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  “Did you love her?” Damon asked, as if he could read my thoughts.

  I stared straight ahead.

  “She hasn’t come to visit, in case you were curious,” Damon continued conversationally. “She is pretty, though in my humble opinion, you could do better.”

  Anger pushed my fangs into place. “Where are you going with this?” I growled.

  Damon gestured to the bars. “Nowhere, apparently. Excellent job on the rescue attempt.”

  “At least I tried,” I said, my fury ebbing and resignation flowing in its place.

  “Why even bother?” Damon’s eyes flashed. “Have I not made my feelings about you perfectly clear?”

  “I . . .” I began, before I realized I had no idea where to even start. How could I tell him that rescuing him wasn’t a choice? That our blood ran in each other’s veins, that we were bound to each other. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Damon said, adopting a philosophical tone. “After all, we’ll both be dead soon enough. The question is, will you be killed by a crocodile or by a tiger? I heard Gallagher saying crocodiles are the best fight opponents, because they don’t go for the kill. They drag it out.”

  Just then the attic door opened with a flourish, and Gallagher strode into the room, his boots echoing on the floor.

  “The vampires are awake!” he bellowed.

  The two guards hastily jumped to attention, pretending they’d been watching us the whole time. Gallagher strode toward the cage, kneeling at our eye level. His three-piece suit was impeccable, as if he’d made his fortune as a financier rather than by torturing vampires.

  “Well, well, well . . . the family resemblance is obvious. I’m embarrassed to not have noticed it sooner.” He reached through the bars and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me against the side of the cage. My face clanged against the bars, and I winced as something wooden jutted into my chest.

  A stake.

  “And you almost got away with acting like a human!” Gallagher threw his head back and laughed, as if it were the most amusing thing in the world.

  “You won’t get away with this ,” I hissed, pain ripping through my body as he dug the stake farther into my skin.

  “Pay attention, vampire!” Gallagher said, his lips curled back in a snarl. “You know, I think I’m going to bet you’re the one who’ll get killed. Yes, I think that will do very nicely.” He turned toward the two guards. “Hear that? A tip from the boss. Bet on the dark-haired one,” Gallagher said, twisting the stake against my body. “I think his brother has more hatred in his belly.”

  I couldn’t see Damon’s face, but I could picture the smirk that no doubt played on his lips.

  Gallagher snorted in laughter and threw the vervain-soaked stake to the floor. “Oh, and I don’t want you using the stakes on the vampires for sport anymore,” he said in the direction of the guards. The heavyset one glanced guiltily down at the floor.

  “Why not?” the other asked indignantly. “It’s good for ’em. Shows ’em their place.”

  “Because we want them in tip-top shape for their fight,” Gallagher said, his voice an exaggerated parody of patience. Then Gallagher smiled at us. “That’s right, boys. You two are going to be fighting, to the death. It’s the perfect solution. I’ll have one dead vampire to sell for parts, a live one for performances, and profit beyond my wildest imagination. You know, it might be sacrilege, but I say, thank God for vampires!”

  With that, Gallagher turned to leave the attic, slamming the door behind him. I sank back against the bars. Damon did the same, shutting his eyes. The two guards gaped at us through the bars.

  “I know the boss said the dark-haired one, there, but ain’t he lookin’ a little weak? My pennies are goin’ for that boy,” one commented.

  “Eh, I always go with what the boss says. Besides, ain’t all about size, right?” the scrawny one said, sounding affronted by the first guard’s implication.

  I slumped against the wall, closing my eyes. The hatred that my brother had for me was surely enough to want me dead. But would Damon really kill me?

  “I’m more vicious than a crocodile, brother,” Damon said with a smile, his eyes still closed. “And this is the best piece of news I’ve heard since we turned into vampires!” He laughed, long and loud, until one of the guards clambered over and, despite Gallagher’s decree, jabbed him with a vervain-laced stake.

  But even then, he continued to laugh.

