Lisa Smith: The Struggle

“Yes—no. I will be if I can get out of here. Look, can I take your car? Just for a little while?”

“Well… sure, but… I know, why don’t you let me drive you? I’ll go tell Coach Lyman.”

“No! I just want to be alone… Oh, please don’t ask any questions.” She almost snatched the keys out of his hand. “I’ll bring it back soon, I promise. Or Stefan will. If you see Stefan, tell him I’m at the boarding house. And thanks.” She slammed the door on his protests and revved the engine, pulling out with a clash of gears because she wasn’t used to a stick shift. She left him standing there staring after her.

She drove without really seeing or hearing anything outside, crying, locked in her own spinning tornado of emotions. She and Stefan would run away… They would elope… They would show everyone. She would never set foot in Fell’s Church again.

And then Aunt Judith would be sorry. Then Robert would see how wrong he’d been. But Elena would never forgive them. Never.

As for Elena herself, she didn’t need anybody. She certainly didn’t need stupid old Robert E. Lee, where you could go from being mega-popular to being a social pariah in one day just for loving the wrong person. She didn’t need any family, or any friends, either…

Slowing down to cruise up the winding driveway of the boarding house, Elena felt her thoughts slow down, too.

Well… she wasn’t mad at all her friends. Bonnie and Meredith hadn’t done anything. Or Matt. Matt was all right. In fact, she might not need him but his car had come in pretty handy.

In spite of herself Elena felt a strangled giggle well up in her throat. Poor Matt. People always borrowing his clunking dinosaur of a car. He must think she and Stefan were nuts.

The giggle let loose a few more tears and she sat and wiped them off, shaking her head. Oh, God, how did things turn out this way? What a day. She should be having a victory celebration because they’d beaten Caroline, and instead she was crying alone in Matt’s car.

Caroline had looked pretty damn funny, though. Elena’s body shook gently with slightly hysterical chuckles. Oh, the look on her face. Somebody better have a video of that.

At last the sobs and giggles both abated and Elena felt a wash of tiredness. She leaned against the steering wheel trying not to think of anything for a while, and then she got out of the car.

She’d go and wait for Stefan, and then they’d both go back and deal with the mess she’d made. It would take a lot of cleaning up, she thought wearily. Poor Aunt Judith. Elena had yelled at her in front of half the town.

Why had she let herself get so upset? But her emotions were still close to the surface, as she found when the boarding house door was locked and no one answered the bell.

Oh, wonderful she thought, her eyes stinging again. Mrs. Flowers had gone off to the Founders’ Day celebration, too. And now Elena had the choice of sitting in the car or standing out here in this windstorm…

It was the first time she’d noticed the weather, but when she did she looked around in alarm. The day had started out cloudy and chilly, but now there was a mist flowing along the ground, as if breathed out from the surrounding fields. The clouds were not just swirling, they were seething. And the wind was getting stronger.

It moaned through the branches of the oak trees, tearing off the remaining leaves and sending them down in showers. The sound was rising steadily now, not just a moan but a howl.

And there was something else. Something that came not just from the wind, but from the air itself, or the space around the air. A feeling of pressure, of menace, of some unimaginable force. It was gathering power, drawing nearer, closing in.

Elena spun to face the oak trees.

There was a stand of them behind the house, and more beyond, blending into the forest. And beyond that were the river and the graveyard.

Something… was out there. Something… very bad…

“No,” whispered Elena. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, like some great shape rearing up to stand over her, blotting out the sky. She felt the evil, the hatred, the animal fury.

Bloodlust. Stefan had used the word, but she hadn’t understood it. Now she felt this bloodlust… focused on her.

“No!”

Higher and higher, it was towering over her. She could still see nothing, but it was as if great wings unfolded, stretching to touch the horizon on either side. Something with a Power beyond comprehension… and it wanted to kill …

“No!” She ran for the car just as it stooped and dived for her. Her hands scrabbled at the door handle, and she fumbled frantically with the keys. The wind was screaming, shrieking, tearing at her hair. Gritty ice sprayed into her eyes, blinding her, but then the key turned and she jerked the door open.

Safe! She slammed the door shut again and brought her fist down on the lock. Then she flung herself across the seat to check the locks on the other side.

The wind roared with a thousand voices outside. The car began rocking.

“Stop it! Damon, stop it!” Her thin cry was lost in the cacophony. She put her hands out on the dashboard as if to balance the car and it rocked harder, ice pelting against it.

Then she saw something. The rear window was clouding up, but she could discern the shape through it. It looked like some great bird made of mist or snow, but the outlines were hazy. All she was sure of was that it had huge sweeping wings… and that it was coming for her.

Get the key in the ignition. Get it in! Now go! Her mind was rapping orders at her. The ancient Ford wheezed and the tires screamed louder than the wind as she took off. And the shape behind her followed, getting larger and larger in the rearview mirror.

Get to town, get to Stefan! Go! Go! But as she squealed onto Old Creek Road, turning left, the wheels locking, a bolt of lightning split the sky.

If she hadn’t been skidding and braking already, the tree would have crashed down on her. As it was, the violent impact shook the car like an earthquake missing the front right fender by inches. The tree was a mass of heaving, pitching branches, its trunk blocking the way back to town completely.

She was trapped. Her only route home cut off. She was alone, there was no escape from this terrible Power…

Power . That was it; that was the key. “The stronger your Powers are, the more the rules of the dark bind you.”

Running water!

Throwing the car into reverse, she brought it around and then slammed into forward. The white shape banked and swooped, missing her as narrowly as the tree had, and then she was speeding down Old Creek Road into the worst of the storm.

It was still after her. Only one thought pounded in Elena’s brain now. She had to cross running water, to leave this thing behind.

There were more cracks of lightning, and she glimpsed other trees falling, but she swerved around them. It couldn’t be far now. She could see the river flickering past on her left side through the driving ice storm. Then she saw the bridge.

It was there; she’d made it! A gust threw sleet across the windshield, but with the wipers’ next stroke she saw it fleetingly again. This was it, the turn should be about here .

The car lurched and skidded onto the wooden structure. Elena felt the wheels grip at slick planks and then felt them lock. Desperately, she tried to turn with the skid, but she couldn’t see and there was no room…

And then she was crashing through the guardrail, the rotted wood of the footbridge giving way under weight it could no longer support. There was a sickening feeling of spinning, dropping, and the car hit the water.

Elena heard screams, but they didn’t seem to be connected with her. The river welled up around her and everything was noise and confusion and pain. A window shattered as it was struck by debris, and then another. Dark water gushed across her, along with glass like ice. She was engulfed. She couldn’t see; she couldn’t get out.