Moonsong

After a moment of waiting for a kiss that didn’t come, she sat up again and opened her eyes. Zander was staring past her, out into the darkness of the campus, frowning.

Bonnie cleared her throat.

“Oh,” he said, “sorry, Bonnie, I got distracted for a minute.”

“Distracted?” Bonnie echoed indignantly. “What do you mean you—”

“Hang on a sec.” Zander put a finger to her lips, shushing her.

“Do you hear something?” Bonnie asked, uneasy tingles creeping up her back.

Zander got to his feet. “Sorry, I just remembered something I have to do. I’l catch up with you later, okay?” With a halfhearted wave, not even looking at Bonnie, he loped off into the darkness.

Bonnie’s mouth dropped open. “Wait!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “Are you just going to leave me here”—Zander was gone—“alone?” she finished in a tiny voice.

Great. Bonnie walked out to the middle of the path, looked around, and waited a minute to see if there was any sign of Zander coming back. But there was no one in sight.

She couldn’t even hear his footsteps anymore.

There were pools of light beneath the street lamps on the path, but they didn’t reach very far. A breeze rustled the leaves of the trees on the quad, and Bonnie shivered. No sense in standing here, Bonnie thought, and she started walking.

For the first few steps down the path toward her dorm, Bonnie was real y angry, hot and humiliated. How could Zander have been such a flake? How could he leave her al alone in the middle of the night, especial y after al the attacks and disappearances on campus? She kicked viciously at a pebble in her path.

A few steps further on, Bonnie stopped being so angry.

She was too scared; the fear was pushing the anger out of her. She should have headed back to the dorm when Meredith and Elena did, but she’d assured them, gaily, that Zander would walk her back. How could he have just left her? She wrapped her arms around herself tightly and went as fast as she could without actual y running, her stupid high-heeled going-out-dancing shoes pinching and making the bal s of her feet ache.

It was real y late; most of the other people who lived on campus must be tucked into their beds by now. The silence was unsettling.

When the footsteps began behind her, it was even worse.

She wasn’t sure she was real y hearing them at first.

Gradual y, she became aware of a faint, quick padding in the distance, someone moving lightly and fast. She paused and listened, and the footsteps grew louder and faster stil .

Someone was running toward her.

Bonnie sped up, stumbling over her feet in her haste.

Her shoes skidded on a loose stone in the path and she fel , catching herself on her hands and one knee. The impact stung sharply enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she kicked off her shoes, not caring that she was leaving them behind. She scrambled up and ran faster.

The footsteps of her pursuer were louder now, starting to catch up. Their rhythm was strange: loud periodic footfal s with quicker, lighter beats in between. Bonnie realized with horror that there was more than one person chasing her.

Her foot skidded again, and she barely caught her balance, staggering sideways a few steps to keep from fal ing, losing more ground.

A heavy hand fel on Bonnie’s shoulder, and she screamed and whipped around, her fists raised in a desperate bid to defend herself.

“Bonnie!” Meredith gasped, clutching Bonnie’s shoulders. “What are you doing out here by yourself?” Samantha came up beside them, carrying Bonnie’s shoes, and doubled over, panting for breath.

“You are way too fast for me, Meredith,” she said.

Bonnie swal owed a sob of relief. Now that she was safe, she felt like sitting down and having hysterics. “You scared me,” she said.

Meredith looked furious. “Remember how we promised to stick together?” Meredith’s gray eyes were stormy. “You were supposed to stay with Zander until you got home safely.”

Bonnie, about to respond heatedly that it hadn’t been her choice to be out here alone, suddenly closed her mouth and nodded.

If Meredith knew that Zander had left Bonnie out here by herself, she would never, never forgive him. And Bonnie was mad at Zander for leaving her, but she wasn’t quite that mad, not mad enough to turn Meredith against him. Maybe he had an explanation. And she stil wanted that kiss.

“I’m sorry,” Bonnie said abjectly, staring down at her feet. “You’re right, I should have known better.” Mol ified, Meredith swung an arm over Bonnie’s shoulders. Samantha silently handed Bonnie her shoes, and Bonnie pul ed them back on. “Let’s walk Samantha back to her dorm, and then we’l go home together,” she said forgivingly. “You’l be okay with us.” Around the corner from her room, Elena sagged and leaned against the hal way wal for a moment. It had been a long, long night. There had been drinks, and dancing with the huge shaggy-haired Spencer who, as Samantha had warned her, did try to pick Elena up and swing her around.

Things got loud and aggravating, and the whole time, her heart hurt. She wasn’t sure she wanted to navigate the world without Stefan. It’s just for now, she told herself, straightening up and plodding around the corner.

“Hel o, princess,” said Damon. Elena stiffened in shock.

Lounging on the floor in front of her door, Damon somehow managed to look sleek and perfectly poised in what would have been an awkward position for anyone else. As she recovered from the shock of his being there at al , Elena was surprised by the burst of joy that rose up in her chest at the sight of him.

Trying to ignore that happy little hop inside her, she said flatly, “I told you I didn’t want to see you for a while, Damon.” Damon shrugged and rose graceful y to his feet.

“Darling, I’m not here to plead for your hand.” His eyes lingered on her mouth for a moment, but then he went on in a dry and detached tone. “I’m just checking in on you and the little redbird, making sure you haven’t disappeared with whatever’s gone sour on this campus.”

“We’re fine,” Elena said shortly. “Here I am, and Bonnie’s new boyfriend is walking her home.”

“New boyfriend?” Damon asked, raising one eyebrow.

He’d always had—something—some connection with Bonnie, Elena knew, and she guessed his ego might not be thril ed to have her moving past the little crush she’d focused on him. “And how did you get home?” Damon asked acidly. “I notice you haven’t picked up a new boyfriend to protect you. Not yet, anyway.” Elena flushed and bit her lip but refused to rise to the bait. “Meredith just left to patrol around campus. I notice you didn’t ask about her. Don’t you want to make sure she’s safe?”

Damon snorted. “I pity any ghoul that goes after that one,” he said, sounding more admiring than anything else.

“Can I come in? Note that I’m being courteous again, waiting for you out here in this dingy hal way instead of comfortably on your bed.”

“You can come in for a minute,” Elena said grudgingly, and opened her bag to rummage for her keys.

Oh. She felt a sudden pang of heartache. At the top of her bag, rather crushed and wilted now, was the daisy she’d found outside her door at the beginning of the evening. She touched it gently, reluctant to push it aside in the hunt for her keys.

“A daisy,” said Damon dryly. “Very sweet. You don’t seem to be taking much care of it, though.” Purposely ignoring him, Elena grabbed her keys and snapped the bag shut. “So you think the disappearances and attacks are because of ghouls? Do you mean something supernatural?” she asked, unlocking the door.

“What did you find out, Damon?”

Shrugging, Damon fol owed her into the room.

“Nothing,” he answered grimly. “But I certainly don’t think the missing kids just freaked out and went home or to Daytona Beach or something. I think you need to be careful.” Elena sat down on her bed, drew her knees up, and rested her chin on them. “Have you used your Power to try to figure out what’s going on?” she asked. “Meredith said she would ask you.”

Damon sat down next to her and sighed. “Beloved, as little as I like to admit it, even my Power has limits,” he said.

“If someone is much stronger than me, like Klaus was, he can hide himself. If someone is much weaker, he doesn’t usual y make enough of an impression for me to find him unless I already know who he is. And for some ridiculous reason”—he scowled—“I can never sense werewolves at al .”

“So you can’t help?” Elena said, dismayed.

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Damon said. He touched a loose strand of Elena’s golden hair with one long finger. “Pretty,” he said absently. “I like your hair pul ed back like this.” She twitched away from him, and he dropped his hand. “I’m looking into it,” he went on, his eyes gleaming. “I haven’t had a good hunt in far too long.”

Elena wasn’t sure that she ought to find this comforting, but she did, in a kind of scary way. “You’l be relentless, then?” she asked, a little chil going through her, and he nodded, his long black lashes half veiling his eyes.

She was so sleepy and felt happier now that she’d seen Damon, although she knew she shouldn’t have let him in.

She missed him, too. “You had better go,” she said, yawning. “Let me know what you find out.” Damon stood, hesitating by the end of her bed. “I don’t like leaving you alone here,” he said. “Not with everything that’s been happening. Where are those friends of yours?”

“They’l be here,” Elena said. Something generous in her made her add, “But if you’re that worried, you can sleep here if you want.” She’d missed him, she had, and he was being a perfect gentleman. And she had to admit, she would feel safer with him there.

“I can?” Damon quirked a wicked eyebrow.

“On the floor,” Elena said firmly. “I’m sure Bonnie and Meredith wil be glad for your protection, too.” It was a lie.

While Bonnie would be thril ed to see him, there was a decent chance Meredith would kick him on purpose as she crossed the room. She might even put on special pointy-toed boots to do it.

Elena got up and pul ed down a spare blanket from her closet for him, then headed off to brush her teeth and change. When she came back, al ready for bed, he was lying on the floor, wrapped in the blanket. His eyes lingered for a minute on the curve of her neck leading down to her lacy white nightgown, but he didn’t say anything.

Elena climbed into bed and turned out the light. “Good night, Damon,” she said.

There was a soft rush of air. Then suddenly he whispered softly in her ear, “Good night, princess.” Cool lips brushed her cheek and then were gone.

18

The next morning, Elena woke to find Damon gone, his blanket folded neatly at the foot of her bed. Meredith was dressing for a morning workout, sleepy-eyed and silent, and she only nodded as Elena passed her; Elena had learned long ago that Meredith was useless for conversation before she’d had her first cup of coffee.

Bonnie, who didn’t have class until that afternoon, was only a lump under her covers.

Surely Meredith would have said something if she had noticed Damon on the floor, Elena thought as she dropped in at the cafeteria to grab a muffin before class. Maybe Damon hadn’t stayed. Elena bit her lip, thinking about that, kicking little stones on her way to class. She had thought he would stay, that he would want to try and keep her safe.

Was it right that she liked that and that she felt more than a twinge of hurt at the idea that he had left?

She didn’t want Damon to be in love with her, did she?

Wasn’t part of the reason she put her romance with Stefan on hold so that she and Damon could get each other out of their systems? But…

I am a lousy person, she realized.

Musing on her own lousiness took Elena al the way into her History of the South class, where she was doodling sadly in her notebook when Professor Campbel —James

—came in. Clearing his throat loudly, he walked to the front of the class, and Elena reluctantly pul ed her attention away from her own problems to pay attention to him.

James looked different. Unsure of himself, Elena realized. His eyes didn’t seem quite as bright as usual, and he appeared to be somehow smal er.

“There’s been another disappearance,” he said quietly.

An anxious babble rose up from the rest of the class, and he held up his hand. “The victim this time—and I think we can say at this point that we’re talking about victims, not students simply leaving campus—is, unfortunately, a student in this class. Courtney Brooks is missing; she was last seen walking back to her dorm from a party last night.” Scanning the class, Elena tried to remember who Courtney Brooks was. A tal , quiet girl with caramel-colored hair, she thought, and spotted the girl’s empty seat.

James raised his hand again to quel the rising clamor of frightened and excited voices. “Because of this,” he said slowly, “I think that today we must postpone continuing our discussion of the colonial period so that I can tel you a little bit about the history of Dalcrest Col ege.” He looked around at the confused faces of the class. “This is not, you see, the first time unusual things have happened on this campus.” Elena frowned and, looking at her classmates, saw her confusion mirrored on their faces.

“Dalcrest, as many of you doubtlessly know, was founded in 1889 by Simon Dalcrest with the aim of educating the wealthy sons of the postwar Southern aristocracy. He said that he wanted Dalcrest to be considered the ‘Harvard of the South’ and that he and his family would be at the forefront of intel ectualism and academia in the soon-to-begin new century. This much is frequently featured in the official campus histories.

“It’s less wel known that Simon’s hopes were dashed in 1895 when his wild twenty-year-old son, Wil iam Dalcrest, was found dead with three others in the tunnels underneath the school. It was what appeared to be a suicide pact.

Certain materials and symbols found in the tunnels with the bodies suggested some ties to black magic. Two years later Simon’s wife, Julia Dalcrest, was brutal y murdered in what is now the administration building; the mystery surrounding her death was never solved.” Elena glanced around at her classmates. Had they known about this? The col ege brochures mentioned when the school was founded and by who, but nothing about suicides and murders. Tunnels underneath the school?

“Julia Dalcrest is one of at least three distinct ghosts who are rumored to haunt the campus. The other ghosts are those of a seventeen-year-old girl who drowned, again under mysterious circumstances, when visiting for a weekend dance in 1929. She is said to wander wailing through the hal s of McClel an House, leaving dripping pools of water behind her. The third is a twenty-one-year-old boy who vanished in 1953 and whose body was found three years later in the library basement. His ghost has reportedly been seen coming in and out of offices in the library, running and looking backward in terror, as if he is being pursued.

“There are also rumors of several other mysterious occurrences: a student in 1963 disappeared for four days and reappeared, saying he had been kidnapped by elves.” A nervous giggle ran through the class, and James waved a reproving finger at his audience. He seemed to be perking up, swel ing back to his usual self under the influence of the class’s attention.

“The point is,” he said, “that Dalcrest is an unusual place. Beyond elves and ghosts, there has been a plethora of documented unusual occurrences, and rumors and legends of far more spring up around campus every year.

Mysterious deaths. Secret societies. Tales of monsters.” He paused dramatical y and looked around at them. “I beg you, do not become part of the legend. Be smart, be safe, and stick together. Class dismissed.”

The students glanced at one another uneasily, startled by this abrupt dismissal with stil more than half an hour left in the class. Regardless, they started to gather their possessions together and trickle out of the room in twos and threes.

Elena grabbed her bag and hurried to the front of the room.

“Professor,” she said. “James.”

“Ah, Elena,” James said. “I hope you were paying attention today. It is important that you young girls be on your guard. The young men, too, real y. Whatever affects this campus does not seem to discriminate.” Up close, he looked pale and worried, older than he had at the beginning of the semester.

“I was very interested in what you said about the history of Dalcrest,” Elena said. “But you didn’t talk about what’s happening now. What do you think is going on here?” Professor Campbel ’s face creased into even grimmer lines, and his bright eyes gazed past her. “Wel , my dear,” he said, “it’s hard to say. Yes, very hard.” He licked his lips nervously. “I’ve spent a lot of time at this school, you know, years and years. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t believe at this point. But I just don’t know,” he said softly, as if he was talking to himself.

“There was something else I wanted to ask you,” Elena said, and he looked at her attentively. “I went to see the picture you told me about. The one of you and my parents when you were students here. You were al wearing the same pin in the picture. It was blue and in the shape of a V.” She was close enough to James that she felt his whole body jolt with surprise. His face lost its grim thoughtfulness and went blank. “Oh, yes?” he said. “I can’t imagine what it was, I’m afraid. Probably something Elizabeth made. She was always very creative. Now, my dear, I real y must run.” He slipped past Elena and made his escape, hurrying out of the classroom despite a few other students’ trying to stop him with questions.

Elena watched him go, feeling her own eyebrows going up in surprise. James knew more than he was saying, that was for sure. If he wouldn’t tel her—and she wasn’t giving up on him just yet—she’d find out somewhere else. Those pins were significant, his reaction proved that.

What kind of mystery could be tied to a pin? Had James said something about secret societies?

“After my parents died,” Samantha told Meredith, “I went to live with my aunt. She came from a hunter family, too, but she didn’t know anything about it. She didn’t seem to want to know. I kept on doing martial arts and everything I could learn by myself, but I didn’t have anyone to train me.” Meredith shone her flashlight into the dark bushes over by the music building and waved the beam around. Nothing to see except plants.

“You did a good job teaching yourself,” she told Samantha. “You’re smart and strong and careful. You just need to keep trusting your instincts.” It had been Samantha’s idea to patrol the campus together after sundown, to check out the places where the missing girl, Courtney, had been spotted last night, to see if they could find anything.

Meredith had felt powerful at the beginning of the evening, poised to fight, with her sister hunter beside her.

But now, even though it was interesting to patrol with Samantha, to see the hunter life through her eyes, it was starting to feel like they were just wandering around at random.

“The police found her sweater somewhere over here,” Samantha said. “We should look around for clues.”

“Okay.” Meredith restrained herself from saying that the police had already been through here with dogs, looking for clues themselves, and there was a good chance they had found anything there was to find. She scanned the flashlight over the grass and path. “Maybe we’d be better off doing this during the day, when we can see better.”

“I guess you’re right,” Samantha said, flicking her own flashlight on and off. “It’s good that we’re out here at night, though, don’t you think? If we’re patrol ing, we can protect people. Keep things from getting out of control. We walked Bonnie home last night and kept her safe.” Meredith felt a flicker of anxiety. What if they hadn’t come along? Could Bonnie have been the one who disappeared, instead of Courtney?

Samantha looked at Meredith, a little smile curling up the corners of her mouth. “It’s our destiny, right? What we were born for.”

Meredith grinned back at her, forgetting her momentary anxiety. She loved Samantha’s enthusiasm for the hunt, her constant striving to get better, to fight the darkness. “Our destiny,” she agreed.

Off across the quad, someone screamed.

Snapping into action without even thinking about it, Meredith began running. Samantha was a few steps behind her, already struggling to keep up. She needs to work on her speed, cool y commented the part of Meredith that was always taking notes.

The scream, shril and frightened, came again, a bit to the left. Meredith changed direction and sped toward it.

Where? She was close now, but she couldn’t see anything. She scanned her flashlight over the ground, searching.

There. On the ground nearby, two dark figures lay, one pinning the other to the ground.

Everyone froze for a moment, and then Meredith was racing toward them, shouting “Stop it! Get off! Get off!” and a second later, the figure that had been pinning the other down was up and running into the darkness.

Black hoodie, black jeans, the note taker said calmly.

Can’t tell if it’s a guy or a girl.

The person who’d been pinned was a girl, and she flinched and screamed as Meredith ran past her, but Meredith couldn’t stop. Samantha was behind her so she could help the girl. Meredith had to catch the fleeing figure.

Her long strides ate up the ground, but she wasn’t fast enough.

Even though she was going as fast as she could, the person in black was faster. There was a glimpse of paleness as the person looked back at her and then melted into the darkness. Meredith ran on, searching, but there was nothing to be found.

Final y, she halted. Panting, trying to catch her breath, she swept the beam of the flashlight over the ground, looking for some clue. She couldn’t believe she had failed, that she had let the attacker get away.

Nothing. No trace. They had gotten so close, and stil , al she knew was that the person who attacked this girl owned black clothes and was an insanely fast runner. Meredith swore and kicked at the ground, then pul ed herself back together.

Approximating calmness, she headed back toward the victim. While Meredith was chasing the attacker, Samantha had helped the girl to her feet, and now the girl was huddled close to Samantha’s side, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

Shaking her head at Meredith, Samantha said, “She didn’t see anything. She thinks it was a man, but she didn’t see his face.”

Meredith clenched her fists. “Dammit. I didn’t see anything either. He was so fast…” Her voice trailed off as a thought struck her.

“What is it?” Samantha asked.

“Nothing,” Meredith said. “He got away.” In her mind, she replayed that momentary glimpse of pale hair she had seen as the attacker looked back at her. That shade of pale

—she had seen it somewhere very recently.

She remembered Zander, his face turned toward Bonnie’s. His white-blond hair was that same unusual shade. It wasn’t enough to go on, not enough to tel anyone.

A momentary impression of a color didn’t mean anything.

Meredith pushed the thought away, but, as she gazed off into the darkness again, she wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

19

Nobody was going to lie to Elena Gilbert and get away with it.

