The Struggle

by L. J. Smith

  “He must have it! He took it somehow; I know he did!” she was saying.

  “Took what?” said Meredith loudly. Everyone turned their way.

  Caroline’s face contorted as she saw them in the doorway and Tyler snarled. “Get out,” he said. “You don’t want to be involved in this.”

  Meredith ignored him. “Stefan, can I talk to you?”

  “In a minute. Are you going to answer her question? Took what?” Stefan was concentrating on Tyler, totally focused.

  “Sure, I’ll answer her question. Right after I answer yours.” Tyler’s beefy hand thumped into his fist and he stepped forward. “You’re going to be dog meat, Salvatore.”

  Several of the tough guys snickered.

  Bonnie opened her mouth to say, “Let’s get out of here.” But what she actually said was, “The bridge.”

  It was weird enough to make everyone look at her.

  “What?” said Stefan.

  “The bridge,” said Bonnie again, without meaning to say it. Her eyes bulged, alarmed. She could hear the voice coming from her throat, but she had no control over it. And then she felt her eyes go wider and her mouth drop open and she had her own voice back. “The bridge, oh, my God, the bridge! That’s where Elena is! Stefan, we’ve got to save her…. Oh, hurry!”

  “Bonnie, are you sure?”

  “Yes, oh, God … that’s where she’s gone. She’s drowning! Hurry!” Waves of thick blackness broke over Bonnie. But she couldn’t faint now; they had to get to Elena.

  Stefan and Meredith hesitated one minute, and then Stefan was through the goon squad, brushing them aside like tissue paper. They sprinted through the field toward the parking lot, dragging Bonnie behind. Tyler started after them, but stopped when the full force of the wind hit him.

  “Why would she go out in this storm?” Stefan shouted as they sprang into Meredith’s car.

  “She was upset; Matt said she took off in his car,” Meredith gasped back in the comparative quiet of the interior. She pulled out fast and turned into the wind, speeding dangerously. “She said she was going to the boarding house.”

  “No, she’s at the bridge! Meredith, drive faster! Oh, God, we’re going to be too late!” Tears were running down Bonnie’s face.

  Meredith floored it. The car swayed, buffeted by wind and sleet. All through that nightmare ride Bonnie sobbed, her fingers clutching the seat in front of her.

  Stefan’s sharp warning kept Meredith from running into the tree. They piled out and were immediately lashed and punished by the wind.

  “It’s too big to move! We’ll have to walk,” Stefan shouted.

  Of course it was too big to move, Bonnie thought, already scrambling through the branches. It was a full-grown oak tree. But once on the other side, the icy gale whipped all thought out of her head.

  Within minutes she was numb, and the road seemed to go on for hours. They tried to run but the wind beat them back. They could scarcely see; if it hadn’t been for Stefan, they would have gone over the riverbank. Bonnie began to weave drunkenly. She was ready to fall to the ground when she heard Stefan shouting up ahead.

  Meredith’s arm around her tightened, and they broke again into a stumbling run. But as they neared the bridge what they saw brought them to a halt.

  “Oh, my God … Elena!” screamed Bonnie. Wickery Bridge was a mass of splintered rubble. The guardrail on one side was gone and the planking had given way as if a giant fist had smashed it. Beneath, the dark water churned over a sickening pile of debris. Part of the debris, entirely underwater except the headlights, was Matt’s car.

  Meredith was screaming, too, but she was screaming at Stefan. “No! You can’t go down there!”

  He never even glanced back. He dived from the bank, and the water closed over his head.

  Later, Bonnie’s memory of the next hour would be mercifully dim. She remembered waiting for Stefan while the storm raged endlessly on. She remembered that she was almost beyond caring by the time a hunched figure lurched out of the water. She remembered feeling no disappointment, only a vast and yawning grief, as she saw the limp thing Stefan laid out on the road.

  And she remembered Stefan’s face.

