joined her.
As before, mostly their hands just slid through the phantom's mist. The phantom's chest was solid, though, and Elena focused her rage on that, hitting against the hard ice there with as much power as she could.
Beneath the ice of the creature's chest, a rose glowed a rich dark red. It was a beautiful flower, but deadly looking, its color reminding her of poisoned blood. Its thorny stem seemed swol en, thicker than a normal flower's. As Elena stared at it, the glow deepened and the flower's petals opened further, swel ing to ful bloom. Is that her heart?
Elena wondered. Is Stefan's jealousy nourishing it? She smashed her fist against the phantom's chest again, right above the rose, and the phantom glanced at her for a moment.
"Stop it," Elena said fiercely. "Leave Stefan alone."
The phantom was real y looking at her now, and its - no, her - smile widened, her glasslike teeth sharp and shiny underneath her misty lips. In the glacial depths of her eyes, Elena thought she caught a chil y but genuine twinkle, and Elena's own heart froze.
Then the phantom turned her attention back toward Stefan and Damon, and, although Elena would never have believed it possible, things got worse.
"Damon," said the phantom throatily, and Damon, who'd been limp and exhausted, eyes clenched shut, passive under Stefan's assault, shielding his face but not fighting back, opened his eyes.
"Damon," she said again, her eyes glittering. "What right does Stefan have to attack you? Whatever you tried to take from him, you were just fighting against the fact that he got everything - your father's love, the girls you wanted - and you had nothing at al . He's a sanctimonious brat, a selfloathing weakling, but he gets everything."
Damon's eyes widened as if in recognition at hearing his own deepest miseries voiced, and his face twisted with emotion. Stefan was stil clawing and biting at him, but he fel back a little as Damon snapped into action, grabbing him by the arm and wrenching it. Elena winced with horror as she heard the crunch of something - oh, God -
something in Stefan's arm or shoulder breaking. Undaunted, Stefan only grimaced and then threw himself at Damon again, the hurt arm dangling awkwardly. Damon was stronger, Elena numbly noted, but exhausted; surely he wouldn't be able to keep his advantage for long. For now they seemed fairly evenly matched. They were both furious, both fighting with no reservations. A bestial, nasty snarl came from one of them, shaky, vicious laughter from the other, and Elena realized with horror that she had no idea which sound was coming from who.
The phantom hissed with enjoyment. Elena flinched away from her and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Bonnie and Matt step back, too.
"Don't break the lines!" Alaric shouted from the other side of... where were they now, anyway? Oh, Mrs. Flowers's garage - the garage. He sounded desperate, and Elena wondered if he had been shouting for a while. There had been some background noise going on, but there hadn't been a moment to listen to it. "Elena! Bonnie!
Matt! Don't break the lines!" he shouted again. "You can get out, but step over the lines careful y!"
Elena glanced down. An elaborate pattern of lines in different colors was chalked beneath their feet, and she, Bonnie, Matt, and the phantom were al together in a smal circle in the innermost center of this pattern. Bonnie was the first one to clearly realize what Alaric was saying. "Come on," she muttered, yanking at Elena's and Matt's arms. Then she picked her way, daintily but quickly, across the floor, away from the phantom and toward their friends. Matt fol owed her. He had to pause on one foot in a smal section and reach with his other foot, and there was a moment when he wobbled, one sneaker almost blurring a blue line of chalk. But he caught his balance and continued on.
It took Elena, stil mostly focused on the desperately grappling figures of Damon and Stefan, a few seconds longer to realize she needed to move as wel . She was almost too late. As she poised herself to take that first step out of the inner circle, the phantom turned its glassy eyes upon her.
Elena fled, jumping quickly out of the circle and just barely managing to stop herself from skidding across the diagram. The phantom took a swipe at her, but its hand stopped before crossing above