Elena marched along the path to the library, indignation keeping her head high and her steps sharp. So James thought he could pretend he didn’t remember anything about those V-shaped pins? The way his eyes had skipped away from hers, the faint flush of pink in his plump cheeks, everything about him had shouted that there was something there, some secret about him and her parents that he didn’t want to tel her.

If he wasn’t going to tel her, she would find out for herself. The library seemed like a logical place to start.

“Elena,” a voice cal ed, and she stopped. She had been so focused on her mission that she had almost walked right by Damon, leaning against a tree outside the library. He smiled up at her with an innocently inquiring expression, his long legs stretched in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” she said abruptly. It was so weird, just seeing him here in the daylight on campus, like he was part of one picture superimposed upon another. He didn’t belong in this part of her life, not unless she brought him in herself.

“Enjoying the sunshine,” Damon said dryly. “And the scenery.” The wave of his hand encompassed the trees and buildings of the campus as wel as a flock of pretty girls giggling on the other side of the path. “What are you doing here?”

“I go to this school,” Elena said. “So it’s not weird for me to be hanging around the library. See my point?” Damon laughed. “You’ve discovered my secret, Elena,” he said, getting to his feet. “I was here hoping to see you.

Or one of your little friends. I get so lonely, you know, even your Mutt would be a welcome distraction.”

“Real y?” she asked.

He shot her a look, his dark eyes amused. “Of course I always want to see you, princess. But I’m here for another reason. I’m supposed to be looking into the disappearances, remember? So I have to spend some time on the campus.”

“Oh. Okay.” Elena considered her options. Official y, she shouldn’t be hanging around Damon at al . The terms of her breakup—or just break, she corrected herself—with Stefan were that she wasn’t going to see either of the Salvatore brothers, not until they worked out their own issues and this thing between the three of them had time to cool off. But she’d already violated that by letting Damon sleep on the floor of her room, a much bigger deal than going to the library together.

“And what are you up to?” Damon asked her. “Anything I can assist with?”

Real y, a trip to the library ought to be innocent enough.

Elena made up her mind. She and Damon were supposed to be friends, after al . “I’m trying to find out some information about my parents,” she said. “Want to help?”

“Certainly, my lovely,” Damon said, and took her hand.

Elena felt a slight frisson of unease. But his fingers were reassuringly firm in hers, and she pushed her hesitation away.

The ancient tennis-shoed librarian in charge of the archive room explained how to search the database of school records and got Elena and Damon set up in the corner on a computer.

“Ugh,” Damon said, poking disdainful y at a key. “I don’t mind computers, but books and pictures ought to be real, not on a machine.”

“But this way everyone can see them,” Elena said patiently. She’d had this kind of conversation with Stefan before. The Salvatore brothers might look col ege-aged, but there were some things about the modern world they just couldn’t seem to get their heads around.

Elena clicked on the photo section of the database and typed in her mother’s name, Elizabeth Morrow.

“Look, there are a bunch of pictures.” She scanned through them, looking for the one that she had seen hanging in the hal . She saw a lot of cast and crew pictures from various theatrical productions. James had told her that her mother was a star on the design side, but it looked like she was in some productions, too. In one, Elena’s mother was dancing, her head flung back, her hair going everywhere.

“She looks like you.” Damon was contemplating the picture, his head tilted to one side, dark eyes intent. “Softer here, though, around the mouth”—one long finger gestured

—“and her face is more innocent than yours.” His mouth twisted teasingly, and he shot a sidelong glance at Elena.

“A nicer girl than you, I’d guess.”

“I’m nice,” Elena said, hurt, and quickly clicked on to find the picture she was looking for.

“You’re too clever to be nice, Elena,” Damon said, but Elena was barely listening.

“Here we are,” she said. The photograph was just as she remembered it: James and her parents under a tree, eager and impossibly young. Elena zoomed in on the image, focusing on the pin on her father’s shirt. Definitely a V. It was blue, a deep dark blue, she could see that now, the same shade as the lapis lazuli rings Damon and Stefan wore to protect themselves from sunlight.

“I’ve seen one of those pins before,” Damon said abruptly. He frowned. “I don’t remember where, though.

Sorry.”

“You’ve seen it recently?” Elena asked, but Damon just shrugged. “James said my mother made the pins for al of them,” she said, zooming closer so that al she could see on the screen was the grainy image of the V. “I don’t believe him, though. She didn’t make jewelry, that wasn’t her kind of thing. And it doesn’t look handmade, not unless it was made by someone with an actual jewelry studio.

That’s some kind of enameling on the V, I think.” She typed V in the search engine, but it came back with nothing. “I wish I knew what it stood for.”

With another graceful one-shouldered shrug, Damon reached for the mouse and zoomed in and out on different parts of the picture. Behind them, the librarian thunked a book down, and Elena glanced back at her to find the woman’s eyes fixed on them with disconcerting intensity.

Her mouth tightened as her eyes met Elena’s, and she looked away, walking a little farther along the aisle. But Elena was left with the creepy feeling that the librarian was stil watching and listening to them.

She turned to whisper something to Damon about it but was caught again by the sheer unexpectedness of him, of him here. He just didn’t fit in the drab and ordinary library computer station—it was like finding a wild animal curled up on your desk. Like a dark angel fixing oatmeal in your kitchen.

Had she ever seen him under fluorescent lights before?

Something about the lighting brought out the clean paleness of his skin, cast long shadows along his cheekbones, and fel without reflection into the black velvet of his hair and eyes. A couple of buttons on the col ar of his shirt were undone, and Elena found herself almost mesmerized by the subtle shifts of the long muscles in his neck and shoulders.

“What would a Vital Society be?” he asked suddenly, breaking her out of her reverie.

“What?” she asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

Damon clicked the mouse and shifted the zoom, focusing this time on the notebook in her mother’s lap. Her mother’s hands—pretty hands, Elena noticed, prettier than her own, which had slightly crooked pinkies—were splayed over the open book, but between the fingers, Elena could read: Vit l Soci y

“I assume that’s what it says,” Damon said, shrugging.

“Since you’re looking for something that starts with V. It could say something else of course. Vital Social y, maybe?

Was your mother a social queen bee like you?” Elena ignored the question. “The Vitale Society,” she said slowly. “I always thought it was a myth.”

“Leave the Vitale Society alone.” The hiss came from behind them, and Elena whipped around.

The librarian seemed curiously impressive framed against the bookshelves despite her tennis shoes and pastel sweater set. Her hawklike face was tense and focused on Elena, her body tal and, Elena felt instinctively, threatening.

“What do you mean?” Elena asked. “Do you know something about them?”

Confronted by a direct question, the woman seemed to shrink from the almost menacing figure she had been a second before to an ordinary, slightly dithering old lady. “I don’t know anything,” she muttered, frowning. “Al I can say is that it’s not safe to mess with the Vitales. Things happen around them. Even if you’re careful.” She started to wheel her book cart away.

“Wait!” Elena said, half rising. “What kind of things?” What had her parents been involved in? They wouldn’t have done anything wrong, would they? Not Elena’s parents. But the librarian only walked faster, the wheels of her cart squeaking as she rounded the corner into another aisle.

Damon gave a low laugh. “She won’t tel you anything,” he said, and Elena glared at him. “She doesn’t know anything, or she’s too scared to say what she does know.”

“That’s not helpful, Damon,” Elena said tightly. She pressed her fingers against her temples. “What do we do now?”

“We look into the Vitale Society, of course,” Damon said. Elena opened her mouth to object, and Damon shushed her, drawing one cool finger over her mouth. His touch was soft on her lips, and she half raised a hand toward them. “Don’t worry about what a foolish old woman has to say,” he told her. “But if we real y want to find out the secrets of this society of yours, we probably need to look somewhere other than the library.”

He got to his feet and held out his hand. “Shal we?” he asked. Elena nodded and took his hand in hers. When it came to finding out secrets, to digging up what people wanted to keep concealed, she knew she could put her faith in Damon.

“Pick up, Zander,” Bonnie muttered into the phone.

The ringing stopped, and a precise mechanical voice informed her that she was welcome to leave a message in the voice mailbox. Bonnie hung up. She had already left a couple of voicemails, and she didn’t want Zander thinking she was any crazier or more clueless than he inevitably would when he saw his missed-cal list.

Bonnie was pretty sure she was going through the Five Stages of Being Ditched. She was almost done with Denial, where she was convinced something had happened to him, and was moving quickly into Anger.

Later, she knew, she would slide into Bargaining, Depression, and eventual y (she hoped) Acceptance.

Apparently her psych class was already coming in handy.

It had been days since he had abruptly run off, leaving her al alone in front of the music building. When she found out that a girl disappeared that same night, at first Bonnie was angry and scared for herself. Zander had left her alone.

What if Bonnie had been the one to vanish? Then she began to worry about Zander, to be afraid that he was in trouble. He seemed so sweet, and so into her, that it was almost impossible for her to believe Zander would just be avoiding her al of a sudden.

Wouldn’t his friends have sounded the alarm if Zander was missing, though? And when she thought that, Bonnie realized that she didn’t know how to contact any of those guys; she hadn’t seen any of them around campus since that night.

Bonnie stared at her phone as fresh tendrils of worry grew and twisted inside her. Real y, she was having a very tough time moving on to Anger when she was stil not quite sure that Zander was safe.

The phone rang.

Zander. It was Zander.

Bonnie snatched up her phone. “Where have you been?” she demanded, her voice shaking.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

Bonnie was almost ready to hang up when Zander final y spoke. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. Some family stuff came up, and I’ve had to be out of touch. I’m back now.”

Bonnie knew that Elena or Meredith would have said something pithy and cutting here, something to let Zander know exactly how little they appreciated being forgotten about, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Zander sounded rough and tired, and there was a break in his voice when he said he was sorry that made her want to forgive him.

“You left me outside alone,” she said softly. “A girl disappeared that night.”

Zander sighed, a long sad sound. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It was an awful thing to do. But I knew you would be okay. You have to believe that. I wouldn’t have left you in danger.”

“How?” Bonnie asked. “How could you know?”

“Just trust me, Bonnie,” Zander said. “I can’t explain it now, but you weren’t in danger that night. I’l tel you about it when I can, okay?”

Bonnie shut her eyes and bit her lip. Elena and Meredith would never have settled for this kind of half explanation, she knew. Not even half an explanation, just an apology and an evasion. But she wasn’t like them, and Zander sounded sincere, so desperate for her to believe him. It was her choice, she knew: trust him, or let him go.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I believe you.” Zander let out another sigh, but it sounded like one of relief this time. “Let me make it up to you,” he said.

“Please? How about I take you out this weekend, anywhere you want to go?”

Bonnie hesitated, but she was starting to smile despite herself. “There’s a party at Samantha’s dorm on Saturday,” she said. “Want to meet there at nine?”

“There’s something peculiar going on at the library,” Damon said, and Stefan twitched in surprise at his sudden appearance.

“I didn’t see you there,” he said mildly, looking out onto his dark balcony, where Damon leaned against the railing.

“I just landed,” Damon said, and smiled. “Literal y. I’ve been flying around campus, checking things out. It’s a wonderful feeling, riding the breezes as the sun sets. You should try it.”

Stefan nodded, keeping his face neutral. They both knew that one of the few things Stefan envied about Damon was his ability to change into a bird. It wasn’t worth it, though—he would have to drink human blood regularly to have Power as strong as Damon’s.

Elena’s face rose up in his mind’s eye, and he pushed her image away. She was his salvation, the one who connected him to the world of humans, who kept him from sinking into the darkness. Believing that their separation was only temporary was what was keeping him going.

“Don’t you miss Elena?” Stefan asked, and Damon’s face immediately closed off, becoming hard and blank.

Stefan sighed inwardly. Of course Damon didn’t miss Elena, because he was undoubtedly seeing her al the time.

He’d known Damon wouldn’t abide by the rules.

“What’s the matter?” Damon asked him. His voice was almost concerned, and Stefan wondered what his own face looked like to get that kind of reaction from Damon. Damon who had probably just seen Elena.

“Sometimes I’m a fool,” Stefan told him dryly. “What do you want, Damon?”

Damon smiled. “I want you to come do some detective work with me, little brother. Real y, anything’s better than seeing this sulking, forehead-wrinkling brooding expression on your face.”

Stefan shrugged. “Why not?” Stefan leaped down from the balcony with perfect grace, and Damon fol owed swiftly behind.

As Damon led the way to their destination, he fil ed Stefan in on the details. Or rather, the vague scenario Stefan could gather from Damon’s explanation. Damon never was one for ful disclosure. Al Stefan knew was that some research at the library had prompted a sketchy warning from an old librarian. Stefan inwardly chuckled at the thought of a frail old woman squaring against Damon over library fines.

“What were you looking at?” Stefan asked, trying to get any more substantial information. “What did she want you to stay away from?” He shifted on the rough branch of the oak tree they were both sitting on, trying to get comfortable.

Damon had a habit of sitting in trees, Stefan realized. It must be a side effect of spending so much time as a bird.

They were on a stakeout outside the librarian’s home, but what exactly they were looking for, Stefan wasn’t sure.

“Just some old photographs from the school’s history,” Damon said. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to make sure she’s human.” He peered through the window nearest their tree, where an elderly woman was sipping tea and watching television.

Stefan noted with irritation that Damon seemed a lot more at ease in the tree than Stefan did. He was leaning forward, resting graceful y on one knee, and Stefan could sense his sending questing strands of Power at the woman, trying to find out whether there was anything unusual about her.

His balance seemed awful y precarious, and he was completely focused on the old woman. Stefan inched toward Damon on the branch, stretched out a hand, and suddenly shoved him.

It was extremely satisfying. Damon, his composure shaken for once, let out a muffled yelp and fel out of the tree. In midair, he turned into a crow and flew back up, perching on a branch above Stefan and eyeing him with a baleful glare. Damon cawed his annoyance at Stefan loudly.

Stefan glanced through the window again. The woman didn’t seem to have heard Damon’s shout or the crow’s caw—she was just flipping channels. When he looked back at Damon, his brother had regained his usual form.

“I would think playing a trick like that would go against your precious moral code,” Damon said, fastidiously smoothing his hair.

“Not real y,” Stefan said, grinning. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Damon shrugged, seeming to accept Stefan’s playfulness as good-natured, and looked through the librarian’s window again. She had gotten up to make herself another cup of tea.

“Did you sense anything from her?” Stefan asked.

Damon shook his head. “Either she’s bril iantly hiding her true nature from us or she’s just a peculiar librarian.” He pushed himself off the branch and leaped, landing lightly on the grass far below. Either way, I’ve had enough, he added silently.

Stefan fol owed him, landing beside Damon at the bottom of the tree. “You didn’t need me for any of that, Damon,” he said. “Why did you ask me to come with you?” Damon’s smile was bril iant in the darkness. “I just thought you could use some cheering up,” he said simply.

Clearly, it wasn’t the librarian Stefan should be worried about acting peculiarly.

20

This is way worse than the obstacle course, thought Matt.

And building a house out of newspaper. And the firewalk.

This is definitely the worst pledge event yet.

He twisted the toothbrush in his hand to real y get into the little niche running along the bottom of the paneling on the Vitale Society’s pledge room wal s. The toothbrush came out black with ancient dirt and dangling cobwebs, and Matt grimaced in disgust. His back was already sore from hunching over.

“How’s it going, soldier?” Chloe asked, squatting down next to him, a dripping sponge in one hand.

“Honestly, I’m not sure how scrubbing out this room is going to help us develop honor and leadership and al the stuff Ethan keeps talking about,” Matt said. “I think this might just be a way to save a couple of bucks on a cleaning service.”

“Wel , they say cleanliness is next to godliness,” she reminded him. Chloe laughed. He real y liked her laugh. It was sort of bubbly and silvery.

Internal y, he gave himself a little eye rol . Bubbly and silvery. She had a nice laugh, was al he meant.

They’d been spending a lot of time together since Christopher’s death. Matt had felt like nothing could be as bad as living with al of Christopher’s stuff when Christopher himself was gone, but then Chris’s parents came and packed it up, gently patting Matt on the back as if he deserved some kind of sympathy when they had lost their only son. And with just empty space where Christopher’s things had been, everything was a mil ion times worse.

Meredith, Bonnie, and Elena had tried to comfort him.

They wanted so badly for him to be okay again that he’d felt guilty he wasn’t, making it harder for him to be around them.

Chloe had taken to coming by the room, hanging out with him or getting him to come to the cafeteria or wherever with her, keeping him in touch with the world when he felt like locking himself away. There was something so easy about her. Elena, the only girl he’d ever loved—before now, part of him whispered—was much more work to be around.

Inside, he flinched at his own disloyalty to Elena, but it was true.

Now he was starting to wake up and take an interest in things again. And he kept noticing with fresh surprise the cute dimple Chloe had in her right cheek, or how shiny her curly dark hair was, or how graceful and pretty her hands were despite the fact that they were often stained with paint.

So far, though, they were just friends. Maybe … maybe it was time to change that.

Chloe snapped her fingers in front of his face, and Matt realized he had been staring at her. “You al right, buddy?” she asked, a little frown wrinkling her forehead, and Matt had to restrain himself from kissing her right then.

“Yeah, just spacing out,” he said, feeling a flush creep over his cheeks. He was smiling like a goof, he knew.

“Want to help with these wal s?”

“Sure, why not?” Chloe answered. “I’l soap down the wal part, and you keep doing whatever you’re doing there with that little toothbrush.”

They worked companionably together for a while, Chloe now and then accidental y-on-purpose dripping soapy water onto the top of Matt’s head.

As they worked further along the paneling, the niche under the baseboard got deeper, until it was not so much a niche as a gap. Matt slid the toothbrush underneath to scrub—man, but it got grimy down there—and felt something shift.

“There’s something under here,” he told Chloe, pressing his hand flat against the floor and working his fingers into the gap. He slid his hands and the toothbrush around, trying to shimmy whatever was down there toward them, but he couldn’t quite get a grip on it.

“Look,” said Chloe after a moment, “I think the paneling might slide up here.” She wiggled the section of wood until it gave a raucous screech and she was able to work it up.

“Huh,” she said, puzzled. “Wow, it’s like a secret compartment. Seems like it hasn’t been opened for a while, though.”

Once she managed to ease the paneling up, they could see the space behind it was smal , only a foot or so in height and width and a few inches deep. It was ful of cobwebs. Inside was something rectangular, wrapped in a cloth that had probably once been white but was now gray with dust.

“It’s a book,” Matt said, picking it up. The grime on the outside of the cloth was thick and soft and came away on his hands. Unwrapping it, he found the book inside was clean.

“Wow,” Chloe said softly.

It looked old, real y old. The cover was flaking dark leather, and the edges of the pages were rough as if they’d been hand cut instead of by a machine. Tilting the book a little, Matt could see the remains of gilt that must have once been the title, but it was worn away now.

Matt opened it to the middle. Inside, it was handwritten, black ink inscribing neat strong strokes. And total y indecipherable.

“I think it’s Latin. Maybe?” said Matt. “Do you know Latin at al ?”

Chloe shook her head. Matt flipped back to the first page, and one word popped out at him. Vitale.

“Maybe it’s a history of the Vitale Society,” Chloe said.

“Or ancient secrets of the founders. Cool! We should give it to Ethan.”

“Yeah, sure,” Matt said, distracted. He turned a few more pages, and the ink changed from black to a dark brown. It looks like dried blood, he thought, and shuddered, then pushed the image away. It was just some kind of old ink, faded brown with time.

One word he recognized, written three—no, four—times on the page: Mort. That meant death, didn’t it? Matt traced the word with his finger, frowning. Creepy.

“I’l show it to Ethan,” Chloe said, jumping up and taking the book from him. She crossed the room and interrupted Ethan’s conversation with another girl. From the other side of the room, Matt watched Ethan’s face break into a slow smile as he took the book.

