by L. J. Smith
He was sharpening the machete, the long-bladed weapon propped carefully against his knee as he slid a file along it.
“I need some more blood from you for the weapons,” he said without looking up. “If Solomon’s still out there, we need to go after him.”
“Damon just called,” Elena told him. “Katherine’s dead.”
Stefan’s hand jerked, slicing a long cut on his arm with the machete, and he gave a small cry of pain. But his leaf-green eyes were unsurprised. “I know,” he said. “I’ve known since it happened.”
Elena found a cloth for him in the kitchen. “Here,” she said. “Put some pressure on it.” But the cut was already healing. Stefan just wiped the blood away and went back to sharpening the machete, his face closed off again.
“I thought—I felt something; I knew she was gone. How did she die?” he asked, his eyes on the blade. Elena knelt beside him and pressed her face against his shoulder, and he stopped sharpening the machete for a moment to rest his hand heavily against her hair.
“Damon didn’t have time to say. I think something is chasing him.” Elena drew back and watched Stefan keep moving the file steadily along the blade. Then she said, hesitantly, “He told me he asked you to come and help them. Days ago.”
Stefan nodded, still not meeting her eyes. “I couldn’t,” he explained. “We were hunting for Solomon. I had to keep you safe.”
“Stefan! Look at me.” Stefan’s head was still bowed, his gaze averted. Elena grabbed the handle of the machete and pulled it away from him. Stefan hissed in shock, yanking his hands back before it cut him again. Elena tossed the machete onto the floor.
“I am not that vulnerable,” she said hotly. “I’m a Guardian, and I have Power of my own.” Powerful and amazing, Trinity had called her. Elena knew she needed to remember that, to remember that she didn’t need to be protected.
Getting to his feet, Stefan stared at her, stricken. “Andrés was a Guardian,” he said. “And look what happened.”
“And we weren’t able to prevent it,” Elena said. She was tired of this, tired of Stefan treating her like she was more vulnerable than the rest of them. Yes, Andrés had died, and it was terrible and frightening. Any of them could die, not just Elena. “All I’m saying is that I can take care of myself sometimes. And when I can’t, there are people around me who can help. Meredith. The other hunters. A whole Pack of werewolves. I’m not alone.”
Stefan reached out and took Elena’s hands, pressing them against his chest, above his heart. “I had to be here,” he said. “I want to protect you.”
“It’s not just about me,” Elena said. “When Damon called you for help, you should have gone. He’s your brother, and he needed you.”
Stefan’s mouth twisted into a bitter parody of a smile, still clinging to her hands. “It’s always Damon, isn’t it?” he asked. “Even when he’s thousands of miles away, he manages to come between us.”
Elena stared at him, and then she pulled away. “This has nothing to do with Damon. This is about us. I’m not something to protect. I’m a protector. We need to work together, and we need to keep the big picture in mind. I’m not the only person in the world, Stefan.”
“To me you are,” Stefan said, and reached for her again. Elena shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. How had they gotten to this state?
The room blurred around her, and she wiped her eyes. “Maybe you should sleep out here tonight,” she said, her heart aching. “I need some room to breathe.”
#TVD11TroubleInParadise
Dear Diary,
Stefan said that, to him, I’m the only person in the world.
There was a time when I would have loved to hear that. But now, it just makes my blood run cold.
He’s out on the balcony, staring into the night, watching for danger instead of curling up in here with his arms around me. Most of me wants to run out there and apologize. He’d lose that miserable look he has, and we’d hold each other, and everything would be back to normal. For the night.
But when we woke up, the problem wouldn’t be gone.
Everyone Stefan has ever loved—including me, including Damon—has died, and left him.
It breaks my heart how much Stefan has suffered, how it’s almost impossible for him to believe that terrible things aren’t about to happen.
Of course it’s scary that Solomon’s still alive, and still hunting me. But I’m a Guardian, and I’m strong in my own way.
