The Bourbon Diaries ✢ The Vampire Diaries FanFiction ✢ TVD FanFic ✢ TVDU FanFic

Chapter Thirty-Three - Stefanie Salvatore

Present day

Outskirts of Albemarle, NC

For the first time in as long as she could remember, Stef didn't like being alone. But there was no escaping the shower she needed. From her bedroom she had been able to focus on her friends' voices downstairs---Phoenix finally teaching Flick about heightened hearing, Raid still not letting go of his curiosity, and Zara refusing to disclose to him what act Stef had performed on herself---but now, with the noise of the running water, all of that was blocked out.

She washed her hair as quickly as possible, feeling the remnants of dust and dirt beneath her fingertips, but she went over it a second time... then a third time... still not feeling clean of everything that had happened yesterday. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could see it. It was while she was alone that the memories started coming back. What was once hazy became clear. Yesterday was no longer the dream she tried to pretend it to be. Everything that had happened was real.

She saw herself both in the crowd and on the scaffold. She was both the saviour and being saved. She was both the killer and the innocent victim. She was the collision of the present and the past. It was something she had been destined to do, but that didn't make it any easier.

The witches needed redemption for their sins, that's what Winifred had said. The execution needed to be stopped. But, until now, Stef had never killed before. The power she unleashed had killed so many. Men. Women. Children. She even knew the name of one of the children: Cecily. She didn't know how she knew, she just knew. She knew the girl was important to her, but she didn't know why.

Stef scrubbed roughly at her hands. The hands that had touched the talisman. All this to save one life. Would Sorcha have wanted this? So many deaths in exchange for her life? Stef couldn't imagine wanting that for herself. But it wasn't just herself, was it? It wasn't just Sorcha's execution. They had already executed Lana.

Lana. Lana. Lana. Who was she? What did she feel for her? She couldn't remember. Why would she remember? She wasn't Sorcha.

The moment Stef turned and put her face under the shower spray, she felt like she was being plunged underwater. Murky. Cold. Green. The reflection of trees. A river. She jolted back, her heart hammering. She wasn't being held down, but it had felt like she was. Her old fear came creeping back. She was a child again, refusing baths, scooting down in her seat whenever her parents drove past a lake, being picked up to avoid large rain puddles. No, it had been too long, she was over this. She refused to fear water again. She turned the heat up on the shower and put her face back under.

It was too hot. She should have felt her skin burn, but her lungs burned instead. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe.

A hand held hers.

Stef yanked herself away forcefully, her back hitting the opposite tiles, away from the shower head. There was no hand. She could breathe. She was safe. But Sorcha hadn't been. She knew Sorcha had felt this. This is where it had come from. Her fear was Sorcha's fear. The hand was Lana's hand. It must have been. Soft, small, feminine. She had saved Sorcha, but Sorcha hadn't saved Lana.

Who was Lana? Who was she? Had Sorcha loved her? Loved her like she loved Zaif? Loved her like Stef loved Raid?

Stef's back slid down the tiles. She was sinking to the floor, her hands going to her face.

She needed voices. She needed others. She needed Raid. She was supposed to be protecting him, but right now she needed his protection. Protection from the water. Protection from the memories. The memories of fear, loss, and death, both her own and Sorcha's. She wanted to leave the bathroom, to be near him again, but she couldn't move. She felt clean here.