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

by Michelle Hazen

  “When was the last time you ate?” Jeremy demands, folding his arms.

  My gaze falls guiltily. “A couple hours ago.”

  It’s the truth. The rest of the truth is that in order to not drain anyone, I had to hit three different gas stations and a donut shop in a strip mall. Damon said all these vampire tricks were easier with more blood and if I’m going to use a raven to find him, I need to be strong.

  But I don’t feel strong. Now that my focus has broken, my body seems heavy and too flexible, like it takes all my effort just to stand up straight. And everything is too damned loud, the leaves clapping together all through the courtyard and the wind scraping over the Spanish tiles of the roof. The clouds are moving so fast above us that I almost feel like I can hear them, too, wet and weighty with a storm that won’t break for hours yet.

  “What did you need, Jeremy?” I ask, a little more sharply than I meant to.

  His heartbeat is just as deafening as everything else, booming like he’s pumping buckets of blood through his veins to do nothing more strenuous than stand next to me.

  “I just wanted to ask if you’d talked to Ric. I haven’t seen him since last night and he’s not answering his phone.”

  I stiffen, but in my mind I can hear Damon teasing me for always assuming the worst, so I blow out a breath and force myself to chill out a little.

  “He probably went to town,” I say, and then abruptly realize that I don’t know how Ric’s been feeding. Now that Damon’s gone, who is helping him learn snatch, eat, erase? Has he been stealing blood bags somehow? Guilt creeps through me as I register that I should have thought of this days ago, that I should have been helping him. “Have you called Stefan? Maybe he took Ric somewhere to feed.”

  Ric’s stronger than all of us if he gets out of control, but with Damon gone, Stefan’s the one with the best chance of handling him.

  Jeremy gives me a strange look. “Stefan’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?” I snap, my muscles tensing all over again.

  “I told you yesterday. Do you ever even listen when I’m talking to you?”

  I open my mouth to argue with him, but I have absolutely no memory of him telling me Stefan was going somewhere, or that something had happened to him. Jeremy would be more upset right now if Stefan were the kidnapped kind of gone, right?

  “Just—” I sputter. “Never mind. Where’s Stefan?”

  “He found a witch in West Virginia who might help us do a locator spell to find Damon,” Jeremy says, watching me a little warily.

  I run a hand through my hair and try to let out my breath slowly, so he won’t notice. With all this human blood running through my system, and Damon gone, I need to make sure and stay calm and in control.

  “So, you told me he found a witch that could help us?”

  “I told you he was following a lead,” my brother says defensively.

  “I would have gone with him if I knew the lead was a witch!” I snap before I can stop myself.

  “Why, Elena? She only needed Stefan’s blood to do the spell so there’s no point in the rest of us going.”

  Jealousy cracks through me and I turn away, staring blankly out at the courtyard so Jeremy won’t see it in my face. It’s so damned unfair that they can’t use my blood to find Damon. Memories of him pulse inside every breath I take, flash behind my eyelids every time I blink. Stefan has betrayed his brother and abandoned him dozens of times throughout their lives, and yet his blood can be trusted to lead us back to Damon when mine would fail.

  I let go of the balcony railing so I won’t break it.

  “Okay, right,” I say, very carefully.

  “Anyway, it didn’t really work,” Jeremy offers. “When he called, he said that she wasn’t a very strong witch, and all she could do was narrow it down to an area about an hour drive out from Whitmore, which we could have guessed on our own. He got back late last night, but he and Caroline are both gone again this morning, so they must have gone out to get more food or maybe try for blood bags or something.”

  He falls silent and I can feel his eyes on me, on the hair I haven’t washed for two days and whatever clothes I pulled on this morning, or maybe last night when I came out onto the balcony. I can’t remember anymore, and I don’t feel like looking down to check.

  “God.” Jeremy glances away, his lips twisting into something like a grimace. “Katherine was right.”

  I stiffen at the sound of her name. “What? Why would you say that?” I choke out.

  “Seeing you like this…” He shakes his head in disgust. “Katherine said it was stupid to throw yourself at these big heroic acts, like that was the only way to make your life mean something.” His jaw flexes. “She was right. I thought after what Bonnie did for me, I had to make myself worth her sacrifice. But Bonnie did the most noble thing a person can do, and where is she now? I don’t even see her ghost anymore, Elena.”

  I press my lips together so hard it hurts. Somehow I haven’t even thought to check on Jeremy in weeks, to see how he’s doing since she brought him back. And this whole time he’s been feeling like he needs to earn his right to live?

  “And Damon—” Jeremy chokes on a breath that would sound like a laugh to somebody who wasn’t listening closely. “I basically told him I hated him and he saved my ass anyway, even though it meant getting taken by the only people on earth I think really scare him. I should be proud, you know? I should look up to him for doing that but I don’t see how anything that can leave you feeling like this can be good.”

  He gestures to me like I’m Exhibit A and I straighten up self-consciously, tucking my tangled hair behind my ears.

