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This is our reunion and I give you to each other. I give my friends to you, Stefan, so that you can fight with all your combined strength. And to you, my friends, I give Stefan . . . who may be able to keep you alive. Take each other. . . and trust.
And then trust. Aye, there was the rub. How to trust even the beneficence of heaven after what that monsterinhumanform had done to this innocent little town.
But when Elena commanded, he listened. When Elena spoke, even from the afterlife, he obeyed. He’d promised her
that in his heart, long ago.
And so he had agreed, his only condition being that they do this one at a time, with the other two waiting in the car. He, Stefan Salvatore, who had given up drinking human blood so long ago, and bound himself with fearsome oaths not to do it, was going to do it.
The only thing left was to determine the order, which Meredith did with three twigs from the white ash branch. Meredith. Bonnie. Then Matt.
Stefan was glad that Meredith was going to be first. Meredith would remain calm during The Last Judgment. She was a rock. He was relying on her to help steady him a little as he broke this pledge that had been his one guidance since becoming a vampire nearly half a millennium ago.
Bonnie and Matt headed for the car. Stefan looked around the landing for Mrs.
Flowers, but the landlady had disappeared. Together, he and Meredith went back upstairs.
“If Bonnie were here,” Meredith said, “she’d be sure it was a good omen that Mrs.
Flowers was gone.”
“Fortunately, the door has a good sturdy lock. We don’t have any need for good omens; it can make sure nothing human gets in, and I can keep anything inhuman out. I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this right now?” Stefan spoke without changing his tone in the slightest on the last sentence.
Meredith smiled. “And flout an edict of Elena’s? I’m not that dumb.”
“That’s what all three of you think it was? An edict?” Stefan looked at Meredith pleadingly. “I was hoping to get you to talk some sense into Matt. You’ll be alone with him while I’m with Bonnie.”
“Sense? Matt? Now? In the same sentence?”
“Yes. We have to get him to give this up. You have to, Meredith, because I don’t think he’ll listen to a word I say. It’s all very fine and noble, offering your blood to make me stronger so I can fight that . . . thing. But Matt can’t handle it.” Meredith’s bright dark eyes were as sad as he had ever seen them, like still water in deep pools. "You don’t know Matt well enough by now? He wants to save Fell’s Church even if it kills him. And do you have any idea how he’d feel if you said you’d take blood from Bonnie and me, but not him?"
“I thought we could fob him off with something about the two of you being girls.” Meredith laughed shortly. “Nyet, Yvette. He knows Damon takes blood from guys. He knows about Mr. Tanner. He knows it’s not a sexual thing.” Stefan groaned. “It’s not. But—how do I explain?”
He studied Meredith, the quiet elegance of line of her body, the timeless beauty of her high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and the striking features that had been the downfall of countless males in Fell’s Church. He studied the way her eyelashes tangled together when she shut her eyes. And even as he looked at her he was aware that she was studying him from under those seemingly demure eyelashes. Meredith was like the abyss that looked back at you when you looked into it.
He sighed.
“Meredith—can I try to explain something to you? I know there’s no time, but we have to make time for it. Unless you want one of your friends ending up in a psychiatric hospital—
do you remember Vicky?”
She didn’t snap off a superficial answer, pointing out that of course she knew a girl she’d gone to school for years with. He watched her face as her mind roved back over the seasons until she could picture what he wanted her to picture: Vicky, a splash of white as she stumbled down a dark country road, wearing nothing but a thin torn slip; her hair disarrayed; her eyes like two black holes to some other dreadful dimension; her mouth one long silent scream.
“I remember,” Meredith whispered. Stefan could feel her shock. “But Vicky was—she was attacked and forced, and God only knows what horrible things she saw or—or felt. This is totally different—”
“Tell me that again after you’ve taken your turn.” Stefan deliberately spoke in harsh, clipped tones, and hardly glanced at Meredith as he continued. “Vicky was forced.” He stared off into a middle distance. “Matt’s forcing himself. Vicky was attacked. Matt has the selfdiscipline to hold himself down. Vicky saw or experienced things that, to put it crudely, drove her crazy. And whether those things were in the mind of a supernatural creature, or in her mind, or in the world around them, I don’t know and Vicky isn’t saying.” He swung back toward her, letting the harshness drain out of his voice, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “Meredith, if vampire and donor are, well, friends, with no need to overcome mental or physical resistance—either by mind control or by physical force, then everything should be fine. But it isn’t, always. There are monsters lurking in human minds scarier than anything I’ve ever imagined in my own nightmares. And vampires are just the sort of things likely to make them pop up.”
“And you think one could pop up with Matt?”
“I’m afraid of it. I’m afraid of a lot of things, if he makes himself do this.” Meredith cocked her silky dark head, highlights running up and down the length of her hair. Then she met his eyes and nodded, once. “I’ll try to talk him out of it. I’ll . . . let’s see . . . I’ll help try to make him believe that by the time his turn comes around that you’re as full as a tick and ready to burst. That will be Plan T.”
“Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be quite as full as a tick, but I may not exactly be myself by that time. It’ll be good to feel that you’re backing me up.”
“Oh, I’m a famous backupper. Elena wasn’t just a Big Picture Person; she loved figuring out all the grungy little details, but I was her number one backer.” Meredith spoke, not with bitterness or sarcasm, nor even with the tolerance usually accorded to the faults of the recently dead, but with love. Just love. The absent love of a true friend, who has had time to learn all, know all, and forgive all. Watching her, thinking about all the years that she had known Elena while he had not—all the simple daytoday fun they had had—Stefan felt a hand clutch at his heart. He had only loved Elena a few short months because he had only known her that long.
“Meredith?” He sat down and tried to keep envy, like a haggard shrieking banshee, out of his voice.
He wasn’t quite sure if he succeeded. Meredith was perceptive and she was watching him. “Yes, Stefan.”
