The Struggle (7 page)

“Yes,” she said defiantly, still inspecting the clouds.

“And that’s what made you so angry?”

“Yes,” she said again, in the same tone.

She could feel his eyes on her. “Elena, that’s not true.”

“Well, if you can read my mind, you don’t need to ask me questions, do you?”

They were facing each other now. Stefan was tense, his mouth set in a grim line. “You know I wouldn’t do that. But I thought you were the one who was so big on honesty in relationships.”

“All right. Caroline was being her usual bitchy self and shooting her mouth off about the murder. So what? Why do you care?”

“Because,” said Stefan simply, brutally, “she might be right. Not about the murder but about you. About you and me. I should have realized this would happen. It’s not just her, is it? I’ve been sensing hostility and fear all day, but I was
too tired to try and analyze it. They think I’m the killer and they’re taking it out on you.”

“What they think doesn’t matter! They’re wrong, and they’ll realize that eventually. Then everything will be the way it was again.”

A wistful smile tugged at the corner of Stefan’s mouth. “You really believe that, don’t you?” He looked away, and his face hardened. “And what if they don’t? What if it only gets worse?”

“What are you saying?”

“It might be better …” Stefan took a deep breath and continued, carefully. “It might be better if we didn’t see each other for a while. If they think we’re not together, they’ll leave you alone.”

She stared at him. “And you think you could do that? Not see me or talk to me for however long?”

“If it’s necessary—yes. We could pretend we’ve broken up.” His jaw was set.

Elena stared another moment. Then she circled him and moved in closer, so close that they were almost touching. He had to look down at her, his eyes only a few inches from her own.

“There is,” she said, “only one way I’m going
to announce to the rest of the school that we’ve broken up. And that’s if you tell me that you don’t love me and you don’t want to see me. Tell me that, Stefan, right now. Tell me that you don’t want to be with me anymore.”

He’d stopped breathing. He stared down at her, those green eyes striated like a cat’s in shades of emerald and malachite and holly green.

“Say it,” she told him. “Tell me how you can get along without me, Stefan. Tell me—”

She never got to finish the sentence. It was cut off as his mouth descended on hers.

Stefan sat in the Gilbert living room, agreeing politely with whatever it was Aunt Judith was saying. The older woman was uncomfortable having him here; you didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that. But she was trying, and so Stefan was trying, too. He wanted Elena to be happy.

Elena. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, he was aware of her more than of anything else in the room. Her living presence beat against his skin like sunlight against closed eyelids. When he actually let himself turn to face her, it was a sweet shock to all his senses.

He loved her so much. He never saw her as Katherine anymore; he had almost forgotten how much she looked like the dead girl. In any case there were so many differences. Elena had the same pale gold hair and creamy skin, the same delicate features as Katherine, but there
the resemblance ended. Her eyes, looking violet in the firelight just now but normally a blue as dark as lapis lazuli, were neither timid nor childlike as Katherine’s had been. On the contrary, they were windows to her soul, which shone like an eager flame behind them. Elena was Elena, and her image had replaced Katherine’s gentle ghost in his heart.

But her very strength made their love dangerous. He hadn’t been able to resist her last week when she’d offered him her blood. Granted, he might have died without it, but it had been far too soon for Elena’s own safety. For the hundredth time, his eyes moved over Elena’s face, searching for the telltale signs of change. Was that creamy skin a little paler? Was her expression slightly more remote?

They would have to be careful from now on.
He
would have to be more careful. Make sure to feed often, satisfy himself with animals, so he wouldn’t be tempted. Never let the need get too strong. Now that he thought of it, he was hungry right now. The dry ache, the burning, was spreading along his upper jaw, whispering through his veins and capillaries. He should
be out in the woods—senses alert to catch the slightest crackle of dry twigs, muscles ready for the chase—not here by a fire watching the tracery of pale blue veins in Elena’s throat.

That slim throat turned as Elena looked at him.

“Do you want to go to that party tonight? We can take Aunt Judith’s car,” she said.

“But you ought to stay for dinner first,” said Aunt Judith quickly.

