had described had been huge for insects - as long as an arm, maybe. But now in Damon she sensed something...huge. Monstrous. Something that inhabited him completely, its transparent head inside his beautiful features, its chitinous body as long as his torso; its backward-twisted legs inside his legs. For a moment she thought she would faint; but then she controlled herself. Staring at the ghostly image, she thought, What Would Meredith Do?
Meredith would stay calm. She wouldn't lie, but she would find some way to help.
"Damon, it's bad. But there has to be some way to get it out of you - soon. I'm going to find that way. Because as long as it's in you, Shinichi can make you do anything."
"Will you listen to why I think it's grown so large? That night, when Stefan dismissed me from his room, everyone else went home like good little girls and boys, but you and Stefan took a walk. A fly. A glide."
For a long time it meant nothing to her, even though it had been the last time she'd seen Stefan. In fact, that was its only significance to her: it was the last time she and Stefan had...
She felt herself freeze over inside.
"You went into the Old Wood. You were still the little spirit child who didn't really know what was right and what was wrong. But Stefan should have known better than to do that - on my own territory. Vampires take territory seriously. And in my own resting place - right in front of my eyes."
"Oh, Damon! No!"
"Oh, Damon, yes! There you were, sharing blood, too absorbed to have noticed me even if I had leaped out and tried to pry you apart. You were wearing a high-necked white nightgown and you looked like an angel. I wanted to kill Stefanright then."
"Damon - "
"And it wasright then that Shinichi appeared. He didn't need to be told what I was feeling. And he had a plan, an offer...a proposition."
Elena shut her eyes again and shook her head. "He'd prepared you beforehand. You were already possessed and ready to be full of anger."
"I don't know why," Damon went on as if he hadn't heard her, "but I scarcely thought about what it would mean to Bonnie and Meredith and the rest of the town. All I could think of was you. All I wanted was you, and revenge on Stefan."
"Damon, will you listen? By then, you had already been deliberately possessed. I couldsee the malach in you. You admit" - as she felt him swelling up to speak out - "that something was influencing you before that, forcing you to watch Bonnie and the others die at your feet that night. Damon, I think these things are even harder to get rid of than we imagine. For one thing, you wouldn't normally stay and watch people do - private things, would you? Doesn't the fact that you did in itself prove that something was wrong?"
"It's...a theory," Damon granted, not sounding happy.
"But don't you see? That was what made you tell Stefan you only saved Bonnie out of whim, and that was what made you refuse to tell everyone that the malach weremaking you watch the trees' attack, hypnotizing you. That and your stupid, stubborn pride."
"Watch it on the compliments. I may dry up and blow away."
"Don't worry," Elena said flatly, "whatever happens to the rest of us, I have a feeling your ego will survive. What happened next?"
"I made my deal with Shinichi. He would lure Stefan somewhere out of the way where I could see him alone, then smuggle him out of this place to somewhere Stefan couldn't find you - "
Something bubbled up explosively again inside Elena. It was a tight hard ball of compressed elation. "Not kill him?" she managed to get out.
"Steady," Damon replied coldly. "Steady on, Elena. We can't have you fainting." He held her by the shoulders. "You thought I meant to kill him?"
Elena was trembling almost too hard to answer. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I apologize for the omission."
"He's alive - for sure, Damon? You're absolutely sure?"
"Positive."
Without a thought of herself, without a thought of any kind, Elena did what she did best - gave in to impulse. She threw her arms around Damon's neck and kissed him.
For a moment Damon just stood rigid with shock. He had contracted with killers to hijack her lover and decimate her town. But Elena's mind would never see