After a few minutes, Chloe returned, grinning. “Ethan was real y excited,” she said. “He said he’l tel us al about it after he gets someone to translate the book.” Matt nodded. “That’s terrific,” he said, pushing the last of his unease away. This was Chloe, lively, laughing Chloe, and he would try not to think about death or blood or anything morbid around her. “Hey,” he said, pushing away the dark thoughts, focusing on the golden highlights in her dark hair. “Are you going to the party at McAl ister House tonight?”

Maybe not pulled back, Elena thought, looking critical y at herself in the mirror. She tugged the barrette out of her hair and let her golden locks tumble, sleek and flat-ironed, down around her shoulders. Much better.

She looked good, she noted, running her eyes dispassionately over her reflection. Her strappy short black dress accentuated her rose-petal skin and pale hair, and her dark blue eyes seemed huge.

Without Stefan, though, what did it matter how she looked?

She watched her own mouth tighten in the mirror as she pushed the thought away. However much she missed the feeling of Stefan’s hand in hers, his lips on hers, however much she wanted to be with him, it was impossible for now.

She couldn’t be Katherine. And her pride wouldn’t let her just mope around, either. It’s not forever, she told herself grimly.

Bonnie came up and threw her arm around Elena’s shoulders, regarding them both in the mirror. “We clean up nice, don’t we?” she asked cheerful y. “Ready to go?”

“You do look amazing,” Elena said, looking at Bonnie with affection. The shorter girl was practical y glowing with excitement—eyes sparkling, smile bright, cheeks flushed, mane of red hair flying out seemingly with a life of its own—

and her short blue dress and strappy high-heeled shoes were adorable. Bonnie’s smile got bigger.

“Let’s get going,” Meredith said, al business. She was sleek and practical in jeans and a soft fitted gray shirt that matched her eyes. It was hard to know what Meredith was thinking, but Elena had overheard her murmuring to Alaric on the phone late at night. She figured that Meredith, at heart, might not be into the party either.

Outside, people walked quickly in large, silent groups, glancing around nervously as they went. No one lingered, no one was alone.

Meredith stopped midstride and stiffened, suddenly aware of a potential threat. Elena fol owed her gaze. She was wrong: one person lingered alone. Damon was sitting on a bench outside their dorm, his face tipped toward the sky as if he was basking in the sun despite the darkness of the evening.

“What do you want, Damon?” Meredith said, warily. Her voice wasn’t actual y rude—they’d gotten past that, working together this summer—but it wasn’t friendly, and Elena could feel her bristling beside her.

“Elena, of course,” Damon said lazily, rising and smoothly taking Elena’s arm.

Bonnie looked back and forth between them, puzzled. “I thought you weren’t going to spend time with either of them for a while,” she said to Elena.

Damon spoke quietly into Elena’s ear. “It’s about the Vitale Society. I’ve got a lead.”

Elena hesitated. She hadn’t told her friends about the hints she and Damon had found that the Vitale Society might be more than a myth, or that they might be connected to her parents in some way. There wasn’t real y anything much to go on yet, and she didn’t feel quite ready to talk about the possibility that her parents might have been mixed up in some kind of dark secret or how she felt, seeing the images of them when they were young.

Making up her mind, she turned to Meredith and Bonnie. “I’ve got to go with Damon for a minute. It’s important. I’l explain it to you guys later. See you at the party in a little bit.”

Meredith frowned but nodded, and she steered Bonnie toward McAl ister House. As they went, Elena could hear Bonnie saying, “But wasn’t the whole point…” Keeping his hand tucked firmly under Elena’s arm, Damon led her in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” she asked, feeling too aware of the softness of Damon’s skin and the strength of his grip.

“I saw a girl wearing one of those pins from the photo,” Damon answered. “I fol owed her to the library, but once she got inside, she just disappeared. I looked everywhere for her. Then, an hour later, she came out the library doors again. Remember when I said we needed to look for answers somewhere other than the library?” He smiled. “I was wrong. There’s something going on in there.”

“Maybe you just didn’t see her?” Elena wondered aloud.

“It’s a big library, she could have been tucked away in a study carrel or something.”

“I would have found her,” Damon said briefly. “I’m good at finding people.” His teeth shone white for a moment under the streetlights.

The problem was that the library was so normal. Once they were inside, Elena looked around at the gray-carpeted floors, the beige chairs, the rows and rows of bookshelves, the buzzing fluorescent lights. It was a place to study. It didn’t look like any secrets were hidden here.

“Upstairs?” she suggested.

They took the stairs rather than the elevator and worked their way down from the top floor. Going from floor to floor, they found … nothing. People reading and taking notes.

Books, books, and more books. In the basement, there was a room of vending machines and smal tables for study breaks. Nothing unexpected.

Elena paused in a hal way of administrative offices near the vending machine. “We’re not going to find anything,” she told Damon. His face twisted in frustration, and she added, “I believe you that there’s something going on here, I do, but without any leads, we don’t even know what we’re looking for yet.”

The door behind her, marked Research Office, opened, and Matt came out.

He looked tired, and Elena felt a quick flash of guilt.

After Christopher’s death, she and Meredith and Bonnie had meant to stick close to Matt. But he was always busy with footbal or class and didn’t seem to want them around.

She realized with a shock that she hadn’t talked to him in days.

“Oh, hey, Elena,” Matt said, looking startled. “Are you going to the party tonight?” He greeted Damon with an awkward nod.

“Mutt,” Damon acknowledged, giving a half smile, and Matt rol ed his eyes.

As they chatted about the party and classes and Bonnie’s new semiboyfriend, Elena cataloged her impressions of Matt. Tired, yes—his eyes were a little bloodshot, and there was grimness to his lips that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. But why did he smel so strongly of soap? It wasn’t like he was particularly clean, she thought, inspecting a grubby trail tracing down Matt’s cheek to his neck. It looked like something had been dripped on his head. It was almost like he had been cleaning something. Something real y dirty.

Struck by a new thought, she glanced at his chest.

Surely he wouldn’t be wearing one of the V pins? As if aware of what she was wondering, Matt pul ed his jacket more tightly around him.

“What were you doing in that office?” she asked him abruptly.

“Uh.” Matt’s face was blank for half a second, and then he glanced up at the door, at the sign saying Research Office. “Research, of course,” he said. “I’ve got to go,” he added. “I’l catch you at the party later, okay, Elena?” He had half turned away, when Elena impulsively put out her hand to catch his arm. “Where have you been, Matt?” she asked. “I’ve hardly seen you lately.” Matt grinned, but he didn’t quite meet her eyes.

“Footbal ,” he said. “Col ege bal ’s a big deal.” He gently pul ed away from her restraining hand. “Later, Elena.

Damon.”

They watched him walk away, and then Damon nodded toward the door Matt had come out of. “Shal we?” he said.

“Shal we what?” Elena asked, puzzled.

“Oh, like that wasn’t suspicious,” Damon said. He put his hand on the knob, and Elena heard the lock snap as he forced it open.

Inside was a very boring room. A desk, a chair, a smal rug on the floor.

Maybe a little too boring?

“A research office without books? Or even a computer?” Elena asked. Damon cocked his head to one side, considering, then, with a swift movement, pul ed aside the rug.

Below it was the clear outline of a trapdoor. “Bingo,” Elena breathed. She stepped forward, already bending down to try and pry it open, but Damon pul ed her back.

“Whoever is using this could stil be down there,” he said. “Matt just left, and I doubt he was alone.” Matt. Whatever was going on, Matt knew about it.

“Maybe I should talk to him,” Elena said.

Damon frowned. “Let’s wait until we know what we’re dealing with,” he said. “We don’t know what Matt’s involvement is. This could be dangerous for you.” He had taken hold of her arm again and was pul ing her gently, steadily out of the room. “We’l come back later.” Elena let him lead her away, grappling with what he’d said. Dangerous? she thought. Surely Matt wouldn’t be doing anything that would be a danger to Elena?

21

“What’s taking so long?” Bonnie asked, bouncing on the bal s of her feet. “Stop being so hyper,” Meredith said absently, craning her neck to see over the crowd outside McAl ister. There was some kind of bottleneck by the entrance to the dorm that was slowing everyone down. She shivered in her thin top; it was starting to get cold at night.

“Security’s at the door,” Bonnie said as they got closer to the entrance. “Are they carding people to get in?” Her voice was shril with outrage.

“They’re just checking that you have a student ID,” someone in the crowd told her, “to make sure you’re not a crazed kil er from off campus.”

“Yeah,” his friend said. “Only on-campus kil ers al owed.” A couple of people laughed nervously. Bonnie fel silent, biting her lip, and Meredith shivered again, this time for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold.

When they final y got to the front of the line, the security guards glanced quickly at their IDs and waved them through. Inside, it was crowded and music was pumping, but no one real y seemed to be in a partying mood. People stood in smal groups, talking in undertones and glancing around nervously. The presence of the security guards had reminded everyone of the danger lurking unseen on campus. Anyone could be responsible, even someone in the room at that very moment.

As she thought about that, Meredith’s view of the room shifted, the other students around her changing from innocent to sinister. That curly-headed frat boy in the corner

—was he eyeing his pretty companion with something more than simple lust? The faces of strangers twisted viciously, and Meredith took a deep breath, calming herself until everyone looked normal again.

Samantha was coming toward her, a red plastic cup in her hand. “Here,” she said, handing Meredith a soda.

“Everyone’s on edge tonight, it’s creepy. We’d better stay alert and not drink,” she said, already on the same wavelength as Meredith.

Bonnie squeezed Meredith’s arm in farewel and took off into the crowd to look for Zander. Meredith sipped her drink and warily eyed the strangers surrounding her.

Despite the general malaise hanging over the party, some people were so wrapped up in each other that they were managing to have a good time anyway. She watched a couple kiss, as ful y focused on each other as if there was no one else in the world who mattered. They weren’t worrying about the attacks and disappearances on campus, and Meredith found herself feeling a sharp pang of envy. She missed Alaric, missed him with a bone-deep longing that stayed with her, even when she wasn’t consciously thinking about him.

“The kil er could be right here at this party,” Samantha said unhappily. “Shouldn’t we be able to sense something?

How can we protect anyone if we don’t know who we’re up against?”

“I know,” said Meredith. The crowd parted, and she saw a face she hadn’t expected: Stefan, leaning against the far wal . His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he glanced past her with a hopeful half smile already forming on his lips.

Poor guy. No matter what Meredith thought about Elena’s decision to take a break—and, for the record, Meredith thought that Elena was doing the right thing; her entanglement with both Salvatore brothers meant that they had al been heading for trouble—she couldn’t help pitying him. Stefan had the look of someone who was experiencing the same sharp pang of loneliness and desire as Meredith did when she thought of Alaric. It must be worse for him, because Elena was so close and because she chose to separate herself from him against his wishes.

“Excuse me for a second,” she said to Samantha, and went to Stefan.

He greeted her politely and asked about her classes and her hunter training, although she could tel that he was burning to talk about Elena. He had such good manners, always.

“She’s not here yet, but she’s definitely coming,” she told him, interrupting one of his pleasantries. “She had something to do first.” His face bloomed into a smile of grateful relief, and then he frowned.

“Elena’s coming here alone?” he asked. “After al the attacks?”

“No,” Meredith reassured him. She hadn’t thought of this, and she didn’t think she should tel him Elena was with Damon. “She’s with other people,” she settled for saying and was glad that her answer seemed to satisfy him.

Meredith sipped her drink and hoped grimly that Elena had the sense not to bring Damon to the party.

Matt spotted Chloe from across the room. Tonight was the night, he decided. Enough playing around, enough exchanging glances and gentle, platonic hugs and hand squeezes. He wanted to know if she felt the same way he did, if she felt like maybe there was something between them worth exploring.

She was talking to someone, a guy he recognized from Vitale, and her curly brown hair shone softly in the light from overhead. There was so much life in Chloe: the way she laughed, the way she listened to what the guy was saying, attentive and involved, her face focused.

Matt wanted to kiss her, more than anything.

So he started working his way across the room toward her, nodding at people he knew as he passed them. He didn’t want to look too uncool and eager, not like he was making a beeline for her, but he didn’t want to stop and lose her in the crowd, either.

Matt.

Matt jerked as if he’d been stung as the silent greeting hit him. Twisting around to see where it was coming from, he found Stefan standing right behind him and frowned irritably at him. He hated when Stefan got into his head like that.

“You could have just said hi,” he told Stefan, as mildly as he could. “You know, out loud.”

Stefan ducked his head apologetical y, his cheeks flushing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was rude of me, but I just wanted to get your attention. It’s so loud in here.” He gestured around, and Matt wondered, as he sometimes had before, how the life of a modern teenager seemed to the vampire. Stefan had experienced more than Matt probably ever would, but the loud rock music and the press of bodies al around him seemed to make him uncomfortable, showing the cracks in his disguise as someone young. He tried hard, for Elena’s sake, Matt knew.

“I’m waiting for Elena,” Stefan said. “Have you seen her?” The lines of his face were anxious, and, just like that, Matt’s picture of Stefan as someone too old, too out of place here, snapped. Stefan looked achingly young, lonely and worried.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I just saw her at the library. She said she was coming here later.” He bit his tongue to keep from adding that he’d seen her there with Damon, of al people.

Matt wasn’t quite sure what was going on between Elena and the brothers, but he figured Stefan didn’t need to know that Elena and Damon were together.

“I’m supposed to be staying away from her,” Stefan confided sadly. “She feels like she’s coming between Damon and me, and she wants some time for us al to work things out before the two of us can be together again.” He glanced up at Matt, almost beseechingly. “But I thought since there are so many people here, it isn’t like we’d be alone.”

Matt took a swal ow of his beer, his mind working furiously. Now he knew he’d been right not to mention that Damon and Elena had been together. What game was Elena playing now?

It was a shock, too, to realize how far out of the loop he’d gotten. When did al this happen? Since Christopher’s death, he’d been avoiding his friends, spending so much time focused on the Vitale Society that he missed this big development in their lives. What else was he missing?

Stefan was stil looking at him as if he was seeking some kind of approval, and Matt rubbed the back of his neck thoughtful y, then offered, “You should talk to her. Let her know how unhappy you are without her. Love is worth taking the chance.”

As Stefan nodded, considering, Matt’s eyes sought out Chloe in the crowd again. The guy she’d been talking to was gone, and she was alone for the moment, biting her lip as she looked around the room. Matt was about to excuse himself and head toward her when another voice spoke in his ear.

“Hi, Matt, how’s it going?” Ethan came up beside him, his golden brown eyes focused on Matt’s. Matt felt himself straightening up and pul ing back his shoulders, trying to look loyal and honorable, a promising candidate, everything the Vitale wanted him to be. Matt saw this reaction to Ethan in the other pledges as wel : whatever Ethan wanted them to be or do, they wanted, too. Some people were just natural leaders, he guessed.

They chatted for a minute, not about the Vitale Society, of course, not in front of Stefan, but simple friendly stuff about footbal and classes and the music that was playing, and then Ethan turned the warmth of his smile on Stefan.

“Oh, uh, Ethan Crane, Stefan Salvatore,” Matt introduced them, adding, “Stefan and I went to high school together.” Stefan and Ethan started making conversation, and Matt looked for Chloe again. She wasn’t in the last place he had seen her, and he started to panic, until he found her again in the crowd, moving to the music.

“I can’t help noticing just a slight accent, Stefan,” Ethan was saying. “Are you from Italy original y?” Stefan smiled shyly. “Most people don’t hear it anymore,” he said. “My brother and I, we left Italy a long time ago.”

“Oh, does your brother go here, too?” Ethan asked, and Matt decided the two of them seemed happy enough together and that it was okay for him to leave now.

“I’l catch up with you guys later,” he said. Taking another swal ow of beer, Matt strode through the crowd, straight toward Chloe. Her eyes were shining, her dimples were showing, and he knew the time was right. Like he had told Stefan, love was worth taking the chance.

22

Bonnie knew the minute that Zander and his friends came into the party, because the noise level went way up.

Honestly, Zander was calmer than his friends, sort of, at least around Bonnie, but as a group, they were definitely wild.

It was kind of irritating, actual y.

But when Zander appeared next to her—hip-checking Marcus into a wal on his way—and gave her his long, slow smile, her toes curled inside her high-heeled shoes and she forgot al about being annoyed.

“Hi!” she said. “Is everything okay?” He cocked an eyebrow at her inquiringly. “I mean, you said something came up with your family, and that’s why you’ve been …

busy.”

“Oh, yeah.” Zander bent his head down to talk to her, and his warm breath ghosted across Bonnie’s neck as he sighed. “My family’s pretty complicated,” he said. “I wish sometimes that things were easier.” He looked sad, and Bonnie impulsively took his hand, twining her fingers through his.

“Wel , what’s wrong?” she asked, striving for a tone of understanding and reliability. A dependable girlfriend tone.

“Maybe I can help. You know, a fresh ear and al that.” Zander frowned and bit his lip. “I guess it’s like… I have responsibilities. My whole family is in a position where there are promises we’ve made and sort of things we have to take care of. And sometimes what I want to do and what I have to do don’t line up.”

“Could you be any more vague?” Bonnie asked teasingly, and Zander huffed a half laugh. “Seriously, what do you mean? What do you have to do? What don’t you want to do?”

Zander looked down at her for a moment and then his smile widened. “Come on,” he said, tugging her hand.

Bonnie went with him, weaving their way through the party and up the stairs. Zander seemed to know where he was going; he turned a couple of corners, then pushed open a door.

Inside was a dorm common room: a couple of ratty couches, a banged-up table. Someone’s art project, a large canvas covered with splotches of paint, leaned against the wal .

“Do you live in this dorm?” she asked Zander.

“No,” he said, his eyes on her mouth. He pul ed her toward him and rested his hands on her hips. And then he kissed her.

It was the most amazing kiss Bonnie had ever experienced. Zander’s lips were so soft, yet firm, and there were little fireworks going off al over Bonnie’s body. She lifted her hand and cupped it against his cheek, feeling the strong bones of his face and the slight scratch of stubble against her palm.

Once again, she felt as she had during their first date, standing on the roof, when it had been like she was flying.

So free, and with a wild kind of joy zinging through her. She slid her hand to the back of his neck, feeling Zander’s fine pale blond hair brush softly against her fingers.

When the kiss ended, neither of them spoke for a moment, they just leaned against each other, breathing hard. Their faces were so close, and Zander’s bril iant blue eyes were fixed on hers, warm and intent.

“Anyway, that’s what I want to do, since you asked. Do you”—his voice cracked—“do you want to go back to the party now?”

“No,” said Bonnie, “not yet.” And this time, she kissed him.

“Oh, thank God,” Chloe said when Matt came up to her. “I was beginning to feel like the biggest wal flower.” She crinkled her nose appealingly at him. Her nose, which tilted up just a little, was spattered with freckles, and she had a pretty cupid’s bow of a mouth. He wanted to tug gently on the soft brown ringlets of her curls, just to see them straighten and then spring back into shape.

“What do you mean?” he said, pul ing himself back together, although he was painful y aware that he sounded half-witted. “A wal flower?”

“Oh, just…” She waved one hand vaguely at the crowd.

“There’s hardly anyone I know here besides you and Ethan.

This whole party’s completely stuffed with freshmen.” Matt’s heart sank. He had forgotten that Chloe was a junior. It shouldn’t be a big deal, real y, should it? But she sounded like she thought freshmen were beneath her, or something. Disdainful, that was the word he was looking for to describe her tone.

“I thought the party seemed okay,” he said weakly.

Chloe pursed her lips teasingly, then socked him gently on the arm. “Wel ,” she said softly, “there’s only enough room for one freshman in my life. Right, Matt?” That was more of a hopeful sign. The problem was, Matt realized, that his only dating experience had been in asking out girls who he either didn’t real y care about, but was just thinking of as potential dates for dances or whatever, or who were Elena. Who, yes, he cared tremendously about, but who he knew for long enough and wel enough that he could tel she was going to say yes.

