Chapter Twenty-Three
"I don't know how it got so late," Elena said for the third time as they hurried down the path by the quad. "Bonnie and Meredith are probably worried about me. "
"They know you're with me," Damon said, pacing along unruffled beside her.
"I don't think they'l find that comforting," Elena said, and bit her tongue as Damon shot her an expressive look.
"After al the time we've spent fighting side by side, they stil don't trust me?" he said silkily. "I'd be terribly hurt. If I cared what they thought. "
"I don't mean that they think you'd hurt me," Elena said.
"Not anymore. Or that you wouldn't protect me. I guess they worry that you might . . . might make a pass at me. Or something. "
Damon stopped and looked at her. Then he picked up her hand and held it, running one finger down the inside of her arm, tracing the vein that led from Elena's wrist to her elbow. "And what do you think?" he asked, smiling gently.
Elena snatched her hand back, glaring at him. "Clearly they have a point," she said. "Knock it off. Just friends, remember?"
Sighing deeply, Damon started walking again, and Elena hurried to catch up.
"I'm glad you decided to come to the party with me," she said eventual y. "It'l be fun. " Damon shot her a velvet-black glance through his lashes but said nothing.
It was always fun to be with Damon, Elena thought, listening to the clicking of her own heels and watching her shadow grow and disappear as they walked beneath the streetlights. Or at least, it was always fun when Damon was in a good mood and nothing was trying to kil them, two circumstances she wished coincided more often.
Stefan, sweet, darling Stefan, was the love of her life.
She had no doubts about that. But Damon made her feel breathless and excited, swept up in something bigger than herself. Damon made her feel like she was special.
And he was more easygoing than usual tonight. After Matt left, they'd searched the library some more, and then Damon treated her to chips and soda in the basement vending-machine room. They sat at one of the little tables and talked and laughed. It wasn't anything fancy or elegant, nothing like the parties he'd escorted her to in the Dark Dimension, but it was comfortable and fun, and when she looked at her phone, she was startled to see that more than an hour had passed.
And now Damon even volunteered to come to a col ege keg party. Maybe he was trying to get along with her friends. Maybe they could real y be friends, once things somehow worked out between Stefan and him.
Elena had reached this point in her musings when she suddenly got the unmistakable creepy-crawly feeling that she was being watched. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
"Damon," she said softly. "There's someone watching us. "
Damon's pupils dilated as he sniffed the air. Elena could tel that he was sending out questing tendrils of Power, searching for an answering surge, for someone focusing on them.
"Nothing," he said after a moment. He tucked his hand under her arm, pul ing her closer. "It could just be your imagination, princess, but we'l be careful. " The leather of Damon's jacket was smooth against Elena's side, and she held tightly to him as they stepped out into the road that divided the campus.
Just across from them, a car that had been idling at the curb gunned its engine. Its headlights blazed on, blinding Elena. Damon's arms locked around her waist, squeezing the breath out of her.
The car's tires squealed and it shot toward them. Elena panicked - oh God, oh God, she thought helplessly - and froze. Then she was sailing through the air, Damon holding her so tightly that it hurt.
When they hit the grass on the other side of the road, Damon paused for a moment, adjusting his grip on Elena, and Elena peered back at the car, which had passed where they were standing a moment before and skidded back around in a U-turn. She couldn't make out anything, not what kind of car it was nor anything about the driver; behind the bright lights, it was just a hulking dark shape.
A hulking dark shape that was veering onto the grass and coming back after them. Damon swore and yanked her onward, running rather than flying now, Elena's feet barely touching the ground. Her heart was pounding. She could tel Damon was hampered from using his ful speed by keeping Elena close. They dodged around the corner of a building and leaned against its wal , surrounded by bushes.
The car hurtled by, then turned, its wheels leaving long skid marks, and lumbered back to the road.
"We lost him," Elena whispered, panting.
"Annoy anyone lately, princess?" Damon asked, his eyes sharp.
"I should be asking you that," Elena retorted. Then she wrapped her arms around herself. She was so cold suddenly. "Do you think it could have been because of the Vitale Society?" she asked, her voice quavering.
"Something about them and my parents?"
