Chloe stalked silently through the forest, every move precise. She tilted her head alertly, her eyes tracking some near-invisible movement in the undergrowth.
Matt followed her, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He was trying to walk quietly, too, but sticks and leaves crackled under his feet, and he winced.
Stopping, Chloe blinked for a moment, sniffed the air, and then stretched her hands out toward the bushes to their left. "Come on," she murmured, almost too low for Matt to hear.
There was a rustling, and slowly a rabbit nosed its way out from between the leaves, staring up at Chloe with wide, dark eyes, its ears quivering. With a quick swoop, Chloe snatched it up. There was a shrill squeak, and then the little animal was still and docile in her arms.
Chloe's face was buried in the rabbit's light brown fur, and Matt watched with a sort of detached approval as she swallowed. A drop of blood made a long, sticky track down the animal's side before dripping to the forest floor.
Waking from its doze, the rabbit spasmed once, kicking out with its hind legs, and then lay still. Chloe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and laid the rabbit onto the ground, looking down at it mournfully.
"I didn't mean to kill it," she said, her voice low and sad. She pushed back her short ringlets of hair and looked up at Matt beseechingly. "I'm sorry. I know how gross and weird this is."
Matt opened his messenger bag and pulled out a bottle of water to hand to her. "You don't have to apologize," he said. Yeah, watching her feed on animals was sort of weird and gross, but less so now than the first time he'd seen it. And it was a hundred percent worth it: Chloe hadn't relapsed at all, seemed content with drinking animal blood instead of hunting humans. That was all that mattered.
Chloe rinsed out her mouth, spitting pink-tinged water into the bushes, then took a drink. "Thanks," she said shakily. "It's been hard, I guess. Sometimes I dream about blood. Real human blood. But the things I did, in those days with Ethan, I can't really forgive myself for. I don't think I'll ever be able to. And Ethan - why did I ever trust him?" Her Cupid's-bow mouth trembled.
"Hey." Matt caught her arm and shook it lightly. "Ethan had us all fooled. If Stefan hadn't saved me, I'd be in the same situation you are."
"Yeah." Chloe leaned against him. "I guess you're saving me, too."
Matt tangled his fingers with hers. "I wasn't ready to lose you."
Chloe tipped her face up to his, her eyes widening. Matt brushed his mouth against her cheek and then her mouth, just a light brush of lips at first, and then more deeply. Matt closed his eyes, feeling the softness of her lips against his. He felt like he was falling. Each day he spent with Chloe, helping her turn toward the light, seeing her strength, he loved her just a little more.
Meredith stretched and groaned quietly to herself. The room was dark, except for the light of her laptop screen. Elena and Bonnie were fast asleep in their beds, and Meredith glanced longingly at her own bed. Nights of patrolling and days spent at the gym meant that she had been collapsing gratefully into deep dreamless sleep as soon as she lay down lately.
But unlike many of the classes on campus, her English section was still meeting, and Meredith had a paper due. She'd been a straight-A student in high school, and her pride wouldn't let her miss the deadline on a paper or do a shoddy job, no matter how tired she was. Forcing herself back into student mode, Meredith yawned and typed: From their first encounter Anna and Vronsky's relationship is clearly doomed to end in mutual destruction.
Student mode or not, she was still a hunter, still an exquisitely balanced weapon, still a Sulez, and she snapped to attention as soon as Bonnie's voice rose from her bed on the other side of the room.
"He doesn't like to be alone," Bonnie said abruptly. Her usually expressive voice had that flat, almost metallic quality that signaled one of her visions.
"Bonnie?" Meredith said tentatively. Bonnie didn't answer, and Meredith turned on her desk light to illuminate the rest of the room, careful not to shine it directly in Bonnie's face.
Bonnie's eyes were shut, although Meredith could see them moving beneath their lids as if she were trying to wake, or trying to see something in her dreams. Her face was strained, and Meredith made a soothing sound in her throat as she crept across the room and shook Elena gently by the shoulder.
Elena gave a half-asleep mmph rolling over, and muttered, "What? What?" in irritation before she blinked all the way awake.
"Shh," Meredith told her, and said gently to Bonnie, "Who doesn't like to be alone, Bon?"