Meredith, her face ghost-pale, climbed slowly to her feet. Her wound was already closing. She looked at her friends, who were staring back at her. Eyes wet, she looked from one human to another, taking in their horror. Damon could hear her heart pounding and her shaky, panicked breaths.
“I—I…” Meredith grasped the edges of her cut shirt and pulled them together, as if to hide the evidence of what she was. But she’d been revealed. There was no way to hide it now.
Chapter 18
“You knew about Meredith, didn’t you?” Elena asked Damon. After the first shock of discovery wore off, she had tried to get Meredith to come home with them. Her friend had seemed so lost. But Meredith had slid away, saying she had to go home and talk to Alaric. She hadn’t held eye contact with Elena, either, her eyes flitting down, her face averted. Meredith was ashamed, Elena realized.
Now, Elena and Damon were alone in Elena’s apartment, side by side on the couch. She felt exhausted; she just wanted to lay her head on Damon’s shoulder and close her eyes.
Damon looked at Elena, assessing, and then nodded warily. “She didn’t want me to tell anyone.”
Elena paused. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.
Damon arched an eyebrow curiously. Clearly, thanks hadn’t been what he was expecting.
“Remember when I became a vampire?” Elena asked.
“Believe me, princess, that’s not something I would forget.”
“Me neither.” Elena shivered. It had been a bad time for her. Fell’s Church was falling apart around them and everyone had thought—had needed to think—that Elena was dead. She had been lonely and frightened and almost out of her mind at the changes she was experiencing. “You took care of me,” she told Damon. “Without you, I wouldn’t have survived. I’m glad Meredith had you to turn to.”
Damon tilted his head, staring at her, his midnight-black eyes unreadable. “I know you want to think I’m a good person, Elena,” he said slowly. “But I didn’t help Meredith through the change, and I didn’t protect her. She wouldn’t have thanked me if I had.”
Without really meaning to, Elena leaned closer to Damon. “You would have helped her if she’d wanted you to,” she said, sure that this was true.
The corner of Damon’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “For your sake, Elena,” he said softly. “Anything I do for any of them, for anyone, it’s for you. Always. You know that.”
She did know that. Deep inside, Elena was certain that she was the only one who connected Damon to anyone else, now that Stefan was gone.
The bond between them throbbed, sweet, sharp emotion spilling through it, and Damon leaned even closer to her. His lips were only millimeters away from hers. She could feel his cool breath. He moved closer still, his perfect lips parting.
Elena almost leaned in and took what Damon was offering. She wanted him, she did, and she could feel the love he would give her. But there was something cold and hard inside her, like a ball of ice in the center of her chest. If she did this, it would be moving on. It would be letting go of Stefan.
Elena pulled back. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. Stefan…”
With one swift, smooth movement, Damon was standing, turned away from her so that she couldn’t see his face. “Of course,” he said quietly. “He’ll always be between us, won’t he? Even if we live forever.”
Through their bond, Elena felt a sharp stinging pain. It brought tears to her eyes, but it only lasted for a few seconds before Damon muffled it, blocking the link between them to no more than a buzz. He still wouldn’t look at her.
Suddenly chilled, Elena folded her arms around herself. It was possible that they would live forever, wasn’t it? Un-aging, unchanging, forever young. Without Stefan.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. Damon nodded once, stiffly, and walked away, across the living room and through the door to the kitchen. A moment later, she heard the apartment door close quietly behind him.
What did I do? She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling a hollow, desperate ache inside. She couldn’t tell if the emotion belonged to her or to Damon.
Evening had come while Meredith sat on her and Alaric’s bed, waiting for Alaric to come home from teaching his class at Dalcrest. Dread pooled inside her. Half of her—more than half of her—just wanted to run, to get away before she saw him. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists so tight that her nails bit into her palms.
She had been waiting for hours. By the time she heard the front door open and close, the bedroom was almost totally dark, lit only by the streetlights shining in from outside.
