by L. J. Smith
Elena forced a smile. “Hello, Caroline. Hello, Matt.”
Up on the stage near them, the principal tapped his finger against the microphone, clearing his throat. “Can I get the Homecoming Court up on stage, please? It’s time to crown your queen!”
The crowd cheered, but Elena was hardly listening. Instead, she was looking beyond Caroline and Matt. She was positive that Stefan was here, somewhere in the crowd. Even if he hadn’t brought Caroline, surely he had come.
The crowd was shifting around her as the princesses, Bonnie and Meredith among them, climbed the steps to the stage. Elena turned her back on them for a minute, scanning the faces behind her for Stefan.
Then strong fingers, their pointed nails digging into her arm, dragged Elena back to attention. Caroline, eyes blazing, leaned in close as Elena pulled away.
“How does it feel, Elena?” she whispered, her voice hard. “How does it feel to know I’ve taken everything you wanted?” Almost stomping her feet, she swung around in a sweep of gold and auburn, and climbed the steps onto the stage, holding her head high.
Elena cocked a cynical eyebrow at Matt. “Caroline Forbes? Really?”
Matt’s cheeks reddened and he looked away. “You broke up with me, Elena. I’ll date who I want.”
“Oh, Matt,” Elena said, softening. She thought again of Jasmine, of the beautiful, smart, compassionate woman who would fall in love with Matt, who would hold on to him through all the dangers his life threw at them. “I know you can do better. Don’t waste yourself on someone who just wants you as a trophy.”
Matt sighed. “At least she wants me.”
The principal had finished introducing each girl. Now he tore open an envelope. “And your new Homecoming Queen is Caroline Forbes!” Around them, the crowd cheered.
Elena squeezed Matt’s hand. “I know you, Matt,” she said in a quick, fierce whisper. “You don’t take the easy route. You’re not going to be happy unless a relationship is real, unless it’s true. I’m sorry it’s not going to be with me, but you don’t have to settle. Promise me you’re going to be ready, when that great girl shows up. Don’t waste your time on the wrong people.”
The principal lifted the shiny, plastic crown and placed it carefully on Caroline’s head.
For the first time, Matt looked up and made real eye contact with Elena. There was a little bit of warmth in his eyes now, and his mouth turned up into a half smile. “Yeah, maybe,” he said. “One of these days.”
Caroline’s eyes were shining, and she gripped her plastic scepter as if it were made of pure gold. Elena leaned forward and hugged Matt.
And then, behind Matt, she finally saw Stefan. With a satisfying sense of something slotting into place at last, her eyes locked with his. This, she thought, all this time, I’ve been waiting for this.
They were in a crowd of people, and his eyes were only on her. Just for now, couldn’t she at least pretend he was hers?
Stefan looked perfect. Under the dim auditorium lights, Stefan seemed so poised and handsome, his black blazer somehow better cut, more sophisticated than the other boys’. Elena couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, not from this far away, but she knew how green they were, and how, with his sunglasses finally stripped away, they must be broadcasting every emotion he felt.
Elena’s chest tightened as raw longing shot through her. She suddenly felt like she was suffocating, the noise and heat of people pressing in around her. She sucked in a desperate gasp of air.
Stefan’s eyes were fixed on hers as he began to make his way toward her through the crowd. Elena’s heart fluttered in her chest. No. She wasn’t even allowed to pretend. The connection between her and Stefan could kill them both.
“I have to go,” she muttered, and let go of Matt.
“Elena?” Matt called, but she was already turning on her heel and walking away, as fast as she could without actually running. Stay calm, she ordered herself, but she was panting, unable to catch her breath. She hit the swinging door hard and found herself out in the brightly lit, almost empty halls of the school.
Elena leaned against the cool metal of the row of lockers across from the door of the auditorium, and closed her eyes for a moment.
She was never going to have Stefan again. All those years together, all they’d been through, and she couldn’t even talk to him. All their history, wiped out. If she succeeded, it would never happen.
“Elena?” She knew that voice. Her eyes snapped open.
