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  Elena and Meredith exchanged an alert glance. “A vampire?” said Meredith. “Or a werewolf, maybe?”

  “I was wondering about that,” Matt admitted. “It makes sense.” Without seeming to notice, he finished his bagel, and Elena took advantage of his distraction to slip some fruit onto his plate.

  Bonnie wrapped her arms around herself. “Why?” she asked. “Why is it that, wherever we go, weird, scary things happen around us? I thought that once we left Fel ’s Church things would be different.”

  No one argued with her. For a little while, they al sat quietly, and Bonnie felt as if they were huddling together, trying to protect themselves from something cold and horrible.

  Final y, Meredith reached out and took an orange slice off Matt’s plate. “The first thing we need to do, then, is to investigate and try to figure out if these attacks and disappearances are supernatural.” She chewed thoughtful y. “As much as I hate to say it, we should probably get Damon on this. He’s good at this kind of thing. And Stefan should know what’s going on, too.” She looked at Elena, her voice gentle. “I’l talk to them, okay, Elena?” Elena shrugged. Bonnie could tel she was trying to keep her expression blank, but her lips were trembling. “Of course,” she said after a minute. “I’m sure they’re both checking things out anyway. You know how paranoid they are.”

  “Not without reason,” Meredith said dryly.

  Matt’s eyes were wet. “Whatever happens, I need you to promise me something,” he said. “Please, be careful. I can’t—let’s not lose anyone else, okay?” Bonnie snuggled closer to him, putting her hand on his.

  Meredith reached over and placed her hand over both of theirs, and Elena added hers to the pile. “We’l take care of one another,” Elena said.

  “A vow,” said Bonnie, trying to smile. “We’l always watch out for one another. We’l make sure everyone is safe.”

  At that moment, as they murmured in agreement, she was sure they could do it.

  Meredith pivoted and stepped forward, swinging her staff down to strike at Samantha’s heavily padded knees.

  Samantha dodged the blow, then jabbed her own staff straight toward Meredith’s head. Meredith blocked the blow, then thrust her staff at Samantha’s chest.

  Samantha staggered backward and lost her footing.

  “Wow,” she said, rubbing her col arbone and looking at Meredith with a mixture of resentment and appreciation.

  “That hurt, even with the padding. I’ve never trained with anyone so strong before.”

  “Oh, wel ,” Meredith said modestly, feeling absurdly pleased, “I practice a lot.”

  “Uh-huh,” Samantha said, eyeing her. “Let’s take a break.” She flopped down on the mat, and Meredith, her staff balanced lightly in one hand, sat beside her.

  It wasn’t her staff, of course, not her special hunting one.

  She couldn’t bring her heirloom slayer staff to the gym—it was too clearly a customized deadly weapon. But she’d been delighted to learn that Samantha could fight with a four-foot-long jo staff and that she had an extra.

  Samantha was quick and smart and fierce, one of the best sparring partners she’d ever had. Fighting, Meredith was able to block out the helpless feeling she’d had in Matt’s room this morning. There was something so pathetic about seeing al Christopher’s things sitting there ready for him, when he was never coming back. He had one of those weird little fake Zen gardens on his desk, the sand neatly groomed. Maybe just the day before, Christopher had picked up the tiny rake in his hand and smoothed the sand, and now he’d never touch anything again.

  And it was her fault. Meredith squeezed her staff, her knuckles whitening. She had to accept that. If she had the power of being a potent force against darkness, a hunter and slayer of monsters, she had the responsibility, too.

  Anything that got through and kil ed someone in her territory was Meredith’s failure and her shame.

  She had to work harder. Practice more, go out patrol ing the campus, keep people safe.

  “Are you al right?” Samantha’s voice broke through Meredith’s thoughts. Startled, Meredith saw Samantha staring at her with wide, solemn dark eyes, taking in Meredith’s gritted teeth and clenched fists.