  She remembered how he looked as they tried to do something for Elena. Only that wasn’t really Elena lying there, that was a wax doll with Elena’s features. It was nothing that had ever been alive and it certainly wasn’t alive now. Bonnie thought it seemed silly to go on poking and prodding at it like this, trying to get water out of its lungs and so on. Wax dolls didn’t breathe.

  She remembered Stefan’s face when he finally gave up. When Meredith wrestled with him and yelled at him, saying something about over an hour without air, and brain damage. The words filtered in to Bonnie, but their meaning didn’t. She just thought it odd that while Meredith and Stefan were screaming at each other they were both crying.

  Stefan stopped crying after that. He just sat there holding the Elena-doll. Meredith yelled some more, but he didn’t listen to her. He just sat. And Bonnie would never forget his expression.

  And then something seared through Bonnie, bringing her to life, waking her to terror. She clutched at Meredith, and stared around for the source. Something bad … something terrible was coming. Was almost here.

  Stefan seemed to feel it, too. He was alert, stiff, like a wolf picking up a scent.

  “What is it?” shouted Meredith. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’ve got to go!” Stefan rose, still holding the limp form in his arms. “Get out of here!”

  “What do you mean? We can’t leave you—”

  “Yes, you can! Get out of here! Bonnie, get her out!”

  No one had ever told Bonnie to take care of someone else before. People were always taking care of her. But now she seized Meredith’s arm and began pulling. Stefan was right. There was nothing they could do for Elena, and if they stayed whatever had gotten her would get them.

  “Stefan!” Meredith shouted as she was unaccountably dragged away.

  “I’ll put her under the trees. The willows, not the oaks,” he called after them.

  Why would he tell us that now? Bonnie wondered in some deep part of her mind that was not taken up with fear and the storm.

  The answer was simple, and her mind promptly gave it back to her. Because he wasn’t going to be around to tell them later.

  16

  Long ago, in the dark side streets of Florence, starving, frightened, and exhausted, Stefan had made himself a vow. Several vows, in fact, about using the Powers he sensed within himself, and about how to treat the weak, blundering, but still-human creatures around him.

  Now he was going to break them all.

  He’d kissed Elena’s cold forehead and laid her under a willow tree. He would come back here, if he could, to join her, after.

  As he’d thought, the surge of Power had passed over Bonnie and Meredith and followed him, but it had receded again, and was now drawn back, waiting.

  He wouldn’t let it wait long.

  Unencumbered by the burden of Elena’s body, he broke into a predator’s lope on the empty road. The freezing sleet and wind didn’t bother him much. His hunter’s senses pierced through them.

  He turned them all to the task of locating the prey he wanted. No thinking of Elena now. Later, when this was over.

  Tyler and his friends were still in the Quonset hut. Good. They never knew what was coming as the window burst into flying glass shards and the storm blew inside.

  Stefan meant to kill when he seized Tyler by the neck and sank his fangs in. That had been one of his rules, not to kill, and he wanted to break it.

  But another of the toughs came at him before he had quite drained Tyler of blood. The guy wasn’t trying to protect his fallen leader, only to escape. It was his bad luck that his route took him across Stefan’s path. Stefan flipped him to the ground and tapped the new vein eagerly.

  The hot coppery taste revived him, warmed him, flowed through him like fire. It
made him want more.

  Power. Life. They had it; he needed it. With the glorious rush of strength that came with what he’d already drunk, he stunned them easily. Then he moved from one to another, drinking deep and throwing them away. It was like popping tops on a six-pack.

  He was on the last when he saw Caroline huddling in the corner.

  His mouth was dripping as he raised his head to look at her. Those green eyes, usually so narrow, showed white all around like those of a terrified horse. Her lips were pale blurs as she gabbled soundless pleas.

  He pulled her to her feet by the green sashes at her waist. She was moaning, her eyes rolling up in their sockets. He wound his hand in her auburn hair to position the exposed throat where he wanted it. His head reared back to strike—and Caroline screamed and went limp.

