The Vampire Diaries #13: Unmasked (The Salvation #3)

Author: L.J. Smith

Category: Fantasy , Young Adult

Series: The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation

Unmasked (The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation #3)

Unmasked is the third and final book in The Salvation trilogy and the thirteenth book in The Vampire Diaries novel series overall.

This book ended the initial novel series.

Summary

Love is the most powerful force of all…

Elena Gilbert is dying. When Damon Salvatore avenged his brother Stefan’s death, he broke the sacred deal he’d made with the Guardians—and put Elena’s life at risk.

She should be dead, but instead, the Guardians are offering Elena a once-in-a-lifetime chance: to start over. Ever since she met the Salvatore brothers, Elena’s love for them both has caused endless death and destruction. But if Elena can return to the beginning—her senior year of high school, when she first met Damon and Stefan—and prove that she can exist alongside them without either of them killing a human, then Elena can live.

But the Damon of years ago is unpredictable, rash, and dangerous. The only way for Elena to save everyone—including herself—might be to give up the Salvatores forever. Will Elena be able to sacrifice her own desires for the greater good? Or is her path to tragic love already written in the stars?


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Chapter 33

Dear Diary,

The last four days in Virginia were wonderful ones. I went up and stayed with Aunt Judith and Robert in Richmond and spent some time with my baby sister. It’s so hard to believe that Margaret’s in middle school now. When I think about her, I still imagine that four-year-old with the big blue eyes, but she hasn’t been that little girl for a long time. We went with Aunt Judith and got our nails done together, and Meggie even told me about a boy she likes! How can she have grown up so fast?

Elena glanced up from her diary and out the tiny, rounded window as the wheels of her plane jolted as they landed on the runway. The sky at Charles de Gaulle airport was gray and drizzly, and just suited her mood. Elena sighed drearily and turned back to the diary.

I was thinking about moving back to Virginia. I’d get to see my baby sister grow up. Aunt Judith would be happy, and even Robert would be pleased.

I’ve got a life in Paris, of course. Friends. A job I love.

And none of it feels like mine.

The plane was taxiing to the gate, and Elena looked absently out the window again, watching the hubbub of the airport—catering trucks, baggage handlers, other planes shining wet with rain—without really seeing them.

I decided I ought to give it a chance, though, she wrote slowly. That last night, Damon called me brave. Running back home would be just about the farthest thing from brave I can imagine.

I chose this life, even if I can’t remember it.

And wherever I live, I’ll have to try to figure out how to be normal. Wasn’t that something I longed for, all those years?

It’s not the only thing I ever wanted. Not by a long shot.

But it’s the only one I’ve got.

Up at the front of the plane, the door opened and the other passengers climbed to their feet, surging toward the exit. Elena closed her diary and tucked it in her purse, then stood up and pulled her carry-on out of the overhead bin and, squaring her shoulders, followed the other passengers out of the plane. She was going to be brave.

The airport was crowded with hurrying passengers and, despite being in Paris, managed to have the same soul-deadening atmosphere as any big airport. Fluorescent lighting hummed overhead and the smell of disinfectant was everywhere. There was a headache building up behind Elena’s eyes. Maybe she was getting sick. Elena sniffed experimentally, feeling sorry for herself.

Heading for the baggage claim, all at once she saw him, and her whole inside jolted in instant, eager recognition.

No. It was impossible.

But there he was, standing by a magazine stand, looking just the way she remembered him. Strong and graceful and so beautiful, one of the most beautiful people she’d ever seen. He was wearing a beautifully cut black jacket, and he held himself like the aristocrat he’d been born as. Elena couldn’t breathe. If she moved, this might be snatched away from her.

Elena knew the exact moment when he saw her, too, and his whole body stiffened in shock. His eyes were wide and his lips were slowly turning up into a smile of amazement.

And then she was in motion, moving straight toward him, her high-heeled boots clacking on the tiled floor, her carry-on rattling along behind her on its little wheels.

He was coming toward her, too, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on her.

This is it, Elena realized, stopping stock-still in front of him and staring dumbly up into his face. This is who I’m meant to be with. My destiny caught up with me after all.

“Hello, Elena.” Damon’s mouth twisted into its telltale smirk, and Elena knew she was home.

The End

Chapter 32

Amazing. Despite everything that had changed, Bonnie was not only marrying the same guy, she’d chosen the same bridesmaids’ dresses. As she waited to walk down the aisle behind Bonnie’s two older sisters, Elena carefully straightened the long rose pink gown and held her bouquet—pale lilies and bright roses—at waist level.

This time, though, the wedding was in the church Bonnie’s parents attended, and there seemed to be a lot more people in attendance. Elena looked over the crowd, picking out faces she recognized: Sue Carson, Bonnie’s dad’s business partner, Mrs. Flowers. Apparently, when Bonnie’s mom and sisters had time to get involved, things got a lot more elaborate.

Someone struck up the wedding march, and the bridesmaids began to file in, first Bonnie’s sisters; then Shay, Zander’s second-in-command in the Pack; then a girl Elena didn’t know who had been Bonnie’s roommate at Dalcrest College; then Meredith, head held high, stepped down the aisle.

Meredith looked terrific. Confident and elegant, her beautiful thick dark hair piled on top of her head. And she was human. Elena let the spreading joy of that fact run through her. The changes Elena had made back during those fateful few months in high school had saved Meredith.

When it was Elena’s turn, she raised her head high, held her flowers low, and stepped carefully and slowly, just the way she’d been told. At the front of the church, she took her place next to Meredith and looked over at the guys’ side of the aisle.

It was all werewolves—Matt and Zander must not be good friends here—jostling one another rowdily, but they stilled and came to attention as Zander lifted his head, pushing his pale blond hair out of his eyes, and saw Bonnie.

She looked beautiful. She came down the aisle on her father’s arm, draped in creamy lace. Pink rosebuds were twined in her hair. Bonnie and Zander gazed at each other, and they both looked so incredibly happy that Elena’s breath caught in her throat.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister said, and Elena listened with only half an ear as she watched Bonnie and Zander take each other’s hands and smile at each other, a warm, private smile.

Elena had gotten a chance to talk to Bonnie last night after the rehearsal dinner. She and Meredith and Bonnie had sat up half the night in Bonnie’s room, talking things over, just like old times. When Meredith had stepped out for a minute, Elena had turned to Bonnie and breathed, “Bonnie, the last thing I remember before two weeks ago was Halloween night in Fell’s Church.”

Bonnie had squealed and leaped up to hug Elena. It was such a relief to have just one person to share this huge secret with, Elena thought, watching as Bonnie began to speak her vows, promising to have and to hold.

Things hadn’t changed that much for Bonnie in this life. She was a witch, she had gone to Dalcrest, she taught kindergarten, she loved Zander, she lived in Colorado. She was happy. Perhaps a little softer and gentler than the Bonnie Elena had known in the future she’d left behind. This Bonnie hadn’t been through so much, hadn’t seen her friends die.

Meredith, on the other hand, had changed. Elena cast a sideways glance at her gray-eyed friend. Meredith was so much happier here. She didn’t know anything about the supernatural, Bonnie had quietly confirmed. Well, she knew Bonnie said she was psychic, and was sort of New Agey with candles and herbs, but Meredith thought it was all a game. It was, Bonnie and Elena agreed, better that way.

Meredith had graduated from Harvard Law School. She was going to take the bar next month, and she wanted to work for the public defender’s office in Boston. She wasn’t a hunter. She wasn’t a vampire.

Last night, when they’d been sharing gossip and updating one another on their lives, Meredith, eyes shining, had told them about the work she’d done with some of her classmates and professors, researching the cases of prisoners on death row that hadn’t been handled properly, trying to prove the innocence of people who had been wrongly convicted.

“You’re saving people,” Elena had said, impressed. “Like a warrior.” Meredith had blushed with pleasure. It didn’t matter if she hunted monsters or not, Elena realized. Meredith was always going to find a way to be a hero.

“You may kiss the bride,” the minister said, and Bonnie leaned up as Zander leaned down and they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed, tenderly.

Unexpectedly, tears welled up in Elena’s eyes and she bit her lip, hard, to force them away.

She was so happy for Bonnie, she told herself fiercely. And her own life was wonderful, everything she would have dreamed of in a world where she didn’t have to hunt monsters, didn’t have to be a Guardian.

It was just that, the last time she’d been in Bonnie’s wedding, she’d felt the brush of Damon’s admiring regard from his seat in the audience.

Bonnie and Zander were heading down the aisle, leaving the church, and it was time to follow them. Elena took the arm of her werewolf groomsman—Spencer, the preppy one—and laughed politely at his joke without really hearing it.

Outside, it was early evening, and the leaves were just beginning to change. There was a briskness in the air, the beginning of fall. Fall, again. The last time she’d been in Fell’s Church in the fall was seven years ago, although it only felt like a few weeks, the night she’d said good-bye to Stefan and Damon.

They were out there somewhere—probably—and she should be glad of it, was glad of it, fiercely glad that they were still alive.

She felt that wistfulness again, stronger still, at the beginning of the reception, when Jared, Zander’s best man, started his toast.

