A Mirror's Reflection

Chapter 18: Lethal White

She followed me down the hall, up the stairs and towards the biology classroom. Her judging eyes burned holes in my back, and I kept mine resolutely to my feet. Absentmindedly, I listened to the good-natured complaining about some paper that was due the following week for biology (which I'd forgotten about).

Brushing a lock of hair away from my eyes, I slid into a seat in the back row. Dropping my bag on my desk with calculated calm, I turned to Caroline again. She'd taken the seat next to me, still glaring at me and I intertwined my fingers together. "Well, go ahead. What do you want to say?"

Caroline tilted her head slightly. "Why?"

"Why?" I muttered. "Why I've been planning my death, as you so adequately put it?"

"Yes!" She hissed.

"Because I don't want everyone to get killed just because of me," I muttered and she shook her head.

"You don't get it, do you? Damon and Stefan and I can help you," Caroline whispered. "We just have to think of a plan. Besides, why would you even have to die? Because some asshole thinks he deserves to live forever? What's the point anyway?"

"I don't—" I started, having stiffened where I sat, my blood icing through my body.

"No, I mean what kind of curse? Why does some guy want to break some curse anyway?"

"Oh," I mumbled, my eyes darting around the room checking if no one was listening in, "it's old. Binds a part of him." I tried. I couldn't know so much, but then again. What was the point in lying? Drawing my tongue along my front teeth I tweaked the zipper of my pencil casing. "After a thousand years, this guy wants to be free of the curse placed upon him. And he needs my blood, all of it, to do it. I don't want to— I mean who would, but I rather like the road of the least resistance in this case. There is too much at stake here, Care, please, be reasonable."

Caroline's eyes were dark and round. "The road of the least resistance? What the fuck!" She hissed and the teacher turned with several muscles twitching beneath his eyes. We both clamped our teeth together and I almost imagine hearing the click of our molars.

"You shouldn't!" She whispered. "You should fight. Fight, bite, scratch, anything!"

"I can't win," I whispered, voice reasonably controlled. "Pretty much every plan consists out of me dying," I explained, "even if there are means to come back, and there are, I'd rather not be involved in a plan with a high risk to go wrong and then get the blame for it."

"So, you don't want to be part of a rescue plan?" Caroline said, breathing slowly, exercising control.

"Caroline—"

"No, I get it." She nodded vigorously and I got the vague idea she was seeing me as her new project.

"You shouldn't get involved either," I muttered annoyed.

"You're my friend. I definitely need to get involved."

Was this the right time to tell her I was not Elena? Or that I was not the Elena she'd grown up with? I bit down on my lower lip hard. She would probably think I was lying, and I averted my eyes and forced my eyes to my textbook.

Everyone I didn't want to be involved was getting involved, one way or the other. Caroline didn't say anything again, having brought out her cellphone. I watched her fingers skim over the screen but couldn't tell who she was texting. But my guess would be Stefan. He pretty much became her best friend after she turned, and I swallowed.

"Miss Gilbert," Mr Vernon, grumbled and I felt my face flush, and he turned to Caroline with a distasteful expression, "Miss Forbes, am I interrupting something?"