Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

“Yes, because, you know, Misao’s star ball was gone. They knew that it had been poured out; I didn’t tell them that. But I had to tell them that it was my fault that the last half got poured out, and then they got mad at me. Oh! Damon, you’re hurting me!”

“So it was your fault it got poured out, was it?”

“Well, I figure it was. You couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t gotten drunk, and — whwhat’s wrong, Damon? Are you mad too?” He really was holding her so that she really couldn’t breathe.

Slowly, she felt his arms loosen a little. “A word of advice, little redbird. When people are threatening to torture and kill you, it might be more — expedient — to tell them that it’s someone else’s fault. Especially if that happens to be the truth.”

“I know that!” Bonnie said indignantly. “But they were going to kill me anyway. If I’d told about you, they’d’ve hurt you, too.”

Damon pulled her roughly back now, so that she had to look him in the face.

Bonnie could also feel the delicate touch of a telepathic mind probe. She didn’t resist; she was too busy wondering why he had plum-colored shadows under his eyes. Then he shook her a little, and she stopped wondering.

“Don’t you understand even the basics of self-preservation?” he said, and she thought he looked angry again. He was certainly different from any other time that she’d seen him — except once, she thought, and that was when Elena had been

“Disciplined” for saving Lady Ulma’s life, back when Ulma had been a slave. He’d had the same expression then, so menacing that even Meredith had been frightened of him, and yet so filled with guilt that Bonnie had longed to comfort him.

But there had to be some other reason, Bonnie’s mind told her. Because you’re not Elena, and he’s never going to treat you the way he treats Elena. A vision of the brown room rose before her, and she felt certain that he would never have put Elena there. Elena wouldn’t have let him, for one thing.

“Do I have to go back?” she asked, realizing that she was being petty and silly and that the brown room had seemed like a haven just a little while ago.

“Go back?” Damon said, a little too quickly. She had the feeling that he’d seen the brown room too, now, through her eyes. “Why? The landlady gave me everything in the room. So I have your real clothes and a bunch of star balls down there, in case you weren’t through with one. But why would you think you might have to go back?”

“Well, I know you were looking for a lady of quality, and I’m not one,” Bonnie said simply.

“That was just so I could change back into a vampire,” Damon said. “And what do you think is holding you up in the air right now?” But this time Bonnie knew somehow that the sensations from the “Never Ever” star balls were still in her mind and that Damon was seeing them too. He was a vampire again. And the contents of these star balls were so abominable that Damon’s stony exterior finally cracked.

Bonnie could almost guess what he thought of them, and of her, left to shiver under her one blanket every night.

And then, to her total astonishment, Damon, the ever-composed, brand-new vampire blurted, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how that place would be for you. Is there anything that will make you feel better?”

Bonnie blinked. She wondered, seriously, if she were dreaming. Damon didn’t apologize. Damon famously didn’t apologize, or explain, or speak so nicely to people, unless he wanted something from them. But one thing seemed real. She didn’t have to sleep in the brown room anymore.

This was so exciting that she flushed a little, and dared say, “Could we go down to the ground? Slowly? Because the truth is that I’m just terrified of heights.”

Damon blinked, but said, “Yes, I think I can manage that. Is there anything else you’d like?”

“Well — there are a couple of girls who’d be donors — happily — if — well — if there’s any money left — if you could save them…”

Damon said a little sharply, “Of course there’s some money left. I even wrung your share back out of that hag of a landlady.”

“Well, then, there’s that secret that I told you, but I don’t know if you remember.”

“How soon do you think you’ll feel well enough to start?” asked Damon.

Stefan woke early. He spent the time from dawn until breakfast just watching Elena, who even in sleep had an inner glow like a golden flame through a faintly rose-colored candle.

At breakfast, everyone was more or less still wrapped up in thoughts of the day before. Meredith showed Matt the picture of her brother, Cristian, the vampire. Matt briefly told Meredith about the inner workings of the Ridgemont court system and painted her a picture of Caroline as werewolf. It was clear that both of them felt safer at the boardinghouse than anywhere else.

And Elena, who had woken up with Stefan’s mind all around her, embracing her, and her own mind still full of light, was completely at a loss for a Plan A or any other letter. She had to be told gently by the others that only one thing made sense.

“Stefan,” Matt said, draining a mug of Mrs. Flowers’s pitch-black coffee. “He’s the only one who might be able to use his mind instead of Post-it Notes on the kids.”

And, “Stefan,” said Meredith. “He’s the only one Shinichi might be afraid of.”

“I’m no use at all,” Elena said sadly. She had no appetite. She had gotten dressed with a feeling of love and compassion toward all humankind and a desire to help protect her hometown, but as everyone pointed out, she was probably going to have to spend the day in the root cellar. Reporters might come to call.

They’re right, Stefan sent to Elena. I’m the only logical person to find out what’s really going on in Fell’s Church.

He actually went while the rest of them were finishing breakfast. Only Elena knew why; only she could feel him at the limits of her telepathic range.

Stefan was hunting. He drove into the New Wood, got out, and finally startled a rabbit out of the brush. He Influenced it to rest and not be frightened.

Surreptitiously, in this thin woodland without cover, he took a little blood from it… and choked.

It tasted like some kind of hideous liquid flavored with rodent. Was a rabbit a rodent? He had been lucky enough to find a rat one day in his prison cell and it had tasted vaguely like this.

But now, for days, he had been drinking human blood. Not just that, but the rich, potent blood of strong, adventurous, and in several cases paranormally talented individuals — the crème de la crème. How could he have gotten used to it so quickly?

It shamed him now, to think of what he’d taken. Elena’s blood, of course, was enough to drive any vampire wild. And Meredith, whose blood had the deep crimson taste of some primordial ocean, and Bonnie, who tasted like a telepath’s dessert.

And finally Matt, the All-American red-blooded boy.

They’d fed him and fed him by the hour, far past what he needed to survive.

They’d fed him until he’d begun to heal, and seeing that he was healing, they’d fed him more. And it had gone on and on, ending with Elena last night — Elena, whose hair was taking on a silvery cast and whose blue eyes seemed almost radiant.

Back in the Dark Dimension, Damon hadn’t exercised any restraint at all. Elena hadn’t exercised any on her own behalf.

That silvery cast…Stefan’s stomach clenched when he thought about it, about the last time he’d seen her hair that way. She’d been dead then. On her feet, but dead just the same.

Stefan let the rabbit scamper away. He was taking another oath. He must not make Elena into a vampire again. That meant no significant blood exchange between the two of them for at least a week — either giving or taking might tip her over the edge.