Chapter 5: Promises Buried In The Past
1647 Words
“I need answers,” she screamed,“ she screamed as she waved the picture at his face.
Damon didn't answer. He didn't even move or blink. His eyes locked onto the small square of faded paper as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, and Elena watched his jaw tightened once, then again. For the first time since he'd pulled her out of that hall, she saw his composure c***k.
"You were looking for me before tonight," she said as she let out a bitter and painful laugh.
Silence pooled between them. The parking lot lamps buzzed overhead, casting lights across Damon's face. He didn't look at her. He looked at the photograph as though it were a ghost he'd been running from for years.
Damon lowered his eyes.His fingers slowly curled into a fist. Elena took another step toward him, refusing to let him hide behind his silence.
"Answer me, Damon." His jaw tightened. A long, suffocating silence stretched between them before he finally closed his eyes.
"Yes,” he answered quietly. The words were barely audible. It wasn't spoken with pride or regret but it sounded like surrender, his heart felt heavy for admitting the truth.
“Yes?” Elena asked trying to affirm the single word that he had uttered. That single syllable landed harder than any speech ever could. Elena felt the ground tilt beneath her feet.
‘Nothing about tonight had been accidental. The alley, the rescue, the conversation and every moment had been threaded with intention, and she had walked blindly into the pattern like a fool.’ the thoughts sounded in her head so fast .
She should have cried. That would have been the natural and most expected thing. A woman standing in a cold parking lot at midnight, holding proof that her entire evening had been orchestrated by a stranger who knew more about her than she knew about him. Instead, Elena studied the photograph.
Her thumb traced the edges. They were worn soft, the corners rounded by years of handling. A crease ran horizontally through the center, as if the picture had been folded and unfolded a hundred times. She turned it slightly, catching the light, and saw the faint discoloration where fingers had pressed the same spots again and again.
"How long have you been carrying this?" She asked as she waved the picture again.
Damon said nothing. His hands hung at his sides, fingers slightly curled.
"Five years?"
His silence had weight now. It pressed against her eardrums.
"Ten?" She asked as she grew louder than before.
Nothing came out of Damon, still.
She flipped the photograph over. Damon moved. There was no aggression in the gesture. But he moved instinctively, his hand lifting half an inch, his body leaning forward before he caught himself. It was the movement of a man who had guarded something precious for so long that protection had become something reflex burned into muscle memory. That movement told Elena enough than any words could have.
She pulled the photo away, tucking it against her chest. "No."
Damon's hand dropped. He closed his eyes for a moment, his shoulders dropping for a little while, and when he opened his eyes again, something had changed. He had lost control. Not obviously or dramatically, but Elena could see it; the careful composure he had worn all evening in the hall had developed a c***k, and through that c***k, she intended to climb.
She looked down at the back of the photograph.
The handwriting was faded, the ink bled slightly by time and moisture, but the words were unmistakable: ‘Keep your promise. C.H.’
The handwriting and the initials ‘C.H’ made her more convinced that it was written by her mother. Her mother's handwriting. She would have known it anywhere, the way the H looped slightly at the top, the precise slant of the C. Clara Hart had written thousands of grocery lists, birthday cards, notes tucked into lunchboxes. Elena had memorized the architecture of her mother's writing the way children memorize the sound of their mother's voice.
"My mother wrote this." The words came out barely audible, a whisper of disbelief.
Damon closed his eyes. His head tilted back slightly, as if the sky held some answer he couldn't give her.
That silence confirmed everything.
"You knew!" Elena's voice shattered the quiet of the parking lot in loud and angry manner. She stepped towards him, her free hand clenched into a fist at her side, the photograph crumpling slightly against her chest. "You knew who I was! You watched me…" She jabbed a finger toward him, then pulled it back, her hand shaking. "You watched me get engaged! You watched me plan a wedding that was going to humiliate me! You watched me love Adrian, you watched me make a fool of myself, and you knew!"
Damon's jaw tightened again.
"You knew who I was all this time!"
