07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

He let go of her just as Shinichi whirled to deal with him, channeling the black pain that,
back on Earth, had flung Matt and Elena off their feet in seizures, directly toward Stefan.
Elena, just released, found that everyone was making a half turn, as if to oblige her, and
suddenly she saw a chance. She snatched at the limp form of Bonnie, and Shinichi dropped the
smaller girl into her arms.
Words were echoing in Elena’s brain. Get Bonnie. See if you can ease her.
Well, she had Bonnie now. Her own sense split Stefan’s two orders with another—get
her away from Shinichi. She’s the priceless hostage.
Elena found that she could almost scream with fury even now. She had to keep Bonnie
safe—but that meant leaving Stefan, gentle Stefan, at the mercy of Shinichi. She scrambled away with
Bonnie—so small and light—and at the same time threw a backward glance at Stefan. He was
wearing a slight frown of concentration now, but he was not only not overwhelmed with pain, he was
pressing forward the attack.
Even though Shinichi’s head was on fire. The brilliant crimson tips of his black hair had
burst into flames, as if nothing else would express his enmity and his certainty of winning. He was
crowning himself with a flaming garland, a hellish halo.
Elena’s anger at that turned into chills down her spine as she watched something most
people never lived to analyze: two vampires attacking together, perfectly in sync. There was the
elemental savagery in it of a pair of raptors or wolves, but there was also the awesome beauty of two
creatures working as a single, unified body. The distance in Stefan’s and Damon’s expressions said
that this was a fight to the death. The occasional frown from Stefan or vicious smile from Damon
meant that Shinichi was sending his searing dark Power through one or the other of them. But these
weren’t weak humans Shinichi was playing with now. They were both vampires with bodies that
healed almost instantly—and vampires who had both fed recently—from her—Elena. Her
extraordinary blood was feuling them now.
So I’m already a part of this, Elena thought. I’m helping them right now. That would have
to satisfy the savagery this no-holds-barred fight elicited in her. To ruin the perfect synchronicity with
which the two vampires were handling Shinichi would be a crime, especially when Bonnie was still
limp in her arms.
As humans, we’re both liabilities, she thought. And Damon wouldn’t hesitate to tell me
so, even if all I wanted was to get in one single stroke.
Bonnie, come on, Bonnie, she thought. Hold on to me. We’re getting farther away. She
picked up the smaller girl under the armpits and dragged her. She backed up into the olive dimness
that stretched in all directions. When she tripped over a root and accidentally sat down, she decided
that she’d gone far enough, and maneuvered Bonnie into her lap.
Then she cupped her hands around Bonnie’s little heart-shaped face and she thought of
the most soothing things she could imagine. A cool plunge at Warm Springs back home. A hot bath at
Lady Ulma’s and then a four-handed massage, lying comfortably on a drying couch with the scent of
floral incense rising around her. A cuddle with Saber in Mrs. Flowers’s informal den. The decadence
of sleeping late and waking up in her own bed—with her own mother and father and sister in the
house.
As Elena thought of this last, she couldn’t help giving a tiny gasp, and a teardrop fell onto
Bonnie’s forehead. Bonnie’s eyelashes fluttered.
“Now, don’t you be sad,” she whispered. “Elena?”
“I’ve got you, and nobody’s going to hurt you again. Do you still feel bad?”