The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3)

by Michelle Hazen

  “Yeah.” My lips tighten, because torture is probably exactly what they’re going to be doing once that car reaches its destination. That is, if they don’t just execute him in front of all the Augustines for the revenge he took on their precious society back in the fifties. At this point, I guess I should be hoping for torture, because at least that would buy us some time to track him down.

  I wish I could believe that vampires didn’t feel pain the same way as humans do, but I’ve heard them scream when they’re wounded. It feels every bit as terrible, they just heal more quickly. But the Augustines can keep hurting him over and over and over again, and there’s no one who can make them stop because we don’t even know where they’re taking him.

  My teeth grind together as I look down at Cali. I can’t afford to freak out right now. With Damon gone, I should be doing exactly what I know he would do. Which means getting someplace safe and checking on the others.

  “Let’s get you out of here. Are you okay to walk?”

  She jerks a nod and holds her wrist steady with her opposite hand as I help lift her to her feet, grabbing the car keys off the ground where she dropped them and then leading her back to the bench with our abandoned bags by it. With every step, I see her cringe as the movements jars her wrist.

  “Shit,” she hisses as I pick up our bags. “I’ve got to get to a hospital. If the bone ends shift, they can do nerve damage and fray tendons and—” She stops herself but I know exactly what she’s saying. She won’t be able to play anymore. Not drums, maybe not anything if it’s bad enough.

  “Not the hospital,” I decide. “Back to the motel. They can heal you, and even if there is nerve damage, it’ll fix that too.”

  Her lip ring flashes as her head jerks back. “They can also compel me to forget why I didn’t trust them in the first place.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” I vow. I swallow and shift the guitar case to my other hand, reaching out to brush her hair back out of her eyes. “And I’m so sorry for what they did to you, but no matter how pissed I am at them, I can’t leave now. I have to help get him back.”

  Her eyes darken, but she nods. “Yeah,” she says simply. “We do. Let’s go.”

  “Damon said the Camaro was right around the corner.”

  We find the car easily enough but even the shape of the headlights looks accusatory, like they know I shouldn’t be the one with the keys. My eyes fall to my shoes as I put down the bags so I can open the passenger door. It’s a little awkward to ease Cali into the passenger seat, but we manage and then I lean across her to buckle her seat belt, tucking the shoulder strap behind her so it can’t press on her arm.

  I close her door softly and go around to open the trunk, catching sight of Damon’s untouched duffel bag full of weapons.

  My throat squeezes and my palms land on the edge of the trunk, bracing my weight because I just want to collapse inside of it and hide from everything that’s just happened. I breathe out slow and steady through my nose, then drop our bags inside and dial my phone with the hand not gripping the trunk like a lifeline.

  “Elena, the Augustines were here,” I say without preamble, trying to keep my voice steady for her. “Is anything going on at the hotel?”

  “What?” I hear the rustling of sheets. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “Are the Augustines there?” I ask a little more urgently.

  “No, there’s nobody moving in the parking lot.”

  “Good, that’s good,” I mutter, relieved. “They must have just spotted us at the bus station, which means they probably don’t know what hotel we were staying at. We’ll be back there in a minute.”

  “Why were you at the bus station? And is Damon with you?”

  I wince and scrub the heel of my hand over my eyes, then brace myself. “Elena, they got Damon.”

  There’s silence for a long moment.

  “What do you mean they got Damon?”

  Tears bite my eyes at her tone, and I desperately want to tell her it’s going to be okay, but I can’t. Nothing about this is even in the same zip code as okay.

  “Look, I’ll be there in a second, but I have to drive right now. Stefan can tell you what happened. Elena…I’m so sorry.” It sounds really stupid, but I don’t know what else to say. I hang up and close the trunk, flinching at the sound it makes.

  I make myself get in the car, but when I go to start it, my foot slips off the clutch too early and the engine coughs and dies. I dodge a sidelong glance at Cali and then jam my foot back down on the clutch, turning the key in the ignition again.

  I try to make the drive as smooth as I can, but the tiny, twitching knot of Cali’s jaw muscle tells me I failed. When we pull into the hotel, I keep a sharp eye out, though the parking lot is all but empty. The Camaro engine rumbles into silence as I pull the keys out and go around to open Cali’s door, steadying her as she gets out. We climb to the second floor, and before I can wonder whose room I should go to, a door opens and Stefan’s concerned face peers out.

  “The Augustines snapped his neck,” I say and my voice is way too high, but I can’t help it. “They had us pinned and when they let us go, they were so fast I—” I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a prayer against them, but I can’t exactly lie.

  “I know,” Stefan says, his words reassuring but his tone is full of tension, and I note miserably that he won’t meet my eyes. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”

  I open my mouth to ask if he’s talked to my sister when his gaze slips past me to Cali.

  “You’re hurt,” he says to her, quickly stepping back and ushering us inside.

