The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3)

by Michelle Hazen

  I give the waitress a tight smile and bend my head to Elena as I carry her out into the dawning morning, inhaling the smoky scent of her hair like it’s a prayer for every impossible thing I need to pull off to keep her precious body whole and safe.

  I have bluffed and blustered and crashed and burned through over a century and a half of dangerous living but now I need to do everything absolutely perfectly. Because I can’t afford the price of failure.

  * * *

  JEREMY

  I collapse onto the bed with an explosive exhale. We came straight over here after breakfast in the diner, but I’m already headed toward thirty hours without sleep and I am beyond ready to crash.

  Matt gives me a sideways look as he drops his duffel onto the purple and orange hotel bedspread. I reach over and snap the Walmart sales tags off the zipper pull.

  “What?” I say.

  “What do you mean, what? You bailed on the car with Katherine in it.” He rolls his shoulders and reaches up to knead the right one. “After our last road trip, how did I manage to forget how exhausting she is?”

  I grab a pillow and stuff it under my head, my legs dangling off the end so my sneakers scuff the worn carpet. “No idea, unless you slipped Damon a twenty to erase your memory.”

  “And give him free rein inside my head to convince me that I had a thing for dudes, and probably chickens?” Matt scoffs. “No thanks.”

  There’s a hard, quick knock at the door, and we look at each other, immediately alarmed.

  “I swear to God, if that’s her wanting to borrow my razor again, even though she’s the only one who got a chance to pack…” Matt trails off and just shakes his head.

  I snort, because we both know he’d still loan her his damn razor.

  I get up to answer the knock, because it’s obvious he’s not going to. I take a breath to argue with Katherine, but when I open the door, a tiny girl blasts into the room, a messenger bag banging against one hip and a brand new duffel bag in Bob Marley’s signature tri-color pattern slung over her opposite shoulder.

  “I claim the right to asylum,” Cali huffs out, and drops her bag with a crash.

  “What?” I just stand there, the door still hanging open.

  “Protection for refugees who are fleeing their hostile native country,” Matt decodes with a half-smile, and I let the door drop closed.

  “So…” I say, a laugh creeping into my voice, “how do you like your new roommate?”

  Cali flops back onto the bed I claimed as mine, her arms spread wide as if in defeat.

  “Caroline told me every bit of drama that’s happened within your whole friend-family in thirty-seven minutes flat.” She blinks blearily at the ceiling. “It was the most information-rich period of my life.”

  Matt snickers, and I grin.

  “Which reminds me,” she says, rolling onto her side and propping her head up on an elbow. “You two did not tell me you were the Jailbait Brigade!”

  “I’m 19!” Matt protests.

  Cali looks miffed. “Still.” She turns accusing eyes on me. “And you’re in high school. High school, Jeremy. Pep rallies. Lockers. Bitchy girls. My soul just died for you a little bit.”

  “Yeah, mine too.” When she puts it that way, I’d kind of rather be running from the Augustines. I wonder if we can stretch this crisis out through the whole fall semester.

  “Does it still really count?” Matt asks, his thoughts apparently on the same track as mine. “He’s spent all but 2 weeks of his senior year on the run.”

  Cali frowns. “Oh, right. To get away from Silas, who we’re now carrying around in a concrete-filled coffin. Trust me, that one took a minute to swallow. From now on? I’m riding in the Camaro.”

  “If that keeps Katherine out of his car, I’m sure Damon would be happy to have you,” I comment.

  “Oh yeah,” Cali says, wrinkling her nose. “Ew. Completely understand why he nearly burst a vessel when you told him she had to come.”

  Matt and I swap a glance, because the Katherine/Salvatore saga should have taken at least thirty-seven minutes to explain on its own. Caroline really did pack a lot into her intro speech.

  “You seem surprisingly cool with all this,” Matt says hesitantly.

  Cali snorts. “Right. Or I’m just topped out on weird for the night and I’ll have an aneurysm in my sleep. Also, it’s not so much an accident that I’m moving into the room with the only two humans who are not also psycho hose beasts.”

  I smile at her Wayne’s World reference, before I realize that this means Caroline must have forgotten to add the whole piece where I became a Hunter of the Five. Oh well, Cali’s had enough to process for one day. And then some.

  “So…” Cali says, batting her eyes playfully at us. “Got room for one more non-supernatural being?”

  “Sure,” I agree without hesitation, and then eye the floor balefully.

  We don’t have any extra bedding to make a pallet, and that carpet looks about as soft as a sidewalk. I used to be able to sleep on floors okay when I was a kid, but now it kinks up my back and shoulders something fierce. Maybe I can talk Housekeeping out of another blanket or something for more padding. Since we rented rooms through the middle of the day, it’s not like they have other guests to attend to.

  Damon seems to think the safest time to rest is the day, when the Augustines can’t go outside, and then we can keep on the move at night so we’ll be harder to find. When I reminded him the Augustines have human members too, he just rolled his eyes, like humans hardly counted. But humans have gotten the best of him before, even if I didn’t feel like arguing enough to point it out.

