Chapter Nineteen
Nobody was going to lie to Elena Gilbert and get away with it.
Elena marched along the path to the library, indignation keeping her head high and her steps sharp. So James thought he could pretend he didn't remember anything about those V-shaped pins? The way his eyes had skipped away from hers, the faint flush of pink in his plump cheeks, everything about him had shouted that there was something there, some secret about him and her parents that he didn't want to tel her.
If he wasn't going to tel her, she would find out for herself. The library seemed like a logical place to start.
"Elena," a voice cal ed, and she stopped. She had been so focused on her mission that she had almost walked right by Damon, leaning against a tree outside the library. He smiled up at her with an innocently inquiring expression, his long legs stretched in front of him.
"What are you doing here?" she said abruptly. It was so weird, just seeing him here in the daylight on campus, like he was part of one picture superimposed upon another. He didn't belong in this part of her life, not unless she brought him in herself.
"Enjoying the sunshine," Damon said dryly. "And the scenery." The wave of his hand encompassed the trees and buildings of the campus as Wellas a flock of pretty girls giggling on the other side of the path. "What are you doing here?"
"I go to this school," Elena said. "So it's not weird for me to be hanging around the library. See my point?" Damon laughed. "You've discovered my secret, Elena," he said, getting to his feet. "I was here hoping to see you.
Or one of your little friends. I get so lonely, you know, even your Mutt would be a welcome distraction."
"Real y?" she asked.
He shot her a look, his dark eyes amused. "Of course I always want to see you, princess. But I'm here for another reason. I'm supposed to be looking into the disappearances, remember? So I have to spend some time on the campus."
"Oh. Okay." Elena considered her options. Official y, she shouldn't be hanging around Damon at al . The terms of her breakup - or just break, she corrected herself - with Stefan were that she wasn't going to see either of the Salvatore brothers, not until they worked out their own issues and this thing between the three of them had time to cool off. But she'd already violated that by letting Damon sleep on the floor of her room, a much bigger deal than going to the library together.
"And what are you up to?" Damon asked her. "Anything I can assist with?"
Real y, a trip to the library ought to be innocent enough.
Elena made up her mind. She and Damon were supposed to be friends, after al . "I'm trying to find out some information about my parents," she said. "Want to help?"
"Certainly, my lovely," Damon said, and took her hand.
Elena felt a slight frisson of unease. But his fingers were reassuringly firm in hers, and she pushed her hesitation away.
The ancient tennis-shoed librarian in charge of the archive room explained how to search the database of school records and got Elena and Damon set up in the corner on a computer.
"Ugh," Damon said, poking disdainful y at a key. "I don't mind computers, but books and pictures ought to be real, not on a machine."
"But this way everyone can see them," Elena said patiently. She'd had this kind of conversation with Stefan before. The Salvatore brothers might look col ege-aged, but there were some things about the modern world they just couldn't seem to get their heads around.
Elena clicked on the photo section of the database and typed in her mother's name, Elizabeth Morrow.
"Look, there are a bunch of pictures." She scanned through them, looking for the one that she had seen hanging in the hal . She saw a lot of cast and crew pictures from various theatrical productions. James had told her that her mother was a star on the design side, but it looked like she was in some productions, too. In one, Elena's mother was dancing, her head flung back, her hair going everywhere.
"She looks like you." Damon was contemplating the picture, his head tilted to one side, dark eyes intent. "Softer here, though, around the mouth" - one long finger gestured - "and her face is more innocent than yours." His mouth twisted teasingly, and he shot a sidelong glance at Elena.
"A nicer girl than you, I'd guess."
"I'm nice," Elena said, hurt, and quickly clicked on to find the picture she was looking for.
"You're too clever to be nice, Elena," Damon said, but Elena was barely listening.
"Here we are," she said. The photograph was just as she remembered it: James and her parents under a tree, eager and impossibly young. Elena zoomed in on the image, focusing on the pin on her father's shirt. Definitely a V. It was blue, a deep dark blue, she could see that now, the same shade as the lapis lazuli rings Damon and Stefan wore to protect themselves from sunlight.
"I've seen one of those pins before," Damon said abruptly. He frowned. "I don't remember where, though. Sorry."
"You've seen it recently?" Elena asked, but Damon just shrugged. "James said my mother made the pins for al of them," she said, zooming closer so that al she could see on the screen was the grainy image of the V. "I don't believe him, though. She didn't make jewelry, that wasn't her kind of thing. And it doesn't look handmade, not unless it was made by someone with an actual jewelry studio.
That's some kind of enameling on the V, I think." She typed V in the search engine, but it came back with nothing. "I wish I knew what it stood for."
With another graceful one-shouldered shrug, Damon reached for the mouse and zoomed in and out on different parts of the picture. Behind them, the librarian thunked a book down, and Elena glanced back at her to find the woman's eyes fixed on them with disconcerting intensity.
Her mouth tightened as her eyes met Elena's, and she looked away, walking a little farther along the aisle. But Elena was left with the creepy feeling that the librarian was stil watching and listening to them.
