“Damon…”
I sigh.
“Damon, I need you to open your eyes so I can show you something,” Lia says gently.
I try, because I hate to deny her anything. It gives me a crawling feeling under my fingernails, like I’m naked in a place where everyone else has clothes.
To my surprise, my eyelids twitch, and then lift sluggishly and I grimace, stretching the tingling muscles of my face as my metabolism burns through their paralytic pharmaceuticals yet again. I know better than to move more than that, because now I remember that they’ve made incisions yet again today.
This is the fifth day I’ve been a prisoner and the fourth day I’ve been in this lab. So I know incisions mean that Dr. Penfield is using electrical currents on the surface of my brain, skittering kaleidoscope visions made of emotion through my mind the way drugs used to when I first discovered them. It’s easy to get lost in, but I’ve figured out the pattern: Lia gives me a visual trigger, and then Dr. Penfield refines the reaction he wants me to have.
But when I open my eyes, it’s not Lia’s face I see.
It’s a bright, sweet smile and long, shiny brown hair. In the photograph before me, she’s lying back on her elbows on a picnic blanket with leafy shadows dappling the olive-toned skin of her long legs. She’s wearing cutoff shorts, a clingy plum-colored tank top and a fedora that she probably swiped out of my closet because I used to wear them all the time a few years back.
“Do you recognize her?”
I snort. “As if I could forget. That’s Katherine.”
Everyone else has a hell of a time keeping them straight but they rarely fool me. My instincts break them down into their component parts like a blindly taken taste of a cocktail.
Whiskey, vermouth and bitters? That’s a Manhattan.
An enthusiastic but guileless sensuality, more courage than caution, and a heart as big as the sky? That can only be an Elena. Put it in the biggest glass you’ve got, because I can never get enough.
But a sly kind of sexy, wrapped in confidence and a cruel intelligence like a Trojan horse full of Ebola virus? That’s a Katherine, hold the garnish and don’t tip the fucking bartender.
The photograph crinkles slightly in the grip of Lia’s fingers. “Are you sure?”
“She’s wearing Elena’s clothes and my hat, but that’s definitely Katherine.” The echoing blankness inside my chest when I see her picture is all the ID I’ll ever need.
Lia smiles and takes the picture away, exchanging a glance with Dr. Penfield. “Of course. You must be right.”
Happiness ripples sweetly through my belly in reaction to her approval and I almost smile.
But then something about the way the girl in the picture was holding her knees clamps my throat shut.
“His blood pressure is spiking again,” I hear Dr. Penfield murmur from somewhere behind me.
Her knees were touched softly together, relaxed but still modest. That was Elena. That was Elena and I felt nothing.
Panic grinds darkly beneath the base of my teeth and my muscles slowly draw taut, still reluctant to respond to my commands as the last dregs of the paralytic drugs weight them down. There’s something wrong, something I’m supposed to remember.
“Is everything okay?” Lia’s fingers brush my knee and I realize I’m wearing slacks, the cheap weave of the fabric chafing my skin. I ignore it: I should be grateful for the clothes they gave me.
“I’m upset,” I say in response, my voice coming out puzzled, but not as concerned as I felt a moment ago.
Lia frowns. “Can I get you anything? Do you need a break?”
A break.
Sweat dampens my forehead as I remember. They’re training me like a dog, stimulus and response. The brain is like a forest, they told me. And I’ve built my own paths into it with every memory and experience of my life. My paths are staying, but they’re changing all the signs so everything that used to point to Elena is pointing to Lia instead. And all the trails that lead to “no” have disappeared into the undergrowth.
Except that brains don’t come with maps. The Augustines know the basic layout but the only way they can be absolutely certain which pathway they are working on is if I tell them. If I focus, if I’m smarter than them, I can figure out what they’re trying for and concentrate on something else entirely so that I connect whatever I choose to the response they give me. When they ask me about Elena, it’s because they want me to forget my loyalty to her. So I try to think about Katherine instead.
My memories of this week are all blurred, but I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I’ve lasted this long. I was fighting.
Relief pounds through my veins and my name repeats through my head, drowning out the identification number they gave me in labs just like this one. I am Damon Salvatore, and I am nobody’s slave.
“Wait. Let me see that picture again,” I say aloud.
Lia glances at Dr. Penfield, and his shoe scuffs against industrial tile behind me as he adjusts one of his machines. Lia holds up the picture, and yeah, it’s Elena.
She has a way of tucking her hair behind her ear where she always misses just the wisp of a strand and it’s right there, frozen forever in the moment of that picture, lying against her beautiful cheek. This picture was probably taken this summer, at the picnic she talked Matt and Jeremy into when I was meeting with the plumber about the leak in the boarding house kitchen.
