Damon was moving fast, and Elena and the others had to almost race to keep up with him as they headed for the library. "Typical Stefan, sacrificing himself," he muttered angrily. "He could have asked for help when he realized something was going on." He stopped for a second to let the others catch up and glared at them al . "If Stefan can't handle a few newly made vampires by himself, I'm ashamed of him," he said. "Maybe we should just leave him after al . Survival of the fittest."
Elena touched his hand lightly, and, after a moment, Damon hurried on toward the library. She didn't for an instant believe he would leave Stefan a captive. None of them did. The taut, strained lines of his face showed that Damon was entirely focused on the danger his brother was in, their rivalry temporarily forgotten.
"It's not just a few vampires," Matt said. "There are about twenty-five of them. I'm sorry, you guys, I've been a moron." He swung the stave Meredith had given him -
Samantha's stave - determinedly in one hand.
"It's not your fault," Bonnie said. "You couldn't have known your frat - or whatever - was evil, could you?" If anyone had spotted them as they crossed the campus, Elena was sure they would have been an alarming sight: she and Bonnie were clutching the large, sharp hunting knives Meredith had given them only half concealed under their jackets. Matt was holding the stave, and Meredith had her own stave in one hand. But it was past midnight, and the path they were fol owing was deserted.
Only Damon wasn't carrying a weapon, and he clearly was a weapon.
His human fa?ade seemed to have lifted, and his angry expression could have been carved out of stone, except for the glimpse of sharp white teeth between his lips and the seemingly bottomless darkness of his eyes.
When they reached the closed library, Damon didn't pause, forcing its metal doors open with the grinding sound of splitting metal. Elena glanced around nervously. The last thing they needed was campus security showing up. But the paths near the library were dark and empty.
They al fol owed Damon down to the basement and into the hal ways of administrative offices. Final y, he stopped outside the door marked Research Office where he and Elena had once met Matt. "This is the entrance?" he asked Matt and, at his nod, efficiently broke the lock on the door.
"You're al staying up here. Just Meredith and I are going down." He looked at Meredith. "Want to kil some vampires, hunter? Let's fulfil your destiny, shal we?" Meredith slashed her stave in the air, and a slow smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I'm ready," she said at last.
"I'm coming, too," Elena said, keeping her voice steady.
"I'm not waiting up here while Stefan's in danger." Damon drew a breath, and she thought he was going to argue with her, but instead he sighed.
"Al right, princess," he said, his voice gentler than it had been since Matt told them what had happened to Stefan.
"But you do what I - or Meredith - tel you."
"I'm not waiting up here," Matt said stubbornly. "This is my fault."
Damon turned on him, his mouth twisting into a sneer.
"Yes, it is your fault. And you told us Ethan can control you. I don't want to get your knife in my back while we're fighting your enemies."
Matt dropped his head, defeated. "Okay," he said. "Go down two flights of stairs, and you'l see the doors to the room they're in." Damon nodded sharply and pul ed up the trapdoor.
Meredith fol owed him down the stairs, but Matt caught Elena's arm as she headed after them. "Please," he said quickly. "If any of the pledges stil seem rational, even if they're vampires, try to get them out. Maybe we can help them. My friend Chloe..." In the grim lines of his face, his pale blue eyes were frightened.
"I'l try," Elena said, and squeezed his hand. She exchanged a glance with Bonnie, then fol owed Meredith through the trapdoor.
When they reached the entrance to the Vitale Society's chamber, Meredith and Damon pressed their backs against the elaborately carved wooden doors. Watching, Elena could see a similarity for the first time between them.
Now that they were facing a battle, Meredith and Damon were both wearing eager smiles.
One ... two ... came Damon's silent count ... three.
They pushed together. The double doors flew inward, and the chains that had held them closed went flying.
Damon stalked in, stil smiling a vicious gleaming smile, Meredith erect and alert behind him, her stave poised.
Dark figures rushed at them, but Elena was looking past them, searching for Stefan.
Then her eyes found him, and al the breath rushed out of her. He was hurt. Tied firmly to a chair, he raised a pale face to greet her, his leaf-green eyes agonized. From his arm, dark red blood dripped steadily, pooling on the floor beneath his chair.
Elena went a little mad.
Charging across the room toward Stefan, she was only half aware of one of the hooded figures leaping at her, and of Damon catching it in midstride, casual y snapping its neck and letting the body fal to the floor. Absently, she registered the smack of wood against flesh as Meredith caught another attacker with her stave so that it fel in convulsions as the concentrated essence of vervain from the stave's spikes hit its bloodstream.
And then she was crouching next to Stefan, and, for a moment at least, nothing else mattered. He was shaking slightly, just the faintest tremors, and she stroked his hand, careful of the wound on his forearm. Raised red ridges ran around his wrists below the rope, spots of blood on their surface. "Vervain on the ropes," he muttered. "I'm okay, just hurry." And then, "Elena?" Below the pain in his voice, a dawning note of joy.
She hoped he could read al the love she felt in her eyes as she met his gaze. "I'm here, Stefan. I'm so sorry." She took out the knife Meredith had given her and began to saw at the ropes that held him, careful not to cut him, trying not to pul the ropes any tighter. He winced in pain, and then the ropes around his wrists snapped. "Your poor arm," she said, and felt in her pockets for something to staunch the blood, final y just pul ing off her jacket and holding it against the cut. Stefan took the jacket from her. "You'l have to cut through the rest of the ropes, too," he said, his voice strained. "I can't touch them because of the vervain." She nodded and went to work on the ropes holding his legs. "I love you," she told him, concentrating on her work, not looking up. "I love you so much. I hurt you, and I never wanted to. Never, Stefan. Please believe me." She finished cutting through the ropes around his knees and ankles and chanced a glance up at Stefan's face. Tears, she realized, were running down her own face, and she wiped them away.
The thud of another body hitting the floor and a screech of rage came from behind them. But Stefan's eyes held hers unwaveringly. "Elena, I..." he sighed. "I love you more than anything in the world," he said simply. "You know that. No conditions."
She took a long, shuddering breath and wiped the tears away again. She had to be able to see, had to keep her hands from shaking. The ropes around his torso were looped and twisted together. She pul ed at them, finding where there was enough give to start cutting, and Stefan hissed in pain.
"Sorry, sorry," she said hurriedly, and began to slice through the rope as rapidly as she dared. "Stefan," she began again, "the kiss with Damon - Well, I can't lie and say I don't feel anything for him - but the kiss wasn't anything I'd planned on. I didn't even mean to be with him that night, it just happened. And when you saw us, that kiss, he'd just saved my life..." She was stumbling over her words now, and she let them trail off. "I don't have any real excuses, Stefan," she said flatly. "I just want you to forgive me. I don't think I can live without you."
The last of the ropes parted, and she eased them from around him before she looked up, frightened and hopeful.
Stefan was gazing at her, his sculpted lips turning up in a half smile. "Elena," he said and pul ed her to him in a brief, tender kiss. Then he pushed her to the wal . "Stay out of this, please," he said, and limped toward the fight, stil weak from the vervain, but reaching to pul a vampire away from Meredith and sinking his own fangs into its neck.
Not that she needed his help. Meredith was amazing.