07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

air car. Instead of a crash with only one apparent casualty: you, your father turned to look and…”
Slowly her voice trailed off as Elena’s turned unbelieving eyes on her.
Bonnie was staring sightlessly into the distance, almost as if she were in trance.
“Shinichi,” she breathed. “That weird riddle of his—or whatever it was. That one of us had
murdered, and that it was nothing to do with being a vampire or a mercy killing…”
“I’d always assumed it was me,” Stefan said quietly. “My mother never really recovered
after my birth. She died.”
“But that doesn’t make you a murderer!” Elena cried. “Not like me. Not like me!”
“Well, that was why I was asking you now,” the businesslike blond woman said. “It was
a flawed mission, but you understand that we were only trying to recruit you, yes? It’s the traditional
method. Our genes have honed us to be the best at managing powerful, irrational demons, who don’t
respond to traditional strength but require on-the-spot recalculation—”
Elena choked back a scream. A scream of wrath—agony—disbelief—guilt—she didn’t
know what. Her Plans. Her schemes. The way she had handled boisterous boys in the bad old days—
it was all genetic. And…her parents…what had they died for?
Stefan stood up. His jaw was hard, his green eyes were burning brilliantly. There was no
gentleness in his face. He clasped Elena’s hand and she heard, If you want to fight, I’m in.
Mais, non. Elena turned around and saw Sage. His telepathic voice was unmistakable.
She was compelled to listen. We cannot fight them on their own territory and win. Even I cannot.
What you can do is make them pay! Elena, my brave one, your parents’ spirits have undoubtedly
found new homes. It would be cruel to drag them back. But let us demand of the Guardians
anything you desire. For a year and a day in the past, demand whatever you wish! I think that we
all will back you.
Elena paused. She looked at the Guardians and she looked at the treasures. She looked at
Bonnie and Stefan, who were waiting. There was permission in their eyes.
Then she said slowly to the Guardians, “This is really going to cost you. And I don’t
want to hear that any of it is impossible. For all your treasures back and the Master Key too…I want
my old life. No, I want a new life, with my real old life behind me. I want to be Elena Gilbert, exactly
as if I’d graduated with my high school class, and I want to go to Dalcrest College. I want to wake up
in my aunt Judith’s house in the morning and find that no one realizes I’ve been gone for almost ten
months. And I want a 4.5 grade point average for my last year in high school—just in case of
emergencies. And I want Stefan to have lived in the boardinghouse peacefully all that time, and to
have everyone accept him as my boyfriend. And I want every single thing that Shinichi and Misao and
whoever they were working for did undone and forgotten. I want the person they were working for
dead. And I want everything that Klaus did in Fell’s Church undone as well. I want Sue Carson back!
I want Vickie Bennett back! I want everyone back!”
Bonnie said faintly, “Even Mr. Tanner?”
Elena understood. If Mr. Tanner had not died—mysteriously drained of blood—then
Alaric Saltzman would never have been called to Fell’s Church. Elena remembered Alaric from the
out-of-body experience: sandy hair, laughing hazel eyes. She thought of Meredith and his almostengagement
to her.
But who was she to play God? To say, yes, this person can die because he was unlovely
and unloved, but this one has to live because she was my friend.