I ought to be protecting everyone. That’s what I’m here for, after all.
I keep worrying about Damon. If he asked Stefan for help, he must have really needed it, and Stefan would have known that. What’s changed, that Stefan thinks protecting me is the only thing that matters?
I love him. So much. And I’ve never regretted choosing to drink the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life, so that I could be with Stefan, forever.
I’ve never wondered if I made the right choice. Not until now.
“Looks quiet,” Jack said, parking his van in front of the storage place. Row upon row of heavy metal sliding doors lined the walls of the huge concrete building, each marking a separate unit. “Our extra weapon stash is in row J. If Solomon’s possessing Trinity and can access her memories, he might come here.” He gave a half shrug as he unfastened his seat belt. “Worth a shot.”
In the middle row of the van, Stefan closed his eyes wearily, just for a moment. He’d been dragging all morning, feeling like he was moving at half speed.
He was so tired. Elena’s words still echoed in his mind: I’m not the only person in the world, Stefan.
To him, she was.
From her seat beside Stefan, Elena gave him a tiny, fragile smile. Stefan’s chest ached a little at the peace offering. He smiled back, then, sighing, reached for the door handle. Tired or not, they needed to keep hunting Solomon.
“Wait a sec,” Alaric said. “There’s something you guys need to see.” Leaning forward from the back row of seats, he handed Stefan a piece of paper. Zander craned his neck to get a better look, but Meredith, sitting between them, didn’t react. She must have already known.
It was a computer printout of a “Missing” poster from the 1980s. Elena gave a sharp, high gasp when she saw it, and Stefan turned the paper so Jack and Darlene could see from the front as well. The photo was washed-out but recognizable: a young, sharp-featured man with tawny, shoulder-length hair, giving the camera an easy smile.
“That’s Solomon,” Zander said, cocking his head to one side. “Definitely. But the poster says Gabriel Dalton. I don’t understand.”
“When Meredith told me that you guys thought Solomon had possessed Trinity before he died, it didn’t quite make sense,” Alaric told them. “Possession doesn’t work like that. If Solomon had his own corporeal body, the shock of it being destroyed would have jolted him right back out of Trinity. I thought something else might be going on, so …” He spread his hands, his eyes on the smiling photo of Gabriel Dalton. “I did some research. I think Solomon body-swapped into Trinity’s body from Gabriel Dalton’s, pulled her spirit out, and put his own in. The body we saw wasn’t his original form either.”
“This is proof that Solomon’s done it before,” Meredith said. “The body Solomon was using was once someone else’s.”
“So who did we kill in Solomon’s—or, Gabriel’s, body?” Jack asked, looking grim. “This Gabriel Dalton? Trinity?”
Alaric spread his hands in a who knows? gesture. “I think Gabriel Dalton’s been dead for a while. Solomon wouldn’t leave any loose ends, and if someone believed they were Gabriel Dalton in another form, it would make things … messier for him.”
Stefan felt ill. Abruptly, he reached again for the door handle and hurried out of the van. He felt the others startle behind him, then follow toward the hunters’ storage locker. There’s nothing you can do about it now, he told himself. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d thought killing Solomon was a triumph, but instead he’d murdered an
innocent ally. He didn’t want to believe it, but it felt true.
Jack fell into step beside him.
“I killed Trinity,” Stefan said, defeated. Everything had happened so fast; he’d been so focused on killing Solomon, on ending all this.
“There’s no way you could have known,” Jack said roughly. “And Trinity was a good hunter; she knew the risks.” He twisted a ring on his finger with an angry, abrupt gesture. “The important thing is that we know what form Solomon’s in now. We should act quickly before he has time to swap into a body we don’t know.” He glanced back at Elena cautiously, then slowed to let her catch up. “Can you do that thing Andrés did? Channeling life force?”
