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"We can find outhi her lips nervously, she reached into her bag and pulled out the business card she had found in her pocket that first terrible day, now creased and fuzzy at the edges I can do this, she told herself I am a hunter It doesn’tThen she pulled out her phone and dialed the number written on the card

"It’s Meredith," she said when Jack picked up "You were right Please I have to see you"

Jack’s hideout wasn’t far away Following the directions he’d given her over the phone, Meredith found a road that ended outside a long-abandoned warehouse at the edge of town She got out of the car, slaravel parking lot

The warehouse was dilapidated, and there were no cars in the lot except hers A fast-food wrapper blew across the ground in front of her Everything was eerily silent

It didn’tmetal door rattled when Meredith knocked on it She could hear footsteps co When it opened, there stood Jack, his face carefully neutral

"Meredith," he said, a little warily

"I still hate you," Meredith said quickly "You killed Stefan, and I can’t forgive that But--" She paused, her heart pounding, uncomfortably aware that what she was about to say was only partially a lie "I don’t belong anywhere else I can’t--all I want to do is bite people I need to be in a place where my friends are safe fro pause while Jack looked her up and down, his aze Could he tell that she had coether?

"Please," she dropped her voice as if she was telling hiood I didn’t--don’t--want to be a vampire, but physically, I feel alive for the first time in my life I want you to shohat I’m capable of"

Jack stared at her, his face unreadable Meredith kept her eyes steady on his, trying to project sincerity and pleading She needed hi a cure

Jack frowned, and for a ht he’d slam the heavy metal door in her face But then his lips turned up in the warht he was her friend "Co"

Chapter 10

The trapped vah, wordless shriek and tried to scrabble away froe Strea, wet patches on his clothes Elena gritted her teeth and kept herself froe Stefan, to save Daain in a ," Da vah the bars and pinned it for a hter, Elena"

Holding her breath to keep frohter from her pocket and handed it over, then backed a few steps aatching theh the bars to touch the fla

The cloth burst into flareen and blue fla He screa his catlike grace for aher forcefully into the wall

"Elena!" he cried

"I’ her shoulder experimentally It hurt where she’d hit the wall and her mouth had a coppery taste of blood, but she would be fine

Dauisher fro vaain, his voice low and threatening

"What’re you going to do if I don’t, setout too well for you so far," the vaed with smoke and his pants were in tatters, but the skin beneath the clothes, which had been blackened a et loose, I’enuinely a to her feet, Elena gri at her defiantly, dark eyes in a pale pointed face

"So fire doesn’t work either," Daainst the bars of the cage "We’re running out of ideas on how to kill hi"

Elena felt a twinge of discomfort, and she knew Damon sensed it by the way he tensed in response "I’ hi this too much He’d been careless and ruthless, sometimes, but he’d never really struck her as vicious, not before Stefan died

A warh their bond Damon loved that she wasn’t as ruthless as he was, Elena knew He loved the huh, was, "He’d killed three teenagers that I know of before I caught him, if that’s any comfort to you Friends of his I buried the a panic"

The vampire boy, already recovered from the flaainst the bars of his cage The sound echoed throughout the cavernous e over the vein on her throat "I’d do it again if I had the chance"

Elena leaned back against the bars of the storage unit on the other side of the aisle, as far as she could get froaze "Did you try to influence him?" she asked Damon