“Uh …” the shaggy-haired werewolf began, “when Zander started dating Bonnie, we all thought she was awesome, but we were like, ‘Really?’ because she wasn’t, uh, the same kind of person we were.” Looking around the circle of faces smiling at him, Jared’s eyes went wide and panicky.

This was the same toast Jared had given in that other world, so Elena knew he’d be able to pull it together. But that time, Damon’s eyes had met Elena’s, and she had felt Damon’s rich amusement coming straight through the bond between them. They’d both laughed at the same time, quiet laughter at an inside joke.

At this wedding without that bond, without Damon, Elena felt slightly adrift.

After the toast, she and Meredith picked up their place cards and found their tables at the reception. There was someone already sitting there, and Elena grinned with delight. “Matt!”

Matt—bigger and broader than the last time she’d seen him, but with the same open, friendly face—got to his feet and hugged them both. Beside him, a tiny woman, almost as tiny as Bonnie, jumped to her feet and hugged them, too, blond curls bouncing over her shoulders.

“This is Jeannette,” Matt said proudly.

“I’ve heard so much about you!” she said, excitedly to Elena. “Matt and I keep saying we’re going to come to Europe and see everything you’ve been e-mailing him about since college. The gallery and all.”

Sue Carson and her husband and a couple of Bonnie’s college friends came to join them at the table, and the next few minutes were full of greetings and introductions.

“I’m going to get another drink,” Jeannette said brightly after a few minutes, hopping up from the table. “I know you want a beer, honey, and can I get anyone else anything?”

Matt watched her walk away with a fond, proud smile. “She’s great, isn’t she?” he asked. “Did I tell you she’s finishing up vet school? And not just poodles and things. She’s going to be a large animal vet. As little as she is, she can handle a bull or a wild horse.”

“She seems terrific,” Elena said, sipping her wine. She was happy for Matt, but she couldn’t help missing Jasmine, the girlfriend he’d had for so long in the world she remembered. Maybe not everyone had a soul mate.

A thick band across one of Matt’s fingers caught her eye, and she leaned forward suddenly, shocked. “Matt Honeycutt! Is that a Super Bowl ring?”

Matt blushed, and Meredith stared at her in disbelief. “Honestly, Elena,” Meredith said. “I know you live in France, but don’t you even hear who wins the Super Bowl?”

Elena was momentarily dumbfounded, but Matt just rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassed. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I’m not first string, I only played for a little while.”

“Are you kidding?” Elena said, and got up to hug him. “It’s a huge deal.” She held onto him tightly for a moment. He was happy and successful. Even without Jasmine. Maybe this is his true destiny.

Time passed and Elena drank wine and talked to familiar faces. Dinner was served, salmon or steak, and the DJ began to play. Bonnie and Zander came out onto the dance floor for their first dance, gazing up into each other’s eyes. Elena was watching their dance from the half-empty table when she looked up and saw a familiar face. Alaric.

He was listening to Meredith, his sandy head inclined politely as she talked, a smile on his handsome, boyish face.

Alaric Saltzman had been called in by some of the citizens of Fell’s Church to investigate Mr. Tanner’s death. He had taken over as their history teacher to investigate the possibility of vampires being behind Tanner’s murder.

In a world where Mr. Tanner had lived, Alaric had never come to Fell’s Church. They had never met him.

So why was he at Bonnie’s wedding? Why was he talking to Meredith?

“Who’s that with Meredith?” she asked, leaning across the table toward Matt and interrupting his conversation with Sue Carson. They both looked.

“I don’t know,” Matt said, and Sue shook her head. “One of Zander’s friends, probably.”

As they watched, Meredith took Alaric’s hand and pulled him out onto the dance floor.

“He’s cute,” Sue said. “They look good together.”

“Excuse me,” Elena said, pushing back her chair and getting up.

When she found Bonnie flitting about happily between tables, the redheaded girl hugged her enthusiastically. “Was that not the best wedding?” she asked.

Zander’s smile widened. “She’s been saying that to everyone,” he said affectionately. “I totally agree, of course, but I might be biased.”

“It was a wonderful wedding,” Elena agreed, “but actually I wanted to ask you, how do you know Alaric Saltzman?” On the dance floor, Alaric said something softly in Meredith’s ear, and she tossed her head back and laughed.

“Alaric? Oh, the High Wolf Council called him in to consult on some problem they had a while ago,” Bonnie said vaguely. “He and Zander got to be friends.”

Zander added, “He’s a really good guy. Meredith’s okay with him.”

“How do you know Alaric Saltzman?” Bonnie asked curiously.

“Oh.” Elena shifted uncomfortably. It was way too much to explain, especially in a crowded reception hall. “It’s complicated. I’m sure he won’t know who I am.”

“Huh. Oh,” Bonnie said, getting it. “One of those kind of friends. Out of the past. Or a different time, anyway.” Zander frowned, looking slightly bemused, but he didn’t say anything.

“Yes,” Elena said. “Exactly.”

A few minutes later, the photographer came over to ask Bonnie and Zander to pose with a table of Bonnie’s cousins, and Elena went back to her own table. From across the room, Elena watched as Alaric and Meredith danced, and then got a drink at the bar together, laughing and leaning toward each other, Meredith reaching up unconsciously to push twirl a falling tendril of her own hair around her finger as she smiled up at him. When they went out on the dance floor again, Alaric was holding Meredith’s hand firmly in his.

Elena took another sip of wine, but it suddenly tasted bitter.

She was happy for her friends. She truly was. They deserved every happiness, both of them, and Zander and Alaric were perfect partners.

But, despite that, Elena felt like the walls she’d built up inside herself were breaking, cracking, letting a flood of misery spill through her, one small stream at a time. She put down her wine glass and clenched her hands together, willing back the tears. She wasn’t going to make a scene at Bonnie’s wedding.

But she would grow old and die, and she would never know what had happened to Damon and Stefan. If they’d stuck together.

She might love each of them. Did love them, had a thousand memories of love, but they were only hers. They wouldn’t remember.

A lump was rising up in her throat, and she knew with sudden, devastating certainty that she was about to cry after all.

“Hey,” Matt said, leaning toward her. “Elena. Are you okay?”

“Of course,” Elena said, her voice brittle and cracking. “I always cry at weddings.”

“Sure,” Matt said. “Come dance with me, then. You don’t mind, do you, Jeannette?”

“Of course not,” Jeannette said lightly, looking at Elena with sympathetic, intelligent eyes. “I’m going to see if I can track down a waiter to bring me more of those tiny crab cakes.”

His big hand securely holding hers, Matt led Elena to a distant corner of the dance floor and wrapped his arms around her. Elena pressed her face against his shoulder, glad of the warm, reassuring bulk of him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Matt asked softly, and Elena shook her head, not looking up.

Matt held onto Elena tightly, and she let the tears flow, her face buried in his shoulder where no one could see.

At least I still have this, she thought, sniffling. At least I still have my friends.

Chapter 31

Elena woke up in a room flooded with light. The white ceiling above her was unfamiliar, outlined with ornate crown molding. Sitting up, she looked around. She was in a big bed heaped with soft pillows and a thick duvet. Sunlight streamed in through full-length windows at one end of the room, which opened onto a tiny balcony she could just see from the bed.

Hopping out of bed, Elena wiggled her toes against the thick pale carpet and padded out barefoot to examine the rest of the apartment. She wasn’t in the clothes she’d fallen asleep in anymore, she realized, but in crisp white cotton pajamas. Elena ran a hand across them wonderingly.

It wasn’t a big apartment: bedroom, bathroom, a kitchen with a small dining alcove at one end, a little living room with a large, cushy pale green couch. Everything looked peaceful and comfortable in light, neutral shades, accented with forest green or jewel blue. Paintings hung on the walls—not posters, but real paintings, a couple of them abstract, one an intricate landscape, another a charcoal sketch of a young girl’s face. The apartment felt like a nest, a retreat made just for one. Just for her.

It felt like home, she realized, even though she’d never seen it before.

She rummaged through the kitchen, finding coffee and figuring out the intimidatingly complicated brushed-steel coffee maker. While it brewed, she went back into the bedroom to get dressed. Everything in the closet seemed simple and chic, more sophisticated than the old Elena had been used to, and she pulled on a pair of close-fitting black trousers and a light blue top made of impossibly soft fabric.

Picking up a hairbrush, she looked into the mirror and froze. For a moment, she held her breath, examining the almost-stranger in the mirror.

She looked older. Not too old, but like she was in her mid-twenties. Her hair was shorter, falling just past her chin, and there were a few tiny lines beginning at the corners of her eyes, as if she’d been squinting in the sun. Elena tilted her head, watching the swing of her hair against her cheek. She looked good, she thought.

In the life she’d lived with Stefan, Elena had drunk the Waters of Eternal Life and Youth at age eighteen, and stopped getting older. Stopped changing. She hadn’t wanted to age while Stefan stayed young, had wanted to be by his side for eternity.

It had been the right choice when they had been together. After Stefan had been killed, it had seemed like living death to go on without him forever, to never grow old or have the possibility of having children. Now she would get to change. She had grown up, and she would keep aging.

