“Wrong answer.” Damon shoved the stake through his chest again, and the kid screamed, a high shrill sound. Meredith shuddered.
When Damon pulled the stake out with a sickening squelch, the kid hung against the bars for a moment, panting, before the sullen expression settled back on his face. “He’ll get me out,” he muttered, and his eyes fixed on Meredith’s. Frozen to the spot, she met his gaze. Did he know what she was?
Damon grinned, an angry, deadly grin, and gripped the stake again.
Alaric coughed. “Instructive as this is,” he said dryly, “weren’t we going to discuss our plans?”
“Right.” Damon loosened his grip on the stake and turned away from the young vampire.
In that second, the vampire lunged at him with teeth and clawed fingers, reaching through the bars between them, moving so fast Meredith’s eyes could barely follow. Without thinking, she charged forward, shoving the kid away, her hands slamming against the bars of his cage.
“Thank you.” Damon stepped back, rubbing at his neck. He glanced at the trapped vampire, his eyes sharp. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, his tone threatening. The kid hadn’t been able to reach far, bound as he was, but there were bloody scrapes across the side of Damon’s throat.
Relief loosened Meredith’s chest, and she took a deep breath. When it had come down to it, she was still on the right side. All this hunger she was feeling, the way all her friends, except Damon, smelled like food, was just a technicality. She was going to be fine.
“Damon found this vampire outside our building,” Elena told them all. “We have to assume it means that Jack knows that Damon’s living there and will send more vampires after him. He’s on Jack’s list, and we all know how far Jack will go to… eliminate his enemies.” She sounded businesslike, but Meredith could hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice. Elena couldn’t handle losing anyone else.
“So we need to step up our game,” Bonnie said cheerfully. “I’ll pull out all the tracking spells I can think of and make some more protection charms for all of us. Zander and the Pack can—”
“Uh.” Zander broke in, looking uncomfortable. “We’ve got a lot of official Pack business going on right now. I mean, I’ll do whatever I can, but I don’t think you can count on the whole Pack.”
“But…” Bonnie looked confused.
Zander shifted from one foot to the other, his white-blond hair falling into his eyes. “We’ll patrol like we usually do, I just don’t know how much else the guys are up for.” He wasn’t looking at Bonnie, or at any of them.
Meredith frowned. Zander was acting peculiar. Then she caught a full whiff of Zander’s scent as he moved and couldn’t think of anything else. His blood would be strong and wild, she knew, and she couldn’t help imagining how an alpha werewolf might taste. Her teeth ached, and she stepped back away from him. Clearly, she wasn’t fine yet. She had to fix this.
Damon’s eyes met hers for a moment, and she was surprised by the sympathy in his gaze.
“Okay,” Elena said briskly. “Bonnie, that sounds great, and Zander, just have the Pack do what they can.” Zander nodded. Bonnie was still staring at him, her lips slightly parted.
“You and I will work on this fellow,” Damon said to Elena, with a vicious glance at the trapped vampire, who snarled back at him. “If we can’t get information on Jack out of him, maybe we’ll be able to figure out how to kill him.”
“If I can get some of his blood, I can analyze it at the hospital to see how Jack is making his vampires,” Jasmine offered shyly. “Maybe Matt can help me.”
“And I’d like to try to track down Jack’s history,” Alaric added. “The more we learn about who he was before he became a vampire, the better we’ll be able to fight him.”
From behind Alaric, Damon caught Meredith’s eye and cocked an eyebrow at her. They’d already discussed Meredith’s next step.
“I want to head down to Atlanta for a while, talk to Darlene and the other hunters who were working with Jack,” she said, slipping easily into the lie they’d decided on. “They’ve got to know something they haven’t told us, something that will help us track him.”
Alaric took a half step toward her, his mouth opening in a question. Of course he was surprised—she hadn’t discussed this with him at all.
“It’s important,” she said, begging him with her eyes to understand. Alaric bit his lip, and then his face softened. He knew how she had admired Jack, back when she thought he was a hunter, and Meredith could see him deciding that this would be good for her.
