Page 9 (1/2)

Even as Elena opened her mouth to speak, she could feel herself lifted as if in a hurricane For a rasp, then she just had time to shout, "I’ll be back," and to hear his reply, before she was pulled into the ordinary world of baths and manipulation and motel rooms

"I’ll keep our secret!" That hat the little boy had cried to her at the last moment

And what could that mean but that he would keep their rendezvous from the real (or "ordinairy") Dayher upper arms As he released her, Elena could taste salt Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks

It didn’t seem to make any difference to her attacker Damon see like a little boy the first ti the control away, Elena thought fuzzily

As for herself, she felt as if she ht faint

No! She had to stay conscious

Elena pushed and twisted, hurting herself deliberately against the apparently unbreakable grip that held her

It held

The possessor? Shinichi again, sneaking into Das - ?

Elena fought harder, pushed herself until she actually could have screamed with pain She whimpered once -

The hold broke

Somehow Elena knew that Shinichi wasn’t involved in this The true soul of Damon was a little boy held in chains for God-kne-many centuries, who had never knoarmth and closeness but who still had a tearful appreciation for the was one of Damon’s deepest secrets

And now Elena was tre so hard she wasn’t sure she could stand up, and she ondering about the child Was he cold? Was he crying like Elena? How could she tell?

She and Da hard Da him look rakish as a buccaneer His face, always so pale and self-composed, was flushed with blood His eyes dropped to watch Elena auto her wrists She could feel pins and needles now: she was getting back some circulation Once he’d looked away, he couldn’t seeain

Eye contact All right Elena recognized a weapon, groping for a chair and finding the bed unexpectedly close behind her She didn’t have ht now; and she needed to use all of the in to the weakness in her body, but she kept her eyes on Damon’s face His mouth ollen And that wasunfair Damon’s pout was a part of his most basic artillery He had always had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen on anyone,lids, the heavy lashes, the delicacy of his jawlineunfair, even to sootten past interest in a person because of some accident of beauty

But she’d never seen that mouth swollen, the perfect hair disordered, the eyelashes tre everywhere except at her and trying not to show it

"Was that what you’ve been thinking about while you’ve been refusing to talk to me?" she asked, and her voice was almost steady

Damon’s sudden stillness was perfection like all his other perfections No breathing, of course He stared at a spot in the beige carpet that by rights ought to have broken into flae dark eyes to hers It was so hard to tell anything about Damon’s eyes because the iris was al that at this moment they were dilated so far as to be all pupil How could eyes as dark as ht? She seemed to see in them a universe of stars

Das tense "Shinichi?"

"No You should run now"

Elena felt her thigh rateful not to have to try to prove that she could run - or even crawl - at this exact instant But her fists clenched

"Youa bastard?" she said "Have you decided to hate ain, stillness into motion faster than her eyes could track it He hit the fra the punch almost completely at the last instant There was a crash and then a thousand little echoes as the glass showered like diahtbring so to ht Now that he was turned away fro up appearances Fine treh his body

"This late, in this storm, this far away fro up with the adrenaline spurt that had allowed her to fight her way out of Da all over and she had to work to keep it fro

And they were back to square one, with Da at his back Or, at least, that here he wanted them to be

"You could have just asked," she said She didn’t know if this was possible for a vaht Stefan He ithout things that he wanted because he didn’t understand about asking In all innocence and with all good intentions, Stefan left things until she, Elena, was forced to ask hiht, didn’t usually have that proble iteht noas laughing silently, which meant that he was truly stricken

"I’ll take that as an apology," Elena said softly

Now Da out loud, and Elena felt a chill Here she was, trying to help hihts, "that that was all I wanted?"

Elena felt herself freeze again as she mulled this over Damon could easily have taken her blood while he held her immobile But - of course - that wasn’t all he wanted from her Her aurashe knehat it did to va froht see it

The difference, Elena’s native honesty told her, was that she didn’t give a damn about any of the others But Damon was different When he kissed her she could feel the difference inside her So she had never felt beforeuntil Stefan

Oh, God - was this really her, Elena Gilbert, betraying Stefan by the si away fro a better person than she was; he was telling her to take the temptation of her aura away from him