"Ready?" Bonnie asked, reaching for Marilise and Rick. They each joined their free hands with Poppy's, forming a circle of four.
Poppy blinked rapidly, clearly nervous, and Bonnie grinned at her reassuringly. They all could feel Alysia watching them from the other side of the roof and, behind her, the other groups with their mentors.
Bonnie swallowed and steeled herself, shutting out everything except her three friends and the cool stone of her falcon resting at the hollow of her throat. She used it to center herself, breathing deeply, and closed her eyes.
Her consciousness flickered along their joined hands, going around the circle, pulling on Marilise's solidity, Poppy's energy, Rick's calm. To each of them, she said, silently, Can I? Can I? Let me in, and felt each reply a wordless yes. Their hands warmed in hers, and she waited.
And then Bonnie felt a little thrill along her spine as something slid into place between them, all their edges neatly fitting together. With a jolt, they were connected. Power began to pour into Bonnie from all three, filling her, making her gasp. She was a balloon, swelling with the others' Power, stretched so thin it was almost too much for her to contain.
Bonnie opened her eyes-or rather, opened several pairs of eyes, each in a different place. She saw the faraway stars glowing faintly above the city from four different angles. She could see her own profile through their eyes, her head tilted backward, her cheeks round and soft. Bonnie felt like a live wire, thrumming with the energy of four people, burning and fizzing with it.
She took all this Power, her own and her three partners', and gave it a direction. It roared fiercely through her and up toward that clouded, dim-starred city sky. Flooding through her body and expanding farther and farther out, the Power cleared away the clouds, brightening the stars.
Bonnie gasped for breath and kept pushing. Power pulsed steadily through her as she concentrated on summer back home, picnics down at Warm Springs when she was in high school, the sun hot on her back and the smell of fresh-cut grass underfoot. Mixed up with this were Poppy's memories of her days at summer camp, pounding along on horseback on a wooded trail; Rick's of a childhood creek, cold water splashing around his calves, sharp river pebbles underfoot and sticky humid heat wrapping around him like a blanket; and Marilise digging in her garden, fragrant plants and crumbling dirt under her hands.
All those summers combined into one. Bonnie felt it take shape-hot and long and glorious, a perfect summer-and then she pushed it into the night.
Slowly, a bright white light began to grow and grow on the rooftop, Bonnie at its center. A few querulous chirps sounded and then a growing cacophony of birdsong, as birds awoke and decided that they had somehow missed the dawn. Everywhere else, it was night, but here on the rooftop, surrounded by their joined Power, it was day.
Bonnie held the sun in place for a few minutes, locked into a circuit of their Power, which ran through her into the sky and back to them again. She was the circuit. She felt stronger and more flush with Power every moment. She could keep the false day going all night, she realized, until the real sun came up.
But then she pulled back, breaking the circuit. This was just a demonstration of what they'd learned; she didn't need to hold it all night. It was enough to know that she could. Power drained out of her, leaving her alone in her own head. She blinked as her vision reduced to one point of view, one set of eyes. The light faded slowly, and night fell again.
Bonnie let go of her friends' hands and snapped the connection between them, releasing their Power. Breathing hard, they smiled at one another.
There was a burst of applause and some murmurs of appreciation from the group behind them as they surged closer. Bonnie had almost forgotten about their audience. "Very nice, very nice indeed," an older, bearded man kept saying, nodding and patting them on the backs.
Alysia pulled Bonnie to the corner of the roof, grinning. "That was terrific!" she exclaimed. "I liked what you chose, the way you all pulled energy from a personal memory. It's much stronger that way. You're really good at this."
"Thanks," Bonnie said. "It felt ... it was great, I felt like I was all three of them, sort of. And myself, too." She was alone in her head now, but she could still feel the echoes of them: Poppy's spirit, Rick's intentness, Marilise's warmth.
Alysia raised her hand and pushed one of Bonnie's wild curls out of her face. "I know you've been waiting to go home, and I think, now, you're ready," she said. "You've learned so much. Maybe it's time to use your Powers where they're really needed."
Happiness rose up inside Bonnie, making her feel almost weightless for a second. Home! Now she could really help with the trouble in Dalcrest, more than she ever had before. Now she could go back where she belonged. She'd get to be with the friends she loved as much as sisters, and with Zander, wonderful, clear-eyed, warmhearted Zander. She'd missed him with a constant low ache the whole time she'd been in Chicago.