As she turned away from the mirror, Elena’s gaze fell upon something on her bedside table that she hadn’t seen before: a golden ball, just the right size to fit comfortably in her palm. Picking it up, Elena pressed the catch and watched the ball unfold into a small golden hummingbird set with gems.

The music box Damon had given her.

Was it possible? Had they found each other again, somewhere in the intervening years between Fell’s Church and now? Her heart began to pound wildly, full of hope.

Carefully, she put the music box back on the table. There was a crisply folded note next to where it had stood. Elena picked the note up with shaking hands and unfolded it.

Well done, Elena. Here is a small souvenir of your past life, as a token of our regard. Enjoy your humanity—you’ve earned it. I hope you find your true destiny. Mylea

The Celestial Guardians had given her a piece of the life she had lost. It was a kind gesture, she knew, but it pierced a whole in her heart. A token could never replace the love she had sacrificed. No home could be home without someone to share it with.

Stepping out onto the balcony, Elena gazed over the city before her, and felt her mouth drop open. Far away, over the rooftops, she could just glimpse the Eiffel Tower.

“Hideous,” she suddenly remembered Damon saying, that last day together in Paris. “A truly tragic streetlamp.”

Elena stifled a giggle. She thought it was beautiful, anyway.

Wow. She lived in Paris.

Energized, Elena turned to the task of figuring out just who Elena Gilbert was in this new future. She rifled through her drawers, read her own papers, sorted through the mail. Rummaging through the cupboards and refrigerator, she devoured the chewy bread, soft cheese, and crisp fruit she found inside.

By the time a couple of hours had passed, she knew that she worked at an art gallery. She had an undergraduate degree in art history, from the Université de Paris. Apparently, Elena had come to Paris for a junior year abroad from the University of Virginia—not Dalcrest College—and never left, finishing her education here.

She had lived alone in this apartment for two years, according to her lease. There were notes from friends in both English and French—and it was a relief to realize that she could read French much more fluently than she had been able to in her old life. Elena smiled over a gossipy birthday card from Aunt Judith that made it clear that she and Robert and Margaret were just as happy in this life as in Elena’s previous one.

There was no sign of any romance. Elena’s heart ached a little at that. But who could she have loved after the Salvatore brothers?

Just as Elena was sweeping papers back into her desk drawers, there was a tapping at her front door.

Leaping up, Elena rushed toward it. It was Bonnie, she was sure of it, or Meredith. She could picture them here. Meredith probably had helped Elena pick out the chic outfits. Bonnie must have cast a protection spell over the whole apartment.

She flung open the door.

“Elena!” said the dark-haired girl on the other side, her arms full of shopping bags. Elena had never seen her before. She kissed Elena enthusiastically on each cheek in greeting. “Can I leave these here? Come on, we’ll be late.”

She said it all in French, very fast, and Elena was relieved to realize she spoke and understood French as well as she read it.

A name popped into Elena’s head, along with a remembered warm affection. “Veronique,” she greeted her friend. “Where are we going?”

Veronique made a little moue of pretended offense. “You forgot our Sunday lunch?” she asked. “The others are probably already there.”

The restaurant at which they had lunch was as stylish and tasteful as the rest of Elena’s new life. The two friends waiting for them there were as lovely as Veronique was. They jumped to their feet and kissed Veronique and Elena on both cheeks, laughing. Elena laughed with them, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were people she loved.

She just wished she could remember them properly.

After a few minutes she got them all straight. Veronique was talkative and bossy, with a quick, good-humored smile. She was a stockbroker, and she and Elena had been roommates in college. Elena had a flash of memory: Veronique, softer and younger, her hair tied up in a sloppy bun, hollow-eyed from staying up late studying for exams.

Lina was quieter and more soft-spoken, with huge dreamy eyes and long light-brown hair. She worked at the gallery with Elena and was the niece of the owner.

And Manon, sharp-witted and sarcastic with very short, very pale blonde hair, was a graduate student at the Sorbonne, doing a joint degree in art history and law. She had gone to university with Elena and Veronique.

“If you want to get further with art history,” she was advising Elena, “you should come back to school. The museums will never hire someone with only an undergraduate degree.”

“Perhaps,” Elena said, sipping her wine. She hadn’t found school particularly interesting back in the life she remembered. There had been too much else to do: monsters to fight, the ongoing drama of her love life to manage.

Maybe here, studying something she loved, with the idea that it would actually help her get a particular job … She felt excitement blossom in her chest. She could tell from the way Manon was talking that the Elena these girls knew was serious about her career.

Lina began to describe a show she and Elena were organizing at the gallery to the other girls, and Elena listened, eyes wide.

“It was Elena who suggested arranging the pieces by the models instead of chronologically,” Lina said. “A very interesting effect. He used the same models over and over, for years, and you can see the women growing older, just as his art developed.”

Elena felt a flush of pride. Even though she didn’t remember it, apparently she was good at her job.

“Let’s talk about something more interesting than art,” Veronique said eventually. “Elena. Are you going to go out with Hugo again?”

Hugo? Elena tried to prompt the memory that had given her the names of her friends, but came up blank. “I don’t know,” she said slowly.

In unison, all three girls sighed.

“He’s such a nice man,” Lina said, tucking a long lock of hair behind her ear. “And he’s crazy about you.”

“I will take him off your hands if you don’t want him,” Manon said. “That lovely man, just going to waste.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, laughing.

“Obviously, you shouldn’t date anyone you don’t want,” Veronique added, “but it seems like you’re never even open to the idea of love.”

Elena didn’t know what to say. Even without memories of this time, she knew why she wasn’t looking for love, why she wasn’t falling for the lovely man they were talking about. How could she? She had left her heart with Damon and Stefan, wherever they were. Finally, she shrugged. “Sometimes it’s not meant to be, I guess.”

“We worry about you,” Veronique said flatly. “It’s like you’re waiting for something, and we don’t want you to let life pass you by.”

Looking back at her Parisian friends, Elena was hit by a sudden rush of homesickness. Meredith and Bonnie would have fussed over her and nudged her in just the same way. Where were they now? Had the vow they had sworn in the churchyard, to be friends forever, come true? I hope so, she thought. I hope I haven’t lost everyone from my old life, even if I’ve lost … even if I can’t have …

“Oh, we didn’t mean to make you sad,” Lina said softly, laying a warm soft hand over hers. “It will all come right in the end.”

When she came back from lunch, the apartment seemed entirely too quiet. Elena wandered through the flat, touching the sleek pale furniture, rearranging the books and ornaments.

It was exactly the kind of place she’d always dreamed of. And yet, she felt terribly wistful.

She was reminding herself of Damon, she realized. How he had brushed his fingers across her possessions, opened drawers to peer inside, inspected her photographs. Like him, she was trying to figure out the person who lived here.

Elena laughed a little and wiped her eyes. The person who lived here had a wonderful life. Elena just wasn’t sure if it was really hers.

In the kitchen, she found an invitation held by a magnet to the refrigerator, something she’d somehow managed to overlook on her first rummage through the apartment.

Elena read: “… invite you to the wedding of their daughter Bonnie Mae McCullough to Zander—” She stopped.

Zander? She could feel a smile beginning on her face.

Some things must be destined after all.

Chapter 30

As Elena rode home in the backseat of Matt’s car, her thoughts drifted to the one person she hadn’t gotten a chance to say good-bye to. Maybe it was for the best. She didn’t know how she’d say good-bye to Damon.

In the front seat, Matt and Meredith were laughing, talking about the Haunted House. They’d missed everything. With luck, they’d never know about vampires, never be touched by the darkness all around them. They’d be normal. Happy.

Bonnie jostled Elena gently. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

Elena sighed and laid her head on her friend’s shoulder, just for a moment.

Bonnie wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You helped them. From what you told me, I think you’ve saved a lot of people.”

“Yeah,” Elena said, her voice small. She blinked back the sting of tears in her eyes. She’d saved herself, too. Stefan. Damon.

In the big picture, it didn’t matter if she never got to say good-bye to Damon, if she never saw either Salvatore brother again. Not if they all got to live.

When they pulled up to her house, Elena hugged all three of her friends again, fast and hard, before climbing out of the car and waving good-bye.

Aunt Judith had left the porch light on for her, but the windows of the house were dark. They must already be in bed.

As Elena crossed the lawn, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows beneath the quince tree and came toward her.

“Damon,” she said, happiness flaring up inside her, hot and sudden.

Damon came close and looked at Elena for a few moments without speaking, his black eyes unreadable. “I suppose I should say thank you,” he said at last.

“You’re welcome,” Elena said, holding his gaze steadily.

“You’re no coward,” Damon gave her his quick, devastating smile.

Elena smiled back, and Damon took her by the arm and led her to her front porch. “More comfortable here,” he said, sitting down on the porch steps, and Elena sat beside him. She was still wearing the Red Riding Hood cloak, and she was glad of its warmth.

Damon tilted his head back to look at the stars. “I suppose Stefan told you we’ve decided to go back to Italy,” he said conversationally. “He seems to think that things might get sticky here, with the fire and the graveyard desecration and all that.” Damon lifted one shoulder in a graceful shrug.