Stefan stood in front of her, his face soft with concern. “I heard what Caroline said to you,” he said. “Are you all right?”
Elena couldn’t help laughing, a short, almost-sob of a laugh. “You think I’m upset about Caroline?” she asked. It was so far-off it was as if Stefan didn’t know her at all. Well, he doesn’t, not now, she thought, and the thought cut off her laugh. Sobering, she snapped, “Whatever she thinks, I don’t want anything Caroline has.”
Stefan touched her cheek, gently drawing her gaze back to his, and a spark of electricity flew beneath Elena’s skin at his touch. “I know that,” he said. “I know you don’t care about all this. Popularity. Dances. I’ve watched you, Elena, and I can tell you’re not thinking about those things. But I also know that you’re sad.”
“Oh.” Tears stung the backs of Elena’s eyes, and she squeezed them tightly closed again, shaking her head. “Caroline’s wrong about—well, almost everything. But, even if I don’t want to be queen or date Matt, it’s true that I can’t have everything I want. And that hurts.”
“Maybe …” Stefan began, but his voice trailed off as Elena shook her head again, her mouth tight. She’d tried having everything, having both of the vampires she loved, more than once. It had taken her years to learn that trying to have both Damon and Stefan led to nothing but misery for all of them. She couldn’t start down that road again, no matter how much she wanted to.
Stefan’s oak-leaf green eyes were warm with sympathy, and his voice was soft. “I understand, Elena. I can’t have the thing I want most either.”
Elena couldn’t help it. She leaned into his body, just a little, and Stefan’s arms circled around her. Elena pressed her face against his shoulder. It was Stefan, Stefan who she’d missed so much.
Stefan let her cry, holding her while she shook for a few moments. Swallowing hard, Elena straightened up, her face back under control. Stefan’s arms were still around her, as if he didn’t want to let go.
“Sorry,” she said, sniffing. “You must think I’m a lunatic.”
“Not at all,” Stefan said. He stroked her back gently, and Elena arched into his touch. “Shall we dance?”
“What?” Elena blinked in surprise. Music was streaming softly through the closed door from the auditorium. Stefan slowly lifted Elena’s arms and twined them around his neck, then wrapped his own arms around her waist.
“We can’t have what we want,” he said with a note of longing in his voice. “But we could dance, just for now. It is a dance, after all.”
They began to sway in time to the music, and Elena leaned her head against the delicate fabric of Stefan’s blazer. His strong hands were holding her so tenderly, and she knew that he was looking down at her with painful, aching love shining through his face, now that he knew she couldn’t see him.
Stefan was drawn to her, had wanted and needed her from the very beginning. This was one thing Elena knew, one thing that had always been true between them. But he would let her go without a word, for her own good. To keep Elena safe.
Elena was swept up in a great wave of emotion, of love and pity and passion, all mixed together. This was Stefan. How could she turn away from him, even for Damon?
Winding her arms around Stefan’s neck, his soft brown curls brushing against her fingers, Elena pulled back a little and looked up into his face. His eyes were dilated with passion, the black expanding across the green.
What if Elena’s plan didn’t work? What if, no matter how she tried, Damon was fated to kil
l Mr. Tanner Halloween night? Or worse, what if she gave up Stefan, undid their love, for nothing?
Elena pulled him closer. Stefan’s lips parted in surprise, and then, with an anguished look of surrender, he bent his head to hers. “What are you?” he murmured against her lips. “What is it about you?”
As their lips met, heat rushed through Elena’s body. It felt so familiar, so right. Her Stefan. The rest of the world fell away.
Until a door burst open behind them.
“Elena?”
Elena pulled out of Stefan’s arms in a panic, stumbling backward as she put distance between them. What had she been thinking?
“Damon,” she said as she turned to face him. Her heart was hammering hard, and she knew her voice sounded strained. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Against the deadly pale of his skin, Damon’s eyes blazed like black stars. In an instant, his face smoothly fell back into its customary detached irony. If Elena hadn’t seen that momentary look of pain, she might have thought that there was a chance he’d listen to what she had to say.
