by L. J. Smith
When Trinity had turned the corner and was completely out of sight, the hold she had on Meredith broke.
Immediately Meredith raced after her, her heart pounding as she rounded the corner of the library and ran between the dorms behind it. But Trinity was gone. The campus spread out in front of her in the early morning light, peaceful and silent and completely empty.
Meredith went back to Roy. He was still lying where Trinity had dropped him, his tall, broad body looking small and broken.
Meredith turned him over gently and checked his pulse. Roy flopped over unresistingly, a dead weight, his throat torn and bloody. How had Solomon’s invasion of her body turned Trinity into a vampire? Meredith didn’t understand it, but the evidence was right here before her. Trinity was a vampire—and like all the Old Ones, one who had nothing to fear from daylight.
Poor Roy, Meredith thought. Had he been happy to find Trinity, before she turned on him? She placed her hands on his chest and began CPR, pushing in a steady rhythm, lowering her mouth to his to force oxygen into his lungs. Even though she was pretty sure it was pointless, she had to try.
When Stefan and Elena had argued earlier over Trinity’s fate, Meredith hadn’t known what to think. But now she knew Stefan was right.
Trinity hadn’t known who Roy was, hadn’t really remembered Meredith. They’d both just been hunters to her, targets Solomon had been aware of all along. The girl who had been their friend, who had hunted beside them, was gone.
“No matter what happens, we have to try to hang on to normal,” Elena said.
Matt nodded. Personally, this was the last thing he wanted to be doing. But it was typical Elena: When things were at their worst, she whistled in the dark. He just wished Elena’s way of whistling in the dark didn’t include making Matt try on shirts.
“That one looks nice,” she went on, giving him a friendly once-over. “I know Jasmine likes green.”
Matt stiffened. He hadn’t told anyone about what had happened with Jasmine yet. There was too much going on for him to feel like he could bring up his personal life, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about it. “We broke up,” he said, his voice sounding just as rough and miserable as he felt.
“Oh, no,” Elena breathed. “What happened?” Then her face darkened as she answered the question for him. “It’s because she finally found out the truth about everything, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Matt said quietly. “She didn’t want all that to be part of her life.”
“I don’t blame her.” Elena grimaced. She bent her head and flicked distractedly through some more shirts. “It’s terrifying. Remember how you felt when you found out that all of this—vampires and hunters and scary monsters in the dark—is real?” She looked up at Matt questioningly. “If you could do it all again, go back to the way things were before, would you?”
Matt flinched. We could start fresh, he heard Jasmine saying again, remembering how wide and pleading her beautiful eyes had been, and how they’d darkened in disappointment.
“I could never leave you guys in danger,” he told Elena, and it was true.
Elena looked up at that. “I know you couldn’t,” she said, her mouth curling into a sad smile. “But I worry about you sometimes.” She pulled two more shirts off the rack and shoved them into his hands. “Try on the blue one first and let me see.”
In the dressing room, Matt carefully buttoned the blue shirt and smoothed it down. Elena doesn’t need to worry about me, he thought. But how could he ever turn his back on his friends? It went against everything he believed in.
“Gorgeous!” Elena said when he came out in the new shirt. Her voice was cheerful, but her smile looked pasted on, too wide and toothy.
“How about you and Stefan?” Matt asked cautiously. “Today, the two of you seemed …” Angry. “… at odds.”
Elena’s smile fell. “He and Jack are out there, trying to track down Trinity,” she said, her voice flat. “They asked if I could trace her aura, but I refused. Not unless they’re going to try to save her before they kill Solomon.” She let out a long, frustrated breath. “Stefan just won’t listen. He thinks he’s protecting me, but I’m not helpless.”
“I know,” Matt said gently. “Even before you were a Guardian, you were pretty tough.” Elena rewarded him with a more genuine smile, and he went to change shirts again.
When he came out, she had a lock of her silky blond hair twisted around her finger, her face thoughtful. Pushing at the rack of shirts, she said, “Can’t Stefan see there’s more to the world than me?”