"We don't know who or what could have been on the other side of that trapdoor," Damon replied somberly. "Or maybe Matt. . . "
"Not Matt," Elena said firmly. "Matt would never hurt me. " Damon nodded. "That's true. He's ridiculously honorable, your Matt. " He gave her a little wry sideways smile. "And he loves you. Everyone loves you, Elena. " He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
"One thing's certain, though. If the driver of that car thought I was human before, he knows differently now. " Elena pul ed the jacket more tightly around herself. "You saved me," she said in a tiny voice. "Thank you. " Damon's eyes were soft as he put his arms around her.
"I wil always save you, Elena," he promised. "Don't you know that by now?" His pupils dilated, and he pul ed her closer. "I can't lose you," he murmured.
Elena felt like she was fal ing. The world was being swal owed up in Damon's midnight eyes, and she was being drawn along with it, into the darkness. A tiny part of her said no, but despite it she leaned toward him and met his mouth with hers.
Stefan tapped his fingers against the wal behind him, looked around at al the people jammed too close together: talking, laughing, arguing, drinking, dancing. His skin was crawling with anxiety. Where was she? Matt said he'd seen her at the library more than an hour ago, that she had been planning on coming to the party then.
Making up his mind, Stefan began to push his way toward the exit. Maybe Elena didn't want him in contact with her right now, but people were dying and disappearing. It would be worth it to have her angry with him, as long as he knew that she was okay.
He passed Meredith, deep in conversation with her friend, and said, "I'm going to find Elena. " He had the quick impression of her faltering, starting to reach out a hand to stop him, but he left her behind. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the cool night air. Campus security was stil by the door checking IDs, but they let him pass without comment, only interested in people trying to come into the party.
Outside, the wind was rushing through the trees overhead and a crescent moon rode high and white above the buildings around him. Stefan sent his Power out around him, feeling for the distinct traces of Elena.
He couldn't sense anything, not yet. There were too many people too close together here, and Stefan could only feel the tangled traces of thousands of humans, their emotions and life force mixing together in one great underlying buzz from which it was impossible for him, at this distance, to pick out any particular individual, even one as singular as Elena.
If he had fed on human blood recently, it would have been easier. Stefan couldn't help thinking longingly of the way that Power had surged through him when he drank regularly from his friends. But that was when Fel 's Church needed his best defense against the kitsune. He wouldn't drink human blood just for pleasure or convenience.
Stefan started walking quickly across the quad, stil sending out questing fingers of Power around and ahead of himself. If he couldn't locate Elena that way, he would head for where she was last seen. He hoped that, as he got closer to the library, his Power would pick
up some hint of her.
His whole body was thrumming anxiously. What if Elena had been attacked, what if she mysteriously vanished and never returned, leaving him with this strange distance as their last memory of each other? Stefan walked faster.
He was halfway to the library when the distinctive sense of Elena hit him like a punch. Somewhere nearby.
He scanned left and right and then he saw her. A terrible pain shot through his chest, as if he could actual y feel his heart breaking. She was kissing Damon. They were half hidden in the shadows, but their light skin and Elena's blond hair shone. They were focused only on each other, so much so that, despite his Power, Damon wasn't aware of Stefan's presence, not even when he walked right up to them.
"Is this why you wanted to take some time apart, Elena?" Stefan asked, his voice sounding hol ow and distant. Final y noticing him, they broke away from each other, Elena's face pale with shock.
"Stefan," she said. "Please, Stefan, no, it's not what it looks like. " She reached out a hand toward him, then drew it back uncertainly.
Everything seemed so far away to Stefan; he was aware that he was shaking, his mouth was dry, but it felt almost as if he was watching someone else in pain. "I can't do this," he said. "Not again. If I fight for you, I'l just end up destroying us al . Just like with Katherine. " Elena was shaking her head back and forth, her hands stretched out toward him imploringly again. "Please, Stefan," she said.
"I can't," Stefan said again, backing away, his voice thin and desperate.
Then, for the first time, he looked at Damon, and a redhot rage slammed into him, overriding the numb distance instantly. "Al you do is take," Stefan told him bitterly. "This is the last time. We're not brothers anymore. " Damon's face opened for a split second in dismay, his eyes widening, as if he was about to speak, and then he hardened again, his mouth twisting scornful y, and he jerked his head at Stefan. Very well, that gesture indicated, then get lost.
Stefan stumbled backward, and then he turned and ran, moving with al the supernatural grace and speed at his command, leaving them far behind even as Elena screamed, "Stefan!"