Elena jumped to her feet and spun toward the window, leaning against the casing, feeling the cool night air blowing on her skin. She felt dizzy, and she couldn't seem to get her breath.
What had she been doing? She turned around to see Bonnie huddled close to Meredith, both of them looking sick with fear. She hated having them look at her that way.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to, Bonnie. Look, I'm not coming any closer. I should have eaten before I came here. Damon said I'd get hungry later."
Bonnie swallowed, looking even sicker. "Eaten?"
"Yes, of course," Elena said tartly. Her veins were burning; that was what this feeling was. Stefan had described it before, but she'd never really understood; she'd never realized what he was going through when the need for blood was on him. It was terrible, irresistible. "What do you think I eat these days, air?" she added defiantly. "I'm a hunter now, and I'd better go out hunting."
Bonnie and Meredith were trying to cope; she could tell they were, but she could also see the revulsion in their eyes. She concentrated on using her new senses, in opening herself to the night and searching for Stefan's or Damon's presence. It was difficult, because neither of them was projecting with his mind as he had been the night they'd been fighting in the woods, but she thought she could sense a glimmer
of Power out there in the town.
When the bulb was finally screwed back in, it revealed Damon sitting casually but precariously on the sill of the open window, one knee up. He was smiling one of his wildest smiles.
"Do you mind?" he said. "This is uncomfortable."
Elena glanced back at Bonnie and Meredith, who were braced against the closet, looking horrified and hypnotized at once. She herself shook her head, exasperated.
"And I thought I liked to make a dramatic entrance," she said. "Very funny, Damon. Now let's go."
"With two such beautiful friends of yours right here?" Damon smiled again at Bonnie and Meredith. "Besides, I only just got here. Won't somebody be polite and ask me in?"
Bonnie's brown eyes, fixed helplessly on his face, softened a bit. Her lips, which had been parted in horror, parted further. Elena recognized the signs of imminent meltdown.
"No, they won't," she said. She put herself directly between Damon and the other girls. "Nobody here is for you, Damon-not now, not ever." Seeing the flare of challenge in his eyes, she added archly, "And anyway, I'm leaving. I don't know about you, but I'm going hunting." She was reassured to sense Stefan's presence nearby, on the roof probably, and to hear his instant amendment: We're going hunting, Damon. You can sit there all night if you want.
Damon gave in with good grace, shooting one last amused glance toward Bonnie before disappearing from the window. Bonnie and Meredith both started forward in alarm as he did, obviously concerned that he had just fallen to his death.
"He's fine," said Elena, shaking her head again. "And don't worry, I won't let him
come back. I'll meet you at the same time tomorrow. Good-bye." "But-Elena-" Meredith stopped. "I mean, I was going to ask you if you wanted to change your clothes."
Elena regarded herself. The nineteenth-century heirloom dress was tattered and bedraggled, the thin white muslin shredded in some places. But there was no time to change it; she had to feed now.
"It'll have to wait," she said. "See you tomorrow." And she boosted herself out of
the window the way Damon had. The last she saw of them, Meredith and Bonnie were staring after her dazedly.
"Your cloak," she said, pleased. For a moment they smiled at each other, remembering the first time he had given her the cloak, after he'd saved her from Tyler in the graveyard and taken her back to his room to clean up. He'd been afraid to touch her then. But, Elena thought, smiling up into his eyes, she had taken care of that fear rather quickly.
"I thought we were hunting," Damon said.
Elena turned the smile on him, without unlinking her hand from Stefan's. "We are," she said. "Where should we go?"
"Any house on this street," Damon suggested.
"The woods," Stefan said.
"The woods," Elena decided. "We don't touch humans, and we don't kill. Isn't that how it goes, Stefan?"
He returned the pressure of her fingers. "That's how it goes," he said quietly. Damon's lip curled fastidiously. "And just what are we looking for in the woods, or don't I want to know? Muskrat? Skunk? Termites?" His eyes moved to Elena and his voice dropped. "Come with me, and I'll show you some real hunting."
"We can go through the graveyard," Elena said, ignoring him.
"White-tailed deer feed all night in the open areas," Stefan told her, "but we'll have to be careful stalking them; they can hear almost as well as we can."
Another time, then, Damon's voice said in Elena's mind.