She turned to whisper something to Damon about it but was caught again by the sheer unexpectedness of him, of him here. He just didn't fit in the drab and ordinary library computer station - it was like finding a wild animal curled up on your desk. Like a dark angel fixing oatmeal in your kitchen.
Had she ever seen him under fluorescent lights before?
Something about the lighting brought out the clean paleness of his skin, cast long shadows along his cheekbones, and fel without reflection into the black velvet of his hair and eyes. A couple of buttons on the col ar of his shirt were undone, and Elena found herself almost mesmerized by the subtle shifts of the long muscles in his neck and shoulders.
"What would a Vital Society be?" he asked suddenly, breaking her out of her reverie.
"What?" she asked, confused. "What are you talking about?"
Damon clicked the mouse and shifted the zoom, focusing this time on the notebook in her mother's lap. Her mother's hands - pretty hands, Elena noticed, prettier than her own, which had slightly crooked pinkies - were splayed over the open book, but between the fingers, Elena could read: Vit l Soci y
"I assume that's what it says," Damon said, shrugging.
"Since you're looking for something that starts with V. It could say something else of course. Vital Social y, maybe?
Was your mother a social queen bee like you?" Elena ignored the question. "The Vitale Society," she said slowly. "I always thought it was a myth."
"Leave the Vitale Society alone." The hiss came from behind them, and Elena whipped around.
The librarian seemed curiously impressive framed against the bookshelves despite her tennis shoes and pastel sweater set. Her hawklike face was tense and focused on Elena, her body tal and, Elena felt instinctively, threatening.
"What do you mean?" Elena asked. "Do you know something about them?"
Confronted by a direct question, the woman seemed to shrink from the almost menacing figure she had been a second before to an ordinary, slightly dithering old lady. "I don't know anything," she muttered, frowning. "Al I can say is that it's not safe to mess with the Vitales. Things happen around them. Even if you're careful." She started to wheel her book cart away.
"Wait!" Elena said, half rising. "What kind of things?" What had her parents been involved in? They wouldn't have done anything wrong, would they? Not Elena's parents. But the librarian only walked faster, the wheels of her cart squeaking as she rounded the corner into another aisle.
Damon gave a low laugh. "She won't tel you anything," he said, and Elena glared at him. "She doesn't know anything, or she's too scared to say what she does know."
"That's not helpful, Damon," Elena said tightly. She pressed her fingers against her temples. "What do we do now?"
"We look into the Vitale Society, of course," Damon said. Elena opened her mouth to object, and Damon shushed her, drawing one cool finger over her mouth. His touch was soft on her lips, and she half raised a hand toward them. "Don't worry about what a foolish old woman has to say," he told her. "But if we real y want to find out the secrets of this society of yours, we probably need to look somewhere other than the library."
He got to his feet and held out his hand. "Shal we?" he asked. Elena nodded and took his hand in hers. When it came to finding out secrets, to digging up what people wanted to keep concealed, she knew she could put her faith in Damon.
"Pick up, Zander," Bonnie muttered into the phone.
The ringing stopped, and a precise mechanical voice informed her that she was welcome to leave a message in the voice mailbox. Bonnie hung up. She had already left a couple of voicemails, and she didn't want Zander thinking she was any crazier or more clueless than he inevitably would when he saw his missed-cal list.
Bonnie was pretty sure she was going through the Five Stages of Being Ditched. She was almost done with Denial, where she was convinced something had happened to him, and was moving quickly into Anger.
Later, she knew, she would slide into Bargaining, Depression, and eventual y (she hoped) Acceptance.
Apparently her psych class was already coming in handy.
It had been days since he had abruptly run off, leaving her al alone in front of the music building. When she found out that a girl disappeared that same night, at first Bonnie was angry and scared for herself. Zander had left her alone.
What if Bonnie had been the one to vanish? Then she began to worry about Zander, to be afraid that he was in trouble. He seemed so sweet, and so into her, that it was almost impossible for her to believe Zander would just be avoiding her al of a sudden.
Wouldn't his friends have sounded the alarm if Zander was missing, though? And when she thought that, Bonnie realized that she didn't know how to contact any of those guys; she hadn't seen any of them around campus since that night.
Bonnie stared at her phone as fresh tendrils of worry grew and twisted inside her. Real y, she was having a very tough time moving on to Anger when she was stil not quite sure that Zander was safe.
The phone rang.
Zander. It was Zander.
Bonnie snatched up her phone. "Where have you been?" she demanded, her voice shaking.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
Bonnie was almost ready to hang up when Zander final y spoke. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to freak you out. Some family stuff came up, and I've had to be out of touch. I'm back now."
Bonnie knew that Elena or Meredith would have said something pithy and cutting here, something to let Zander know exactly how little they appreciated being forgotten about, but she couldn't bring herself to. Zander sounded rough and tired, and there was a break in his voice when he said he was sorry that made her want to forgive him.
"You left me outside alone," she said softly. "A girl disappeared that night."
Zander sighed, a long sad sound. "I'm sorry," he said again. "It was an awful thing to do. But I knew you would be okay. You have to believe that. I wouldn't have left you in danger."