  Chapter 28

  Remember the time we broke Mother’s crystal bowl? And I was so worried about how she would react that I cried?” I asked.

  “Yes, and then Father decided I was to blame and whipped me and called me wicked,” Damon said dully. “I tried to make your life easier, little brother. But I’m done. This time, I want you to get exactly what you deserve.”

  “What do you want me to say, Damon?” I asked angrily, so loudly the two guards looked up in surprise.

  Damon paused, his eyes at half-mast. “I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to say . . . right before I kill you.”

  I rolled my eyes in angry frustration. “I thought you were the one who wanted to die. And now you’re going to kill me?”

  Damon chuckled. “You know, now that I think about it, being a beast from hell might not be so bad. In fact, I think it’s a role I could take to, immensely. Perhaps it wasn’t my newfound state I despised. It was you . But if you’re gone—”

  “If I’m gone you’ll be in Patrick Gallagher’s freak show forever,” I interrupted.

  “But admit it, brother. Don’t you think Patrick Gallagher’s freak show is more fun than hell? And once I get some strength, I think I can plan an escape quite easily.”

  “And then I’m sure you’ll get caught, just as you did the first time,” I said in disgust.

  I leaned my head back against the cage bars. The fight was one short hour away, and I hadn’t given up on trying to engage Damon, to spark any possible thread of connection between us. But no matter what I’d say, he’d taunt me or ignore me.

  It was impossible to know just how long we’d been trapped. Since I had become a vampire, time had taken on a different quality. Seconds and minutes no longer mattered. I found being imprisoned gave time back its importance, because every second brought us closer to our battle. As I waited, I played out in my mind the various scenarios the fight could take. I pictured Damon snapping my neck, roaring triumphantly for the crowd. I saw myself succumbing to anger, accidentally stealing life from my brother—again.

  But what would happen if we both refused to fight? Could we take on the entire audience together? Could we somehow engineer an escape? Yes, Gallagher’s minions had vervain and stakes, but we had Power. If only I had Callie on my side . . .

  My heart panged painfully at the thought of Callie’s betrayal. The image of her flame-red hair and gleaming eyes floated to my mind constantly, inflaming my anger—and hurt—over and over. I curled my fists. If only I’d listened to Lexi. If only I hadn’t let a human in.

  My only goal for the battle was that, if I should die, I would die with my eyes closed, instead of searching the crowd for her face.

  “Let’s go, boys!” Gallagher called out, pushing open the door as if he were rousing two children for a bright and early hike. He wore a black waistcoat and a brand-new gold watch that glinted in the weak sunlight. He snapped his fingers, and instantly the guards jumped to their feet, bustling to put on the makeshift uniform of a vampire handler: gloves, boots, and vervain-soaked garlands.

  The door of the cage flew open, and guards roughly yanked us out, tightened muzzles around our fangs, and shackled our hands behind our backs. We were blindfolded, then marched out of the attic and into the back of a black iron wagon. The wagon took off, bumpily heading down to the lake.

  When we arrived at the tent, we were marched in opposite directions.

  “Boo!”

  “Freak!” I heard the sideshow acts hiss as I was marched throug
h the backstage area. I tightened my jaw. I wondered if Lexi wondered where I was, if she thought I was already dead.

  Though I was still blindfolded, I knew every inch of this tent. To the left was the tattooed woman, and to the right was Caroline, the bearded lady. The floor dipped down, and I knew I was in the arena.

  I felt something grab my arm. “I’ve told a lot of people about what a crafty one you are. But don’t try too hard for my benefit, Mr. Salvatore. My money is on your brother,” Jasper whispered gleefully.

  Finally, the blindfold was removed from my eyes. The tent was lit up like it was midday, and all the stands were crammed with people. At the center of the ring, Gallagher had set up a betting pool, where people frantically waved bills in the air. Organ music filled the tent, and the air smelled like candied apples and rum punch.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her.

  Callie was weaving through the stands, and behind her was Buck, carrying a tin box. Her hair was plaited with vervain stems, and her face was pale. She’d obviously been dispatched to collect bets in the stand. She was certainly her father’s daughter, and she fulfilled her duties well.