Stil , he thought he could see an opening here.

“Chloe,” he said, “I was wondering if you would—” Matt broke off as Ethan joined them, smiling widely. For the first time, Matt felt a flash of irritation toward him. Ethan was so smart with people. Couldn’t he see he was interrupting a moment here?

“I liked your friend Stefan,” Ethan told Matt. “He seemed very sophisticated for a freshman, very wel spoken. Do you think it’s because he’s European?”

Matt only shrugged in response, and Ethan turned to Chloe.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, putting an arm around her and kissing her lightly on the lips.

And yeah, wow, maybe Ethan had realized he was interrupting a moment. It wasn’t a long kiss, but there was definitely a possessive air about it, and about his arm flung across Chloe’s shoulders. When it ended, Chloe smiled up at Ethan, breathless, and Ethan’s eyes flicked to Matt, just for a second.

Matt wanted to fold right over and sink into the sticky, beer-stained floor beneath his feet. But instead he eked out a smile of his own and tipped his beer to Ethan.

Because Chloe—adorable, sweet, funny, easygoing Chloe—had a boyfriend. He ought to have anticipated that he wouldn’t be the only one who saw how amazing she was. And Matt would have backed off no matter who Chloe’s boyfriend was. He didn’t want to be that guy who sleazed al over other people’s relationships; he never had been.

But since Chloe’s boyfriend was Ethan? Ethan, the Vitale Society leader, the one who had made Matt feel like he was special, like he could be the best? Since it was Ethan, Matt was just going to have to grit his teeth and ignore that hol ow feeling in his chest. He was going to be strong and keep himself from even thinking about what he wished could have been with Chloe.

There were some lines he just couldn’t cross. Ever.

23

“I don’t know how it got so late,” Elena said for the third time as they hurried down the path by the quad. “Bonnie and Meredith are probably worried about me.”

“They know you’re with me,” Damon said, pacing along unruffled beside her.

“I don’t think they’l find that comforting,” Elena said, and bit her tongue as Damon shot her an expressive look.

“After al the time we’ve spent fighting side by side, they stil don’t trust me?” he said silkily. “I’d be terribly hurt. If I cared what they thought.”

“I don’t mean that they think you’d hurt me,” Elena said.

“Not anymore. Or that you wouldn’t protect me. I guess they worry that you might … might make a pass at me. Or something.”

Damon stopped and looked at her. Then he picked up her hand and held it, running one finger down the inside of her arm, tracing the vein that led from Elena’s wrist to her elbow. “And what do you think?” he asked, smiling gently.

Elena snatched her hand back, glaring at him. “Clearly they have a point,” she said. “Knock it off. Just friends, remember?”

Sighing deeply, Damon started walking again, and Elena hurried to catch up.

“I’m glad you decided to come to the party with me,” she said eventual y. “It’l be fun.” Damon shot her a velvet-black glance through his lashes but said nothing.

It was always fun to be with Damon, Elena thought, listening to the clicking of her own heels and watching her shadow grow and disappear as they walked beneath the streetlights. Or at least, it was always fun when Damon was in a good mood and nothing was trying to kil them, two circumstances she wished coincided more often.

Stefan, sweet, darling Stefan, was the love of her life.

She had no doubts about that. But Damon made her feel breathless and excited, swept up in something bigger than herself. Damon made her feel like she was special.

And he was more easygoing than usual tonight. After Matt left, they’d searched the library some more, and then Damon treated her to chips and soda in the basement vending-machine room. They sat at one of the little tables and talked and laughed. It wasn’t anything fancy or elegant, nothing like the parties he’d escorted her to in the Dark Dimension, but it was comfortable and fun, and when she looked at her phone, she was startled to see that more than an hour had passed.

And now Damon even volunteered to come to a col ege keg party. Maybe he was trying to get along with her friends. Maybe they could real y be friends, once things somehow worked out between Stefan and him.

Elena had reached this point in her musings when she suddenly got the unmistakable creepy-crawly feeling that she was being watched. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

“Damon,” she said softly. “There’s someone watching us.”

Damon’s pupils dilated as he sniffed the air. Elena could tel that he was sending out questing tendrils of Power, searching for an answering surge, for someone focusing on them.

“Nothing,” he said after a moment. He tucked his hand under her arm, pul ing her closer. “It could just be your imagination, princess, but we’l be careful.” The leather of Damon’s jacket was smooth against Elena’s side, and she held tightly to him as they stepped out into the road that divided the campus.

Just across from them, a car that had been idling at the curb gunned its engine. Its headlights blazed on, blinding Elena. Damon’s arms locked around her waist, squeezing the breath out of her.

The car’s tires squealed and it shot toward them. Elena panicked—oh God, oh God, she thought helplessly—and froze. Then she was sailing through the air, Damon holding her so tightly that it hurt.

When they hit the grass on the other side of the road, Damon paused for a moment, adjusting his grip on Elena, and Elena peered back at the car, which had passed where they were standing a moment before and skidded back around in a U-turn. She couldn’t make out anything, not what kind of car it was nor anything about the driver; behind the bright lights, it was just a hulking dark shape.

A hulking dark shape that was veering onto the grass and coming back after them. Damon swore and yanked her onward, running rather than flying now, Elena’s feet barely touching the ground. Her heart was pounding. She could tel Damon was hampered from using his ful speed by keeping Elena close. They dodged around the corner of a building and leaned against its wal , surrounded by bushes.

The car hurtled by, then turned, its wheels leaving long skid marks, and lumbered back to the road.

“We lost him,” Elena whispered, panting.

“Annoy anyone lately, princess?” Damon asked, his eyes sharp.

“I should be asking you that,” Elena retorted. Then she wrapped her arms around herself. She was so cold suddenly. “Do you think it could have been because of the Vitale Society?” she asked, her voice quavering.

“Something about them and my parents?”

“We don’t know who or what could have been on the other side of that trapdoor,” Damon replied somberly. “Or maybe Matt…”

“Not Matt,” Elena said firmly. “Matt would never hurt me.” Damon nodded. “That’s true. He’s ridiculously honorable, your Matt.” He gave her a little wry sideways smile. “And he loves you. Everyone loves you, Elena.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

“One thing’s certain, though. If the driver of that car thought I was human before, he knows differently now.” Elena pul ed the jacket more tightly around herself. “You saved me,” she said in a tiny voice. “Thank you.” Damon’s eyes were soft as he put his arms around her.

“I wil always save you, Elena,” he promised. “Don’t you know that by now?” His pupils dilated, and he pul ed her closer. “I can’t lose you,” he murmured.

Elena felt like she was fal ing. The world was being swal owed up in Damon’s midnight eyes, and she was being drawn along with it, into the darkness. A tiny part of her said no, but despite it she leaned toward him and met his mouth with hers.

Stefan tapped his fingers against the wal behind him, looked around at al the people jammed too close together: talking, laughing, arguing, drinking, dancing. His skin was crawling with anxiety. Where was she? Matt said he’d seen her at the library more than an hour ago, that she had been planning on coming to the party then.

Making up his mind, Stefan began to push his way toward the exit. Maybe Elena didn’t want him in contact with her right now, but people were dying and disappearing. It would be worth it to have her angry with him, as long as he knew that she was okay.

He passed Meredith, deep in conversation with her friend, and said, “I’m going to find Elena.” He had the quick impression of her faltering, starting to reach out a hand to stop him, but he left her behind. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the cool night air. Campus security was stil by the door checking IDs, but they let him pass without comment, only interested in people trying to come into the party.

Outside, the wind was rushing through the trees overhead and a crescent moon rode high and white above the buildings around him. Stefan sent his Power out around him, feeling for the distinct traces of Elena.

He couldn’t sense anything, not yet. There were too many people too close together here, and Stefan could only feel the tangled traces of thousands of humans, their emotions and life force mixing together in one great underlying buzz from which it was impossible for him, at this distance, to pick out any particular individual, even one as singular as Elena.

If he had fed on human blood recently, it would have been easier. Stefan couldn’t help thinking longingly of the way that Power had surged through him when he drank regularly from his friends. But that was when Fel ’s Church needed his best defense against the kitsune. He wouldn’t drink human blood just for pleasure or convenience.

Stefan started walking quickly across the quad, stil sending out questing fingers of Power around and ahead of himself. If he couldn’t locate Elena that way, he would head for where she was last seen. He hoped that, as he got closer to the library, his Power would pick up some hint of her.

His whole body was thrumming anxiously. What if Elena had been attacked, what if she mysteriously vanished and never returned, leaving him with this strange distance as their last memory of each other? Stefan walked faster.

He was halfway to the library when the distinctive sense of Elena hit him like a punch. Somewhere nearby.

He scanned left and right and then he saw her. A terrible pain shot through his chest, as if he could actual y feel his heart breaking. She was kissing Damon. They were half hidden in the shadows, but their light skin and Elena’s blond hair shone. They were focused only on each other, so much so that, despite his Power, Damon wasn’t aware of Stefan’s presence, not even when he walked right up to them.

“Is this why you wanted to take some time apart, Elena?” Stefan asked, his voice sounding hol ow and distant. Final y noticing him, they broke away from each other, Elena’s face pale with shock.

“Stefan,” she said. “Please, Stefan, no, it’s not what it looks like.” She reached out a hand toward him, then drew it back uncertainly.

Everything seemed so far away to Stefan; he was aware that he was shaking, his mouth was dry, but it felt almost as if he was watching someone else in pain. “I can’t do this,” he said. “Not again. If I fight for you, I’l just end up destroying us al . Just like with Katherine.” Elena was shaking her head back and forth, her hands stretched out toward him imploringly again. “Please, Stefan,” she said.

“I can’t,” Stefan said again, backing away, his voice thin and desperate.

Then, for the first time, he looked at Damon, and a redhot rage slammed into him, overriding the numb distance instantly. “Al you do is take,” Stefan told him bitterly. “This is the last time. We’re not brothers anymore.” Damon’s face opened for a split second in dismay, his eyes widening, as if he was about to speak, and then he hardened again, his mouth twisting scornful y, and he jerked his head at Stefan. Very well, that gesture indicated, then get lost.

Stefan stumbled backward, and then he turned and ran, moving with al the supernatural grace and speed at his command, leaving them far behind even as Elena screamed, “Stefan!”

24

Giggling, Bonnie tripped on her way down the stairs, her foot coming right out of her high-heeled shoe.

“Here you go, Cinderel a,” Zander said, picking up the shoe and kneeling in front of her. He helped slip her foot back into it, his fingers warm and steady against her instep.

Bonnie gave a mock curtsy, muffling her laughter. “Thank you, m’lord,” she said flirtatiously.

She felt fabulous, so sil y and happy. It was almost as if she was drunk, but she’d only had a few sips of beer. No, she was drunk. Drunk on Zander, on his kisses, his gentle hands, and his big blue eyes. She took his hand, and he smiled down at her, that long slow smile, and Bonnie just absolutely quivered.

“Seems like the party’s wrapping up,” she said, as they hit the first floor. It was real y getting late, almost two o’clock. There were only a few groups of hard-core partiers left: a bunch of frat boys by the keg, some theater-department girls dancing with great wide swoops of their arms, a couple sitting hand in hand at the bottom of the stairs in deep conversation. Meredith, Stefan, Samantha, and Matt had disappeared, and if Elena had ever shown up, she had left, too. Zander’s friends had gone, or been kicked out.

“Good-bye, good-bye,” Bonnie caroled to the few people who remained. She hadn’t real y gotten a chance to talk to any of them, but they al looked perfectly nice. Maybe next time she went to a party, she’d stay longer and real y bond with people she hadn’t met before.

Look at al the new friends her friends had made on campus. Bonnie gave a special wave to a couple of people she’d seen Matt with lately—a shortish guy whose name she thought was Ethan and that girl with the dark curls and dimples. Not freshmen. She loved everyone tonight, but they deserved it most, because they had seen what a wonderful guy Matt was. They waved back at her, a little hesitantly, and the girl smiled, her dimples deepening.

“They seem real y nice,” Bonnie told Zander, and he glanced back at them as he opened the door.

“Hmmm,” he said noncommittal y, and the look in his eyes, just for a minute, made Bonnie shiver.

“Aren’t they?” she said nervously. Zander looked away from them, back toward her, and his warm bril iant smile spread across his face. Bonnie relaxed; the coldness she’d seen in Zander’s eyes must have been just a trick of the light.

“Of course they are, Bonnie,” he said. “I just got distracted for a sec.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pul ing her close, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. She sighed contentedly, cuddling up against his side.

They walked together companionably for a while. “Look at the stars,” Bonnie said softly. The night was clear and the stars hung bright in the sky. “It’s because it’s starting to get colder at night that we can see them so wel .” Zander didn’t answer, only made a hmming sound deep in his throat again, and Bonnie glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “Do you want to get breakfast with me in the morning?” she asked. “On Sundays, the cafeteria does make-your-own waffles, with lots of different toppings.

Delicious.”

Zander was staring off into the distance with that same half-listening expression he had the last time they walked across campus together. “Zander?” Bonnie asked cautiously, and he frowned down at her, biting his lip thoughtful y.

“Sorry,” he said. He took his arm off of Bonnie’s shoulders and backed away a few steps, smiling stiffly. His whole body was tense, as if he was about to take off running.

“Zander?” she asked again, confused.

“I forgot something,” Zander said, avoiding her eyes. “I have to go back to the party.”

“Oh. I’l come with you,” Bonnie offered.

“No, that’s okay.” Zander was shifting from foot to foot, glancing over Bonnie’s shoulders as if, suddenly, he’d rather be anywhere than with her. Abruptly, he surged forward and kissed her awkwardly, their teeth knocking together, and then he stepped backward and turned, walking in the other direction. His strides lengthened, and soon he was running away from her, disappearing into the night. Again. He didn’t look back.

Bonnie, suddenly alone, shivered and looked around, peering into the darkness on al sides. She had been so happy a minute ago, and now she felt cold and dismayed, as if she had been hit with a splash of freezing cold water.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she said aloud.

Elena was shaking so hard that Damon was afraid she might just shake herself apart. He wrapped his arms around her comfortingly, and she glanced up at him without real y seeming to see him, her eyes glassy.

“Stefan…” she moaned softly, and Damon had to fight down a sharp stab of irritation. So Stefan was overreacting.

What else was new? Damon was here, Damon was with her and supporting her, and Elena needed to realize that.

He was tempted to grab Elena firmly by the chin and make her real y look at him.

In the old days, he would have done just that. Hel , in the old days, he would have sent a blast of Power at Elena until she was docile in his hands, until she didn’t even remember Stefan’s name. His canines prickled longingly just thinking of it. Her blood was like wine.

Not that expecting Elena to give in to his Power meekly had ever worked particularly wel , he admitted to himself, his mouth curling into a smile.

But he wasn’t like that anymore. And he didn’t want her that way. He was trying so hard, although he hated to admit it even to himself, to be worthy of Elena. To be worthy of Stefan, even, if it came right down to it. It had been comforting to final y have his baby brother looking at him with something other than hatred and disgust.

Wel , that was over. The tentative truce, the beginnings of friendship, the brotherhood, whatever it had been between him and Stefan, was gone.

“Come on, princess,” he murmured to Elena, helping her up the stairs toward her door. “Just a little farther.” He couldn’t be sorry they kissed. She was so beautiful, so alive and vibrant in his arms. And she tasted so good.

And he loved her, he did, as far as his hard heart was capable of it. His mouth curled again, and he could taste his own bitterness. Elena was never going to be his, was she? Even when Stefan turned his back on her, the self-righteous idiot, he was al she thought about. Damon’s free hand, the one that wasn’t cupping Elena’s shoulder protectively, tightened into a fist.

They’d reached Elena’s room, and Damon fished in her purse for her keys, unlocking the door for her.

“Damon,” she said, turning in the doorway to look him straight in the eyes for the first time since before Stefan caught them kissing. She looked pale stil , but resolute, her mouth a straight line. “Damon, it was a mistake.” Damon’s heart dropped like a stone, but he held her gaze. “I know,” he said, his voice steady. “Everything wil work out in the end, princess, you’l see.” He forced his lips to turn up in a reassuring, supportive smile. The smile of a friend.

Then Elena was gone, the door to her room shutting firmly behind her.

Damon spun in his tracks, cursing, and kicked at the wal behind him. It cracked, and he kicked it again with a sour satisfaction at the feeling of the plaster splitting.

There was a muted grumbling coming from behind the other doors on the floor, and Damon could hear footsteps approaching, someone coming to investigate the noise. If he had to deal with anyone now, he’d probably kil him. That wouldn’t be a good idea, no matter how much he might enjoy it for the moment, not with Elena right here.

Launching himself toward an open hal window, Damon smoothly transitioned to a crow in midair. It was a relief to stretch his wings, to pick up the rhythm of flying and feel the breeze against his feathers, lifting and supporting him. He flew through the window with a few strong beats of his wings and flung himself out into the night. Catching the wind, he soared recklessly high despite the darkness of the night. He needed the rush of the wind against his body, needed the distraction.

25

Dear Diary,

I can’t believe what a fool I am, what a faithless, worthless fool.

I should never have kissed Damon, or let him kiss me.

The look on Stefan’s face when he found us was heartbreaking. His features were so stiff and pale, as if he was made of ice, and his eyes were shining with tears. And then it seemed like a light went out inside him, and he looked at me like he hated me.

Like I was Katherine. No matter what happened between us, Stefan never looked at me like that before.

I won’t believe it. Stefan could never hate me.

Every beat of my heart tells me that we belong together, that nothing can tear us apart.

I’ve been such a fool, and I’ve hurt Stefan, although that was the one thing I never wanted to do. But this isn’t the end for us. Once I apologize and explain what a moment of madness he witnessed, he’ll forgive me. Once I can touch him again, he’ll see how sorry I am.

It was only the adrenaline from coming so close to death, from that car chasing after us. Neither Damon nor I really wanted the other one, that kiss was just us clinging hard to life.

No. I can’t lie. Not here. I have to be honest with myself, even if I pretend with everyone else. I wanted to kiss Damon. I wanted to touch Damon. I always have.

But I don’t have to. I can stop myself, and I will. I don’t want to cause Stefan any more pain.

Stefan will understand that, will understand that I’ll do anything I can to make him happy again, and then he’ll forgive me.

This can’t be the end. I won’t let it be.

Elena closed her journal and dialed Stefan’s number once more, letting the phone ring until it went to voicemail and then hanging up. She’d cal ed him several times last night, then over and over again this morning. Stefan could see her cal ing, she knew. He always kept his phone on. He always answered, too; he seemed to feel some obligation to be available since he had the phone with him.

The fact that he wasn’t answering meant he was avoiding her on purpose.

Elena shook her head fiercely and dialed again. Stefan was going to listen to her. She wasn’t going to let him turn her away. Once she explained and he forgave her, everything could go back to normal. They could end this separation that was making them both so unhappy—

clearly, it hadn’t worked out the way she intended.

Except, what exactly was she going to say? Elena sighed and flopped down backward onto her bed, her heart sinking. Adrenaline from the car’s pursuit aside, al she could real y say was that she hadn’t meant for the kiss with Damon to happen, that she didn’t want him, not real y. She wanted Stefan. Al she could tel him was that it wasn’t something she had expected or planned. That Damon wasn’t the one she wanted. Not truly. That she would always choose Stefan.

That would have to be enough. Elena dialed again.

This time, Stefan picked up.

“Elena,” he said flatly.

“Stefan, please listen to me,” Elena said in a rush. “I’m so sorry. I never—”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Stefan said, cutting her off. “Please stop cal ing me.”

