As it turned out, Ciara Fletcher's premonition was correct. Once she and Riley arrived back in Mystic Falls, they'd learned that there was an explosion at the Young farm, killing 12 council members, including Pastor Young, once all of the vampires had escaped.
Riley walked into the Grill where she knew that she could find Damon, bypassing the seat that was eternally saved for his dead best friend, Ric.
"I have to ask you something," she said, moving the glass of brown liquid that he was drinking out of his reach.
"Hey!" he protested, clearly already drunk.
"I'm serious," she asserted. "I'm just gonna ask once, and whatever answer you give me, I'll believe you because we don't lie to each other, right?"
She took his shrug and upward eyebrow movement as confirmation.
"Did you blow up the Young Farm after you rescued Stefan and Elena?"
Damon turned to look at her first the first time, through squinted eyes that seemed to ask her if she had completely lost her mind.
"No," he said, point-blank. "I always take credit for killing people."
Riley sighed, with both relief and worry. She was glad that Damon hadn't been responsible for something that had killed somewhat innocent people, but the bigger problem was that they didn't know who was.
"Why do you even care?" Damon asked her suspiciously. "You realize that they tried to kill every vampire in Mystic Falls, right?"
"Yeah, they're... idiots," she said, struggling to think of the right word. "But in their minds, vampires kill whoever they can get their hands on, and they wanted to protect themselves. Not everyone has the time to become best friends with a town's worth of vamps," she reminded him, earning a slight smirk, as Liz Forbes entered the Grill and made a beeline for them.
"Did you hear about-" she started to ask, before Damon cut her off.
"Fletch has already accused me of murdering the Pastor," he told her, looking her in the eye. "I didn't."
"The explosion was sparked from inside. This wasn't an accident," Liz told them, still glaring at Damon suspiciously. A vampire was the only explanation that she could come up with. No one else would have been able to pull off an explosion of that size and still be alive.
"It wasn't Damon," Riley guessed playfully, raising an eyebrow at him, a small smile playing on her lips. "He likes to brag about his murders."
Before either Damon or Liz could respond, a man that they didn't recognize came up to them.
"Excuse me, Sheriff. I was wondering if I could speak to you for a minute about the explosion at the Young Farm?"
When Liz looked confused, he introduced himself as Connor Jordan, an 'independent contractor'.
There was something about him that made both Riley and Damon raise their eyebrows at each other in a silent question, watching Liz walk away with him. It felt like he knew more than he was letting on.
"You have your suspicious face on," Damon commented, reaching for his drink and taking a swig, ignoring his own suspicions.
"I live in Mystic Falls," she reminded him. "This is my normal face. It's similar to my 'hey, someone wants to kill us again' face, and completely different from my 'that person who died is alive again' face."
She was referring to both Tyler and Klaus. From what Caroline had told her, she worked out that Klaus had made Bonnie put his consciousness in Tyler's body, before restoring his own, so both men were alive and back in their rightful bodies and minds.
"Wanna follow him?" Damon asked, glancing back at Connor Jordan. "See where he goes?"
Riley shook her head. "Even if I did want to spy on the guy 'James Bond' style, we have a funeral to go to."
***
Riley sat with Caroline and Tyler at the funeral.
"What do you think happened?" Caroline whispered, nodding to the front of the church where the pictures of the deceased were displayed.
Riley shrugged. "Someone wanted to kill the council. A vampire getting revenge? Maybe one of the council members wanted out?"
"And thought an explosion was the way to go?" Tyler joined in. "No. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with that guy."
"What guy?" Riley asked.
"This guy," Caroline said unhelpfully. "He's like a vampire hunter extraordinaire. He shot Tyler with these weird bullets."
Riley frowned, taking a wild guess. "Black guy? Bald? Permanent 'I know your secrets' look on his face?"
"You know him?" Tyler asked incredulously while his mom, Mayor Carol Lockwood, began to speak. She nodded.
"Connor Jordan."
When Carol invited anyone to speak, Elena took this opportunity, standing on shaky legs and making her way to the podium, talking about a girl called April that Riley didn't know.
"Do you smell that?" Caroline asked under her breath.
"Blood," Tyler answered immediately.