  She did not look at me once.

  I tore my gaze away from her and forced it over to Damon on the opposite side of the ring. Damon had always been a good fighter, and his recent bouts had only strengthened him. If Damon wanted to kill me, he would.

  Moreover, I would let him. I owed him that much.

  Jasper struck the starting bell, and the crowd hushed. Gallagher stood up from his post in the betting pit and boomed:

  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another fine evening of sport made possible by yours truly, Patrick Gallagher. Only days ago, we brought you the first-ever fight between a vampire and a mountain lion. Tonight, we bring you the first-ever fight between two vampires, including the winner of that previous match. And not only that,” he said, dropping his voice and causing the crowd to hush and lean forward, “these two monsters are brothers. They came from the same womb, and now one of them will be heading straight to hell.”

  A rock hit me in the back of the head, and I whirled around. Vervain was everywhere, causing the sea of faces to blend together in a nightmarish collage of eyes, noses, and open mouths.

  “ Brother, I’m sorry for anything I’ve done. Please. If we die, let’s not die in anger. We’re all we have ,” I whispered, clenching my jaw and trying, one last time, to reach Damon. Damon looked up for a split second and jerked his head, but his expression was unreadable. In the center of the ring, Gallagher was still commanding the audience’s attention.

  “The book will be open for another five minutes for final bets. But!—” He raised his hand in the air, attempting to silence the crowd. The noise in the tent dulled, if only slightly. “Stay after the show, when we’ll be selling the loser’s blood. Even a dead vampire’s blood has healing powers. Cures all ailments. Even ones in the bedroom.” Gallagher winked showily. The crowd catcalled and cheered. I stiffened, wondering whether the crowd thought this was all an act: that we were down-on-our-luck actors and that the blood Gallagher sold after the show would be some type of cherry cordial. Did anyone know that all the blood would be real, that the fallen loser in the center of the ring wouldn’t be standing up and heading home once the tent was emptied?

  Callie knew. Callie knew, and she had decided that this would be my fate. I again clenched my jaw, ready to fight, ready to give the audience the show it was looking for. Suddenly, I found myself being led around the ring by Jasper, giving the audience one final chance to scrutinize my strength before raising their stakes. I could hear snatches of conversation from all sides of the tent:

  That one’s got an inch on the other. I’m swapping sides.

  How’d your old lady like one of those for your anniversary?

  I wonder how they’d do against a real lion.

  A man dressed in clerical robes stood next to Gallagher, raising his frocked arms to quiet the crowd. I recognized him as the snake charmer from the sideshow.

  “May all good light shine upon this fight and return the loser’s soul to the cleansing fires of hell!” he yelled, causing the tent to erupt in a cacophony of noise. A whistle blew, and the fight was on.

  Damon circled toward me, his stance low to the ground, like when we were kids and practiced boxing. I imitated his stance.

  “Blood!” one drunken man yelled, practically hanging over the railing of the ring.

  “Blood! Blood! Blood!” The entire tent seemed to be cheering. Damon and I continued to circle each other.

  “ Let’s not do this ,” I said. “Let’s refuse. What can they do?”

  “ We’re beyond that, brother ,” Damon said. “The two of us can’t survive in the same world.”

  Anger seeped into my limbs from the center of my being. Why couldn’t we? And why couldn’t Damon forgive me? I no longer thought he was haunted by the memory of Katherine. Instead, I believed he was haunted by me . Not who I was, but who he thought I was—a monster who killed without fear or awareness of consequence. How dare he not even recognize the lengths I’d gone to to try to make him happy, to try to save him? I swung, connecting with Damon’s cheek. Blood spurted under his eye, and the crowd roared.

  Damon wound up and swung back, hitting me on my shoulder and knocking me down to the ground.

  “ Why did you do that? ” Damon hissed, baring his teeth to the delight of the crowd.

