I gazed at the ground, a lump in my throat. Back when I was a human, I thought I’d loved Katherine until I saw her, chained up, muzzled, and foaming at the mouth. I’d felt nothing but disgust at that vision. And yet Callie had seen me unconscious, bleeding from vervain, staked by captors, and pummeling my brother in the ring, and she still loved me. How was that possible?
“You don’t have to respond,” Callie rushed on. “I just had to tell you. And I’m leaving no matter what. I can’t stay here with Father, not after everything that’s happened. I’m getting on the train, and you can come with me. But you don’t have to. But I want you to,” she babbled.
“Callie!” I interrupted, placing a finger to her lips. Her eyes widened, shifting between fear and hope.
“I would go with you anywhere,” I said. “I love you, too, and I will for the rest of my life.”
“You mean your un-life,” she said, her eyes dancing.
“How did you know where I lived?” I asked, suddenly shy.
Callie blushed. “I followed you home once. When you ran away after the first vampire fight. I wanted to know everything about you.”
“Well, now you do.”
Unable to restrain myself, I pulled her into my arms and lowered my lips to hers, no longer afraid to hear the blood coursing in her veins or to hear her heart beat faster in anticipation. She tightened her grip around me, and our lips touched. I hungrily kissed her, feeling the softness of her lips against mine. My fangs didn’t grow, my desire was all for her, in her human form, as she was.
She was soft and warm and tasted like tangerines. In those moments, I imagined our future. We’d take the train as far away from New Orleans as possible, maybe to California, or perhaps even sail to Europe. We’d nest in a little cottage and keep livestock for me to feed from, and Callie and I would live out our days together, away from the prying eyes of society.
A nagging thought tugged at the corner of my mind: Would I turn her? I hated the thought of doing it, of sinking my teeth into her white neck, of making her live a life in which she craved blood and feared the daylight, but I also couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her grow old and die in front of me. I shook my head, trying to release those thoughts. I could deal with them later. We both could.
“Stefan,” Callie murmured, but then the murmur turned into a gasp, and she slipped out of my clutches and onto the ground. A butcher’s knife stuck into her back, blood pooling out of it.
“Callie!” I cried, sinking to my knees. “Callie!”
Frantic, I tore a vein in my wrist, trying to feed Callie my blood to heal her. But before I could press my arm to her gasping mouth, an unseen hand yanked me up by the shirt collar.
A low, familiar chuckle cut through the night air. “Not so fast, brother.”
I whirled around, my hand ready to strike, my fangs bared. Before I could move, Damon grabbed my shoulders and flung me across the street. My body hit the road, hard, my arm snapping at an unnatural angle. I scrambled to my feet. Callie was lying in the grass, her red hair fanning over her shoulder, a pool of blood darkening around her. She let out a quiet moan, and I knew she must be in agony.
I started to race back to her, pumping my blood to my open wound so she could feed easily. But Damon intercepted me, lowering his shoulder into my chest and knocking me backward.
I scrambled to my feet. “This stops now!” I yelled, ready to pounce. I flew toward him, ready to rip him apart, to give him what he’d wanted for so long.
“Does it stop now? Before dinner?” Damon asked, a slow smile forming on his face. I watched in horror as Damon knelt down, bared his teeth, and sunk them into Callie’s neck, drinking long and hard. I tried to push him away, but he was far too strong. How many people had he fed from since our escape?
I kept tugging, trying to free Callie, but Damon stayed in the same position as if he were a marble sculpture.
“Help! Lexi!” I roared, as Damon sent me flying backward with a swift jab of his elbow.
I hit the grass with a thud. Damon kept drinking. I realized with horror that Callie’s moaning had stopped. So had the steady, thrumming sound of blood I’d gotten so used to hearing in Callie’s presence. I fell to my knees.
Damon turned toward me, his face smeared with blood. Callie’s blood. I blanched at the sight. Damon chuckled. “You were right, brother. Killing is what vampires do. Thanks for the lesson.”
“I’ll kill you,” I said, rushing toward him once more. I knocked him to the ground, but Damon took advantage of my injured arm and flipped me over, pinning me to the ground next to Callie.
Damon shook his head. “I don’t think I will die tonight, thank you. You’re done being the one to make the life-and-death decisions,” he hissed.
He stood up, as if he were going to walk away. I crawled over to Callie. Her eyes were wide open and glassy, her face pale. Her chest was still rising and falling, but barely.
Please live, I thought, gazing into her unblinking eyes in a desperate attempt to compel her. I saw her eyelids flutter. Could it be possible that it was working?
I want you to live. I want to love you while you’re alive, I thought, squeezing blood from my wounds into her open mouth.
Then, as drops fell on her face, I felt an agonizing pain in my abdomen. I sprawled on the grass as Damon kicked me over and over and over in the stomach, a demonic look in his eye.
Summoning all my strength, I scuttled on the dew-damp earth away from Damon.
“Help me,” I called again toward the house.
“Help me!” Damon mocked in a sing-song voice. “Not quite the big man, anymore, are we, little brother? What happened to taking over the world? Got too busy having tea parties with your little friends and falling in love with humans?” He shook his head in disgust.
Something inside me snapped. Somehow, I pushed myself to my feet and raced toward Damon, fangs bared. I pushed him to the ground, my fangs carving a long, jagged cut along his jugular vein. He fell to the ground, blood draining from his neck, his eyes closing.
For a moment, he looked like my brother again. No bloodshot eyes, no voice laced with hatred. Just the broad shoulders and dark hair that always symbolized Damon. And yet he wasn’t Damon anymore. He was a monster on a spree of destruction, stopping at nothing to make his threat of making my life miserable come true.
I surveyed the ground around us, finally glimpsing a small tree limb, a few feet away, fallen after a storm. I crawled over to the branch and raised it high above his chest.
“ Go to hell ,” I whispered, fervently meaning each word.
But as the words left my mouth, Damon lunged up from the ground, his eyes red and his fangs bared. “That’s no way to talk to family.” He scoffed, throwing me to the ground. “And that’s no way to hold a stake.”
He raised the branch high over my chest, a gleam in his eye.
“Here’s the death you didn’t let me have. Slow, and painful, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it,” Damon said, cackling as he brought the stake down with all his might against my chest.
And then everything went black.
"Stefan,” a disembodied voice whispered.
I was in the labyrinth back at Veritas, the lush green hedges rising higher than my head, the sun beating down upon my shoulders. My collar was itchy and constrictive—for some reason I was in my Sunday best.
From around the bend Damon approached, his blue eyes wide and innocent. “Want to race, brother?” he challenged.
Of course I accepted.
Suddenly, we were sitting on the porch swing, with Katherine wedged between us, mischief in her dark eyes, as she plucked petals from a daisy. Her leg was so close I felt it grazing mine. As her gaze shifted back and forth, I realized the game she was playing: The flower would determine which one of us she would choose. When she reached the final petal, her eyes locked onto mine, and I knew that I was the victor. She leaned in to kiss me, and I closed my eyes, anticipating the soft touch of her lips.
But instead I felt a stake plunge into my heart. My eyes fluttered open, and there stood my brother, laughing as he dug the wood yet deeper into me, the flower petals crushed beneath my prone form.
My head lolled to the side, and my eyes snagged on the girl who was bleeding to death next to me on the grass. Her hair was fire-red, and her skin was moon-pale beneath her freckles.
Callie! I tried to shout. But Damon snatched up my words in his fist before sinking a knife over and over into Callie’s back.
“Stefan!” a voice called again, louder this time. I recognized the lilting alto. Lexi.