The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

What am I going to tell Elena?

I blow out a breath, because I can’t think about that just yet. I can’t think about how I’m going to tell my sister that her boyfriend, her
fiancé
, had to come after me and Cali because we couldn’t stay under the radar for even an hour on our own and now he’s been taken by the same people he’s been trying so hard to protect us from. The ones that burned down his—
our
—house and will do despicable things to him once they get to wherever they’re going.

I can’t think about what’ll happen to us, to Elena, if we can’t get him back; how the last words I said to him were that I didn’t want him as part of my family.

I pull myself back upright even though it makes my head whirl sickeningly, because I need to get back to Cali, need to get her out of here before I put anyone else in danger.

When I round the back of the bus station, Cali’s rising stiffly to her knees. But as she goes to lift her arm, her hand stays lying on the pavement, the skin between kinking in a way that makes my stomach feel like it’s turning inside out.

Her breath comes in on a gasp that’s half a sob.

“That’s broken,” I say, blinking. “
Really
broken.”

I kneel down next to her, my hands hovering awkwardly as I try to figure out how best to help. Cali scoops her injured wrist into her lap and looks up, her eyes wide and echoing with the horror of everything that just happened.

"Are you—" I start to ask, but then she reaches for me, her good arm looping behind my neck as she pulls me into her. I throw a hand down to steady myself so I won’t accidentally bump her broken wrist and gravel digs heedlessly into my palm but I don’t even care because I can feel the strength in her one undamaged arm, her miraculously whole fingers, her slender shoulders. She hides her face beneath my jaw, my other hand coming up to cradle the back of her head and I squeeze my eyes shut with an unsteady gulp of air, thanking God with every thought that I'm not cursing Him with.

She’s still breathing, but Damon’s not, and it’s all my fault.

How stupid am I? How did I think we’d be safe just because it was still daylight, barely, when we left? I’m pretty sure the Augustines keep finding us because they’re patrolling the main roads, watching for the Camaro, but after the car chase a few days ago, of
course
they’d be watching public transportation too, waiting for us to try to ditch the too-conspicuous vehicles we have. I wonder if they’ve figured out yet what is under the tarp in the back of Matt’s truck.

Cali makes a small sound and then pulls away, her eyes huge when she asks, “He’ll be okay, right? Your brother-in-law, that’s the way it works, he just…wakes back up even though they broke his neck?”

“He’ll wake up,” I reassure her, then the weight of what that means settles even more firmly onto my bones. “But the last time those people took him, they tortured him for five years.”

“Five
years
?” She blinks. “Like
year
years? As in hundreds of days put together?”

“Yeah.” My lips tighten, because torture is probably exactly what they’re going to be doing once that car reaches its destination. That is, if they don’t just execute him in front of all the Augustines for the revenge he took on their precious society back in the fifties. At this point, I guess I should be hoping for torture, because at least that would buy us some time to track him down.

I wish I could believe that vampires didn’t feel pain the same way as humans do, but I’ve heard them scream when they’re wounded. It feels every bit as terrible, they just heal more quickly. But the Augustines can keep hurting him over and over and over again, and there’s no one who can make them stop because we don’t even know where they’re taking him.

My teeth grind together as I look down at Cali. I can’t afford to freak out right now. With Damon gone, I should be doing exactly what I know
he
would do. Which means getting someplace safe and checking on the others.

“Let’s get you out of here. Are you okay to walk?”

She jerks a nod and holds her wrist steady with her opposite hand as I help lift her to her feet, grabbing the car keys off the ground where she dropped them and then leading her back to the bench with our abandoned bags by it. With every step, I see her cringe as the movements jars her wrist.

“Shit,” she hisses as I pick up our bags. “I’ve got to get to a hospital. If the bone ends shift, they can do nerve damage and fray tendons and—” She stops herself but I know exactly what she’s saying. She won’t be able to play anymore. Not drums, maybe not anything if it’s bad enough.

“Not the hospital,” I decide. “Back to the motel. They can heal you, and even if there is nerve damage, it’ll fix that too.”

Her lip ring flashes as her head jerks back. “They can also compel me to forget why I didn’t trust them in the first place.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I vow. I swallow and shift the guitar case to my other hand, reaching out to brush her hair back out of her eyes. “And I’m so sorry for what they did to you, but no matter how pissed I am at them, I can’t leave now. I have to help get him back.”

Her eyes darken, but she nods. “Yeah,” she says simply. “We do. Let’s go.”

“Damon said the Camaro was right around the corner.”

We find the car easily enough but even the shape of the headlights looks accusatory, like they know I shouldn’t be the one with the keys. My eyes fall to my shoes as I put down the bags so I can open the passenger door. It’s a little awkward to ease Cali into the passenger seat, but we manage and then I lean across her to buckle her seat belt, tucking the shoulder strap behind her so it can’t press on her arm.

I close her door softly and go around to open the trunk, catching sight of Damon’s untouched duffel bag full of weapons.

My throat squeezes and my palms land on the edge of the trunk, bracing my weight because I just want to collapse inside of it and hide from everything that’s just happened. I breathe out slow and steady through my nose, then drop our bags inside and dial my phone with the hand not gripping the trunk like a lifeline.