Elena stopped dead and stared at him, aghast. “You mean kill her?” she asked angrily. “No. I won’t. There’s no proof that Trinity isn’t still in there. She could be possessed, helpless while her spirit is controlled by Solomon.” The others came up beside them, their faces worried.
A muscle at the side of Jack’s mouth twitched, and Stefan broke in. “What do you suggest we do, Elena?” he asked. “Alaric believes this is a case of body-swapping, and Solomon’s too powerful for us not to go after him with everything we have. If we hesitate, we put everyone in danger.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “By everyone, you mean me,” she said tartly. “But Trinity matters, too. We need to capture her, not kill her. We can’t kill her unless we’re completely sure she’s gone, that there’s no trace of her left in her body.”
His jaw clenching, Stefan glared back at her. For a moment, he felt like the world had narrowed to just the two of them. “You’re not the only one threatened here,” he said, his voice tense. “Think of Andrés. We can’t risk everyone to save one person who is probably already dead.”
“Yes, we can,” Elena insisted. “We don’t sacrifice innocent people to keep ourselves safe. That’s not us, Stefan.”
They stared at each other, Elena flushed and breathing hard.
“If there’s a chance Trinity’s still in there …” Darlene said slowly.
“She was a good hunter,” Jack said again. “Trinity would give anything if it meant we killed Solomon.”
There was a slight shifting in the room, as the group began to realize that there were two distinct sides, and they would all have to pick one. Jack agreed with him, Stefan knew: The risks of trying to capture Solomon without killing him were too high.
He’d fought with Elena before, over personal things, over Damon, but never over what the right course of action was. Looking at her outraged face, Stefan knew that if he ignored her, if he succeeded in killing Trinity, Elena might never forgive him. He could side with Elena, or he could keep her safe.
Either way, he might lose her forever.
Meredith’s eyes watered, blurring the harsh white lights, and she tried to turn her face away. But she was stuck fast.
This was worse than being held by Solomon’s Power. She could feel the multitude of tiny wires pressing against her skin, holding her in their trap. Heart pounding, she strained against them, trying desperately to move. But after a moment she gave up, letting her muscles go slack. It was only a dream, and soon she would wake up.
It just felt so real. The table—she was almost sure now that it was an operating table, and that thought started a cold dread in the pit of her stomach—was hard beneath her. Peering through the corners of her watering eyes, she could make out the blurry shape of something cylindrical and silver by her bedside. An oxygen canister, maybe? Was this a hospital?
The thought made her forget to be calm. She struggled harder, trying to wake herself up. Meredith had always hated hospitals.
As she pushed desperately against her restraints, a shrill beeping sped up, faster and faster. A heart rate monitor.
There was a shadow moving in the corner. Meredith stopped thrashing about and strained to see, the heart monitor slowing a little. There was no doubt about it this time. It was a person—shadowy, but getting closer.
With a sudden step, the figure moved to stand above her, anonymous in a surgical mask and white lab coat. Meredith blinked, trying to focus, but the person’s face was still blurry. Something sharp and metallic flashed in the stranger’s hand.
A scalpel, Meredith realized, heavy with dread, and tried to scrabble backward, to press herself into the hard table below her. She couldn’t move. Her breath was coming in anxious, harsh pants. “No,” she cried out, suddenly able to speak, hating the pleading, pathetic sound of her own voice.
The blade flashed silver along her stomach as Meredith watched, its motion followed by a thin, spreading line of red.
Something terrible was happening to her. Panic scratched at the inside of Meredith’s head, a frantic babble. Something terrible was happening now.
#TVD11Nightmares
Meredith’s eyes shot open. Dark room, soft bed, Alaric’s steady breathing beside her. She felt at her stomach, reassuringly whole and unbloodied. She’d known it was a dream. But her heart was pounding hard, and her mouth was dry. Dream or not, she’d brought the fear with her: Something terrible is going to happen.
