Steeling herself, Elena took hold of the vampire’s legs and dragged him into Jack’s office, where he wouldn’t be found as easily. He was heavy, and his head bumped roughly against the doorframe as she pulled him through. Despite herself, Elena winced at the thump.

She pulled him over to the coat closet where the poison had been hidden and wedged him inside. Closing the closet door, she turned the latch, locking his body inside.

Combing her hair and touching up her makeup, Elena made sure that she was pristine again before she left Jack’s office. It was better not to look like she had been dragging corpses around if she wanted to get out of here unquestioned. With luck, no one would look for the dead vampire until tomorrow.

She could feel Damon radiating anxiety through their bond, now that she had a moment to realize it.

She tried to send him reassurance and joy—they’d found it, they’d succeeded—but the emotions she was feeling from Damon didn’t calm down. He’d be happy once she was out of Lifetime Solutions. That black box would ensure Damon’s safety. Vengeance for Stefan’s death.

Coming down in the elevator, Elena allowed herself for a moment to wonder if now they’d be able to move on.

No one stopped her as she crossed the lobby. Elena’s heart beat faster. She was going to make it out.

Outside, it was now fully dark, and the plaza was deserted.

“Damon?” Elena called. “I’ve got it.” She could sense him, somewhere nearby.

“Elena.” Jack’s voice. A cold shiver ran down her back. Elena turned around.

Jack had his arm wrapped around Damon, a stake sunk halfway into Damon’s chest. As she watched, he pushed the stake in a little farther, and a circle of bright blood began to spread across Damon’s shirt. “Elena,” Jack said again. “I think we need to talk.”

Chapter 31

“The stake’s touching his heart,” Jack said. “I can kill him in a second. Give me the poison, and I’ll let your boyfriend go.”

Damon could hardly breathe, and with each tiny movement of the stake in Jack’s hand, he felt dizzy and drained. His whole chest burned as if it were on fire. He stood as still as he could and fixed his eyes on Elena, willing her to listen to the message he was trying to send her. Don’t give it to him. Run away.

He didn’t want to die. But he couldn’t live with himself if they let go of their only chance of killing Jack. Not when Jack had killed Stefan, killed Katherine.

Besides, if Elena did hand over the poison, he would probably shove the stake through Damon’s heart anyway. They knew by now that they couldn’t trust him.

Carefully, Damon tensed his muscles little by little, keeping himself fully aware of the stake. His best chance would be to wait for Jack to be distracted, and then to take him down quickly. Protect Elena, and perhaps even save himself. Adrenaline began to burn beneath his skin in anticipation of a fight.

“What’s it going to be?” Jack said, thrusting the stake a fraction of an inch deeper. Damon flinched.

Elena didn’t answer. She was standing very still, her eyes dark and huge in her pale face. She looked, Damon thought, like someone about to be burned at the stake.

“Stop this,” she said, and Damon felt a pulse of Power coming from her. Jack laughed and shook his head. Whatever Elena was trying, it wasn’t working.

Damon shut his eyes for just a moment. His heart was pulsing around the stake, sending steady throbs of pain through his body. It made it hard to think.

It wouldn’t be so bad to die if he had to, he supposed. He had loved. He had lived.

If only he could be sure that Jack would let Elena go.

The stake against his heart jerked, hard, and Damon’s eyes flew open.

Jack yanked the stake entirely out of Damon’s chest, his arm flinging wide and the stake clattering to the ground. Damon took his cue and leaped forward, ready to fight, but there was no fight to have, not right now.

Jack was being pulled backward, away from Damon, with short, jerky steps. His arms were drawn up and suspended in midair, even as his body writhed, struggling. His face was twisted with rage.

Damon, his hand covering the wound on his chest, turned around to stare at Elena. As he watched, her hands came up and moved, her long elegant fingers plucking in time to the motion of Jack’s limbs, puppet master to Jack’s puppet. Her eyes were shining, and she looked triumphant.

“Good girl,” Damon breathed. “Beautiful.”

He had never seen Elena use her Guardian Powers with such precision before. Elena twitched a finger and Jack’s head snapped backward with an outraged snarl. He was utterly at her mercy.

Damon headed for Elena and found himself stumbling, moving at half the speed he usually could. Fresh blood was pumping out of his chest and streaming down his body as he moved. The suit would be ruined, he thought dazedly. His body was trying to knit itself together, but there was too much damage. He needed to feed.

“Use the poison,” Elena murmured as he came up to her. Her eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Jack, as if a glance aside would break her power over him.

Damon fumbled open the briefcase at her feet, unlatching the box he found inside. Five needles full of the poison, each shimmering softly in the light of the moon overhead. He grabbed one, unclipping it from the side of the box, and held it tightly but carefully as he turned back toward Jack.

Jack’s eyes fixed on the hypodermic, and his eyes widened. For the first time, he looked afraid.

But Elena’s control was beginning to slip, Damon could see. As Damon got closer, the self-made vampire lunged toward him, grabbing desperately at the hypodermic with one hand, even as the rest of his body jerked at Elena’s command.

Damon grabbed hold of the free arm, trying to force it into stillness as he raised the syringe. Maybe he could inject it here, right in the vein at the crook of the elbow.

He hesitated just for a split second, looking for the long blue line of the vein, and in that second Elena lost control. Like his puppet strings had been suddenly cut, Jack fell forward, knocking Damon to the ground. The syringe fell from his hand, skittering away across the concrete of the plaza.

Damon sucked in a breath, dazed for a moment, and Jack’s fangs sunk into his throat, ripping and tearing. Can’t lose more blood, Damon reminded himself, and struggled, shoving the other vampire away. His teeth gouged at Damon’s throat as they came out, and Damon clawed viciously at Jack’s face, trying to take some vengeance.