Matt couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that rose up in his throat at that. “Sorry,” he said, in response to Elena’s frown, “but when we were in high school, that’s the last thing you would have said.”
Elena had the grace to chuckle a little at that. “I wasn’t that bad,” she replied defensively.
“Well, I always liked you.” Matt shrugged. He had more than liked her—beautiful, selfish, determined Elena. He still liked her now, but somewhere along the way, he had finally given up on loving her.
“I’ve changed,” Elena said. “We all have. We grew up. I’m proud of who I am now.” She frowned, sticking her chin out stubbornly. “And I cannot let Jack and Stefan kill Trinity without even trying to save her.”
“I know, and I’ll help if I can.” Matt hesitated, not sure whether to say the rest of what he was thinking, and Elena cocked an inquiring eyebrow. “Just …” He didn’t quite know which words to use. “Just don’t give up on Stefan, okay? You love each other, and that’s … hard to lose. I don’t like seeing you fight.” He thought again of Jasmine’s eyes when she’d said good-bye, and his chest felt hot and tight.
Something of this must have come through in his words, because Elena looked at him knowingly, terribly sad, her lips pressed together and a deep line between her eyebrows.
To make her smile again, he held up the blue shirt. “And I’m buying the shirt.”
He didn’t really need a new shirt, but it was worth it to see her face lighten. As he followed Elena to the checkout line, though, he couldn’t help the nagging worry that always lived at the back of his mind now, that had lived there for years.
The worst is still to come.
When Elena got back home, Stefan was digging through the hall closet. “I’m looking for my axe,” he explained, a bit awkwardly, not looking at her. “Have you seen it?”
Elena shook her head, and he shoved a bunch of coats aside. “Here we are,” he said, pulling it out and turning away. “I need to go. I’m late meeting Jack.”
“Stefan—” Elena reached out to stop him.
He turned back toward her, seeming reluctant. There was so much pain in his face, lines of strain around that perfect sensual mouth and hurt darkening his eyes, making Elena’s heart ache. All the way home, she had been thinking of what Matt said: You love each other, and that’s hard to lose.
“Stefan,” she said, helplessly. “I don’t want to hurt you. I never, ever want to hurt you. I love you so much.”
Stefan’s face softened and he stepped toward her. “I love you, too, Elena. Everything I do is for you.”
“I know that,” Elena said, her voice calm and even. She smiled at him and held out her hand, feeling like she was coaxing some small animal out of its hiding place. He took it, hesitantly, and she squeezed, her palm warm against his. “I’m sorry we argued. But I’m worried about you. I’m afraid wanting to protect me has kept you from seeing how someone as innocent as Trinity—the real Trinity—needs us to give her a chance.”
Stefan opened his mouth to object, and Elena pushed on quickly. “I worry that your morals are getting out of whack, Stefan, because you’re so worried about me that you’re not stopping to think. It’s what I’ve always admired most about you, your sense of right and wrong,” she finished softly, and rose up to brush her mouth against his.
But Stefan pulled away. “I love you, too, Elena,” he said. He was frowning, his fac
e hard with determination. “But we have to stop Solomon before he kills again. If that means losing Trinity, that’s the price we have to pay. If we had any proof, any sign at all that Trinity was still in there, I’d be with you on this. But all I see in there is Solomon.”
“We need to give her a chance,” Elena said, her voice rising. “It’s not fair. I know I don’t have any proof, but we aren’t sure. If there’s even a shred of a chance that Trinity’s trapped in there, we have to do everything we can to save her.” She’d tried to talk to Stefan with a cooler head, but here they were, right back where they’d started.
Stefan turned away and headed for the door, his axe swinging easily from his hand. “I’m sorry, Elena, but I can’t promise you that,” he said coldly over his shoulder. “I have to do what’s right, what’s best for everyone. Even if you can’t see it.” He closed the apartment door quietly behind him.
Elena stared after him, her heart aching. He shouldn’t have to shut himself off from her like that. She was losing Stefan—and he was losing himself.
