A smile tugs at the edges of my mouth, because for the first time since she came to my room, Cali sounds like herself.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she says, still avoiding my gaze, “I have to go find a really large rock to crawl under.”
“Well, first off,” I tell her, catching her other hand and tickling her palm before I slide our fingers softly together, “I’m pretty sure grabby hands were supposed to be involved.”
She freezes with her body halfway turned toward the stairs and then slowly, her eyes lift to mine. And when they get there, I give her hands a gentle squeeze, waiting for her to understand that she doesn’t have to say the right thing, or anything. Because I’ve been hers all along.
She swallows, her pulse beating visibly in the tiny hollow at the base of her throat.
I start walking backward, tugging her along with me as I toe the door shut and guide her around the abandoned MP3 player. “And second, a hallway isn’t really the best place for a conversation like this.”
I pause at the foot of the bed, taking the messenger bag off her shoulder and setting it carefully to the side.
“And third?” Cali asks hoarsely.
I grin. “I’m going to have to question your taste a little bit if the life you really want is one with a guy like me in it. You do realize you’re getting a homeless high school dropout with a history of drug problems, fighting, and tragic luck with women? Oh, and sometimes I see ghosts.”
A smile rises to her lips to match mine and when she puts her hand flat to my chest and pushes me down onto the mattress, I know everything is going to be all right.
“Joke’s on you,” she says blandly. “You’re signing on for a flat broke, cradle-robbing would-be musician who is a breath away from being fired.” She follows me down onto the bed and my mouth goes dry as she settles herself over my chest. “Not to mention once Stefan heals my grandma, I’m going to be roommates with a septuagenarian who rinses and reuses paper towels and quotes Will Ferrell at least six times a day.”
“You asked him to heal her?” I ask, my gaze jumping from her lips back to her eyes. “Cali, that’s great!”
She threads her hands into my hair and the subtle scrape of her fingernails against my scalp makes it hard to think about anything but how her thighs feel straddling my lap.
“If you don’t need to take care of your grandma anymore, though, aren’t you going to move closer to your band?” I ask vaguely, feeling too damn good to worry about how many miles I’m about to put on my Audi driving back and forth to Richmond.
“I thought I might hang out and spend some time with Gram before I move back. At least until, I don’t know, maybe May.” Her eyes are sparkling.
“But that’s seven months away!” I burst out. Would she seriously put her music career on hold for so long just so she can wait around for me to finish high school?
She leans close and brushes a single kiss over my lips. “Trust me, you’re worth it.”
My head is spinning and I don’t know if I want to pull her close and steal another kiss, or tell her she’d be insane to waste another second before going after the music career that’s obviously her destiny, or just lie here frozen at the idea of her making plans for our future together when I didn’t realize until just a few minutes ago that we were even going to have one.
But then Cali props herself up on an elbow, her face serious, and when she speaks, I forget all about arguing.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her voice rough again. “For rescuing me in more ways than I would have ever known how to ask for.”
Her hair brushes my cheeks as she lowers her head, and I’ve never been more ready for anything than I am for her to kiss me.
Her lips are warm and a little salty, the cool metal of her lip ring teasing at the edge of my tongue. This is slower than our kiss in the parking lot, more certain. Like we’re completely comfortable together and at the same time we can’t wait to learn every piece of each other. When she moans against my lips, low and pleased, my arms tighten around her, and pride swells crazily through my chest.
Over the last few years, I’ve had to pull off a lot of the same shit in my actual life as I’ve done on Xbox games. I’ve driven the car chases, I’ve lived through explosions, and I’ve fought the villain, with a hatchet and a crossbow and sometimes with just my fists.
With a controller in your hand, you get to be a star and imagine you’re doing these big dramatic things that feel a lot more heroic than the same things do in real life. But in reality, when you’ve made the sacrifice and saved the girl and crashed the fast car and beaten up the villain, more often than not you just feel tired, kind of smelly, and like you wish you would have done it a little more stylishly than you did.
But in this moment, with Cali’s lips curving into a smile sheltered by our kiss and her body fitting perfectly against mine, I feel like every kind of hero I’ve ever wanted to be.
* * *
DAMON
The sound of the cavalry comes in the form of a two-knuckle rap on the thin motel door, and I reach behind my head to open it without getting up from my chair because I’m afraid if I do, I’ll end up hugging him and I don’t want the crotchety old schoolmarm getting the wrong idea.
A paper bag crinkles in Ric's arms when he steps inside. “Drinking champagne with a couple of dead chicks? Even for you, that’s a little…diagnosable.”
I almost crack a smile as he drops the paper bag on the table with a heavy clink of glass bottles.
“Don’t start, Dr. Phil,” I warn, “or you’ll make me regret calling you.”
