Book Four: Solitude (A. Saltzman)

Chapter Ten

It's night time when Connor enters his trailer. He sits down and opens the letter that he took from the Pastor's house earlier. He then stiffens slightly and looks around to find Diana sat on the end of his bed waiting for him.

"What are you doing here?" he asks her, she stands and moves towards him.

"We weren't finished talking" She answers and glances at the letter in his hand. "May I?" She asks and holds out her hand to him, he hands over the letter and she looks down to read it.

..............

Dear April, I'm sorry for what you're going through. What I did was a necessary sacrifice and I'm afraid it's only the first of many more sacrifices to come. There's always been an evil that spread through Mystic Falls, but now a greater one is coming. My death is but the first in the war ahead. I will see you again when we all find our salvation. Until then, I love you. Dad.

.............

Diana hands the letter back to Connor who takes it from her.

"A greater evil?" She asks and looks at Connor who reads over the letter. She glances at her cell phone as it rings, her jaw ticking with annoyance.

"Who is it?" Connor asks her.

"My so-called friends" She answers through her teeth.

"You really don't like them, huh?" Connor counters.

"I don't" She answers. "They got my husband killed" She turns and answers the phone. "What do you want, Stefan?"

.................

At the high school, Damon gets out of his car. He walks over towards Diana, who is also getting out of her jeep.

"What are we doing here?" Damon asks her.

"I don't know. Ask Stefan." She answers already walking away from him.

.................

Caroline, Stefan, Elena, Matt, Bonnie, Derek, the twins, and Jeremy are all sitting at the picnic tables outside of the school. Diana and Damon approach them.

"Stefan, what are we doing?" Damon asks seeing that Stefan has some of the paper lanterns in his hand. He hands one to Diana who frowns at it.

"We're finishing the memorial we didn't get to have earlier," Stefan answers as he hands Elena a lantern. "We need to start healing, Damon. We've all lost so much, especially recently. I think we're numb to it. We push it away, we make a joke out of it, ignore how we feel. We've never just let ourselves grieve."

"So, you're lighting lanterns?" Damon asks.

"Yeah"

"You really think that lighting a lantern is going to make all the pain go away?" Diana mocks. "Just...poof up there and gone?" She rolls her eyes. "You're all idiots"

"You can make out that you hate us all you want" Stefan points out. "But you saved Elena today, that means something, Diana" Stefan points out.

"Yeah, it does, it means that the hunter didn't know better, now he does...He won't go after Elena again..." Elena frowns at Diana, sensing more. "Because I will be the one to kill her...She is my hunt, my trophy to claim, and if I could...I would cut off her head and mount it on my wall" Elena gasps a little. "And if you think some lantern is going to make up for the loss of my husband, for the loss that my children have suffered already, the loss that they will always feel, for the rest of their lives, then you are the biggest moron"

"Diana" Stefan scolds her. "Enough of this....we're your friends and we are trying to help you"

"You really want to help me?" Diana asks as she steps closer to Stefan. "Then drop dead, all of you" She answers and then looks at the lantern. "I'm not going to do this....it's pathetic" She throws the lantern down and stomps on it. "That's what I think of your...memorial" She tugs on her jacket and moves to the twins' pram next to Derek before walking away with them.