“Ready?” Bonnie asked, reaching for Marilise and Rick. They each joined their free hands with Poppy’s, forming a circle of four.
Poppy blinked rapidly, clearly nervous, and Bonnie grinned at her reassuringly. They all could feel Alysia watching them from the other side of the roof and, behind her, the other groups with their mentors.
Bonnie swallowed and steeled herself, shutting out everything except her three friends and the cool stone of her falcon resting at the hollow of her throat. She used it to center herself, breathing deeply, and closed her eyes.
Her consciousness flickered along their joined hands, going around the circle, pulling on Marilise’s solidity, Poppy’s energy, Rick’s calm. To each of them, she said, silently, Can I? Can I? Let me in, and felt each reply a wordless yes. Their hands warmed in hers, and she waited.
And then Bonnie felt a little thrill along her spine as something slid into place between them, all their edges neatly fitting together. With a jolt, they were connected. Power began to pour into Bonnie from all three, filling her, making her gasp. She was a balloon, swelling with the others’ Power, stretched so thin it was almost too much for her to contain.
Bonnie opened her eyes—or rather, opened several pairs of eyes, each in a different place. She saw the faraway stars glowing faintly above the city from four different angles. She could see her own profile through their eyes, her head tilted backward, her cheeks round and soft. Bonnie felt like a live wire, thrumming with the energy of four people, burning and fizzing with it.
She took all this Power, her own and her three partners’, and gave it a direction. It roared fiercely through her and up toward that clouded, dim-starred city sky. Flooding through her body and expanding farther and farther out, the Power cleared away the clouds, brightening the stars.
Bonnie gasped for breath and kept pushing. Power pulsed steadily through her as she concentrated on summer back home, picnics down at Warm Springs when she was in high school, the sun hot on her back and the smell of fresh-cut grass underfoot. Mixed up with this were Poppy’s memories of her days at summer camp, pounding along on horseback on a wooded trail; Rick’s of a childhood creek, cold water splashing around his calves, sharp river pebbles underfoot and sticky humid heat wrapping around him like a blanket; and Marilise digging in her garden, fragrant plants and crumbling dirt under her hands.
All those summers combined into one. Bonnie felt it take shape—hot and long and glorious, a perfect summer—and then she pushed it into the night.
Slowly, a bright white light began to grow and grow on the rooftop, Bonnie at its center. A few querulous chirps sounded and then a growing cacophony of birdsong, as birds awoke and decided that they had somehow missed the dawn. Everywhere else, it was night, but here on the rooftop, surrounded by their joined Power, it was day.
Bonnie held the sun in place for a few minutes, locked into a circuit of their Power, which ran through her into the sky and back to them again. She was the circuit. She felt stronger and more flush with Power every moment. She could keep the false day going all night, she realized, until the real sun came up.
But then she pulled back, breaking the circuit. This was just a demonstration of what they’d learned; she didn’t need to hold it all night. It was enough to know that she could. Power drained out of her, leaving her alone in her own head. She blinked as her vision reduced to one point of view, one set of eyes. The light faded slowly, and night fell again.
Bonnie let go of her friends’ hands and snapped the connection between them, releasing their Power. Breathing hard, they smiled at one another.
There was a burst of applause and some murmurs of appreciation from the group behind them as they surged closer. Bonnie had almost forgotten about their audience. “Very nice, very nice indeed,” an older, bearded man kept saying, nodding and patting them on the backs.
Alysia pulled Bonnie to the corner of the roof, grinning. “That was terrific!” she exclaimed. “I liked what you chose, the way you all pulled energy from a personal memory. It’s much stronger that way. You’re really good at this.”
“Thanks,” Bonnie said. “It felt … it was great, I felt like I was all three of them, sort of. And myself, too.” She was alone in her head now, but she could still feel the echoes of them: Poppy’s spirit, Rick’s intentness, Marilise’s warmth.
Alysia raised her hand and pushed one of Bonnie’s wild curls out of her face. “I know you’ve been waiting to go home, and I think, now, you’re ready,” she said. “You’ve learned so much. Maybe it’s time to use your Powers where they’re really needed.”