“We can pick up something on the way.” Elena meant they could pick up something for her, Stefan thought. He himself could chew and swallow ordinary food if he had to, though it did him no good, and he had long since lost any taste for it. No, his … appetites … were more particular now, he thought. And if they went to this party, it would mean hours more before he could feed. But he nodded agreement to Elena.

“If you want to,” he said.

She did want to; she was set on it. He’d seen that from the beginning. “All right then, I’d better change.”

He followed her to the base of the stairway.
“Wear something with a high neck. A sweater,” he told her in a voice too low to carry.

She glanced through the doorway, to the empty living room, and said, “It’s all right. They’re almost healed already. See?” She tugged her lacy collar down, twisting her head to one side.

Stefan stared, mesmerized, at the two round marks on the fine-grained skin. They were a very light translucent burgundy color, like much-watered wine. He set his teeth and forced his eyes away. Looking much longer at that would drive him crazy.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” he said brusquely.

The shining veil of her hair fell over the marks again, hiding them. “Oh.”

“Come in!”

As they did, walking into the room, conversations stopped. Elena looked at the faces turned toward them, at the curious, furtive eyes and the wary expressions. Not the kind of looks she was used to getting when she made an entrance.

It was another student who’d opened the door for them; Alaric Saltzman was nowhere in sight. But Caroline was, seated on a bar stool, which showed off her legs to their best advantage. She gave Elena a mocking look and then made some remark to a boy on her right. He laughed.

Elena could feel her smile start to go painful, while a flush crept up toward her face. Then a familiar voice came to her.

“Elena, Stefan! Over here.”

Gratefully, she spotted Bonnie sitting with Meredith and Ed Goff on a loveseat in the corner. She and Stefan settled on a large ottoman opposite them, and she heard conversations start to pick up again around the room.

By tacit agreement, no one mentioned the awkwardness of Elena and Stefan’s arrival. Elena was determined to pretend that everything was as usual.

And Bonnie and Meredith were backing her. “You look great,” said Bonnie warmly. “I just love that red sweater.”

“She does look nice. Doesn’t she, Ed?” said Meredith, and Ed, looking vaguely startled, agreed.

“So your class was invited to this, too,” Elena said to Meredith. “I thought maybe it was just seventh period.”

“I don’t know if
invited
is the word,” replied Meredith dryly. “Considering that participation is half our grade.”

“Do you think he was serious about that? He couldn’t be serious,” put in Ed.

Elena shrugged. “He sounded serious to me. Where’s Ray?” she asked Bonnie.

“Ray? Oh, Ray. I don’t know, around somewhere, I suppose. There’s a lot of people here.”

That was true. The Ramsey living room was packed, and from what Elena could see the crowd flowed into the dining room, the front parlor, and probably the kitchen as well. Elbows kept brushing Elena’s hair as people circulated behind her.

“What did Saltzman want with you after class?” Stefan was saying.

“Alaric,” Bonnie corrected primly. “He wants us to call him Alaric. Oh, he was just being nice. He felt awful for making me relive such an agonizing experience. He didn’t know exactly how Mr. Tanner died, and he hadn’t realized I was
so sensitive. Of course, he’s incredibly sensitive himself, so he understands what it’s like. He’s an Aquarius.”

“With a moon rising in pickup lines,” said Meredith under her breath. “Bonnie, you don’t believe that garbage, do you? He’s a teacher; he shouldn’t be trying that out on students.”

“He wasn’t trying anything out! He said exactly the same thing to Tyler and Sue Carson. He said we should form a support group for each other or write an essay about that night to get our feelings out. He said teenagers are all very impressionable and he didn’t want the tragedy to have a lasting impact on our lives.”

“Oh, brother,” said Ed, and Stefan turned a laugh into a cough. He wasn’t amused, though, and his question to Bonnie hadn’t been just idle curiosity. Elena could tell; she could feel it radiating from him. Stefan felt about Alaric Saltzman the way that most of the people in this room felt about Stefan. Wary and mistrustful.

“It
was
strange, him acting as if the party was a spontaneous idea in our class,” she said, responding unconsciously to Stefan’s unspoken words, “when obviously it had been planned.”

