Part 11 (1/2)

Instead, he concentrated on sending all his s.h.i.+elding to the right side of his chin. He figured he could take a punch, even from the New Improved Stefan without losing his hold on the girl-even if Stefan broke his jaw.

Stefan's fist stopped a few millimeters away from Damon's face.

There was a pause; the brothers looked at each other across a distance of two feet.

Stefan took a deep breath and sat back. ”Now will you admit it?”

Damon was genuinely puzzled. ”Admit what?”

”That you care something for them. Enough to take a punch rather than letting Bonnie go underwater.”

Damon stared, then began to laugh and found he couldn't stop.

Stefan stared back. Then he shut his eyes and half-turned away in pain.

Damon still had a case of the giggles. ”And you th-thought that I cuh-cared about one little hu-hu-hu...”

”Why did you do it, then?” Stefan said tiredly.

”Whu-whu-whim. I t-told y-yuh-you. Just wuh-huhhuhuha...” Damon collapsed, punch-drunk from lack of food and from too many varying emotions.

Bonnie's head went underwater.

Both vampires dived for her, head b.u.t.ting each other as they collided over the center of the tub. Both fell back briefly, dazed.

Damon wasn't laughing anymore. If anything, he was fighting like a tiger to get the girl out of the water. Stefan was, too, and with his newly sharpened reflexes, he looked close to winning. But it was as Damon had thought just an hour or so earlier-neither one of them even considered cooperating to get the girl. Each was trying to do it alone, and each was impeding the other.

”Get out of my way, brat,” Damon snarled, almost hissing in menace.

”You don't give a d.a.m.n about her.You get out of the way-”

There was something like a geyser and Bonnie exploded upward from the water on her own. She spat out a mouthful and cried, ”What's going on?” in tones to melt a heart of stone.

Which they did. Contemplating his bedraggled little bird, who was clutching the towel to her instinctively, with her fiery hair plastered to her head and her big brown eyes blinking between strands, something swelled in Damon. Stefan had run to the door to tell the others the good news. For a moment it was just the two of them: Damon and Bonnie.

”It tastes awful,” Bonnie said woefully, spitting out more water. ”I know,” Damon said, staring at her. The new thing he was feeling had swollen inside his soul until the pressure was almost too much to stand. When Bonnie said, ”But I'm alive!” with an abrupt 180-degree turn in mood, her heart-shaped face flus.h.i.+ng suddenly with joy, the fierce pride Damon felt in response was intoxicating. He and he alone had brought her back from the edge of icy death. Her poison-filled body had been cured by him; it was his blood that had dissolved and dispersed the toxin,his blood- And then the swelling thing burst.

There was, to Damon, a palpable if not audible crack as the stone encasing his soul burst open and a great piece fell away.

With something inside him singing, he clutched Bonnie to him, feeling the wet towel through his raw silk s.h.i.+rt, and feeling Bonnie's slight body under the towel. Definitely a maiden, and not a child, he thought dizzily, whatever the writing on that infamous sc.r.a.p of pink nylon had claimed. He clutched at her as if he needed her for blood-as if they were in hurricane-tossed seas and to let go of her would be to lose her.

His neck hurt fiercely, but more cracks were spreading all over the stone; it was going to explode completely, letting theDamon it held inside out-and he was too drunk on pride and joy, yes, joy, to care. Cracks were spreading in every direction, pieces of stone flying off...

Bonnie pushed him away.

She had surprising strength for someone with such a slight build. She pushed herself out of his arms completely. Her expression had changed radically again: now her face showed only fear and desperation-and, yes, revulsion.

”Help! Somebody, please,help !” Her brown eyes were huge and now her face was white again.

Stefan had whirled around. All he saw was what Meredith saw, darting under his arm from the other room, or what Matt saw, trying to peer into the tiny, over-full bathroom: Bonnie fiercely clutching her towel, trying to make it cover her, and Damon kneeling by the bath, his face without expression.

”Pleasehelp. He heard me calling-I couldfeel him on the other end-but he just watched. He stood andwatched us all dying. He wants all humans dead, with our blood running down white steps somewhere. Please, get himaway from me!”

So. The little witch was more proficient than he had imagined. It wasn't unusual to recognize that someone was getting your transmissions-you got feedback-but to identify the individual took talent. Plus, she'd obviously heard the echoes of some of his thoughts. She was gifted, his bird...no, not his bird, not with her looking at him with a look as close to hatred as Bonnie could manage.

There was a silence. Damon had a chance to deny the charge, but why bother? Stefan would be able to gauge the truth of it.

Maybe Bonnie, too.

Revulsion was flying from face to face, as if it were a swiftly-catching disease.

Now Meredith was hurrying forward, grabbing another towel. She had some kind of hot drink in her other hand-cocoa, by the smell. It was hot enough to be an effective weapon-no way to dodge all of that, not for a tired vampire.

”Here,” she said to Bonnie. ”You're safe. Stefan's here. I'm here. Matt's here. Take this towel; let's just put it around your shoulders.”

Stefan had stood silently, watching all this-no, watching his brother. Now, his face hardening in finality, he said one word.

”Out.”

Dismissed like a dog. Damon groped for his jacket behind him, found it, and wished that his groping for his sense of humor could be as successful. The faces around him were all the same. They could have been carved in stone.But not stone as hard as that that was coming together again around his soul. That rock was remarkably quick to mend-and an extra layer was added, like the layering of a pearl, but not covering anything nearly so pretty.

Their faces were still all the same as Damon tried to get out of the small room that had too many people in it. Some of them were speaking; Meredith to Bonnie, Mutt-no, Matt-pouring out a stream of pure acidic hatred...but Damon didn't really hear the words. He could smell too much blood here. Everyone had little wounds. Their individual scents-different beasts inthe herd - closed in on him. His head was spinning. He had to get out of here or he'd be s.n.a.t.c.hing the nearest warm vessel and draining it dry.

Now he was more than dizzy; he was too hot, too...thirsty.

Very, very thirsty. He had worked a long time without feeding and now he was surrounded by prey.They were circlinghim . How could he stop himself from grabbing just one of them? Would one really be missed?

Then there was the one he hadn't seen yet, and didn't want to see. To witness Elena's lovely features twisted into the same mask of revulsion he saw on every other face here would be...distasteful, he thought, his old sense of dispa.s.sion finally returning to him.

But it couldn't be avoided. As Damon came out of the bathroom, Elena was right in front of him, floating like an oversized b.u.t.terfly.

His eyes were drawn to exactly what he didn't want to see: her expression.

Elena's features didn't mirror the others. She looked worried, upset. But there wasn't a trace of the disgust or hatred that showed on all the other faces.

She even spoke, in that strange mind-speech that wasn't, somehow, like telepathy, but which allowed her to get in two levels of communication at once.

”Da-mon.”

Tell about the malach. Please.

Damon just raised an eyebrow at her. Tell a bunch of humans abouthimself ? Was she being deliberately ridiculous?

Besides, the malach hadn't really done anything. They had distracted him for a few minutes, that was all. No point in blaming malach when all they had done was enhance his own views briefly. He wondered if Elena had any notion of the content of his little nighttime daydream.

”Da-mon.”