“I can imagine,” Elena said. She let herself lean into him a little bit. She felt as if her heart was, very quietly, breaking.

“Come with us,” Damon said suddenly. “I have this strange feeling that it would be a terrible mistake to leave you behind.”

He was still looking up at the stars, as intensely as if he could read the future written in the sky. The moonlight and the porch light combined threw shadows across his face, softening Damon’s aristocratic features and the stubborn set of his mouth.

“Oh, Damon,” Elena said. Tears started to pool in her eyes.

Damon tore his gaze away from the sky and looked at her, his eyes dark and more open than she had ever seen them in this time. “Come,” he said again. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Elena said. Damon flinched and, on an impulse, she put out one hand and covered his heart. “You’re good,” she told him furiously. “In here. You can be so good, so wonderful if you decide to be. Don’t forget that.”

Tears ran down Elena’s face, hot on her cold skin. She scrambled to her feet and backed away toward the front door.

“Good-bye, Damon,” she said quickly, longingly. His face was full of confusion, and he started to rise, but she was already closing the door behind her.

Elena leaned against the door and just let the tears fall. Every part of her yearned to go with Stefan and Damon.

What if she did? Would she wake up in a future where she and Damon and Stefan had been traveling Europe together, a happy triumvirate, for the last seven years?

No. Elena shook her head. She wasn’t going to be selfish like that, not the way she’d always been selfish with the Salvatore brothers. She’d seen where it led. She wasn’t going to make Katherine’s mistakes. Not again.

Wiping her eyes, Elena peered out the window by the front door, but Damon was gone.

Her shoulders slumped and Elena started up the stairs, feeling unutterably exhausted.

Margaret’s trick-or-treat bag was in the hall outside her door, stuffed with candy, and Elena smiled a little.

Turning into her own bedroom, Elena kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed, not bothering to change into her nightgown.

A tear slipped out from under her eyelids and ran slowly down her cheek. But a certain peace settled over Elena, and as she fell into a slumber, she knew without a doubt that, as much as it hurt, she’d done the right thing.

Chapter 29

“It went really well, don’t you think?” Meredith said, tucking a long lock of dark hair behind her ear and looking up at the closed entrance to the Haunted House.

It was late, but they’d only managed to clear out all the customers about half an hour before. Across the parking lot, the last of the costumed workers were climbing into their cars, laughing and calling good-byes to one another. The heavy clouds that had hung overhead at the beginning of the evening had cleared and now stars shone brightly in the sky.

Elena linked her arms through Bonnie and Meredith’s, pulling her best friends close, and smiled at Matt beside them. “I thought it was amazing.”

Stefan and Damon had disappeared somewhere together shortly after their reconciliation, but that was all right with Elena. She was happy, for now, to have this last time with her oldest, dearest friends.

And it was the last time, she was suddenly sure of it. The Guardians hadn’t sent Elena to start over; they had only sent her to change things. There would probably be an Elena here tomorrow, she thought, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be her, it wouldn’t be the Elena who had lived this more than once.

She was going to wake up in that Elena’s future, whatever future she had made. And she hoped that Matt, Meredith, and Bonnie would be part of that future somehow, but they wouldn’t be the ones she knew now.

This was good-bye.

“You did such a good job planning the whole thing, Meredith,” Elena said. “It seems like you can do anything you put your mind to. You’re wonderful.”

Meredith’s olive cheeks flushed pink. “Thanks,” she said, dipping her head shyly.

They’d reached Matt’s car, and Meredith opened the passenger door and climbed in. As Matt crossed to the driver’s side, Elena hugged him. “You’re one of the best people I know, you know that?” she said. She was choking up a little. “I promise everything will be okay. Remember that.”

Kissing her on the cheek, Matt drew back with a little rueful half smile. “You still have to help us clean up the Haunted House tomorrow,” he told her. Elena just laughed.

As Matt closed the car door behind him, Elena turned to see Bonnie watching her with an affectionate, knowing gaze. “This is it, huh?” she said. She was smiling, but her lips were quivering a little.

“I guess so,” Elena told her.

With a sniff, Bonnie threw herself into Elena’s arms and held her tightly.

“Oh, Scarecrow,” Elena murmured into her friend’s bright curls. “I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

After one tight hug, Bonnie pulled back, swiping a hand quickly under her eyes. “Seven years in the future isn’t that long. You’ll see me then.”

“I hope so,” Elena said. She reached out and took Bonnie’s hand for a moment, squeezing it tightly. She tried to memorize the feeling of Bonnie’s small, strong hand gripping hers.

She would remember this, just in case. She would remember Matt’s open, honest face, and Meredith’s wry smile. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t forget them.

For now, there was one more thing she had to tell Bonnie. “You should go talk to Mrs. Flowers. You saw how much Power you have, and she’ll be able to teach you how to use it. I expect you to be crazy-powerful seven years from now.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Bonnie said, saluting ridiculously. Then her gaze slipped past Elena and Elena turned to follow it.

Stefan was crossing the parking lot toward them. Elena and Bonnie exchanged a glance.

“I’ll tell the others to wait. Take your time,” Bonnie said, and slipped into the car.

Elena walked slowly toward Stefan. As she reached him, he looked down into Elena’s eyes. There were no words worthy of expressing what either of them felt.

Elena wanted to take him in her arms and hold on tight, but she didn’t. He wasn’t hers now.

She might never see him again. The thought filled her with an almost painful sorrow, but not with the angry bewilderment she’d felt at his death. Now she had the chance to say good-bye.

Stefan’s green eyes searched hers, as if he was looking for answers. “I wanted to say thank you,” he said finally. “Damon and I are leaving. We’ve decided to go back to Italy for now. I wanted—we wanted—to see what’s left of the Florence we remember.” His lips quirked up in a half smile. “We’ll see if we can find more of our humanity there, I suppose.”

Elena nodded. “I’m glad,” she said.

He reached out and took her hands, so gently and carefully that Elena’s heart ached with longing. “What can I do to thank you?” he said slowly.

Elena squeezed his hand once, fiercely, and then pulled away. “You don’t need to thank me,” she said, hearing the roughness of almost-tears in her own voice. “Just take care of Damon. And of yourself.”

She turned toward the car where her friends were waiting, and Stefan touched her on the shoulder. “Will I see you again?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. But just … keep going, okay? For yourself, and for Damon. Remember that there’s someone out there who cares about you, the real you.”

“You are a mysterious one, Elena Gilbert,” Stefan said. With one last nod of appreciation, Stefan turned to go.

Hot tears were running down her cheeks as Elena watched Stefan walk out of her life forever. But Elena wasn’t sad, or not only sad. This Stefan might live. And that made it all worthwhile.

Chapter 28

Elena rushed from room to room, looking for the others. She was panting, but she couldn’t stop to catch her breath. She had to stop Damon before it was too late.

“Elena.” Outside the Mad Slasher Room, Stefan came toward her, his dark clothes and hair blending into the shadows of the hall, only his pale face and white shirtfront standing out clearly. Elena stopped, eager for news. “I found Meredith,” he said. “She’s up at the front with a lot of other people, taking money.”

“She should be safe there,” Elena said. “As long as she doesn’t head out alone.” Meredith was in charge of the whole Haunted House; she could be called into the more isolated recesses of the warehouse at any moment.

Stefan glanced away, a touch of color rising in his cheeks. “I, er, Influenced her to stick with the group instead of wandering off by herself.”

“Good thinking,” Elena said. “Now we just need to find everyone else.”

The Mad Slasher Room was packed and full of noise. A boy with a chainsaw was enthusiastically revving it, chasing screaming victims around the room. Fake blood was grotesquely sprayed across the walls, and less noisy maniacs strangled and hacked at anyone who came close. Elena jumped and shuddered as the laughing, shrieking victims shoved past her.

They were playing at blood and death, and Damon could be anywhere, watching, ready to tear them apart. She felt sick as she tried to make out individual faces and costumes in the crowd.

There was no Grim Reaper, no Egyptian priestess, no werewolf, no Druid.

In contrast, the Alien Encounter Room was quiet when they passed through. Bright beams of light flashed on and off overhead, while a girl stretched out on a table below was poked and prodded by gray alien-looking figures. The girl glanced up and winked at Elena, and Elena realized it was Sue Carson.

No one Elena and Stefan were looking for.

Caroline should have been in the Deaths from History Room, playing with a rubber snake, but she wasn’t.

Turning to leave, Elena caught sight of red curls peeking out from under the black hood of a rather short executioner wielding a plastic axe over Anne Boleyn’s head. Grabbing hold of the executioner’s axe arm, she asked, “Bonnie? What are you doing here?”

“Ray had to go to the bathroom,” Bonnie explained, pulling off the hood. Underneath, she looked a little sweaty and disheveled, strands of hair sticking to her forehead. “I said I’d take over for a few minutes.”

“Bonnie, Damon’s here somewhere,” Elena said. “Have you seen Matt or Caroline?”

Bonnie sobered. “Caroline ought to be here,” she said. “Everyone’s been wondering where she is. The last time I saw Matt was in the Fun House. I’ll come with you.” She propped the plastic axe against the wall and led the way, Stefan and Elena hurrying after her.

