Unseen (The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation #1) 3

The sun was so bright Matt had to shield his eyes as he came up to his apartment building. It had been a long, terrible night. Whenever he started to fall into sleep, he had remembered Stefan, a stave in his chest and a terrible emptiness in his eyes, falling like a broken doll. Remembered Elena's screams. Stefan's blood had dried on his sleeve.

Stefan, his friend. Once his rival for Elena's affection-although it had never been much of a contest-briefly his football teammate, his ally against the darkness. Gone. Matt should have sensed that something was wrong about Jack. He should have protected his friends.

Jasmine was standing outside the front door of his building. Seeing her in the glaring sunshine gave Matt a weird sense of deja vu, as if he had fallen through a wormhole and ended up back at that terrible morning when she had told him good-bye.

"What do you want?" he asked her, his voice flat. He didn't want to be rude-Jasmine had every right to have left him-but he was so tired. He couldn't handle anything more today.

"I miss you," Jasmine said, her words rushed. She looked up at him with big, appealing eyes, a tiny nervous smile tilting up the corners of her mouth. "I miss you so much, Matt. Can't we try again?"

Matt felt as if he was dissolving, falling into a million pieces. He wanted that so badly. Warm, loving, beautiful Jasmine. She healed people, and even though she saw so much that was terrible-every doctor did-she stayed innocent; she was good all the way through.

"I can't," he said roughly. "Nothing's changed, Jasmine. No, things have gotten worse." He brandished his spattered sleeve at her. "See that? It's Stefan's blood; Stefan is dead."

Ignoring her soft, pained gasp, he went on. "Everything's dark and scary and awful, but I still can't turn my back on my friends. I can't ignore the darkness." His eyes burned, and he hunched in on himself. "I'm not someone you can plan a future with," he said softly.

Jasmine reached out for Matt, her warm hands taking hold of his arms, covering the bloodstains. She wasn't turning away, he realized.

"Do you know why I came here today?" she asked, and Matt shrugged miserably. "A couple was brought in last night from a horrible car accident." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut just for a moment, as if she was blocking out the memory.

"Even though they were both so badly hurt and in so much pain," she went on, "they were reaching out for each other's hands. They were so worried about each other." She looked at Matt, naked pleading in her eyes. "Bad things happen every day, just driving down the highway. And when they happen, I don't want to be miles away from you. I want to be able to reach out for your hand."

Matt started to speak again-God, yes, he wanted that, but how could he expect her to share this life?-and Jasmine put a hand over his mouth to shush him. "What you and your friends do, fighting monsters so that people like me, can live normal, happy lives? It's so important. You kept who you really are a secret from me, and I understand why. But I want to know now. Matt, I want to be part of this. Please give me another chance."

She swallowed hard and looked to him anxiously, her eyes bright with tears. Matt couldn't even think. He just moved instinctively forward, taking Jasmine in his arms, resting his cheek against her head, smelling the sweet scent of her shampoo.

Jasmine had come back to him-and maybe, somehow, they would get through this dark time together.

Alaric and Zander had dug a grave down by the river, not far from the charred remains of the Plantation Museum. It was a lonely looking band who stood around it, Damon thought: Bonnie, his little redbird, clinging hard to the arm of her wolf boy; hunter Meredith looking bruised and wary, her hand tight in the hand of her scholar husband. Sturdy Matt, his head bowed and his eyes red, a girl Damon didn't know standing quietly beside him.

And Elena, silent and withdrawn, the wind whipping her long blond hair around her shoulders. She was staring at nothing, her face swollen and tear-streaked.

Even like this, ravaged with grief, she was still beautiful, Damon thought. His gut tightened. How many times had he thought If only Stefan were out of the way? And now Stefan was gone and it was wrong, all wrong.

They'd wrapped Stefan's body in white silk and laid him carefully in the grave, his weapons around him. It was a beautiful spot they'd chosen, the river flowing past with a continual soothing sound of rushing water, moss-covered tree trunks rising up around them. A breeze fluttered the corner of the silk, its motion a parody of life, and Damon gritted his teeth. Everyone was waiting for someone else to begin Stefan's last rites.

Picking up a handful of dirt from the pile by the grave, he walked to the edge and let it trickle slowly from his fingers over Stefan's body, dark earth sullying the clean white cloth. "It's a waste," he said, his voice hard and vicious to his own ears. "Stefan tried so hard; he worked and worked to not be a vampire, to fight who he had become. And he died still hating what he was." Damon opened his hand, letting the rest of the dirt spill into the grave.

They were looking at him with pity in their eyes, all of them, and Damon was suddenly furious. He didn't need their pity; he could destroy them with a touch, pull down this little town around them. He could fly away, leave them behind, and never look back.

But he could feel Elena's dull grief through the bond between them, and so he put out a hand to touch her arm, and stayed.

