The Fury

'Look at her' was all he said.

A hand cupped Elena's chin, tilting her face up. She met Damon's narrowed dark eyes directly. Then long, slender fingers touched her lips, probing between them. Instinctively Elena tried to bite, but not very hard. Damon's finger found the sharp curve of a canine tooth, and Elena did bite now, giving it a nip like a kitten's.

Damon's face was expressionless, his eyes hard.

'Do you know where you are?' he said.

Elena glanced around. Trees. 'In the woods,' she said craftily, looking back at him.

'And who is that?'

She followed his pointing finger. 'Stefan,' she said indifferently. 'Your brother.'

'And who am I? Do you know who I am?' She smiled up at him, showing him her pointed teeth. 'Of course I do. You're Damon, and I love you.'

TWO

Stefan's voice was quietly savage. 'That's what you wanted, wasn't it, Damon? And now you've got it. You had to make her like us, like you. It wasn't enough just to kill her.'

Damon didn't glance back at him. He was looking at Elena intently through those hooded eyes, still kneeling there holding her chin. 'That's the third time you've said that, and I'm getting a little tired of it,' he commented softly. Disheveled, still slightly out of breath, he was yet self-composed, in control. 'Elena, did I kill you?'

'Of course not,' Elena said, winding her fingers in those of his free hand. She was getting impatient. What were they talking about anyway? Nobody had been killed.

'I never thought you were a liar,' Stefan said to Damon, the bitterness in his voice unchanged. 'Just about everything else, but not that. I've never heard you try to cover up for yourself before.'

'In another minute,' said Damon, 'I'm going to lose my temper.'

What more can you possibly do to me? Stefan returned. Killing me would be a mercy.

'I ran out of mercy for you a century ago,' Damon said aloud. He let go, finally, of Elena's chin. 'What do you remember about today?' he asked her.

Elena spoke tiredly, like a child reciting a hated lesson. 'Today was the Founders' Day celebration.' Flexing her fingers in his, she looked up at Damon. That was as far as she could get on her own, but it wasn't enough. Nettled, she tried to remember something else.

'There was someone in the cafeteria… Caroline.' She offered the name to him, pleased. 'She was going to read my diary in front of everyone, and that was bad because…' Elena fumbled with the memory and lost it. 'I don't remember why. But we tricked her.' She smiled at him warmly, conspiratorially.

'Oh, 'we' did, did we?'

'Yes. You got it away from her. You did it for me.' The fingers of her free hand crept under his jacket, searching for the square-cornered hardness of the little book. 'Because you love me,' she said, finding it and scratching at it lightly. 'You do love me, don't you?'

There was a faint sound from the center of the clearing. Elena looked and saw that Stefan had turned his face away.

'Elena. What happened next?' Damon's voice called her back.

'Next? Next Aunt Judith started arguing with me.' Elena pondered this a moment and at last shrugged. 'Over… something. I got angry. She's not my mother. She can't tell me what to do.'

Damon's voice was dry. 'I don't think that's going to be a problem anymore. What next?'

Elena sighed heavily. 'Next I went and got Matt's car. Matt.' She said the name reflectively, flicking her tongue over her canine teeth. In her mind's eye, she saw a handsome face, blond hair, sturdy shoulders. 'Matt.'

'And where did you go in Matt's car?'

'To Wickery Bridge,' Stefan said, turning back toward them. His eyes were desolate.

'No, to the boardinghouse,' Elena corrected, irritated. 'To wait for… mm… I forget. Anyway, I waited there. Then… then the storm started. Wind, rain, all that. I didn't like it. I got in the car. But something came after me.'

'Someone came after you,' said Stefan, looking at Damon.

'Some thing,' Elena insisted. She had had enough of his interruptions. 'Let's go away somewhere, just us,' she said to Damon, kneeling up so that her face was close to his.

'In a minute,' he said. 'What kind of thing came after you?'

She settled back, exasperated. 'I don't know what kind of thing! It was like nothing I've ever seen. Not like you and Stefan. It was…' Images rippled through her mind. Mist flowing along the ground. The wind shrieking. A shape, white, enormous, looking as if it were made out of mist itself. Gaining on her like a wind-driven cloud.

'Maybe it was just part of the storm,' she said. 'But I thought it wanted to hurt me. I got away though.' Fiddling with the zipper to Damon's leather jacket, she smiled secretly and looked up at him through her lashes.

For the first time, Damon's face showed emotion. His lips twisted in a grimace. 'You got away.'

'Yes. I remembered what… someone… told me about running water. Evil things can't cross it. So I drove toward Drowning Creek, toward the bridge. And then…' She hesitated, frowning, trying to find a solid memory in the new confusion. Water. She remembered water. And someone screaming. But nothing else. 'And then I crossed it,' she concluded finally, brightly. 'I must have, because here I am. And that's all. Can we go now?'

Damon didn't answer her.

'The car's still in the river,' said Stefan. He and Damon were looking at each other like two adults having a discussion over the head of an uncomprehending child, their hostilities suspended for the moment. Elena felt a surge of annoyance. She opened her mouth, but Stefan was continuing. 'Bonnie and Meredith and I found it. I went underwater and got her, but by then…'

By then, what? Elena frowned.

Damon's lips were curved mockingly. 'And you gave up on her? You, of all people, should have suspected what might happen. Or was the idea so repugnant to you that you couldn't even consider it? Would you rather she were really dead?'

'She had no pulse, no respiration!' Stefan flared. 'And she'd never had enough blood to change her!' His eyes hardened. 'Not from me anyway.'

Elena opened her mouth again, but Damon laid two fingers on it to keep her quiet. He said smoothly, 'And that's the problem now—or are you too blind to see that, too? You told me to look at her; look at her yourself. She's in shock, irrational. Oh, yes, even I admit that.' He paused for a blinding smile before going on. 'It's more than just the normal confusion after changing. She'll need blood, human blood, or her body won't have the strength to finish the change. She'll die.'

What do you mean irrational? Elena thought indignantly. 'I'm fine,' she said around Damon's fingers. 'I'm tired, that's all. I was going to sleep when I heard you two fighting, and I came to help you. And then you wouldn't even let me kill him,' she finished, disgusted.

'Yes, why didn't you?' said Stefan. He was staring at Damon as if he could bore holes through him with his eyes. Any trace of cooperation on his part was gone. 'It would have been the easiest thing to do.'

Damon stared back at him, suddenly furious, his own animosity flooding up to meet Stefan's. He was breathing quickly and lightly. 'Maybe I don't like things easy,' he hissed. Then he seemed to regain control of himself once more. His lips curled in mockery, and he added, 'Put it this way, dear brother: if anyone's going to have the satisfaction of killing you, it will be me. No one else. I plan to take care of the job personally. And it's something I'm very good at; I promise you.'

'You've shown us that,' Stefan said quietly, as if each word sickened him.

'But this one,' Damon said, turning to Elena with glittering eyes, 'I didn't kill. Why should I? I could have changed her any time I liked.'

'Maybe because she had just gotten engaged to marry someone else.'

Damon lifted Elena's hand, still twined with his. On the third finger a gold ring glittered, set with one deep blue stone. Elena frowned at it, vaguely remembering having seen it before. Then she shrugged and leaned against Damon wearily.

'Well, now,' Damon said, looking down at her, 'that doesn't seem to be much of a problem, does it? I think