Heartlines ▹ Elena Gilbert [1]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NEVER LET THAT GO

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     Damon Salvatore had seen a lot of bloodbaths in his day. A lot of them had been his own fault, too hungry to really bother being neat about it, too lazy to clean any of it up afterward. The last one he could really remember was when he had killed those druggies in the woods. He'd been smart enough to cover his tracks then. What he was seeing now, however, didn't even compare to what he had done. Blood was everywhere. He could smell it the second he and Alaric Saltzman stepped out of his car, and the scent only got stronger the closer he got to the house. He could see it through the screen door. It was splattered across the walls and floor, smeared like bodies had been dragged through puddles.

Grimacing, he stepped over a dried puddle of blood, knowing it was only a matter of time before police came to investigate. He'd been following leads all summer, connecting crime scenes to other crime scenes until he had found his way to Tennessee. This, however, hadn't been a tip from Sheriff Forbes. They had simply followed the road from the last house they'd visited, already taped off and the bodies carted away. It was a matter of luck that they had found a crime scene that wasn't messed with. He paused to study all the blood for a moment, then glanced over at Alaric, who had finally managed to actually enter the house.

You'd think a vampire hunter would be less squeamish, he thought, though he managed to bite the words back. More and more lately, Damon was becoming conscious of his own words, more aware of how they affected other people. He supposed he had Elena to thank for that.

"Uh-oh," Alaric said as soon as he saw all the blood. "Vampire, for sure." Damon nodded and continued through the house. In truth, he was hoping he wouldn't find what he was looking for. Vampires were everywhere. It wasn't entirely impossible to assume that this was someone else's handywork. Unfortunately, as soon as he saw the two dead girls sitting upright on the couch, that hope disappeared. His shoulders shagged briefly, but he got them back up before Alaric reached his side.

"Stefan, for sure," Damon revealed after a moment, walking carefully into the living room. The bodies must not have been sitting for long. They hadn't even started bloating yet, though when Damon checked the joints of one of the girls—still half-hoping it had been somebody else, deep down—he could feel that their skin had long since gone cold. He pulled his hand back and surveyed the rest of the room, but there was nothing else aside from blood. So much blood.

"How do you know it's Stefan?" Alaric asked. Damon sighed.

"It's his signature," he muttered, not really enjoying explaining any of it. Stefan hadn't been like this for a very long time, and in the end, it was his fault, wasn't it? He just had to get bitten by Tyler fucking Lockwood. And now, while Tyler was off galivanting with Caroline Forbes without a care in the world, Stefan and Rowan were off with Klaus, slaughtering people left and right. He hoped, prayed, that there was at least a reason behind all the carnage. That Klaus wasn't forcing Stefan and Rowan to kill innocent people just because he could.