why he was doing this, deliberately going into danger instead of retreating from it, instead of trying to drive the Jaguar out of the Old Wood. After all, Stefan hadn't left him as bodyguard.
But then you couldn't trust anything that Damon might say, he thought.
And besides - well, he'd always kept one eye out for Elena, even before their first date. He might be clumsy, slow, and weak in comparison to their enemies now, but he would always try.
It was pitch-dark now. The last remnants of twilight had left the sky, and if Matt looked up he could see clouds and stars - with trees leaning in ominously from either side.
He was getting toward the end of the road. The Dunstans' house should be coming up on the right pretty soon. He'd ask them if they'd seen -
Blood.
At first his mind flew to ridiculous alternatives, like dark red paint. But his flashlight had caught reddish brown stains on the roadside just as the road made a sharp curve. That wasblood on the road there. And not just a little blood.
Being careful to walk well around the red-brown marks, running his flashlight over and over the far side of the road, Matt began to put together what must have happened.
Elena had jumped.
Either that or Damon had pushed her out of a speeding car - and after all the trouble he'd taken to get her, that didn't make much sense. Of course, he might have already bled her until he was satisfied - Matt's fingers went up to his sore neck instinctively - but then, why take her in the car at all?
To kill her by pushing her out?
A stupid way to do it, but maybe Damon had been counting on his little pets to take care of the body.
Possible, but not very likely.
Whatwas likely?
Well, the Dunstans' house was coming up on this side of the road, but you couldn't see it from here. And it would be just like Elena to jump out of a speeding car as it rounded a sharp corner. It would take brains, and guts, and a breathtaking trust in sheer luck that it wouldn't kill her.
Matt's flashlight slowly traced the devastation of a long hedge of rhododendron bushes just off the road.
My God, that's what she did. Yeah. She jumped out and tried to roll. Jeez, she was lucky not to break her neck. But she kept rolling, grabbing at roots and creepers to stop herself. That's why they're all torn up.
A bubble of elation was rising in Matt. He was doing it. He was tracking Elena. He could see her fall as clearly as if he'd been there.
But then she got flipped by that tree root, he thought as he continued to follow her trail. That would have hurt. And she'd slammed down and rolled on the concrete for a bit - that must have been agony; she'd left a lot of blood here, and then back into the bushes.
And then what? The rhododendron showed no more signs of her fall. What had happened here? Had Damon reversed the Ferrari fast enough and gotten her back?
No, Matt decided, examining the earth carefully. There was only one set of footprints here, and it was Elena's. Elena had gotten up here - only to fall down again, probably from injury. And then she'd managed to get up again, but the marks were weird, a normal footprint on one side and a deep but small indentation on the other.
A crutch. She found herself a crutch. Yeah, and that dragging mark was the mark of her bad foot. She walked up to this tree, and then around it - or hopped, actually, that's what it looked like. And then she'd headed for the Dunstans'.
Smart girl. She was probably unrecognizable by now, and anyway, who cared if they noticed the resemblance between her and the late, great Elena Gilbert? She could be Elena's cousin from Philadelphia.
So she'd gone, one, two, three...eight steps - and there was the Dunstan house. Matt could see lights. Matt could smell horses. Excitedly, he ran the rest of the way - taking a few falls that didn't do his aching body any good, but still heading straight for the back porch light. The Dunstans weren't front porch people.
When he got to the door, he pounded on it almost frenziedly. He'd found her. He'd found Elena!
It seemed a long time before the door opened a crack. Matt automatically wedged his foot in the crack while thinking,