Reminiscence {Book Two of the Vengeance Trilogy}

Chapter Twelve: The Losing Side

No matter how many positive thoughts I tried to cram into my head, nothing could distract me from this meeting with Elliot. I knew that Emmet would try to make it sound like I forced Caroline and Peter to dance together at The Lion's Den. He would do anything if it meant that it would make me out to be the bad guy. Every time Caroline would smile at Peter, it felt like my gut was twisting into knots.

At one point while walking her home, I watched as she took his hand in hers and I felt my skin crawl. Not only was I going to hear shit from Elliot about this, but now Peter was blatantly cheating on Tom. I wasn't too concerned about Tom's heartache as I was about how violently he would react and whether or not Peter would live through it. Whatever plans he had for gaining Caroline's trust would be out the window and she would be changed or dead in a matter of hours. The only two people I had to protect, dead.

By the time we got to Caroline's house, Peter was standing hand in hand with her at her doorstep. I waited out by the street, trying not to stare at what could possibly bring two people closer to their deaths. I glanced down at my watch (which, yes, I pick pocketed off of a guy one day when I was bored). Only twenty minutes until I had to meet with Elliot.

"When can I see you again?" I heard Caroline ask Peter in a hushed tone.

"I mean...when would you want to see me again?" he replied, his voice shaking.

"Maybe tomorrow? And maybe it can just be the two of us," she said, lowering her tone even more, but thanks to the wonders of vampire hearing, I heard every word.

I attempted to tune them out, but the moment I did, a familiar disembodied voice fluttered through my mind. Don't forget our meeting tonight, Elliot's voice said. Even through telepathic communication he sounded pissed off. With every passing second my anxiety only worsened. Emmet probably made it sound like I had tried to kill Caroline myself. Once we were both older, I never really liked fighting with Elliot, but I knew that fighting with him now had a cost. Winning a fight with an alpha meant a switch of power in which the winner becomes the new alpha, which was not something I was interested in. If Elliot won, then the loser leaves the pack or ceases to exist. No matter what, the end result wasn't pretty. Depending on how bad Emmet made me seem, it could go either way.

"So, that didn't go too bad, did it?" Peter asked, derailing my train of poisonous thoughts. I took a deep breath and tried my best to smile back at Peter.

"Yeah, not too bad," I replied. I glanced over at Elliot's house, being as still as it was after my aunt and uncle died. Even before they died it looked empty and lifeless. They had to keep it that way so that we could stay hidden from the rest of the world. Humans normally didn't react well to vampires living right next door to them. If it were up to my aunt though, she would make the house look beautiful. Before her "death", Aunt Aileen's house always looked so pleasant. The garden was kept perfectly and there was never a spec of dust to be found anywhere inside the house. Even though she couldn't do too much, she always tried to make the house feel like a home.

"Ready to go back and tell Tom about everything?" he asked and I looked down at him. He had this grin on his face that was so...innocent. There was something about his expression that was so full of life. It was strange to see him all the time, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was nice to have someone who was consistently positive around who wasn't also way too annoying for me to handle.

"Actually, I think I'm going to go hunt for a bit. I'll meet you there in a few hours, okay?" I said.

"Okay, but hurry because I don't want to tell Tom without you."

"Why?"

"Well, if it weren't for you, I would have made Tom more mad at me than he already was. You deserve most of the credit," he told me and for the first time in a very long time, I felt that weird giddy feeling you get when you look at your crush in primary school. It hadn't happened in so long that this felt like the first time. I felt like any second I would vomit and I thought that I was going to have to turn away from Peter so I wouldn't blow chunks all over him.