  He dropped her. He’d had enough anyway. He was bursting with blood, like an overfed tick. He had never felt so strong, so charged with elemental power.

  Now it was time for Damon.

  He went out of the Quonset hut the same way he’d come in. But not in human form. A hunting falcon soared out the window and wheeled into the sky.

  The new shape was wonderful. Strong … and cruel. And its eyes were sharp. It took him where he wanted, skimming over the oak trees of the woods. He was looking for a particular clearing.

  He found it. Wind slashed at him but he spiraled downward, with a keening scream of challenge. Damon, in human form below, threw up his hands to protect his face as the falcon dived at him.

  Stefan ripped bloody strips out of his arms and heard Damon’s answering scream of pain and anger.

  I’m not your weak little brother anymore. He sent the thought down to Damon on a stunning blast of Power. And this time I’ve come for your blood.

  He felt the backwash of hatred from Damon, but the voice in his mind was mocking. So this is the thanks I get for saving you and your betrothed?

  Stefan’s wings folded and he dived again, his whole world narrowed to one objective. Killing. He went for Damon’s eyes, and the stick Damon had picked up whistled past his new body. His talons tore into Damon’s cheek and Damon’s blood ran. Good.

  You shouldn’t have left me alive, he told Damon. You should have killed both of us at once.

  I’ll be glad to correct the mistake! Damon had been unprepared before, but now Stefan could feel his drawing Power, arming himself, standing ready. But first you might tell me whom I’m supposed to have killed this time.

  The falcon’s brain could not deal with the riot of emotions the taunting question called up. Screaming wordlessly, it plummeted on Damon again, but this time the heavy stick struck home. Injured, one wing hanging, the falcon dropped behind Damon’s back.

  Stefan changed to his own form at once, scarcely feeling the pain of his broken arm. Before Damon could turn, he grabbed him, the fingers of his good hand digging into his brother’s neck and spinning him around.

  When he spoke, it was almost gently.

  “Elena,” he said, whispered, and went for Damon’s throat.

  It was dark, and very cold, and someone was hurt. Someone needed help.

  But she was terribly tired.

  Elena’s eyelids fluttered and opened and that took care of the darkness. As for the cold … she was bone-cold, freezing, chilled to the marrow. And no wonder; there was ice all over her.

  Somewhere, deep down, she knew it was more than that.

  What had happened? She’d been at home, asleep—no, this was Founders’ Day. She’d been in the cafeteria, on the stage.

  Someone’s face had looked funny.

  It was too much to cope with; she couldn’t think. Disembodied faces floated before her eyes, fragments of sentences sounded in her ears. She was very confused.

  And so tired.

  Better go back to sleep then. The ice wasn’t really that bad. She started to lie down, and then the cries came to her again.

  She heard them, not with her ears, but with her mind. Cries of anger and of pain. Someone was very unhappy.

  She sat quite still, trying to sort it all out.

  There was a quiver of movement at the edge of her vision. A squirrel. She could smell it, which was strange because she’d never smelled a squirrel before. It stared at her with one bright black eye and then it scampered up the willow tree. Elena realized she’d made a grab for it only when she came up empty with her fingernails digging into bark.

  Now that was ridiculous. What on earth did she want a squirrel for? She puzzled over it for a minute, then lay back down, exhausted.

  The cries were still going on.

  She tried to cover her ears, but that did nothing to block them out. Someone was hurt, and unhappy, and fighting. That was it. There was a fight going on.

  All right. She’d figured it out. Now she could sleep.

  She couldn’t, though. The cries beckoned to her, drew her toward them. She felt an irresistible need to follow them to their source.

  And then she could go to sleep. After she saw … him.

  Oh, yes, it was coming back now. She remembered him. He was the one who understood her, who loved her. He was the one she wanted to be with forever.

  His face appeared out of the mists in her mind. She considered it lovingly. All right, then. For him she would get up and walk through this ridiculous sleet until she found the proper clearing. Until she could join him. Then they’d be together.

