to destroy Elena, for no reason, out of jealousy and pure spite.

  But Caroline’s chin was tilted up, and her eyes staring deliberately past Elena, as if the other girl was beneath her notice. Every line of her body broadcast pure hostility. Her hatred would only increase. If Elena didn’t deal with her now, it was bound to be worse later.

  “Hi,” Elena said briefly to the boys. To Caroline she asked, “Want to get lunch?”

  Caroline barely glanced at Elena as she pushed her glossy auburn hair back. “What, at the royal table?” she asked scathingly.

  Elena suppressed an urge to roll her eyes and instead forced a smile. “Please come,” she said gently. “I want to hear about your summer. I missed you.” It was true, sort of. She’d known Caroline since kindergarten; they’d been good friends until this moment. Maybe she could change things here, too. Maybe this was a chance to fix everything she regretted.

  Elena kept going into the cafeteria, not giving Caroline a chance to snap back an answer. Caroline followed but, a few steps in, her fingers fastened hard on Elena’s arm. “A lot of things changed while you were gone this summer, Elena,” she hissed warningly. “And just maybe your time on the throne is running out.”

  “You’d make a better queen than I do. Take it,” Elena said agreeably, scanning the crowd as Caroline stood dumfounded. “Are you getting hot lunch?” It was a relief to see Meredith and Bonnie already sitting at their table. Caroline, temporarily silenced, followed as Elena got her lunch and went to join them.

  “That new boy is in my biology class,” Bonnie announced. “I sit right across from him. And his name is Stefan—Stefan Salvatore—and he’s from Italy. He’s boarding with old Mrs. Flowers on the edge of town. He picked up your books when you dropped them, didn’t he, Caroline? Did he say anything?”

  “Not much,” said Caroline shortly. She was still watching Elena from the corner of her eyes, her forehead slightly creased.

  “There he is,” Meredith said, looking across the lunchroom.

  Elena’s head shot up. There Stefan was, hesitating at the door of the cafeteria, and then crossing it with long, smooth strides, heading for the hall that led toward the other side of the school. He wouldn’t eat, of course. He had probably fed on the blood of a bird or small animal before school.

  Stefan glanced toward their table, and Elena felt his eyes slide over her as viscerally as if he’d touched her. And then he passed by, his jaw tight. Elena swallowed and looked away.

  Caroline was still watching him. She had the slightest hint of a smirk on her lovely face.

  Caroline wanted Stefan, Elena knew. A few days after this, they’d started hanging out during lunch, had gone to Homecoming together. And then Elena and Stefan had come together, and he’d forgotten Caroline completely. No wonder she’d hated Elena more and more.

  On an impulse, Elena nudged her. “You should talk to him,” she said.

  It was the last thing she wanted, really. But Caroline’s fury over Elena taking Stefan had led to so much horror. And if Stefan was out of the way, in Caroline’s orbit, it would be easier for Elena to focus on Damon.

  Besides, Stefan would never love Caroline. He’d be perfectly safe with her.

  Caroline flicked a glance at Elena. “Who says I want to talk to him?” she said cooly.

  But a moment later, Caroline was staring at the door Stefan had gone through. Elena took a long drink of her water. She’d set
something in motion.

  It might be necessary, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  “Aunt Judith wants me home right after school today,” Elena lied. “I have to hear all about Margaret’s first day of nursery school, I guess.” She was leaning against her locker, Matt looking down at her with his honest blue eyes. They ignored the people streaming past, all eager to get home now that the first day was over.

  “I can give you a ride home at least,” Matt said, reaching for her hand.

  “That’s okay, I want to walk,” Elena said, gently disentangling her fingers from his. “I’ve got some thinking to do. And you’ve got to get ready for practice, don’t you?” She kissed him gently on the cheek, like a sister might instead of a girlfriend, and walked away.

  Matt didn’t object, but Elena could feel his puzzled gaze following her all the way down the hall toward the school doors.

  Poor Matt, she thought, sighing. They’d been good friends for so long. Junior year, she’d hoped that he was the boy for her. The one who could be more to her than a trophy or an accessory. And he had been in so many ways—but she hadn’t been in love with him, and she hadn’t been able to see then how much he loved her.

  It had taken Matt a long time to get over her the first time. Maybe that was something else she could fix while she was back here, Elena thought, resisting the urge to turn around and look at him again. If she handled their breakup better …

  She pushed through the front doors of the school and set off. Crossing the parking lot, she tilted her face up toward the warmth of the late afternoon sun and hesitated for a moment.

  Her biggest problem right now was how to approach Damon in the right way. If she was going to get him to fall in love with her before Halloween, she had better get started.

  Tucking a stray hair back behind her ear, Elena turned down the sidewalk toward home and began to go over her first memories of him, ignoring the chatter of the other students leaving school all around her. He’d come to her in the school gymnasium once, while she and her friends were planning the Haunted House, but that was after she knew Stefan. She didn’t know if Damon would have come after her at school if not for Stefan. It wasn’t really Damon’s kind of place.