Smart girl. She was probably unrecognizable by now, and anyway, who cared if they noticed the resemblance between her and the late, great Elena Gilbert? She could be Elena’s cousin from Philadelphia.
So she’d gone, one, two, three…eight steps — and there was the Dunstan house. Matt could see lights. Matt could smell horses. Excitedly, he ran the rest of the way — taking a few falls that didn’t do his aching body any good, but still heading straight for the back porch light. The Dunstans weren’t front porch people.
When he got to the door, he pounded on it almost frenziedly. He’d found her. He’d found Elena!
It seemed a long time before the door opened a crack. Matt automatically wedged his foot in the crack while thinking, Yes, good, you’re cautious people. Not the type to let a vampire in after you’d just seen a girl covered in blood.
“Yes? What do you want?”
“It’s me, Matt Honeycutt,” he said to the eye that he could see peering out of the slit of open door. “I’ve come for El — for the girl.”
“What girl are you talking about?” the voice said gruffly.
“Look, you don’t have to worry. It’s me — Jake knows me from school. And Kristin knows me, too. I’ve come to help.”
Something in the sincerity of his voice seemed to strike a chord in the person behind the door. It was opened to reveal a large, dark-haired man who was wearing an under-shirt and needed a shave. Behind him, in the living room was a tall, thin, almost gaunt woman. She looked as if she had been crying. Behind both of them was Jake, who’d been a year senior to Matt at Robert E. Lee High.
“Jake,” Matt said. But he got no answer back except a dull look of anguish.
“What’s wrong?”Matt demanded, terrified. “A girl came by here a while ago — she was hurt — but — but — you let her in, right?”
“No girl’s come by here,” said Mr. Dunstan flatly.
“She had to have. I followed her trail — she left a trail in blood, do you understand, almost up to your door.” Matt wasn’t letting himself think. Somehow, if he kept telling the facts loudly enough, they would produce Elena.
“More trouble,” Jake said, but in a dull voice that went with his expression.
Mrs. Dunstan seemed the most sympathetic. “We heard a voice out in the night, but when we looked, there was no one there. And we have troubles of our own.”
It was then, right on cue, that Kristin burst into the room. Matt stared at her with a feeling of deja vu. She was dressed up something like Tami Bryce. She had cut off the bottoms of her jeans shorts until they were practically nonexistent. On top she was wearing a bikini top, but with — Matt hastily turned his eyes away — two big round holes cut just where Tami had had round pieces of cardboard. And she’d decorated herself with glitter glue.
God! She’s only, what, twelve? Thirteen? How could she possibly be acting this way?
But the next moment, his whole body was vibrating in shock. Kristin had pasted herself against him and was cooing, “Matt Honey-butt! You came to see me!”
Matt breathed carefully to get over his shock.Matt Honey-butt. She couldn’t know that. She didn’t even go to the same school as Tami did. Why would Tami have called her and — told her something like that?
He shook his head, as if to clear it. Then he looked at Mrs. Dunstan, who had seemed kindest. “Can I use your phone?” he asked. “I need — I really need to make a couple of calls.”
“The phone’s been down since yesterday,” Mr. Dunstan said harshly. He didn’t try to move Kristin away from Matt, which was odd because he was clearly angry. “Probably a fallen tree. And you know mobile phones don’t work out here.”
“But—” Matt’s mind spun into overdrive. “You really mean that no teenage girl came up to your house asking for help? A girl with blond hair and blue eyes? I swear, I’m not the one who hurt her. I swear I want to help her.”
“Matt Honey-butt? I’m making a tattoo, just for you.” Still pressed up behind him, Kristin extended her left arm. Matt stared at it, horrified. She had obviously used needles or a pin to prick holes in her left forearm, and then opened a fountain pen’s cartridge of ink to supply the dark blue color. It was your basic prison-type tattoo, done by a child. The straggling letters M A T were already visible, along with a smudge of ink that was probably going to be another T.
No wonder they weren’t thrilled about letting me in, Matt thought, dazed. Now Kristin had both arms around his waist, making it hard to breathe. She was on tiptoe, talking to him, whispering rapidly some of the obscene things Tami had said.
He stared at Mrs. Dunstan. “Honest, I haven’t even seen Kristin for — it must be nearly a year. We had an end of the year carnival, and Kristin helped with the pony rides, but…”
Mrs. Dunstan was nodding slowly. “It’s not your fault. She’s been acting the same way with Jake. Her own brother. And with — with her father. But I’m telling you the truth; we haven’t seen any other girl. No one but you has come to the door today.”
“Okay.” Matt’s eyes were watering. His brain, attuned first of all to his own survival, was telling him to save his breath, not to argue. Telling him to say, “Kristin — I really can’t breathe—”
“But I love you, Matt Honey-butt. I don’t want you to ever leave me. Especially for that old whore. That old whore with worms in her eye-sockets…”
Again Matt felt the sense of the world rocking. But he couldn’t gasp. He didn’t have the air. Pop-eyed, he turned helplessly toward Mr. Dunstan, who was closest.
“Can’t — breathe—” How could a thirteen-year-old be so strong? It was taking both Mr. Dunstan and Jake to pry her off him. No, even that wasn’t working. He was beginning to see a gray network pulsating before his eyes. He needed air.
There was a sharp crack that ended with a meaty sound. And then another. Suddenly he could breathe again.
“No, Jacob! No more!” Mrs. Dunstan cried. “She let him go — don’t hit her anymore!”
When Matt’s vision cleared, Mr. Dunstan was doing up his belt. Kristin was wailing, “Just you waaa — hate! Just youwaa-haate! You’ll besor- ry!” Then she rushed from the room.
“I don’t know if this helps or makes it worse,” Matt said when he’d gotten his breath back, “but Kristin isn’t the only girl acting this way. There’s at least one other one in the town—”
“All I care about is my Kristin,” Mrs. Dunstan said. “And that…thing isn’t her.”
Matt nodded. But there was something he needed to do now. He had to find Elena.
“If a blond girl does come to the door and asks for help, will you please let her in?” he asked Mrs. Dunstan. “Please? But don’t let any guys in — not even me if you don’t want,” he blurted.
For a moment his eyes and Mrs. Dunstan’s eyes met, and he felt a connection. Then she nodded and hastened to get him out of the house.
All right, Matt thought. Elena was headed for here, but she didn’t quite get here. So look at the signs.
He looked. And what the signs showed him was that, within a few feet of the Dunstan property, she had inexplicably turned sharply right, deeply into the forest.
Why? Had something scared her? Or had she — Matt felt sick to his stomach — somehow been tricked into hobbling on and on, until at last she left all human help behind?
All he could do was to follow her into the woods.
“Elena!”
Something was bothering her.
“Elena!”
Please, no more pain. She couldn’t feel it right now, but she could remember…oh, no more fighting for air…
“Elena!”
No…just let it be. Mentally, Elena pushed away the thing that bothered her ears and her head.
“Elena, please…”
