He drew one finger along the blade of the ivory-handled dagger and pulled his hand back with a hiss. Stefan had kept it sharp, although it had probably been centuries since he’d used it.
Their father had carried this dagger for years, Damon remembered, hanging in a sheath at his belt. A beautiful object, its fine glossy hilt curving above a well-cut, and useful, blade. He had given it to Stefan for his fifteenth birthday.
“Every gentleman should wear one,” Giuseppe Salvatore had said, grasping his younger son’s shoulder affectionately. “Not for aggression or fighting in the streets like a peasant—” Damon had felt his father’s sidelong gaze light upon him, and hadn’t that been as pointed as the dagger itself? “—but in case you need it. This blade is forged of the finest steel. It’s served me well.”
Stefan’s green eyes had shone as he looked up at their father. “Thank you, Father,” he’d said. “I’ll treasure it.”
Lounging elegantly beside them, left out of the moment between his father and little brother, Damon had touched his own quite beautiful bone-handled dagger, and his mouth had suddenly filled with bitterness.
He blinked the memory away. He’d wasted a lot of time resenting Stefan, his sweet-faced tagalong of a baby brother.
He was wasting time now. Damon’s slow heart thumped hard, the hollow ache in his chest increasing. His earnest, loving, irritating little brother was gone. Murdered. And Damon was cowering in the shadows? His face twisted in disgust. He could imagine what their father would have said about that.
In one smooth motion, he scooped up the dagger and headed for the door. He would keep his promise to Elena; he would be careful. But he wasn’t going to hide, not anymore. Damon was a Salvatore—the last of the Salvatores, now—and that meant he wasn’t afraid of anything.
It was time to take control of the fight. And the first thing he needed to do was to figure out where Jack might be hiding.
The river lapped gently against the small stones on its bank, sunlight glinting off its ripples. Elena instinctively moved deeper into the shade of one of the moss-covered trees by the riverside.
The rectangle of earth that marked Stefan’s grave still stood out clearly. There hadn’t been time yet for the soil to harden, for the grass to grow over it and erase where they’d blanketed Stefan with dirt.
It hadn’t been long at all since Stefan had been alive.
A wave of anguish washed over Elena, and she dropped to her knees by the graveside. Reaching out, she placed a gentle hand on the recently turned earth.
She wanted to say something, to tell him how much she missed him, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was his name. “Stefan,” she said miserably, her voice catching in her throat. “Oh, Stefan.”
Just a couple of weeks ago, they’d been together. Not long before that, he had surprised her with the key to her old home—he’d bought the house that she’d grown up in from her Aunt Judith. “We’re going to go everywhere,” he’d told her, his hands strong and steady around hers. “But we’ll always have this to come home to.”
It turned out always lasted less than a week after that. They hadn’t even had time to visit the house together. Elena dug her fingers deep into the dirt, trying not to think about Stefan’s body six feet below.
“Elena?”
Bonnie came forward from the trees. Elena pulled her hands away from Stefan’s grave. It seemed too intimate a gesture to let anyone see it, even Bonnie. “Thank you for coming,” she said quietly, rising to her feet.
“Of course.” Bonnie’s brown eyes were huge and anxious. She stepped forward and pulled Elena into a hug. “How are you doing? We’ve been—Zander and I wanted to know if there was any way we could help you.”
“Actually, I think there is,” Elena told her. She took Bonnie’s hand in her own and led her over to Stefan’s grave.
“I keep expecting him to show up,” Bonnie admitted, her eyes fixed on the grave. “It’s hard to believe he’s gone, y’know?”
No, Elena didn’t know. From the moment she woke up in the morning until she finally tossed and turned her way into a restless sleep, she couldn’t forget that Stefan was gone. His absence even followed her into her dreams. She didn’t say that, though, just moved a little closer to Bonnie, as if she could shelter in her friend’s warmth.
“Remember how you talked to me after I died?” Elena asked, squeezing Bonnie’s hand in hers.
Tearing her eyes away from the ground, Bonnie looked back up at Elena. “Oh, Elena, I don’t think—”
“You managed to bring Stefan to see me,” Elena went on doggedly, holding tight to her friend’s arm.
