The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) (32 page)

“It
is
help. You’ve seen it yourself,” she says, her voice rising. “We’re driven to kill, to take victims and our bodies
love
it. And we’re all so damned twisted from trying to live with that. We hate ourselves, or we hate everyone else. We make these insane bargains with our ourselves about what is right or wrong, like it’s okay if they don’t remember or if we heal the wounds, if we only prey on criminals or animals or adults.”

Her face tightens.

“It’s why we all fell apart when they forced the bloodshares. It was like the Augustines made a list of all the bullshit we were selling ourselves and threw it up on a billboard for everyone to see.” Her eyes burn, and only now do I remember how relentless she can be when there’s something she believes in. “You always called yourself a sinner and laughed like you didn’t care, but you starved rather than let anyone taste the truth of your sins.”

I keep my gaze locked on the wall behind her, because her eyes strip me bare in a way that leather and cotton can’t fix.

Lia shakes her head, calm creeping back over her face. “You’re so scared of anybody really knowing you that you endured five years of torture without blinking. But then you clawed your way out of that prison less than a month after the bloodshares started to show all of us what liars our bloodlust had turned us into.”

I manage a single cough of a laugh, but it scrapes with a hollow kind of scorn, and I feel lightheaded with all the shit she’s throwing at me. It’s been a long time since anybody but Elena or Stefan could hit my buttons the way Lia is doing.

“You don’t have to create victims, Damon. You have a fiancé you obviously adore. Don’t you think life would be better if she was all you needed? If you never had to watch her feed on another man?” She tilts her head, trying to catch my gaze. “Wouldn’t she like you better if the darkest parts of you just...faded away?”

Six months ago, I would have killed her for saying that. A month ago, I still would have snapped her neck, just to make a point. This time, I only shake my head and wish I had a drink.

“I give my girl the best version of me I can, Li. But she doesn’t want the censored edition.”

She nods slowly. “Good,” she finally says, very quietly. “I’m glad for you, Damon. More than you’d ever believe right now. But the other Augustine leaders aren’t going to let you go as is, not after everything you’ve done.”

I make a dismissive sound. “Kids nowdays. They never appreciate a classic in mint condition.”

Lia laughs, her eyes warming. “I missed you. You know that?”

“That’s what all the girls say before they try to change me,” I drawl. It’s easier than admitting to the humiliating tightness in my throat that says I missed her, too, and seeing her today didn’t ease the feeling of loss one bit, because the vampire I knew is long dead, just like I thought.

Her smile turns sad and then vanishes altogether as she pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll hold the other leaders off as long as I can, but you’re going to have to make a choice, Damon. Join us, or they’ll execute you.”

So they’re giving me the choice to be something I hate, or to be nothing at all, and they’re cocky enough to assume I can’t wring a third option out of this whole sorry situation.

The door closes behind Lia and I smile thinly into the empty room. Bring it on, fuckers. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.

From the text inbox of Jeremy Gilbert’s phone

J: how is it being home again?

C: It’s all champagne and autographs, babe, living the dream.

J: that bad, huh?

C: No, it’s fine. Gram’s doing good. But I forgot to bring a vampire back to compel my boss, so I’m on official probation and unofficial passive-aggressive punishment of being assigned all the worst jobs in the care center. Which, when you’re a CNA, can get pretty darn ugly.

J: when are you going to quit?

C: When I can pay the bills with wishes and pixie dust, Junior.

J: you could get one you don’t hate.

C: I don’t hate it! I adore Betty Jo, and Mrs. Berber, and Mr. Thomas. And Jarvis.

J: and…

C: And I hate everything else. Shut up.

J: try this one on for size

C: I’m listening…

J: Coyote Ugly.

C: In your wettest dreams.

J: a. yes

J: b. you’d love it. C’mon you’d be the best bartender in 6 states!

C: I’m too mean.

J: everybody loves mean when it comes with pretty.

C: YOU love mean and pretty.

J: guilty.

J: call me tonight?

C: Not a chance, Romeo. I’m on to your tricks. ;)

J: you haven’t seen all my tricks.

C: Okay, maybe. If you get your homework done and eat all your vegetables and don’t wear a shirt when I call.

J: done.

DAMON

I wake to the smell of disinfectant and steel. I'm groggy, so at first I'm not sure if it's the last wisp of a nightmare, the olfactory memory of the Augustines' operating rooms poisoning my sleep yet again. But when I go to stretch, my arm strains against a wide leather cuff and my eyes blare open.

Fluorescent lights, metal tables, trays of medical instruments.

Scalpels.

No.

I erupt into motion, focusing every year of my strength into shredding the wrist and ankle cuffs that hold me bound to this chair. My body feels scorched inside with vervain, but I'm not starved, not weakened. The Augustines have nothing that can cage me now.

"Hold him!" a male voice shouts.

A more familiar voice calls, "Damon! Damon, please!"

There's a strap across my lap and another over my chest and I can't get any leverage, can't buck more than a centimeter or two. My lungs are crushed by the pressure as I choke on panicked breaths, my thrashing not budging the steel chair, which must be bolted to the floor.

