All right, stop thinking about that, he told himself. No point in getting worked up over a fanged loser like Damon. Elena had made it perfectly clear that it was Stefan she loved, and Stefan was Matt’s best friend.
Matt sighed and re-opened his trigonometry textbook, which had fallen closed. He tried to make sense of the same equation he’d been reading over for twenty minutes, but he couldn’t shut out the booming around him of bass notes, like drums in his head.
He wondered vaguely when his roommate would show up. The guy was going to be pretty seriously behind in classes if he didn’t turn up soon. Matt hoped he wouldn’t want to party all night when he did arrive.
* * *
Elena Gilbert stuck to the shadows. She was sneaking into Stefan’s dormitory, Gibson Hall, where—unbelievably—girls were not allowed after 9:00 P.M.
It was more than twenty minutes after that already, so she couldn’t even hope for Plan A, which had been to
swim upstream against the flow of other girls coming out and eventually make a sharp right turn at the top of the second staircase landing.
That meant it was time for Plan B, which was to be a boy and simply strut her way in. Elena pulled a dark blue wool cap from the double pocket in the front of her navy hoodie. She coiled her hair—it was getting a little too long now, she noticed—wrapping it tightly into a bun with one hand while holding the cap in front with the other. Eventually, somehow, the hair ended up inside the cap, and on the top of her head rather than the back. It wasn’t really cold enough to justify the cap; the trees hadn’t yet begun to change color. Elena pulled her hood up over her head far enough to put her face in shadow.
The hoodie was generous in cut, so as to conceal the curve of her hips. In addition, she was wearing baggy Levis and scuffed gray high-top Nikes.
A decent disguise, or so her mirror had indicated. Or course, nothing would have been easier than asking Stefan to come to her room tonight. He could Influence anyone who saw him to let him by. But where was the thrill in that?
Just now Elena’s heart was racing, her mind was pounding, and she felt shaky with adrenaline. This might be a decent disguise, but was it actually going to work? What would happen if she got caught? It would all depend on the nature of the guy who caught her, and Elena had practical reasons to be wary of relying on some strange guy’s good nature.
Her ruminations made Elena huddle farther back into her hood and concentrate on walking like a short tough guy. A short human tough guy, she amended silently, since both Stefan and Damon walked like jungle cats on the prowl: silent, stealthy and graceful. Non-vampire guys with attitude were more or less a mixture of swagger and stagger.
Elena clenched her fists, set her face in a ferocious scowl, thrust her chin out and . . . got into Gibson Hall and all the way up the first flight of stairs before disaster struck.
Two freshmen who were arguing about something, doing a very much more realistic job of beetle-browed scowling than she could ever hope to, stopped talking suddenly as she passed. Elena increased her swagger and her pace, hastened up the stairway, but it was no good. She could feel them following her. If her ears hadn’t been so muffled by hair and cap and hood she might have heard them. But it was the feeling of where they were looking that really infuriated her. It was a bit she was trying very hard not to sway, and which seemed to have a mind of its own at the moment.
Elena put her hand out to make certain and noted that the balustrade trembled under their heavy steps. She made it to the first landing and then stopped to confront the pair who had just reached the top of the staircase.
One of them examined her lecherously, not at all put off by the shapeless clothing. “Hey, babe, where’re you going?” he asked, leering. “You got a special friend to see after curfew?”
Elena gazed at him coldly. “My personal life is none of your business.”
The lecher didn’t look at all put out. “Hey, baby cakes, we can make you forget all about your friend, can’t we?” He elbowed the second guy, who was burly and much more taciturn.
“Yeah,” Burly said shortly.
The lecherous one kept coming toward Elena, smirking all the while. “C’mon, babe, let’s be friends. Let’s be close friends. What do you say to getting closer?”
Elena shrugged. “If you really want it . . .”
“I do, I do,” he said enthusiastically. “Now, just come over to my room, okay? Or do you want some help?”
As he reached out to grab her by the shoulder, Elena grasped the palm of his extended hand with her fingers. She then twisted his hand inward and back under his armpit. His palm ended up facing outward, and he yelped as the bones of his forearm were rotated against his elbow.
Instantly Elena applied pressure, turning the lecher’s arm in a direction it was never meant to go. He gasped, in too much pain even to yell again. His eyes bulged at her.
Elena knew that with enough pressure she could break the radius and ulna, tearing tendons and muscle. Or she could dislocate the lecher’s elbow. But Meredith had been very specific about controlling opponents without permanently damaging them, if possible. Elena settled for sweeping the guy’s feet from under him while he was off balance and his mind was fixed solely on how his elbow joint was going to snap.
He fell and didn’t get up again, but lay cradling his sore arm and whimpering.
The taciturn guy was already rushing toward Elena, and he was much taller and heavier than she was.
Perfect, she thought.
She dropped easily into a position with her right leg in front of her, slightly bent at the knee and relaxed. As Burly reached her, spreading out both arms to crush her in a bear hug, she gripped the neck of his T-shirt on the right side with her left hand and grabbed his left wrist with her right hand.
The rest happened so fast it was a blur. Elena broke the burly guy’s balance by pushing him right and to the front. She then moved so that her right foot blocked his right ankle, at the same time bending her left leg slightly.