"What?" Riley asked with a tone of shock, trying to turn around, but Caroline grabbed her arm and held it tightly.
"Don't move," she said as quietly as she could. "He's watching us."
Riley allowed Caroline's hand to keep her in her place, not moving a muscle as Elena began to struggle on the podium, beads of sweat decorating her forehead. Since she'd become a vampire, she'd had trouble keeping both animal blood and blood from a blood bag down. Because of this, she was starving, and the smell of blood was all that she could think about. So it was a relief when Stefan came to her rescue, like he always did, ushering her off of the stage.
When everyone was standing and the choir had begun to sing, Tyler squeezed past Caroline and Riley and started walking towards the stage.
"What is he doing?" Riley hissed in her best friend's ear. "The guy knows what he is!"
Caroline stayed silent as Tyler spoke, too worried for her boyfriend's safety. Soon, a shot rang out and the room exploded in pandemonium. Everyone started rushing for the exits.
"You should go," Caroline told her best friend. "He might come back, and if he mistakes you for a vampire, he'll kill you."
Riley didn't need to be told twice. Giving Caroline a quick hug, she made her way to the exit.
***
That evening, Riley and Damon pulled up next to each other at the high school, to find Stefan, Elena, Jeremy, Bonnie, Caroline and Matt waiting for them.
"What are we doing here?" Damon asked her.
"No idea," she responded.
When they reached the group, Stefan was handing out paper lanterns.
"We're finishing the memorial we never got to have earlier," he informed the newcomers. Riley pensively took a lantern from Stefan, staring at the piece of white material.
"We need to find out who this hunter is and what he knows about the death of the council," Damon reminded them, an angry look on his face. "We have more important things to be doing right now than this."
Stefan ignored his brother, knowing that this would be his reaction. He was the type of person who responded to bad things with jokes and sarcasm. But Stefan knew how much the rest of the group needed this memorial, so he stood up and lit his lantern.
"This is for my uncle Zach and my friend Lexi, and for Alaric."
He then handed the lighter to Matt, who simply said: "This is for Vicki." It was weird to hear her name after so long. It made Riley feel bad for not recognizing that someone who seemed insignificant to her was Matt's only real family.
Caroline spoke next, also lighting her lantern. "This is for my dad, and Tyler's."
Riley squeezed her best friend's hand as Jeremy took the lighter from her, looking at Elena while he said his piece.
"This is for our parents. For Vicki, Anna, Jenna and Alaric."
He tried to pass the lighter to Damon, but he refused, the angry look on his face still present.
"No way. I'm not doing that," he said, walking away. They all watched him go as Jeremy handed the lighter to Bonnie.
"This is for my grams," she said, passing the lighter to Riley, who stood.
Taking a deep breath, she said: "This is for Gloria. And for every single human that's dead because they got caught up in this world."
She gave the lighter to Elena, the last person.
"This is for my mom, my dad, Jenna, everyone that you've all lost, everyone that this town has lost. And for me."
One by one, they released their lanterns and watched them float higher and higher, taking with them the grief and sorrow that came with being in the supernatural world, of losing a loved one.
As the rest of the group continued to watch, Riley walked away from them to find Damon, pretty sure that she knew exactly where he was.
"Thanks for leaving me here to babysit, because I should be long gone by now," Damon said, seemingly to himself. Riley stood watching him, making as little noise as possible. "I didn't get the girl, remember? I'm just stuck here fighting with my brother and taking care of the kids. You owe me big."
He took a swig from a bottle of bourbon, gulping it down.
"You just gonna stand there?" he asked her, not turning around. For some reason, he knew that it would be her to come and find him.
"You might think you're babysitting," she started. "But it's more than that. Damon, we're a team, all of us. Even those of us that aren't around anymore." She looked over at the gravestone that Damon was talking to. "And Ric would tell you that too."
Damon thought about her words in silence. When Elena had chosen Stefan, he'd felt like he had nothing. But something had stopped him from leaving. Maybe he'd become part of a team without even realizing it.
Riley walked out of the cemetery, and after a second, he followed. What neither of them could see was that Ric had been watching them the whole time, keeping tabs on them from the Other Side. When he spoke, he addressed his best friend.
"I miss you too, buddy."
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