The entrance to the Fun House was concealed behind a long black curtain. As Elena reached to twitch it aside, a hooded figure stepped out, black clothes swirling all around it. Elena jerked backward, her breath catching in her throat.

But the dark figure was too short to be Damon.

“Vickie?” Elena said, peering beneath the hood. “Have you seen Matt or Caroline?”

Vickie frowned, thinking hard. “I can’t say,” she said.

Beside her, Elena felt Stefan stiffen, turning his full focus onto Vickie. “You can’t say?” he asked slowly. “Vickie, can we come into the Fun House?”

“The Fun House is closed,” Vickie told them.

“What? No, it’s not,” Bonnie said, and tried to dodge past her, but Vickie shoved her backward.

“You can’t go in there,” she said. There was something flat behind Vickie’s usually timid brown eyes, and Elena finally figured out what was going on: Damon had compelled Vickie to keep them out.

Stefan wouldn’t be able to compel Vickie to let them in—his Power wasn’t as strong as Damon’s—but he was stronger than any human. Her eyes met Stefan’s green ones, and she knew they were in perfect agreement. He would have to overpower Vickie.

“Hang on,” Bonnie said. Her small hand gripped Elena’s, and she pulled on Stefan’s arm with her other hand. She tugged them down the hall with her, looking back to smile over her shoulder at Vickie.

“Damon’s compelled her,” Stefan said, pulling out of Bonnie’s grasp as soon as they turned the corner away from Vickie’s gaze. “Caroline or Matt—maybe both of them—must be in the Fun House. There isn’t much time.”

“I know,” Bonnie said. “But there’s another way into the Fun House.”

Crooking a finger for Elena and Stefan to follow, Bonnie led them to a narrow opening between two partitions and pulled aside a swathe of black cloth. “Duck under here,” she said softly, “and we’ll come out on the other end of the Fun House.”

“You’re the best, Bonnie,” Elena whispered and ducked under the cloth.

When Elena straightened up, she had to blink and shield her eyes for a moment. Strobe lights were flashing here, too, but far faster and brighter than in the Druid Room, as if they had been turned up to their maximum settings.

In one bright flash of light, Elena saw a twisted face, pale and staring. A corpse. They were too late, she realized, with numb horror. Everything was lost.

“Elena?” Stefan asked. He must have been able to hear the panicked change in her breathing. The lights flashed again and she realized there was no corpse, just her own reflection, distorted by a fun-house mirror.

The mirrors were everywhere. An image of Elena and Bonnie stretched out like rubber bands stood by a reflection of Stefan with an enormous head. Loud carnival music blared all around them.

The whole effect was dizzying, and Elena wanted to shut her eyes, but there was no time. They had to find Damon.

The hall of mirrors curved in front of them, and they couldn’t see the other end. Cocking her head to indicate the direction, Elena led Bonnie and Stefan up the hall, stumbling as the lights dimmed, then flashed again.

As they rounded the bend, she saw Damon and Caroline, reflected over and over. There were a hundred Damon and Carolines in the flashes of light, all around her, squashed and bulbous, long and thin, bulging oddly.

In the center, two perfectly beautiful people, one human and one vampire, were locked in what was almost an embrace.

Damon had thrown off his cloak and wore jeans and a black button-down. His head was bent back, exposing his long white throat to Caroline. In one hand, he clasped a dagger loosely—Stefan’s dagger, Elena realized, one of his stolen treasures—and Elena could see that he had made a cut along his breastbone for Caroline to feed from. Her face was pressed against Damon’s chest, and, with a shudder of disgust, Elena realized Caroline was swallowing his blood eagerly.

When Caroline raised her head for a moment, her mouth was red and slick with blood. It dripped down her chin and marked her pure white shift. Elena recoiled. The girl’s cat-green eyes seemed dazed, and, as she gazed up at Damon adoringly, Elena was quite sure he’d put Caroline heavily under his Power.

“Stay back, Elena,” Stefan said softly.

At the sound of Stefan’s voice, Damon looked up and threw him a dazzling, brief smile. Turning Caroline gently around so that she faced them, he raised his dagger and laid it against her throat. Caroline hung in his grasp, blinking slowly, not seeming to even see them.

“No,” Stefan said. Elena could feel him tensing himself for one desperate run at Damon. And she knew, as surely as if she had seen it, that if Stefan made a move toward him, Damon would cut Caroline’s throat.

“Stop,” she said, her voice breaking. “Everybody, just stop.” She pushed back her own red hood so that she and Damon could see each other more clearly. His eyes held hers, wide and dark, and his lips tipped up in a mocking smile.

“You need each other, you and Stefan,” she said. “Why are you trying to make another family when your family is here?”

Damon sneered. “Family. Stefan hasn’t been my family since he stuck a sword through my heart.”

Beside her, Elena felt Stefan stiffen. Then he stepped forward. “There is nothing I regret more than that. I killed you. My only brother.” His green eyes were full of tears. “Even if I lived forever, I could never make it up to you.”

Damon stared at him, his handsome face blank.

“Remember how Stefan followed you when you were a child?” Elena asked. “He’d take a beating from your father rather than ever betray your secrets. He worshipped you.” She felt Stefan glance at her curiously, wondering how Elena could know that, but it didn’t matter now. She kept her attention firmly fixed on Damon.

Was his grip on the dagger pressed to Caroline’s throat loosening? Elena wasn’t sure.

“Remember Incognita, the beautiful black mare you won playing cards, when you were just sixteen?” Stefan said hoarsely. “That morning when you brought her home, you let me ride behind you, and we went so fast, her hooves hardly touched the ground. We were invincible then. Happy.”

Surely the taut line of Damon’s mouth was softening, Elena thought. The dagger had slipped a little, resting gently against Caroline’s throat as she sagged, half-conscious in Damon’s arms. But then Damon tensed again.

“Sentimental tales from the nursery,” he scoffed. “Those children have been dead for centuries.” He took a fresh grip on the knife.

“It still matters,” Elena said desperately. “You’re both still here. There are only two people left in the world who remember you when you were alive, Damon. Once Stefan is gone, only Katherine will remember, and she’s the one who changed you. No one else knows anything but the monster. It’s not too late to change that.”

Damon hesitated for a split second. “Again with these promises you can’t keep. If you want the good brother, you already have him.”

Elena shook her head. “No,” she said. “This isn’t about that. I never had either of you, not in this world.”

Damon’s forehead creased in a puzzled frown, but Stefan held out his hands to his brother beseechingly, walking slowly toward him. “I never meant to kill you,” he said, as softly and soothingly as he would have spoken to a wild animal. “I would spend the rest of my days trying to right that wrong, if you would be my brother again.”

There was a long, tense moment. The cheerful, hectic carnival music was at odds with the mood of the room.

In a quick motion, Damon pushed Caroline forward so that she fell onto the floor, landing hard and lying motionless. Bonnie gasped and rushed to her.

Looking past Stefan, Damon’s black eyes met Elena’s. “I won’t turn your friends,” he said shortly. His gaze shifted back to Stefan’s. “I won’t kill you, either, I suppose. Not now at least.”

There was no embrace between Stefan and Damon, no show of catharsis. But Elena caught a hint of a smile on Damon’s face—a small, private smile Elena had seen before, in the future she left behind. It was a smile Damon only ever gave to his brother.

Joy flooded through her, as if she was filling with sunlight. Mr. Tanner had survived. Bonnie and Meredith and Matt and Caroline—who Bonnie was fussing over now—were still human. Halloween night was almost over.

She was going to have a future. They were all going to live.

Chapter 27

“He’s beautiful,” Katherine said, “but he’s always had that rage inside him. When he was human, I thought it was romantic.”

“We have to stop him,” Elena said to Stefan. “In this mood, he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”

“You promised me I would save them,” Katherine said. Her face began to crumble with disappointment. “You said I’d be a hero.”

There was a glimmer of violence in Katherine’s eyes. Elena remembered the white tiger Katherine could become, the cruelty of the Katherine she’d met the first time she’d gone through this. Elena’s lips parted. She had to say something to defuse the situation.

“I want what you wanted for us, Katherine,” Stefan cut in. His face was more open than Elena had seen it in this time. “You sacrificed everything for us, and I won’t forget that. But we have to find Damon before it’s too late. Before your sacrifice was for nothing.”

In a moment of sympathy and understanding, Katherine approached Stefan. Elena saw in Katherine what she’d been feeling for the past few weeks—loss of true love. Katherine pressed her lips to Stefan’s cheek, as gently as a human would. And then in the blink of an eye, Katherine was gone.

“Come on,” Elena said, gripping Stefan by the hand and pulling him out the door of the Torture Chamber. “We have to find him.”

A giggling group of girls pushed past them into the Torture Chamber, and Elena hesitated in the passageway, looking both ways. The Haunted House was teeming with people. Which way would Damon have gone?

Stefan pushed her gently toward her left. “You go that way,” he said grimly. “I’ll work my way back toward the entrance. There are only so many places he could be.”

“Check on the Druid Room first,” Elena said. They needed to make sure he wasn’t anywhere near Mr. Tanner. “We’ll find him, Stefan.”

