Phantom (The Vampire Diaries 8)

Chapter 15

As soon as Elena spoke Caleb's name, the person on the cliff began to pul back out of their line of sight. After a moment of hesitation, Matt took off running pel -mel up the path toward where they'd seen him.

It should have been sil y, Elena thought, the way they al reacted as if they'd been threatened. Anyone had a right to hike the trails at Hot Springs, and Caleb - if it was Caleb -

hadn't done anything but peer down over the edge of the cliff at them. But nevertheless, there had been something ominous about the figure hovering so watchful y above them, and their reaction didn't feel sil y.

Bonnie gasped and her body relaxed as she came out of the trance.

"What happened?" she asked. "Oh, gosh, not again."

"Do you remember anything?" Elena said.

Bonnie shook her head mournful y.

"You said, 'He wants you, Elena,'" said Celia, examining Bonnie with a clinical y enthusiastic glint in her eye. "You don't remember who you were talking about?"

"I guess if he wanted Elena, it could have been anyone,"

Bonnie said, her eyes narrowing. Elena stared at her. Had there been an uncharacteristic catty edge to Bonnie's tone? But Bonnie grinned rueful y back at her, and Elena decided the comment had just been a joke.

A few minutes later, Matt came back down the path, shaking his head.

"Whoever it was just vanished," he said, his forehead crinkled in confusion. "I couldn't see anyone on the trail in either direction."

"Do you think he's a werewolf, like Tyler was?" Bonnie asked.

"You're not the first person who's asked me that," Elena said, glancing at Stefan. "I just don't know. I don't think so, though. Caleb seems total y nice and normal. Remember how wolfy Tyler was even before he became a werewolf?

Those big white teeth and his sort of animalness? Caleb's not like that."

"Then why would he spy on us?"

"I don't know," Elena said again, frustrated. She couldn't think about this now. Her mind was stil swimming with the question: Could Damon be alive? What did Caleb matter, compared to that? "Maybe he was just hiking. I'm not even sure it was Caleb. It could have been some other guy with curly blond hair instead. Just a random hiker who got scared off when Matt went charging up the hil toward him."

Their discussion went in circles until eventual y Alaric took Meredith off to the hospital to have a doctor check out her ankle. The rest of them adjourned to the top of the fal s to gather up the picnic stuff.

They al nibbled at the chips and brownies and fruit, and Matt made himself a hot dog on the hibachi gril , but the joy had gone out of the day.

When Elena's phone rang, it was a welcome relief. "Hey, Aunt Judith," she said, forcing a cheerful note into her voice.

"Hi," Aunt Judith said hurriedly. "Listen, I have to go to the auditorium to help do al the girls' hair and makeup, and Robert already wil have to leave work early to get to the recital on time. Would you do me a favor and pick up some flowers for Margaret on your way over? Something sweet and bal erinaish, if you know what I mean."

"No problem," Elena said. "I know exactly what you mean. I'l see you there." She wanted to forget for a while: forget mystery hikers and near-drownings and her constant alternating feelings of hope and despair about the appearance of Damon's name. Watching her little sister twirl around in a tutu sounded just about right.

"Terrific," said Aunt Judith. "Thank you. Wel , if you are al the way up at Hot Springs, you'd better start heading home soon."

"Okay, Aunt Judith," Elena said. "I'l get going now."

They said good-bye, and Elena hung up and started gathering her things together. "Stefan, can I take your car?"

she asked. "I need to get to Margaret's dance recital. You can give him a ride back, right, Matt? I'l cal you guys later and we'l work on figuring this out."

Stefan got to his feet. "I'l come with you."

"What?" said Elena. "No, you need to stay with Celia and get to the hospital to take care of Meredith, too."

Stefan took her arm. "Don't go, then. You shouldn't be alone now. None of us are safe. There's something out there hunting us, and we need to al stick together. If we don't let each other out of our sight, then we can al protect one another."

