passed out.
“Matt!” For her part, Elena had been frozen, her muscles locked, unable to move for what seemed like forever. Suddenly released, she ran to Matt, pulled him up into her lap, stared into his face.
Then she looked up.
“Damon,why? Why?” Suddenly she realized that although Matt wasn’t conscious, he was still writhing in pain. She had to keep herself from screaming the words, to only speak forcefully. “Why are you doing this? Damon! Stop it.”
She stared up at the young man dressed all in black: black jeans with a black belt, black boots, black leather jacket, black hair, and those damned Ray-Bans.
“I told you,” Damon said casually. “It’s something I need to do. To watch. Painful death.”
“Death!”Elena stared at Damon in disbelief. And then she began gathering all her Power, in a way that had been so easy and instinctual just days ago while she had been mute and not subject to gravity, and that was so difficult and so foreign right now. With determination, she said, “If you don’t let him go — now — I’ll hit you with everything I’ve got.”
He laughed. She’d never seen Damon really laugh before, not like this. “And you expect that I’ll even notice your tiny Power?”
“Not that tiny.” Elena weighed it grimly. It was no more than the intrinsic Power of any human being — the Power that vampires took from humans along with the blood they drank — but since becoming a spirit, she knew how to use it. How to attack with it. “I think you’ll feel it, Damon. Let him go — NOW!”
“Why do people always assume that volume will succeed when logic won’t?” Damon murmured.
Elena let him have it.
Or at least she prepared to. She took the deep breath necessary, held her inner self still, and imagined herself holding a ball of white fire, and then Matt was on his feet. He looked as if he’d been dragged to his feet and was being held there like a puppet, and his eyes were involuntarily watering, but it was better than Matt writhing on the ground.
“You owe me,” Damon said to Elena casually. “I’ll collect later.”
To Matt he said, in the tones of a fond uncle, with one of those instantaneous smiles that you could never be quite sure you saw, “Lucky for me that you’re a hardy specimen, isn’t it?”
“Damon.” Elena had seen Damon in his let’s-play-with-weaker-creatures mood, and it was the one she liked least. But there was something off today; something she couldn’t understand. “Let’s get down to it,” she said, while the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose again. “What do you really want?”
But he didn’t give the answer she expected.
“I was officially appointed as your caretaker. I’m officially taking care of you. And for one thing, I don’t think you should be without my protection and companionship while my little brother is gone.”
“I can handle myself,” Elena said flatly, waving a hand so they could get down to the real issue.
“You’re a very pretty girl. Dangerous and”—flash smile—“unsavory elements could be after you. I insist you have a bodyguard.”
“Damon, right now the thing I need most is to be protected from you. You know that. What is this really about?”
The clearing was…pulsing. Almost as if it were something organic, breathing. Elena had the feeling that beneath her feet — beneath Meredith’s old, rugged hiking boots — the ground was moving slightly, like a great sleeping animal, and the trees were like a beating heart.
For what? The forest? There was more dead wood than live here. And she could swear that she knew Damon well enough to know that he didn’t like trees or woods.
It was at times like this that Elena wished she still had wings. Wings and the knowledge — the hand motions, the Words of White Power, the white fire inside her that would allow her to know the truth without trying to figure it out, or to simply blast annoyances back to Stonehenge.
It seemed that all she’d been left with was being a greater temptation to vampires than ever, and her wits.
Wits had worked up until now. Maybe if she didn’t let Damon know how afraid she was, she could win a stay of execution for them.
“Damon, I thank you for being concerned about me. Now would you mind leaving Matt and me for a moment so that I can tell if he’s still breathing?”
From inside the Ray-Bans, she thought she could discern a single flash of red.
“Somehow I thought you might say that,” Damon said. “And, of course, it’s your right to have consolation after being so treacherously abandoned. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, for example.”
Elena wanted to swear. Carefully, she answered, “Damon, if Stefan appointed you as my bodyguard, then he hardly ‘treacherously abandoned’ me, did he? You can’t have it both—”
“Just indulge me in one thing, all right?” Damon said in the voice of one whose next words are going to be. Be careful or Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
There was silence. The dust devils had stopped whirling. The smell of sun-warmed pine needles and pine resin in this dim place was making her languid, dizzy. The ground was warm, too, and the pine needles were all aligned, as if the slumbering animal had pine needles for fur. Elena watched dust motes turn and sparkle like opals in the golden sunlight. She knew she wasn’t at her best right now; not her sharpest. Finally, when she was sure her voice would be steady, she asked, “What do you want?”
“A kiss.”
Bonnie was disturbed and confused. It was dark.
“All right,” a voice that was brusque and calming at once was saying. “That’s two possible concussions, one puncture wound in need of a tetanus shot — and — well, I’m afraid I’ve got to sedate your girl, Jim. And I’m going to need help, but you’re not allowed to move at all. You just lie back and keep your eyes shut.”
Bonnie opened her own eyes. She had a vague memory of falling forward onto her bed. But she wasn’t at home; she was still at the Saitou house, lying on a couch.
As always, when in confusion or fear, she looked for Meredith. Meredith was just returning from the kitchen with a makeshift ice pack. She put it on Bonnie’s already wet forehead.
“I just fainted,” Bonnie explained, as she herself figured it out. “That’s all.”
“I know you fainted. You cracked your head pretty hard on the floor,” Meredith replied, and for once her face was perfectly readable: worry and sympathy and relief were all visible. She actually had tears pooling in her eyes. “Oh, Bonnie, I couldn’t get to you in time. Isobel was in the way, and those tatami mats don’t cushion the floor much — and you’ve been out for almost half an hour! You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.” Bonnie fumbled a hand out a blanket she seemed to be wrapped in and gave Meredith’s hand a squeeze. It meant velociraptor sisterhood is still in action. It also meant thank you for caring.
Jim was sprawled on another couch holding an ice pack to the back of his head. His face was greenish-white. He tried to stand up but Dr. Alpert — it was her voice that was both crusty and kind — pushed him back onto the couch.
“You don’t need any more exertion,” she said. “But I do need an assistant. Meredith, can you help me with Isobel? It sounds as if she’s going to be quite a handful.”
“She hit me in the back of the head with a lamp,” Jim warned them. “Don’t ever turn your back on her.”
“We’ll be careful,” Dr. Alpert said.
“You two stay here,” Meredith added firmly.
Bonnie was watching Meredith’s eyes. She wanted to get up to help them with Isobel. But Meredith had that special look of determination that meant it was better not to argue.
As soon as they left, Bonnie tried to stand up. But immediately she began to see the pulsating gray nothingness that meant she was going to pass out again.
She lay back down, teeth gritted.
For a long time there were crashes and shouts from Isobel’s room. Bonnie would hear Dr. Alpert’s voice