Of course, we don’t know what we’ll be able to do if we find him, a nagging voice remarked in the back of Elena’s mind. Still, she headed through the maze of rooms, her eyes raking the shadows, looking for the Grim Reaper. There were a lot of people in black-robed costumes, but none of them were Damon.

An engine revved behind her, and Elena was shoved sideways by a shrieking group as a chainsaw-wielding masked man chased them down the hall. She took a turn between two partitions and found herself suddenly alone.

“On your way to Grandma’s, Little Red?” someone whispered throatily behind her.

Elena turned to see a werewolf, its mask’s muzzle dripping with gruesomely realistic blood. “Matt?” she asked uncertainly.

“Didn’t they tell you to stay on the path?” The werewolf’s voice got a little louder as he leered at her.

Tyler, Elena realized with disappointment. “Have you seen Matt?” she asked, her voice flat.

“There’s more than one wolf in these woods, Little Red,” Tyler told her, laying a large, hairy paw on her shoulder.

Elena shrugged it off. “Look, Tyler, I really need to find Matt. Or Meredith,” she added. If she knew where they were, maybe she could hide them from Damon.

Tyler scowled. “No, I don’t know where they are.” He leaned against her, his breath hot on her neck. “Come play with me instead, pretty girl. I’ll show you the way to Grandma’s house.”

“If you see them—or Caroline or Bonnie—tell them I’m looking for them, okay?”

He huffed a sigh. “Whatever.” Two girls Elena didn’t know turned the corner into the other end of the hall, and Tyler lost interest in Elena. “Full moon, ladies,” he shouted, walking toward them, and tipped his head back in a throaty howl as they giggled.

Elena passed through the Spider Room next, but there was no one there but a bunch of rowdy junior-high boys, batting the rubber spiders at each other. The Living Dead Room was teeming with people, one of whom, moaning, “Braaaaains,” pretended to take a bite out of Elena’s face. But there was no black-clad Meredith in a witch costume, no werewolf Matt, no Egyptian Caroline.

Dread settled in the pit of Elena’s stomach. Could Damon have trapped them all in the fated Druid Room? Could Stefan be outnumbered? Bonnie ought to be there too, playing a priestess sacrificing Mr. Tanner. At least she knew where Bonnie was supposed to be.

I told her it was going to be all right, Elena remembered. Half running, she headed for the Druid Room.

Bonnie wasn’t there. There was no one poised above the altar, although Elena could hear shrieks and laughter coming from not far away. Strobe lights flashed, giving the whole room a dizzying, dreamlike quality. Beneath the cardboard Stonehenge, Mr. Tanner was stretched out across the sacrificial stone altar, his robes heavily stained with blood, his eyes blankly staring up at the ceiling. Beside him lay the ritual knife in a pool of blood.

The chill in Elena’s center hardened into a frightened little ball. She rushed toward him, trying to see if Mr. Tanner was breathing. His eyes were rolled back in his head, showing little more than the whites.

She bent over the still figure, working up the nerve to touch him. “Mr. Tanner?” she said softly. Too late, too late, the little voice in the back of her head mourned. If Damon had managed to kill Mr. Tanner, then Elena was dead, Damon was dead, Stefan was dead.

Elena extended a shaking hand, her heart hammering, to touch Mr. Tanner’s neck, to feel for a pulse.

Just before her hand made contact, Mr. Tanner sat up. “AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!” he shrieked into her face.

Elena screamed, a thin, high sound of shock and backpedaled away from him, banging her hip hard against the wall. Stiffly, Mr. Tanner lay back down in the same position, his eyes rolling back into his head again. A small, pleased smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Pressing a hand against her chest, Elena tried to calm her wildly pounding heart. She took a deep breath as it started to sink in: Mr. Tanner was still alive. She hadn’t failed. She could still save herself, save them all.

Chapter 26

Heavy clouds loomed overhead, and the air seemed ominously electric, on the verge of a storm. Outside the Haunted House appeared a devilishly masked mannequin, its black clothing flapping in the wind and giving an appropriately nightmarish ambiance to this Halloween night.

Stefan and Elena stopped outside the Haunted House. Stefan’s face was drawn tight, and Elena felt sick and anxious. Pulling up the hood of her Red Riding Hood costume, she carefully covered her distinctive golden hair.

“This is the night Damon said he was going to turn Meredith and Matt and Caroline into vampires,” she whispered to Stefan. “He has to be here. They’re all here, and there’s so much confusion, it will be easy for him.”

Stefan nodded grimly. Looking up at him, Elena couldn’t help the little clench her heart gave. He looked so good in his tuxedo and cape, elegant and completely natural. A debonair vampire costume, what else? And people thought Stefan didn’t have a sense of humor.

She hadn’t been completely honest with him. For her plan to work, for the brothers to forgive each other, Katherine’s revelation that they hadn’t caused her death had to come as a surprise. So she had told him only that they needed to protect her friends from Damon.

“We’ll mingle with the crowd and keep an eye out for him,” she said as they approached the Haunted House entrance. “If you hang out in the Torture Room, that might be a good place. It shouldn’t be too crowded; it’s off the main path and it’s mostly dummies, not people in costume. It’s the kind of place Damon would be likely to take someone if he wanted to be alone.”

Despite Elena’s defection from the Haunted House committee—which Meredith had only reluctantly forgiven her for—and Bonnie’s missing most of the all-important planning stage, Meredith and the rest of her decorating committee had done an amazing job on the Haunted House. It looked nightmarishly creepy, the entrance enthusiastically draped in spider webs and handprints made with fake blood.

Now everything was in chaos as the seniors rushed to get the last pieces in place before the paying public was allowed in. Elena and Stefan ducked through the crowd and made their way along the twisting route of the tour.

Outside the Torture Chamber, Elena squeezed Stefan’s hand. “This is it,” she said. “Good luck.”

“I will protect them if I can, Elena,” Stefan told her, and slipped through the doorway to hide inside among the torture implements.

Elena went on, glancing in at the different sets as she passed. The Alien Encounter Room was already dark, lit only with phosphorescent paint, and zombies milled around the Living Dead Room, adjusting one another’s makeup.

The Druid Room was near the back of the warehouse, and Elena frowned. If she’d had time to really participate in the committee, maybe she could have made it more central, so that it would be more difficult for Damon to feed from—and kill—Mr. Tanner.

Love is powerful, Mylea had said, but should Elena have paid more attention to logistics and less to changing Damon’s heart? She should have made it impossible for Damon to kill Mr. Tanner instead of hoping she could make him not want to.

She swallowed hard. This was the right way to go. If she couldn’t change the relationship between the brothers, surely it was only a matter of time before Damon killed again. She could only hope that Katherine would pull through, for all their sakes. If it didn’t work, maybe there was never any hope for Elena’s mission.

And there Mr. Tanner was, upright and indignant, arguing with white-robed Bonnie in front of a cardboard Stonehenge. “But you’ve got to wear the blood,” she was saying pleadingly. “It’s part of the scene; you’re a sacrifice.”

“Wearing these ridiculous robes is bad enough,” Mr. Tanner told her. “No one informed me I was going to have to smear syrup all over myself.”

“It doesn’t really get on you,” Bonnie argued, but Elena had heard enough for now. She remembered this argument. She’d joined in the first time, trying to convince Mr. Tanner to cooperate, and then Stefan had finally compelled him. But Meredith, a witch in a tight black dress, was already approaching, and Elena realized she had faith that Meredith’s logic and persistence would be just as effective as Stefan’s Power had been.

Both Bonnie and Meredith were focused on Mr. Tanner, not even noticing Elena, and she hesitated, watching them. Meredith was talking softly and reasonably to Mr. Tanner while Bonnie looked harried but amused, a smile lurking at the edges of her mouth.

Elena’s heart ached with how much she loved them. Memories came rushing back to her: Meredith telling ghost stories at their junior high sleepovers, Bonnie’s face bright over her ninth birthday cake, the focused frown Meredith wore as she studied, the shine of Bonnie’s eyes on her wedding day. Damon wanted to change them, destroy their lives, make them unaging killers. She had to stop him.

It was almost time for the Haunted House to open. Time to look for Damon.

The Haunted House was like a maze this time, Elena realized. The warehouse was bigger than the school gym had been, and Meredith had filled the space with many more horrors than they’d been able to fit in the school gym the first time this Halloween had happened, when Elena had been in charge. Elena cut through the Séance Room and the Deaths from History Room, where she spotted Caroline, a nubile Egyptian priestess in a linen shift that left very little to the imagination, talking to Tyler in his werewolf costume. One potential victim, she thought, and looked for the others. She would have to keep them all safe.

Slipping between the temporary partitions, Elena cut through the Spider Room, where she had to push her way through dangling rubber spiders. She found Meredith and Bonnie again, and followed as they hurried back toward the entrance, ready to lead customers through the house. Outside the entrance to the fun house, she finally identified Matt, who had taken the head of his own werewolf costume off. Everyone in place, she thought, and glanced automatically toward the Torture Chamber.

The last of the seniors were getting in position. The doors were about to open. “Bonnie,” Elena said softly, coming up next to her.

