He stops. “Caroline, please don’t–”
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth? I’m your friend, Stefan, and you told me you needed me to be honest with you.” She takes a step forward. “You’re doing this because you’re still trying to make up for the past. You’re going to get them to let Damon go and you’ll volunteer to be the one that stays while they make sure they can wake Silas, aren’t you? Because you think Damon is the only one left who loves you.”
Jeremy tosses a glance my way, looking uncomfortable, but I don’t know what to tell him. Caroline stops so close to Stefan’s rigid back that he must be able to feel her breath expanding across the fabric of his shirt.
“That’s not true anymore and you know it,” she accuses. “I care, Stefan Salvatore, and I’m not going to let you just throw your life away because you’re afraid—”
Her voice trembles and when he turns, it cracks apart altogether and she chokes on a gasp and falls silent.
Their eyes lock together and my mouth falls open in surprise at the tension that shimmers between them, the bare want I’ve never seen them acknowledge so clearly.
Stefan’s hand lifts toward her face and guilt twists in my belly as I hold my breath, wondering if he’s about to change his mind about trading Silas. I want to be excited for what I think is about to happen between him and Caroline, because she’s just what he needs and Stefan deserves somebody who can make him laugh, but right now I can’t think about anything but how we’ll get Damon free if Stefan doesn’t force the issue with Silas.
The intercom buzzer sounds and Ric heads over gratefully to check it. Stefan and Caroline don’t look away from each other, but Jeremy frowns.
“Who could be at the gate? Stefan, are you having another rental car dropped off or something?”
Stefan blinks and clears his throat. “No. No one should even know we’re here.”
Ric pushes the button to activate the security camera on the tiny screen, even as he reaches to slam the heavy front door. But then his shoulders relax. “Unless the Augustines’ fleet includes an old Volkswagen Thing, it’s not an enemy invasion. Probably just a lost pizza deliveryman.”
Jeremy’s head snaps up. “A VW?”
The intercom crackles and then a female voice comes through clearly. “Paging Transylvania. Can Jeremy come out and play?”
“Is that Cali?” Stefan says, looking confused.
Caroline winces and hurries across the room, dodging self-consciously around Ric to push the button to open the gate, then activating the intercom. “Come on in!” she sings cheerfully.
“Wait, don’t!” Jeremy lunges, but he’s too slow to stop her. “Shit! Caroline I didn’t tell Cali where we were. If she’s here, the Augustines might be using her to get in!”
Caroline twists her fingers together in front of her, smiling awkwardly. “Or, maybe she called me and said she needed to see you and I told her where we were.”
“Are you kidding?” Ric groans. “She’s human, Caroline. The Augustines could have compelled her to call!”
“My mom’s had Cali on vervain since she got back,” she says defensively, crossing her arms as her eyes dart between Jeremy’s increasingly embarrassed face and Ric’s suspicious one. “What? So I’m a sucker for a romantic reunion!” She rolls her eyes and mutters, “It’s not like I knew she would arrive smack in the middle of Crisis Central.”
The surprisingly loud engine of the Volkswagen cuts out and Jeremy’s eyes jump toward the door. Stefan stuffs his hands in his pockets and I hear the jingle of the spare set of rental car keys as he looks uncomfortable. He takes a small step toward the door.
There’s a loud bang of a knock, and Jeremy scrambles to answer it.
When he pulls the door open, Cali is standing there in ripped jeans and a tight black hoodie with spikey embroidery scrolling up the arms. She takes in all the faces turned her way and claps her hands once, sardonically. “Whoa, standing room only! Awesome.”
I dart a glance at my brother, but instead of looking excited to see her, his eyes are tight with stress.
“Look, I know you are probably not in the mood to talk to everyone,” he says to her, “and I’m really–I mean, I can’t believe you’re here but we’re right in the middle of something and I just…look, if you wanted to wait up in my room I could—”
The corner of her lips tips up. “It’s okay, Jer. That’s why I’m here.”
She ducks around him and strides inside but he turns right along with her like their movements were choreographed together, the tips of her fingers brushing the leather cuff that’s buckled around his wrist.
I tuck my hair behind my ears and try to gather my thoughts. Jeremy can’t look away from her, and this is the most alive he’s looked in days. I meant to go and see her, to try to smooth things over once we got Damon back, and even though this is possibly the worst moment she ever could have picked, I should at least say something before Jeremy herds her away because if they fight again and I don’t get the chance before she disappears, then my brother will be crushed and it will be all my fault.
“Cali, I never got the chance to tell you how sorry–”
She snaps up a hand, waving me off. “I don’t believe in apologies,” she says. “They don’t mean shit.”
Jeremy stiffens. “Cali, wait. We haven’t found Damon yet and right now is not–”
“What I believe in,” she interrupts him, “are actions.” Her eyes find me and they’re such an intense, unapologetic blue that they remind me of Damon and I nearly flinch. “Damon saved my ass when he could have tossed me to the Augustines for a distraction while he got Jeremy out of there.” She turns to address Stefan, who stands awkwardly between Caroline and the open front door. “And you gave me my memories back, with no glossing over of anything that happened, including all the chances you had to kill me, and how hard it was for you to hold back.”
