It hurt. He'd thought he was through with hurting, through with feeling anything. When he'd pulled Elena's lifeless body out of the dark water, he'd thought that nothing could ever hurt again because nothing could match that moment.
He'd been wrong.
He stopped and stood with his good hand braced against a tree, head down, breathing deeply. When the red mists cleared and he could see again, he went on, but the burning ache in his chest continued undiminished. Stop thinking about her, he told himself, knowing that it was useless.
But she wasn't truly dead. Didn't that count for something? He'd thought he would never hear her voice again, never feel her touch...
And now, when she touched him, she wanted to kill him.
He stopped again, doubling over, afraid he was going to be sick.
Seeing her like this was worse torture than seeing her lying cold and dead. Maybe that was why Damon had let him live. Maybe this was Damon's revenge.
And maybe Stefan should just do what he'd planned to do after killing Damon. Wait until dawn and take off the silver ring that protected him from sunlight. Stand bathing in the fiery embrace of those rays until they burned the flesh from his bones
and stopped the pain once and for all.
Stefan detoured toward the boardinghouse. He needed to clean up before he could let humans see him. In his room, he washed the blood from his face and neck and examined his arm. The healing process had already begun, and with concentration he could accelerate it still further. He was burning up his Powers fast; the fight with his brother had already weakened him. But this was important. Not because of the pain-he scarcely noticed that-but because he needed to be fit.
Damon and Elena were waiting outside the school. He could feel his brother's impatience and Elena's wild new presence there in the dark.
"This had better work," Damon said.
Stefan said nothing. The school auditorium was another center of commotion. People ought to have been enjoying the Founders' Day dance; in fact, those who had remained through the storm were pacing around or gathered in small groups talking. Stefan looked in the open door, searching with his mind for one particular presence. He found it. A blond head was bent over a table in the corner.
Matt.
Matt straightened and looked around, puzzled. Stefan willed him to come outside. You need some fresh air, he thought, insinuating the suggestion into Matt's
subconscious. You feel like just stepping out for a moment.
To Damon, standing invisible just beyond the light, he said, Take her into the school, to the photography room. She knows where it is. Don't show yourselves until I say. Then he backed away and waited for Matt to appear.
Matt came out, his drawn face turned up to the moonless sky. He started violently when Stefan spoke to him.
"Stefan! You're here!" Desperation, hope, and horror struggled for dominance on his face. He hurried over to Stefan. "Did they-bring her back yet? Is there any news?"
"What have you heard?"
Matt stared at him a moment before answering. "Bonnie and Meredith came in saying that Elena had gone off of Wickery Bridge in my car. They said that she..." He paused and swallowed. "Stefan, it's not true, is it?" His eyes were pleading. Stefan looked away.
"Oh, God," Matt said hoarsely. He turned his back on Stefan, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I don't believe it; I don't. It can't be true."
"Matt..." He touched the other boy's shoulder.
"I'm sorry." Matt's voice was rough and ragged. "You must be going through hell, and here I am making it worse."
His only other option was to tell Matt the truth. Let Matt make his own choice, knowing everything.
"If there were something you could do for Elena right now," he said, "would you do it?"
Matt was too lost in emotion to ask what kind of idiotic question that was.
"Anything," he said almost angrily, rubbing a sleeve over his eyes. "I'd do anything for her." He looked at Stefan with something like defiance, his breathing shaky.
Congratulations', Stefan thought, feeling the sudden yawning pit in his stomach. You've just won yourself a trip to the Twilight Zone.
"Come with me," he said. "I've got something to show you."