His leaf green eyes were clear and ful of anxiety and love, and Elena felt a pang of regret as she tugged her arm gently out of his grasp. "I need to go," she said quietly. "If I spend al my time being scared and hiding, then the Guardians might as wel have let me stay dead. I need to be with my family and live as normal a life as I can."

She kissed him gently, lingering for a moment against the softness of his lips. "And you know they haven't targeted me yet," she said. "Nothing's spel ed out my name. But I promise I'l be careful."

Stefan's eyes were hard. "What about what Bonnie said?" he argued. "That he wants you? What if that means Caleb? He's hanging around at your house, Elena! He could come after you at any time!"

"Wel , I'm not going to be there. I'l be at a dance recital with my family beside me," Elena pointed out. "Nothing wil happen to me today. It's not my turn yet, is it?"

"Elena, don't be stupid!" Stefan snapped. "You're in danger."

Elena bristled. Stupid? Stefan, no matter how stressed or anxious, had never treated her with less than total respect. "Excuse me?"

Stefan reached for her. "Elena," he said. "Let me come with you. I'l stay with you until nightfal and then keep watch outside your house tonight."

"It's real y not necessary," Elena said. "Protect Meredith and Celia instead. They're the ones who need you."

Stefan's face fel , and he looked so devastated that she relented a little, adding, "Please don't worry, Stefan. I'l be careful, and I'l see you al tomorrow."

His jaw clenched, but he said nothing more, and she turned to make her way down the trail, not looking back. Once they were back at the boardinghouse, Stefan couldn't relax.

He couldn't remember ever, in al his long life, feeling so edgy and uncomfortable in his own body. He itched and ached with anxiety. It was as if his skin were fitted too tightly over his bones, and he moved irritably, tapping his fingers against the table, cracking his neck, shrugging his shoulders, shifting back and forth in his chair. He wants you, Elena. What the hel did that mean? He wants you.

And the sight of that dark, hulking figure up on the cliff, a shadow blotting out the sun, those golden curls shining like a halo above the figure's head...

Stefan knew he should be with Elena. Al he wanted to do was to protect her.

But she had dismissed him, had - metaphorical y, at least - patted him on the head and told him to stay, faithful guard dog that he was, and watch over someone else. To keep someone else safe. No matter that she was clearly in danger, that someone - some he - wanted her. Stil she didn't want Stefan to be with her right now. What did Elena want? Now that Stefan stopped to think about it, it seemed that Elena wanted a host of incompatible things. To have Stefan as her loyal knight. Which he would always, always be, he asserted to himself, clenching his fist tightly.

But she also wanted to hold on to the memories of Damon, and to keep that part of her she had shared with him private and pristine, separate from everyone else, even from Stefan.

And she wanted so much more, too: to be the savior of her friends, of her town, of her world. To be loved and admired. To be in control.

And to be a normal girl again. Wel , that normal life she had lived had been destroyed forever when she met Stefan, when he made the choice to let her into his world. He knew it was his fault, al of it, everything that fol owed after that, but he couldn't be sorry that she was with him now. He loved her too much to have any room for regret. She was the center of his world, but at the same time, he knew it wasn't the same for her.

A hole inside him gaped with longing, and he moved restlessly in his chair. His canine teeth lengthened in his mouth. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so... wrong. He couldn't get the image of Caleb out of his head, looking down at them from the top of the cliff, as if checking to see whether whatever violence he'd hoped to cause had come to pass.

"More tea, Stefan?" Mrs. Flowers asked him softly, breaking into his furious thoughts. She was leaning forward over a little table with the teapot, her wide blue eyes watching him from behind her glasses. Her face was so compassionate that he wondered what she could see in him. This elderly, wise woman always seemed to perceive so much more than anyone else; perhaps she could tel how he was feeling now.

