The More Things Change

Sixteen

Anna's car made it to Richmond in a little under two hours. By the time I reached the city's outer limits, dark clouds as big as the city itself hovered menacingly overhead. Besides the scent of exhaust and concrete, the promise of rain lay in heavy in the wind that blew through the window. Merging into the thickening traffic felt a bit like coming home. Except here I knew nothing and no one.

Smart phones weren't a thing. Not yet. Which meant no GPS app to guide me. I had to pull over at a gas station and ask the attendant for directions to the nearest inexpensive motel.

The place was called Eden, but the long, two story building looked as far from paradise as one could get. At fifty dollars a night, I couldn't say it surprised me. I paid with the cash I'd pulled from Stefan's bank card.

The room itself was a throwback to the seventies. A faded shag carpet that might've been tan once. Orange chairs and a table covered in scratches. Wallpaper with repetitive curved shapes that reminded me of a flower bud in an acid-inspired array of faded colors. The only thing that'd been updated was the television—sometime in the late nineties.

Texting the name of the motel and the room number, I collapsed back on the bed. With nothing more to do until nightfall, I went ahead and turned on the television. The local news lulled me off to sleep.

[ - - - ]

Rain drummed against the roof of the motel, so loud I almost slept through the knocking at the door. Smoothing my hair, I got out of bed and checked the peephole. The blonde on the other side had her jacket up over her head as sheets of slanted rain poured down.

I pulled the door open and stepped aside to make room. "Come in."

"Thanks." She hurried inside and the jacket dropped down.

Lexi Branson was as big a force of nature in person as she'd been on television. From a face made to smile easily and often to the self-confident way she carried herself, she was the kind of person it was easy to like on the spot.

Shaking off her jacket, she turned to set it on the back of the chair. "Hi I'm—oh my god." Mouth open and half-turned around, Lexi stilled and stared.

I left the obvious sarcastic reply of, 'Nope, Elena,' go unsaid. "Human and not Katherine."

Mouth closing, Lexi pulled herself back together. "Right." She took another long, assessing look. I could almost hear the crap she was going to give Stefan the next time they spoke.

But right now she was dripping all over the carpet. Not that the carpet hadn't seen much worse, but Lexi was soaked. "Want a towel?"

"That'd be great."

I went to the small bathroom and grabbed the thin, skin-scraping excuse for a towel the motel offered off its rack. "Sorry." I handed it over. "It's the only ones they have."

She lifted it and said, "Born in the sixteen hundreds. Trust me, I've used worse." After wiping off her face, she wrapped her hair up. "So. How does being in Richmond while Stefan's stuck in Mystic Falls help?"

After introducing myself as Stefan's friend on the phone, I had explained his situation. It was the reason Lexi agreed to drive out to Virginia to help someone she'd never met. "You've heard of the Originals?"

Lexi's lips thinned. "Heard of, sure. They're like a bedtime story for vampires. Big bad granddaddies." Head turning, she treated me to a skeptical side-eye. "I'm not going to like what comes next, am I?"

"Probably not." Grim, I sat on the edge of the room's single bed across from the room's chair. "I need to get into contact with one. Elijah."

"Uh huh." Lexi followed, sinking into the chair. "And this Elijah is in Richmond?"