Chapter 3: Settling Shadows
POV: Adam
The guest room at the Forbes house smelled like lavender fabric softener and old wood polish, a combination that should have been comforting but instead made Adam's skin crawl with the wrongness of wearing someone else's life. Caroline had clearly put effort into making the space welcoming—fresh sheets, a small stack of books on the nightstand, even a framed photo of the three of them from some summer barbecue that lived only in the original Adam's memories.
He set his hospital bag on the dresser and pulled out the few belongings that constituted his entire earthly possessions: clothes that felt foreign against his skin, a wallet full of someone else's identification, and a phone buzzing with messages from people whose faces he remembered but whose friendships he'd never actually built.
"Home sweet borrowed home," he thought, running his fingers along the edge of the dresser. The wood was real, solid, grounding him in the physical reality of his situation. Whatever else was true—system interfaces, transmigration, vampires lurking in the shadows of small-town Virginia—this room was real. The Forbes family's care was real. The responsibility settling on his shoulders was real.
Through the window, he could see Caroline in the backyard, repositioning the porch furniture for the third time in ten minutes. Nervous energy made manifest in domestic perfectionism.
A soft knock interrupted his unpacking. Liz stood in the doorway, holding a manila folder thick with papers and wearing the expression of someone about to discuss unpleasant necessities.
"Mind if I come in? We should probably go over the financial details while Caroline's distracted."
Adam gestured to the small chair by the window. "Please. I've been wondering how complicated this was going to get."
Liz settled into the chair, spreading the papers across her lap with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd spent years navigating bureaucracy.
"The trust fund is... substantial," she said carefully. "Your parents were very successful, and they were very paranoid about making sure you'd be taken care of if anything happened to them."
She handed him a bank statement that made his eyes widen despite himself. The monthly allowance alone was more than most families made in three months. The total fund value was enough to buy a small island.
"Jesus," he breathed, then caught himself. "Sorry, I just... I knew they were comfortable, but this is..."
"Overwhelming?" Liz's smile was understanding. "Your father always said money was a tool, not a trophy. He wanted to make sure you'd have options, not obligations."
The choice of words sent a chill down Adam's spine. Options, not obligations. It sounded like something someone would say if they were planning for their child to need to run, to disappear, to start over somewhere far from whatever had killed them.
"About those unusual circumstances you mentioned," Adam said slowly, "what exactly did the insurance investigator find?"
Liz's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the papers. "Brake lines that failed too cleanly. Impact patterns that didn't quite match the road conditions. Small things that individually could be explained away, but together..."
"Together they spell murder."
"That's what I'm afraid of." She met his eyes directly. "Which is why I need you to understand something, Adam. The money from this trust fund—it's not just yours. It's evidence. It's motive. And whoever killed your parents might not be finished."
The system interface pulsed at the edge of his vision, not with information but with what felt like acknowledgment. Whatever game he'd been dropped into, the stakes were already higher than he'd realized.
"So when I offer to help with household expenses," Adam said, "I'm not just being generous. I'm potentially painting a target on this family."
"I won't lie to you—the thought had crossed my mind." Liz leaned forward, her sheriff instincts clearly warring with her maternal ones. "But keeping you isolated, keeping you away from the people who care about you... that's not protection. That's just another kind of prison."
"And in this universe," Adam thought, "isolation is death. Caroline's going to need allies when Damon comes for her. I'm going to need backup when Katherine decides I'm a threat. Family is armor, not liability."
"Then let's do this right," he said, pulling out his phone. "What bills can I help with without making it obvious that there's suddenly a small fortune floating around?"
They spent the next hour going through the mundane details of domestic finance—utility bills, grocery budgets, Caroline's car payment. Normal, boring, wonderfully ordinary concerns that had nothing to do with supernatural predators or ancient curses.
But as they talked, Adam noticed something in the background papers: a photo album that Liz had brought up from the basement, apparently part of the material related to his parents' investigation. The cover was embossed leather, expensive and old-fashioned, the kind of thing meant to preserve important memories.
"What's that one?" he asked, nodding toward the album.
"Photos your parents had in their safety deposit box. I thought you might want to go through them, see if there's anything..." She trailed off, clearly unsure how to finish the sentence.
Adam opened the album carefully, expecting family vacations and birthday parties. Instead, he found page after page of images that made no immediate sense: old buildings in what looked like downtown Mystic Falls, but from decades or maybe centuries ago. Groups of stern-faced people in period clothing. And scattered throughout, symbols that made his skin crawl with recognition he shouldn't have possessed.
Founding families crests. Council insignia. The geometric patterns that would later show up carved into tomb walls and witch grimoires.
"His parents weren't just investigating their own danger," Adam realized. "They were investigating the town's supernatural history. They found something, and something found them first."
"Adam?" Liz's voice sounded far away. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"In this town, that's always a possibility," he thought, but said, "Just trying to process it all. The idea that they were working on something dangerous enough to get them killed."
"We'll figure it out," Liz said firmly. "Together. But for now, let's focus on getting you settled. Caroline will have my head if I keep you locked up in here much longer—she's been planning your reintegration schedule since yesterday."
