We’re lucky in one way. We have the Saitou family to help us. You remember Isobel Saitou, who pierced herself so horribly while she was possessed? Since she’s gotten better, she’s become a good friend, and her mother, Mrs. Saitou, and her grandmother, Obaasan, too. They give us amulets — spells to keep evil away, written on Post-it Notes or little cards. We’re so grateful for that kind of help. Someday maybe we can repay them all.
Elena Gilbert put down the pen reluctantly. Shutting her diary meant having to face the things she had been writing about.
Somehow, though, she managed to make herself walk downstairs to the kitchen and take the dinner tray from Mrs. Flowers, who smiled encouragingly at her.
As she set out for the boardinghouse’s storage room, she noticed that her hands were trembling so that the entire tray of food she was carrying jingled. Since there was no access to the storage room from inside, anyone who wanted to see Damon had to go out the front door and around to the addition tacked on near the kitchen garden. Damon’s lair, people were calling it now.
As she passed the garden Elena glanced sideways at the hole in the middle of the angelica patch that was the powered-down Gateway where they’d come back from the Dark Dimension.
She hesitated at the storage room door. She was still trembling, and she knew that was not the right way to face Damon.
Just relax, she told herself. Think of Stefan.
Stefan had had a grim setback when he’d found that there was nothing left of the rose, but he had soon recovered his usual humility and grace, touching Elena’s cheek and saying that he was thankful just to be there with her. That this closeness was all he asked of life. Clean clothes, decent food — freedom — all these were worth fighting for, but Elena was the most important. And Elena had cried.
On the other hand, she knew that Damon had no intention of remaining as he now was. He might do anything, risk anything…to change himself back.
It had actually been Matt who had suggested the star ball as a solution for Damon’s condition. Matt hadn’t understood either the rose or the star ball until it was explained that this star ball, which was probably Misao’s, contained within it most or all of her Power, and that it had become more brilliant as it absorbed the lives that she took. The black rose had probably been created with a liquid from a similar star ball — but no one knew how much or whether it was combined with unknown ingredients. Matt had frowned and asked, if the rose could change a vampire to a human, could a star ball change a human to a vampire?
Elena hadn’t been the only one to see the slow rising of Damon’s bent head, and the glimmer in his eyes as they traveled the length of the room to the star ball filled with Power. Elena could practically hear his logic. Matt might be totally off track… but there was one place a human could be sure to find powerful vampires. In the Dark Dimension — to which there was a Gateway in the boardinghouse’s garden.
The Gateway was closed right now…for lack of Power.
Unlike Stefan, Damon would have absolutely no qualms about what would happen if he had to use all the star ball’s liquid, which would result in the death of Misao.
After all, she was one of the two foxes who had abandoned Stefan to be tortured.
So all bets were off.
Okay, you’re scared; now deal with it, Elena told herself fiercely. Damon’s been in that room for almost fifty hours now — and who knows what he’s been plotting to do to get hold of the star ball. Still, somebody’s got to get him to eat — and when you say “somebody,” face it, it’s you.
Elena had been standing at the door so long that her knees were starting to lock.
She took a deep breath and knocked.
There was no answer, and no light went on inside. Damon was human. It was quite dark outside now.
“Damon?” It was meant to be a call. It came out a whisper.
No answer. No light.
Elena swallowed. He had to be in there.
Elena knocked harder. Nothing. Finally, she tried the knob. To her horror it was unlocked, and it swung open to reveal an interior as dark as the night around Elena, like the maw of a pit.
The fine hairs at the back of Elena’s neck were standing up.
“Damon, I’m coming in,” she managed in a bare whisper, as if to convince herself by her quietness that there was nobody there. “I’ll be silhouetted against the very edge of the porch light. I can’t see anything, so you have all the advantages.
I’m carrying a tray with very hot coffee, cookies, and steak tartar, no seasonings.
You should be able to smell the coffee.”
It was odd, though. Elena’s senses told her that there was no one standing directly in front of her, waiting for her to literally run into him. All right, she thought.
Start with baby steps. Step one. Step two. Step three — I must be well into the room now, but it’s still too dim to see anything. Step four…
A strong arm came out of the darkness and locked in an iron grip around her waist, and a knife pressed against her throat.
Elena saw blackness shot with a sudden gray network, after which the dark closed in overwhelmingly.
Elena couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds. When she came to, everything was the same — although she wondered how she hadn’t lethally cut her own throat on the knife.
She knew that the tray with the dishes and cup had gone flying into the darkness in that first instant when she couldn’t help flinging out her arms. But now she recognized the grip, she recognized the scent, and she understood the reason for the knife. And she was glad that she did, because she was about as proud of fainting as Sage would have been of doing it. She wasn’t a fainter!
Now she willed herself to sag in Damon’s arms, except for where the knife was.
To show him that she was no threat.
“Hello, princess,” a voice like black velvet said into her ear. Elena felt an inner shiver — but not of fear. No, it was more as if her insides were melting. But he didn’t change his grasp on her.
“Damon…” she said huskily, “I’m here to help you. Please let me. For your sake.”
As abruptly as it had come, the iron grip was withdrawn from her waist. The knife stopped pressing into her flesh, although the sharp, stinging feeling at her throat was quite enough to remind her that Damon would have it ready. Substitute fangs.
There was a click, and suddenly the room was too bright.
Slowly, Elena turned to look at Damon. And even now, even when he was pale and rumpled and haggard from not eating, he was so gorgeous that her heart seemed to plummet into darkness. His black hair, falling every which way over his forehead; his perfect, carven features; his arrogant, sensual mouth — right now compressed into a brooding line…
“Where is it, Elena?” he asked briefly. Not what. Where. He knew she wasn’t stupid, and, of course, he knew the humans in the boardinghouse were hiding the star ball from him deliberately.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” Elena whispered.
She saw the helpless softening in his eyes, and he took one step toward her as if he couldn’t help himself, but the next instant he looked grim. “Tell me, and then maybe I’ll have more.”
“I…see. Well, then, we made a system, two days ago,” Elena said quietly.
“Everyone draws lots for it. Then the person who gets the paper with the X takes it from the center of the kitchen table and everyone goes to their rooms and stays there until the person with the star ball hides it. I didn’t get the lot today, so I don’t know where it is. But you can try to — test me.” Elena could feel her body cringing as she said the last words, feeling soft and helpless and easily hurt.
Damon reached over and slowly slipped a hand beneath her hair. He could slam her head against a wall, or throw her across the room. He could simply squeeze her neck between knife and hand until her head fell off. Elena knew that he was in the mood to take out his emotions on a human, but she did nothing. Said nothing.
Just stood and looked into her eyes.
Slowly, Damon bent toward her and brushed his lips — so softly — against hers.
Elena’s eyes drifted shut. But the next moment Damon winced and slid the hand back out of her hair.