Happiness rose up inside Bonnie, making her feel almost weightless for a second. Home! Now she could really help with the trouble in Dalcrest, more than she ever had before. Now she could go back where she belonged. She’d get to be with the friends she loved as much as sisters, and with Zander, wonderful, clear-eyed, warmhearted Zander. She’d missed him with a constant low ache the whole time she’d been in Chicago.
Impulsively, she reached out and wrapped her arms around Alysia, pulled her into a tight hug. “Thank you,” she said, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, “Thank you so much.”
If she concentrated all of her Guardian Powers, Elena could just see the faintest wisps of darkness, like tendrils of smoke hanging in midair. Eyes narrowed, she followed the traces of the dark aura, moving carefully from one to the next as she trekked through the woods. Matt and Darlene were following her, the undergrowth crunching beneath their feet, but she couldn’t risk looking back at them. If she took her attention off the trail of evil stretching out before her, it just might disappear.
“Are you sure she knows what she’s doing?” she heard Darlene whisper loudly to Matt.
“Yes,” Matt answered, defensive. “Remember what Andrés did? Elena’s special.”
To be completely honest, Elena wasn’t entirely sure she knew what she was doing. Stefan, Jack, Alex, and Meredith—four experienced hunters, one of them a vampire—had headed out to hunt Trinity today, weapons in hand, earpieces on, aiming for a kill. Zander had his werewolves patrolling the town and the campus, keeping people safe. Alaric was at the university, researching more folklore about body-swapping and possession.
And then there was the renegade force: Elena, Matt, and Darlene, hoping to somehow bring Trinity in alive. They wanted to hold her safe until they could figure out how to reverse what had happened and put Trinity back in control of her own body.
Darlene had appeared on Elena’s doorstep that morning and grabbed her by the arm, her fingers as strong and tight as if they were made of iron. Hunter’s grip, Elena had thought, trying to wriggle free. Meredith held tight like this.
“Jack told us you want to get Solomon out of Trinity,” Darlene had said, fixing Elena with fierce dark eyes, something desperate in her tone. “I want to try, if you will. Trinity’s like a little sister to me.”
Of course Elena wanted to try. She remembered T
rinity’s laughing challenge to her on the roof at the apple orchard and felt a pang of sorrow—that sweet-natured girl was lost, and no one was going to help her. If there was even the slightest chance Trinity was still there, they had to try. No matter what Stefan thinks, I need to do what’s right, she thought, trying to make herself strong and inflexible. She wasn’t used to being on the opposite side of an argument from Stefan.
So now here they were, just Elena, Darlene, and Matt, the three musketeers, hoping that somehow they could save Trinity. Following this trace of wrongness, these tiny shreds of darkness hanging in the air, Elena led them forward. The trail was thin and faint, but it was there.
The darkness led them through the woods away from campus, mostly downhill. Their feet squished unpleasantly in the mud.
At last they came to the edge of a lake. Little ripples wet the toes of Elena’s boots as she followed the dark aura right to the shore. When she strained her eyes, she could see its trail leading out over the water, toward the vast middle of the lake.
“It goes straight over the water,” she told the others.
“We’re not going out there,” Matt objected. “We’ll walk around, pick it up on the other side.”
Elena shook her head, her eyes on the faint traces of darkness. “If we leave the trail, I probably won’t be able to find it again. It’s too faint.”
“Elena …” Matt said.
“I can’t.” She stared at him desperately. “We’ll lose it.”
Matt sighed. “I’ll find a boat,” he said, gesturing off to the right. “There’s a boathouse over there.”
Elena nodded, never taking her eyes from the dark trail, barely daring to blink. Behind her, she heard Darlene shift from foot to foot and sigh.
“I knew Trinity’s family,” the older hunter said. “Before her parents died, they were almost like my parents, too. They fed me, offered me a place to stay, gave me advice I usually didn’t follow. Trinity … she’s the only one left. I can’t just let go of her.”