Confusion wavers my thoughts as Dr. Penfield activates one of his electrodes and I concentrate harder. This is the girl whose voice I would do anything for. This is the girl whose very presence makes all the pieces of my personality fit together better than they have at any moment in the last century and a half.
Pain beats behind my temples like the protest of a muscle coming back to life after too many days of enforced motionlessness.
“Why is it that you hate Katherine?” Lia prompts.
I bring up an image of Katherine in my mind, her chin tipped coyly down and her shoes sharp like weapons. I see Katherine and not the photograph in front of me, because right now I can remember they’re using it to make my reaction to Katherine apply to Elena.
“She made a fool out of me, enjoyed watching me chase around trying to get her out of the tomb while all along she’d just skipped town on a whim and left Stefan and me behind. She’s a heartless bitch,” I answer with the obedience they’re come to expect from me. Humiliation crawls across my skin when I remember that it’s not always faked. Sometimes I lose myself for hours at a time in their lab and I have no idea what I’ve done during that time, or what they’ve done to me.
Lia drops the photograph and leans down to me, the scent of her skin irritatingly familiar. I quash the sense of peace it triggers and try to remember that it’s betrayal I’m smelling.
“Good. Now forget Katherine. Remember the first time you told me a secret, back when we were prisoners together? Do you remember how good it felt to finally be able to trust someone else in that terrible lab?”
Instead, I remember when Elena hugged me after I had to kill Rose. I let myself sink into what it was like to be cared for, to have my feelings matter to someone besides myself.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I remember.”
It is Elena I trust. Not the woman who strapped me to this chair.
“Focus on my eyes,” Lia orders, and I do, because I have to. “I’m here to help you,” she reminds me. “The Augustines are making me hold you here but I’m going to make sure they set you free to live your life. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“What about you?” I ask, and uncertainty softens the words a little. She’s a liar, so why do I care if I have to leave her behind?
“What about me?” she counters softly.
“I can’t leave you here,” I say, because I know that’s what she wants me to say. “We’re friends. You’d be safer with me.”
“I’m safe with the Augustines,” she says with a smile, stroking my fingers. “You could stay h
ere with me. Would you like that better?”
My mind races, because I’m not sure exactly what they expect from me at this point. Lia knows me too damn well. If I act too spineless, she’ll know I’m pulling one over on them.
I manage a drugged-looking smirk. “Only if they dig me up a hot tub and some decent liquor. And put a ban on that Enya shit you’re piping into the yoga room next door.”
She laughs. “I’ll see what I can do. Okay, have a look at this next series of pictures.”
I blink and force myself to relax, but my plans are running like a mantra through my head, because I know at any moment I’ll start to forget again. I have to fool them long enough to lull their suspicion. I have to get the keys to my cell and get out of here, I have to find Stefan and Elena. I have to get away from Lia. Or kill her.
I almost frown and then catch myself. Wait, which is the right plan? Was I going to kill her or leave her here? Was I going to take her with me so I could…so I could do what? Does Stefan want to talk to her?
Anger flashes through me. Screw Stefan. He’d never understand the friendship I have with Lia. He was so surprised when Ric and I started hanging out, like it was unbelievable that someone would want to be my friend.
Stefan doesn’t need me. He’ll be fine. He was getting better with controlling his bloodlust anyway.
When I leave here, Lia and I will just…wait, where was I going to take her? Does she know when we’re leaving? No, I don’t think I’ve told her yet. Because I need to escape and she wouldn’t like that. But I have to do it for Elena. Forget Stefan, Elena will still want to see me.
Except I’ve been gone for days. What if she’s written me off, moved on already? Maybe she and Stefan will have bonded over trying to find me, the way she and I once grew closer together over a long summer of searching for my brother.
Lia’s holding up a new photograph. “Damon, how do you feel?” she prompts.
My stomach twists and I try to focus on what she’s showing me. I can’t feel what I actually feel, I have to figure out what they want me to feel and why, then tell them what they want to hear while inside I control my emotions so they lock the response into my brain that I want.
It’s so complicated and I’m so damned tired.
But there is no one here who can save me, so I can’t give up, not even for a second, or I may never recognize myself again.
“Are you okay?” Lia asks again, her eyes kind. “Can I help you, Damon?”
“I—” My focus wavers and I don’t have time to puzzle out what my response should be. “I don’t know,” I confess, confusion sliding into my mind like a fog. “I can’t remember.”
She smiles and immediately I feel better. “Don’t worry,” she says, and I don’t.
* * *
JEREMY
Ric is gone.
My sister sinks down onto the foot of his empty bed and I glance away, but there’s no safe place in this room to look. Was he sleeping, when they pulled him back to the Other Side? Did it hurt? Did he understand what was happening to him?