Damon’s lips tightened. “Funnily enough, I think it’s exactly what it looks like, Elena,” he said cooly. “My little brother makes a habit of trespassing on my territory.” His eyes shifted, and then he was looking past Elena, as if she didn’t matter, straight at Stefan. Stefan glared back, his jaw set stubbornly.
“As for you? I’ll make you suffer,” Damon told him, his voice cold and clear, ringing through the deserted hallway. “I told you I would kill you one day, and I will, but first I’m going to destroy everything you care about. You’ll beg for death in the end.” He flashed a brilliant, scornful smile with no humor in it at all. Faster than Elena’s eye could follow, he was gone.
“Damon!” Elena tried to scream after him, but her voice was thin with shock, and it came out more a squeak than anything else.
She’d been such a fool, giving in to her emotions, and now she had ruined everything.
Elena forced herself still and took a deep gulp of air. Maybe there was time to salvage this. If she could find Damon, if she could explain … Elena peered down the hall toward the shadowy corridors leading to the rest of the school. Where would Damon have gone? With a pang, she realized that she didn’t know where he was living, had never known that sort of detail about this time in his life.
“Elena.” In her moment of panic, she’d almost forgotten about Stefan. He gripped her by the arm, his voice low and urgent. “You need to get out of here. Find your friends and go somewhere safe, a house where Damon’s never been. Take the flowers I gave you. If Damon comes to you, whatever you do, whatever he says, don’t let him in.”
Elena grabbed hold of Stefan’s hand. “I just need to talk to Damon.”
“It won’t help,” he said grimly. “Do what I told you, Elena, please.”
And, in the moments between one blink and another, he was gone, too.
Elena swore, slamming her hand against a locker. Stefan was the last person who should be going after Damon now, and he ought to know that. But maybe he didn’t care.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then another, trying to calm her pounding heart.
Maybe Damon would go to Stefan’s boardinghouse, looking for revenge. Or maybe she could figure out where he was staying. Damon liked luxury—she could check the nice hotel downtown and search for upscale, uninhabited houses. Inhabited ones, too. He had hidden her in an attic once, Elena remembered. She let out a long, frustrated sigh.
Damon could be anywhere. But maybe, just maybe … Elena looked up and down the halls at the banners cheering on the football team, the dented lockers. Damon had never been one to run away from conflict. He could still be in the school.
And if so, Elena needed to find him, fast.
Elena headed back into the auditorium, music and chatter swelling around her as she passed through the door. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness as she scanned the crowd, trying to spot her friends.
She saw Meredith first, on the dance floor with a boy whose name Elena didn’t know. Elena cut straight through the crowd toward them, putting her hand on Meredith’s shoulder.
“I need your help. Please,” she said.
Meredith took one glance at her and nodded. “I’ll be back,” she said to her partner with a smile, and tugged Elena to the side of the dance floor, whispering, “What? What’s happened?”
“Let me get Bonnie and Matt first, and then I’ll explain.” Elena had spotted Bonnie, deeper in the crowd on the dance floor. She was dancing with Raymond and getting into the music, her eyes closed and her hands up in the air above her head. Elena shouldered her way toward her, ignoring the grumbles as she shoved past people.
“Bonnie. Come with us.”
Bonnie opened her eyes and scowled. “I’m dancing,” she said, without stopping.
“This is important.” Elena tried to put all the anxiety she was feeling into her face.
Bonnie sighed and rolled her eyes at Raymond. “Girl stuff,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Seriously, what’s going on? It couldn’t wait?” she hissed at Elena as they reached the edge of the dance floor and the crowd thinned out a little.
Over at the refreshment table, Matt was pouring two cups of punch. Elena headed for him, Bonnie and Meredith trailing behind her. “I need help finding Damon,” Elena said. “He’s here, and he saw me kissing Stefan.”
Matt’s eyebrows shot up his forehead, and Bonnie and Meredith exchanged a confused glance.
“You were kissing Stefan?” Bonnie asked, in a tone midway between scandalized and intrigued.