Bonnie tried to pull away. “But you weren’t supposed to be dead! Klaus had you in some kind of halfway place—you were a prisoner, not dead-dead.” She hesitated, and then asked in a low voice, “And do you remember how the Guardians said vampires just… end?”
“It’s worth a try, though, isn’t it?” Elena said quickly. “Guardians don’t know everything, we’ve proved that before. If you could help me to see him, Bonnie…” She was holding on to Bonnie too tightly, she realized, and forced her hands to relax. “Please,” she added quietly.
Bonnie chewed her lip. Elena could feel the moment when she gave in, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you already are,” Bonnie said quietly.
“We have to try,” Elena insisted.
Bonnie hesitated, then finally nodded. “Okay.” She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and stepped toward the river, pulling Elena along with her. “When I did it for Stefan, I went into a trance and made contact with you, then brought him in. But I think maybe we’ll have to try something different.”
Their feet crunched over the rocky sand as Bonnie pulled Elena with her to the very edge of the river. Water lapped against their sneakers, soaking through the fabric and chilling Elena’s toes.
“I want you to let me use your Power,” Bonnie said, squeezing Elena’s hand. “It’ll help me search for Stefan. When I communicated with you, you came to me first, so I knew how to find you. I imagine he’ll be hard to find.”
“Of course,” Elena said.
She held tightly to Bonnie’s hand and tried to channel her own Power into her friend. Taking a deep, slow breath, Elena forced herself to relax until, out of the corners of her eyes, she began to see her own golden aura. It was dulled with gray patches of grief, but still stretched wide around her, entwining with the rose-pink of Bonnie’s aura.
Bonnie took a deep breath of her own and fixed her eyes on the patterns of the sunlight reflecting off the water. “Just as good as a candle for focusing,” she said absently. Elena watched as Bonnie’s small face became intent, her pupils as wide as a cat’s. Elena closed her own eyes.
Darkness. But ahead of her, a glimmer of rose and gold. Bonnie’s aura entwined with her own, leading her on. Bonnie’s small figure, very straight and determined, walked swiftly into the distance.
Elena hurried after her, her chest tight with excitement. She would see Stefan again. She could tell him how hard it was without him, every day, and he would hold her in his arms and comfort her. It would be like coming home.
They walked on into the darkness, the light of their auras surrounding them both. But then, slowly, the glow of their entwined auras began to fade. Elena called out, but her voice stuck in her throat. Where was Bonnie? Elena tried to run after her, but her friend grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing from view.
Elena stopped, half-sobbing.
“Stefan!” she called. Her voice echoed back to her. “Stefan!”
She was alone in the darkness.
Elena’s eyes fluttered open. She was standing on the riverbank, her toes chilled by the lapping waves. Bonnie blinked up at her, her face pale and wet with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Elena,” she said. “I couldn’t find him. He’s not anywhere we can reach.”
Elena leaned into her friend, letting Bonnie’s arms circle her shoulders, and sobbed.
Bonnie felt terrible. As she toed off her damp sneakers in the entryway of her and Zander’s apartment, she sniffled experimentally. Maybe spending the afternoon at the river had given her a cold. That would be an easy explanation for the rotten, hollow sensation in her chest.
But, no, if Bonnie was honest with herself, she had to admit the feeling was guilt. The first thing Elena had asked her for since Stefan had died—the only thing Elena had asked anybody for at all—and Bonnie couldn’t do it.
Remembering Elena’s strained smile when she thanked her for trying, Bonnie almost tripped over Zander’s mud-caked work boots, catching herself with a hand against the wall. Now, the end of summer, was the time when his landscaping business planted shrubs and trees, and every day he came home absolutely filthy.
That was what Bonnie needed. Zander. He’d pull her into his arms, smelling of grass and sunshine, and tell that it was okay, that she’d done the best she could.
She heard Zander’s voice and followed his low tones to the kitchen. As she turned the corner from the hallway, she stopped for a moment to simply look at him. He was standing with his back to her, all long lean muscles and tanned skin, his moonlight-blond hair curling at the nape of his neck, still damp with sweat. They’d been together for years now, but the sight of him still sometimes made her want to melt into a puddle on the floor.