Fight.

"Damon, calm down! You're safe, you're safe!"

I heave against the reinforced straps and hear a crack as one of my ribs gives way.

There's pain and pressure from every direction, explosive movement and shouting and I just know I have to beat this, get out of this, go, go, go.

My thoughts vanish into sheer animal panic, and it’s seconds or centuries before the tide of it breaks over my head.

My muscles fail and seize up before I register their exhaustion, my arms and legs foreign things withered inside the clasp of the sweat-slicked cuffs that are warped from my efforts but far from broken. A new sensation I can’t name slowly filters in as I sag against the straps, my lungs torched because I forgot that I don't have to breathe.

"Focus on my hands in your hair," a soft voice murmurs. "Just breathe and think about how good it feels, how you can feel the vibration of each strand all the way to your scalp when I touch it."

I'm dripping with sweat and Lia's fingers are cool and steady. I can feel her pressed against my shoulder as she perches on the wide arm of the chair.

My muscles aren't relaxed so much as finished, every joint hanging limp. I have no idea how long I was fighting. I only know I failed.

"Remember how you used to do this for Stefan when he was a little boy?" Lia says softly. "Just stroking his hair and talking to him until he could relax and go to sleep. You're a good brother, Damon."

I had forgotten I told her about that. It was on one of the bad days, when the latest experiment was to see if a vampire's body knew its correct structure. The Augustines would sew pieces of us together wrong just to see what the final result might be. Lia was bursting the stitches, her skin splitting apart as it tried to line itself up correctly to heal. She was half hysterical with the pain and I stayed up all night, stroking her hair as she lay against the bars. Telling her story after story, some true, some made up. Anything to take her mind off the pain.

"What are you doing to me?" I rasp as my eyes flee from scalpel to syringe to the complicated looking machines near my chair. My body may be spent but it hasn't made a dent on the storm of panic still screaming through my mind.

"They're not going to experiment on you," Lia says quickly. "And there will be anesthesia this time; you won't feel a moment of pain, Damon, I promise you. I would never," she says, moving until she's kneeling in front of my chair, "let that happen to you again. Never."

"Then what am I doing here?" I growl, my voice so raw that the sound embarrasses me. "I'm not into playing doctor, Li."

"I'm so sorry, Damon. They wouldn't let me wait," she says, her face twisted with regret.

What does she mean wait? I've been here less than a day. How can they have run out of patience already?

"Until you made your decision, I mean. They said we couldn't risk it, that the procedure must be done now or you would have to be put down."

"What procedure, Lia?" I demand, then swallow, refusing to lose control of myself again while she’s watching. "Are we talking Popeye biceps and Roadrunner speed or switching over to the cannibal menu here? Am I going to be calling you Master by tomorrow morning?"

She looks away, her body a hunched comma of tension.

"What, you prefer Sensei?" I joke, my voice feeling like something sickeningly weightless that I'm forcing out of my throat. I’m painfully aware that my words are the only part of me that can escape the bonds of this chair.

"Just the necessary procedures," Lia says unhappily. "You won't be a full Augustine.” She looks me straight in the eye and right now, she looks exactly like the girl I remember. "I’m sorry. I wanted it to be your choice."

My stomach clenches weakly at the implication of her words. This is it: I'm strapped to their chair with every kind of body and brain-scrambling equipment laid out around me. I’ve been their prisoner for less than twenty-four hours but if the cavalry doesn't show up in the next five minutes it's bye bye Damon and hello who the hell knows. Whoever they deem it safe for me to be, I guess.

They can make me feed on vampires, they can make me non-aggressive and totally obedient to Lia, and they can jack me up to Klaus’s fighting weight. Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to get the nice options on that surgical menu?

She stands up.

"So does our deal still stand?" I ask, trying to catch Lia’s gaze again, but she won't look at me. Is she still going to get me out of here after this, or did that go south along with her power to postpone whatever lobotomizing they are about to do to me?

"Dr. Penfield is going to explain the procedure to you," Lia says, stepping back. "But it's not like it was before, Damon. It's very gentle, professional. It won't hurt."

A man in an ironically pristine lab coat steps forward with a smile. "Hello, Mr. Salvatore, how are you feeling?"

"I'm three blondes and a bottle of Dom into a fan-freaking-tastic party," I snap. "How does it look like I'm doing?"

He fidgets with the papers on his clipboard and throws an uneasy look at Lia. "This is a lengthy procedure, and we're going to require your full cooperation as well as your honest assessment of any sensation or pain you might experience. Please don't try to play tough, Mr. Salvatore. We're here to do the best job we can do, and we're very good at it, as long as you are honest."

"Super,” I say, and my eyes flare. “Then I can honestly tell you there's no mindfucking you can do to me to make me forget the lengthy procedure I’m going to use to remove your lungs from your body, once I get free of this damned Auschwitz meets General Hospital stage set. So if you have kids, kiss them goodbye soon, and just between you and me? It wouldn't be a bad idea to upgrade the life insurance."