The Salvatore boarding house stood on its hill, a solid black shadow against the night sky. Leo turned his car onto the long, private driveway. Gravel crunched loudly under the tires, shattering the quiet of the woods.
His headlights, blazing in the deep dark, cut two white paths across the neglected front yard. The beams swept over wild grass and tangled bushes before landing squarely on two figures in the clearing before the porch.
One man stood tall and relaxed, his posture almost casual. The other was on the ground at his feet, curled on his side in the dirt. The man on the ground was clutching his ribs, his face twisted in pain. It was Stefan.
The man standing over him, a faint, cruel smile on his lips, was Damon Salvatore. The headlights made his leather jacket gleam and lit his amused, ice-blue eyes as he glanced away from his brother toward the sudden, unexpected light.
Leo brought the car to a stop, the engine idling. The bright beams held the scene frozen like a stark photograph: the victorious older brother, the wounded younger one, and the tense, silent space between them filled with centuries of bad blood.
For a moment, nobody moved. Leo turned off the engine.
The sudden glare of the headlights vanished as the engine cut off. Damon didn't blink, his vampire eyes adjusting instantly to the returning darkness. He watched as the car door opened and a figure stepped out.
A boy. Just a kid, really. He looked about seventeen, dressed in simple clothes, with messy black hair. He didn't look scared or angry. He just looked… calm. Confused, maybe, but not afraid of the scene he'd just found.
Damon's eyebrows raised in genuine surprise, then settled into an expression of amused contempt. He looked from the boy back down to his brother, who was still gasping in the dirt.
A slow, wicked smile spread across Damon's face. He tilted his head, his voice a smooth, mocking drawl that cut through the night air.
"Well, well. What's this?" he said, not to the boy, but to Stefan. He gave Stefan's side a gentle, taunting nudge with the toe of his boot. "You're making friends already, brother? You didn't tell me you were expecting company."
He finally turned his full attention to Leo, his ice-blue eyes glinting with predatory curiosity. He looked the boy up and down, not seeing a threat, but a puzzle.
"And who," Damon asked, his tone dripping with false politeness, "are you supposed to be?"
Stefan also looked up from the ground,in pain and he didn't answer Damon's questions because he was also confused.His mind raced. Leo? What was he doing here? He hadn't invited him. No one knew about this place. A cold dread seeped through the ache in his ribs. Does he know?
Before Stefan could form a word, Leo's eyes shifted from him to Damon. A small, easy smile touched Leo's lips, utterly at odds with the violence in the air.
"Me?" Leo said, answering Damon's question. His voice was light, almost conversational. "That doesn't really matter."
He took a few casual steps forward until he was just at the edge of the dim glow from the car's still-warm headlights. He leaned back against the front fender, crossing his arms loosely over his chest as if settling in for a chat.
He looked directly at Damon, his smile not fading. "The only thing that matters," he continued, his tone dropping just a notch, becoming clear and deliberate, "is that I'm here to end you."
The words hung in the cool night air, simple and absolute. The chirping of the crickets in the woods seemed to grow louder in the sudden silence that followed. Stefan stared, breath caught in his throat, forgetting his own pain for a moment after he heard what Leo just said.
Damon's smirk didn't vanish, but it stiffened and his eyes narrowing locked onto Leo's face, searching every detail. In over a century of life—and death—he had made many, many enemies. Yet he found nothing in this boy's features that sparked any memory. That could only mean one thing.
A slow, condescending smile spread across Damon's lips. He understood now. This wasn't some old foe. This was something far more pathetic.
"Let me guess," Damon said, his voice a smooth, dark ripple in the quiet. "I killed your family. Your sister, perhaps? Your mother?" He took a slow step forward, his gaze bored and dismissive. "It's always so personal with you fleeting little humans. You nurse your grief like a prized pet until it drags you right to my doorstep."
He took another step, now just a few paces from Leo. "But here's the tragic part of your story, kid. It doesn't matter who I killed. It doesn't matter how much it hurts." His voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Because you don't have the power to do a single thing about it."
In the space of a single, blurring breath, Damon moved.
He used his vampiric speed, a sudden burst of motion that was invisible to a human eye. One moment he was speaking; the next, his hand was slicing through the air where Leo's neck should have been, fingers poised to crush and lift.
But his hand closed in the empty air.
Damon stumbled forward a half-step, thrown off balance by the complete lack of resistance. His fingers grasped nothing. His confident sneer vanished, replaced by pure, uncomprehending shock. He stood frozen for a full second, staring at his own empty hand. A cold strange feeling—the first whisper of doubt in decades—crawled up his spine. His head snapped up to look at Leo.
Leo hadn't moved. He was still leaning casually against the car, standing exactly where he had been, as if Damon's attack had been nothing but a stiff breeze.
"What…?" Damon muttered, the word escaping him in a low, stunned breath. His eyes, wide and suddenly wary, scanned Leo up and down. This wasn't right. This was impossible. A cold thread of doubt, something he hadn't felt in decades, unspooled in his gut.
Leo pushed himself away from the car, his casual posture gone. The amusement had vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, flat calm. He had come here to end Damon quickly and silently. But if the vampire wanted more torture, then Leo was happy to oblige. Damon's careless mention of killing families had ignited a slow-burning anger in him—a protective instinct for the parents whether in this life or his past life and also a deep dislike for such casual cruelty.
He moved.
It wasn't like Damon's vampiric speed, a blur of motion. It was nothing at all. One moment, Leo was by his car door. The next, he was simply there, directly in front of Damon, who was still staring at him in confusion.
Before Damon could even gasp, Leo's hand snapped out and closed around his throat. It wasn't a struggle; it was an absolute capture. He lifted Damon straight off the ground as if he weighed nothing, the vampire's boots dangling inches above the gravel.
Leo looked up at Damon's shocked, choking face, his own expression serene. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, measured, and dripping with disdain.
"Do I look like a child to you?" Leo asked, his head tilting slightly. "A grieving three-year-old who wandered into the woods seeking revenge?" He gave Damon a small, contemptuous shake. "I came here knowing exactly what you are. I prepared for you. And frankly," he continued, his tone turning almost bored, "I expected more. To be so easily caught… it's not foolishness, Damon. It's sheer irrelevance."
From the corner of his eye, Leo saw Stefan rise to his feet. The younger Salvatore's wounds had already closed, his vampire healing having done its work. Stefan took a step toward them, his green eyes wide with a mixture of alarm and dawning comprehension. He now understood that Leo had known their secret from the very beginning, perhaps from that first day in the school office. Stefan didn't attack. He had seen Leo's speed—or rather, the lack of any visible movement. It spoke of power so far beyond his own that confrontation was pointless.
Leo turned his head to look at Stefan, his grip on Damon's neck tightening just enough to make the older vampire choke. Stefan flinched but didn't advance further.
"What?" Leo asked Stefan, his voice still that terrible, polite calm. He gestured slightly with Damon, who writhed helplessly in his grasp. "Are you here to rescue the beast? To plead for your brother's life?" He let out a soft, humorless sound. "You are his brother. I understand that. But look at him. Look at what he is. A predator who thinks his century of playtime makes him a god. He is nothing but a rabid dog in a town full of sheep."
Internally, Leo had already analyzed them. Damon's strength, struggling uselessly against his grip, felt about ten times that of a strong human. Stefan, weakened by his animal diet, was perhaps half of that. And Leo himself? The transformation from a normal human to Devil had forged him into something else entirely. His strength was a solid, humming force, about fifty times a human's baseline. To him, they weren't threats. They were insects. Their existence continued only because he hadn't yet decided to close his hand.
***
Leave Power Stones and Reviews