“Because,” Shinichi said coolly, pulling the blinds completely open so that Bonnie was abruptly drenched in the color of fresh blood, “I’m afraid that now we have to kill you.”
The ogre holding her strode toward the window. Bonnie screamed. In places like this, she knew screams went unheard.
She didn’t know what else to do.
Meredith and Matt were sitting at the breakfast table, which seemed sadly empty without Bonnie. It was amazing how much space that slight body had seemed to fill, and how much more serious everyone was without her. Meredith knew that if Elena had done her best, she could have offset it. But she also knew that Elena had one thing on her mind above all others, and that was Stefan, who was stricken with guilt for allowing his brother to abduct Bonnie. And meanwhile Meredith knew that both she and Matt were feeling guilty too, because today they would be leaving the other three, even if only for the evening. They each had been summoned home by parents who demanded to see them for dinner.
Mrs. Flowers clearly didn’t want them to feel too badly. “With the help you’ve given, I can make our urns,” she said. “Since Matt has found my wheel—”
“I didn’t exactly find it,” Matt said under his breath. “It was there in the storage room all the time and it fell on me.”
“—and since Meredith has received her pictures — along, I’m sure, with an email from Mr. Saltzman — perhaps she could get them enlarged or whatever.”
“Of course, and show them to the Saitous, too, to make sure that the symbols say the things we want them to,” Meredith promised. “And Bonnie can—” She broke off short. Idiot! She was an idiot, she thought. And, as a hunter-slayer, she was supposed to be clear-minded and at all times maintain control. She felt terrible when she looked at Matt and saw the naked pain in his face.
“Dear Bonnie will surely be home soon,” Mrs. Flowers finished for her.
And we all know that’s a lie, and I don’t have to be psychic to detect it, Meredith thought. She noticed that Mrs. Flowers hadn’t weighed in with anything from Mama.
“We’ll all be just fine here,” Elena said, finally picking up the ball as she realized that Mrs. Flowers was looking at her with ladylike distress. “You two think we’re some kind of babies who need to be taken care of,” she said, smiling at Matt and Meredith, “but you’re just babies too! Off you go! But be careful.”
They went, Meredith giving Elena one last glance. Elena nodded very slightly, then turned stiffly, mimicking holding a bayonet. It was the changing of the guard.
Elena let Stefan help her clean up the dishes — they were all letting him do little things now because he looked so much better. They spent the morning trying to contact Bonnie in different ways. But then Mrs. Flowers asked if Elena could board up the last few of the basement windows, and Stefan couldn’t stand it. Matt and Meredith had already done a far more dangerous job. They’d hung two tarps from the house’s ridgepole, each one hanging down one side of the main roof. On each tarp were the characters that Isobel’s mother put on the Post-it Note amulets she always gave them, painted at an enormous scale in black paint. Stefan had been allowed only to watch and give suggestions from the widow’s walk above his attic bedroom. But now…
“We’ll nail up the boards together,” he said firmly, and went off to get a hammer and nails.
It wasn’t really such a hard job anyway. Elena held the boards and Stefan wielded the hammer and she trusted him not to hit her fingers, which meant that they got on very quickly.
It was a perfect day — clear, sunny, with a slight breeze. Elena wondered what was happening to Bonnie, right now, and if Damon was taking care of her properly — or at all. She seemed unable to shake off her worries these last days: over Stefan, over Bonnie, and over a curious feeling that she had to know what was going on in town. Maybe she could disguise herself…
God, no! Stefan said voicelessly. When she turned he was spitting out nails and looking both horrified and ashamed. Apparently she’d been projecting.
“I’m sorry,” he said before Elena could get the nails out of her mouth, “but you know better than anyone why you can’t go.”
“But it’s maddening not knowing what’s happening,” Elena said, having gotten rid of her nails. “We don’t know anything. What’s happening to Bonnie, what state the town’s in—”
“Let’s finish this board,” Stefan said. “And then let me hold you.”
When the last board was secure, Stefan raised her from the lower embankment where she was sitting, not bride-style, but kid-style, putting her toes on top of his feet. He danced her a little, whirled her a couple of times in the air, and then nabbed her coming down again.
“I know your problem,” he said soberly.
Elena looked up quickly. “You do?” she said, alarmed.
Stefan nodded, and to her further alarm said, “It’s Love-itis. Means the patient has a whole slew of people she cares about, and she can’t be happy unless each and every one of them is safe and happy themselves.”
Elena deliberately slipped off his shoes and looked up at him. “Some more than others,” she said hesitantly.
Stefan looked down at her and then he took her in his arms. “I’m not as good as you,” he said while Elena’s heart pounded in shame and remorse for ever having touched Damon, ever having danced with him, ever having kissed him. “If you are happy, that’s all I want, after that prison. I can live; I can die…peacefully.”
“If we’re happy,” Elena corrected.
“I won’t tempt the gods. I’ll settle for you.”
“No, you can’t! Don’t you see? If you disappeared again, I’d worry and fret and follow you. To Hell if I had to.”
“I’ll take you with me wherever I go,” Stefan said hastily. “If you’ll take me with you.”
Elena relaxed slightly. That would do, for now. As long as Stefan was with her she could stand anything.
They sat and cuddled, right under the open sky, even with a maple tree and a clump of slender waving beeches nearby. She extended her aura a little and felt it touch Stefan’s. Peace flooded into her, and all the dark thoughts were left behind.
Almost all.
“Since I first saw you, I loved you — but it was the wrong kind of love. See how long it took me to figure that out?” Elena whispered into the hollow of his throat.
“Since I first saw you, I loved you — but I didn’t know who you really were. You were like a ghost in a dream. But you put me straight pretty quickly,” Stefan said, obviously glad that he could brag about her. “And we’ve survived — everything. They say long-distance relationships can be pretty difficult,” he added, laughing, and then he stopped, and she could feel all his faculties fixed on her suddenly, breath stopping so he could hear her better.
“But then, there’s Bonnie and Damon,” he said before she could say or think a word. “We have to find them soon — and they’d damn well better be together — or it had better have been Bonnie’s decision to part.”
“There’s Bonnie and Damon,” agreed Elena, glad that she could share even her darkest thoughts with someone. “I can’t think about them. I can’t not think about them. We do have to find them, and very fast — but I pray that they’re with Lady Ulma now. Maybe Bonnie is going to a ball or gala. Maybe Damon is hunting with that Black Ops program.”
“As long as nobody’s really hurt.”
“Yes.” Elena tried hard to tuck herself closer to Stefan. She wanted to — be closer to him, somehow. The way they had when she had been out of her body and she had just sunk into him.
But of course, with regular bodies, they couldn’t…
But of course they could. Now. Her blood…
Elena really didn’t know which of them thought of it first. She looked away, embarrassed at even having considered it — and caught the tail end of Stefan looking away too.
“I don’t think we have the right,” she whispered. “Not to — be that happy — when everyone else is miserable. Or doing things for the town or for Bonnie.”
“Of course we don’t,” Stefan said firmly, but he had to gulp a little first.
“No,” Elena said.
“No,” Stefan said firmly, and then right in the middle of her echoing “no,” he went and pulled her up and kissed her breathless.
And of course, Elena couldn’t let him do that and not get even. So she demanded, still breathless, but almost angry, that he say “no” again, and when he did it she caught him and kissed him.
“You were happy,” she accused a moment later. “I felt it.”
Stefan was too much of a gentleman to accuse her of being happy because of anything she might do. He said, “I couldn’t help it. It just happened by itself. I felt our minds together, and that made me happy. But then I remembered about poor Bonnie. And—”