Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

121. The Evil Deal

"I started to depend on them," she told him quietly. "Care had Ric and the girls, Enzo had Bonnie, Stefan had Valerie and I had... nothing. I needed something to hold on to, to keep me going. And then the Armory came along, and I felt like I had a purpose again, y'know? They wanted me around, and I guess I liked feeling wanted." Even after all this time, it was effortless to open up to him. "The Armory was there for me when no one else was."

She was still turned away from him. He softly stroked her cheek, hoping that the gesture would translate how sorry he was.

She reached up and pressed his hand to her face, reveling in the warmth of it.

"It's not your fault," she told him, because it wasn't. He may have left her, but all the decisions that she'd made since then had been her own. "And I still don't forgive you, but... thanks for coming back."

He smiled. "Don't I always find my way back to you?"

She fought the instinct to mirror his smile, just as her phone began to ring. Immediately she checked the caller ID, saw Enzo's name, and put it on speaker.

"Bonnie's magic is back," he said frantically. "The Armory's one locator spell away from finding us."

The smile fell from Damon's face, but his tone remained light-hearted. "They don't know that."

"We don't know that they don't know that!" Enzo said angrily. He and Bonnie were still at the cabin/safe house.

"Calm down," Riley said, trying to quell her own nerves. "I'll call Alex and tell her that I saw you and Bonnie booking flights for Paris or something, okay? She's not gonna find you."

"And you think she'll buy it?" he asked worriedly.

Riley scoffed. "I once sent Alex's minions on a week-long trip to the Cayman Islands on a false tip – trust me, I've got this."

"I trust you," Enzo replied, though his tone suggested that he didn't feel the slightest bit relieved. "Hold on a second."

"You have that much control over the Armory?" Damon asked, surprised.

Riley shrugged nonchalantly, trying and failing to hide the smile that snuck onto her face.

"Damon?" Bonnie's voice asked. She sounded sicker and weaker than the last time they'd spoken.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.

"Nothing," Bonnie lied. It was so obvious that Riley and Damon made the same 'yeah, right' face at each other. "I just wanted to say thank you."

Damon relaxed a little. "Well, you're welcome."

"I still think it was wrong for you to abandon us," she continued. "But... I forgive you."

A look of misplaced anger took over Damon's features.

"Nope," he said firmly. "You are not allowed to use the F-word. You're only saying it because you don't think that we're gonna pull this off. But we're gonna make it, okay? You're gonna make it. So I don't accept your forgiveness, you understand?"

"Okay," Bonnie said after a few seconds. "Just... hurry guys. Because I'm staring at a floor covered in names, and I don't know how much time I have left."

Riley took a breath and forced herself to smile, even though Bonnie couldn't see her. "Damon's right, Bon. We're gonna do this. Everything's gonna be fine, I promise."

They ended the call, and Riley bit her thumbnail, gnawing on it fiercely, before using her teeth to rip it off entirely.

"What happened to 'everything's gonna be fine?'" Damon asked mockingly. Riley rolled her eyes.