She gives a quick shrug of thinly muscled shoulders.
“I was too pissed when I first found out to think it through clearly, but once I went home, I had nothing but time, and I realized you never had to be nice to me. You never had to tell me the truth. And you sure didn’t have to protect me from the Augustines.”
Caroline’s chin lifts and Cali snorts, a quick smile crossing her face. “Don’t think this is because of the lecture you gave me, either, Mama Bear.”
Caroline purses her lips ruefully, but doesn’t apologize, and I almost smile until I catch Stefan stealing a glance at the foyer clock and my hands clench tight.
“I’m here because I owe you all an apology, too,” Cali announces.
“Thought you didn’t believe in them,” Ric says, sounding amused.
She twitches a sideways nod of acknowledgement his way. “I don’t. So I brought you something better than a lot of lip biting and shuffling feet and words that would only make us all uncomfortable.”
Cali turns to face Jeremy and Stefan.
“I know where your brother is.”
* * *
DAMON
Katherine’s plan sucks.
“Vampire in here!” I shout through the smoke filling my room. “Full of delicious blood, on clearance sale one day only!”
For all the times the Augustines couldn’t wait to jump on me like an all-you-can-drink buffet, the whole building of them has apparently chosen this inopportune moment to decide they can resist eating me. Or maybe there’s no one left to hear, since they probably beat feet with super-vamp speed out of the building as soon as Katherine lit it on fire.
This was all part of her scheme. Katherine was supposed to play pyromaniac, then spring me from my prison so we could Bonnie and Clyde it off into the countryside. The Augustines didn’t bother to take my daylight ring, which meant when the fire started inside and all the Augustines rushed out, seeking safety, I’m the only one who wouldn’t expire under the hot afternoon sun.
Unfortunately, Katherine seems to have flubbed the timing because the fire threatening me
right now isn’t the kind that can be held off with a magic ring.
The soles of the ugly loafers they gave me scrape against the floor as I push off to start another round of pacing in my jail cell, the movement sending me into another fit of coughing. The Augustines must have zapped an IQ point or two in collateral damage when they had me strapped to their lab chair, because I keep forgetting not to breathe the smoke that’s creeping in every seam of my cell. It's turning what air I have left to a grimy shade of pus yellow.
My only job was to wait for Katherine, but the fire’s only been going for fifteen minutes and I’ve already ripped the walls and ceiling down to smooth panels of reinforced, riveted metal that I can do nothing more than dent despite my most creative efforts.
I guess I’m not the trusting sort.
Then again, she hasn’t shown up in her cape and tights yet, and when it comes to Katherine Pierce, mistrust is the only healthy state of mind to have.
So much for her turning over a new leaf. Funny, I almost believed it once she explained that her do-gooder idea involved euthanizing most of the humans on earth. Somehow, that was a version of Pierce “charity” I could wrap my mind around. But rescuing me from the fire? I guess I always had my doubts about that part.
I lie down on my back and pick my spot carefully: the center of the bottom of the door, the farthest from any bolts or reinforcing doorjambs. And I kick the holy living shit out of it, driving every ounce of my supernatural strength against its man-made surface. I listen carefully for sounds of strain or breakage, wishing like hell that Lia would have passed on that handy Augustine super strength when she had me in her lab.
Nothing. This whole damn building is going to burn down around my ears and that door will still be standing implacably upright amongst the heat of the ashes. My freaking luck.
I sit up and rake both hands back through my hair, a laugh shaking up out of my chest, because no matter how bad things get, I can always dredge up a smile for good irony and this is a solid gold middle finger from the fickle fates if I’ve ever seen one.
In 1864, when I first woke as a damned creature by the quarry pond, I thought about God. It was Sunday, after all, and every Sunday of my life before I went to war I sat in the hard wood pews next to my father and my brother and listened to sermons about the mercy of Jesus and the wrath of God. About righteous war and the inevitable punishment for sin.
Some days during the war, when we weren’t on the move, we’d sit in the cold, dead soil of unplanted fields and listen to our unit chaplain tell us that God was on our side, that He forgave us for the screams we wrought from our rightful enemy, for the musket balls we plowed into their bleeding bodies, for the amputated limbs piled up outside of the red-stained canvas walls of the hospital tents. We were losing battle after pitiful battle and he told us that God worked in mysterious ways, and we would prevail in the end.
The Sunday of my transition, I sat beside the quarry pond while the wet grass soaked up through my cotton trousers and I pictured Katherine’s death in Fell’s Church over and over again, her beautiful curls vanishing like air beneath the flames, her soft lips stretched wide in a scream that was choked by black smoke, as suffocating as the trails of it that press in under my door now. I tried to fathom the pain of a creature who would not go unconscious as she died, who would have to feel every second of her flesh burning as she collapsed beneath the boarded-up stained glass of the windows that I’d stared at since I was a boy.