"Because she made me promise!" He fired back. His voice cracked like a whip across the floor, and Elena flinched, her shoulders jerking up toward her ears. It was the first time he had raised his voice in the entire night. His voice was sharp and desperate, carrying years of weight she couldn't understand. The echo of it seemed to hang in the air between them, vibrating against her skin.
Silence took over the place and Elena felt her heart stutter. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered despite having Damon's coat on, "Promise what?"
Damon's mouth opened. She saw it—the words forming behind his eyes. Then he stopped. He looked away, towards the darkened street, his hands dropped. "Not tonight."
"Don't…" Elena's voice broke, then rebuilt itself on fury. She stepped closer, close enough to see the pulse jumping in his throat. "Don't you dare decide what I deserve to know! This is my mother, this my life, You don't get to…"
"You can't go home." The words cut through her anger like a blade, in a flat and final way. His words came out hard, with a cold urgency; the way a doctor delivers terrible news.
Elena laughed, but it came out brittled, scraping her throat. She took a step back, shaking her head. "You don't get to tell me where I go."
"I'm not asking," he said with an unreadable attitude
The certainty in his voice made her stomach drop. She felt the blood leave her face.
"My things and my entire life is in that house" She was grasping now, throwing out anchors, refusing to let the current pull her under. "My apartment. My…"
"I'll replace every single one."
She stared at him. The man who had materialized in an alley, who spoke in riddles and carried her mother's photograph in his pocket, who claimed to have made a promise to a dead woman ten years ago. "You're insane."
He stepped closer abd she looked at him straight in the eyes as his shadow fell upon her.
"You'll call me many things before this is over," he said quietly. "Insane will be more modest." Damon met her eyes, "Listen to me carefully,” his voice was low and frighteningly calm. "If you go home tonight..." he paused,
"you won't survive what's waiting for you.”
Her phone rang before she could utter another word, the sound was jarring which made Elena flinch. she reached out for the pocket of Damon's coat which she was wearing and had dropped the phone before pulling out the photograph, she pulls out the phone and the screen glowed: Nathaniel, her brother who has been away for three years.
She answered immediately, pressing the phone hard against her ear. "Nathan?"
His breathing was heavy and ragged, each exhale carrying the weight of running. Behind it, she heard noises of traffic, wind, the distant wail of a siren. Something else. Footsteps. Too many footsteps and they sounded heavy
"Listen carefully," Nathan said with a strained, terrifying voice.
"Nathan, what happened? Where have you been and where are you right now?" The questions shot out of her mouth as she turned away from Damon.
"Don't trust ..." disturbance from the background swallowed the rest but she heard it faintly. ‘Damon’
Elena froze as her eyes shot towards Damon. "What?
"Mom made him promise…" Nathan's voice cut in and out.
"What promise?" Elena's grip on the phone turned white-knuckled. She pressed it harder against her ear, as if she could pull Nathan through the speaker by force. "Nathan, what promise?"
No answer, rather, a loud crash. Metal against concrete and shattering glass. Nathan's breath hitched, a sharp intake that sounded like pain.
"Nathan!" Elena screamed. She heard heavy footsteps approaching, then his breathing became frantic and shallow like the sound of someone cornered.
“Elena” he called out from the other end, his whisper was so weak she barely recognized it.
"I'm here!" she shouted into the phone, her voice cracking, tears finally spilling over, hot and furious. "Nathan, I'm here, tell me where you are, tell me!"
"If Damon tells you..." silence stretched in agonizing and infinite manner. She could hear him breathing, swallowing, and the approaching footsteps stop at thesame time. Then, a sharp, deafening and close gunshot. The phone fell, she heard it clatter against hard surface. she stared at her phone and her hands shook violently.
She slowly raised her eyes. Damon wasn't looking at her, rather, he was scanning the parking lot, his body angled towards the street. He looked like a soldier expecting an ambush.
"We're out of time," he said quietly. He didn't look at her. He kept scanning.
Just then, headlights swung into the parking lot.
A black SUV. No markings. No license plate. It barreled towards them, engine roaring, tires screaming against the ground, and it did not slow down.
- Writer