Impulsively, she reached out and wrapped her arms around Alysia, pulled her into a tight hug. "Thank you," she said, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, "Thank you so much."
If she concentrated all of her Guardian Powers, Elena could just see the faintest wisps of darkness, like tendrils of smoke hanging in midair. Eyes narrowed, she followed the traces of the dark aura, moving carefully from one to the next as she trekked through the woods. Matt and Darlene were following her, the undergrowth crunching beneath their feet, but she couldn't risk looking back at them. If she took her attention off the trail of evil stretching out before her, it just might disappear.
"Are you sure she knows what she's doing?" she heard Darlene whisper loudly to Matt.
"Yes," Matt answered, defensive. "Remember what Andres did? Elena's special."
To be completely honest, Elena wasn't entirely sure she knew what she was doing. Stefan, Jack, Alex, and Meredith-four experienced hunters, one of them a vampire-had headed out to hunt Trinity today, weapons in hand, earpieces on, aiming for a kill. Zander had his werewolves patrolling the town and the campus, keeping people safe. Alaric was at the university, researching more folklore about body-swapping and possession.
And then there was the renegade force: Elena, Matt, and Darlene, hoping to somehow bring Trinity in alive. They wanted to hold her safe until they could figure out how to reverse what had happened and put Trinity back in control of her own body.
Darlene had appeared on Elena's doorstep that morning and grabbed her by the arm, her fingers as strong and tight as if they were made of iron. Hunter's grip, Elena had thought, trying to wriggle free. Meredith held tight like this.
"Jack told us you want to get Solomon out of Trinity," Darlene had said, fixing Elena with fierce dark eyes, something desperate in her tone. "I want to try, if you will. Trinity's like a little sister to me."
Of course Elena wanted to try. She remembered Trinity's laughing challenge to her on the roof at the apple orchard and felt a pang of sorrow-that sweet-natured girl was lost, and no one was going to help her. If there was even the slightest chance Trinity was still there, they had to try. No matter what Stefan thinks, I need to do what's right, she thought, trying to make herself strong and inflexible. She wasn't used to being on the opposite side of an argument from Stefan.
So now here they were, just Elena, Darlene, and Matt, the three musketeers, hoping that somehow they could save Trinity. Following this trace of wrongness, these tiny shreds of darkness hanging in the air, Elena led them forward. The trail was thin and faint, but it was there.
The darkness led them through the woods away from campus, mostly downhill. Their feet squished unpleasantly in the mud.
At last they came to the edge of a lake. Little ripples wet the toes of Elena's boots as she followed the dark aura right to the shore. When she strained her eyes, she could see its trail leading out over the water, toward the vast middle of the lake.
"It goes straight over the water," she told the others.
"We're not going out there," Matt objected. "We'll walk around, pick it up on the other side."
Elena shook her head, her eyes on the faint traces of darkness. "If we leave the trail, I probably won't be able to find it again. It's too faint."
"Elena ..." Matt said.
"I can't." She stared at him desperately. "We'll lose it."
Matt sighed. "I'll find a boat," he said, gesturing off to the right. "There's a boathouse over there."
Elena nodded, never taking her eyes from the dark trail, barely daring to blink. Behind her, she heard Darlene shift from foot to foot and sigh.
"I knew Trinity's family," the older hunter said. "Before her parents died, they were almost like my parents, too. They fed me, offered me a place to stay, gave me advice I usually didn't follow. Trinity ... she's the only one left. I can't just let go of her."
"We'll do our best," Elena said, her eyes still fixed over the water. "I promise. I want to save her as much as you do." She was trying not to show it, but she was used to having Stefan, Meredith, and Bonnie on her side. With Bonnie gone and the others united against her, Elena felt so alone.
She gritted her teeth. She was doing the right thing, and that had to count for something.
There was a plashing of oars as Matt rowed up to them in a dented old rowboat. He jumped out and waded to shore, pulling the boat up behind him. "Here we go," he said. "There wasn't much selection. The crew team locks their boats up."
Elena sat in the front of the boat and pointed the way, while Darlene and Matt each took an oar.
As they traveled, the evil aura got darker and thicker. Elena was sure now that it was Solomon's. It felt ancient and cruel, like a bitter memory, something that had survived long millennia steeped in violence and hate. There was a strange yellowish-green mixed up in the smoky darkness, and Elena remembered what Jasmine and Meredith had said about Trinity's eyes.