  “Those psychos broke my wrist,” she says. “Apparently they’re not so good with the whole knowing their own strength thing.”

  Elena’s sitting in one of the chairs at the little table in her pajamas, her hands squeezed between her knees and her eyes damp like she’s either been crying or trying not to.

  I can’t stand to see it because it’s all because of me, so I look away to find Caroline coming back from the bathroom, carrying a plastic cup filled with tap water. She gives me a strained smile as she holds the cup towards Elena, who doesn’t take it, and I nod back, trying to steel myself because I know any second she’s going to start chattering away to break the tension, which will do nothing but make it all the more obvious.

  “Cali—” my sister starts, looking past me and her mouth twisting with guilt even as fresh tears well in her eyes.

  “Let’s just not do this,” Cali interrupts uncomfortably. “Not right now, not after what just happened, okay?”

  Elena’s face crumples anew, even though Cali doesn’t say his name, but she manages a nod before she ducks her head, her hair falling down to curtain her face. I shove my fists miserably into my pockets.

  Ric takes a step forward, and I notice his shirt is buttoned crookedly. “Do you think he was at least armed?” he asks me in a low voice. “When they took him?”

  “I…” I wish I could say that the weapons weren’t still in the trunk when I opened it. But they were.

  I shake my head and Ric rests his hand on my shoulder, a strained look on his face like he wants to say something to me but can’t figure out exactly what. Elena starts asking me questions about the car they took Damon in and I turn to answer her, Ric’s hand slipping away and I almost wish I could put it back but that would look stupid and Stefan’s voice cuts in before I can respond to my sister.

  “Let me heal your arm,” he says, and when I glance at Cali, she’s looking everywhere except his eyes.

  Of course. He was the one who compelled her. And her face is chalky with pain, but it’s bitterness lighting up her eyes as she stares just to the left of his face, and I move a little closer behind her while Ric and Elena start whispering back and forth in hushed tones, Ric probably trying to keep her from going after Damon on her own.

  “I want to say if you fix my arm, we’re even for the compulsion,” Cali tells Stefan. “But that
would be bullshit. And I don’t think it would be right to take your blood when I can barely stand to be in the same room as you.”

  I shift uneasily. “Cali…”

  She doesn’t realize how on edge he is, how tight the lines are around his eyes from stress and strain and probably the blood on my chin where I scraped it on the pavement. The whole room is vibrating with tension from everyone forcing themselves to be still. I’m sure they all feel like I do, like we should be running. Except we don’t even know where to start looking.

  “I know,” Stefan acknowledges, keeping his tone gentle. “I want to help, and I realize that it doesn’t make up for everything else.”

  “Or I could heal her,” Caroline offers, shooting a look at Stefan that I have no idea how to interpret.

  But Stefan is already biting into his wrist, and Cali’s head tilts as she looks between Stefan and Caroline and then to me. I nod, trying to swallow back my impatience, and she cradles her arm cautiously as she bends to Stefan’s wrist, her nose crinkling a little when she seals her mouth over the wound.

  I look over and my sister is wiping her eyes while Ric sits wearily down on one of the hotel beds and opens his mouth to keep arguing with her. But before he can, there’s a sound like splintered wood being ground into fractured cement.

  Cali gasps, her wrist jerking unnaturally as the bones re-align, and she stumbles back and starts to fall. Stefan catches her around the waist, trying to avoid her hurt arm, but it leaves her pressed against his chest and she startles, her whole body going rigid.

  I take an immediate step forward but he’s already letting her go.

  “I’m sorry, I—” Stefan says, eyes wide.

  Cali shakes her head, and backs another step away. “I’m fine. It’s better now.” She swallows tightly. “Thanks.”

  “Elena…” I hear Caroline say, and then the bathroom door closes behind my sister, the loaded silence behind it reminding me of all the hours our bathroom door stayed locked after our parents died. Elena used to hide in there, muffling her sobs into crumpled towels as if I wouldn’t know she was crying just because I couldn’t hear her.

  Cali looks after her, the corners of her mouth turning downward, and I wonder if she’s having the same problem I am. I can’t let go of how they kidnapped Cali and used her, but my anger got lost somewhere amidst the guilt that feels like it’s wringing me out like an old rag, and I can’t blame my sister for anything with the silence throbbing behind that closed bathroom door.

  Cali shivers and I suddenly realize her skin is the color of a dirty sidewalk, sweat beginning to shine along her cheekbones.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  She blinks, and her pupils seem a little too large. She doesn’t answer me.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I ask, alarmed. “Is she having some kind of allergic reaction to the vampire blood?”

  God, how much can go wrong in a single day?

  Chapter 14: Thicker Than Water

  “Cali’s in shock,” Stefan says, his voice pitched low and deliberately steady. “Stress and adrenaline and then the injury. She needs to lie down, get her feet elevated.”