“I’m not sure this qualifies as an emergency,” Meredith said dryly. “Maybe you should let him cool off and call him tomorrow.”
Matt remained quiet, not able to look Elena in the eye.
Elena felt sick. Of course they weren’t panicking. As far as the three of them were concerned, Damon was just a guy she was dating, and Stefan was a guy who went to their school. Good-looking, intense, mysterious guys, but, when you came right down to it, only human beings. They didn’t understand how dangerous Damon—this Damon, the Damon of now—could be.
“This isn’t going to be okay!” she said, hearing her own voice wobble wildly.
“Oh, Elena—” At her outburst, Bonnie’s eyes widened in sympathy, and she wrapped her arms around Elena. “We’ll help, whatever you need.” She looked fiercely at Meredith and Matt, as if daring them to disagree. Meredith nodded in agreement, but Matt hesitated.
“I just—Caroline’s waiting for me,” he said, gazing down at the two cups of punch he was still clutching.
“Go ahead and take them to her and then come help us,” Meredith said firmly.
“Caroline will get over it,” Bonnie added, a smirk playing around the edges of her mouth.
Matt looked torn for a moment, and then his face firmed, his mind made up. “I’ll be back,” he said grimly, and marched off.
The three girls watched as he crossed the auditorium to where Caroline stood. At first, she smiled at Matt and accepted the cup of punch gracefully, as poised as a princess. Matt dipped his head to speak in her ear and, as she listened, Caroline’s expression grew more and more thunderous. She snapped something back at him, and Matt replied. Then Caroline, clearly incandescent with rage, reared back and slapped Matt hard across the face.
“Oh my God,” Bonnie breathed.
Matt swung around and hurried back to them. “I guess that’s that” was all he said. There was a red mark high on his cheekbone where Caroline had slapped him.
Elena slipped her hand into his big, warm one and squeezed, just for a second. “Thank you.” She didn’t deserve him; she knew that.
As she let go, Matt looked down at her, shaking his head slightly from side to side. “I don’t know why I do the things I do for you, Elena Gilbert,” he said, but a rueful smile was beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth.
“Somed
ay, I hope to return the favor,” Elena said, then turned to her other friends. “If we split up, we can search the school more quickly.” They pushed through the auditorium doors into the hall again. “But if you see Damon, just come get me, don’t try talking to him. He’s upset. If you see Stefan, try to get him to come back here.”
“So Stefan went after Damon?” Meredith asked, confused. “Why? Do they even know each other?”
“They’re brothers, but they don’t get along very well,” Elena told her.
She dug into the tiny lipstick-red purse she carried. It didn’t hold a lot—just essentials—but one thing in here might be crucial. “Here.” She pulled out the withered bunch of vervain, now looking more like a bunch of wilted, dead weeds than ever, and quickly divided it into four small portions, a few strands of vervain in each.
“Um, why are you giving us dead plants?” Bonnie asked, holding hers doubtfully between her thumb and forefinger, her nose wrinkling.
“They’re good luck,” Elena said, aware of how lame she sounded. “Damon’s very superstitious.”
They all stared at her but, with a shrug, Matt put his bunch into his suit jacket, and Meredith into her clutch. Bonnie, purseless, tucked them behind her ear.
They split up, Matt and Bonnie heading down the hall toward the cafeteria, Meredith and Elena going the other way toward the office. As they walked, Elena glanced into every dim classroom, checking for Damon or Stefan.
“Maybe you should just let Damon calm down on his own,” Meredith said hesitantly, but Elena shook her head.
“I have to find him.” The longer she and Meredith looked, the more urgently Elena felt that time was running out. She knew Damon was only getting angrier by the minute.
Unease spread inside Elena, the feeling that someone was watching her from the shadows. The skin on the back of her neck crawled. She stopped to listen.
In the distance, someone laughed, and quick footsteps ran down a nearby hallway. Probably just another student, someone ducking out of the dance. Elena took a deep breath and pushed open the next classroom door. No one.