  So maybe I’d feel better if Cali stays with me, anyway. Just in case the Augustines track us down before we leave this hotel.

  “You know, it’s not like Caroline’s going to have you for lunch,” Matt tells Cali dryly. “If they gave awards for Vampire of the Year, she’d take the trophy for sure.”

  “No, Caroline’s nice enough and all. If a little…chirpy.” I stifle a laugh, and Cali looks pained. “But she took all her clothes out and refolded them into the dresser. Even though we’re only staying for a few hours. And she laid out our toiletries.”

  Matt looks puzzled. “So?”

  “All either parallel or at protractor-perfect ninety degree angles.” Cali quirks an eyebrow. “I think she’s walked about four miles around our hotel room so far, just organizing, and it’s giving me hypertension. Besides, after all that shit with vampires today? I could use a little quiet.”

  Matt gives her a sympathetic look. “Caroline’s got sort of a control thing. And with everything that’s going on, it’s probably even more over the top than usual.” He glances toward the door, then shrugs his bag on over his shoulder. “I’ll go stay with her. See if I can’t knock her out of the tailspin.” He shoots a casual wink my way, and then pops the door open and takes off.

  As soon as the door drops back into the frame, I realize I’m alone with Cali Jameson. In a hotel room. A weird kind of prickling heat zings up my body, and my hands flex uncertainly.

  Cali narrows her eyes and hooks a thumb toward the door with a curious little tilt to her head. “Did I just— Are they going to…?”

  It takes me a second to catch on, and then I blink with surprise. “Oh!” I shake my head quickly. “Nah. They used to be together. Didn’t work out.”

  “Huh.” Her eyes dodge around the room, and snag on my unopened bag, discarded in the corner. A little smile tugs at the edges of her mouth. “Aaand I just invited myself to stay the night in your room. I am just the queen of awkward today, aren’t I?”

  I smile. “It’s no big deal.”

  She clears her throat, tucking her knees up onto the bed with her. “So, blood bags, huh?”

  I nod. “For the most part, yeah. That’s how they make it work.”

  She blows out a long breath. “Look, I don’t have the energy to think about all this vampire/werewolf/witch/Augustine super vampire business t
onight but…the compulsion thing?” she ventures uncertainly. “Caroline said there was an herb you had to take to block it but we don’t have any?”

  “Or you avoid eye contact with vampires, which is kinda tough to pull off,” I say, feeling guilty that I brought her on a trip with a bunch of vampires and no vervain, because I know how bad it feels to be totally vulnerable to them, even the good ones. Matt has his bracelet, but I don’t feel right asking him to give it up.

  “Okay, eyes submissively downward. Check.” She smiles ruefully. “And on the upside, apparently your friends really can guarantee I’ll get my job back when I finally go home.”

  “Maybe we can find you some vervain along the way somehow,” I offer. “But no matter what, no one here is going to compel you.”

  She laughs and looks down, her fingers twisting together. “Or at least I won’t know if they do, right?”

  “I’ll know,” I promise her, taking a step closer to the bed. “They can’t compel me, even without vervain.”

  She tilts her head, studying me. “Why? Something to do with your sister being a vampire?”

  “It’s…complicated.”

  It’s not that I’m ashamed of being a Hunter. It just seems like too much work right now, with having to explain about Connor and the convict Stefan turned for me to kill, and Klaus’s hybrid. It’s a pretty messy story on the best of days, and this is far from the best of days.

  “Of course it is.” She sighs, but her eyes are thoughtful when she looks at me. “Better stick close to you, then, huh?”

  “Sure,” I say, shrugging as my eyes flick to the carpet. I hope she doesn’t think that was some kind of ploy to force her to room with me. “Not that they would compel you anyway.”

  “Right.” Cali rolls onto her back and closes her eyes. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay?”

  Before she came to our room, Cali changed into soft grey yoga pants and her hair is pulled back into a bun held with one of the free hotel pens, a twist of spiky hairs escaping from the loose knot. She’s just the kind of rumpled and relaxed that always looks cuddly to me, and a little bit sexy. I’m having a hell of a time not staring and that’s not going to do much to make her feel comfortable sleeping here.

  I take the remote off the nightstand and grab a seat on the bed that was supposed to be Matt’s, flipping on the TV even though I hate motel TV more than almost anything, because I’m not in the mood to make conversation.

  Even though she is unspeakably hot, I just don’t have the energy to think of anything flirty or clever to say after thinking I was going to die tonight, and then having another house burn down on me. Not to mention the fact that I’m looking at another indefinite spree of cheap hotel rooms and bad TV. It may be better than high school, but it still seems kind of depressing.

  I steal another glance at where she’s laying on the opposite bed, the clingy cotton of her pants perfectly outlining the sleek muscles of her legs, and yup, I really shouldn’t have done that. My brain feels slow and fuzzy with fatigue, but my body’s not getting the message that Cali didn’t come to my room for a booty call. Is there any casual way I can pull a pillow across my lap?