“But, please, Stefan—”

“I love you, but…” Stefan’s voice was soft but cold. “I don’t think we can be together. Not if I can’t trust you.” The line went dead. Elena pul ed the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a moment, puzzled, before she realized what had happened. Stefan, dear, darling Stefan who had always been there for her, who loved her no matter what she did, had hung up on her.

Meredith pul ed one foot up behind her back, held it in both hands, breathed deep, and slowly pul ed the foot higher, stretching her quadriceps muscle.

It felt good to stretch, to get a little blood flowing after her late night. She was looking forward to sparring with Samantha. There was a new move Meredith had figured out, a little something kickboxing inspired, that she thought Sam was going to love, once she got over the shock of being knocked down by Meredith once again. Samantha had been getting faster and more sure of herself as they kept working out together, and Meredith definitely wanted to keep her on her toes.

That was, it would be terrific to spar with Samantha, if Samantha ever actual y arrived. Meredith glanced at her watch. Sam was almost twenty minutes late.

Of course, they’d been out late the night before. But stil , it wasn’t like Samantha not to show up when she said she was going to. Meredith turned on her phone to see if she had a message, then cal ed Samantha. No answer.

Meredith left a quick voicemail, then hung up and went back to stretching, trying to ignore the faint quiver of unease running through her. She circled her shoulders, stretched her arms behind her back.

Maybe Samantha just forgot and had her phone turned off. Maybe she overslept. Samantha was a hunter; she wasn’t in danger from whoever—or whatever—was stalking the campus.

Sighing, Meredith gave up on her workout routine. She wasn’t going to be able to focus until she checked on Samantha, even though the other girl was probably fine.

Undoubtedly fine. Scooping up her backpack, she headed for the door. She could get in a run on the way over.

The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and Meredith’s feet pounded the paths in a regular rhythm as she wove between people wandering around campus. By the time she reached Samantha’s dorm, she was thinking that maybe Sam would want to go for a nice long run with her instead of sparring today.

She tapped on Samantha’s door, cal ing, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” The door, not latched, drifted open a little.

“Samantha?” Meredith said, pushing it open farther.

The smel hit her first. Like rust and salt, with an underlying odor of decay, it was so strong Meredith staggered backward, clapping a hand over her nose and mouth.

Despite the smel , Meredith couldn’t at first understand what was al over the wal s. Paint? she wondered, her brain feeling sluggish and slow. Why would Samantha be painting? It was so red. She walked through the door slowly, although something in her was starting to scream.

No, no, get away.

Blood. Bloodbloodbloodblood. Meredith wasn’t feeling slow and sluggish anymore: her heart was pounding, her head was spinning, her breath was coming hard and fast.

There was death in this room.

She had to see. She had to see Samantha. Despite every nerve in her body urging her to run, to fight, Meredith kept moving forward.

Samantha lay on her back, the bed beneath her soaked red with blood. She looked like she had been ripped apart.

Her open eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, unblinking.

She was dead.

26

“Are you sure you don’t want us to cal your parents, miss?” The campus security officer’s voice was gruff but kind, and his eyes were worried.

For a second, Meredith let herself picture having the kind of parents he must be imagining: ones who would swoop in to rescue their daughter, wrap her up and take her home until the horrible images of her friend’s death faded.

Her parents would just tel her to get on with the job. Tel her that any other reaction was a failure. If she let herself be weak, more people would die.

More so because Samantha had been a hunter, from a family of hunters, like Meredith. Meredith knew exactly what her father would have said if she had cal ed him. “Let this be a lesson to you. You are never safe.”

“I’l be okay,” she told the security guard. “My roommates are upstairs.”

He let her go, watching her climb the stairs with a distressed expression. “Don’t worry, miss,” he cal ed. “The police wil get this guy.”

Meredith bit back her first reply, which was that he seemed to be putting a lot of faith in a police force that had yet to find any clues as to the whereabouts of the missing people or to solve Christopher’s murder. He was only trying to comfort her. She nodded to him and gave a little wave.

She hadn’t been any more successful than the police, not even with Samantha’s help. She hadn’t been trying hard enough, had been too distracted by the new place, the new people.

Why now? Meredith wondered suddenly. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but this was the first death, attack, or disappearance that took place in a dorm room instead of out on the quad or paths of the campus. Whatever this was, it came after Samantha specifical y.

Meredith remembered the dark figure she chased away after it attacked a girl, a girl who said she didn’t remember anything. Meredith recal ed the flash of pale hair as the figure turned away. Did Samantha die because they got too close to the kil er?

Her parents were right. No one was ever safe. She needed to work harder, needed to get on with the job and fol ow up on every lead.

Upstairs, Bonnie’s bed was empty. Elena looked up from where she was lying, curled up on her bed. Part of Meredith noted that Elena’s face was wet with tears and knew that usual y she would have dropped everything to comfort her friend, but now she had to focus on finding Samantha’s kil er.

Meredith crossed to her own closet, opened it, and pul ed out a heavy black satchel and the case for her hunter’s stave.

“Where’s Bonnie?” she asked, tossing the satchel onto her bed and unbuckling it.

“She left before I got up,” Elena answered, her voice shaky. “I think she had a study group this morning.

Meredith, what’s going on?”

Meredith flipped the satchel open and began to pul out her knives and throwing stars.

“What’s going on?” Elena asked again, more insistently, her eyes wide.

“Samantha’s dead,” Meredith said, testing the edge of a knife against her thumb. “She was murdered in her bed by whatever’s been stalking this campus, and we need to stop it.” The knife could be sharper—Meredith had been letting her weapons maintenance slide—and she dug in the bag for a whetstone.

“What?” Elena said. “Oh, no, oh, Meredith, I’m so sorry.” Tears began to run down her face again, and Meredith looked over at her, holding out the bag with the stave in it.

“There’s a smal black box in my desk with little bottles of different poison extracts inside it,” she said. “Wolfsbane, vervain, snake venoms. We don’t know what we’re dealing with exactly, so you’d better fil the hypodermics with a variety of things. Be careful,” she added.

Elena’s mouth dropped open, and then, after a few seconds, she closed it firmly and nodded, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands. Meredith knew that her message—mourn later, act now—had been received and that Elena, as always, would work with her.

Elena put the stave on her bed and found the box of poisons in Meredith’s desk. Meredith watched as Elena figured out how to fil the tiny hypodermics inset in the ironwood of the stave, her steady fingers pul ing them out and working them cautiously open. Once she was sure Elena knew what she was doing, Meredith went back to sharpening her knife.

“They must have come after Samantha on purpose. She wasn’t a chance victim,” Meredith said, her eyes on the knife as she drew it rhythmical y against the whetstone. “I think we need to assume that whoever this is knows we’re hunting him, and that therefore we’re in danger.” She shuddered, remembering her friend’s body. “Samantha’s death was brutal.”

“A car tried to run me and Damon down last night,” Elena said. “We had been trying to investigate something weird in the library, but I don’t know if that’s why. I couldn’t get a look at the driver.”

Meredith paused in her knife sharpening. “I told you that Samantha and I chased away someone attacking a girl on campus,” she said thoughtful y, “but I didn’t tel you one thing, because I wasn’t sure. I’m stil not sure.” She told Elena about her impressions of the black-clad figure, including the momentary impression of paleness below the hoodie, of almost white hair.

Elena frowned, her fingers faltering on the staff.

“Zander?” she asked.

They both looked at Bonnie’s unmade bed.

“She real y likes him,” Meredith said slowly. “Wouldn’t she know if there was something wrong with him? You know…” She made a vague gesture around her head, trying to indicate Bonnie’s history of visions.

“We can’t count on that,” Elena said, frowning. “And she doesn’t remember the things she sees. I don’t think he’s right for Bonnie,” she continued. “He’s so—I mean, he’s good-looking, and friendly, but he seems off somehow, doesn’t he? And his friends are jerks. I know it’s a long way from having terrible friends to being dangerous enough to do something like this, but I don’t trust him.”

“Can you ask Stefan to watch him?” Meredith asked. “I know you’re taking a break from dating, but this is important, and a vampire would be the best one to keep an eye on him.” Stefan looked so sad the other night, she thought distantly. Why shouldn’t Elena cal him? Life was short. She felt the blade of the knife against her thumb again. Better. Putting the sharpened knife down, she reached for another.

Elena wasn’t answering, and Meredith looked up to see her staring hard at the stave, her mouth trembling. “I—

Stefan isn’t talking to me,” she said in a little burst. “I don’t think—I don’t know if he’d help us.” She closed her mouth firmly, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

“Oh,” Meredith said. It was hard to imagine Stefan not doing what Elena wanted, but it was also clear that Elena didn’t want to ask him. “Should I cal Damon?” she suggested reluctantly. The older vampire was a pain, and she didn’t real y trust him, but he was certainly good at being sneaky.

Elena sucked in a breath and then nodded briskly, her mouth set. “No, I’l cal him,” she said. “I’l ask Damon to investigate Zander.”

Meredith sighed and leaned back against the wal , letting the knife drop onto her bed. Suddenly, she was terribly tired. Waiting for Samantha in the gym that morning seemed like a mil ion years ago, but it stil wasn’t even lunchtime. She and Elena both looked at Bonnie’s bed again.

“We have to talk to her about Zander, don’t we?” Elena asked quietly. “We have to ask her whether he was with her al last night. And we have to warn her.” Meredith nodded and closed her eyes, letting her head rest against the coolness of the wal , then opened them again. Tired as she was, she knew the images of Samantha’s death would come back to her if she let herself pause for even a moment. She didn’t have time to rest, not while the kil er was out there. “She’s not going to be happy about it.”

27

Bounce

Bounce

Bounce

Swish

Catch

Bounce

Bounce

Swish

Catch

Stefan stood on the free-throw line of the empty basketbal court, mechanical y dribbling and throwing the bal through the net. He felt empty inside, an automaton making perfect identical shots.

He didn’t real y love basketbal . For him, it lacked both the satisfying contact of footbal and the mathematical precision of pool. But it was something to do. He’d been up al night and al morning, and he couldn’t stand the endless pacing of his own feet around the campus, or the sight of the four wal s of his room.

What was he going to do now? There didn’t seem to be much point to going to school without Elena beside him. He tried to block out his memories of the centuries of wandering the world alone, without her, without Damon, that preceded his coming to Fel ’s Church. He was shutting down his emotions as hard as he could, forcing himself numb, but he couldn’t help dimly wondering if centuries of loneliness were in store for him again.

“Quite a talent you got there,” a shadow said, stepping away from the bleachers. “We should have recruited you for the basketbal team, too.”

“Matt,” Stefan acknowledged, making another basket, then tossing the bal to him.

Matt lined up careful y to the basket and shot, and it circled the rim before dropping through.

Stefan waited while Matt ran to get the bal , then turned to him. “Were you looking for me?” he asked, careful y not asking if Elena had sent him.

Looking surprised, Matt shook his head. “Nah. I like to shoot baskets when I’ve got some thinking to do. You know.”

“What’s going on?” Stefan asked.

Matt rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “There was this girl who I kind of liked, who I’ve been thinking about for a while, wanting to ask out. And, uh, it turns out she already has a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” After a few minutes, Stefan realized he ought to respond with something more. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah.” Matt sighed. “She’s real y special. I thought—I don’t know, it would be nice to have something like what you and Elena have. Someone to love.”

Stefan winced. It felt like Matt had twisted a knife in his gut. He flung the bal at the basket, not aiming this time, and it bounced back at them hard off the backboard. Matt jumped to catch it, then moved toward him, holding out a hand. “Hey, hey, Stefan. Take it easy. What is it?”

“Elena and I aren’t seeing each other anymore,” Stefan said flatly, trying to ignore the stab of pain from saying the words. “She—I saw her kissing Damon.”

Matt looked at Stefan silently for what felt like a long time, his pale blue eyes steady and compassionate. Stefan was struck sharply by the memory that Matt had loved Elena, too, and that they had been together before Stefan came into the picture.

“Look,” Matt said final y. “You can’t control Elena. If there’s one thing I know about her—and I’ve known her for our whole lives—it’s that she’s always going to do what she wants to do, no matter what gets in her way. You can’t stop her.” Stefan began to nod, hot tears burning behind his eyes. “But,” Matt added, “I also know that, in the end, you’re the one for her. She’s never felt the way she does about you for anyone else. And, y’know, I’m starting to discover that there are other girls out there, but I don’t think you’re going to. Whatever’s going on with Damon, Elena wil come back to you. And you’d be an idiot not to let her, because she’s the only one for you.”

Stefan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt breakable, like his bones were made of glass. “I don’t know, Matt,” he said tiredly.

Matt grinned sympathetical y. “Yeah, but I do.” He tossed Stefan the bal and Stefan caught it automatical y.

“Want to play Horse?”

He was tired and heartsick, but, as he dribbled the bal , thinking that he’d have to take it a tiny bit easy to give Matt a chance, Stefan felt a stirring of hope. Maybe Matt was right.

“Are you crazy?” Bonnie shouted. She had always thought that “seeing red” was just a metaphor, but she was so angry that she actual y was seeing the faintest scarlet touch on everything, as if the whole room had been dipped in blood-tinged water.

Meredith and Elena exchanged glances. “We’re not saying there is anything wrong with Zander,” Meredith said gently. “It’s just that we want you to be careful.”

“Careful?” Bonnie gave a mean, bitter little laugh and shoved past them to grab a duffel bag out of her closet.

“You’re just jealous,” she said without looking at them. She unzipped the bag and started to dump in some clothes.

“Jealous of what, Bonnie?” Elena asked. “I don’t want Zander.”

“Jealous because I’m final y the one who has a boyfriend,” Bonnie retorted. “Alaric is back in Fel ’s Church, and you broke up with both your boyfriends, and you don’t like seeing me happy when you’re miserable.” Elena shut her mouth tightly, white spots showing on her cheekbones, and turned away. Eyeing Bonnie careful y, Meredith said, “I told you what I saw, Bonnie. It’s nothing definite, but I’m afraid that the person who attacked that girl might have been Zander. Can you tel me where he was after you two left the party last night?” Focusing on stuffing her favorite jeans into what was already starting to seem like an overcrowded bag, Bonnie didn’t answer. She could feel an annoying tel tale flush spreading up her neck and over her face. Fine, this was probably enough clothes. She could grab her toothbrush and moisturizer from the bathroom on her way down the hal .

Meredith came toward her, hands open and outstretched placatingly. “Bonnie,” she said gently, “we do want you to be happy. We real y do. But we want you to be safe, too, and we’re worried that Zander might not be everything you think he is. Maybe you could stay away from him, just for a little while? While we check things out?” Bonnie zipped up her bag, threw it over her shoulder, and headed for the door, brushing past Meredith without a glance. She was planning to just walk out but, at the last minute, wheeled around in the doorway to face them again, unable to bite back what she was thinking.

“What’s kil ing me here,” she said, “is what hypocrites you two are. Don’t you remember when Mr. Tanner was murdered? Or the tramp who was almost kil ed under Wickery Bridge?” She was actual y shaking with fury.

“Everyone in the whole town thought Stefan was responsible. Al the evidence pointed at him. But Meredith and I didn’t think so, because Elena told us she knew Stefan couldn’t have done it, that he wouldn’t have done it.

And we believed you, even though you didn’t have any proof to give us,” she said, staring at Elena, who dropped her eyes to the floor. “I would have thought you could trust me the same way.” She looked back and forth between them. “The fact that you’re suspecting Zander even though I’m standing here, tel ing you he would never hurt anybody, makes it clear that you don’t respect me,” she said coldly.

“Maybe you never did.”

Bonnie stomped out of the room, hitching the strap of the duffel bag higher on her shoulder.

“Bonnie” she heard behind her and turned to look back one more time. Meredith and Elena were both reaching after her, identical expressions of frustration on their faces.

“I’m going to Zander’s,” Bonnie told them curtly. That would show them what she thought about their suspicions of him.

She slammed the door behind her.

28

“Of course Bonnie’s upset,” Alaric said. “This is her first real boyfriend. But the three of you have been through a lot together. She’l come back to you, and she’l listen to you, once she gets a chance to cool down.” His voice was deep and loving, and Meredith squeezed her eyes shut and held the phone more tightly to her ear, picturing his grad-student apartment with the cozy brown couch and the milk-crate bookshelves. She had never wished so hard that she was there.

“What if something happens to her, though?” Meredith said. “I can’t wait around for Bonnie to get over being mad at me if she’s in danger.”

Alaric made a thinking noise into the phone, and Meredith could picture his forehead scrunching in that cute way it did when he was analyzing a problem from different angles.

“Wel ,” he said at last, “Bonnie’s been spending a lot of time with Zander, right? A lot of time alone? And she’s been fine thus far. I think we can conclude that, even if Zander is the one behind the attacks on campus, he’s not planning to hurt Bonnie.”

“I think your reasoning is sort of specious there,” Meredith said, feeling oddly comforted by his words nevertheless.

Alaric gave a smal huff of surprised laughter. “Don’t cal my bluff,” he said. “I have a reputation for being logical.” Meredith heard the creak of Alaric’s desk chair on the other end of the line and imagined him leaning back, phone tucked into his shoulder, hands behind his head. “I’m so sorry about Samantha,” he said, voice sobering.

Meredith nestled farther into her bed, pressing her face against the pil ow. “I can’t talk about it yet,” she said, closing her eyes. “I just have to figure out who kil ed her.”

“I don’t know if this is going to be useful,” Alaric said,

“but I’ve been doing some research on the history of Dalcrest.”

“Like the ghosts and weird mysteries around campus Elena’s professor was talking about in class?”

“Wel , there’s even more to the history of the col ege than he told them about,” Alaric said. Meredith could hear him shuffling papers, probably flicking through the pages of one of his research notebooks. “Dalcrest appears to be something of a paranormal hotspot. There have been incidents that sound like vampire and werewolf attacks throughout its history, and this isn’t the first time there’s been a string of mysterious disappearances on campus.”

“Real y?” Meredith sat up. “How can the col ege stay open if people disappear al the time?”

“It’s not al the time,” Alaric replied. “The last major wave of disappearances was during the Second World War.

There was a lot of population mobility at the time, and, although the missing students left worried friends and family behind, the police assumed that the young men who disappeared had run off to enlist and the young women to marry soldiers or to work in munitions factories. The fact that the students never turned up again seems to have been disregarded, and the cases weren’t viewed as related.”

“Super work on the police department’s part,” Meredith said acidly.

“There’s a lot of weird behavior on campus, too,” Alaric said. “Sororities in the seventies practicing black magic, that kind of thing.”

“Any of those sororities stil around?” Meredith asked.

“Not those specific ones,” Alaric said, “but it’s something to keep in mind. There might be something about the campus that makes people more likely to experiment with the supernatural.”

“And what is that?” Meredith asked, flopping down on her back again. “What’s your theory, Professor?”

“Wel , it’s not my theory,” Alaric said, “but I found someone online who suggested that Dalcrest may be somewhere with a huge concentration of crossing ley lines, the same way that Fel ’s Church is. This whole part of Virginia has a lot of supernatural power, but some parts even more than others.”

Meredith frowned. Ley lines, the strong lines of Power running beneath the surface of the earth, shone like beacons to the supernatural world.

“And some people theorize that, where there are ley lines, the barriers between our world and the Dark Dimensions are thinner,” Alaric continued. Wincing, Meredith remembered the creatures she, Bonnie, and Elena had faced in the Dark Dimension. If they were able to cross over, to come to Dalcrest as the kitsune had come to Fel ’s Church, everyone was in danger.

“We don’t have any proof of that, though,” Alaric said reassuringly, hurrying to fil up the silence between them.

“Al we know is that Dalcrest has a history of supernatural activity. We don’t even know for sure if that’s what we’re facing now.”