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t be gone long, though. We should all be sticking together right now.”
Elena frowned. “You’re probably the best one to figure out how to kill this vampire.”
Damon put a hand on Elena’s shoulder, and she leaned toward him. “I can handle the fake vampire,” he said smoothly. “Meredith should do what she has to do.”
It would be good to get away, Meredith thought. She had to get away before she hurt the people she loved.
She couldn’t live like this. Jack must know something. There had to be a way to undo what he had done to her. All she had to do was make him trust her.
Meredith left the next day, amid a flurry of a send-off. She kissed Alaric, hugged Elena and Bonnie and the others. Damon hung back, watching her with sharp, half-amused eyes. Meredith promised to touch base often, told them she’d let them know when she got to Atlanta. The whole time she concentrated on not breathing, to avoid catching anyone’s scent, and managed to keep herself from sinking her teeth into anyone’s throat.
Once she had driven a few miles away from home, Meredith pulled onto the shoulder to take a breath and let herself think.
“We can find out more by infiltrating Jack’s group than by capturing him,” Damon had said. “That’s where you come in.”
Licking her lips nervously, she reached into her bag and pulled out the business card she had found in her pocket that first terrible day, now creased and fuzzy at the edges. I can do this, she told herself. I am a hunter. It doesn’t matter if I’m afraid, I’ll still keep fighting. Then she pulled out her phone and dialed the number written on the card.
“It’s Meredith,” she said when Jack picked up. “You were right. Please. I have to see you.”
Jack’s hideout wasn’t far away. Following the directions he’d given her over the phone, Meredith found a road that ended outside a long-abandoned warehouse at the edge of town. She got out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and crunched her way across the gravel parking lot.
The warehouse was dilapidated, and there were no cars in the lot except hers. A fast-food wrapper blew across the ground in front of her. Everything was eerily silent.
It didn’t matter. She knew Jack was here.
The warehouse’s big metal door rattled when Meredith knocked on it. She could hear footsteps coming. When it opened, there stood Jack, his face carefully neutral.
“Meredith,” he said, a little warily.
“I still hate you,” Meredith said quickly. “You killed Stefan, and I can’t forgive that. But—” She paused, her heart pounding, uncomfortably aware that what she was about to say was only partially a lie. “I don’t belong anywhere else. I can’t—all I want to do is bite people. I need to be in a place where my friends are safe from me. I need to be away from them.”
There was a long pause while Jack looked her up and down, his mouth pursed. Meredith shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Could he tell that she had come to spy on him, that she and Damon were working together?
“Please,” she dropped her voice as if she was telling him a shameful secret. “You were right. It feels good. I didn’t—don’t—want to be a vampire, but physically, I feel alive for the first time in my life. I want you to show me what I’m capable of.”
Jack stared at her, his face unreadable. Meredith kept her eyes steady on his, trying to project sincerity and pleading. She needed him to believe her, or she’d lose all chance of finding a cure.
Jack frowned, and for a moment she thought he’d slam the heavy metal door in her face. But then his lips turned up in the warm smile she had loved, back when she thought he was her friend. “Come on in,” he said. “We’ve all been waiting.”
Chapter 10
The trapped vampire let out a high, wordless shriek and tried to scrabble away from Damon, his chains clanging against the bars of his cage. Streams of gasoline ran down his legs, leaving long, wet patches on his clothes. Elena gritted her teeth and kept herself from looking away. This was important. This was to avenge Stefan, to save Damon. Besides, she thought wearily, he would be healed again in a matter of seconds.
“Stop fighting,” Damon said, his voice flat. The young vampire kicked at him, but Damon grabbed hold of his leg through the bars and pinned it for a moment as the vampire tried to twist away. “Hand me the lighter, Elena.”
Holding her breath to keep from inhaling the fumes, Elena reluctantly pulled the lighter from her pocket and handed it over, then backed a few steps away, watching them nervously. Damon flicked it and reached through the bars to touch the flame to the edge of the vampire’s pant leg.