Ric plops down in the chair across the table from me with the explosive whoosh of a deflating vinyl cushion. "Come on, I was so proud to hear you finally stopped hoarding all of the dirty work for yourself and decided to share the glory for a change. You can't take it back now.”
"We’re about to permanently murder two helpless women—one I roofied with stolen painkillers and one who just saved my life—in a Motel 6 too cheap to even provide Pay-Per-View porno. Obviously,” I say dryly, “there’s plenty of glory to go around.”
“You already checked out the porno options?” Ric’s eyebrows climb. “Boy, you really are kind of sick.”
Actually, that was just knowledge gleaned from many cheap motel rooms on many different sprees of being on the run from authorities and fellow criminals alike, but I don't bother to explain the distinction to Ric. My only answer is a rude gesture that’ll get a fist planted in your eye socket in most European countries and a few Asian ones.
Ric doesn’t respond, and I try to ignore the quick, analytic gaze he flicks over me, though my skin itches under the scrutiny. He smells like Elena and the cheap air freshener of a rental car. Which is good: it means they ditched the too-noticeable Camaro. But the scent closes my throat up so tight I can’t even swallow my drink.
Champagne on the worst days is an old habit with me. I used to keep a case of ’92 Veuve Clicquot on hand, but it went up in smoke and insurance claims along with the boarding house. It was meant to keep things in perspective by reminding me that a certain someone was younger than most of my drinks, but later, the champagne just turned into what I drank when I missed her a little more than usual. Its festive irony felt sharp against my teeth, and I’ve always liked things with a bit of an edge.
“So as your best friend,” Ric says casually, “I feel like it’s probably my business to ask what the hell happened with your other best friend that required me to bring a stake and a shovel.”
I can’t help a glance over at him, surprised because he’s not usually one to define our relationship status. But he’s just breaking the seal on a fresh bottle of bourbon and doesn’t seem like he’s about to ask me to hug it out or any other bullshit, so I just answer the question.
“Lia joined the enemy team." I shake my head and correct myself. "Shit, she was running the whole circus. And the Augustines never did figure out how to control the magic of a sire bond, so they w
ent the scientific way and learned to get the same affect with conditioning and concentrated electrical pulses to my cortical surface.”
“And that means what exactly?” The foil seal crinkles as Ric stuffs it in his pocket and takes a quick sip of whiskey.
My lips tighten sardonically. “That after four days in their lab, all Lia has to do is wink at me and I’m like a kid with his first prom date, willing to turn myself inside out and tie my guts into pretty pink bows just to make her smile.”
I see his jaw flex once, but his words are light. “I guess brainwashing would explain why you’ve got a fiancé at home who looks like she should be starring in Pantene Pro-V commercials, but you still decided to get your welcome home kiss from stubbly old me.” He puckers his lips and blows me a smacker from his side of the chipped Formica table.
I tip my head to the side and flare my eyes. “A little stubble just adds seasoning,” I purr, exhaling the hint of a laugh when he glances away.
“Dick,” he mutters.
“Don’t joke about playing on the big boys’ playground when you’ve never been past the gate,” I say without heat. I don’t usually bring up the fact that my sexual history is a hell of a lot more eclectic than his, but it pisses me off when he gets all paternal and patronizing with me.
The bed closest to us creaks as Ric kicks his feet up onto it, his patient silence an invitation that has my breath escaping on a scraping sigh.
“They both had all these plans about how to save the world,” I tell him finally. “Lia was going to turn all the vampires into Augustines so they could bloodshare instead of hunting, and Katherine was going to do the same, only she wanted to get rid of humans too.”
“Get rid of humans?”
“All but a few,” I confirm, looking down into my glass. “She knew she was going to die as a human and there was no way for her to stop it. And she honestly wanted to leave the world a better place. For once, she wasn’t thinking of herself, Ric.”
“Yeah…” he says reluctantly, staring at me as if he’s waiting for the punchline. “But that doesn’t mean we can let her actually do it. We have to stop them, Damon. Both of them.”
Something about the certainty in his tone scrapes at my nerves. “Do we?” I challenge. “Katherine wanted to save the environment, make it sustainable for people to live on earth forever, not just for the next few decades until we run out of farmland and oil and everything else we need. Lia wanted to let vampires survive without guilt and aggression. All I want to do is be left alone so I can wake up next to the girl I love, make fun of my brother, and maybe collect a Red Cross donation or two from a sorority girl when I feel like having a wild Saturday night."
I drain my glass and then point it at him.
"And you’re no better: your greatest goal right now is to stall on being sucked back to the afterlife for just long enough that you can buy another bucket of sugary iced chemicals from Starbucks. How are we qualified to decide whose lifestyle is unacceptable?”
Ric gives me a sidelong look and taps his whiskey idly against his kneecap. “They really did brainwash you. You are dangerously close to moping, my friend.”