  “Not entirely,” said Meredith dryly. “Um.” She felt like she had to explain her grimness. “Did you hear about what happened last night, the guy who was kil ed?” Samantha nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. “Wel , he was the roommate of a real y good friend of mine. And I was with my friend today, trying to help him. It was … upsetting.” Samantha’s face seemed to harden, and she scrambled up on her knees. “Listen, Meredith,” she said, “I promise you this isn’t going to happen again. Not on my watch.”

  “On your watch?” Meredith asked mildly. Suddenly, it felt hard to breathe.

  “I have responsibilities,” Samantha said. She dropped her eyes to her hands. “I’m going to catch this kil er.”

  “It’s a big job,” Meredith said. It wasn’t possible, was it?

  But Samantha was such a good fighter, and what she was saying … why would she think she was responsible for stopping the kil er? “What makes you think you can do it?” she asked.

  “I know this is difficult to believe, and I shouldn’t even be tel ing you, but I need your help.” Samantha was looking straight into her eyes, practical y vibrating with earnestness.

  “I’m a hunter. I was raised to… I have a sacred trust. Al my family for generations, we’ve fought against evil. I’m the last of us. My parents were kil ed when I was thirteen.” Meredith gasped, shocked, but Samantha shook her head fiercely, pushing Meredith’s sympathy away. “They hadn’t finished training me,” she continued, “and I need you to help me get better, get faster. I’m not strong enough yet.” Meredith stared at her.

  “Please, Meredith,” Samantha said. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. People are depending on me.” Unable to stop herself, Meredith started to laugh.

  “It’s not a joke,” Samantha said, jumping to her feet, her fists clenched. “This is… I shouldn’t have said anything.” She stalked toward the door, her back as straight as a soldier’s.

  “Samantha, wait,” Meredith cal ed. Samantha whirled back toward her with a face ful of fury. Meredith took a quick breath and tried desperately to remember something she’d learned as a child but never had occasion to use.

  Crooking her pinkies together, she drew up her thumbs to make a triangle, the secret sign of greeting between two hunters.

  Samantha just stared at her, face perfectly blank.

  Meredith wondered if she remembered the sign correctly.

  Had Samantha’s family even taught it to her? Meredith knew there were other families out there, but she had never met any of them before. Her parents had left the hunter community before she was born.

  Then Samantha, moving as quickly as she ever had when they’d sparred, was before her, gripping her arms.

  “For real?” Samantha said. “Are you serious?” Meredith nodded, and Samantha threw her arms around her and clutched her tightly. Her heart was beating so hard that Meredith could feel it. Meredith stiffened at first

  —she wasn’t the touchy-feely type, despite being best friends with wildly affectionate Bonnie for years—but then relaxed into the hug, feeling Samantha’s slim, muscular body under her arms, so like her own.

  She had the strangest feeling of familiarity, as if she had been lost and had now found her true family at last.

  Meredith knew she could never say any of that, and part of her felt like she was betraying Elena and Bonnie just by thinking that way, but she couldn’t help it. Samantha pul ed away, smiling and weepy, wiping at her eyes and nose.

  “I’m acting stupid,” she said. “But this is the best thing that ever happened to me. Together, we can fight this.” She gave a half-hysterical sniff and gazed at Meredith with huge shining eyes. “I feel like I’ve made a new best friend,” she said.

  “Yes,” Meredith said—not weep
ing, not laughing, cool as ever on the outside but, inside, feeling like she was breaking into happy pieces—“yes, I think you’re right.” 14

  Matt hunched his shoulders miserably. He had come to the pledge meeting because he didn’t want to stay in his room alone, but now he wished he hadn’t. He’d been avoiding Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie—it wasn’t their fault, but so much violence had happened around al four of them in the past year, so much death. He’d thought it might be better being around other people, people who hadn’t seen how much darkness there was in the world, but it wasn’t.

  He felt almost like he was swathed in bubble wrap, thick and cloudy. As the other pledges moved and talked, he could watch them and hear them, but he felt separated from them; everything seemed muffled and dim. He felt fragile, too, as if removing the protective layer might make him fal apart.