He realized she was stil waiting politely for his answer, the teapot suspended in one hand, and he nodded automatical y. "Thank you, Mrs. Flowers," he said, offering forth his cup, which was stil half-ful of cold tea. He didn't real y like the taste of normal human drinks; he hadn't for a long time now, but sometimes drinking them made him fit in, made the others relax a bit more around him. When he didn't eat or drink at al , he could sense Elena's friends prickling, the hairs on the back of their necks rising, as some subconscious voice in them noted that he was not like them, adding it to al the other little differences he couldn't control, and thereby concluding he was wrong.

Mrs. Flowers fil ed his cup and sat back, satisfied. Picking up her knitting - something pink and fluffy - she smiled. "It's so nice to have al you young people gathered together here," she commented. "Such a lovely group of children."

Glancing at the others, Stefan had to wonder whether Mrs. Flowers was being gently sarcastic.

Alaric and Meredith had returned from the hospital, where her injury had been diagnosed as a mild sprain and taped up by the emergency room nurse. Meredith's usual y serene face was tight, probably at least partial y because of the pain and her irritation at knowing she'd have to stay off her foot for a couple of days.

And partial y, Stefan suspected, because of where she was sitting. For some reason, when Alaric had helped her hobble into the living room and over to the couch, he had parked her directly next to Celia.

Stefan didn't consider himself an expert on romance -

after al , he'd lived for hundreds of years and fal en in love only twice, and his romance with Katherine had been a disaster - but even he couldn't miss the tension between Meredith and Celia. He wasn't sure whether Alaric was as oblivious to it as he seemed or whether he was pretending obliviousness in the hope that the situation would blow over. Celia had changed into an elegant white sundress and sat flipping through a journal titled Forensic Anthropology, looking cool and composed. Meredith was, in contrast, unusual y grimy and smudged, her beautiful features and smooth olive skin marred by tiredness and pain. Alaric had taken a chair next to the couch.

Celia, ignoring Meredith, leaned across her toward Alaric.

"I think you might find this interesting," she said to him.

"It's an article on the dental patterns in mummified bodies found on an island quite near Unmei no Shima."

Meredith shot Celia a nasty look. "Oh, yes," she said quietly. "Teeth, how fascinating." Celia's mouth flattened into a line, but she didn't reply.

Alaric took the magazine with a polite murmur of interest, and Meredith frowned.

Stefan frowned, too. Al the tension humming between Meredith, Celia, and Alaric - and now that he was watching, he could tel that Alaric knew exactly what was going on between the two young women and was flattered, irritated, and anxious in equal parts - was interfering with Stefan's Powers.

While he'd sat and sipped his first cup of tea, reluctantly fol owing Elena's command to "stay," Stefan had been sending out tendrils of Power, trying to sense whether Elena had made it home, whether anything had stopped her on her way. Whether Caleb had stopped her. But he hadn't been able to find her, even with his senses extended to their utmost. Once or twice, he'd caught what felt like a fleeting impression of what might be the very specific sound, scent, and aura that unmistakably meant Elena, but then it slipped away from him.

He'd blamed the fact that he couldn't locate her on his weakening Powers, but now it was clear to him what was keeping him from finding her. Al the emotion in this room: the pounding hearts, the flushes of anger, the acrid scent of jealousy.

Stefan pul ed himself back, tried to quel the rage rising within him. These people - his friends, he reminded himself

- were not purposely interfering. They couldn't help their emotions. He took a swig of his rapidly cooling tea, trying to relax before he lost control, and winced at the taste. Tea wasn't what he was craving, he realized. He needed to get out to the forest soon and hunt. He needed blood. No, he needed to find out exactly what Caleb Smal wood was up to. He stood up so abruptly, so violently, the chair rocked unsteadily beneath him.

"Stefan?" Matt asked in an alarmed voice.

"What is it?" Bonnie's eyes were enormous.

Stefan glanced around the circle of distracted faces, now al watching him. "I have to go." Then he turned on his heels and ran.

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