"How?" Bonnie asked. "How could you know?"
"Just trust me, Bonnie," Zander said. "I can't explain it now, but you weren't in danger that night. I'l tel you about it when I can, okay?"
Bonnie shut her eyes and bit her lip. Elena and Meredith would never have settled for this kind of half explanation, she knew. Not even half an explanation, just an apology and an evasion. But she wasn't like them, and Zander sounded sincere, so desperate for her to believe him. It was her choice, she knew: trust him, or let him go.
"Okay," she said. "Okay, I believe you." Zander let out another sigh, but it sounded like one of relief this time. "Let me make it up to you," he said.
"Please? How about I take you out this weekend, anywhere you want to go?"
Bonnie hesitated, but she was starting to smile despite herself. "There's a party at Samantha's dorm on Saturday," she said. "Want to meet there at nine?"
"There's something peculiar going on at the library," Damon said, and Stefan twitched in surprise at his sudden appearance.
"I didn't see you there," he said mildly, looking out onto his dark balcony, where Damon leaned against the railing.
"I just landed," Damon said, and smiled. "Literal y. I've been flying around campus, checking things out. It's a wonderful feeling, riding the breezes as the sun sets. You should try it."
Stefan nodded, keeping his face neutral. They both knew that one of the few things Stefan envied about Damon was his ability to change into a bird. It wasn't worth it, though - he would have to drink human blood regularly to have Power as strong as Damon's.
Elena's face rose up in his mind's eye, and he pushed her image away. She was his salvation, the one who connected him to the world of humans, who kept him from sinking into the darkness. Believing that their separation was only temporary was what was keeping him going.
"Don't you miss Elena?" Stefan asked, and Damon's face immediately closed off, becoming hard and blank.
Stefan sighed inwardly. Of course Damon didn't miss Elena, because he was undoubtedly seeing her al the time.
He'd known Damon wouldn't abide by the rules.
"What's the matter?" Damon asked him. His voice was almost concerned, and Stefan wondered what his own face looked like to get that kind of reaction from Damon. Damon who had probably just seen Elena.
"Sometimes I'm a fool," Stefan told him dryly. "What do you want, Damon?"
Damon smiled. "I want you to come do some detective work with me, little brother. Real y, anything's better than seeing this sulking, forehead-wrinkling brooding expression on your face."
Stefan shrugged. "Why not?" Stefan leaped down from the balcony with perfect grace, and Damon fol owed swiftly behind.
As Damon led the way to their destination, he fil ed Stefan in on the details. Or rather, the vague scenario Stefan could gather from Damon's explanation. Damon never was one for ful disclosure. Al Stefan knew was that some research at the library had prompted a sketchy warning from an old librarian. Stefan inwardly chuckled at the thought of a frail old woman squaring against Damon over library fines.
"What were you looking at?" Stefan asked, trying to get any more substantial information. "What did she want you to stay away from?" He shifted on the rough branch of the oak tree they were both sitting on, trying to get comfortable.
Damon had a habit of sitting in trees, Stefan realized. It must be a side effect of spending so much time as a bird.
They were on a stakeout outside the librarian's home, but what exactly they were looking for, Stefan wasn't sure.
"Just some old photographs from the school's history," Damon said. "It doesn't matter. I just want to make sure she's human." He peered through the window nearest their tree, where an elderly woman was sipping tea and watching television.
Stefan noted with irritation that Damon seemed a lot more at ease in the tree than Stefan did. He was leaning forward, resting graceful y on one knee, and Stefan could sense his sending questing strands of Power at the woman, trying to find out whether there was anything unusual about her.
His balance seemed awful y precarious, and he was completely focused on the old woman. Stefan inched toward Damon on the branch, stretched out a hand, and suddenly shoved him.
It was extremely satisfying. Damon, his composure shaken for once, let out a muffled yelp and fel out of the tree. In midair, he turned into a crow and flew back up, perching on a branch above Stefan and eyeing him with a baleful glare. Damon cawed his annoyance at Stefan loudly.
Stefan glanced through the window again. The woman didn't seem to have heard Damon's shout or the crow's caw - she was just flipping channels. When he looked back at Damon, his brother had regained his usual form.
"I would think playing a trick like that would go against your precious moral code," Damon said, fastidiously smoothing his hair.
"Not real y," Stefan said, grinning. "I couldn't help myself."
Damon shrugged, seeming to accept Stefan's playfulness as good-natured, and looked through the librarian's window again. She had gotten up to make herself another cup of tea.
"Did you sense anything from her?" Stefan asked.
Damon shook his head. "Either she's bril iantly hiding her true nature from us or she's just a peculiar librarian." He pushed himself off the branch and leaped, landing lightly on the grass far below. Either way, I've had enough, he added silently.
Stefan fol owed him, landing beside Damon at the bottom of the tree. "You didn't need me for any of that, Damon," he said. "Why did you ask me to come with you?" Damon's smile was bril iant in the darkness. "I just thought you could use some cheering up," he said simply.
Clearly, it wasn't the librarian Stefan should be worried about acting peculiarly.
***