Bonnie jumped a little. “Elena,” she said. She looked curiously at Elena’s costume. “I thought you were going to wear that Renaissance dress your aunt had made for you.”

“No, I lent that to someone else,” Elena told her. “Bonnie, can you do me a favor? Damon’s going to come here, dressed as the Grim Reaper. Be nice to him, okay? Don’t let on that you recognize him if you can help it, and steer him toward the Torture Chamber. I’ll take it from there.”

Bonnie paled, but she nodded. “I’ll try,” she said, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “What if he tries to bite me, Elena?”

Elena slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “I don’t think he will, at least not here,” she said comfortingly. “You’ve got your bracelet and Mrs. Flowers’s sachet, so he can’t Influence you, and I don’t think he’ll try anything with this many people around. If he does, just scream as loudly as you can.”

Bonnie didn’t seem terribly comforted, but she nodded again and squared her shoulders. For a moment, she looked to Elena like a young soldier heading into battle. Frightened, but firmly determined to face down death if necessary. Suddenly filled with affection, Elena hugged her friend tightly. “It’ll be all right,” she breathed in Bonnie’s ear. “I promise.” Something twisted inside her, and she hoped, fervently, that she would be able to keep the promise.

A voice sounded through the warehouse. “Okay, they’re about to let in the line. Cut the lights, Ed!” Gloom fell, and, with an audible click, somebody started the recorded sounds of groans and maniacal laughter, so that they resounded through the Haunted House. Letting go of Bonnie, Elena headed for her own chosen spot as the doors opened to let in the crowd.

It took a long time for Damon to appear. From her hiding place behind a particularly gruesome-looking plastic apparatus and agonized dummy in the Torture Room, Elena listened to the shrieks of kids going through the Haunted House and itched with impatience and anxiety.

Stefan paced from one side of the room to the other and hesitated in the doorway, listening carefully. The red light that illuminated the room turned his skin a ghastly shade. Things were coming to a crisis, Elena could see that. Stefan’s jaw was set, and he was kneading the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. He was worried that Damon might be feeding on humans while he and Elena waited in the wrong place. Finally, he straightened, making up his mind, and stepped toward the entrance once more.

Just then, a hooded figure came through the door, black robes sweeping around him. The Grim Reaper regarded Stefan silently for a moment, scythe clutched in front of him, and then he swept back his hood.

“Hello, little brother,” Damon said, showing his teeth in what looked more like a snarl than a smile.

Stefan looked at him gravely. “I’ve been waiting for you, Damon,” he said.

Damon cocked a cynical eyebrow. “Saint Stefan,” he said mockingly. “Does the lovely Elena want you to make peace? Stop me from making a new family?” He moved closer, resting a hand lightly on Stefan’s shoulder, and Elena saw Stefan flinch. Stefan was, she realized, afraid.

When he spoke, though, his voice was steady. “It’s been a long time since I thought talking to you would do any good, Damon. If you want family, I’m here. All I can do is try to stop you from doing your worst, from doing something you’ll regret.”

Damon’s smile widened. “You stop me, baby brother? All you do is ruin everything, without even trying to.” He pulled Stefan closer, his hand clamping down on Stefan’s shoulder like a vise.

Moving so fast that Elena had no time to react, not even to gasp, he spun Stefan around and slammed him into the wall, sinking his teeth deep into Stefan’s throat. Stefan gave a small choked moan of pain, and Elena flinched. Damon hadn’t taken care, hadn’t bothered to soothe Stefan the way he would have a human. He wanted to this to hurt.

A terrible ripping noise came from the grappling brothers—Damon’s teeth tearing something in Stefan’s throat—and Elena clenched her fists. This was a stupid plan, she realized. Damon’s angry enough to kill Stefan.

Just as she began to step forward out of her hiding place, a new voice, cool and arrogant, rang out.

“Stop it.” Katherine, her head held high and her mouth thin and angry, was suddenly beside them. Damon lifted his head, his mouth dripping with blood from his brother’s throat, and they both stared at her.

She was wearing the Renaissance dress Aunt Judith had made for Elena’s Halloween costume, and she looked lovely, as delicate and ornate as an expensive doll, just the way she must have looked five hundred years before. The red lighting changed the ice blue of the dress to a pale violet and threw pink shadows on Katherine’s pale face and golden hair.

Elena had thought that Stefan and Damon might mistake Katherine for Elena, just for a second, but it was clear that neither of them had the least doubt about who she was.

“Katherine,” Stefan said. His face was full of mixed emotions. Shock, disbelief, dawning joy, and relief. Fear. “But that’s impossible. It can’t be. You’re dead. …”

Katherine laughed, a brittle, desperately unhappy laugh. “I wanted you to believe that. Your little human toy, the one who looks so much like me, she figured it out, but you never did.”

“Elena?” Damon asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Katherine circled them, head held high. Her long skirts swept the floor with a quiet susurration, and Damon turned slowly, so that he was always facing her, tense and wary. “Your Elena convinced me to tell you the truth.”

“Tell us then,” Stefan said steadily.

“I wanted us all to be happy,” Katherine said, looking back and forth between Stefan and Damon. Under the red lights, tears glistened on her cheeks. “I loved you. But it wasn’t good enough for you. I wanted you to love each other, but you wouldn’t. I thought if I died, you would love each other.”

Elena had heard Katherine’s story before. She let the words wash over her and concentrated on Stefan and Damon’s faces as Katherine unfolded her tale: how she had another talisman against the sun made and given her maid her ring. How the maid had burned fat in the fireplace and filled Katherine’s best dress with it, left it in the sun along with Katherine’s note telling Stefan and Damon she couldn’t bear to be the cause of strife between them. That she hoped that, once she was gone, they would come together.

Katherine’s face was paler than ever, her eyes huge, tears running down her cheeks. The story had taken her back, and it was in the hurt, puzzled voice of the young girl she had been that she exclaimed, “You didn’t listen, and you ran and got swords. You killed each other. Why? You made your deaths my fault.”

Stefan’s face was wet with tears, too, and he was as caught up in the memory as she was. “It was my fault, Katherine, not yours. I attacked first,” he said in a choked voice. “You don’t know how sorry I’ve been, how many times I’ve prayed to take it all back. I murdered my own brother. …”

Damon was watching him intently, his eyes dark and opaque. Elena couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Surely this was what he needed? To know their centuries of enmity had been pointless, that his brother regretted striking that blow and dooming them both?

Stefan turned to him. “Please, Damon,” Stefan said, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry. What we’ve fought about for so long, hated each other over”—he gestured to Katherine—“none of it was real.”

Trembling, Stefan reached a hand toward his brother, and something snapped shut in Damon’s expression. He stepped away as quickly as a cat.

“Well, it’s lovely to know that you’ve survived,” he said, turning to Katherine. His voice sharpened. “But don’t flatter yourself that I’ve spent the last five hundred years pining over you. It’s not about you anymore, Katherine. It hasn’t been, not for a long time.”

As he spoke, his eyes fixed on the spot where Elena was hiding. He’s known I’m here all along, she realized. She stepped out from behind the dummy. “Please, Damon,” she began.

But Damon’s face was a mask of fury. “You think this changes anything, Elena? I’m not going to forgive you so you can live happily ever after with my whining weakling of a baby brother. The world is nothing but suffering, and the fact that one girl lived when we thought she was dead doesn’t make any difference. This doesn’t change my plans.”

Moving too quickly for their eyes to follow, Damon was gone.

Chapter 25

Elena climbed down into darkness, the iron rungs cold in her hands. By the time her feet hit the stone floor at the bottom of the ladder, she was in total blackness. Pulling the flashlight from her back pocket, she flicked it on and ran the beam of light over her surroundings.

The opening of the crypt was just as Elena remembered it. Smooth stone walls held heavy carved candelabras, some with the remains of candles still in them. Near Elena was an ornate wrought-iron gate. Pushing the gate open, Elena walked forward with a slow, steady tread, trying to calm her hammering heart.

The last time she had been here, she’d been a vampire, and she’d had Damon and Stefan both with her, as well as her human friends. More important, that time she hadn’t known what she was getting into. Only that she had been led down here, and that something terrible lurked, just out of sight.

Now Elena knew exactly what was down here.

Her steady footsteps echoed against the stone floor, their sounds only emphasizing how silent it was. Elena could easily believe that no one else had been down here for more than a hundred years. No one else alive, anyway.

Beyond the gate, the beam of the flashlight caught on pale, familiar marble features. A tomb, the twin of the one up in the church. The stone lid here had been broken in two also, and the pieces flung across the crypt. Fragile human bones were splintered and strewn sticklike across the floor. One crunched beneath Elena’s feet as she approached, making her wince guiltily.

She had hoped that, since Katherine hadn’t appeared in Fell’s Church, hadn’t sent disturbing dreams to torment Elena, it meant she wasn’t so filled with rage in this time. But the violence with which the tomb had been desecrated seemed to prove that Katherine was as furious and destructive as she had ever been.

Elena turned the thin wavering beam of the flashlight to the wall beyond the Fells’ tomb. There, as she’d known there would be, lay a gaping hole in the stone wall, as if the stones had been ripped away. From it, a long black tunnel led deep into the earth beyond.