“Elena, the Augustines were here,” I say without preamble, trying to keep my voice steady for her. “Is anything going on at the hotel?”

“What?” I hear the rustling of sheets. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Are the Augustines there?” I ask a little more urgently.

“No, there’s nobody moving in the parking lot.”

“Good, that’s good,” I mutter, relieved. “They must have just spotted us at the bus station, which means they probably don’t know what hotel we were staying at. We’ll be back there in a minute.”

“Why were you at the bus station? And is Damon with you?”

I wince and scrub the heel of my hand over my eyes, then brace myself. “Elena, they got Damon.”

There’s silence for a long moment.

“What do you mean they
got
Damon?”

Tears bite my eyes at her tone, and I desperately want to tell her it’s going to be okay, but I can’t. Nothing about this is even in the same zip code as okay.

“Look, I’ll be there in a second, but I have to drive right now. Stefan can tell you what happened. Elena…I’m so sorry.” It sounds really stupid, but I don’t know what else to say. I hang up and close the trunk, flinching at the sound it makes.

I make myself get in the car, but when I go to start it, my foot slips off the clutch too early and the engine coughs and dies. I dodge a sidelong glance at Cali and then jam my foot back down on the clutch, turning the key in the ignition again.

I try to make the drive as smooth as I can, but the tiny, twitching knot of Cali’s jaw muscle tells me I failed. When we pull into the hotel, I keep a sharp eye out, though the parking lot is all but empty. The Camaro engine rumbles into silence as I pull the keys out and go around to open Cali’s door, steadying her as she gets out. We climb to the second floor, and before I can wonder whose room I should go to, a door opens and Stefan’s concerned face peers out.

“The Augustines snapped his neck,” I say and my voice is way too high, but I can’t help it. “They had us pinned and when they let us go, they were so fast I—” I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a prayer against them, but I can’t exactly lie.

“I know,” Stefan says, his words reassuring but his tone is full of tension, and I note miserably that he won’t meet my eyes. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”

I open my mouth to ask if he’s talked to my sister when his gaze slips past me to Cali.

“You’re hurt,” he says to her, quickly stepping back and ushering us inside.

“Those psychos broke my wrist,” she says. “Apparently they’re not so good with the whole knowing their own strength thing.”

Elena’s sitting in one of the chairs at the little table in her pajamas, her hands squeezed between her knees and her eyes damp like she’s either been crying or trying not to.

I can’t stand to see it because it’s all because of me, so I look away to find Caroline coming back from the bathroom, carrying a plastic cup filled with tap water. She gives me a strained smile as she holds the cup towards Elena, who doesn’t take it, and I nod back, trying to steel myself because I know any second she’s going to start chattering away to break the tension, which will do nothing but make it all the more obvious.

“Cali—” my sister starts, looking past me and her mouth twisting with guilt even as fresh tears well in her eyes.

“Let’s just not do this,” Cali interrupts uncomfortably. “Not right now, not after what just happened, okay?”

Elena’s face crumples anew, even though Cali doesn’t say his name, but she manages a nod before she ducks her head, her hair falling down to curtain her face. I shove my fists miserably into my pockets.

Ric takes a step forward, and I notice his shirt is buttoned crookedly. “Do you think he was at least armed?” he asks me in a low voice. “When they took him?”

“I…” I wish I could say that the weapons weren’t still in the trunk when I opened it. But they were.

I shake my head and Ric rests his hand on my shoulder, a strained look on his face like he wants to say something to me but can’t figure out exactly what. Elena starts asking me questions about the car they took Damon in and I turn to answer her, Ric’s hand slipping away and I almost wish I could put it back but that would look stupid and Stefan’s voice cuts in before I can respond to my sister.

“Let me heal your arm,” he says, and when I glance at Cali, she’s looking everywhere except his eyes.

Of course. He was the one who compelled her. And her face is chalky with pain, but it’s bitterness lighting up her eyes as she stares just to the left of his face, and I move a little closer behind her while Ric and Elena start whispering back and forth in hushed tones, Ric probably trying to keep her from going after Damon on her own.

“I want to say if you fix my arm, we’re even for the compulsion,” Cali tells Stefan. “But that would be bullshit. And I don’t think it would be right to take your blood when I can barely stand to be in the same room as you.”

I shift uneasily. “Cali…”

She doesn’t realize how on edge he is, how tight the lines are around his eyes from stress and strain and probably the blood on my chin where I scraped it on the pavement. The whole room is vibrating with tension from everyone forcing themselves to be still. I’m sure they all feel like I do, like we should be running. Except we don’t even know where to start looking.

“I know,” Stefan acknowledges, keeping his tone gentle. “I want to help, and I realize that it doesn’t make up for everything else.”

“Or I could heal her,” Caroline offers, shooting a look at Stefan that I have no idea how to interpret.

But Stefan is already biting into his wrist, and Cali’s head tilts as she looks between Stefan and Caroline and then to me. I nod, trying to swallow back my impatience, and she cradles her arm cautiously as she bends to Stefan’s wrist, her nose crinkling a little when she seals her mouth over the wound.