  “I’m good,” she insists sharply. “My hand’s probably still healing, that’s all. Look, we’re already packed and ready.” Her eyes skip guiltily away toward the door. “Maybe I should wake Matt so we can go?” As she talks, she’s already edging toward the exit, but on the second step she takes backwards, her ankle wobbles.

  I catch her around the waist before I think about how pissed she was at Stefan for doing pretty much exactly the same thing. She reels a little unsteadily against my chest, her skin feverishly hot even through her shirt.

  “Okay, you need a minute,” I say firmly, pulling the motel card key out of my pocket and then swooping my hand under Cali’s knees, pulling her up into my arms.

  “Jeremy, what are you doing?” she protests, but I ignore her and look straight at Stefan, because if he’s not thinking it yet, he will be, and bargaining Silas is not an option.

  “Don’t call anyone until I get back, especially not Professor Maxfield,” I tell him firmly, and before he can argue I head for the door.

  Caroline zips around us and opens the door for me with a tight smile. I wince a little at her in thanks and her smile softens.

  The door closes behind us, and when we reach our old hotel room, Cali takes the key I’m still holding and unlocks it. I turn around and catch the door with my back, hugging her in close to me so I can fit us both through the door and carrying her all the way to the bed, the sheets still in the tangle we left them in a few hours ago.

  I sit her down and she starts to tilt to one side, her lashes fluttering as her eyes roll back into her head.

  “Whoa, Cali!” I catch her and she pulls herself back to a sitting position, her head falling forward and her elbows braced hard against her knees. “Are you gonna puke?” I ask nervously, glancing around for a trash can. I spot one by the TV and bring it over.

  She shakes her head but I can hear her swallow thickly. She mutters something and I kneel down next to her, tucking back the strands of hair that escaped her twisted bun.

  “What?”

  “So damned embarrassing…” she says with a weak laugh and lies back onto the bed, her lashes dark against chalky cheeks. “Stefan was right. It’s shock. I get the same thing every time I donate blood, or do more than scrape my knee. It’s freaking pitiful. The night your house burned down,” she says, “you’re lucky I didn’t pass out right in the middle of the big vampire fight.”

  I wince, thinking of how the night of the fire, Damon was fighting off vampires with a wrist just as broken as Cali’s just was. I can’t imagine how much pain he must have been in and I have to push the thought away so I can try to focus on helping Cali.

  I tug out the chopstick that’s holding her hair because it can’t feel good to lie down on that. “Can I get you some water or something?”

  “No, I’ll be all right in a second.” She swallows again. “Sorry. I know we don’t have time for this.”

  I nudge the trashcan discreetly closer, just in case. “It’s okay,” I say tentatively, even though my mind is still churning over and over with the problem of how to track the car the Augustines took Damon in when all I remember is the color and kind of how it was shaped. I should have gotten the license plate number.

  When I look back at Cali, her eyes are open but focused on the ceiling.

  “I was, um, not so much ready to face them all again right now,” she admits. “It’s like seeing double, you know? They’re like these completely different people in my head from when I met them the first time.” Her fingers trace her newly-healed wrist, and she presses her lips together. “And I know they’re trying to make it up to me, but I’m not sure if I could ever be comfortable around them again, especially knowing they’re still doing those things to other humans.”

  My fingers clench uselessly at my sides. I want to hold her, but I hate it when people touch me when I’m sick so I just sit down on the bed next to her and pull a pillow down to tuck it under her ankles like Stefan said to.

  “Look, Cali, you don’t have to stay here with them. You heard the Augustines: they aren’t going after humans. You and Matt will be safer at home, especially…”

  “Especially what?” she asks, instantly suspicious. “If you already have a plan for how we can get Damon back, I want to be involved. I’m the reason they caught up with him.”

  I shake my head. “No, it was—”

  “No, Jeremy, it wasn’t,” she interrupts. She makes a frustrated sound. “God, I never think when I’m pissed off,” she growls, sitting up and shoving a hand back through her hair, “and I know that about myself, so I should have known enough to wait and not leave until I had a plan. Because it doesn’t exactly help anything to run away from one set of kidnappers straight to another one, now does it?” She rolls her eyes. “Idiotic.”

  “You had every right to be upset,” I reassu
re her. “I should have known better, too. And no, I don’t have a plan yet. I just know that if the Augustines won’t go after humans on their own, then you’ll be safer far away from all of us.”

  “If you don’t have a plan, then why’d you tell them not to call Professor Whoeverthehell?” she asks, her eyes focused sharply on my face. I try to urge her back to lying down but she resists, raising her eyebrows at me.

  “Because he’s our only contact with the Augustines, and they want Silas because his blood is the cure for a whole bunch of stuff, even though they don’t know yet that the blood came from him. I’m afraid Stefan will call them and offer to trade,” I admit.

  “Silas? The guy you’ve been hauling around in a coffin?” she asks skeptically. “First, that’s a super creepy ransom demand, and second, I don’t really think you can get that much blood from a dead guy.”