An image of Samantha’s blank dead eyes fil ed Meredith’s mind. There had been a smear of blood across her cheek below her right eye. The murder scene had been so gruesome, and Samantha had been kil ed so horrifical y.

Meredith believed in her heart of hearts that Alaric’s theories must be correct: there was no way Samantha had been murdered by a human being.

29

“You should be proud.” The Vitale Society pledges were lined up in the underground meeting room, just like they had been the first day when they removed their blindfolds.

Under the arch in front of them, the Vitales in black masks watched quietly.

Ethan paced among the pledges, eyes bright. “You should be proud,” he repeated. “The Vitale Society offered you an opportunity. The chance to become one of us, to join an organization that can give you great power, help you on your road to success.”

Ethan paused and gazed at them. “Not al of you were worthy,” he said seriously. “We watched you, you know. Not just when you were here, or doing pledge events, but al the time. The candidates who couldn’t cut it, who didn’t merit joining our ranks, were eliminated.”

Matt looked around. It was true, there were fewer of them now than there had been at their first meeting. That tal bearded senior who was some kind of biogenetics whiz was gone. A skinny blonde girl who Matt remembered doggedly grinding her way through the run wasn’t there either. There were only ten pledges left.

“Those of you who remain?” Ethan lifted his hands like he was giving them some kind of benediction. “At last it is time for you to be initiated, to ful y become members of the Vitale Society, to learn our secrets and walk our path.” Matt felt a little swel of pride as Ethan smiled at them al . It felt like Ethan’s eyes lingered longer on Matt than on the others, like his smile for Matt was just a bit warmer. Like Matt was, among al these exceptional pledges, special.

Ethan started to walk through the crowd and talk again, this time about the preparations that needed to be made for their initiation. He asked a couple of pledges to bring roses and lilies to decorate the room—it sounded like he was expecting them to buy out a couple of flower stores—

others to find candles. One person was assigned to buy a specific kind of wine. Frankly, it reminded Matt of Elena and the other girls planning a high school dance.

“Okay,” Ethan said, indicating Chloe and a long-haired girl named Anna, “I’d like you two to go to the herb store and get yerba mata, guarana, hawthorn, ginseng, chamomile, and danshen. Do you want to write that down?” Matt perked up a little. Herbs were slightly more mystical and mysterious, befitting a secret society, although ginseng and chamomile just reminded him of the tea his mom drank when she had a cold.

Ethan moved on from the girls, his eyes fixed on Matt, and Matt prepared to be sent in search of punch or ranch dip.

But Ethan, locking eyes with Matt, inclined his head a little, indicating that Matt should join him a little apart from the rest of the group. Matt jogged over to meet Ethan, slightly intrigued. What couldn’t Ethan say in front of the others?

“I’ve got a special job for you, Matt,” Ethan said, rubbing his hands together in obvious pleasure at the prospect. “I want you to invite your friend Stefan Salvatore to join us.”

“Sorry?” Matt said, confused.

“To be a Vitale Society member,” Ethan explained. “We missed him when we selected candidates at the beginning of the year, but now that I’ve met him, I think—we think”—

and he waved a hand at the quietly watching masked figures on the other side of the room—“that he would be an ideal fit for us.”

Matt frowned. He didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of Ethan, but something struck him as off about this. “But he hasn’t done any of the pledge stuff. Isn’t it too late for him to join this year?”

Ethan smiled slightly, just a thin tilting of his lips. “I think we can make an exception for Stefan.”

“But—” Matt began to protest, then instead smiled back at Ethan. “I’l cal him and see if he’s interested,” he promised.

Ethan patted him lightly on the back. “Thank you, Matt.

You’re a natural for Vitale, you know. I’m sure you can convince him.”

As Ethan walked away, Matt watched him, wondering why the praise felt sour this time.

It was because it didn’t make sense, Matt decided, walking back to his dorm after the pledge meeting. What was so special about Stefan that Ethan had decided they had to have him pledge the Vitale Society now instead of just waiting til next year? Okay, yes: vampire—that was special about Stefan, but no one knew that. And he was handsome and sophisticated in that ever-so-slightly European way that had al the girls back in high school fal ing at his feet, but he wasn’t that handsome, and there were plenty of foreign students on campus.

Matt stopped stock-stil . Was he jealous? It wasn’t fair, maybe, that Stefan could just waltz in and be immediately offered something that Matt had worked for, that Matt had thought was only his.

But so what? It wasn’t Stefan’s fault if Ethan wanted to give him special treatment. Stefan was hurting after his breakup with Elena; maybe it would do him good to join the Vitale. And it would be fun to have one of his friends in the Society. Stefan deserved it, real y: he was brave and noble, a leader, even if there was no way Ethan and the others could have known that.

Firmly pushing away any remaining niggle of not fair, Matt pul ed out his cel phone and cal ed Stefan.

“Hey,” he said. “Listen, do you remember that guy Ethan?”

“I guess I don’t understand,” Zander said. His arm around Bonnie’s shoulder was strong and solidly reassuring, and his T-shirt, where she had buried her face against him, smel ed of clean cotton and fabric softener. “What were you and your friends fighting about?”

“The point is, they don’t trust my judgment,” Bonnie said, wiping her eyes. “If it had been either of them, they wouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions.”

“Conclusions about what?” Zander asked, but Bonnie didn’t answer. After a moment, Zander reached out and ran one finger gently along her jawline and over her lips, his eyes intent on her face. “Of course you can stay here as long as you want to, Bonnie. I’m at your service,” he said in an oddly formal tone.

Bonnie looked around Zander’s room with interest.

She’d never been here before; in fact, she’d had to cal him to find out what dorm he lived in, and how weird was that for a girlfriend to not know? But if she’d tried to picture what his room would be like, she would have assumed it would be messy and very guyish: old pizza boxes on the floor, dirty laundry, weird smel s. Maybe a poster with a half-naked girl on it. But, in fact, it was just the opposite. Everything was very bare and uncluttered: nothing on top of the school-issued dresser and desk, no pictures on the wal s or rug on the floor. The bed was neatly made.

The single bed. That they were both sitting on. Her and her boyfriend.

Bonnie felt a flush rise up over her face. She silently cursed her habit of blushing—she was sure that even her ears were bright red. She’d just asked her boyfriend if she could move into his room. And sure, he was gorgeous and lovely and kissing him was probably the most amazing experience of her life so far, but she’d just started kissing him last night. What if he thought she was suggesting something more?

Zander was eyeing her thoughtful y as Bonnie blushed.

“You know,” he said, “I can sleep on the floor. I’m not—um—

expecting—” He broke off and now he was blushing, too.

The sight of flustered Zander immediately made Bonnie feel better. She patted him on the arm. “I know,” she said. “I told Meredith and Elena you were a good guy.” Zander frowned. “What? Do they think I’m not?” When Bonnie didn’t answer, he slowly released her, leaning back to take a close look at her face. “Bonnie? When you had this big fight with your friends, were you fighting about me?” Bonnie shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Okay. Wow.” Zander ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I know Elena and I didn’t real y hit it off, but I’m sure we’l get along better when we get to know each other. This wil al blow over then. It’s not worth it to stop being friends with them.”

“It’s not—” Tears sprang into Bonnie’s eyes. Zander was being so sweet, and he had no idea how Elena and Meredith had wronged him. “I can’t tel you,” she said.

“Bonnie?” Zander pul ed her closer. “Don’t cry. It can’t be that bad.” Bonnie began to cry harder, tears streaming down her cheeks, and he held on to her. “Just tel me,” he said.

“It’s not that they just don’t like you, Zander,” she said between sobs. “They think you might be the kil er.”

“What? Why?” Zander recoiled, almost leaping across the bed away from her, his face white and shocked.

Bonnie explained what Meredith thought she saw, her impression of Zander’s hair beneath the hoodie of the attacker she chased off. “Which is so unfair,” she finished,

“because even if she did see what she thought she saw, it’s not like you’re the only person with real y light blond hair on campus. They’re being ridiculous.”

Zander sucked in a long breath, his eyes wide, and sat stil and silent for a few seconds. Then he reached out and put a gentle hand under Bonnie’s chin, turning her face so they were gazing straight into each other’s eyes.

“I would never hurt you, Bonnie,” he said slowly. “You know me, you see me. Do you think I’m a kil er?”

“No,” Bonnie said, her eyes fil ing with tears. “I don’t. I never did.”

Zander leaned forward and kissed her, his lips soft against hers, as if they were sealing some kind of pact.

Bonnie closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss.

She was fal ing in love with Zander, she knew. And, despite the fact that he had run off so suddenly last night, just before Samantha’s murder, she was sure he could never be a kil er.

30

“Cappuccino and a croissant?” the waitress said, and, at Elena’s nod, set them down on the table. Elena pushed her notebooks aside to make room. Midterms were coming up, on top of everything else that was happening. Elena had tried studying in her room but was too distracted by the sight of Bonnie’s empty bed. She and Meredith were al wrong without Bonnie.

She hadn’t gotten much done here at the café, either, despite getting one of the prime big outdoor tables that she could spread her books out on. She’d tried, but her mind kept circling back to Samantha’s death.

Samantha was such a nice girl, Elena thought. Elena remembered how her eyes lit up when she laughed and the way she bounced on the bal s of her feet as if she was bursting to move, run, dance, too ful of energy to sit stil .

Meredith didn’t make new friends that easily, but the wary coolness she usual y wore with strangers had relaxed around Samantha.

When Elena had left the dorm, Meredith was on the phone with Alaric. Maybe he would know what to say, how to comfort her. Unwil ing to break into their conversation, Elena left her a note indicating where she would be if Meredith needed her.

Stirring her coffee, Elena looked up to see Meredith coming toward her. The tal er girl sat down across from Elena and fixed her with her serious gray eyes. “Alaric says Dalcrest is a hot spot for paranormal activity,” she said.

“Black magic, vampires, werewolves, the whole package.” Elena nodded and added more sugar to her cup. “Just as Professor Campbel hinted,” she said thoughtful y. “I get the feeling he knows more than he’s saying.”

“You need to push him,” Meredith said tightly. “If he liked your parents so much, he’l feel like he has to tel you the truth. We don’t have time to waste.” She reached out and broke off a piece of Elena’s croissant. “Can I have this? I haven’t had anything to eat today, and I’m starting to feel dizzy.”

Looking at the strained lines on Meredith’s face, the dark shadows under her eyes, Elena felt a sharp stab of sympathy. “Of course,” she said, pushing the plate toward her. “I just cal ed Damon to come meet me.” She watched as Meredith decimated the croissant, stirring stil more sugar into her coffee. Elena felt in need of comfort.

It wasn’t long before they saw Damon sauntering down the street toward them, his hair sleek and perfect, his al -

black clothes casual y elegant, sunglasses on. Heads turned as he walked by, and Elena distinctly saw one girl miss her footing and fal off the curb.

“That was fast,” Elena said, as Damon pul ed out a chair and sat down.

“I’m fast,” Damon answered, “and you said it was important.”

“It is,” Elena said. “Our friend Samantha is dead.” Damon jerked his head in acknowledgment. “I know.

The police are al over campus. As if they’l be able to do anything.”

“What do you mean?” asked Meredith, glaring at him.

“Wel , these kil ings don’t exactly fal under the police’s agency, do they?” Damon reached out and plucked Elena’s coffee cup from her hand. He took a sip, then made a smal moue of distaste. “Darling, this is far too sweet.” Meredith’s hands were bal ing into fists, and Elena thought she had better speed things up. “Damon, if you know something about this, please tel us.” Damon handed her back her cappuccino and signaled the waitress to bring him one of his own. “To tel you the truth, darling, I don’t know much about Samantha’s death, or that of Mutt’s roommate, whatever his name was. I couldn’t get close enough to the bodies to have any real information. But I’ve found definite evidence that there are other vampires on campus. Sloppy ones.” His face twisted into the same expression he’d made after tasting Elena’s coffee. “Probably newly made, I’d guess. No technique at al .”

“What kind of evidence?” Meredith asked.

Damon looked surprised. “Bodies of course. Very poorly disposed of bodies. Shal ow graves, bonfires, that kind of thing.”

Elena frowned. “So the people who have disappeared were kil ed by vampires?”

Damon wagged a finger at her teasingly. “I didn’t say that. The bodies I examined—and let me tel you, digging up a shal ow grave was real y a first for me—were not the same ones that vanished from campus. I don’t know if your missing students were kil ed by vampires or not, but somebody else was. Several somebodies. I’ve been trying to find these vampires, but I haven’t had any luck. Yet.” Meredith, who normal y would have jumped on Damon’s comment about this being his first time digging up a grave, looked thoughtful. “I saw Samantha’s body,” she said hesitantly. “It didn’t look like a typical vampire attack to me.

And from the way Matt described Christopher’s body, I don’t think his did, either. They were”—she took a deep breath—“mauled. Torn apart.”

“It could be a pack of real y angry vampires, or messy ones,” Damon said. “Or werewolves might be vicious like that. It’s more their style.” The waitress appeared with his cappuccino, and he thanked her graciously. She retreated, blushing.

“There’s another thing,” Elena said once the waitress was out of hearing range. She glanced inquiringly at Meredith, who nodded at her. “We’re worried about Bonnie and her new boyfriend.” Quickly, she outlined the reasons they had for being suspicious of Zander and Bonnie’s reaction to their concerns.

Damon raised one eyebrow as he finished his drink.

“So you think the little redbird’s suitor might be dangerous?” He smiled. “I’l look into it, princess. Don’t worry.”

Dropping a few dol ars on the table, he rose and sauntered across the street, disappearing into a grove of maples. A few minutes later, a large black crow with shining iridescent feathers rose above the trees, flapping its wings powerful y. It gave a raucous caw and flew away.

“That was surprisingly helpful of him,” Meredith said. Her face was stil tired and drawn, but her voice was interested.

Elena didn’t have to look up to know that her friend was watching her speculatively. Eyes demurely downward, feeling her cheeks flush pink, she took another sip of her cappuccino. Damon was right. It was much too sweet.

31

Why do they always want to be on top of buildings?

Bonnie thought irritably. Inside. Inside is nice. No one falls to their death if they’re inside a building. But here we are.

Stargazing from the top of the science building while on a date with Zander was romantic. Bonnie would be al for another little nighttime picnic, just the two of them. But partying on a different roof with a bunch of Zander’s friends was not romantic, not even slightly.

She took a sip of her drink and moved out of the way without even looking as she heard the smack of bodies hitting the ground and the grunts of guys wrestling. After two days of living with Zander, she was beginning to get the names of his friends straight: Tristan and Marcus were the ones rol ing around on the floor with Zander. Jonah, Camden, and Spencer were doing something they cal ed parkour, which mostly seemed to involve running around like idiots and almost fal ing off the roof. Enrique, Jared, Daniel, and Chad were al playing an elaborate drinking game in the corner. There were a few more guys who hung around sometimes, but this was the core group.

She liked them, she real y did. Most of the time. They were boisterous, sure, but they were always very nice to her: getting her drinks, immediately handing her their jackets if she was cold, tel ing her that they had no idea what she saw in a loser like Zander, which was clearly their guy way of declaring how much they loved him and that they were happy he had a girlfriend.

She looked over at Zander, who was laughing as he held Tristan in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles over the top of Tristan’s head. “Do you give in?” he said, and grunted in surprise as Marcus, whooping joyful y, tackled them both.

It would have been easier if there were other girls around that she could get to know. If Marcus (who was very cute in a giant shaggy-haired Sasquatch kind of way) or Spencer (who had the kind of preppy rich-boy elegance that some girls found extremely attractive) had a regular girlfriend, Bonnie would have someone to exchange wry glances with as the guys acted like doofuses.

But, even though a girl would occasional y appear clinging to the arm of one of the guys, Bonnie would never see her again after that night. Except for Bonnie, Zander seemed to travel in an almost exclusively masculine world.

And, after two days of fol owing the macho parade around town, Bonnie was starting to get sick of it. She missed having girls to talk to. She missed Elena and Meredith, specifical y, even though she was stil mad at them.

“Hey,” she said, making her way over to Zander. “Want to get out of here for a while?”

Zander wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Um.

Why?” he asked, leaning down to kiss her neck.

Bonnie rol ed her eyes. “It’s kind of loud, don’t you think?

We could go for a nice quiet walk or something.” Zander looked surprised but nodded. “Sure, whatever you want.”

They made their way down the fire escape, fol owed by a few shouts from Zander’s friends, who seemed to think he was going on a food run and would shortly return with hot wings and tacos.

Once they were a block away from the rooftop party, the noise faded and it was peaceful, except for the distant sound of an occasional car on the roads nearby. Bonnie knew she ought to feel creeped out, walking around at night on campus, but she didn’t. Not with Zander’s hand in hers.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Bonnie said happily, gazing up at the half moon overhead.

“Yeah,” Zander said, swinging her hand between them.

“You know, I used to go on long walks—runs, real y—with my dad at night. Way out in the country, in the moonlight. I love being outside at night.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Bonnie said. “Do you guys stil do that when you’re home?”

“No.” Zander hesitated and hunched his shoulders, his hair hanging in his face. Bonnie couldn’t read his expression. “My dad … he died. A while ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bonnie said sincerely, squeezing his hand.

“I’m okay,” Zander said, stil staring at his shoes. “But, y’know, I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and the guys have sort of become like a family to me. I know they can be a pain sometimes, but they’re real y good guys. And they’re important to me.” He glanced at Bonnie out of the corner of his eyes.

He looked so apprehensive, Bonnie felt a sharp pang of affection for him. It was sweet that Zander and his friends were so close—that must have been the family stuff he had to deal with the other night. He was loyal, that much she knew. “Zander,” she said. “I know they’re important to you. I don’t want to take you away from your friends, you goof.” She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Maybe just for an hour or two sometimes, but not for long, I promise.” Zander returned the kiss with enthusiasm, and Bonnie tingled al the way down to her toes.

Clinging to each other, they made their way to a bench by the side of the path and sat down to kiss some more.

Zander just felt so good under her hands, al sleek muscles and smooth skin, and Bonnie ran her hands across his shoulders, along his arms, down his sides.

At her touch, Zander suddenly winced.

“What’s the matter?” she said, lifting her head away from his.

“Nothing,” said Zander, reaching for her. “I was just messing around with the guys, you know. They play rough.”

“Let me see,” Bonnie said, grabbing at the hem of his shirt, half concerned and half wanting to just check out Zander’s abs. He had turned out to be surprisingly modest, considering they were sharing a room.

Wincing again, he sucked his breath in through his teeth as Bonnie lifted his shirt. She gasped. Zander’s whole side was covered with ugly black-and-purple bruises.

“Zander,” Bonnie said horrified, “these look real y bad.

You don’t get bruises like that just messing around.” They look like you were fighting for your life—or someone else was, she thought, and pushed away the words.

“They’re nothing. Don’t worry,” Zander said, tugging his shirt back down. He started to wrap his arms around her again, but Bonnie moved away, feeling vaguely sickened.

“I wish you’d tel me what happened,” she said.

“I did,” Zander said comfortingly. “You know how crazy those guys get.”

It was true, she’d never known guys so rowdy. Zander reached for her again, and this time Bonnie moved closer to him, turning her face up for his kiss. As their lips met, she remembered Zander’s saying to her, “You know me. You see me.”

She did know him, Bonnie told herself. She could trust Zander.

Across the street, Damon stood in the shadow of a tree, watching Bonnie kiss Zander.

He had to admit he felt a little pang, seeing her in the arms of someone else. There was something so sweet about Bonnie, and she was brave and intel igent under that cotton-candy exterior. The witchy angle added a little touch of spice to her, too. He’d always thought of her as his.

Then again, didn’t the little redbird deserve someone of her own? As much as Damon liked her, he didn’t love her, he knew that. Seeing the lanky boy’s face light up in response to her smile, he thought maybe this one would.

