Unmasked (The Vampire Diaries 13)

“I-I think so,” Elena said. “The fire was spreading really fast.”

Stefan shook his head as if he was shaking off the last of the vervain’s effects. “Trust me,” he said. Drawing Elena up into his arms, Stefan climbed into the archway.

Holding her tightly, Stefan leaped into the night.

“Who are you?” Stefan asked. “How did you find me tonight?” After their leap from the school, he’d brought her back to his room at Mrs. Flowers’ boardinghouse. He leaned against the wall by the window, his finely drawn features so pale they could have been carved out of marble.

Elena clasped her hands in her lap. “I knew that Damon must have started the fire, and, after what he said to you, I had a feeling that he wouldn’t have let you make it out,” she said slowly.

Stefan pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, as if his head hurt. “And how do you know Damon?”

“I met him in the graveyard.” It seemed wise to stick to the simplest answer.

Coming a step closer, Stefan narrowed his eyes. “You knew what was going on with the vervain. It didn’t surprise you or scare you when we leaped from the bell tower, or when I fed from you. You know what Damon and I are.”

There was something threatening about Stefan now as he almost loomed above her. Elena raised her hands in surrender, doing her best to look harmless. “I’m not your enemy,” she said. “Yours or Damon’s. I only want to help.”

She hoped that her sincerity shone through. All she wanted to do was to save them both.

Stefan leaned back against the wall. Rubbing a hand across his face, he laughed, a miserable, rough laugh. “There’s nothing to help, Elena. Damon and I are monsters, and the sooner we get out of this town the better off everyone else will be. If I leave here, he’ll follow me. You’ll be safe.” Shaking his head, he added, “I should have known better than to try, to pretend to be human.”

“No, Stefan, please,” Elena was out of her chair without even thinking about it. Reaching out to take Stefan’s hands in her own, she squeezed them tightly. “It wasn’t a mistake.” He shook his head and started to pull away, and Elena stepped closer still, looking up into his eyes. “We can work together. We can keep Damon under control. You don’t have to be alone.”

Stefan eyes grew darker as he held Elena’s gaze. And then he bent his head to her lips. For a moment, it was as if the whole world was just the two of them, heat rushing through Elena’s body.

It was all so familiar. They were both filthy and stinking of smoke, but it could have been the night of their first Homecoming—when Stefan had rescued her from Tyler in the graveyard and brought her here. Maybe it was destiny after all. They were always going to end up here, tired and drained, secrets stretching the space between them.

At the thought, Elena pulled away, suddenly cold as she stepped out of Stefan’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Elena stammered. “I didn’t mean … I can’t do this right now.” She felt as if the world was shifting under her feet.

Stefan turned away so she couldn’t quite see his face. “I apologize,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

Elena followed him down the darkened stairway, brushing her fingers against her lips. This is all my fault, she thought, as she left the boardinghouse and crossed the dirt driveway to Stefan’s low, black Porsche. If she hadn’t kissed Stefan, if Damon hadn’t seen her, things between them wouldn’t be deteriorating. The school wouldn’t have burned down today.

Stefan’s car was just as smooth and luxurious a ride as Damon’s. The engine’s purr was the only sound in

the car as Elena and Stefan sat silently, each wrapped in their own thoughts. Stefan’s eyes were fixed on the road, and his body was stiff with tension. Elena sighed and wrapped her arms around herself.

How could Stefan and Damon hate each other so much? Elena thought of the rueful affection she’d seen grow between the brothers over the past few years in her own life. They played pool together. They fenced and played cards, all the entertainments they’d both learned to pass the time over the centuries. They fought side by side, graceful and deadly.

The brothers always came back together when it mattered most. They’d saved each other’s lives more than once.

Elena remembered Damon’s fury after Stefan’s death. And more, she remembered the pure despair on his face, the way he had looked as he told her that now there was no one, no one at all, who remembered him when he was alive, when he was a human. He’d lost his past.

How had they gotten from here to there?

Then, as Stefan’s car purred around the corner onto Elena’s street, she finally got it. The loneliness in Stefan’s eyes, his room carefully designed for one monastic, solitary life. Damon’s vicious hatred for his little brother, paired with the fact that, wherever Stefan went, Damon watched him from afar. Even in tonight’s fire, Damon had left him far away from the flames. If Stefan hadn’t gotten away, would Damon have come back for him?

They always came back to each other.

Stefan and Damon were each other’s family, all they had left. And all their love and history might have gotten tangled up into one big ball of resentment and anger, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still there. She knew it was still there. She’d seen it in the future, as strong as ever.

Maybe it wasn’t Elena who had changed Damon, back in her own time. Mylea had said that love would save Damon, would save them all. But it wasn’t Elena’s love that would do it.

From now on, she realized with a blinding flash, she wasn’t going to try to make Damon fall in love with her.

Instead, she needed to fix Stefan and Damon. If they could just be brothers again, everything else would fall into place.