07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

But then, Damon had always been able to repel any attack on him while he got as many
insults as he liked…before.
Before, he’d have just broken every bone in my hand and gone on baiting me, Matt
guessed. But now…I’m almost as fast as him, and he simply got taken by surprise.
Matt flexed his hand gingerly. It always hurt, of course, but if Meredith could do it to
Caroline, then he could do it to…
Damon?
Damn, did I just take down Damon?
Run, Honeycutt, he seemed to hear the voice of his old coach telling him. Run. Get out of
town. Change your name.
Tried that. Didn’t work. Never even got a T-shirt, Matt thought sourly.
But Damon wasn’t leaping up like a flaming demon from hell, with the eyes of a dragon
and the strength of a raging bull to annihilate Matt. It looked and sounded more as if he were shocked
and indignant from his disheveled hair to his earth-stained boots.
“You…ignorant…childish…” He lapsed into Italian.
“Look,” Matt said. “I’m here to fight, okay? And the smartest guy I ever knew said: ‘If
you’re gonna fight, don’t talk. If you’re gonna talk, don’t fight.’”
Damon tried to snarl as he knelt up and pulled spiny teasel and prickly sida out of his
distressed black jeans. But the snarl didn’t come out quite right. Maybe it was the new shape of his
canines. Maybe it just didn’t have enough conviction behind it. Matt had seen enough defeated guys to
know that this fight was over. A strange exaltation came over him. He was going to keep all his limbs
and organs! It was a precious, precious moment.
All right, then, should I offer him a hand? Matt wondered, to be answered
instantaneously by, Sure, if you’d offer a hand to a temporarily stunned crocodile. What do you
really need ten whole fingers for, anyway?
Oh, well, he thought, turning to go back into the front door. As long as he lived—which,
conceded, might not be too long—he would remember this moment.
As he went in, he bumped into Bonnie, who was rushing out.
“Oh, Matt, oh, Matt,” she cried. She was looking wildly around. “Did you hurt him? Did
he hurt you?”
Matt smacked his fist into the palm of his hand, once. “He’s still sitting down back
there,” he added helpfully.
“Oh, no!” Bonnie gasped, and she hurried out the door.
Okay. Less spectacular of a night. But still a pretty good one.
“They did what?” Elena asked Stefan. Cold poultices anchored by tight bandages were wrapped
around her arm, hand, and thigh—Mrs. Flowers had cut her jeans off short—and Mrs. Flowers was
wiping away the dried blood on her neck with herbs.
Her heart was pounding with more than pain. Even she hadn’t realized that Stefan was
tuned in to the entire house when he was awake. All she could do was to shakily thank God that he’d
been asleep while she and Damon—no! She had to stop thinking about it, and right now!
“They went outside to fight,” Stefan said. “It’s idiotic, of course. But it’s a matter of
honor, too. I can’t interfere.”