  “ Because you wanted it ,” I hissed back, baring my own teeth, then flipped him over into a headlock.

  He freed himself quickly and returned to his corner. We stood at opposite sides of the ring, staring at each other, both confused, angry, alone.

  “Fight!” the crowd roared again. Gallagher glared at us, unsure what to do. He snapped his fingers, and Jasper and Buck ran toward us with stakes, determined to force us to fight each other. They prodded us until our bodies were only inches apart and both of our fists were raised, when a huge, echoing, booming crack that sounded like the sky splitting in two echoed from above. A cold wind whipped around us, causing a cloud of sawdust and debris to rise at our feet. I smelled smoke.

  “Fire!” a panicked voice yelled.

  I looked around wildly. Part of the tent was on fire, and people were running in all directions.

  “Come on !”

  I felt hands shoving my shoulders. Callie. My eyes opened wide in surprise. “ Go, go, go! ” Callie yelled, pushing me. She held an axe in her hand, and slowly I began piecing together what had happened. Had she actually cut down the supports of the tent structure, then set the fire?

  “Move!” Callie pushed me one more time. She was surprisingly strong for a human, and after a few seconds of stupidly standing and blinking in place, I grabbed Damon by the wrist, and we ran, past the tents, away from the river, faster and faster, heading toward my home.

  Chapter 29

  Damon and I ran at vampire speed through the streets of New Orleans. Unlike when we first arrived and Damon lagged reluctantly behind me, we ran side by side, the adobe and brick houses blurring past us like melting wax.

  Something had shifted between us in that arena, I felt it in my very being. Something had changed in Damon’s eyes as he’d regarded me and refused to attack, even as the crowd jeered on. I wondered how the match would have ended had the tent not gone up in flames—would we have taken the humans one by one, or would one Salvatore brother have ended up dead and bloodied on the dusty floor?

  The image of the Mystic Falls church blazing like an oversize torch sprang to my mind. The town had burned down the church and the vampires trapped within it the night our father killed us—and the vampire Damon had loved.

  But Damon and I were still here, like phoenixes rising from the ashes of the vampires who came before us. Perhaps out of the fire of this circus in our new home city, a new kinship between us would spring to life—like the new life that arose in prairies after the previous year’s crops had been burned to the leve
l of the soil.

  Damon and I continued to run, our feet slapping against the cobblestones in perfect unison, down the back alleys and streets I’d learned so well in my few weeks of living here. But as we rounded the corner onto Dauphine, the same street where Lexi had taken me shopping, I stopped short. Affixed to the window of the tailor’s shop was a crude drawing of me and Damon, our fangs bared, both of us crouched low. The fight of the century, the posters read. I wondered if Callie had drawn them. Probably.

  Damon leaned in close, examining the poster. “That drawing makes you look a bit stocky, brother. Might be time to lay off the barmaids.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said dryly, looking around. Shouts sounded behind us, in the direction of the circus. We had a good head start, but if Callie had distributed these posters as widely as we had the posters for Damon, then we wouldn’t be safe until we were inside.

  The spindly spire of a church rose in the distance—the church that was kitty-corner to Lexi’s place.

  “Come on!” I pushed Damon in the direction of the church, and we didn’t talk until we reached the rickety white house.

  “This is where you live?” Damon’s lip curled as his eyes flicked up from the sagging, whitewashed porch to the dark windows.

  “Well, I understand that it may not measure up to your standards, but we all must make sacrifices every now and again,” I said sarcastically as I led him to the back door.

  The door swung open, allowing a triangular slice of light to pour out over the dark backyard.

  I put my hands up as Lexi appeared in the doorway. “I know you said no visitors, but—”

  “Come in. Quickly!” she said, locking the door the second we crossed the threshold. In the main room, candles were burning, and Buxton, Hugo, and Percy were all perched on the chairs and couches, as if they were in the middle of a meeting.

  “You must be Damon.” Lexi nodded to him slightly. “Welcome to our home.” I was aware of Damon watching her, and wondered what he saw.