"Or the stake. I know. Bonnie knows. We talked about it while we were flying here. But we're still with you, Elena. You have to know that. We're all with you."
There was only one way to reply to that. Elena gripped Meredith's hand in both of hers. Then she let out her breath, and, like probing an aching tooth, tried to get news on a sore subject. "Does Matt - did he - well, how was Matt when you left?"
Meredith glanced at her sideways. Not much got past Meredith. "He seemed okay, but - distracted. He would go off into these fits where he'd just stare at nothing, and he wouldn't hear you if you spoke to him."
"Did he tell you why he left?"
"Well...sort of. He said that Damon was hypnotizing you and that you weren't - weren't doing all you could to stop him. But he's a boy and boys get jealous - "
"No, he was right about what he saw. It's just that I've - gotten to know Damon a little better. And Matt doesn't like that."
"Um-hm." Meredith was watching her from under lowered eyelids, barely breathing, as if Elena was a bird that mustn't be disturbed or she'd fly away.
Elena laughed. "It's nothing bad," she said. "At least I don't think so. It's just that...in some ways Damon needs help even more than Stefan did when he first came to Fell's Church."
Meredith's eyebrows shot up, but all she said was, "Um-hm."
"And...I think that really Damon's a lot more like Stefan than he lets on."
Meredith's eyebrows stayed up. Elena finally looked at her. She opened her mouth once or twice and then she just stared at Meredith. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" she said helplessly.
"If all this comes from less than one week riding in a car with him...then, yes. But we have to remember that women are Damon's specialty. And he thinks he's in love with you."
"No, he really is - " Elena began, and then she caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Oh, God, this is Damon we're talking about. I am in trouble."
"Let's just watch and see what happens," Meredith said sensibly. "He's definitely changed, too. Before, he would have just told you that your friends couldn't come - and that was it. Today he stuck around and listened."
"Yes. I just have to - to be on my guard from now on," Elena said, a little unsteadily. How was she going to help the child inside Damon without getting closer to him? And how would she explain all she might need to do to Stefan?
She sighed.
"It'll probably be all right," Bonnie muttered sleepily. Meredith and Elena both turned to look at her and Elena felt a chill go up her spine. Bonnie was sitting propped up, but her eyes were shut and her voice was indistinct. "The real question is: what will Stefan say about that night at the motel with Damon?"
"What?" Elena's voice was sharp and loud enough to awaken any sleeper. But Bonnie didn't stir.
"What happened what night at what motel?" Meredith demanded. When Elena didn't answer immediately, she caught Elena's arm and swung her so that they were face-to-face.
At last Elena looked at her friend. But her eyes, she knew, gave away nothing.
"Elena, what's she talking about? What happened with Damon?"
Elena still kept her face perfectly expressionless, and used a word she'd learned just that night. "Sa..."
"Elena, you're impossible! You're not going to dump Stefan after you rescue him, are you?"
"No, of course not!" Elena was hurt. "Stefan and I belong together - forever."
"But still you spent a night with Damon where something happened between you."
"Something...I guess."
"And that something was?"
Elena smiled apologetically. "Sa..."
"I'll get it out of him! I'll put him on the defensive...."
"You can make a Plan A and Plan B and all," Elena said. "But it won't help. Shinichi took his memories away. Meredith, I'm sorry - you don't know how sorry. But I swore that nobody would ever know." She looked up at the taller girl, feeling tears pool in her eyes. Can't you just - once - let me leave it that way?"
Meredith sank bank. "Elena Gilbert, the world is lucky there is only one of you. You are the..." She paused, as if deciding whether to say the words or not. Then she said, "It's time to get to bed. Dawn is going to come early and so is the Demon Gate."
"Merry?"
"What now?"
"Thank you."
Chapter 13
The Demon Gate.
Elena glanced over her shoulder at the backseat of the Prius. Bonnie was blinking sleepily. Meredith, who'd gotten much less sleep but heard much more alarming news, was looking like a razor blade: keen, sharp as ice, and ready.
There was nothing else to see except Damon with his paper bags on the seat beside him, driving the Prius. Out the windows, where an arid Arizona dawn should be blinding its way across the horizon, was nothing but fog.
It was frightening and disorienting. They had taken a small road off Highway 179 and, gradually, the fog had crept in, sending tendrils of mist around the car, and finally engulfing it whole. It seemed to Elena that they were being deliberately cut off from the old ordinary world of McDonald's and Target, and were crossing a border into a place they weren't meant to know about, much less go.
There was no traffic in the other direction. None at all. And as hard as Elena peered out of her window, it was like trying to look through fast-moving clouds.
"Aren't we going too fast?" Bonnie asked, rubbing her eyes.
"No," Damon said. "It would be - a remarkable coincidence - if anyone else were on the same route at the same time we are."