I don’t know how Esther persuaded Qetsiyah to let Ric stay after Silas was neutralized, but even Crazy Esther must have finally realized he had no intention of going after the Originals, of cleansing the world of vampires the way she’d hoped.
But why now?
“Look, this doesn’t necessarily mean Ric’s gone…” I attempt. “Maybe he just went for a walk around the neighborhood or something so he didn’t need his wallet and phone.”
“Now when we get Damon back, I’ll have to tell him,” Elena says, her voice wavering, “that he’s never going to see his best friend again.”
My stomach squirms with dread. She’s going to start crying again, and if she does that, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold it together.
I touch her shoulder uncertainly, not sure if I should say that Ric’s probably not dead, or try to start getting used to the idea that he might be.
“Ric came to see me,” Elena says, staring blankly at the carpet as her hands in her lap begin to shake. “After Bonnie died. And I told him I didn’t think I could live like I have been, never knowing who was about to leave my life next. I just—”
There are footsteps coming down the hall and I look up, because I didn’t hear the front door open. But then I guess I wouldn’t: the house is huge.
My mind races, hoping it’s Ric but almost hoping it’s not because that will just mean we have to do this again some other day, when he really does go back to the Other Side, but maybe that would be better than now, with Damon gone and everything so messed up and—
Ric bustles into the room, a messy fistful of papers and files in one hand and a clear plastic Starbuck cup in the other.
“Elena!” he says, his eyes gleaming with triumph. “I might have found something.”
She bursts into tears and throws herself at him, the cup crunching between them as the lid pops off from the pressure and Ric fumbles to move it away before he spills Frappuccino down Elena’s shirt. With his other arm, he holds her tight.
“Shit,” he says, his voice low and suddenly hollow. “Did they— Did you find Damon? Is it—” He clears his throat.
I jump in before he assumes the worst. “No, Damon’s fine. I mean, well, we don’t really know but we haven’t had any new leads. Elena just…we thought you might have—
”
“Oh,” Ric says guiltily, and papers crumple as he squeezes her a little tighter. “Right.”
I shift awkwardly, wondering if I should go, while Ric rests his chin on top of Elena’s head and she clamps her mouth shut, trying to stifle the sobs we can all still clearly hear.
“Hey, I’m okay,” he murmurs. “I forgot my phone and jacket, that’s all. I was just at the public library, using the computers. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
I go to the bathroom across the hall and grab a wad of toilet paper, bringing it back to Elena because my throat hurts and my eyes are starting to feel itchy and I’m going to go nuts if I don’t do something. When I return, she’s still crying so I reach out and pat her on the back, her body so narrow that my palm covers her whole shoulder blade. I don’t know how many more days she can go on like this.
“We need some new leads,” I say to Ric. “What have you got?”
Elena pulls away from Ric, swallowing thickly, and I hand her the tissue, glancing away so I don’t have to see her swollen eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Ric says, chagrined. He just stands there with his ruined Starbucks cup in one hand like he wishes there was something else to say.
“It’s fine,” I say, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “I was just being paranoid, jumping to conclusions. No biggie.”
Elena flashes him a subdued smile that looks supremely unconvincing with her puffy eyes, and then thankfully changes the subject. “What were you looking for on the computer?”
His eyes light up again and he sets his cup on the dresser, crossing the room to spread out his papers on the small table in the corner.
“Okay, so you remember those pictures your spies have been sending you, of people that Maxfield has been seen with?”
“Uh-huh,” Elena says, furtively blowing her nose one more time.
“Jeremy showed me how to do Google Images searches and use some open source facial recognition software, and we managed to get names for all those people, through Facebook mostly. I’ve been doing searches on all of them, and cross-referencing them with property records to see if any of them own a place where the Augustines might be hiding. Plus checking for trusts or shell corporations registered to their names that also own property.”
“Wow,” I say, raising my eyebrows. I had no idea all the things he’d managed to do with the couple of tricks I taught him. “Nice work.”
Ric’s neck flushes a ruddy dark red. “I read a lot of detective novels, okay? The point is, there are too many of these records for me to go through by myself, so I thought I’d bring them home and get some he
lp.”
Elena’s neck stiffens just as Ric glances toward the door.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Sound from the garage,” Ric explains.
I catch my breath. The garage is where we keep Silas. “We just redid the concrete again yesterday,” I say, my stomach twisting. The magic of his immortality spell keeps trying to put him back together, but is it getting stronger?
“It was a car,” Elena says. “It’s probably just Stefan coming home, or Caroline. I’ll go get them so they can help look through those papers.” She takes a step toward the door and pauses, looking back. “Hey, Jeremy?”
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 25
