Dark Reunion

really think he's going to let you walk out of there? Do you think he plans to leave the rest of us alone?'

'No,' Stefan said, and picked up the branch leaning against the wall. He took Matt's knife out of his own pocket and began to strip the twigs off, making it into a straight white spear.

'Oh, great, you're going off for single combat!' Matt said, furious. 'Don't you see how stupid that is? You're walking right into his trap!' He advanced a step on Stefan. 'You may not think that the three of us can stop you —'

'No, Matt.' Meredith's low, level voice cut across the room. 'It won't do any good.' Stefan looked at her, the muscles around his eyes hardening, but she just looked back, her face set and calm. 'So you're determined to meet Klaus face to face, Stefan. All right. But before you go, at least be sure you have a fighting chance.' Coolly, she began to unbutton the neck of her tailored blouse.

Bonnie felt a jolt, even though she'd offered the same thing only a week earlier. But that had been in private, for God's sake, she thought. Then she shrugged. Public or private, what difference did it make?

She looked at Matt, whose face reflected his consternation. Then she saw Matt's brow crease and the beginning of that stubborn, bullheaded expression that used to terrify the coaches of op-posing football teams. His blue eyes turned to hers and she nodded, thrusting out her chin. Without a word, she unzipped the light wind- breaker she was wearing and Matt pulled off his T-shirt.

Stefan stared from one to another of the three people grimly disrobing in his room, trying to conceal his own shock. But he shook his head, the white spear in front of him like a weapon. 'No.'

'Don't be a jerk, Stefan,' Matt snapped. Even in the confusion of this terrible moment something inside Bonnie paused to admire his bare chest. 'There's three of us. You should be able to take plenty without hurting any one of us.'

'I said, no! Not for revenge, and not to fight evil with evil! Not for any reason. I thought you would understand that.' Stefan's look at Matt was bitter.

'I understand that you're going to die out there!' Matt shouted.

'He's right!' Bonnie pressed her knuckles against her lips. The premonition was getting through her defenses. She didn't want to let it in, but she didn't have the strength to resist anymore. With a shudder, she felt it stab through and heard the words in her mind.

'No one can fight him and live,' she said painfully. 'That's what Vickie said, and it's true. I feel it, Stefan. No one can fight him and live!'

For a moment, just a moment, she thought he might listen to her. Then his face went hard again and he spoke coldly.

'It isn't your problem. Let me worry about it.'

'But if there's no way to win—' Matt began.

'That isn't what Bonnie said!' Stefan replied tersely.

'Yes, it is! What the hell are you talking about?' Matt shouted. It was hard to make Matt lose his temper, but once lost it wasn't easily gotten back. 'Stefan, I've had enough—'

'And so have I!' Stefan shot back in a roar. In a tone Bonnie had never heard him use before. 'I'm sick of you all, sick of your bickering and your spinelessness—and your premonitions, too! This is my problem.'

'I thought we were a team—' Matt cried.

'We are not a team. You are a bunch of stupid humans! Even with everything that's happened to you, deep down you just want to live your safe little lives in your safe little houses until you go to your safe little graves! I'm nothing like you and I don't want to be! I've put up with you this long because I had to, but this is the end.' He looked at each of them and spoke deliberately, emphasizing each word. 'I don't need any of you. I don't want you with me, and I don't want you following me. You'll only spoil my strategy. Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill.'

And with one last smoldering glance, he turned on his heel and walked out.

FOURTEEN

'He's gone round the bend,' Matt said, staring at the empty doorway through which Stefan had disappeared.

'No, he hasn't,' said Meredith. Her voice was rueful and quiet, but there was a kind of helpless laugh in it too. 'Don't you see what he's doing, Matt?' she said when he turned to her. 'Yelling at us, making us hate him to try and chase us away. Being as nasty as possible so we'll stay mad and let him do this alone.' She glanced at the doorway and raised her eyebrows. ' 'Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill' was going a bit overboard, though.'

Bonnie giggled suddenly, wildly, in spite of herself. 'I think he borrowed it from Damon. 'Get this straight, I don't need any of you!' '

' 'You bunch of stupid humans,' ' Matt added.

'But I still don't understand. You just had a premonition, Bonnie, and Stefan doesn't usually discount those. If there's no way to fight and win, what's the point of going?'

'Bonnie didn't say there was no way to fight and win. She said there was no way to fight and survive. Right, Bonnie?' Meredith looked at her.

The fit of giggles dissolved away. Startled herself, Bonnie tried to examine the premonition, but she knew no more than the words that had sprung into her mind. No one can fight him and live.

'You mean Stefan thinks—' Slow, thunderous outrage was smoldering in Matt's eyes. 'He thinks he's going to go and stop Klaus even though he gets killed himself? Like some sacrificial lamb?'

'More like Elena,' Meredith said soberly. 'And maybe—so he can be with her.'

'Huh-uh.' Bonnie shook her head. She might not know more about the prophecy, but this she knew. 'He doesn't think that, I'm sure. Elena's special. She is what she is because she died too young; she left so much unfinished in her own life, and—well, she's a special case. But Stefan's been a vampire for five hundred years, and he certainly wouldn't be dying young. There's no guarantee he'd end up with Elena. He might go to another place or—or just go out. And he knows that. I'm sure he knows that. I think he's just keeping his promise to her, to stop Klaus no matter what it costs.'

'To try, at least,' Matt said softly, and it sounded as if he were quoting. 'Even if you know you're going to lose.' He looked up at the girls suddenly. 'I'm going after him.'

'Of course,' said Meredith patiently.

Matt hesitated. 'Uh—I don't suppose I could convince you two to stay here?'

'After all that inspiring talk about teamwork? Not a chance.'

'I was afraid of that. So…'

'So,' said Bonnie, 'we're out of here.'

They gathered what weapons they could. Matt's pocketknife that Stefan had dropped, the ivory-hilted dagger from Stefan's dresser, a carving knife from the kitchen.

Outside, there was no sign of Mrs. Flowers. The sky was pale purple, shading to apricot in the west. Twilight of the solstice eve, Bonnie thought, and hairs on her arms tried to lift.

'Klaus said the old farmhouse in the woods—that must mean the Francher place,' Matt said. 'Where Katherine dumped Stefan in the abandoned well.'

'That makes sense. He's probably been using Katherine's tunnel to get back and forth under the river,' Meredith said. 'Unless Old Ones are so powerful they can cross running water without harming themselves.'

That's right, Bonnie remembered, evil things couldn't cross running water, and the more evil you were, the harder it was. 'But we don't know anything about the Originals,' she said aloud.

'No, and that means we've got to be careful,' Matt said. 'I know these woods pretty well, and I know the path Stefan will probably use. I think we should take a different one.'

'So Stefan won't see us and kill us?'

'So Klaus won't see us, or not all of us. So maybe we'll have a chance of getting to Caroline. Somehow or other we've got to get Caroline out of the equation; as long as Klaus can threaten to hurt her he can make Stefan do anything he wants. And it's always best to plan ahead, to get a jump on the enemy. Klaus said meet there after dark; well, we'll be there before dark and maybe we can surprise