Elena licked her lips nervously. Resting her hands on the cold moist dirt at the edge of the tunnel, she peered into it. “Katherine?” she said questioningly. Her voice came out softer and shakier than she had meant it to, and she cleared her throat and called again. “Katherine!”

Straining her eyes to see into the darkness, Elena waited.

Nothing. No sound of footfalls, nothing white coming swiftly toward her. No sense of something huge and dangerous rushing at her.

“Katherine!” she called again. “I have secrets to tell you!” That might bring her if anything would; Katherine von Swartzchild, first love of Damon and Stefan, the one who had made them vampires and turned them against each other was nothing if not curious and eager for information. That was why she had followed Stefan and Damon here, why she had spied on Elena.

Elena waited, watching and listening. Still nothing. She felt her shoulders sag. Without Katherine, she didn’t have a plan at all.

How long should she wait? Elena pictured herself sitting against the wall, surrounded by the Fell’s broken bones, waiting for Katherine, growing colder and colder as the light of the flashlight dimmed. Elena shuddered. No, she wouldn’t stay here.

She turned to go, and the beam of the flashlight landed on Katherine, standing only a few feet behind her. Elena jumped backward with a strained yelp, her light skittering wildly across the crypt.

Katherine looked so much like Elena that it knocked Elena breathless, even now. Her golden hair was perhaps a shade lighter and a few inches longer, her eyes a slightly different blue. Her figure was thinner and more fragile than Elena’s: Girls of her time and class had been expected to sit and embroider, not run and play.

But the delicate curve of Katherine’s brow, her long golden lashes, her pale skin, the shape of her features—they were all as familiar to Elena as looking in a mirror. Unlike Elena, who was dressed in jeans and a sweater, Katherine wore a long, gauzy white dress. It would have made her look innocent, if it weren’t for the brownish-red streaks across the front, as if Katherine had absent-mindedly wiped bloody hands on it.

“Hello, pretty little girl, my sweet reflection,” Katherine said, almost crooning.

Elena swallowed nervously. “I need your help.”

Katherine came closer, touching Elena’s hair, running cold fingers across her face. “You’re a nasty, greedy girl,” she said sharply. “You want both my boys.”

“You wanted them, too,” Elena snapped, not bothering to deny it. Katherine smiled, her teeth disturbingly sharp.

“Of course I did,” she said. “But they’re mine. They’ve always been mine. You should have left them alone.”

“I am going to leave them alone from now on,” Elena said. “I promise. I just want them to be brothers. I want them to be happy. You did too once.”

Katherine had, Elena knew, let both brothers drink her blood, promised them each eternal life with the secret idea that they would love each other, that the three of them could be a happy family, together forever. When they had rejected the idea of sharing her, she faked her own death, sure their mutual grief would bring them together.

She’d been a fool. Damon and Stefan had loathed each other already, distanced by their competition for their father’s love, by their roles as the good and bad sons. Jealousy over Katherine had only heightened their dislike, and their anger and grief at her death had ripened it into hatred.

Katherine had expected Stefan and Damon to turn to each other, but instead they had turned on each other, swords in hand. Each murdered at his brother’s hand, they’d died with Katherine’s blood in their systems, and risen again, vampires, cursed forever.

“They don’t want to be happy.” Katherine’s eyes widened with remembered hurt, and for a moment, Elena saw the fragile, naïve girl who had destroyed Damon and Stefan with a mistaken idea of romance. “I gave them a gift. I gave them life forever, and they didn’t care. I told them to take care of each other, in my memory, but they wouldn’t listen. They threw everything I’d given them away.”

“But maybe it’s not too late,” Elena said. “Maybe if they knew you were alive, they could forgive each other.”

Katherine’s eyes narrowed angrily, her lips curling into a sulky pout. “I don’t want them to forgive each other,” she said in a childish voice. Then she began to smile, an unpleasant, hungry smile. “You, on the other hand …” She stroked Elena’s cheeks. Her hands were terribly cold, and they smelled of the earth around them. Elena shivered. “We look so much alike,” Katherine said musingly. “I should make you like me. We could travel together. It would be such fun. Everyone would think we were sisters.”

There was something wistful in Katherine’s eyes as her hand shifted to run through Elena’s hair, pulling a little at the long strands. Maybe family was what Katherine needed. She’d lost her father when she’d lost the Salvatores and fled Italy. Would knowing she had other family make a difference to Katherine?

“We are sisters,” she said, and Katherine’s hand pulled away.

“I don’t know what you mean, little one,” Katherine said. “You’re no sister of mine.”

Elena swallowed, feeling the dry click of her throat. “We really are. My mother—your mother—was an immortal. A Celestial Guardian. She left you to keep you safe. And when, hundreds of years later, she tried to keep me safe, the other Guardians killed her.”

Katherine’s mouth tightened into an angry line. “That doesn’t make any sense. My mother died when I was a baby.”

“No, it’s true,” Elena said simply. There was nothing but hostility in Katherine’s face, but Elena pushed on. “I ask you, as your own flesh and blood, to help me. You wanted to be the one to bring Stefan and Damon together, and you still can be. They need you, Katherine. Five hundred years, and they’ve never stopped loving you. It’s torn them apart.”

Katherine’s face was blank and cold. “They deserve to suffer.” She squeezed her fists tightly, slamming her arms down at her sides. “They’ll suffer if I kill you. Or if I take you with me.”

“No.” Elena took Katherine’s cold, muddy arm, her heart pounding. “They’ve suffered all along. You can save them this time. You’re the only one who can.”

Hissing, Katherine pulled away. With a rattling noise, the crypt began to shake around them. Despite herself, Elena shrieked as the lid to the tomb fell to the floor with a crash, Honoria Fell’s face cracking. Another tremor had Elena stumbling and grabbing onto the stone wall to keep from falling.

“Stop it!” she demanded, glaring at Katherine. The other girl stood stock-still, her pale face tilted up as if she could see through the dirt and stone to the ruined church above. From high above, Elena heard a heavy thud, and Katherine’s lips curled in a joyless smile.

Elena ran. Her heart pounding, she shoved through the half-open gate and down the long dark corridor, her flashlight swinging wildly. She didn’t look back, but her nerves were on edge, listening for a footstep, waiting for Katherine’s inhumanly strong hands to clamp down upon her shoulders and drag Elena back.

Katherine could kill her, could turn Elena into a vampire if she wanted to, and there was nothing Elena would be able to do about it. Why had Elena tried to reason with her?

Grabbing hold of the iron rungs set in the wall, Elena began to pull herself up as fast as she could, her breath coming fast and anxious. The crypt had stopped shaking, for now, but her hands, sweaty with nerves, still slipped as she climbed. Partway up, she lost her grip on the flashlight and it fell, crashing into the stones below and going out, leaving Elena in darkness. Far above was the faintly lit rectangle of the tomb in the church, and Elena kept climbing toward it as fast as she could, holding tightly onto the rungs.

At last Elena reached the top and scrambled out through the Fells’ tomb, gulping deep breaths of the cold fresh air. Once she was standing on the floor of the old church, she dared to glance down into the crypt below.

There was nothing there, no white-clad figure following her. But that proved nothing. Katherine could take many forms, and she was much, much faster than Elena. Elena’s best chance, she thought, would be to cross Wickery Bridge and head home as quickly as she could. Katherine was powerful enough that she had trouble crossing running water.

The sun had set and night had fallen while Elena was down in the crypt. Terrific, she thought, a cemetery after dark without a flashlight and a vampire on my heels. This was a truly genius idea, Elena Gilbert.

She stumbled over what seemed to be every tombstone in the long grass of the older part of the graveyard, once falling hard enough to skin the palms of her hands. Elena scrambled up and hurried on, finding her way by the light of the half-moon above her.

Once she reached the road outside the cemetery, the tight ball of anxiety in Elena’s chest relaxed a little. Not much farther until she could cross the bridge and then head back home. She’d have to go back to her own house. Aunt Judith had called someone to fix the window and insisted on moving back home. At least it was closer than Meredith’s, but Elena didn’t know how to keep them safe from Damon. Perhaps now that he was focusing on her friends, he would leave Elena’s family alone.

Just before the bridge, a white-clad figure barred Elena’s path. Katherine’s pale gold hair whipped around her in the wind.

Elena glanced back over her shoulder. There was no point in running. Katherine was a thousand times faster than Elena, and the only thing that would hinder her—running water—was on the other side of her.

For a moment, Elena thought of begging for mercy. But she knew Katherine well enough to know that wouldn’t do any good. Whatever Katherine decided to do, she would do.

Might as well go out fighting. Elena tossed her head back and marched straight up to Katherine. “What do you want?” she asked.

Katherine’s cold blue eyes regarded Elena for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. “You think that I can save them? I’ll do as you ask, little mirror. I will let Damon and Stefan know that I still live.”

“Oh.” Maybe Elena’s pleading had done some good after all. “Thank you.”

Katherine frowned at her crossly. For a moment, her voice sounded young, a hurt child’s, but her eyes seemed terribly old. “There’s no happy ending in this for either of us. I hope you know that,” she said. “I’ve lived this once already. I know what it’s like to love them both, and to lose them.”