“Fuck off,” I growl, swiping the champagne off the table and finishing the bottle.
“Damon Salvatore, moping,” he pronounces gleefully. “Shit, I ought to make a video. The next time Jeremy goes off on one of his ‘poor me I have to go to high school’ monologues I can show it to him so he can see what real, Grade A self-pity feels like.”
“So I’m trying to have a conscience for once,” I bitch. “You should be happy. Back when we were on the trail of Hero Hair Gone Wild, you were all ‘Damon, don’t nap on the couch, it’s a crime scene. Damon, don’t make the corpses talk, it’s disrespectful.’”
“It is disrespectful," he gripes, losing his carefully casual facade. "They’re not puppets, Damon, they were people!”
“Where I come from, we call it comic relief,” I tell him, unimpressed.
Ric saw a lot of bodies that summer, but he’s still a couple decades from realizing that a corpse is just a collection of carbon, no different from the lump of coal Santa dumps in your stocking every Christmas Eve.
“Yeah, well where I come from, we call it two steps from necrophilia,” Ric grouches.
Without looking, I wing the empty bottle of champagne, the thick glass whistling through the air straight towards his head. Ric snags it automatically with his left hand and then stares, dumbfounded.
“Jesus, did you see that catch? I can’t get used to that shit.” He shakes his head. “It’s a travesty that you’ve been keeping me too busy since I came back from the dead to get laid.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Tell me the truth, Damon. I’m going to be amazing in bed now that I’m a vampire, aren’t I?”
My lips twitch with amusement. “Stamina isn’t everything, young Padawan. Unless you spent your time on the Other Side doing a little educational reading in the adult section of the library, the girls are still going to be singing you the When Harry Met Sally chorus of faux Big O’s, even now that you’ve earned your fangs.”
“Way to tarnish the silver lining of my undead cloud,” he mutters, stashing my empty bottle under the table and lifting the full one to his lips.
I roll my eyes. “You’re too busy pining after Jenna to get laid anyway. Don’t try to blame that shit on me.”
“Yeah, well, if you understood the skills that girl had…” Ric gives a low whistle. “I’d have sung any chorus she wanted me to, including the dumb ones from Guys and Dolls.”
“I know what you’re doing, you know,” I tell him conversationally. “Stefan’s tried this role reversal bullshit on me before. I don’t need you to cheer me up or distract me.”
“Fine,” Ric says, setting his bottle down on the table and reaching into his jacket for a thick oak stake I recognize as one of the ones I sharpened myself. “Then who's first?”
My hand twitches to stop him before I think better of it, and his quick eyes don't miss a thing. Ric leans forward, his expression serious.
“We can’t let them go, Damon. They’ll cause too much damage.”
“Well, no shit. But–”
There’s a soft brush of fabric as Lia shifts on the bed across the room, and then her head slowly straightens.
“Oh, fuck,” Ric says, and vaults over the bed closest to us, reaching for Lia.
I lunge, not even pausing to see if he took the stake with him before I attack. All I know is the feeling of tearing canvas beneath my hands as the seams of his jacket give way under my grip and I hurl him across the room.
His shoulder hits an ugly watercolor of a lumpy duck and the cheap wood of the frame splinters under the blow, the pieces falling to the ground alongside Ric.
I move between him and Lia, my vision painfully sharp as blood rushes into the whites of my eyes.
“What the hell are you doing, Damon?” Ric spits as he lurches back to his feet.
“She chose me,” I hiss. “She had dozens of vampires who were perfectly loyal to her, who believed in her mission and had followed her for years. They were all dying in that fire and she came back for me instead of trying to find a way to get them out.”
“I understand that,” Ric says, holding his hands up. “But as soon as she wakes up, she’ll be able to command you and I can’t let that happen. Look, a neck snap isn’t permanent. She won’t feel a thing, I promise. I can do it if you don’t want to.”
My eyes flare and he backs up another step.
“I can do it,” I bite off, and he nods quickly, his eyes locked on me.
My hands place themselves on Lia’s chin and the base of her head and I feel her twitch under my palms, her nervous system starting to come back online as she heals.
I exhale, slowly.
“Damon…” Ric warns in a low voice, but I don’t answer.
I stare down at my friend, at the girl who ran further into a fire to save me, who stroked my hair to calm me down and whose eyes
brightened with joy when she heard I’d finally found a girl who loved me back.
And I snap her neck.
When Lia is limp in my hands, I try to remember how she took me to the lab and strapped me down day after day, and how she was deliberately trying to change the way I felt about my fiancé. She is nothing like the friend I remember. I let go and her head drops back against the flat hotel pillow.
Ric makes his way tentatively back to my side and he looks down at Lia, studying the curl of her hair and the slight upturn of her tiny nose as if he’s trying to decode her face. “Damn, Salvatore, don’t you know any ugly girls?”
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 34
