vampire diaries Shadow Souls | Page 7

had brought with the idea that she could change
her clothes underneath it if necessary while they were camping. The probl em was that she
usually did this just at dawn, and today writing in her diary had
distracted her. And all at once the nightgown wasn’t the correct attire for a n early-
morning fight with Damon. It wasn’t sheer, being more akin to flannel than
to nylon, but it was lacy, especially around the neck. Lace around a pretty neck to a
vampire—as Damon had told her—was like a waving red cloak in front
of a raging bull.
Elena crossed her arms over her chest. She also tried to make sure that her aur a was
pulled in decorously. “You look like Wendy,” Damon said, and his smile was wicked, flashing, and definitely
appreciative. He cocked his head to the side coaxingly.
Elena refused to be coaxed. “Wendy who?” she said, and at just that moment
remembered the last name of the young girl in Peter Pan, and
winced inwardly. Elena had always been good at repartee of this kind. The probl em was
that Damon was better.

“Why, Wendy…Darling,” Damon said, and his voice was a caress.
Elena felt an inward shiver. Damon had promised not to Influence her—to use his
telepathic powers to cloud or manipulate her mind. But
sometimes it felt as if he got awfully close to the line. Yes, it was definit ely Damon’s
fault, Elena thought. She didn’t have any feelings for him that were
—well, that were anything other than sisterly. But Damon never gave up, no matt er how
many times she rejected him.
Behind Elena was a thump and squelch that undoubtedly meant Matt had finally gotten
off the roof of the Jag. He jumped into the fray immediately.
“Don’t call Elena, Elena darling!” he shouted, continuing as he turned to Elena,
“Wendy’s probably the name of his latest little girlfriend. And—and
—and do you know what he did? How he woke me up this morning?” Matt was
quivering with indignation.
“He picked you up and threw you on top of the car?” Elena hazarded. She talked over he r
shoulder to Matt because there was a faint morning
breeze that tended to mold her nightgown to her body. She didn’t want Damon behind her
just now. “No! I mean, yes! No and yes! But—when he did, he didn’t even bother to use his hands!
He just went like this”—Matt waved an arm—“and first I
got dropped into a mud hole and next thing I know I got dropped on the Jag. It could have
broken the moonroof—or me! And now I’m all muddy,” Matt
added, examining himself with disgust, as if it had only just occurred to him.
Damon spoke up. “And why did I pick you up and put you down again? What were you
actually doing at the time when I put some distance
between us?” Matt flushed to the roots of his fair hair. His normally tranquil blue eyes wer e blazing.
“I was holding a stick,” he said defiantly.
“A stick. A stick like the kind you find along the roadside? That kind of stick?”
“I did pick it up along the roadside, yes!” Still defiant.
“But then something strange seems to have happened to it.” From nowhere that Elena
could see, Damon suddenly produced a very long, and very
sturdy-looking stake, with one end that had been whittled to an extremely sharp point. It
had definitely been carved from hardwood: oak from the look of it.
While Damon was examining his “stick” from all sides with a look of acute baff lement,
Elena turned on a sputtering Matt.
“Matt!” she said reproachfully. This was definitely a low point in the col d war between
the two boys.
“I just thought,” Matt went on stubbornly, “that it might be a good idea. Since I’ m
sleeping outdoors at night and a… another vampire might come
along.”
Elena had already turned again and was making appeasing noises at Damon when M att
burst out afresh.
“Tell her how you actually woke me up!” he said explosively. Then, without givi ng
Damon a chance to say anything, he continued, “I was just
opening my eyes when he dropped this on me!” Matt squelched over to Elena, holding
something up. Elena, truly at a loss, took it from him, turning it over.

It seemed to be a pencil stub, but it was discolored dark reddish-brown.
“He dropped that on me and said ‘scratch off two,’” Matt said. “He’d killed two people—
and he was bragging about it!”
Elena suddenly didn’t want to be holding the pencil anymore. “Damon!” she said in