  As he stood in the crowd of pledges, Chloe came over and stood next to him, touching his arm reassuringly with her smal , strong hand. A gap appeared in the bubble wrap, and he could real y feel her with him. He put his hand over hers and squeezed it grateful y.

  The pledge meeting was in the wood-paneled underground room where they’d first met. Ethan assured them this was just one of many secret hideouts—the others were only open to ful y initiated members. Matt had discovered by now that even this pledge room had several entrances: one through an old house just outside campus, which must have been the one they brought them through that first time, one through a shed near the playing fields, and one through the basement of the library. The ground beneath the campus must be honeycombed with tunnels for so many entrances to end up in one place, he thought, and he had an unsettling picture of students walking on the sun-warmed grass while, a few inches below, endless dark tunnels opened underneath them.

  Ethan was talking, and Matt knew that usual y he would have been hanging on his every word. Today, Ethan’s voice washed over Matt almost unheard, and Matt let his eyes fol ow the black-clad, masked figures of the Vitale members who paced the room behind Ethan. Dul y, he wondered about them, about how the masks disguised them wel enough that he was never sure if he recognized any of them around campus. Any of them except Ethan, that is. Matt wondered curiously what made the leader immune to such restrictions. Like the tunnels beneath the campus, the anonymity of the Vitales was slightly unsettling.

  Eventual y, the meeting ended, and the pledges started to trickle out of the room. A few patted Matt on the back or murmured sympathetic words to him, and he warmed as he realized that they cared, that somehow they’d come to feel like friends through al the sil y pledge bonding activities.

  “Hold up a minute, Matt?” Ethan was next to him suddenly. At Ethan’s glance, Chloe squeezed Matt’s arm again and let go.

  “I’l see you later,” she murmured. Matt watched as she crossed the room and went out the door, her hair bouncing against the back of her neck.

  When he looked back at Ethan, Ethan’s head was cocked to one side, his golden-brown eyes considering.

  “It’s good to see you and Chloe getting so close,” Ethan declared, and Matt shrugged awkwardly.

  “Yeah, wel …” he said.

  “You’l find that the other Vitales are the ones who can understand you best,” Ethan said. “They’l be the ones who wil stand by you al through col ege, and for the rest of your life.” He smiled. “At least, that’s what’s happened to me.

  I’ve been watching you, Matt,” he went on.

  Matt tensed. Something about Ethan cut through the bubble-wrap feeling, but not in the comforting way Chloe did. Now Matt felt exposed instead of protected. The sharpness of his gaze, maybe, or the way Ethan always seemed to believe so strongly in whatever he was saying.

  “Yeah?” Matt said warily.

  Ethan grinned. “Don’t look so paranoid. It’s a good thing. Every Vitale pledge is special, that’s why they’re chosen, but every year there’s one who’s even more special, who’s a leader among leaders. I can see that, in this group, it’s you, Matt.”

  Matt cleared his throat. “Real y?” he said, flattered, not knowing quite what to say. No one had ever cal ed him a leader before.

  “I’ve got big plans for the Vitale Society this year,” Ethan said, his eyes shining. “We’re going to go down in history.

  We’re going to be more powerful than we’ve ever been.

  Our futures are bright.”

  Matt gave a half smile and nodded. When Ethan talked, his voice warm and persuasive, those golden eyes steady on Matt’s, Matt could see it, too. The Vitales leading not just the campus but, someday, the world. Matt himself would be transformed from the ordinary guy he knew he had always been into someone confident and clear-eyed, a leader among leaders, like Ethan said. He could picture it al .

  “I want you to be my right-hand man here, Matt,” Ethan said. “You can help me lead these pledges into greatness.” Matt nodded again and, Ethan’s eyes on his, felt a flush of pride, the first good thing he’d felt since Chris’s death.

  He would lead the Vitales, standing by Ethan’s side.

  Everything would be better. The path was clear ahead.