  “Life has no meaning when you’re dead,” Jeremy says abruptly.

  I roll my eyes and smack him lightly in the chest. Jeremy flinches and scowls at me.

  “Hey, what was that for?”

  “See!” I tell him. “I told you all I wanted was my family to be safe and you acted like I was an idiot.”

  All this time I’ve been after him to be careful, and he only listens to me now? I bat at him again and he holds up his hands to fend me off, his face brightening.

  “I was right,” I mutter and Jeremy starts to laugh.

  “Okay, maybe,” he admits. “But you also said it wasn’t okay for me to skip high school for college because I cared more about what was going on in my real life than school, even though you just quit college for that exact same reason.”

  “Shut up!” My face flushes and I elbow Jeremy in the ribs.

  He is grinning at me, his eyes lighter than I’ve seen them since Cali left. “What’s with the abuse?” he teases. “You haven’t smacked me since before we left for that stupid island. Nowadays, you always treat me like I’m made of glass.”

  I narrow my eyes at him only half-seriously, the tension in my chest easing a little. “Don’t tempt me to really get violent. We still haven’t talked about you getting suspended from school earlier this year.”

  Jeremy opens his mouth to answer, but then there’s a flutter of wings across the courtyard and I leap unthinkingly up onto the balustrade, craning my neck to see if it’s another raven.

  “Whoa, ‘Lena!” Jeremy says, reaching out like he might pull me back down, but then hesitating.

  “What?” I snap, still looking for the bird. He knows I have the reflexes and balance to do way more than jump up onto a railing. What is he worried about?

  “Nothing. You’ve just been...extra vampirey lately.”

  “Is that supposed to be an insult? What does that even mean?”

  Blue. The damned wings are blue. I drop back onto the balcony, annoyed. Probably I could get into the mind of another kind of bird, but aren’t ravens supposed to be the most intelligent species aside from parrots? And I’m not even sure I’m getting somewhere with the ravens.

  How stupid am I, that I slept next to Damon for dozens upon dozens of nights and not once did I ask him to teach me how to get inside the minds of birds?
Or call fog, or any of the other secret vampire tricks I’m sure he hasn’t even bothered mentioning that he can probably do without breaking a sweat?

  “It means when you're not texting all our spies, you spend all your time on this balcony, brooding.” My brother leans his arms against the stucco railing and looks over at me, his hair falling across his forehead, a little too long like I’ve forgotten to take him to get a haircut. “What are you even doing up here?” he asks softly.

  I close my eyes, my head sagging forward a little. I’m being such a bitch right now, and I know how much Jeremy has done for all of us in the four days since Damon was kidnapped. Jeremy found this rental house and brought home groceries, and he’s been up with Ric and Stefan at all hours, pitching new ideas for how to find Damon. The very least I can do is be nice when he’s trying to help me, no matter how upset I might be.

  “Okay, so you know how Damon could control ravens?” I ask Jeremy, and as if in answer, one lands on the highest branch of the birch in front of us, quarking and smoothing its feathers.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says, watching me as if he didn’t even notice the bird’s arrival.

  His phone buzzes in his pocket and we both startle. He yanks it out, and the screen lights up with the name “Cali” and a new text message alert. No news, then. I look away and he hesitates for a second and then tucks it back into his pocket without checking the message.

  “So Damon can control birds,” he prompts, his attention already back on me.

  “He showed me how to call the fog,” I say, half-mumbling because I feel so stupid saying it aloud. “I thought maybe I could figure out how to do the raven thing too, to use it to find him like he used them to spy on Silas.”

  Jeremy looks out at the courtyard and now he spots the new raven, eyebrows climbing as he stares at it.

  “Wait, so can you?” he asks, taken aback. “Control ravens, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, smacking my palms down on the railing in frustration. “I’ve been trying to send them to the area around Whitmore, to look for Damon or follow Professor Maxfield, since he probably knows where Damon is. But none of the birds have come back and I don’t even know how they would tell me if they’ve seen him.”

  His dark eyes are wide. “But you talked to them? You told them to look for Damon?”

  “I don’t know, Jeremy!” I half-shout.

  He pulls out his phone and I turn away, pacing across the balcony, too upset to even care that he’s distracted.

  “I thought if I could get them there, he could figure out a way to send them back, to have them bring me a message somehow. Or maybe not even that. Maybe just—” I shove both hands back through my hair and my scalp stings as several strands rip free of their roots but I shake them off and keep pacing. “I guess I thought if he at least saw them, he would know he wasn’t alone. That we were looking for him.” My voice catches and I am the opposite of calm. I’m a terrible sister, a terrible guardian because I’m falling apart and I can’t even help myself, much less my brother. Or my fiancé. “But I don’t even know if it’s working, Jeremy…”

  He catches my shoulder and turns me back around. All I see is his slightly awed smile before he says, “Oh, it’s definitely working,” and holds up his phone.

