him but that she needed to try.
A snarling blur shot past her, and Stefan, free of his adversary, slammed into Ethan, throwing him across the room, sending his knife flying. Without pausing, he ripped one of the other vampires from Damon’s arm and snapped his neck. By the time the body hit the floor, Damon had neatly dispatched the other one.
The brothers, both panting, exchanged a long look that seemed to carry a lot of unspoken communication. Damon wiped a smear of crimson blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Suddenly an arm was around Elena’s throat, and the knife was wrenched out of her hand. She was being dragged upward. Something sharp was poking her in the tender hol ow at the bottom of her neck.
“I can kil her before you could even get over here,” Ethan’s voice said, too loud by her ear. Elena flailed an arm backward, trying to grab at his hair or face, and he kicked viciously at her legs, knocking her off-balance, and pul ed her closer. “I could snap her neck with one arm. I could stab her with her own knife and let her bleed out. It would be fun.” He was holding her knife, Elena realized, pressed against her throat. His other arm hung loose, and curiously bent. Damon had broken it, Elena remembered.
Stefan and Damon froze and then very slowly turned toward Elena and Ethan, both their faces shuttered and wary. Then Damon’s broke into a rictus of rage.
“Let her go,” he snarled. “We’d kil you the second she hit the ground.”
Ethan laughed, a remarkably genuine laugh for someone in a life-or-death standoff. “She’l stil be dead, though, so I think it might be worth it. You’re not planning to let me leave here anyway, are you?” He turned to Stefan, his voice mocking. “You know, I heard all about the Salvatore brothers from some of Klaus’s other descendants. They said you were aristocratic and beautiful and terribly hot tempered. That Stefan was moral, and that Damon was remorseless. But they also said that you were both fools for love, always for love. It’s your fatal flaw. So, yeah, I think my chances are a lot better when I’ve got your girlfriend in my power. Whose girlfriend is she, actual y? I can’t tel .” Elena flinched.
“Wait a second, Ethan.” Stefan held out his hands placatingly. “Hold on. If you agree not to bring back Klaus and let Elena go safely, we’l give you whatever you want.
Get out of town, and we won’t come after you. You’l be safe. If you know about us, you know we’l keep our word.” Behind him, Damon nodded reluctantly, his eyes on Elena’s face.
Ethan laughed again. “I don’t think you have anything I want anymore, Stefan,” he said. “The rest of the Vitale Society, including our newest initiates, wil be coming back soon, and I think they’l tip the scales back in my favor.” He tightened his arm around Elena’s throat. “We’ve kil ed so many students on this campus. Surely one more won’t be missed.”
Damon hissed in rage and started forward, but Ethan cal ed out, “Stop right there, or—”
Suddenly, he jerked, and Elena felt a sharp, stinging pain in her throat. She squeaked in horror and grabbed at her own neck. But it was only a scratch from the knife.
As Stefan and Damon stood helpless and furious, Ethan’s arm loosened from around her throat. He made a hideous gurgling noise. Elena yanked away as soon as his grip weakened.
Blood was running in long thick rivulets from Ethan’s torso, and his mouth opened in shock as he clutched at himself and slowly fel forward, a round hole in his chest fil ing with blood.
Behind him, Meredith stood, hair flying, her usual y cool gray eyes burning like dark coals in her face. Her stave was coated in Ethan’s blood.
“I got him in the heart,” she said, her voice fierce.
“Thank you,” Elena murmured politely. She was feeling
… real y … very peculiar, and it wasn’t until she was actual y starting to fal that she thought, Oh no, I think I’m going to faint.
Blurrily, she saw both Damon and Stefan rushing forward to catch her, and when she came to a moment later, she was held tightly in two pairs of arms.
“I’m okay,” she said. “It was just … for a second, I was…” She felt one pair of arms pul her closer for a moment, and then they released her, shifting her weight over to the other set. When she looked up, Stefan was clutching her tightly to him. Damon stood a few feet away, his face unreadable.
“I knew you’d come to save me,” Stefan said, holding Elena but looking at Damon.
Damon’s lips twitched into a tiny, reluctant smile. “Of course I did, you idiot,” he said gruffly. “I’m your brother.” They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Damon’s eyes flicked to Elena, stil in Stefan’s arms, and away. “Let’s put out the torches and go,” he said briskly.
“We’ve stil got about fourteen vampires to find.” 41
It seemed like he and Bonnie had been waiting forever in the tiny back office of the library, Matt thought. They had strained to catch a sound, to try and learn anything at al about what was happening down there. Bonnie paced, wringing her hands and biting her lips, and he leaned against the wal , head lowered, and kept a good grip on Samantha’s stave. Just in case.
He knew about al the doors and passages and tunnels down there, many of which he had no idea where they led, but he didn’t realize the soundproofing was so good. They hadn’t heard a thing.
Then suddenly the trapdoor was pushing up, and Matt tensed, raising the stave, until he saw Elena’s face.
Meredith, Elena, Stefan, and Damon climbed out, covered in blood, but basical y fine, if the eager way Elena and Meredith were tel ing Bonnie what happened, their words tumbling over each other, was any indication.
“Ethan’s dead,” Stefan told Matt. “There were some other Vitales down there in the fight, but none of the pledges. He’d sent them out to hunt.”
Matt felt sick and weirdly happy at the same time. He’d pictured them dead at Damon and Stefan’s hands, Chloe, al his friends from pledging. But they weren’t. Not dead, not real y. But transformed, vampires now.
“You’re going to hunt them,” he said, aiming his words at Stefan and Damon, and at Meredith, too. She nodded, her face resolved, and Damon looked away.