  The very thought of him seemed to warm her. There was a fire inside him that few people could see. She saw it, though. It was like the fire inside her.

  He seemed to be having some sort of trouble at the moment. At least, there was a lot of shouting. She was close enough to hear it with her ears as well as her mind now.

  There, beyond that grandfather oak tree. That was where the noise was coming from. He was there, with his black, fathomless eyes, and his secret smile. And he needed her help. She would help him.

  Shaking ice crystals out of her hair, Elena stepped into the clearing in the wood.

  Don’t miss the exciting continuation of

  theVampire

  Diaries

  The Fury

  1

  Elena stepped into the clearing.

  Beneath her feet, tatters of autumn leaves were freezing into the slush. Dusk had fallen, and although the storm was dying away, the woods were getting colder. Elena didn’t feel the cold.

  Neither did she mind the dark. Her pupils opened wide, gathering up tiny particles of light that would have been invisible to a human. She could see the two figures struggling beneath the great oak tree quite clearly.

  One had thick dark hair that the wind had churned into a tumbled sea of waves. He was slightly taller than the other, and although Elena couldn’t see his face, she somehow knew his eyes were green.

  The other had a shock of dark hair as well, but his was fine and straight, almost like the pelt of an animal. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in fury, and the lounging grace of his body was gathered into a panther’s crouch. His eyes were black.

  Elena watched them for several minutes without moving. She’d forgotten why she had come here, why she’d been pulled here by the echoes of their battle in her mind. This close, the clamor of their anger and hatred and pain was almost deafening, like silent shouts coming from the fighters. They were locked in a death match.

  I wonder which of them will win, she thought. They were both wounded and bleeding, and the taller one’s left arm hung at an unnatural angle. Still, he had just slammed the other against the gnarled trunk of an oak tree. His fury was so strong that Elena could feel it and taste it as well as hear it, and she knew it was giving him impossible strength.

  And then Elena remembered why she had come. How could she have forgotten? He was hurt. His mind had summoned her here, battering her with shockwaves of rage and pain. She had come to help him, because she belonged to him.

  The two figures were down on the icy ground now, fighting like wolves, snarling. Swiftly and sile
ntly Elena went to them. The one with the wavy hair and green eyes—Stefan, a voice in her mind whispered—was on top, fingers scrabbling at the other’s throat. Anger washed through Elena, anger and protectiveness. She reached between the two of them to grab that choking hand, to pry the fingers up.

  It didn’t occur to her that she shouldn’t be strong enough to do this. She was strong enough, that was all. She threw her weight to the side, wrenching her captive away from his opponent. For good measure she bore down hard on his wounded arm, knocking him flat on his face in the leaf-strewn slush. Then she began to choke him from behind.

  Her attack had taken him by surprise, but he was far from beaten. He struck back at her, his good hand fumbling for her throat. His thumb dug into her windpipe.

  Elena found herself lunging at the hand, going for it with her teeth. Her mind could not understand it, but her body knew what to do. Her teeth were a weapon, and they slashed into flesh, drawing blood.

  But he was stronger than she was. With a jerk of his shoulders he broke her hold on him and twisted in her grasp, flinging her down. And then he was above her, his face contorted with animal fury. She hissed at him and went for his eyes with her nails, but he knocked her hand away.

  He was going to kill her. Even wounded, he was by far the stronger. His lips had drawn back to show teeth already stained with scarlet. Like a cobra, he was ready to strike.

  Then he stopped, hovering over her, his face changing.

  Elena saw the green eyes widen. The pupils, which had been contracted to vicious dots, sprang open. He was staring down at her as if truly seeing her for the first time.

  Why was he looking at her that way? Why didn’t he just get it over with? But now the iron hand on her shoulder was releasing her. The animal snarl had disappeared, replaced by a look of bewilderment and wonder. He sat back, helping her to sit up, all the while gazing into her face.

  “Elena,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Elena, it’s you.”

  Is that who I am? she thought. Elena?