  I squint, recognizing the image though it takes me a minute to realize he must have googled a webcam of Whitmore’s central lawn. It looks different than the last time I was there, because this time the image is weighted with darkness.

  I grab the phone and look closer.

  Every branch, bench, and light post is weighted with ravens, until the blackness of their wings all but blots out the colors of grass and students and classroom buildings surrounding them.

  Jeremy grips my shoulder, squeezing a little too hard in his excitement.

  “Shit, Elena, they’re there! You sent all those birds there!”

  My hand rises shakily to my mouth and I swallow a curse before I say it in front of Jeremy.

  “It worked,” I breathe.

  “You think?” he says, grinning crazy big. "Shit, Elena, if you send a couple more they can just carry him home.”

  I turn to the raven still in the courtyard but my sudden movement startles it into flight and something about the strength of its wings as it climbs into the sky gives me an idea.

  “Ric!” I whirl back to my brother. “If Esther gave him Original strength and speed, how do we know what other powers she gave him?”

  “Well, he can’t compel a vampire,” Jeremy starts, then frowns. “Or wait, can he? Has he ever tried?”

  “Never mind that.” I slice a hand through the air. “Look, if I’m strong enough to send the birds, and Ric is stronger than me, maybe he can figure out how to communicate with them better. If we go to Whitmore he could speak to them or something, figure out if they’ve seen Damon and they just didn’t know to come back to me because I didn’t know how to tell them to!” I’m babbling, the words tripping out so fast I can barely follow them myself, but Jeremy must get it because he grabs my hand and is already pulling me toward the door before I finish.

  “I looked all over for Ric and I called his phone, but his bedroom door was closed, so I assumed he was gone and didn’t go in there but maybe he was sleeping,” Jeremy says, letting my hand go so he can jog down the stairs. I overtake him and only stop when I get to Ric’s bedroom door, forcing myself to knock before I try the knob.

  “Ric!” I call. “Ric, we thought of something! We need your help!”

  I only make it through two knocks before I burst into his room, but it’s empty, the unmade bed sitting quiet with its sheets twisted and pillows dented as if he only woke up a few minutes ago.

  “Oh,” I say, deflated. “I guess he drove into town after all.”

  “Um, Elena...” Jeremy says, and something in his voice makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. I don’t want to turn around, because I can’t take any more bad news right now, I just can’t.

  But I make myself look.

  Jeremy’s standing by the dresser, and in one of his hands is Ric’s cell phone, and in the other is the jacket he doesn’t go anywhere without.

  “I don’t think,” Jeremy says, his face pale, “that Ric went to town.”

  Chapter 19: Dead Ends

  From the text inbox of Jeremy Gilbert’s phone

  C: Why, Jeremy, WHY did you Facebook friend me?

  J: easy there, commitment-phobe. I'm facebook friends with my 8th grade lab partner and my mom's old hairdresser, too. No big deal.

  C: Oh, sweet, so it wasn't just to torture me with the fact that you only date models?

  J: ...?

  C: Gorgeous, African-American women with exotic colored eyes and tall, lithe brunettes and ACK! quirky, wavy-haired little girls that are cute as a button and probably actually your age.

  J: LOL. you have no idea. i've got a thing for older women.

  C: If you need me, I'll be binging on cake and Dawson's Creek. And wrinkle cream.

  J: thought you didn't want to date…

  C: To be strictly factual, I wanted to use you for your young, gorgeous body, fall secretly in un-requited love with you, and then write heart-wrenching, brilliantly arranged, award-winning songs about the whole affair.

  J: so that every other underaged music nerd in the world would fall in un-requited love with you. and your killer drum solos. cruel.

  C: Cruel = this entire album of shirtless lake house vacation shots. And also, WTF? You have a lake house?

  J: is that a trick question?

  C: I hate you.

  J: What happened to un-requited love?

  C: ; )

  DAMON

  I hear a woman’s voice, murmuring softly like a tide that tickles my ears. My face twists and the blunted edge of panic digs deep in my chest as I try to discern whether this is a dream or my real life.

  She’s singing a song that has the rich wood scent of my childhood bedroom and the lavender sachet of my mo
ther’s soft cotton sleeves. These words are older than I am but their soothing wash is tainted with the sour tang of fear because I can’t move my fingers.

  That doesn’t answer my question: whether I’m a prisoner of the lab or of my own troubled sleep. I am rarely allowed to move anymore, and it’s been four days since this all started. They ask me questions and I answer, and I feel, sweet Christ do I feel. But the paralytics and the chains keep me from moving.

  And yet in the next moment, I forget why it matters. I don’t need to move. I’m tired, and so relaxed and I’d rather listen to Lia sing than go anywhere anyway. There’s something about her voice…she doesn’t hit all the notes in the same way my mother did, even though I’m the one who taught her the song, and sometimes her tone wavers a little. But the sound of her calms me in a very basic way and I need it to keep everything else at bay.