He was holding Jack away, far enough that he couldn’t bite, but the other vampire’s hands fumbled at his chest. They found the wound above Damon’s heart and roughly, slowly, wormed their way within.

Damon gasped in shock. He could feel Jack’s long fingers inside him, reaching for his heart.

Everything went gray for a moment, and when the world snapped back into color, Damon’s chest was going cold. He tried to gasp for air, but Jack was above him, blocking out the sky, his presence suffocating.

Just beside Damon, something glimmered. The syringe. Slowly, as if someone else was moving it, Damon saw his own hand slide toward it and pick it up. He fumbled for a second, and it almost fell again. And then, with new strength, he gripped the syringe and shoved it against Jack’s neck.

Everything went gray. He must have lost consciousness, because when he blinked back into awareness, time seemed to have passed. Elena was pulling Jack’s weight off of him and kneeling by Damon’s side. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear what she said.

And then, with the force of a sudden slap, light and sound came back into the world.

“—please, I don’t think I can take it,” Elena was saying. Damon smiled at her. It seemed to take a lot more effort than it usually did.

The ragged bite on his throat burned, and he could feel a lukewarm trickle of blood running down his side. But warmth flooded him as he looked up at Elena. She looked like an angel. “I love you,” he said. “Always.” It seemed so simple.

Beside them, Jack gave a rattling gasp, and Damon turned his head to look at him, the concrete cold and gritty against his cheek.

“Lucia,” Jack muttered. His eyes were wet and bloodshot. A strange, rank smell, like rotting meat, rose from him, and Damon wrinkled his nose, clutching at the wound on his own chest. “You have to understand,” Jack said fiercely. “Someone has to know why I did it. I loved Lucia, but Siobhan loved me. And then I found out Siobhan was a vampire.” He coughed, a loose hacking cough, and a stream of drool ran across his chin.

“And you wanted her Power for yourself,” Elena said coolly.

Jack groaned and shook his head. “No, it wasn’t about that. Lucia got sick. All the doctors said she would die. I was half-crazy… Siobhan came when I called her, but she wouldn’t change Lucia, wouldn’t fix her.”

Jack’s lips twitched into a smile again, stiffer and more horrible, the rictus grin of a dying man. “But I had another plan. I would make Siobhan save her, and I’d make myself a vampire, too. We’d live forever, together. Strong and well.”

“Something happened, though,” Elena said. Her voice was a little warmer, Damon thought. Elena understood why someone would do terrible things for love. “Your plan didn’t work.”

Blood trickled down Jack’s chin now, and he moaned and twitched as if he wanted to wipe it away but couldn’t raise his hands. His eyes rolled from side to side, as if he were seeing something too horrible to look at directly. “I found Lucia’s poor body, she was torn apart… I was going to kill them all. I’d make more vampires, stronger, better ones, and we’d hunt down Siobhan and her kind.” He looked from Elena to Damon, his eyes pleading. “I know… we’re monsters. But when the vampires are dead, I’ll kill my creations. It was the only way I could fight them. Let me live. Let me finish.”

His own lukewarm blood running through his fingers, Damon slowly shook his head. So what if Jack thought he was a hero? He had murdered Stefan, and he deserved to die.

Elena wrapped her arms around herself. She looked young and vulnerable, but she was Damon’s strong girl. “No,” she said. “This is the end, Jack.”

Jack choked and gagged, a harsh cough tearing from his throat. “Let me make the world safe,” he said weakly, when the coughing fit finally ended, “Please. I’m not a bad man.”

He took one final rattling breath and then his chest stilled and everything was silent.

Damon took a breath of his own and stared up at the half-moon sailing high above the plaza, his chest feeling raw and painful. Jack was dead. They had their vengeance for Stefan now, and it was all over.

He had thought that it would feel better, more complete. But the flush of joy he’d felt had faded, and the ache was still inside him. Stefan was dead. He felt a slender, warm hand take his, and he turned to Elena. “We did it,” she said softly, and Damon leaned against her. The bond between them was flooding with relief, and Damon felt his slow heart speed up a bit as he held onto Elena’s hand. “We did,” he agreed, watching the soft glow of her skin in the moonlight. “Now we can go home.”

Chapter 32

Three weeks had passed since Damon and Elena killed Jack, far away in Switzerland. Since then, none of them had been able to take more than a second to focus on anything except preparing for Bonnie’s wedding. And now it was a beautiful day for the ceremony, Matt thought. They were all together, safe and whole.

The sky was blue and open, the only clouds above tiny and puffy white. Birds sang in the trees—the long trill of a warbler, the three short notes of a whippoorwill. Wild violets were blooming in the grass at their feet. Matt ran a finger around the inside of his collar, easing where it pressed against the bandage on his throat.

“Dude, if you forgot the ring, Zander’s going to kill you,” Spencer whispered to Jared beside him.

“Forget Zander, Shay will kill me first. She said I’d better learn to take a little responsibility,” Jared muttered back. “Anyway, I didn’t forget it, I just can’t find it.” He was digging through his pockets frantically, shaggy hair flopping over his forehead.

Matt resisted rolling his eyes. He was honored to be the only non-werewolf in Zander’s side of the wedding party. The werewolves were great guys for a pickup game of football or a night of barhopping, and amazing allies in a fight. For a formal occasion? Matt felt like he’d spent the last three weeks babysitting a pack of overgrown kids. The fun bachelor party had almost made up for the nightmarish tuxedo fittings, though.

“Try the inner breast pocket of your jacket,” he whispered to Jared.

Jared felt inside his jacket and immediately smiled, a big dimpled grin. “Thanks, Matt.”

“Loser,” Marcus whispered from his other side, and Jared snorted and smacked Marcus on the back of his head.