The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unseen Read Free Page B

questions about weaponry.
    She sighed, dutifully fixing her eyes back on Meredith. It was possible, Bonnie admitted to herself, that she was a little bit jealous. They hadn’t asked her for help at all in tracking down Celine.
    Bonnie was good at fighting evil. It was just that, as her friends had become even more superpowered—faster, stronger, in Elena’s case
immortal
—it was possible that they didn’t really
need
her.
    Bonnie pushed the feeling away and took another sip of her drink.
Stop being ridiculous
, she told herself firmly.
    Meredith was reaching the end of her story—Stefan was about to cut Celine’s head off, as the Old One writhed in her death spasms—when Zander caught Bonnie’s eye and suddenly hopped to his feet, knocking his tiny gilt chair over with a clatter.
    “Whoops,” he said, winking at Bonnie as he sauntered closer. She grinned back at him. Maybe she hadn’t been doing as good a job of hiding her emotions as she’d thought. “Time to toast the birthday girl,” he announced, and everyone climbed to their feet.
    “Okay,” Zander said thoughtfully. “I’ll go first. What is there to say about Bonnie McCullough that you don’t all know already?” He pulled her closer, wrapping a warm, strong arm around her shoulder, and she leaned happily into him. “Well, there was the first night we moved into our apartment. It felt weird being in this brand-new place, and I couldn’t sleep. But then Bonnie started telling me all about these myths she’d been reading about selkies. She was so smart and looked so gorgeous with the moonlight shining on her, that I would have fallen in love with her right then and there if I wasn’t already fully and completely in love. And I thought, as I fell asleep,
Moving in with Bonnie is the best decision I ever made.
” He kissed her briefly, the corners of his sea-blue eyes crinkling affectionately, and raised his glass. “Which of course I already knew. To Bonnie!”
    They all drank, and then Meredith cleared her throat. “I couldn’t have gotten through the wedding without Bonnie,” she said. Her olive cheeks flushed slightly as she added, “You all know what my parents are like. When I couldn’t stand them taking over the wedding planning anymore, Bonnie and Elena would kidnap me and take me somewhere on a ‘sanity outing.’ The very best sanity outing was Bonnie’s idea.”
    Elena started to laugh. “This was
completely
Bonnie’s idea.”
    “They took me to the batting cages down at the park,” Meredith went on, “and slapped a batting helmet on me and turned on the machine, and I whammed balls around until I didn’t feel like running off to Vegas to elope anymore. And Bonnie sat there and shouted advice at me and bought me a hot dog when I was done.” She slung an arm around Bonnie and hugged her tightly, pressing a cool cheek to hers. “Best friends ever.”
    “Me next,” Elena said, as Meredith let go of Bonnie. “So, as you’ll recall, Bonnie and Meredith and I spent all four years of college rooming together. When we graduated last summer, it was”—she shrugged—“scary. We weren’t going to be there for each other every minute anymore. That last night, Bonnie decided we were going to have a slumber party just like the ones we had in junior high. We did one another’s hair and nails and prank-called our boyfriends—”
    “I was very surprised,” Alaric added solemnly.
    “It was a silly night,” Elena said, “and it took Meredith and me a little while to get into the spirit of it, but Bonnie coaxed us along, and it ended up being perfect. Sisterhood.” As Elena raised her glass, Bonnie suddenly remembered how Elena had looked that night, her usually perfect hair in a hundred sloppy braids, laughing in pink pajamas. Elena, she thought, needed to laugh more.
    “Velociraptor sisterhood,” she corrected, and Elena smiled at their old private joke.
    Matt stepped forward a little. “My favorite memory of Bonnie