After making out for a few more minutes, Bonnie and Zander stood up and wandered, hand in hand, toward what Damon knew was Zander’s dorm. Damon trailed them, keeping to the shadows.

He huffed out a breath of self-mocking laughter. I’m getting soft in my old age, he thought. Back in the old days he would have eaten Bonnie without a second thought, and here he was worrying about her love life.

Stil , it would be nice if the little redhead could be happy.

If her boyfriend wasn’t a threat.

Damon ful y expected the happy couple to disappear into the dorm together. Instead, Zander kissed Bonnie good-bye and watched as she went inside, then headed back out. Damon fol owed him, keeping hidden, as he went back to the party where they’d been before. A few minutes later, Zander came down again, trailed by his pack of noisy boys.

Damon twitched in irritation. God save me from college boys, he thought. They were probably going to gorge themselves on greasy bar food. After a couple of days of watching Zander, he was ready to go back to Elena and report that the boy was guilty of nothing more than being uncouth.

Instead of heading toward the nearest bar, though, the boys jogged across campus, quick and determined, as if they had an important destination in mind. Reaching the edge of campus, they headed into the woods.

Damon gave them a few seconds and then fol owed.

He was good at this, he was a predator, a natural hunter, and so it took him a few minutes of listening, of sending his Power out, of final y just racing through the woods, black branches snapping before him, to realize that Zander and his boys were gone.

Final y, Damon stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath. The woods were silent except for the innocent sound of various woodland creatures going about their business and his own ragged panting. That pack of noisy, obnoxious children had escaped him, disappearing without the slightest trace. He gritted his teeth and tamped down his anger at being evaded, until it was mostly curiosity about how they’d done it.

Poor Bonnie, Damon thought as he fastidiously smoothed and adjusted his clothing. One thing was abundantly clear: Zander and his friends weren’t entirely human.

Stefan twitched. This was al just kind of strange.

He was sitting in a velvet-backed chair in a huge underground room, as col ege students roamed around arranging flowers and candles. The room was impressive, Stefan would give them that: cavernous yet elegant. But the little arrangements of flowers seemed chintzy and false somehow, like a stage set in the Vatican. And the black-masked figures lurking in the back of the room, watching, were giving him the jitters.

Matt had cal ed him to tel him about some kind of col ege secret society that he’d joined, and that the leader wanted Stefan to join, too. Stefan agreed to meet him and talk about it. He never was much of a joiner, but he liked Matt, and it was something to do.

It would take his mind off Elena, he’d thought. Lurking around campus—and it felt like lurking, when he saw Elena, with the way his eyes were irresistibly drawn to her even as he hurried out of sight—he’d watched her. Sometimes she was with Damon. Stefan’s fingernails bit into his palms.

Consciously relaxing, he turned his attention back to Ethan, who was sitting across a smal table from him.

“The members of the Vitale Society hold a very special place in the world,” he was saying, leaning forward, smiling.

“Only the best of the best can hope to be tapped, and the qualities we look for I think are very wel exemplified in you, Stefan.”

Stefan nodded politely and let his mind drift again.

Secret societies were something he actual y knew a little about. Sir Walter Raleigh’s School of Night in Elizabethan England wrestled with what was then forbidden knowledge: science and philosophy the church declared out of bounds.

Il Carbonari back home in Italy worked to encourage revolt against the government of the various city-states, aiming for a unification of al of Italy. Damon, Stefan knew, toyed with the members of the Hel fire Club in London for a few months in the 1700s, until he got bored with their posturing and childish blasphemy.

Al those secret societies, though, had some kind of purpose. Rebel ing against conventional morality, pursuing truth, revolution.

Stefan leaned forward. “Pardon me,” he said politely,

“but what is the point of the Vitale Society?” Ethan paused midspeech to stare at him, then wet his lips. “Wel ,” he said slowly, “the real secrets and rituals of the Society can’t be unveiled to outsiders. None of the pledges know our true practices and purposes, not yet. But I can tel you that there are innumerable benefits to being one of us. Travel, adventure, power.”

“None of the pledges know your real purpose?” Stefan asked. His natural inclination to stay away was becoming more resolute. “Why don’t you wear a mask like the others?”

Ethan looked surprised. “I’m the face of the Vitale for the pledges,” he said simply. “They’l need someone they know to guide them.”

Stefan made up his mind. He didn’t want to be guided.

“I apologize, Ethan,” he said formal y, “but I don’t think I would be an appropriate candidate for your organization. I appreciate the invitation.” He started to rise.

“Wait,” said Ethan. His eyes were wide and golden and had a hungry, eager expression in them. “Wait,” he said, licking his lips again. “We … we have a copy of Pico del a Mirandola’s De hominis dignitate.” He stumbled over the words as if he didn’t quite know what they were. “An old one, from Florence, a first edition. You’d get to read it. You could have it if you wanted.”

Stefan stiffened. He had studied Mirandola’s work on reason and philosophy with enthusiasm back when he was stil alive, when he was a young man preparing for the university. He had a sudden visceral longing to feel the old leather and parchment, see the blocky type from the first days of the printing press, so much more right somehow than the modern computer-set books. There was no way Ethan should have known to offer him that specific book.

His eyes narrowed.

“What makes you think I’d want that?” he hissed, leaning across the table toward Ethan. He could feel Power surging through him, fueled by his rage, but Ethan wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I … you told me you like old books, Stefan,” he said, and gave a little false laugh, gazing down at the tabletop. “I thought you would be interested.”

“No, thank you,” Stefan said, low and angry. He couldn’t force Ethan to look him in the eye, not with al these people around, so after a moment, he stood. “I refuse your offer,” he told Ethan shortly. “Good-bye.”

He walked to the door without looking back, holding himself straight and tal . He glanced at Matt, who was talking to another student, as he reached the door and, when Matt met his eyes, gave him a shrug and a shake of the head, trying to telegraph an apology. Matt nodded, disappointed but not arguing.

No one tried to stop Stefan as he left the room. But he had a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was something wrong here. He didn’t know enough to dissuade Matt from joining, but he decided to keep tabs on the Vitale Society. As he shut the door behind him, he could sense Ethan watching him.

32

Moonlight shone in the window, iluminating a long swath of Elena’s bed. Meredith had tossed and turned for a while, but now Elena could hear her steady breathing. It was good that Meredith was sleeping. She was exhausting herself: working out constantly, patrol ing every night, making sure al her weapons were in prime condition, wild with frustration that they weren’t able to find any solid clues as to the kil er’s identity.

But it was lonely being the only one awake.

Elena stretched her legs under the sheets and flipped over her pil ow to rest her head on the cooler side.

Branches tapped against the window, and Elena wiggled her shoulders against the mattress, trying to calm her busy mind. She wished Bonnie would come home.

The tapping on the window came again, then again, sharp peremptory raps.

Slowly, it dawned on Elena, a little late, that there weren’t any trees whose branches touched that window.

Heart pounding, she sat up with a gasp.

Eyes black as night peered in the window, skin as pale as the moonlight. It took Elena’s brain a minute to start working again, but then she was out of bed and opening the window. He was so quick and graceful that by the time she shut the window and turned around, Damon was seated on her bed, leaning back on his elbows and looking total y at ease.

“Some vampire hunter she is,” he said cool y, looking over at Meredith as she made a soft whuffling sound into her pil ow. His gaze, though, was almost affectionate.

“That’s not fair,” Elena said. “She’s exhausted.”

“Someday her life might depend on her staying alert even when she’s exhausted,” Damon said pointedly.

“Okay, but today is not that day,” Elena said. “Leave Meredith alone and tel me what you’ve found out about Zander.” Sitting down cross-legged on the bed next to him, she leaned forward to give Damon her ful attention.

Damon took her hand, slowly interlacing his fingers with hers. “I haven’t learned anything definite,” he said, “but I have suspicions.”

“What do you mean?” Elena said, distracted. Damon was stroking her arm lightly with his other hand, feather touches, and she realized he was watching her closely, waiting to see if she would object. Inwardly, she shrugged a little. What did it matter, after al ? Stefan had left her; there was no reason now to push Damon away. She glanced over at Meredith, but the dark-haired girl was stil deeply asleep.

Damon’s dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. He seemed to sense what she was thinking, because he leaned closer to her on the bed, pul ing her snugly against him. “I need to investigate a little more,” Damon said.

“There’s definitely something off about him and those boys he runs around with. They’re too fast, for one thing. But I don’t think Bonnie’s in any immediate danger.” Elena stiffened in his arms. “What proof do you have of that?” she asked. “And it’s not just Bonnie. If anyone’s in danger, they have to be our top priority.”

“I’l watch them, don’t worry.” He chuckled, a dry, intimate sound. “He and Bonnie are certainly getting close.

She seems besotted.”

Elena twisted away from his careful hands, feeling anxious. “If he could be dangerous, if there’s anything off about him the way you say, we have to warn her about him.

We can’t just sit by watching and waiting for him to do something wrong. By then, it might be too late.” Damon pul ed her back to him, his hand flat and steady against her side. “You already tried warning Bonnie, and that didn’t work, did it? Why would she listen to you now that she’s spent more time with him, bonding with him, and nothing bad’s happened to her?” He shook his head. “It won’t work, princess.”

“I just wish we could do something,” Elena said miserably.

“If I had gotten a look at the bodies,” Damon said thoughtful y, “I might have more of an idea of what could be behind this. I suppose breaking into the morgue is out of the question?”

Elena considered this. “I think they’ve probably released the bodies by now,” she said doubtful y, “and I’m not sure where they’d take them next. Wait!” She sat up straight.

“The campus security office would have something, wouldn’t they? Records, or maybe even pictures of Christopher’s and Samantha’s bodies? The campus officers were al over the crime scenes before the police got there.”

“We can check it out tomorrow, certainly,” Damon said casual y. “If it wil make you feel better.” His voice and expression were almost disinterested, provokingly so, and once again, Elena felt the strange mixture of desire and irritation that Damon often sparked in her. She wanted to shove him away and pul him closer at the same time.

She had almost decided on shoving him away when he turned to look her ful in the face. “My poor Elena,” he said in a soothing murmur, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. He ran a soft hand up her arm, shoulder, and neck, coming to rest gently against her jawline. “You can’t get away from the dark creatures, can you, Elena? No matter how you try.

Come to a new place, find a new monster.” He stroked her face with one finger. His words were almost mocking, but his voice was gentle and his eyes shone with emotion.

Elena pressed her cheek against his hand. Damon was elegant and clever, and something in him spoke to the dark, secret part of her. She couldn’t deny that she was drawn to him—that she’d always been drawn to him, even when they first met and he scared her. And Elena had loved him since that winter night when she awoke as a vampire and he cared for her, protected her, and taught her what she needed to know.

Stefan had left her. There was no reason why she shouldn’t do this. “I don’t always want to get away from the dark creatures, Damon,” she said.

He was silent for a moment, his hand stroking her cheek automatical y, and then he kissed her. His lips were like cool silk against hers, and Elena felt as if she had been wandering for hours in a desert and had final y been given a cold drink of water.

She kissed him harder, letting go of his hand to twine her fingers through his soft hair.

Pul ing away from her mouth, Damon kissed her neck gently, waiting for permission. Elena dropped her head back to give him better access. She heard Damon’s breath hiss through his teeth, and he looked into her eyes for a moment, his face soft and more open than she’d ever seen it, before he lowered his face to her neck again.

The twin wasp stings of his fangs hurt for a moment, and then she was sliding through darkness, fol owing a ribbon of aching pleasure that led her through the night, led her to Damon. She felt his joy and wonder at having her in his arms without guilt, without reserve. In return she let him feel her happiness in him and her confusion over wanting him and stil loving Stefan, her pain at Stefan’s absence. There was no guilt, not now, but there was a huge Stefan-shaped hole in her heart, and she let Damon see it.

It’s all right, Elena, she felt from him, not quite in words, but in a rock-solid contentment, like the purr of a cat. All I want is this.

33

Ethan was, Matt observed, totaly freaking out. The guy’s usual cheerful composure had worn off, and he was supervising the initiation arrangements with the intensity of a dril sergeant.

“No!” he snarled from across the room. He darted over and slapped the leg of a girl who was standing on a chair and weaving roses through the welded metal V at the top of the central arch.

“Ouch!” she yel ed, dropping the roses to the floor.

“Ethan, what is your problem?”

“We don’t put anything on the V, Lorelai,” he told her coldly, and bent to pick up the flowers. “You must respect the symbols of the Vitale Society. It’s a matter of honor.

When our leader final y joins us, we must demonstrate to him that we are disciplined, that we are capable.” He shoved the roses back into her hands. “We don’t do that by draping garbage al over the symbol of our organization.” Lorelai stared at him. “I’m sorry. But I thought you were the leader of the Vitale Society, Ethan.” Everyone had stopped working to watch Ethan’s melt-down. Noticing that he was the center of attention, Ethan breathed deeply, clearly trying to regain his composure.

Final y he addressed them al , biting off his words sharply. “I am trying to prepare you al , and to prepare this chamber, for the initiation ceremony. For you.” His voice was steadily rising as he glared around at them. “And this is when I learn that, despite al your promise, you’re a bunch of incompetents. You can’t even place a candle or mix some herbs without my help. We’re running out of time, and I might as wel just be doing everything myself.” Matt glanced around at the other pledges. Their faces were shocked and wary. Like him, al along they had been looking up to Ethan and were flattered and encouraged by his praise. Now their role model had turned on them, and no one seemed to know how to react. Chloe, setting out candles by the arch, was anxious, her lips pressed together tightly. She looked quickly at Matt and then away, back toward Ethan.

“Just tel us what you want us to do, Ethan,” Matt said, stepping forward. He tried to keep his voice level and soothing. “We’l do our best to make everything perfect.” Ethan glowered at him. “You couldn’t even get your friend Stefan to join us,” he said bitterly. “One simple task, and you failed.”

“Hey,” Matt said, offended. “That’s not fair. I got Stefan to come talk to you. If he’s not interested, that’s his decision. He doesn’t have to join us.”

“I question your commitment to the Vitale Society, Matt,” Ethan said flatly. “And the conversation with Stefan Salvatore is not over.” He walked straight past Matt, glancing briefly at the rest of the pledges gathered around him. “There’s not much time, everyone. Get back to work.” Matt could feel the beginnings of a headache starting at his temples. For the first time, he wondered if maybe he didn’t want to join the Vitale Society after al .

“I could have this door open in a single second,” Damon said irritably. “Instead we stand here, waiting.” Meredith sighed and careful y wiggled the bobby pin in the lock. “If you force the door open, Damon, they’l know right away that someone broke into the campus security office. By picking the lock instead, we can keep a low profile. Okay?” The bobby pin caught on something, and she careful y slid it upward, trying to turn it to catch the pins of the lock so she could move the tumbler. Then the bobby pin bent, and she lost the angle. She groaned and dug into her bag for another bobby pin. “Twenty-seven weapons,” she grumbled. “I brought twenty-seven separate weapons to col ege and not a single lock pick.”

“Wel , you couldn’t be prepared for everything,” Elena said. “What about using a credit card?”

“Being prepared for everything is sort of my job description,” Meredith muttered. She sat back on her heels and stared at the door. The lock was pretty flimsy: not only Damon but either she or Elena could have easily forced it open. And yes, a credit card or something similar probably would work just fine. Dropping the bobby pin into her open bag, she took out her wal et instead and found her student ID.

The ID slid right into the crack between the door and the doorjamb, she gave it a careful little wiggle, and, bingo, she was able to easily slide the lock back and pul the door open. Meredith smiled over her shoulder at Elena, arching one eyebrow. “That was strangely satisfying,” she said.

Once they were inside and the door was locked again behind them, Meredith checked to make sure the windows were covered, then flicked on the lights.

The security office was simply furnished: white wal s, two desks, each with a computer, one with a forgotten half cup of coffee on top, and a filing cabinet. There was a dying plant on the windowsil , its leaves dry and browning.

“We’re sure that none of the officers are going to show up and catch us?” Elena asked nervously.

“I told you, I checked their routine,” Meredith answered.

“After eight o’clock, al but one of the security guards on duty is patrol ing the campus. The one who isn’t is sitting in the downstairs lobby of the administration building, keeping in radio contact with the others and helping students who lock themselves out of their dorms and stuff.”

“Wel , let’s get it over with,” Damon said. “I don’t particularly relish the idea of spending the whole evening in this dismal little hole.”

His voice sounded both wel bred and bored, as usual, but there was something different about him. He was standing very close to Elena, so close that his arm was brushing against hers, and, as Meredith watched, his hand came up to touch Elena’s back very lightly, just with his fingertips. There was a slight secretive curve to his mouth, almost as if Damon was even more pleased with himself than usual.

“Wel ?” he asked, gazing back at Meredith. “What now, hunter?”

Elena stepped away from him and knelt in front of the filing cabinet before Meredith could answer, sliding the top drawer open. “What was Samantha’s last name? Her file’s probably under that.”

“Dixon,” Meredith told her, pushing away the little shock she kept getting whenever anyone referred to Samantha in the past tense. It was just … she’d been so ful of life. “And Christopher’s was Nowicki.”

Elena rifled through the files in both drawers, pul ing out first one thick folder and then a second. “Got them.” She opened Samantha’s folder and made a sick little sound in her throat. “They’re … worse than I thought,” she said, her voice shaking as she looked at pictures from the murder scene. She turned over a few pages. “And here’s the coroner’s report. It says she died from blood loss.”

“Let me see,” Meredith said. She took the file and made herself study the crime scene pictures to see if she had missed anything when she was there. Her eyes kept flinching away from Sam’s poor defenseless body, so she swal owed hard and focused on the areas away from the body, the floor, the wal s of Samantha’s room. “Blood loss because she was kil ed by a vampire? Or because there’s so much blood everywhere else?” She was proud of how steady her own voice was, steadier than Elena’s anyway.

She held out the folder toward Damon. “What do you think?” she asked.

Damon took the folder and studied the photos dispassionately, flipping a few pages to read the coroner’s report. Then he held out his hand to Elena for Christopher’s file and looked through that one as wel .

“I can’t tel anything for certain,” he said after a few minutes. “Just like with the bodies I found, they could have been kil ed by werewolves, who are primitive like this. Or it could have been sloppy vampires. Demons, easily. Even humans could do this, if they were sufficiently motivated.” Elena made a soft sound of denial, and Damon flashed his bril iant sudden grin at her. “Oh, don’t forget that humans can come up with far more creative means of violence than some simple hungry monsters do, sweetheart.” Serious again, he looked down at the photographs once more. “I can tel you, though, that more than one creature—or person—was responsible.”

His finger traced a line across one of the pictures, and Meredith forced herself to look. Bloodstains were spattered in wide arcs across the room, beyond Samantha’s outstretched arms. “See the way the blood sprayed here?” Damon asked. “Someone held her hands and someone else held her feet, and at least one other, maybe more, kil ed her.” He flipped open Christopher’s folder again.

“Same thing. This might be evidence that werewolves are the culprits, since they like to travel in packs, but it isn’t firm proof. You can get groups of almost anything. Even vampires: they’re not al as self-sufficient as I am.”

“Matt saw only one person—or whatever—near Chris’s body, though,” Elena pointed out. “And he got there real y soon after Christopher screamed.”

Damon waved a disparaging hand. “So they were fast,” he said. “A vampire could do it before a human had time to even react to the scream. Almost anything supernatural could. Speed comes with the package.”

Meredith shuddered. “A whole pack of something,” she said numbly. “One would have been bad enough.”

“A pack’s much worse,” Damon agreed. “Are you ready to go now?”

“We’d better check and see if there’s anything else and then clean up,” Elena said. “Do you want to stand guard outside? I feel like we’re real y tempting fate by staying here so long. You could give some kind of signal if you see someone coming or use your Power to get rid of them.

