"Damon doesn't mean to be such a - a bastard,"Bonnie said explosively. "He's just - so often he feels like it's the three of us against him - and - and - "
"Well, who started that? Even back riding the thurgs,"Stefan said.
"I know, but there's something else,"Bonnie said humbly.
"Since it's only snow and rock and ice - he's - I don't know.
He's al tight. Something's wrong."
"He's hungry,"Elena said, stricken by a sudden realization.
Since the thurgs there had been nothing for the two vampires to hunt. They couldn't exist, like foxes, on insects and mice.
Of course Lady Ulma had provided plenty of Black Magic for them, the only thing that even resembled a substitute for blood. But their supply was dwindling, and of course, they had to think of the trip back, as well .
Suddenly Elena knew what would do her good.
"Stefan,"she murmured, pul ing him into a nook in the craggy stone of the cave entrance. She pushed off her hood and unrol ed her scarf enough to expose one side of her neck.
"Don't make me say 'please'too many times,"she whispered to him. "I can't wait that long."
Stefan looked into her eyes, saw that she was serious - and determined - and kissed one of her mittened hands.
"It's been long enough now, I think - no, I'm sure, or I would never even attempt this,"he whispered. Elena tipped her head back. Stefan stood between her and the wind and she was almost warm. She felt the little initial pain and then Stefan was drinking and their minds slid together like two raindrops on a glass window.
He took very little blood. Just enough to make the difference in his eyes between Stillgreen pools and sparkling, effervescent streams.
But then his gaze went Stillagain. "Damon..."he said, and paused awkwardly.
What could Elena say? I just severed al ties with him? They were supposed to help one another along these trials; to show their wit and courage. If she refused, would she fail again?
"Send him quick then,"she said. "Before I change my mind."
Five minutes later Elena was again tucked into the little nook, while Damon turned her head back and forth with dispassionate precision, then suddenly darted forward and sank his fangs into a prominent vein. Elena felt her eyes go wide.
A bite that hurt this much - Well, she hadn't experienced it since the days when she had been stupid and unprepared and had fought with al her strength to get free.
As for Damon's mind - there was a steel wal . Since she had to do this, she had been hoping to see the little boy who lived in Damon's inmost soul, the one who was the unwil ing Watch-Keeper over al of his secrets, but she couldn't even thaw the steel a little.
After a minute or two, Stefan pul ed Damon off of her - not gently. Damon came away sul enly, wiping his mouth.
"Are you okay?"Bonnie asked in a worried whisper, as Elena rummaged through Lady Ulma's medicine box for a piece of gauze to staunch the unhealed wounds in her neck.
"I've been better,"Elena said briefly, as she wrapped up her scarf again.
Bonnie sighed. "Meredith is the one who real y belongs here,"she said.
"Yes, but Meredith real y belongs in Fel 's Church, too. I only hope they can hold on long enough for us to come back."
"I only hope that we can come back with something that wil help them,"Bonnie whispered.
Meredith and Matt spent the time from 2:00 A.M. to dawn pouring infinitesimal drops from Misao's star bal onto the streets of the town, and asking the Power to - somehow -
help them in the fight against Shinichi. This brisk movement from place to place had also netted a surprising bonus: kids.
Not crazy kids. Normal ones, terrified of their brothers and sisters or of their parents, not daring to go home because of the awful things they had seen there. Meredith and Matt had crammed them into Matt's mother's second-hand SUV and brought them to Matt's house.
In the end, they had more than thirty kids, from ages five to sixteen, al too frightened to play, or talk, or even to ask for anything. But they'd eaten everything Mrs. Flowers could find that wasn't spoiled in Matt's refrigerator and pantry, and from the pantries of the deserted houses on either side of the Honeycutts'.
Matt, watching a ten-year-old girl cramming plain white bread into her mouth with wolfish hunger, tears running down her grimy face as she chewed and swal owed, said quietly to Meredith, "Think we've got any ringers in here?"
"I'd bet my life on it,"she replied just as quietly. "But what are we going to do? Cole doesn't know anything helpful. We'l just have to pray that the un-possessed kids wil be able to help us when Shinichi's ringers attack."