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Everything went gray. He must have lost consciousness, because when he blinked back into awareness, time seemed to have passed. Elena was pulling Jack’s weight off of him and kneeling by Damon’s side. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear what she said.
And then, with the force of a sudden slap, light and sound came back into the world.
“—please, I don’t think I can take it,” Elena was saying. Damon smiled at her. It seemed to take a lot more effort than it usually did.
The ragged bite on his throat burned, and he could feel a lukewarm trickle of blood running down his side. But warmth flooded him as he looked up at Elena. She
looked like an angel. “I love you,” he said. “Always. ” It seemed so simple.
Beside them, Jack gave a rattling gasp, and Damon turned his head to look at him, the concrete cold and gritty against his cheek.
“Lucia,” Jack muttered. His eyes were wet and bloodshot. A strange, rank smell, like rotting meat, rose from him, and Damon wrinkled his nose, clutching at the wound on his own chest. “You have to understand,” Jack said fiercely. “Someone has to know why I did it. I loved Lucia, but Siobhan loved me. And then I found out Siobhan was a vampire. ” He coughed, a loose hacking cough, and a stream of drool ran across his chin.
“And you wanted her Power for yourself,” Elena said coolly.
Jack groaned and shook his head. “No, it wasn’t about that. Lucia got sick. All the doctors said she would die. I was half-crazy… Siobhan came when I called her, but she wouldn’t change Lucia, wouldn’t fix her. ”
Jack’s lips twitched into a smile again, stiffer and more horrible, the rictus grin of a dying man. “But I had another plan. I would make Siobhan save her, and I’d make myself a vampire, too. We’d live forever, together. Strong and well. ”
“Something happened, though,” Elena said. Her voice was a little warmer, Damon thought. Elena understood why someone would do terrible things for love. “Your plan didn’t work. ”
Blood trickled down Jack’s chin now, and he moaned and twitched as if he wanted to wipe it away but couldn’t raise his hands. His eyes rolled from side to side, as if he were seeing something too horrible to look at directly. “I found Lucia’s poor body, she was torn apart… I was going to kill them all. I’d make more vampires, stronger, better ones, and we’d hunt down Siobhan and her kind. ” He looked from Elena to Damon, his eyes pleading. “I know… we’re monsters. But when the vampires are dead, I’ll kill my creations. It was the only way I could fight them. Let me live. Let me finish. ”
His own lukewarm blood running through his fingers, Damon slowly shook his head. So what if Jack thought he was a hero? He had murdered Stefan, and he deserved to die.
Elena wrapped her arms around herself. She looked young and vulnerable, but she was Damon’s strong girl. “No,” she said. “This is the end, Jack. ”
Jack choked and gagged, a harsh cough tearing from his throat. “Let me make the world safe,” he said weakly, when the coughing fit finally ended, “Please. I’m not a bad man. ”
He took one final rattling breath and then his chest stilled and everything was silent.
Damon took a breath of his own and stared up at the half-moon sailing high above the plaza, his chest feeling raw and painful. Jack was dead. They had their vengeance for Stefan now, and it was all over.
He had thought that it would feel better, more complete. But the flush of joy he’d felt had faded, and the ache was still inside him. Stefan was dead. He felt a slender, warm hand take his, and he turned to Elena. “We did it,” she said softly, and Damon leaned against her. The bond between them was flooding with relief, and Damon felt his slow heart speed up a bit as he held onto Elena’s hand. “We did,” he agreed, watching the soft glow of her skin in the moonlight. “Now we can go home. ”
Chapter 32
Three weeks had passed since Damon and Elena killed Jack, far away in Switzerland. Since then, none of them had been able to take more than a second to focus on anything except preparing for Bonnie’s wedding. And now it was a beautiful day for the ceremony, Matt thought. They were all together, safe and whole.
The sky was blue and open, the only clouds above tiny and puffy white. Birds sang in the trees—the long trill of a warbler, the three short notes of a whippoorwill. Wild violets were blooming in the grass at their feet. Matt ran a finger around the inside of his collar, easing where it pressed against the bandage on his throat.
“Dude, if you forgot the ring, Zander’s going to kill you,” Spencer whispered to Jared beside him.
“Forget Zander, Shay will kill me first. She said I’d better learn to take a little responsibility,” Jared muttered back. “Anyway, I didn’t forget it, I just can’t find it. ” He was digging through his pockets frantically, shaggy hair flopping over his forehead.
Matt resisted rolling his eyes. He was honored to be the only non-werewolf in Zander’s side of the wedding party. The werewolves were great guys for a pickup game of football or a night of barhopping, and amazing allies in a fight. For a formal occasion? Matt felt like he’d spent the last three weeks babysitting a pack of overgrown kids. The fun bachelor party had almost made up for the nightmarish tuxedo fittings, though.
“Try the inner breast pocket of your jacket,” he whispered to Jared.
Jared felt inside his jacket and immediately smiled, a big dimpled grin. “Thanks, Matt. ”
“Loser,” Marcus whispered from his other side, and Jared snorted and smacked Marcus on the back of his head.
“Cut it out,” Matt whispered. The guys straightened up and stilled beside him as Zander came to join them, smiling nervously and shoving his pale blond hair out of his eyes.
A Celtic harp began to play, and the gathered audience rose to their feet.
Bonnie’s older sisters came down the path first, pretty and solemn-faced in rose pink. Then came Shay, Zander’s second-in-command, who smirked at Jared as she stepped into place beside the sisters. Meredith followed, tall, slim, and elegant, her head held high. Then Elena, her golden hair pulled back and a soft smile on her face.