  Indeed, Keynes posited that economic activity was determined by aggregate demand. For the fifteenth time in half an hour, Stefan read the sentence without beginning to comprehend it.

  It al just seemed so pointless. He’d tried to distract himself by investigating the murder on campus, but it had only made him more anxious that he couldn’t be by Elena’s side, seeing to it himself that she was safe. He closed the book and dropped his head into his hands.

  Without Elena, what was he doing here?

  He would have fol owed her anywhere. She was so beautiful it hurt him to look at her sometimes, like it hurt to stare into the sun. She shone like that sun with her golden hair and lapis lazuli eyes, her delicate creamy skin that held just the faintest touch of pink.

  But there was more to Elena than beauty. Her beauty alone wouldn’t have held Stefan’s attention for long. In fact, her resemblance to Katherine had nearly driven him away.

  But under her cool y beautiful exterior was a quicksilver mind that was always working, making plans, and a heart that was fiercely protective of everyone she loved.

  Stefan had spent centuries searching for something to make him feel alive again, and he’d never felt as certain of anything as he did about Elena. She was it, the only one for him.

  Why couldn’t she be as sure of him? No matter what Elena said about Stefan being the one, the fact remained: the only two girls he’d loved in his long, long life both loved not just Stefan but his brother, too.

  Stefan closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, then shoved himself away from the desk. Maybe he was hungry. In a few quick strides, he crossed his white-painted room, through the mix of his own elegant possessions and the cheap school-issued furniture, and was out on the balcony. Outside, the night smel ed of jasmine and car exhaust. Stefan reached tendrils of Power gently into the night, questing, feeling for … something …

  there. A tiny mind quickened in response to his.

  His hearing, sharper than a human’s, picked up the faint whine of sonar, and a smal , furry bat landed on the balcony railing, drawn in by his Power. Stefan picked it up, keeping up a gentle thrum of Power between his mind and the bat’s, and it gazed at him tamely, its little fox face alert.

  Stefan lowered his head and drank, careful not to take too much from the little creature. He grimaced at the taste and then released the bat, which flapped tentatively, a little dazed, then picked up speed and was lost again in the night.

  He hadn’t been terribly hungry, but the blood cleared his mind. Elena was so young. He had to remember that. She was stil younger than he’d been when he became a vampire, and she needed time to experience life, for her path to lead her back to Stefan. He could wait. He had al the time in the world.

  But he missed her so much.

  Gathering his strength, he leaped from the balcony an
d landed lightly on the ground below. There was a flower bed there, and he reached into it, feeling petals as soft as silk.

  A daisy, fresh and innocent. He plucked it and went back inside the dorm, using the front entrance this time.

  Outside Elena’s door, he hesitated. He could hear the slight sounds of her moving around in there, smel her distinctive, intoxicating scent. She was alone, and he was tempted to just knock. Maybe she was longing for him, just as he longed for her. If they were alone, would she melt into his arms despite herself?

  Stefan shook his head, his mouth tight. He had to respect Elena’s wishes. If she needed time apart, he could give her that. Looking at the white daisy, he slowly balanced it on top of Elena’s doorknob. She would find the flower and know that it was from him.

  Stefan wanted Elena to know that he could wait for her, if that was what she needed, but that he was thinking of her, always.

  15

  As she headed for the door of her dorm room, Elena rummaged through her bag, checking off a mental list: wallet, keys, phone, lip gloss, eyeliner, hairbrush, student ID. As she swung the door open, something fluttered to the ground.

  A perfect white daisy had fal en to the floor. Elena reached down and picked it up. Turning it in her hand, she felt a sudden sharp ache in her chest. God, I miss Stefan.

  She had no doubt the daisy was from him. It was just like him to let her know he was thinking of her while stil respecting her space.

  The ache in her chest was slowly replaced with a sweet glowing feeling. It seemed so sil y and artificial to avoid talking to Stefan. She loved him. And, beyond that, he was one of her best friends. Elena pul ed out her phone to cal him.

  And then she stopped. Taking a deep breath, she put the phone back into her bag.