Bonnie stepped forward next. "Stefan was so brave," she said. "Even when Elena d-died"-she threw a look of panic at the others-"even when things were so bad for him, he came when I called him for help. He was a really good friend. He loved Elena and he tried to protect all of us. He saved us all, more than once." Her lip was wobbling dangerously, and Zander stepped up next to her, touching her arm in reassurance. "I don't want him to be alone," she went on, her voice thin and high. Taking a small white silk bag from her pocket, she held it over the grave. "This is filled with rosemary and sweet peas, for friendship, and remembrance. I won't forget Stefan." Bonnie let the silk bag fall into the grave, then took a handful of dirt and dropped it in.

"Werewolves and vampires are enemies," Zander said, staring down at Stefan's body, "but Stefan taught me that it's not so simple. He was a friend to the Pack." He dropped a handful of dirt into the grave, too, and he and Bonnie stepped back together, Bonnie leaning on him for support.

Meredith let her handful of dirt fall into the grave and gazed down at Stefan's body. "Stefan was good and strong, and he'd just defeated the last of the vampires he'd hunted for years," she said. "He was happy. When I fight now, when I'm hunting the monsters that Stefan and I hunted together, I'll be fighting for him, too." She took a stake from her belt. "Stefan carved this," she said. "He hunted with it. He should have it." She dropped the stake in, and they all heard the soft thump as it hit the bottom of the grave.

As she turned away, Alaric stepped forward and looked to Damon. "I know they would have said a mass for the dead in Latin, when you and Stefan were young," he said hesitantly. "Even though he didn't go to church anymore, I thought maybe Stefan would have liked ..." He gestured shyly at the piece of paper clutched in one hand.

Damon shrugged. Maybe Stefan would have liked it; he didn't know. He was sure, though, that his brother would have listened politely to whatever Alaric planned to read.

Alaric unfolded the paper and began, "Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam ad preces nostras quibus misericordiam tuam supplices deprecamur; ut animam famuli tui ..." Incline thy ear, O Lord, to the prayers with which we entreat Thy mercy, and in a place of peace and rest, establish the soul of Thy servant ...

Damon felt his lips twist in a bitter smile at the familiar words. Alaric's accent was terrible. Even in the universities they didn't teach proper Latin anymore. And Damon was fairly certain that the fierce God he and Stefan had worshipped in their childhood would have no place of peace and rest for vampires. The Guardians had said, he remembered, that when a vampire died, he simply ceased to exist. Still, if the prayer comforted these children, let them have it.

Alaric finished reading the prayer, then carefully trickled a handful of dirt into Stefan's grave.

They were all looking at Elena now, but she just stood there, her lips pressed firmly together, and didn't step forward. She was angry, Damon sensed, her rage flowing through the bond that connected them.

Finally she raised her head and stared back at her friends. "No," she said sharply. "No, I won't say good-bye. I do not accept this." She was breathing hard, and Damon felt something flutter wildly through their bond. Elena was grieving and angry and in pain, but most of all, she was terrified, frightened of losing Stefan forever. Instinctively Damon stepped forward to wrap his arms around her, cradling her safely against his chest. Her heart was beating as fast as a bird's.

"You don't have to say good-bye, princess," he said. "Not if you don't want to. But you should tell him you love him."

Elena nodded. "Of course I do," she said dully. "He knows that." She pulled away from Damon, turning her back on the open grave, and walked down toward the river.

Damon looked to Alaric, Zander, and Matt. "Finish it," he said. "She's done." Obediently, they picked up their shovels and began to fill in the grave. The first shovelful of earth hit the cloth around Stefan's body with a dry, slithering sound that made Damon wince.

He followed Elena to the riverbank and stood next to her. She was staring silently down into the water, her jaw clenched tight, her hands curled into fists. Meredith, Bonnie, and Matt joined them. Bonnie linked her arm through Elena's, and Meredith laid one hand on her shoulder, and Elena seemed to take some comfort in this.

Together, they listened to the river rushing past. After a while Bonnie said, in the puzzled voice of a hurt child, "I just don't understand what happened."

"Jack was a vampire," Elena told her, her voice dull. "Why didn't I know?"

"We should have-" Meredith began, but Damon cut her off.

"Jack was some new kind, made in a lab." He felt his lip curl in distaste. "He didn't have all the weaknesses our kind have." He quickly explained what had happened-the business card, the lab, the research log. "He can disguise his aura, Elena. There's no way you could have identified him. The vampires who hunted me and Katherine across Europe-he created them. He thinks he's perfected the species, made the ultimate warriors. And now he wants to get rid of the all the existing vampires. Even Stefan."

Elena made a small, hurt sound. They were all looking at Damon now, their eyes wide, and he knew what they were thinking.

Damon was next.

#TVD11Goodbye