“What’s even stranger is the idea that the school would hire a teacher without telling him how the previous teacher died,” said Stefan. “Everyone was talking about it; it must have been in the papers.”

“But not all the details,” said Bonnie firmly. “In fact, there are things the police still haven’t let out because they think it might help them catch the killer. For instance”—she dropped her voice—“do you know what Mary said? Dr. Feinberg was talking to the guy who did the autopsy, the medical examiner. And he said that there was no blood left in the body at all. Not a drop.”

Elena felt an icy wind blow through her, as if she stood once again in the graveyard. She couldn’t speak. But Ed said, “Where’d it go?”

“Well, all over the floor, I suppose,” said Bonnie calmly. “All over the altar and everything. That’s what the police are investigating now. But it’s unusual for a corpse not to have any blood left; usually there’s some that settles down on the underside of the body. Postmortem lividity, it’s called. It looks like big purple bruises. What’s wrong?”

“Your incredible sensitivity has me ready to throw up,” said Meredith in a strangled voice. “Could we possibly talk about something else?”

“You
weren’t the one with blood all over you,” Bonnie began, but Stefan interrupted her.

“Have the investigators come to any conclusions from what they’ve learned? Are they any closer to finding the killer?”

“I don’t know,” said Bonnie, and then she brightened. “That’s right, Elena, you said you knew—”

“Shut up, Bonnie,” said Elena desperately. If there ever were a place not to discuss this, it was in a crowded room surrounded by people who hated Stefan. Bonnie’s eyes widened, and then she nodded, subsiding.

Elena could not relax, though. Stefan hadn’t killed Mr. Tanner, and yet the same evidence that would lead to Damon could as easily lead to him. And
would
lead to him, because no one but she and Stefan knew of Damon’s existence. He was out there, somewhere, in the shadows. Waiting for his next victim. Maybe waiting for Stefan—or for her.

“I’m hot,” she said abruptly. “I think I’ll go
see what kinds of refreshments
Alaric
has provided.”

Stefan started to rise, but Elena waved him back down. He wouldn’t have any use for potato chips and punch. And she wanted to be alone for a few minutes, to be moving instead of sitting, to calm herself.

Being with Meredith and Bonnie had given her a false sense of security. Leaving them, she was once again confronted by sidelong glances and suddenly turned backs. This time it made her angry. She moved through the crowd with deliberate insolence, holding any eye she accidentally caught. I’m already notorious, she thought. I might as well be brazen, too.

She was hungry. In the Ramsey dining room someone had set up an assortment of finger foods that looked surprisingly good. Elena took a paper plate and dropped a few carrot sticks on it, ignoring the people around the bleached oak table. She wasn’t going to speak to them unless they spoke first. She gave her full attention to the refreshments, leaning past people to select cheese wedges and Ritz crackers, reaching in front of them to pluck grapes, ostentatiously
looking up and down the whole array to see if there was anything she’d missed.

She’d succeeded in riveting everyone’s attention, something she knew without raising her eyes. She bit delicately down on a bread stick, holding it between her teeth like a pencil, and turned from the table.

“Mind if I have a bite?”

Shock snapped her eyes wide open and froze her breath. Her mind jammed, refusing to acknowledge what was going on, and leaving her helpless, vulnerable, in the face of it. But though rational thought had disappeared, her senses went right on recording mercilessly: dark eyes dominating her field of vision, a whiff of some kind of cologne in her nostrils, two long fingers tilting her chin up. Damon leaned in, and, neatly and precisely, bit off the other end of the bread stick.

In that moment, their lips were only inches apart. He was leaning in for a second bite before Elena’s wits revived enough to throw her backward, her hand grabbing the bit of crisp bread and tossing it away. He caught it in midair, a virtuoso display of reflex.

His eyes were still on hers. Elena got in a breath at last and opened her mouth; she wasn’t sure what for. To scream, probably. To warn all these people to run out into the night. Her heart was pounding like a trip-hammer, her vision blurred.

“Easy, easy.” He took the plate from her and then somehow got hold of her wrist. He was holding it lightly, the way Mary had felt for Stefan’s pulse. As she continued to stare and gasp, he stroked it with his thumb, as if comforting her. “Easy. It’s all right.”