CHAPTER TWO | MEMORIAL
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EVELYN AWOKE IN ONE OF MANY SPARE BEDROOMS OF THE SALVATORE HOUSE. Since Damon found out that Evelyn was in fact still alive at the Young Farm, he hadn't really said a word to her. Stefan gave the Austin vampire a few encouraging words about how he needed time to process the fact that she was back and not dead, but she still felt slightly hurt.
Of course, Evelyn expected him to be confused and upset considering he had spent the better past of one-hundred years grieving for her. Though, she didn't expect him to outright blank her and drive away from the farm without so much as a Hello.
Damon was so consumed with feelings that he didn't really know how to deal with Evelyn Austin's return. He knew that he wanted answers to the several questions that he had, so he texted her to meet him at the Grill.
Reluctantly, Evelyn agreed. She headed into the Grill and immediately noticed the Salvatore sat on a barstool right beside the countertop. She assumed it was for easier access to the Grill's liquor supply. "So, you wanted to talk?" She asked as she slipped onto the stool beside him.
"Well, I have questions and I think you've got answers." Damon slowly spoke whilst his finger danced around the rim of his tumbler. "I guess the biggest question is: How?"
"Katherine," Evelyn revealed as she heard a small scoff escape Damon's lips. "Well, Katherine killed me with the intention of me staying dead. Emily Bennett had other ideas." She shrugged as she pulled the drink from in front of him and took a sip. "How did you and Stefan—"
"—Katherine had been feeding us her blood for weeks." Damon swallowed thickly as Evelyn nodded slowly. His eyes lingered on the bartop before he looked at her. "Why didn't you come back, Eve?"
"Because I didn't know you and Stefan were alive, Damon. If you did, don't you think I'd have found you sooner?" She raised an eyebrow as irritation lingered in her voice. "To be honest, I came back to feel closer to you— to help me move on. And then, I got myself into yesterday's situation and, here we are. I'm just glad that Katherine trapped in that damn tomb."
"Yeah, Katherine was never in the tomb." Damon finished as he noticed the brunette's eyes widen immediately. "Yeah. The devious little bitch had everyone fooled."
"So, Katherine's still alive?" Evelyn asked. Damon nodded. "Well, at least that means I get to rip her head off."
Evelyn's eyes drifted up to the Sheriff, the woman who she had tried to save yesterday. She stood beside them and dropped a newspaper onto the bartop in front of Damon. His eyes slowly dropped from Evelyn to the report. "Faulty gas line leads to tragic explosion at Young Farm." Damon and then scoffed. "Really?"
"Better than, town council blown up, police have no suspects." The Sheriff sighed, though her eyes lingered on the vampires a little longer than anyone was comfortable with. "Unless the perpetrators are right next to me." She looked at Evelyn. "What about you? You're new to town."
"You wonder why this town's population is severely lacking. Do you question all the new townies about mass-murders or just vampires? Hm?" Evelyn let a sigh escape her lips. "I tried to save you yesterday, it's not really what someone who blows up town councils would do, is it?"
"Well, don't look at me I always take credit for killing people." Damon weakly, though Liz's look of suspicion didn't fade. "Seriously, stop looking at me like that, Liz. If I was going to kill twelve people, I wouldn't blow 'em up, I'd have a dinner party."
"The explosion was sparked from inside. This wasn't an accident."
"You say that like it's a bad thing." Damon sighed at Liz's clear persistence to see anything wrong with the situation. "The council's dead, Liz. I see that as a win."
A look of horror painted across the woman's face. "I've known some of the council since I was a kid. They were my friends."
"And those friends of yours tried to kill Caroline, who's a vampire." Evelyn tutted as she raised an eyebrow toward the Sheriff. "Also your daughter, right? Interesting company you keep."
"Excuse me, Sheriff." A man interrupted with a smile as he wandered right over to them. "Hi, I was wondering if I could speak to you for a minute. It's about the explosion at the Young Farm."
"I'm sorry, Mister—" Liz raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, Connor Jordan." He held his hand out for Liz to shake, which she did.
"Are you with the insurance investigators?" The Sheriff asked. Damon glanced at Evelyn, who looked right back at him with the same look of suspicion.
"No, no. I'm more of an independent contractor." Connor turned his head to Damon, who fake smiled in return. He guessed that Damon and Evelyn were obviously listening to his conversation with the Sheriff. "Can we speak in private?"
"Sure." Liz followed him away from the vampire's so that could speak privately, but gave the two vampires a look before she hurried off with Connor.
"Nice to meet you, too. Mr. Busybody guy." Damon slurred as he turned his attention back to Evelyn, who had stolen the bottle of bourbon from him.
"Is it just me, or is there something really freaking off about him?" Finally, when he was out of sight, Evelyn turned to look at Damon who had stolen the back from her. "Hey! I was drinking that."
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It was time for the memorial, and Damon dragged Evelyn along with him—despite not knowing anyone in the town apart from the few she had already met. The pair loudly entered the church, causing everyone's eyes to turn from the front of the room and toward them. Damon dipped his hand in a bowl of holy water, touched his forehead, chest, and then both shoulders in the formulation of a cross.
Evelyn and Damon took a seat next to Stefan, while Elena was stood up at the podium to make a speech. "What's wrong with her? She turned so surely the whole dead-look should've subsided by now."
"She's starving," Stefan explained, a stern look on his face as he glanced between the brunette and his brother. Damon knew all about Elena's difficulty with consuming blood but chose not to tell Stefan about it per Elena's request.
"I uh—When I talked to April earlier she was kind of nervous about coming up to speak. And now that I'm up here, I'm kind of nervous, too." Elena had her hands tightly gripped on the podium for support. "The worst day of loving someone is the day that you lose them."
