“Any reason to party,” Meredith said cheerfully, obviously trying to bring the temperature down.
“Right-o,” said Damon. “Purity parties for the girls; all of them; why not?”
“Because the entire freshman class of guys would have to commit suicide?” Matt offered.
“Because it’s nobody’s business other than our own?” Meredith suggested.
“Because Elena is going to die first,” Bonnie said softly from the corner.
She’d moved. While Damon’s attention had been on Elena, she’d moved until she was tucked almost into the machines, with her hands over her face.
Hearing these words once again, seeing the way bright Bonnie seemed to dissolve into shadows, Damon fully realized why the others had been so frightened the first time when she’d prophesied from her darkling place.
Good, he thought with a savagery that surprised even himself. Something to fight tonight. At last.
Who are you? he sent coldly, silently, to Bonnie’s shadowed form. And don’t give me any nonsense about being Bonnie McCullough. Your aura’s cold as ice.
I am . . . no body.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? And why are you using this child to communicate?
She is susceptible. Easily controlled. Harmless.
Uh-huh. You don’t know the first thing about her, do you?
At this moment, she thinks you are holding her. She wishes you to kiss her.
Yes, hello, earth to Disembodied Intelligence: there are hundreds—thousands of other girls all wishing for the same thing. This particular one, however, is special. She is protected, by me. Do you know anything about me, you infestation?
“Damon,” Elena said softly. “Would you let me talk to her? Maybe she’ll respond to questions—”
“Not yet, please, princess,” Damon said. “Just give me a minute here.” He was running diagnostics on Bonnie’s mind, trying to find the intruder. It was well hidden, some kind of cowardly parasite. Bonnie, who normally would have helped flush it out by using her own witch abilities, wasn’t even aware that she had abilities and was thoroughly terrified, seeing only darkness and wondering what had happened to the lights.
Intuition, Damon thought to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Use your intuition, redbird! There’s a bad thing inside of you, poisoning your words and frightening your friends. Help me find it. Lead me; I’ll follow. Fly!
To give her some incentive, he took her hands away from her face and kissed her. It was a soft, chaste kiss, but it wasn’t short and it wasn’t brotherly. Damon would have liked to have checked Elena’s feelings about the kiss first, but he was concentrating too ferociously on Bonnie. He needed her assistance.
Ohhhhhh, Bonnie thought, too innocent and too overcome (as Damon had guessed) to change the kiss from chaste to passionate. He was right about inspiring her, too. As soon as he lifted his head, Bonnie’s entire mind came alive around his probe, waking up from the trance she had been in, shining in brilliant colors, illuminating everything but . . . over there! A cancerous gray structure that should not have been inside her brain at all was lurking in her left frontal lobe, just ahead of her motor cortex.
Broca’s area, of course, the one that controls speech, Damon thought, and knew that his thought was communicated to Bonnie. He and she were too intimately entwined now for barriers between them to hold. He was also consummately furious at the being that had used this device to hijack Bonnie’s voice.
Let’s get it! Bonnie thought, exhilarated by the chase. She activated her motor cortex, throwing her arms around Damon’s neck. The dark gray cancer scuttled, crablike, away from the neurons firing behind it—only to run directly into Damon’s probe racing to meet it. Threatened, it reared and menaced the vulnerable tissue all around. Damon’s anger peaked. He slammed a miniscule bit of Power directly into the cancer’s middle. The crablike gray mass flickered once and disappeared completely.
Yes! Bonnie cried, jubilant. You killed it!
I killed it. And you helped me kill it.
He bent and kissed her once more, this time on the forehead. Another kiss on the lips might just build in Bonnie the incentive to get possessed again.
Did it say anything to you this time? Last time you said someone told you to ‘turn around and cover your eyes.’
No . . . tonight I just . . . well, the lights went out and I guess I fell asleep.
And I guess you were put to sleep, Damon said. He then quickly Influenced Bonnie to forget all the telepathy and the scuttling crab-thing inside her brain. When he was done, he said, “All right, open your eyes. Feeling better?”
Bonnie nodded, her fair skin still a little flushed. Damon turned to get out of the corner—and found himself face-to-face with Meredith and Matt. They were both staring.
“Damon—” Matt began.