As if summoned by her name, Caroline appeared in the doorway, practically vibrating with suppressed excitement.
"Are you done with the boring grown-up stuff? Because I have approximately seventeen things we need to do before dinner, starting with grocery shopping because our pantry looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland."
Adam grinned, grateful for the excuse to set aside mysteries and murders in favor of normal sibling interactions.
"Seventeen things? That seems excessive, even for you."
"Okay, fine, maybe it's more like five things. But they're important things! We need to get you school supplies, and decent shampoo because the stuff Mom buys makes your hair look like straw, and—"
"Wait, what's wrong with my hair?"
Caroline and Liz exchanged a look that spoke volumes about the Forbes family's opinion of Adam's grooming habits.
"Nothing that can't be fixed with better products and possibly a small miracle," Caroline said sweetly.
After Liz left them to their sibling plotting, Adam found himself alone with Caroline for the first time since waking up in someone else's life. The easy banter felt natural, built on years of shared jokes and mutual affection that he remembered but had never actually experienced. It was like being an actor who'd studied the script so thoroughly that the role became second nature.
But underneath the performance, something genuine was growing. Protective instincts that had nothing to do with the original Adam's memories and everything to do with the girl currently reorganizing his dresser drawers with military precision.
"She's going to be the first person Damon targets," he thought, watching Caroline fold his shirts with the same focused intensity she brought to everything else. "Beautiful, insecure, desperate to be noticed and loved. The perfect victim."
The thought sent a surge of rage through him that was entirely his own. This wasn't about game mechanics or power leveling or even survival anymore. This was about family, and the fierce protective instinct that came with it.
"Which means I need to be stronger," he decided. "Strong enough to matter when it counts."
"Caroline," he said, interrupting her explanation of optimal sock organization techniques, "what's the deal with your shampoo anyway? You change brands like some people change clothes."
Caroline paused in her folding, a slight flush creeping up her neck.
"It's not that bad. I just... I like trying new things. Seeing if there's something better out there."
"Always searching for improvement," Adam realized. "Always worried that who she is right now isn't good enough." The vulnerability in that admission made his chest ache.
"You know," he said casually, "I was thinking about switching up my routine too. Maybe we could sabotage each other's products occasionally. Keep things interesting."
Caroline's eyes lit up with mischief. "Are you suggesting a prank war?"
"I'm suggesting that life's too short for boring bathrooms."
"And too dangerous for missed opportunities to make you laugh," he added silently. "Every happy moment counts when you're living on borrowed time."
Evening settled over Mystic Falls like a familiar blanket, bringing with it the kind of small-town quiet that made every sound seem amplified. Adam and Caroline had spent the afternoon in a blur of domestic activity—grocery shopping, room organization, and the delicate dance of learning to live together as family.
But as night fell, the normalcy began to fray at the edges.
Adam was reviewing Caroline's crash course in Mystic Falls High School social dynamics when he heard Liz's phone ring downstairs. Her voice was too quiet to make out words, but the tone—sharp, professional, alarmed—cut through the domestic peace like a blade.
"Something about the cheerleading squad," Caroline was saying, oblivious to the tension creeping into the house. "Elena's basically the unofficial leader even though she's not technically captain, and Bonnie's her best friend but she's more into the whole mysterious witch aesthetic than school spirit."
"Witch aesthetic," Adam thought with dark amusement. "If she only knew."
"And then there's Matt, who's basically the golden boy everyone loves, and Tyler, who's hot but also kind of an ass, and—"
Caroline's chatter cut off abruptly as Liz's voice drifted upstairs, no longer professional whisper but sharp command:
"How many victims? Are you sure it was an animal attack?"
The phrase hit Adam like ice water. Animal attacks. The euphemism Mystic Falls used when vampires got careless about hiding their feeding habits.
"It's starting," he realized, his pulse quickening. "The attacks are beginning, which means Stefan's already in town, which means Damon isn't far behind."
Caroline had gone very still, her typical nervous energy crystallizing into the kind of alert stillness that came from years of being a cop's daughter.
"Mom's using her 'bad things happened' voice," she said quietly.
Adam moved to the window, peering down at the street where everything looked perfectly normal. Porch lights glowing warm and yellow, the occasional car passing at suburban speeds, the kind of peaceful evening that would be shattered soon enough by supernatural predators.
"Hey," Caroline said, her voice smaller than usual, "you don't think... I mean, with everything that's happened to our family lately, you don't think we're cursed or something, do you?"
The question hit closer to home than she could possibly know. In a town where curses were real, where supernatural attention could destroy entire bloodlines, the Forbes family was about to become a target simply by association with him.
"Not cursed," Adam thought. "Just living in the wrong story. But maybe that's the same thing."
"We're not cursed," he said aloud, and tried to make it sound like a promise rather than a hope. "We're just unlucky enough to live in interesting times."
But even as he spoke the words, Liz's voice carried up the stairs one more time, and the phrase that chilled his blood:
"Stefan Salvatore. New student. Anyone know where he's staying?"
"Game time," Adam thought, his hand instinctively moving to where the system interface hummed at the edge of his vision. "The real story starts tomorrow."
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