I couldn’t let go of the idea that Katherine burned while she waited for me to bring salvation. In the moments when I should have been tearing those barred doors to splinters to get to the woman I loved, I was lying dead and cold with a musket ball in my chest. That day, I was completely incapable of saving Katherine, and that reeked to me of a kind of predestination I didn’t have an easy explanation for.
But she never burned in that church. The idea of her burned in that church, the lure of her fascinating, sensual body gone, leaving behind a false idol that I would worship for one hundred and forty-seven years.
And now I will burn while Katherine is unable or unwilling to save me, and I’ll die not knowing which it is. Which seems fitting because I’ve never known the truth of her, not for one moment in my long life. Maybe she tried to come, earlier, and something prevented her from reaching me. I can tell by the smoke and heat creeping into my room that the fire outside is too far gone for a human to make it through now.
She won’t be coming for me, and I can’t even work up a decent surprised face.
A crash explodes through the building beyond my door and I cough harshly when I try to curse, my throat thick and itchy with smoke.
I need a plan. The door and everything around it is metal. The walls are reinforced with metal but behind that they are probably wood, and wood will weaken as it burns.
I take a running start, slam my shoulder into the wall and have to clamp my teeth closed against a cry of pain as the steel rams my joint out of place.
I pop my shoulder back into socket with a wince. Okay, the supports behind the metal haven’t burned enough to be weak yet.
With an effort, I force myself to be still, though every cell in my body wants to pace and punch and fight and claw my way out of here. I need to conserve my energy and not weaken myself by breathing the smoke, because sooner or later the walls are going to start to collapse and I’m fast. I can run my ass out of here and stop, drop and roll once I hit the outside world.
The heat from the fire is so intense that sweat rolls off my forehead, over the muscles of my arms beneath my shirt. It won’t be long now. I blink against the smoke that scours my eyes and watch for signs of weakness in the walls.
I remember Elena’s voice, laughing softly in my ear when we’d stay up late talking on the phone while she was in college. She told me a story once, something about a voice distorter and a horrifically ugly rubber mouse, and I struggle to remember the details that made her giggle so freely.
And yet when I try to picture her eyes, they dissolve into the accusing brown of Jeremy’s as he looked up at me from the floor in front of Cali’s hotel room. He and Stefan were both pretty pissed off the night I got taken. I know Stefan will get over it: he’s shitty at holding grudges at anyone but himself, and he’s not as good at hating me as he used to be. But I almost wish I had apologized to Jeremy. When I picture the Augustines feeding off Elena the night they broke into the boarding house, the heat of fury that flushes up through my body outmatches even the fire blazing outside my cell, and I understand too well how he must have felt.
Having someone feed from your woman is a kind of violation I don’t think humans have ever invented a word for.
I close my eyes just for a small respite from the smoke, and unbidden, the memory of sharing blood with Elena floods me like a liquid wash of comfort. It was everything I cherished about her: the way she blushes when she tells one of her rare dirty jokes, her eyes sparkling with laughter at her own daring. The wild waves of her hair first thing in the morning when it still holds the shape of my fingers instead of the smooth discipline of her flattening iron. How her tiny toes squirm delightedly when she hides her perpetually icy feet under my bare legs in bed.
Her every flaw and all her stubbornness and the sweet stretch of her acceptance of me: it was all poured into her blood that night, into me until I drifted into the most perfect sleep of my life with her, completely at rest.
I swallow unevenly and acrid smoke fills my throat instead of her scent.
I can’t die. Not today, not here.
There’s a cracking clatter from outside my room, then a boom that shakes the floor beneath my feet. That sounds like the ceiling might be giving way somewhere. I back up, determination winding the muscles in my legs vibrating-taut, and I rocket across the room and toward the wall next to the door. The exposed metal of the reinforced wall is so hot now that it sears me through my shirt, but it doesn’t give way.
I back slowly away, the scorching pain of
the burn on my shoulder a faint preview of coming events. I stare at the locked door, but not a single idea in my racing mind is enough to change the reality of what it is: an uncompromising barrier between me and the possibility of living out the rest of my immortal life.
Chapter 22: Come Hell or Hard Choices
JEREMY
Why did I volunteer to drive? It’s hard enough just to keep my eyes away from Cali’s slim wrists, off the red chafed marks on her palms that look like she’s been playing the drums too hard, and besides, I don’t even know where we’re going.
“You want me to drive, kid?” Ric asks as I open the door of the rental SUV, and irritation prickles under my skin at the nickname. I don’t mind when Damon calls me that, but he was practically around when they invented the wheel, so it doesn’t count.
“I’m fine,” I tell Ric and start the engine, smiling when Cali throws a pointed glance toward my seatbelt. I pause to buckle it before I put the Suburban in gear, catching an encyclopedic look that passes between Stefan and Caroline when I check in the rearview mirror to back out of the garage.
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 28