Of course, Meredith could see perfectly well.
“Alaric,” she said in a small voice, unsure if he could hear her from the hall. He called back and then came to the bedroom.
“Hey,” he said softly. “When did you get home?” Even if she hadn’t been able to see the smile on his face, she would have heard it in his voice. “How come it’s so dark in here?” He reached toward the light switch, and Meredith stiffened.
“Leave it off, okay?”
“What’s wrong?” Alaric came closer and brushed a concerned hand featherlight across her cheek. Meredith pulled him down beside her on the bed and buried her head in his shoulder. She could hear his heart beating, as steady as the sea.
“What is it?” Alaric asked, pulling her against him. His body was warm and solid, and he petted her hair with one hand, trying to calm her down. Meredith realized she was shaking against Alaric, pushing her face against his shoulder. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asked again, sounding almost frantic now.
Meredith told him everything she could think of: how Jack had changed her, how long she’d been hiding it from him. That she’d lied, that she hadn’t been down in Atlanta with the hunters at all, but with Jack, being a vampire.
“I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t trust myself.” Around you, she didn’t add.
Alaric was silent for a moment, and tears began to fall from Meredith’s eyes. She pressed her face against his shoulder again, shaking. His shirt was warm with his body heat, and she pushed closer, treasuring the last moments of contact. He’d leave her. He’d have to. How could Alaric love her, if she was a monster?
But then his arms went around her and held her tightly.
“We’ll get through this,” he promised. His lips brushed the side of her head, and she gave a choked sob, soaking Alaric’s shoulder with tears and snot. “There’ll be a cure. Maybe. And even if not, we love each other. We can handle this.”
Alaric’s voice was strained, but he wasn’t flinching away from her. And there weren’t any lies between them, not now. She closed her eyes and sobbed into his shoulder.
She could still smell his blood, salty and metallic, as rich and mysterious as the ocean. But Alaric didn’t smell like food anymore. Instead, he smelled like home.
Chapter 19
Matt hesitated in the hallway, Jasmine’s hand firmly in his, staring at the plain wooden door to Meredith and Alaric’s apartment. His mouth felt dry, and he wasn’t breathing quite right.
It was ridiculous, he knew. He wasn’t afraid of Meredith just because she was suddenly a vampire. He’d been friends with Stefan for years, and he had a cordial relationship with Damon, although they weren’t exactly friends. He’d even been in love with a vampire, poor Chloe, when he was a freshman in college.
Maybe his history with Chloe was the trouble. He knew how hard it was for a vampire to resist feeding, to stay a person instead of a killer. Chloe hadn’t been able to, and in the end she’d chosen to die instead. Becoming a vampire, fighting against those new, violent instincts, could tear a good person apart.
Matt wasn’t going to let that happen to Meredith. None of them were.
Jasmine leaned against him, warm and quietly reassuring. “Can’t stand out here all day,” she said, and Matt lifted his hand and knocked.
Alaric opened the door and smiled at them, looking so normal that Matt’s heart gave a ridiculous hopeful hop. Maybe everything’s okay.
But, as the door swung wider, he saw Meredith, slumped at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, and his heart sank again. Meredith was definitely not okay. She looked broken. Like she’d been fighting on, out of pride, pretending everything was fine, fiercely determined that none of them would know what had happened to her. And now that they knew, all that fight had gone.
Damon lounged in a chair on the other side of the table from Meredith, while Elena and Bonnie leaned against the counter behind him, their faces troubled. Out of the corner of his eye, Matt registered Zander coming in from the other room, moving with an easy, animal grace. But Matt’s attention was fixed on Meredith. He couldn’t believe she was a vampire. And they hadn’t known.
“I can hear your heart thumping, Matt,” Meredith said, not raising her head. “You’re scared of me.”
It was the flat bitterness in her tone that got Matt moving toward her; she was one of his dearest friends, he couldn’t let her sound like that, feel that way. She looked up at him, her gray eyes wide and wet, and warmth flooded him.