  Probably not.

  My hoodie is tied around my waist and I shift like I’m finding a more comfortable position, managing to maneuver one of the hanging sleeves to where it covers the bump under my fly. I haven’t even kissed a girl since Bonnie and that’s just…not a headtrip I need to take tonight.

  Cali pushes to her feet and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I try to pretend I can’t hear her peeing, but I think I’m still blushing a little bit when I hear the bathroom faucet shut off and she comes back out, drying her hands on a rough white towel.

  She props a hip against the doorframe and crosses her feet at the ankles, giving me a serious look that I’m starting to recognize as her “no bullshit” face.

  “You want me to go?” she asks. I smile because I kind of like that there’s no insecurity lurking behind the statement.

  “No,” I tell her honestly.

  She raises her eyebrows at me and lets her eyes do a slow, pointed revolution of the empty, silent room. I chuckle a little at her reaction, because I can’t help it, and tuck a hand behind my head as I relax against the headboard.

  “You said you wanted quiet,” I point out.

  Please, God, don’t let her be one of those girls who says that and then talks while like circular breathing or something so they never have to pause.

  “Ha!” The laugh leaps out of her throat like it surprised her, and she shoots the hotel towel back into the bathroom, landing it in a ball in the sink. “I like you, Jeremy Gilbert,” she says, dropping onto the bed she’s claimed as hers and pulling her messenger bag up next to her.

  I dodge a glance over at her. “Um, thanks?”

  “It’s late. Or early, whatever. Feel free to put on headphones and ignore me,” she says, pulling ear buds out of her bag and unwinding them from around a battered-looking iPod.

  “Can’t.” I grimace, thinking of my Sony studio-quality headphones. I bought them with the money I saved from working at the Grill, and then Elena replaced them after she burned our house down. “My iPod and my headphones were in the house when it went up.”

  Cali pauses in mid-movement. “You’re kidding.” She stops, and rolls her eyes. “Right. Not kidding. I was there.” She bites her lip. “At least your music is backed up to the Cloud, right? When I was in high school, my mom sold all my CD’s once and I nearly committed murder. In the first degree.”

  “Yeah, it’s backed up,” I tell her, trying to sound like it is no big deal.

  It’s not like it’s the first time. I lost everything I owned when our family’s house burned, and I had just started to build things back up again. I mean, yeah, you can buy everything new but it takes a while to break in shoes to where they’re comfortable. Or find a pillow that’s the combination of soft and fat that you want. And when everything’s new, nothing really feels like it belongs to you. I left my backpack in class twice earlier this year just because I didn’t remember it was mine.

  I try not to look at the shiny duffel in the corner, filled with jeans and tee shirts and a five pack of boxers in an odd brand that I’m not even sure are going to fit yet. Which reminds me: I need to buy pajama pants tomorrow if Cali’s going to be staying in my room. Shit, I hate sleeping in jeans. The rivets always bite into my hips, and invariably it’s those nights when my dick works its way out of the flap of my boxers and gets scratched on the zipper.

  I shouldn’t be complaining. Nobody died tonight. And more than most people, I understand what that really means. Those Augustine vampires are scary fast and there were so many of them. We shouldn’t have all made it out alive.

  “This calls for a revolution,” Cali says definitively, standing up on her bed and jumping once to build momentum before she makes the leap over to mine.

  The bed bounces and I knock my knuckles against the headboard with the jolt of her landing. I drop my arm back down again. It’s been like a day and a half since my last shower and I’m probably way overdue.

  “Should I be armed for this revolution?” I ask her warily.

  “It’s a communist revolution,” she says, dropping down next to me with her whole weight at once like we’re on a trampoline instead of a cheap motel mattress. She holds out an ear bud. “All property held in common.” She waggles the ear bud enticingly. “I’ve got the new Lindsey Stirling…”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to admit I like that,” I say dryly, trying not to notice that she’s got Sennheiser ear buds because I’m not a snob or whatever, and ear buds are never going to compete with a decent set of noise-cancelling headphones, but those things can pack so much bass into a tiny little rubberized nubbin.

  “Come on, violin and electronica, what’s not to love?” She purses her lips in a playful pout, her eyes dancing. “We can even pretend you don’t have all her hilariously bizarre YouT
ube videos bookmarked so you can watch her shake her tiny little booty.”

  I flush and look down. “Shut up. She’s a good dancer.”

  Cali shrieks with laughter and then leans over and presses a kiss into my cheek, sending my skin tingling all the way down my chest.

  “You’re adorable,” she announces, and snuggles down into the pillow next to me.

  My heart jumps and I forget to breathe, focusing on the warmth of her body right next to me.

  I’m so tired I’m almost crazy enough to wish I were a few years older and she were a few notches less talented, because I’d give my right leg to be playing in Cali Jameson’s league.