Elena nodded, never taking her eyes from the dark trail, barely daring to blink. Behind her, she heard Darlene shift from foot to foot and sigh.
"I knew Trinity's family," the older hunter said. "Before her parents died, they were almost like my parents, too. They fed me, offered me a place to stay, gave me advice I usually didn't follow. Trinity ... she's the only one left. I can't just let go of her."
"We'll do our best," Elena said, her eyes still fixed over the water. "I promise. I want to save her as much as you do." She was trying not to show it, but she was used to having Stefan, Meredith, and Bonnie on her side. With Bonnie gone and the others united against her, Elena felt so alone.
She gritted her teeth. She was doing the right thing, and that had to count for something.
There was a plashing of oars as Matt rowed up to them in a dented old rowboat. He jumped out and waded to shore, pulling the boat up behind him. "Here we go," he said. "There wasn't much selection. The crew team locks their boats up."
Elena sat in the front of the boat and pointed the way, while Darlene and Matt each took an oar.
As they traveled, the evil aura got darker and thicker. Elena was sure now that it was Solomon's. It felt ancient and cruel, like a bitter memory, something that had survived long millennia steeped in violence and hate. There was a strange yellowish-green mixed up in the smoky darkness, and Elena remembered what Jasmine and Meredith had said about Trinity's eyes.
As they neared the middle of the lake, the boat suddenly lurched. Elena yelped, grabbing hold of its side to keep her balance.
"What was that?" Darlene asked sharply.
"The wind must be picking up," Matt said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.
The waves were getting bigger, tossing the boat angrily in the water. Elena gripped the sides so hard her fingers ached.
"There's no wind," Darlene said suddenly, and Elena realized she was right. The sky was black and ominous, but the air was still. The waves moved more violently, the front of the boat going up in the air and then smacking down onto the water with a sickening lurch.
Right in front of Elena, the aura she'd been following disappeared, dissolving into nothingness.
"It's a trick," she gasped, just as the boat smacked into the water hard, dumping them out.
Elena was pulled down, down, down under the water, her hair streaming out behind her like a mermaid's. No, she thought, no, please, no. She'd drowned once before, in the dark waters of the creek under Wickery Bridge. She'd died.
She kicked and thrashed, trying to swim up toward the surface, but it was as if some invisible force was pushing on her, sending her straight down. Her feet hit the muddy bottom and waterweed, soft as feathers, wrapped itself around her legs.
Holding her breath, she bent her legs and pushed off hard against the lake bottom, focusing on the dim light above. She could see shadows in the water above her-Matt and Darlene, and the vague outline of the boat.
She was so cold. Colder than made sense for a summer day, even in deep water.
The water had been cold the other time-the night she went off the bridge. Ice in her hair, the heavy painful push of water filling her lungs, the blackness that had sucked her in. The last thing she had seen was the hood of Matt's car swallowed by dark water.
I'm not going to make it. Elena pushed the thought away and kept swimming upward. Ice crystals were forming around her, she realized, sharp and crystalline.
She was about to break through when her hands hit something hard and flat and cold above her. She gasped in surprise, accidentally letting the water in, and red-and-black sparks burst in her vision. With the last of her strength, Elena pounded her fists against the barrier, felt for an opening. But it was no use.
The pond had frozen over above her. Solomon.
She tried to keep hitting at the ice, but she was floating down, down, toward the darkness below. A human death, she thought, and then, Oh, Stefan, I'm so sorry to leave you this way.
Some last spark in her flared in rebellion. She wasn't going to die like this, not again. She was a Guardian. Elena reached deep, deep inside herself and pulled hard at the last of her Power.
Something arced out of her, a pure white light, and with a sudden shock, the ice above her head cracked violently open. And somehow, with one last feeble kick, she managed to break the surface of the water.
She opened her eyes but for a moment, she still couldn't see. She was coughing, taking great rasping, greedy breaths, struggling not to slip back under. And then something grabbed her by the hair, was now holding her by the arms, and she started fighting it, turning and twisting blindly in the water.
"Elena! Elena!" There was a sharp pain across her face, and Elena stopped struggling, shocked. "Elena!" It was Matt, gripping onto one of her arms, his other hand raised to slap her again. Darlene, her wet hair matted, was clutching her other arm. The boat bobbed across the water next to them.
Tears streaming from her eyes, Elena clung to Matt, his body warm and solid next to her freezing one. She choked and gagged some more, spitting icy water. "It was a trick," she managed to say after a minute, sobbing.
"I know. I can't ... I don't know what just happened, but I'm so glad you're okay." Matt gulped and took a deep breath, his arms tight around Elena. "We have to get back to shore."
Matt boosted Elena up, steadying the boat with one hand. With a lot of effort, she managed to wiggle back over the side, scraping her stomach uncomfortably, and land in a graceless heap on the bottom of the boat.
They rowed back toward shore. The waves were gone and the surface of the lake was still. The ice had already almost melted in the summer sun, but here and there bits of it bobbed on the lake surface, so beautiful that Elena could barely believe it had just tried to kill her.