Moving In (a Vampire Diaries fan-fiction)

Blast from the past

A few days later my phone rang with the same unknown number that had popped up several times for the last weeks, so I kept turning them down, like before. This time they tried again and again, so finally I took the call.

"What?" I said in an annoyed tone.

"Is this Emilia Rickitelli?" a male voice asked.

I immediately got annoyed by the way he pronounced my name. "This is Emilia Ritchitelli." I exaggerated the Italian accent.

"Oh, I'm so glad to finally get hold of you, my name is John Hartford. I'm a friend of your father's and I want to say I'm so sorry for your lost."

I felt bad how I had avoided talking to this man and how rude I had answered him at first; I mumbled a meek thank you.

"I've been in touch with your attorney and he told me that you had moved; are you okay?"

"Yes." I said shortly, unwilling to discuss my life with this man I had never met or heard of.

"Is there some way you'd be willing to meet and talk to me for just a few minutes?" he asked and there was something about him that made me both curious and cautious.

I looked up at Lisa, who just walked in and I decided there and then that I would take her with me.

"Yes, but I don't live nearby New York anymore."

"Your attorney told me that you live in Mystic Falls, and I'm driving past it in about an hour, so if you would consider meeting me, that would be great."

"Oh. Yes, that would be fine." I said but wondered if they really were allowed to give out my address.

Damon had heard the phone call; he said nothing but I could see it in his eyes. "I think I'll stay close if it's okay with you." He said to me in confidence and I kept studying his face. There was a worried expression in it.

Lisa and I got in the car and headed over to the Grill. Damon didn't go inside with us but Lisa and I found the booth where Mr Hartford just got on his feet and proffered a hand.

"Wow, you've got all grown up since I saw you last." He smiled, but I had no recognition of the man in front of me. I was sure we had never met.

"So, how did you know my father?"

"We often drove the same routes and we've been friends for the last five years."

I got an ominous feeling. "Hunting buddies?" I breathed.

He eyed me for a while and I could see in his eyes he knew what I meant. "Yes, we went off on a few hunting trips together. He got a few really big deer's during those trips."

I couldn't look at Lisa, because it was so obvious that had been a lie. They hadn't been hunting deer; they hunted two legged predators.

Damon walked through the door of the Grill at that moment and our eyes met for a fraction. My heart skipped a beat and it felt like a real heart instead of the stone had taken its place for a couple of weeks now. We still needed to talk to work things through; I saw it in his eyes too.

The man across the table snapped me out of my thoughts as he followed Damon with his look, his pupils widening a bit as if he knew of him.

"When you went through his things, you didn't happen to find an old wooden box, did you?" He tried to look casual, but I could see how urgent it was to him.

"No, I'm sorry." I lied. "Was it important?"

"Eh, yes, there were a couple of books in it that he had borrowed from me and I just wanted them back, so..."