As they neared the middle of the lake, the boat suddenly lurched. Elena yelped, grabbing hold of its side to keep her balance.
"What was that?" Darlene asked sharply.
"The wind must be picking up," Matt said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.
The waves were getting bigger, tossing the boat angrily in the water. Elena gripped the sides so hard her fingers ached.
"There's no wind," Darlene said suddenly, and Elena realized she was right. The sky was black and ominous, but the air was still. The waves moved more violently, the front of the boat going up in the air and then smacking down onto the water with a sickening lurch.
Right in front of Elena, the aura she'd been following disappeared, dissolving into nothingness.
"It's a trick," she gasped, just as the boat smacked into the water hard, dumping them out.
Elena was pulled down, down, down under the water, her hair streaming out behind her like a mermaid's. No, she thought, no, please, no. She'd drowned once before, in the dark waters of the creek under Wickery Bridge. She'd died.
She kicked and thrashed, trying to swim up toward the surface, but it was as if some invisible force was pushing on her, sending her straight down. Her feet hit the muddy bottom and waterweed, soft as feathers, wrapped itself around her legs.
Holding her breath, she bent her legs and pushed off hard against the lake bottom, focusing on the dim light above. She could see shadows in the water above her-Matt and Darlene, and the vague outline of the boat.
She was so cold. Colder than made sense for a summer day, even in deep water.
The water had been cold the other time-the night she went off the bridge. Ice in her hair, the heavy painful push of water filling her lungs, the blackness that had sucked her in. The last thing she had seen was the hood of Matt's car swallowed by dark water.
I'm not going to make it. Elena pushed the thought away and kept swimming upward. Ice crystals were forming around her, she realized, sharp and crystalline.
She was about to break through when her hands hit something hard and flat and cold above her. She gasped in surprise, accidentally letting the water in, and red-and-black sparks burst in her vision. With the last of her strength, Elena pounded her fists against the barrier, felt for an opening. But it was no use.
The pond had frozen over above her. Solomon.
She tried to keep hitting at the ice, but she was floating down, down, toward the darkness below. A human death, she thought, and then, Oh, Stefan, I'm so sorry to leave you this way.
Some last spark in her flared in rebellion. She wasn't going to die like this, not again. She was a Guardian. Elena reached deep, deep inside herself and pulled hard at the last of her Power.
Something arced out of her, a pure white light, and with a sudden shock, the ice above her head cracked violently open. And somehow, with one last feeble kick, she managed to break the surface of the water.
She opened her eyes but for a moment, she still couldn't see. She was coughing, taking great rasping, greedy breaths, struggling not to slip back under. And then something grabbed her by the hair, was now holding her by the arms, and she started fighting it, turning and twisting blindly in the water.
"Elena! Elena!" There was a sharp pain across her face, and Elena stopped struggling, shocked. "Elena!" It was Matt, gripping onto one of her arms, his other hand raised to slap her again. Darlene, her wet hair matted, was clutching her other arm. The boat bobbed across the water next to them.
Tears streaming from her eyes, Elena clung to Matt, his body warm and solid next to her freezing one. She choked and gagged some more, spitting icy water. "It was a trick," she managed to say after a minute, sobbing.
"I know. I can't ... I don't know what just happened, but I'm so glad you're okay." Matt gulped and took a deep breath, his arms tight around Elena. "We have to get back to shore."
Matt boosted Elena up, steadying the boat with one hand. With a lot of effort, she managed to wiggle back over the side, scraping her stomach uncomfortably, and land in a graceless heap on the bottom of the boat.
They rowed back toward shore. The waves were gone and the surface of the lake was still. The ice had already almost melted in the summer sun, but here and there bits of it bobbed on the lake surface, so beautiful that Elena could barely believe it had just tried to kill her.
Matt frowned. "Maybe Stefan is right. Maybe it's too dangerous to try to save Trinity."
"No," Elena said. Her head was pounding, her eyes burned, and her chest felt raw and painful, but she wasn't going to listen to an argument about this again. "We're not going to kill her. Not unless we know for sure that she's already gone."
"No sign here," Jack said, tapping his earpiece. "But Solomon doesn't usually leave evidence of kills. Stay north and keep your eyes open. We're heading southwest."
Meredith heard the murmur of Stefan and Alex's reply, and then they ended the transmission. Jack jerked his chin and she followed him southwest through the woods, scanning carefully all around them.
