because it was getting dark — twilight outside the clearing, true darkness coming into it.
She tried again to lift herself up, and this time she succeeded. Almost immediately a hand was extended to her and, automatically, she took it, letting it draw her to her feet.
She faced — whoever it was, Damon or whatever was using his features or his body. Despite the almost- darkness, he still wore those wraparound sunglasses. She could make nothing out of the rest of his face.
“Now,” the thing in the sunglasses said. “You’re going to come with me.”
It was nearing full dark, and they were in the clearing that was a beast.
This place — it was unwholesome. She was afraid of the clearing as she had never been afraid of a person or creature. It resounded with malevolence, and she couldn’t shut her ears to it.
She had to keep thinking, and keep thinking straight, she thought.
She was terribly frightened for Matt; frightened that Damon had taken too much blood or had played too hard with his toy; breaking it.
And she was afraid of this Damon thing. She was also worried about the influence this place might have had on the real Damon. The woods around them shouldn’t have any effect on vampires, except to hurt them. Was the possible-Damon inside the possessor hurt? If he could understand anything of what was happening, could he distinguish that hurt from his hurt and anger at Stefan?
She didn’t know. She did know that there had been a terrible look in his eyes when Stefan had told him to get out of the boardinghouse. And she did know that there were creatures in the forest, malach, that could influence a person’s mind. She was afraid, deeply afraid, that the malach were using Damon now, blackening his darkest desires and twisting him into something horrible, something he had never been even at his worst.
But how could she be sure? How could she know whether or not there was something else behind the malach, something that controlled them? Her soul was telling her that this might be the case, that Damon might be completely unconscious of what his body was doing, but that might just be wishful thinking.
Certainly all she could sense around her were small, evil creatures. She could feel them encircling the clearing, strange insect-like beings like the one that had attacked Matt. They were in a furor of excitement, whipping their tentacles around to make a noise almost like a buzzing helicopter.
Were they influencing Damon now? Certainly, he had never before hurt any of the other humans she knew the way he had today. She had to get all three of them out of this place. It was diseased, contaminated. Once again she felt a wave of longing for Stefan, who might know what to do in this situation.
She turned, slowly, to look at Damon.
“May I call someone to come and help Matt? I’m afraid to leave him here; I’m afraid they’ll get him.” Just as well to let him know that she knew they were hiding in the liverwort and the rhododendron and mountain holly bushes all around.
Damon hesitated; he seemed to consider it. Then he shook his head.
“We wouldn’t want to give them too many clues to where you are,” he said cheerily. “It’ll be an interesting experiment to see if the malach do get him — and how they do it.”
“It wouldn’t be an interesting experiment for me.” Elena’s voice was flat. “Matt is my friend.”
“Nevertheless, we’ll leave him here for now. I don’t trust you — even to give me a message to Meredith or Bonnie — to send on my phone.”
Elena didn’t say anything. As a matter of fact, he was right not to trust her, as she and Meredith and Bonnie had worked out an elaborate code of harmless-sounding phrases as soon as they knew that Damon was after Elena. A lifetime ago for her — literally — but she could still remember them.
Silently, she simply followed Damon to the Ferrari.
She was responsible for Matt.
“You’re not putting up much of an argument this time, and I wonder what you’re plotting.”
“I’m plotting that we might as well get on with it. If you’ll tell me what ‘it’ is,” she said, more bravely than she felt.
“Well, now what ‘it’ is, is up to you.” Damon gave Matt a kick in the ribs in passing. He was now pacing in a circle around the clearing, which seemed smaller than ever, a circle which didn’t include her. She took a few paces toward him — and slipped. She didn’t know how it happened. Maybe the giant animal breathed. Maybe it was just the slick pine needles under her boots.
But one moment she was heading for Matt and the next her feet had gone out from under her and she was heading for the ground with nothing to grab onto.
And then, smoothly and unhurriedly, she was in Damon’s arms. With centuries of Virginian etiquette behind her she automatically said, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Yes, she thought. That’s all it means. It is his pleasure, and that’s all that matters.
That was when she noticed that they were headed for her Jaguar.
“Oh, no, we don’t,” she said.
“Oh, yes, we will — if I please,” he said. “Unless you want to see your friend Matt suffer like that again. At some point his heart will give out.”
“Damon.” She pushed her way out of his arms, standing on her own feet. “I don’t understand. This isn’t like you. Take what you want and go.”
He just kept looking at her. “I was doing just that.”
“You don’t have to”—for the life of her, she couldn’t keep a tremor out of her voice—“take me anywhere special to take my blood. And Matt won’t know. He’s out.”
For a long moment there was silence in the clearing. Utter silence. The night birds and the crickets stopped making their music. Suddenly Elena felt as if she were on some kind of thrill ride that plummeted down, leaving her stomach and organs still at the top. Then Damon put it in words.
“I want you. Exclusively.”
Elena braced herself, trying to keep a clear head despite the fog that seemed to be invading it.
“You know that that’s not possible.”
“I know that it was possible for Stefan. When you were with him, you didn’t think about anything but him. You couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything but him.”
Elena’s goose flesh now covered her whole body. Speaking carefully around the obstruction in her throat, she said, “Damon, did you do something to Stefan?”
“Now, why would I want to do something like that?”
Very low, Elena said, “You and I both know why.”
“Do you mean,” Damon started out speaking casually, but his voice grew more intense as he gripped her shoulders, “so that you would see nothing but me, hear nothing but me, think of nothing but me?”
Still quietly, still controlling her terror, Elena said, “Take off the sunglasses, Damon.”
Damon glanced upwards and around as if to reassure himself that no last ray of sunset could pierce the green-gray world that surrounded them. Then with one hand, he stripped off the sunglasses.
Elena found herself looking into eyes that were so black there seemed to be no difference between iris and pupil. She…turned a switch in her brain, did something so that all her senses were tuned onto Damon’s face, his expression, the Power circulating through him.
His eyes were still as black as the depths of an unexplored cave. No red. But then, he’d had time, this time to get ready for her.
I believe what I saw before, Elena thought. With my own eyes.
“Damon, I’ll do anything, anything you want. But you have to tell me.Did you do something to Stefan?”
“Stefan was still high on your blood when he left you,” he reminded her, and before she could speak to deny this—“and, to answer your question precisely, I don’t know where he is. On that, you have my word. But in any case, it’s true, what you were thinking earlier,” he added, as Elena tried to step away, to get out of the grip he had on her upper arms. “I’m the only one, Elena. The only one you haven’t conquered. The only one you can’t manipulate. Intriguing, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, in spite of her fear, she was furious. “Then why hurt Matt? He’s just a friend. What’s he got to do with it?”
“Just a friend.” And Damon began to laugh the way he had before, eerily.
“Well, I know he didn’t have anything to do with Stefan leaving,” Elena snapped.