She got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, leaving the overhead light off. When she opened the refrigerator to pull out the water pitcher, she winced, blinking at the brightness. Her eyes were still sensitive from the harsh white lights. No, she reminded herself. They’re not. That was just a dream.
Her throat was as dry and sore as if she’d really been screaming, though. Meredith gulped down the water and poured herself a second glass. It felt good going down, icily cold, but when she finished she was still parched.
There was something off about her, she thought. She felt jittery and overly sensitive, as if a touch might be too much to bear.
Swallowing against the ache in her throat, she squared her shoulders. Be strong. She was probably feeling weak because she’d been slacking off on her exercise schedule. Patrolling with Jack and his hunters was no substitute for a real workout.
A run clear would clear her head, Meredith decided.
A few minutes later, she left the house wearing a ratty old T-shirt and shorts, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Starting with a slow, deliberate jog, she gradually sped up, her feet slapping a steady rhythm against the sidewalk. The sky was beginning to lighten with the promise of dawn, but she had a stake strapped to her waist, hidden by her shirt, just in case.
By the time she reached the Dalcrest campus, she was almost at a sprint. The faster she went, the more centered Meredith felt, resettling comfortably in her own body again as her muscles strained.
The sun was just creeping over the horizon, and the campus was almost deserted. Meredith ran right past the only two people in sight, a couple making out, hot and heavy, pushed up against the side of the library.
A few strides farther on, she stopped, the scene she’d just passed replaying in her mind’s eye. The way the girl had her face pressed into the man’s throat, her arms holding him in place. The slump of the guy’s shoulders.
Meredith swore and turned back, running as fast as she could, her hands fumbling to pull the stake from under her shirt.
It wasn’t until the girl looked up, blood dripping down her chin, the ends of her hair sticky and matted, that Meredith realized it was Trinity.
“Hey there,” she said, baring her teeth at Meredith. “I was hoping I’d run into all you hunters.”
With a twist of horror, Meredith realized the guy Trinity held propped up was Roy, one of the hunter brothers. He flopped forward against her, his eyes closed and his head hanging limply. Meredith couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
Her hands closed tighter over her stake, her heart pounding. If she could get close enough … A stake wouldn’t kill an Old One, if that was even what Trinity was now, but it might slow her down.
“Are you in there, Trinity?” she asked, watching the girl carefully. If only she’d glance away for a moment. If Meredith could somehow distract her, maybe she could get close en
ough.
Trinity’s smile grew, but she said nothing, just stuck out the tip of her pink tongue to lick the blood off her lips. With an internal shudder, Meredith realized Trinity’s eyes were yellow now, like an animal’s. Like Gabriel Dalton’s when he had Solomon inside him.
Taking a step closer, the stake firm in her grip, Meredith asked, “Do you know who you are?” She cocked her head toward Roy, limp and still, his head lolling against Trinity’s collarbone. “Do you know who he is?”
Trinity laughed, a harsh, sudden noise completely unlike her usual soft chuckle. “All you hunters are tied so tightly to one another, aren’t you? I wonder if you know as much as you think you do.”
She glanced at Roy for a moment. “This one? He’s a fighter, but he couldn’t strike at someone he knew.” Meredith was only half listening. With Trinity’s attention distracted for that split second, she saw her chance.
Lunging forward, she stabbed the stake at Trinity’s heart.
And was frozen in place.
If Meredith harbored any doubts that Solomon had invaded Trinity’s body, they fell away now. It was like the Plantation Museum, like her nightmares. Her muscles, which just a minute ago had been strong, running, were completely immobile.
“I’d kill you now, but it’s more fun to play,” Trinity—Solomon—said. “I’ll see you around, hunter.” She stepped away from the library without even glancing back at Roy, and he fell heavily to the ground, landing on the concrete with a sinister thud.
Without looking back, without hurrying at all, Trinity sauntered off, her boots clicking on the pavement. Meredith was powerless to do anything except watch her go.