The Wish Factory

Chapter 4

Ryleigh couldn't say anything as she stared at Damon, trying not to give herself away. Interpreting her silence, the wrong way, he let go of the door and smirked. It was such a Damon thing to do that he'd just assume that she was speechless due to his sexiness. In this instance, though, he would be correct. Ryleigh had met Ian before at a convention, but this was Damon, and it was oh so different. He oozed sex and charm, and she had been utterly unprepared for it. She idly wondered if she'd be able to get her hands on some vervain because she had a feeling that she was going to need it. Realizing that she was standing there, staring at him like an idiot, she shook her head slightly and smiled at him.

"Sorry, I was supposed to meet my friends here, and I was debating on whether or not I actually wanted to go in and go through with this." Damon's smirk never left his face, and he took a step towards her, causing her pulse to quicken and his grin to widen.

"Well, I can understand with this group, drama all around. I'm Damon, by the way, I'm Stefan's brother. You must be Ryleigh Fell, the long-lost friend that they've been freaking out about inside." He held his hand out to her, and she hesitated. She could ignore it, but he'd get suspicious, and that was never a good thing with Damon. She placed her hand in his and was immediately given an image of him killing the hikers from the pilot episode and several others, including Vicki Donovan. She was unable to hide her jump as the images flooded her and her eyes flew up to his. His eyes narrowed as he continued to hold her hand. He opened her mouth to say something when she heard Elena from the hallway.

"Damon, will you please let go of her, so she can come in?" Damon immediately dropped her hand and stood aside.

"Oh, by all means, please do come in." He didn't entirely move out of the way, making her brush up against him to get by, and she knew he did it on purpose to intimidate her. When she followed Elena to the Salvatore's enormous living room, she was greeted with a small surprise party. There was a welcome home banner and several friends, and it slightly deflated her. She'd thought it was supposed to be just the girls, but there were several others there as well. Matt, Tyler, Jeremy, Alaric, and Meredith Fell were there. Meredith, she realized, was her aunt and it made sense that she was there because she knew about vampires as well. She stopped in the doorway and forced herself to smile. When Damon passed her, she jumped again, and everyone noticed. Caroline was quick to run to her side and take her hand, pulling her into the room.

"Okay so yes, we said it would just be us, but the boys and your aunt wanted to see you too." At addressing her, Ryleigh gave Meredith a genuine smile and walked over to hug her.

"Hi, Aunt Meredith, I'm sorry I haven't come to visit you yet." Meredith enveloped her into a warm hug that was nicer than she expected. She laughed softly as she pulled away from her and held her hands.

"It's okay, Sweetie, I know moving back is a significant change. I just can't believe how beautiful you've become. Promise me you'll set aside a day for me soon so that we can go shopping and have a girl's day, just us." Ryleigh noticed her emphasis on the "just us" part and knew that it was a warning. She nodded at her aunt and grinned.

"That sounds definitely doable." Alaric was standing next to her and reached his hand out to her.

"We didn't get to meet officially; I'm Alaric Saltzman. I'm Elena's and Jeremy's guardian and history teacher." She knew that she wasn't supposed to know about Jenna, so she looked over at Elena with a curious look.

"Wait, where's Aunt Jenna, I thought she was living with you guys?" Alaric immediately sighed and withdrew, and the tone of the room changed. Jeremy was the one to answer her.

"Uh, Jenna died last year, there's been a lot of things going on. Our Uncle John died too, so it's been pretty rough. Mr. Saltzman was kind enough to step in so we wouldn't be put into the system." She watched as a moderate redness crept up Alaric's neck as he shrugged.