Chapter 11 : The Subtle Poison
[MARCO DELUCA — Mystic Grill Kitchen, 4:17 PM]
The Donovan kid was weird.
Not bad weird—Marco had seen plenty of bad weird in thirty years of restaurant work—but definitely unusual. Most teenage busboys did the minimum required to collect their paychecks. They cleared tables slowly, complained about anything resembling extra work, and disappeared the moment their shifts ended.
Matt Donovan volunteered for extra prep.
"You want to make the special sauce?" Marco wiped his hands on his apron, staring at the kid like he'd grown a second head. "You know that takes an hour, right? And nobody tips you for kitchen work."
"I don't mind." Matt shrugged, already tying on a spare apron. "It's quiet back here. Better than dealing with the Friday dinner rush."
Hard to argue with that logic. The dining room was already filling up, and they were short two servers.
"Fine. Recipe's on the board. Ingredients are in the cabinet. Don't burn anything."
Marco turned back to the grill, already dismissing the kid from his attention. In his experience, teenagers who volunteered for extra work either wanted something or were running from something. As long as the sauce got made correctly, he didn't care which.
The kitchen settled into its rhythm—orders called, pans sizzling, the steady dance of line cooks working around each other. Marco lost track of time in the chaos, the way he always did during a rush.
When he checked on the sauce an hour later, the Donovan kid had finished.
"Not bad." Marco dipped a spoon, tasted. The flavor was good—maybe even better than usual, with an herbaceous depth that wasn't normally there. "What'd you add?"
"Just followed the recipe. Maybe a little extra oregano."
"Hm." Marco tasted again. Something was different, but not wrong. "Works. Make it the same way next time."
"Yes, sir."
The kid smiled, and for a moment, something flickered behind his eyes. Something that looked almost like satisfaction.
Marco shook it off. Weird kid. But useful.
[MATT DONOVAN]
The sauce went on everything.
I watched from my station as plates left the kitchen, each one carrying my vervain blend. Burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, the loaded chicken special that was half the reason people came here on Fridays.
Sheriff Forbes ordered the loaded burger. Extra sauce, she specified, because she liked the flavor.
Mayor Lockwood got the chicken special with his wife. Carol Lockwood picked at hers, more concerned with being seen than eating, but Richard cleaned his plate.
The cheerleading squad came in after practice, crowding into a corner booth. They ordered nachos with extra sauce, sharing bites and gossip while vervain entered their systems.
By the end of my shift, I'd counted forty-seven customers who'd eaten something from my batch. Forty-seven Mystic Falls residents with at least trace amounts of protection against compulsion.
Not enough to stop a determined vampire, probably. But enough to make commands slip, to create moments of resistance, to give people a fighting chance if someone tried to rewrite their minds.
The sauce containers went into the walk-in refrigerator, clearly labeled for tomorrow's service. I'd made enough to last three days. After that, I'd volunteer for prep again.
"Good work tonight." Marco passed me on his way out. "You want more kitchen shifts, let me know. Always need someone who actually gives a damn."
"Thanks. I will."
The cleanup went fast. I scraped plates, loaded the dishwasher, wiped down my station. The mechanical work let my mind wander through logistics.
The Grill served maybe three hundred customers on a busy week. If I maintained my sauce supply, I could have a significant portion of the town passively protected within a month. Not everyone would eat here, but enough to matter.
The vervain wouldn't last forever in their systems—I needed to research how long the protection remained after consumption—but regular exposure would maintain it. People who ate at the Grill weekly would stay protected weekly.
One burger at a time.
The irony wasn't lost on me. In my previous life, I'd been a cog in a corporate machine, pushing paper that meant nothing to no one. Now I was a teenage busboy secretly drugging an entire town to protect them from vampires they didn't know existed.
Somehow, this felt more meaningful.
I clocked out at 10:30 PM, grabbed a burger for myself—extra sauce, of course—and ate it in the parking lot while the night air cooled my overheated skin.
The stars were clearer here than they'd ever been in my previous life. Small town, less light pollution. I could see the Milky Way stretched across the sky like a river of light.
Eighty-seven days.
The countdown continued, relentless and unforgiving. But every day I had was another day to prepare.
I finished my burger, tossed the wrapper, and drove home.
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