She caught sight of a mark in the mud underfoot and lifted a hand to get Jack's attention. "Footprints," she said, keeping her voice low just in case. The indentations were indistinct, but they looked about Trinity's size. Not many people would be walking this far back in the woods.
Jack kneeled down to examine them, his blue-jeaned knees sinking into the soft soil. "Not her." He gestured at the heel. "These are too big. Trinity has smaller feet than this."
"Oh," said Meredith, disappointed. They'd been searching the woods for a while, and so far, they hadn't found anything. No bodies, no sign of anything unnatural. "Sorry," she added, feeling useless.
"Solomon's always been incredibly talented at staying invisible," Jack said, as if he were reading her mind. "Andres being able to find Solomon was the first break we'd had in a long time." He straightened up and shot Meredith a crooked smile. "Any chance we'll be able to talk Elena into trying again? I didn't know how handy a Guardian could be."
Meredith shook her head. "Elena won't help hunt as long as she thinks she might be able to save Trinity."
"Yeah, I see that." Jack's shoulders drooped and, for a minute, he looked very tired. "Trinity was a terrific hunter. But we have to accept that she's gone and what we're hunting is the vampire that killed her."
"I know," said Meredith. Her stave felt heavier than usual. There wasn't a lot of pleasure in this hunt, knowing that, at best, it would end in fighting something that had the shape of a friend.
They walked on in silence for a while. A couple of times, Jack stopped to check footprints on the forest floor, but both times shook his head and went on. Not Trinity's. Meredith kept her eyes peeled for any anomalies.
Then she spotted a familiar clump of plants: soft purple blossoms, branching green stems, and small-toothed leaves. "Look, vervain," she said, pleased, and unzipped the pack she carried on her back. The opportunity to restock their vervain supply wasn't something she would pass up. She began to pick the herb's shoots one by one, careful not to crush their blossoms.
"I haven't used vervain much," Jack said, coming closer to look. "But I should probably start putting it in tea or something, like you do. Does it hurt Stefan, though? To be around it?"
"Not really. Of course, he could never drink from any of us, but I don't think it would ever come to that." She paused. "It's important for the rest of us to keep our minds clear. We need all the defenses we can get."
Jack crouched down to examine the spindly plants more closely. "I never would have considered hunting with a vampire before now," he ventured. "Doesn't it bother you? What he is?"
Meredith straightened up. She'd picked all the plants but left the roots, just the way Bonnie had taught her. They'd grow again and she could come back to this patch for more. "Stefan's more than proven himself to me," she said flatly. "And he's not a killer. He doesn't feed on humans."
"I know that," Jack said. "He told me. Doesn't that make him weaker, though?" His dark eyes were intent.
"I guess, but he's pretty strong anyway. He's old, and vampires get stronger with age," Meredith said, suddenly determined to defend Stefan. She took a few steps farther into the woods, continuing their trek, then stopped and turned back to Jack, feeling a fierce, protective rush of heat inside her. "I trust Stefan. I might be a hunter, but I'm always going to be on his side."
Jack nodded and started walking again, shoulder to shoulder with her.
They walked in silence for a while after that. The day was getting hot, the sky a deep blue dome high above them. Meredith felt easier now, glad that she and Jack understood each other about Stefan. He wasn't an enemy of the hunters.
"You look tired, Meredith," Jack said, breaking the silence. "You doing all right?"
"I ... I haven't been sleeping well lately," she admitted.
"Anything wrong?"
"I keep having these weird dreams," Meredith said hesitantly. It wasn't really in her nature to talk about things like this; she hated seeming weak. But she felt strangely comfortable with Jack: He was a hunter; he was like her. "I dream that I'm in a hospital room, or maybe a lab, and I can't move." Shuddering, she realized how lame her words sounded. It was hard to explain how disturbing the dreams were. "I just feel like something terrible is happening," she said weakly.
Jack nodded, his warm brown eyes sympathetic. "Sounds scary." His arm brushed Meredith's reassuringly. "But you know the dreams can't hurt you, unless you let them. They're just images your mind has created while you're asleep. It's reality we need to worry about."
"I know." And to her surprise, Meredith did feel a little better. Just bringing the dreams into the daylight, putting them into words, had made them seem harmless. Jack was right. What was scary about a few dreams when she fought monsters in real life?
