Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

Damon hesitated; he seemed to consider it. Then he shook his head.

“We wouldn’t want to give them too many clues to where you are,” he said cheerily. “It’ll be an interesting experiment to see if the malach do get him — and how they do it.”

“It wouldn’t be an interesting experiment for me.” Elena’s voice was flat. “Matt is my friend.”

“Nevertheless, we’ll leave him here for now. I don’t trust you — even to give me a message to Meredith or Bonnie — to send on my phone.”

Elena didn’t say anything. As a matter of fact, he was right not to trust her, as she and Meredith and Bonnie had worked out an elaborate code of harmless-sounding phrases as soon as they knew that Damon was after Elena. A lifetime ago for her — literally — but she could still remember them.

Silently, she simply followed Damon to the Ferrari.

She was responsible for Matt.

“You’re not putting up much of an argument this time, and I wonder what you’re plotting.”

“I’m plotting that we might as well get on with it. If you’ll tell me what ‘it’ is,” she said, more bravely than she felt.

“Well, now what ‘it’ is, is up to you.” Damon gave Matt a kick in the ribs in passing. He was now pacing in a circle around the clearing, which seemed smaller than ever, a circle which didn’t include her. She took a few paces toward him — and slipped. She didn’t know how it happened. Maybe the giant animal breathed. Maybe it was just the slick pine needles under her boots.

But one moment she was heading for Matt and the next her feet had gone out from under her and she was heading for the ground with nothing to grab onto.

And then, smoothly and unhurriedly, she was in Damon’s arms. With centuries of Virginian etiquette behind her she automatically said, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Yes, she thought. That’s all it means. It is his pleasure, and that’s all that matters.

That was when she noticed that they were headed for her Jaguar.

“Oh, no, we don’t,” she said.

“Oh, yes, we will — if I please,” he said. “Unless you want to see your friend Matt suffer like that again. At some point his heart will give out.”

“Damon.” She pushed her way out of his arms, standing on her own feet. “I don’t understand. This isn’t like you. Take what you want and go.”

He just kept looking at her. “I was doing just that.”

“You don’t have to”—for the life of her, she couldn’t keep a tremor out of her voice—“take me anywhere special to take my blood. And Matt won’t know. He’s out.”

For a long moment there was silence in the clearing. Utter silence. The night birds and the crickets stopped making their music. Suddenly Elena felt as if she were on some kind of thrill ride that plummeted down, leaving her stomach and organs still at the top. Then Damon put it in words.

“I want you. Exclusively.”

Elena braced herself, trying to keep a clear head despite the fog that seemed to be invading it.

“You know that that’s not possible.”

“I know that it was possible for Stefan. When you were with him, you didn’t think about anything but him. You couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything but him.”

Elena’s goose flesh now covered her whole body. Speaking carefully around the obstruction in her throat, she said, “Damon, did you do something to Stefan?”

“Now, why would I want to do something like that?”

Very low, Elena said, “You and I both know why.”

“Do you mean,” Damon started out speaking casually, but his voice grew more intense as he gripped her shoulders, “so that you would see nothing but me, hear nothing but me, think of nothing but me?”

Still quietly, still controlling her terror, Elena said, “Take off the sunglasses, Damon.”

Damon glanced upwards and around as if to reassure himself that no last ray of sunset could pierce the green-gray world that surrounded them. Then with one hand, he stripped off the sunglasses.

Elena found herself looking into eyes that were so black there seemed to be no difference between iris and pupil. She…turned a switch in her brain, did something so that all her senses were tuned onto Damon’s face, his expression, the Power circulating through him.

His eyes were still as black as the depths of an unexplored cave. No red. But then, he’d had time, this time to get ready for her.

I believe what I saw before, Elena thought. With my own eyes.

“Damon, I’ll do anything, anything you want. But you have to tell me.Did you do something to Stefan?”

“Stefan was still high on your blood when he left you,” he reminded her, and before she could speak to deny this—“and, to answer your question precisely, I don’t know where he is. On that, you have my word. But in any case, it’s true, what you were thinking earlier,” he added, as Elena tried to step away, to get out of the grip he had on her upper arms. “I’m the only one, Elena. The only one you haven’t conquered. The only one you can’t manipulate. Intriguing, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, in spite of her fear, she was furious. “Then why hurt Matt? He’s just a friend. What’s he got to do with it?”

“Just a friend.” And Damon began to laugh the way he had before, eerily.

“Well, I know he didn’t have anything to do with Stefan leaving,” Elena snapped.

Damon turned on her, but by then the clearing was so dim that she couldn’t read his expression at all. “And who said I did? But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make use of the opportunity.” He picked Matt up easily and held up something that shone silver from his other hand.

Her keys. From her jeans pocket. Taken, no doubt, when she was lying unconscious on the ground.

She could tell nothing from his voice, either, except that it was bitter and grim — all usual if he were talking about Stefan. “With your blood in him, I couldn’t have killed my brother if I had tried, the last time I saw him,” he added.

“Did you try?”

“As a matter of fact, no. You have my word on that as well.”

“And you don’t know where he is?”

“No.” He hefted Matt.

“What do you think you’re doing?

“Taking him with us. He’s hostage for your good behavior.”

“Oh, no,” Elena said flatly, pacing. “This is between you and me. You’ve hurt Matt enough.” She blinked and once again almost screamed to find Damon much too close, much too fast. “I’ll do whatever you want.Whatever you want. But not here out in the open and not with Matt around.”

Come on, Elena, she was thinking. Where’s that vampy behavior when you want it? You used to be able to vamp any guy; now, just because he’s a vampire, you can’t do it?

“Take me somewhere,” she said softly, intertwining her arm with his free one, “but in the Ferrari. I don’t want to go in my car. Take me in the Ferrari.”

Damon paced back to the trunk of the Ferrari, unlocked it, and looked inside. Then he looked at Matt. It was clear that the tall, well-built boy wasn’t going to fit in to the trunk…at least, not with all his limbs attached.

“Don’t you even think about it,” Elena said. “Just put him in the Jaguar with the keys and he’ll be safe enough — lock him in.” Elena fervently prayed that what she was saying was true.

For a moment Damon said nothing, then he looked up with a smile so brilliant she could see it in the dusk. “All right,” he said. He dumped Matt on the ground again. “But if you try to run while I move the cars, I run him over.”

Damon, Damon, will you never understand? Humans don’t do that to their friends, Elena thought as he brought the Ferrari out so he could bring the Jaguar in, so he could dump Matt in it.