As Elena spoke, Damon and Evelyn couldn't seem to keep their eyes off of each other. Elena was right. The worst day of loving someone was the day that you lose them. Evelyn and Damon had been living with the pain of losing each other for over one-hundred years.
Suddenly, the stench of blood filled the vampire's nostrils. Every single supernatural creature that preyed on blood in the church began to smell it. They could hear droplets of the crimson liquid falling and hitting the ground.
"Do you smell that?" Caroline Forbes, the Sheriff's daughter, whispered just loudly enough for all of the vampires to hear her.
"Blood." Tyler Lockwood answered in confirmation.
"Nobody move," Damon told the group, his eyes fixed on the front of the room. All Evelyn wanted to do was locate the source of the blood, but she listened to Damon. "Don't turn around, it's a trap."
"I, um—" Elena inhaled and exhaled, but it was obvious that she was starting to lose control. The veins started to crawl from underneath her eyes and that was when Stefan ran up to the podium and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's okay, it's okay. I got you, I got you." He whispered comfortingly into the doppelganger's ear as he took her from the podium and into the seats beside Matt.
One Elena had left the podium, the Priest took his place and smiled to the church-goers. "Please, turn to page forty-two in your hymn book. Let us join together in a song."
"The blood. Stefan, the blood, I can smell it. There's so much." The hungry vampire cried out from the safe-haven of her boyfriend's arms.
"It's alright, just remember what we talked about. Focus, push back, come on you can do this."
"Who the hell is doing this?" Evelyn whispered to Damon once they all got up to their feet and began to sing from the hymn book. "That guy— the one from the Grill. He must be the same guy that attacked Tyler."
"Must be." The Salvatore nodded. I'm gonna go rip his head off now, you coming, Eve?" Damon growled while Evelyn turned to Stefan.
"You do that, Damon, and you risk exposing all of us," Stefan whispered, he knew that the vampires would hear him thanks to the supernatural hearing.
"I mean, the threat will be severely diminished once this dick's head is no longer on his shoulders." Evelyn shrugged.
Before Stefan could argue again with the Austin vampire, Elena gripped tighter onto his suit jacket. The smell of the blood had become too much for her to handle. "Stefan, I'm losing it."
"You have ten seconds before I go old-fashioned on the new guy."
"Don't do it, Damon. Please." Stefan whispered. "Evelyn, just stop him."
"Three, two, one, bye." He attempted to leave, but Evelyn grabbed his forearm. As soon as she did, Matt suddenly spoke up.
"Elena, feed from me." Matt confidently spoke while Damon, Evelyn, and Tyler all widened their eyes. "It's okay, everyone will think you're upset. Just feed from me." The doppelganger looked up at Stefan, almost waiting for his approval. He reluctantly nodded and then placed Elena in his arms. "It's okay, you'll be okay."
After a while, she pulled away and wiped Matt's from her lips while he left his collar to hide the puncture wounds. "The blood. I can still smell it. It's got to be April. We have to help her."
As Tyler Lockwood headed up to the podium, Evelyn looked at Damon. "She's losing control, Damon. If she doesn't get it together, we're all gonna end up dead. What are we gonna do?"
Screams of panic and a shotgun sound echoed through the church as Tyler fell to the floor. Crowds of people flooded out of the church once Tyler was shot and Evelyn turned around to see that Damon was gone.
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"What are we doing here?" Damon's voice echoed in a bored tone of voice as he wandered over to the rest of the group that stood outside of the High school waiting for him. "Stefan, what are we doing?"
"We're finishing the memorial we didn't get to have earlier." The Salvatore responded simply to his brother as he held a few Japanese lanterns. He handed one to everyone. "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. Time to just let ourselves grieve."
Evelyn nodded in approval, though she noticed a look of confusion spread across Damon's face. "So, you're lighting lanterns?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we need to do this." Stefan nodded, he held his lantern within his grasp.
"What we need to do it find out who this hunter is, and what he knows about the death of the council." Damon deadpanned with widened eyes. "We have more important things to be doing right now than this."
"You can find out what the hunter guy knows whenever." Evelyn let a sigh escape her lips as she fiddled with the lantern in her hold. "I just— it's one night, Damon."
Stefan shot Evelyn an approving smile before he took hold of his lantern. "This is for my Uncle Zach. My friend Lexi. And, Alaric." He began to light it before he handed the lighter to Matt.
"This is for Vicki." Matt began as he lit his.
The lighter was then passed to Caroline, who lifted herself up from the bench as he lit her lantern. "This is for my dad, and Tyler's."
Caroline joined the line that had started with Stefan and Matt as she handed the lighter to Jeremy. "This is for our parents, for Vicki, Anna, Jenna. And, Alaric."
Jeremy stepped forward and started to hand the lighter to Damon, but Evelyn knew that maybe if she went first, it would encourage him to do the same. As she lit her lantern, she smiled. "This is for my mother, my father, and Evelyn Austin, the girl who died in 1864."
She stepped forward, tilted her head, and attempted to hand the lighter to Damon. He shook his head immediately. "No way. I'm not doing that." He turned on his heels and walked away.
Instead, Evelyn handed the lighter to Bonnie who accepted it with a smile. "This is for my grams." She smiled, despite the immense pain she felt. She handed the lighter finally to Elena Gilbert.
"This is for my mum, my dad, and Jenna. And everyone that you've all lost; every one that this town has lost. And for me, I guess."
The group all took a breath and let their lanterns go one by one into the sky above. It was a beautiful sight and a beautiful celebration of the one's that they had all lost.
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