Please?”

Damon smiled at her flirtatiously. “I’l be your watchdog, princess, but only because it’s you.”

Meredith waited until he left to say dryly, “Speaking of dogs, remember when Damon kil ed Bonnie’s pet pug?” Elena opened the top file drawer again and started going through it methodical y. “I don’t want to talk about this, Meredith. It was Katherine who kil ed Yangtze, anyway.”

“I just don’t think you realize what you’re getting into here,” Meredith said. “Damon’s not terrific relationship material.”

Elena’s hands faltered in their efficient progress. “I don’t

… it’s not like that,” she said. “It’s not a relationship, I don’t want a relationship with anyone but Stefan.” Meredith frowned, confused. “Wel , then, what—”

“It’s complicated,” Elena said. “I care about Damon, you know that. I’m seeing where things might go with him.

There’s something between us, there always has been.

With Stefan gone”—her voice cracked—“I have to give it a chance. Just … just let it alone for now, okay?” She picked up Samantha’s folder to put it back in the drawer. Her lips were trembling, and Meredith was about to pursue the subject: she wasn’t going to let it alone. Not when Elena was upset and somehow involved—more involved than she had been before—with Damon the dangerous vampire. But Elena interrupted her. “Huh,” she said. “What do you think this means?”

Meredith craned to see what she was talking about, and Elena pointed. On the inside front of Samantha’s file was written a large black V. She picked up Christopher’s file.

“This one, too,” she said, showing Elena.

“Vampires?” Elena asked. “The Vitale Society? What else starts with V and might have to do with these murders?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith started to say, when they suddenly heard the rumble of a car engine pul ing up outside the building. A raucous caw came through the window.

“That’s Damon,” Elena said, shoving Christopher’s file back into the cabinet. “If we don’t want him to have to compel the whole security force, we’d better get out of here fast.”

34

“I like your place,” Elena told Damon, looking around.

She’d been mildly surprised when he invited her to dinner. A conventional date wasn’t something she ever associated with Damon, but on her way over she had been tingling with excitement and curiosity. Despite having lived in the same palace as Damon in the Dark Dimension, she had never seen a home he’d made for himself. For al his brashness, she realized, Damon was oddly private.

She would have expected his apartment to be gothical y decorated in blacks and reds, like the vampire manors she’d visited in the Dark Dimension. But it wasn’t like that at al . Instead, it was minimalist, sleek and elegant in its simplicity, with clean pale wal s, lots of windows, furniture in glass and metal, and soft cool colors.

It suited him somehow. If you didn’t look too deeply into his dark, ancient eyes, he could have been a handsome young model or architect, clad in fashionable black, firmly rooted in the modern world.

But not entirely modern. Elena paused in the living room to admire the view over the town: stars sparkled in the sky above the muted lights of houses and car headlights on the roads. On a glass-and-chrome table below the window, something else sparkled just as brightly.

“What’s this?” she asked, picking it up. It looked like a golden bal overlaid with a tracery of diamonds, just the right size to fit comfortably in her palm.

“A treasure,” Damon said, smiling. “See if you can find the catch on the side.”

Elena felt the sphere with careful fingers, final y finding a cleverly concealed catch and pressing it. The bal unfolded in her hands, revealing a smal golden figure. A hummingbird, Elena saw, holding it up to inspect it, the gold chased with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.

“Wind the key,” Damon said, coming to stand behind her, one cool hand on each of her sides. Elena found the smal key low on the back of the bird and turned it. The bird arched its neck and spread its wings, moving slowly and smoothly, as a delicate tune began to play.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Made for a princess,” Damon told her, his eyes fixed on the bird. “A dainty little toy, from Russia before the revolution. They had craftsmen there in those days. A fun place to be, too, if you weren’t a peasant. Palaces, feasts, and riding through the snow in sleighs piled with furs.”

“You were in Russia during the revolution?” Elena asked.

Damon laughed, a dry sharp little sound. “I was there before the revolution, darling. ‘Get out before things go bad,’ that’s always been my motto. I never cared enough to stay and see things through til the end. Before I met you, anyway.”

As the music stopped playing, Elena half turned, wanting to see Damon’s face. He smiled at her and reached to take her hand, closing the bird back into its sphere. “Keep it,” he said. Elena tried to protest—it was surely priceless—but Damon shrugged a little. “I want you to have it,” he said. “Besides, I have a lot of treasures. You tend to accumulate things when you live several lifetimes.” He ushered her into the dining room, where the table was set for one. “Are you hungry, princess?” he asked. “I had food brought in for you.”

He served her an amazing soup—something she didn’t recognize that was smooth and velvety on her tongue, with just a hint of spice—fol owed by a tiny roast bird, which Elena dissected careful y with her fork, its smal bones cracking. Damon didn’t eat, he never ate, but he sipped a glass of wine and watched Elena, smiling as she told him about her classes, nodding seriously as she told him about the tol that patrol ing every night was taking on Meredith.

“This was wonderful,” she said at last, stil picking at the rich flourless chocolate tart he’d brought out for dessert. “I think it’s the best meal I’ve ever had.” Damon smiled. “I want to give you the best of everything,” he said. “You should have the world at your feet, you know.”

Something in Elena stirred. She put her fork down and rose, walking over to the window to gaze out at the stars again. “You’ve been everywhere, haven’t you, Damon?” she asked. She pressed her palm against the glass.

Damon came up close behind her and pul ed her to face him, gently stroking her hair. “Oh, Elena,” he said. “I have been everywhere, but the thing about the world is that it keeps changing, so it’s always new and exciting. There are so many places I want to show you, to see them through your eyes. There’s so much out there, so much life to live.” He kissed her neck, his canines pushing gently against the vein on the side of her throat, then put his hands on her hips, turning her back toward the window, where a spread of stars glowed against the night. “Most people never even see a tenth of what the human world holds,” he murmured in her ear. “Be extraordinary with me, Elena.” His breath was warm on her throat. “Be my dark princess.” Elena leaned against him, trembling.

Dear Diary,

I don’t know who I am anymore.

Tonight, with Damon, I could almost picture my life if I took what he offered me, became his “dark princess.” The two of us, hand in hand, strong and beautiful and free. Everything I wanted without having to lift a finger, from jewels to clothes to wonderful food. A life above the concerns I used to have, somewhere far away. Experiencing and seeing wonders I can’t even imagine.

It would have to be a world without Stefan, though. He’s shut me out, utterly. But seeing me with Damon—not just kissing, but being who Damon wants me to be—would hurt him, I know.

And I can’t stand to do that anymore.

It’s like there are two paths in front of me. One goes into the daylight, and it’s the ordinary girl I thought I wanted to be: parties and classes and eventually a job and a house and a normal life.

Stefan wants to give me that. The other is in the darkness, with Damon, and I’m just starting to realize how much that world has to offer, and how much I want to experience everything it holds.

I always thought Stefan would be with me on the daylit path. But now I’ve lost him, and that path seems so lonely. Maybe the dark path really is my future. Maybe Damon is right, and I belong with him, in the night.

“I can’t wait to see my surprise.” Bonnie giggled as she and Zander crossed the lawn of the science building hand in hand. “You’re so romantic. Wait til I tel the guys.” Zander brushed a feather-light kiss across her cheek, his lips warm. “They already know I’ve lost al my cool guy points for you. I sang karaoke with you last night.” Bonnie snickered. “Wel , after I introduced you to Dirty Dancing, we had to sing the big duet, right? I can’t believe you’d never seen that movie before.”

“It’s because I used to be manly,” Zander admitted. “But now I’ve seen the error of my ways.” He gave her one of his slow smiles, and Bonnie’s knees nearly buckled. “It was a cute movie.”

They reached the bottom of the fire escape, and Zander boosted her up and then climbed after her. When they got to the roof, Zander gestured expansively at the scene before them. “For our six-week anniversary, Bonnie, a re-creation of our first date.”

“Oh! That’s so sweet!” Bonnie looked around. There was the ragged army blanket, covered with the pizza box and sodas. The stars shone overhead, just as they had six weeks ago. It was sweet; it was a romantic idea even if their first date hadn’t been al that amazing. Then she corrected herself: it had actual y been a pretty amazing date, even though it had been simple.

She took a seat on the blanket, then peeked into the pizza box and involuntarily grinned. Olive, sausage, and mushroom. Her favorite. “At least one improvement in the re-creation, though, I see.”

Zander sat next to her and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Of course I know what you like on your pizza now,” he said. “Got to pay attention to my girl.” Bonnie snuggled up under his arm, and they shared the pizza, gazing at the stars and talking cozily about this and that. When the pizza was al gone, Zander wiped his greasy hands careful y with a napkin, then took both of Bonnie’s hands in his. “I need to talk to you,” he said seriously, his sky-blue eyes intent on hers.

“Okay,” Bonnie said nervously, a flash of panic starting in her stomach. Surely Zander wouldn’t have brought her al the way up here and re-created their first date if he was planning to dump her, would he? No, that was a ridiculous idea. But he looked so solemn and worried. “You’re not sick, are you?” she asked, horrified by the idea.

The corner of Zander’s mouth twitched up into a smile.

“You’re so funny, Bonnie,” he said. “You just say whatever pops into your head. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.” Bonnie’s heart leaped into her throat, and she felt her cheeks flush. Zander loved her?

Zander got serious again. “I mean it,” he said. “I know it’s real y early, and you don’t have to feel like you need to say something back, but I wanted you to know that I’m fal ing in love with you. You’re amazing. I’ve never felt like this before. Never.”

Tears of happy surprise sprang into Bonnie’s eyes, and she sniffed, squeezing Zander’s hands tightly. “I feel it, too,” she said in a tiny voice. “These last few weeks have been amazing. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun as I do with you. We get each other, you know?” They kissed, a long, slow, sweet kiss. Bonnie leaned against Zander and sighed contentedly. She’d never been so comfortable. Then Zander pul ed away.

Bonnie reached out for him, but Zander took her hands again and gazed into her eyes. “It’s because I’m fal ing in love with you,” he said slowly, “that I have to tel you something. You have the right to know.” He squeezed his eyes closed tightly for a moment, then opened them again, looking at Bonnie as if he wanted to climb into her head and find out how she was going to react to what he said next. “I’m a werewolf,” he said flatly.

Bonnie sat frozen for a minute, her mind scrambling to understand. Then she shrieked and pul ed her hands away from him, jumping to her feet. “Oh no,” she gasped. “Oh my God.” Images were rushing through her mind: Tyler Smal wood’s face twisting, grotesquely lengthening into a muzzle, his newly yel ow and slit-pupiled eyes glaring at her with vicious, bloodthirsty hatred. Meredith crumpled on her bed like an abandoned dol , blank-eyed as she told them how Samantha’s body had been mauled. The flash of white-blond hair Meredith had seen when she chased a dark-clad figure away from a screaming girl. The black bruises on Zander’s side.

“Meredith and Elena were right,” she said, backing away from him.

“No! No, it’s not like that, Bonnie, please,” Zander said, scrambling to his feet so that they stood facing each other.

His face was white and strained. “I’m a good werewolf, I swear, I don’t … we don’t hurt people.”

“Liar!” Bonnie shouted, furious. “I’ve known werewolves, Zander. To become one, you have to be a killer!” With that, she was off, scrambling down the fire escape to the relative safety of the ground. Don’t look back, don’t look back, hammered inside her head. Get away, get away.

“Bonnie!” Zander cal ed from the top of the fire escape, and she heard him clattering down after her.

Bonnie jumped the last few feet from the bottom of the fire escape and landed hard, stumbling. She straightened up and started to run immediately. She had to get inside, had to find somewhere she wouldn’t be alone.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed movement in the shadows of the building. Jared and Tristan and, oh no, big muscular Marcus. Werewolves, she realized, just like Zander, part of his pack. Bonnie thought she was moving as quickly as she could, but, as they came into the light, she found a fresh spurt of speed.

“Bonnie!” Jared cal ed hoarsely, and they came after her.

She was running faster than she ever had, breathless sobs torn from her chest, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough.

They were close behind her; she could hear their heavy footsteps catching up to her.

“We just want to talk to you, Bonnie,” Tristan cal ed, his voice level and calm. He didn’t even sound out of breath.

“Stop,” Marcus said. “Wait for us,” and oh God, he was coming up beside her now, and Tristan on her other side, cutting her off. They were moving in closer, penning her in.

Bonnie stopped, her hands on her knees, panting for breath. Hot tears ran down her face and dripped off her chin. They had caught her. She had run and run, as fast as she could, but she hadn’t been able to get away. The three guys were pacing around her, hemming her in, their faces wary.

They’d pretended to be her friends, but now they looked like hunters, circling her. They’d lied, al of them.

“Monsters,” she muttered like a curse, and pul ed herself upright, stil panting. They had caught her, but they hadn’t defeated her yet. She was a witch, wasn’t she? She clenched her hands into fists and began to chant under her breath the charms Mrs. Flowers taught her for protection and defense. She didn’t think she could beat three werewolves, not without the time to make a magic circle, without any supplies, but maybe she could hurt them.

“Guys, wait. Stop.” Zander was coming now, running across the col ege lawns toward them. Even through the hot tears clouding her vision, Bonnie could see how beautiful he was, how graceful and natural a runner, his long legs eating up the distance, and her heart ached just a little more. She had loved him so much. She went on chanting, feeling the power building up inside her like the pressure in a shaken can of soda, ready to pop.

Zander came to a halt when he reached them, clasping Marcus’s shoulder with one hand. The other three looked at him.

“She ran away from us,” Tristan said, and he sounded baffled and resentful.

“Yeah,” Zander said. “I know.” Tears were running down Zander’s face, too, Bonnie realized, and he was making no move to wipe them away. He just looked at her, those beautiful blue eyes wide open, heartbreakingly sad. “Back off, guys,” he said without looking away from Bonnie. To her, then, he added, “You do what you have to do.” Bonnie stopped chanting, letting the built-up power drain away. She took a harsh gasp of air, and then, quick as an arrow, her heart pounding as if it would burst out of her chest, she ran.

35

Initiation night for the newest members of the Vitale Society had arrived at last. The cavernous room was lit only by golden candlelight from long tapers placed around the space and by the fire of high-flaming torches against the wal s. In the flickering light, the animals carved in the wood of the pil ars and arches almost seemed to be moving.

Matt, dressed in a dark hooded robe like the other initiates, gazed around proudly. They’d worked hard, and the room looked amazing.

At the front of the room, beneath the highest arch, a long table had been placed, draped in a heavy red satin cloth and looking like some kind of altar. In the center of the table sat a huge deep stone bowl, almost like a baptismal font, and around it roses and orchids were set. More flowers had been scattered on the floor, and the scent of the crushed blossoms underfoot was so strong that it was dizzying. The pledges were lined up, evenly spaced, before the altar.

As if she’d picked up on his pride at how everything had turned out, Chloe pushed her dark hood back a bit and leaned toward him to mutter, “Pretty fabulous, huh?” Matt smiled at her. So what if she was dating someone else? He stil liked her. He wanted to stay friends, even if that was al there could be between them.

He tugged at his robe self-consciously; the fabric was heavy, and he didn’t like the way it blocked his peripheral vision.

The current masked members of the Vitale Society wove silently among the pledges, handing out goblets ful of some kind of liquid. Matt sniffed his and smel ed ginger and chamomile as wel as less familiar scents: so this was where the herbs had been used.

He smiled at the girl who gave it to him, but got no response. Her eyes behind the mask slid over him neutral y, and she moved on. Once he was a ful member of the Vitale Society, he would know who these current members were, would see them without their masks. He sipped from his goblet and grimaced: it tasted strange and bitter.

The soft rustlings of cloaked figures moving across the floor were silenced as the last of the goblets was handed out and the masked Vitales quietly retreated under the arch behind the altar to watch. Ethan stepped forward, up to the altar, and pushed back his hood.

“Welcome,” he said, holding out his hands to the assembled pledges. “Welcome to true power at last.” The candlelight flickered over his face, twisting it into something unfamiliar and almost sinister. Matt twitched nervously and took another swal ow of the bitter herbal mixture.

“A toast!” Ethan cal ed. He raised his own goblet, and before him, the pledges raised theirs. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “To moving beyond the veil and discovering the truth.”

Matt raised his goblet and drained it with the other pledges. The mixture left a gritty feeling on his tongue, and he scraped it absently against his teeth.

Ethan looked around at the pledges and smiled, locking gazes with one after another. “You’ve al worked so hard,” he said affectionately. “Each of you has reached his or her personal peak of intel igence, strength, and leadership ability now. Together, you are a force to be reckoned with.

You have been perfected.”

Matt managed to politely restrain himself from rol ing his eyes. It was nice to be praised, of course, but sometimes Ethan was a little too over the top: perfected? Matt doubted it was even possible. It seemed to him that you could always strive to be a little more, or a little less, something.

You could always wish to be better. But even if he could, after al , be perfected, he suspected that it would take more than a few obstacle courses and group problem-solving exercises to do it.

“And now it is time to at last discover your purpose,” Ethan continued. “Time to complete the final stage in your transformation from ordinary students into true avatars of power.” He took a clean and shining silver cup from the altar and dipped it into the deep stone bowl in front of him.

“With every step forward in evolution, there must be some sacrifice. I regret any pain this wil cause you. Be comforted by the knowledge that al suffering is temporary. Anna, step forward.”

There was a slight uneasy stirring among the pledges.

This talk of suffering and sacrifice was different than Ethan’s usual emphasis on honor and power. Matt frowned.

Something was wrong here.

But Anna, looking tiny in her long robe, walked without hesitation up to the altar and pushed back her hood.

“Drink of me,” Ethan said, handing her the silver cup.

Anna blinked uncertainly and then, her eyes on Ethan, tipped back her head and drained the cup. As she handed it back to Ethan, she licked her lips automatical y, and Matt tried to peer more closely at her. In the flickering candlelight, her lips looked unnatural y red and slick.

Then Ethan led her around the side of the altar and into his arms. He smiled, and his face twisted, his eyes dilating and his lips pul ing back in a snarl. His teeth looked so long, so sharp. Matt tried to shout a warning but realized with horror that he couldn’t move his lips, couldn’t draw the breath to cal out.

He knew, suddenly, that he had been a fool.

Ethan sank his fangs deep into Anna’s neck. Matt strained, trying to run toward them, to attack Ethan and throw him away from Anna. But he couldn’t move at al . He must be under some kind of compulsion. Or perhaps something in the drink, some magic ingredient, had made them al docile and stil . He watched helplessly as Anna struggled for a few moments, then went limp, her eyes rol ing back in her head.

Unceremoniously, Ethan let her body drop to the ground. “Don’t be afraid,” he said kindly, gazing around at the horrified, frozen pledges. “Al of us”—he gestured toward the silent, masked Vitale behind him—“went through this initiation recently. You must brace yourself to suffer what is only a smal , temporary death, and then you wil be one of us, a true Vitale. Never growing old, never dying.

Powerful forever.”

Sharp white teeth and golden eyes shining in the candlelight, Ethan reached out toward the next pledge as Matt struggled again to shout, to fight. Ethan continued,

“Stuart, step forward.”

Elena smel ed so good, rich and sweet like an exotic ripe fruit. Damon wanted to simply bury his head in the soft skin at the crook of her neck and just inhale her for a decade or two. Snaking his arm through hers, he pul ed her closer.

“You can’t come in with me,” she told him for the second time. “I might be able to get James to talk to me because it’s a question about my parents, but I don’t think he’l tel me anything if someone else is there. Whatever the truth is about the Vitale Society and my parents, I think he’s embarrassed about it. Or afraid, or … something.” Without paying attention to what she was doing, Elena shifted her grip and held on to Damon’s arm more firmly.