The Struggle (3 page)

Elena nodded, and then the only sound in the room was soft breathing. The flame flickered and danced, throwing patterns of light over the three girls sitting cross-legged around it. Bonnie, eyes closed, was breathing deeply and
slowly, like someone drifting into sleep.

Stefan, thought Elena, gazing into the flame, trying to pour all her will into the thought. She created him in her mind, using all her senses, conjuring him to her. The roughness of his woolen sweater under her cheek, the smell of his leather jacket, the strength of his arms around her. Oh, Stefan …

Bonnie’s lashes fluttered and her breathing quickened, like a sleeper having a bad dream. Elena resolutely kept her eyes on the flame, but when Bonnie broke the silence a chill went up her spine.

At first it was just a moan, the sound of someone in pain. Then, as Bonnie tossed her head, breath coming in short bursts, it became words.

“Alone …” she said, and stopped. Elena’s nails bit into her hand. “Alone … in the dark,” said Bonnie. Her voice was distant and tortured.

There was another silence, and then Bonnie began to speak quickly.

“It’s dark and cold. And I’m alone. There’s something behind me … jagged and hard. Rocks. They used to hurt—but not now. I’m numb now, from the cold. So cold …” Bonnie twisted, as
if trying to get away from something, and then she laughed, a dreadful laugh almost like a sob. “That’s … funny. I never thought I’d want to see the sun so much. But it’s always dark here. And cold. Water up to my neck, like ice. That’s funny, too. Water everywhere—and me dying of thirst. So thirsty … hurts …”

Elena felt something tighten around her heart. Bonnie was inside Stefan’s thoughts, and who knew what she might discover there? Stefan, tell us where you are, she thought desperately. Look around; tell me what you see.

“Thirsty. I need … life?” Bonnie’s voice was doubtful, as if not sure how to translate some concept. “I’m weak. He said I’ll always be the weak one. He’s strong … a killer. But that’s what I am, too. I killed Katherine; maybe I deserve to die. Why not just let go? …”

“No!” said Elena before she could stop herself. In that instant, she forgot everything but Stefan’s pain. “Stefan—”

“Elena!” Meredith cried sharply at the same time. But Bonnie’s head fell forward, the flow of words cut off. Horrified, Elena realized what she had done.

“Bonnie, are you all right? Can you find him again? I didn’t mean to …”

Bonnie’s head lifted. Her eyes were open now, but they looked at neither the candle nor Elena. They stared straight ahead, expressionless. When she spoke, her voice was distorted, and Elena’s heart stopped. It wasn’t Bonnie’s voice, but it was a voice Elena recognized. She’d heard it coming from Bonnie’s lips once before, in the graveyard.

“Elena,” the voice said, “don’t go to the bridge. It’s Death, Elena. Your death is waiting there.” Then Bonnie slumped forward.

Elena grabbed her shoulders and shook. “Bonnie!” she almost screamed. “Bonnie!”

“What … oh, don’t. Let go.” Bonnie’s voice was weak and shaken, but it was her own. Still bent over, she put a hand to her forehead.

“Bonnie, are you all right?”

“I think so … yes. But it was so strange.” Her tone sharpened and she looked up, blinking. “What was that, Elena, about being a killer?”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything. I can’t describe it; it was awful. But what did that
mean?”

“Nothing,” said Elena. “He’s hallucinating, that’s all.”

Meredith broke in. “He? Then you really think she tuned in to Stefan?”

Elena nodded, her eyes sore and burning as she looked away. “Yes. I think that was Stefan. It had to be. And I think she even told us where he is. Under Wickery Bridge, in the water.”

Bonnie stared. “I don’t remember anything about the bridge. It didn’t feel like a bridge.”

“But you said it yourself, at the end. I thought you remembered….” Elena’s voice died away. “You don’t remember that part,” she said flatly. It was not a question.

“I remember being alone, somewhere cold and dark, and feeling weak … and thirsty. Or was it hungry? I don’t know, but I needed … something. And I almost wanted to die. And then you woke me up.”

Elena and Meredith exchanged a glance. “And after that,” Elena said to Bonnie, “you said one more thing, in a strange voice. You said not to go near the bridge.”

“She told
you
not to go near the bridge,” Meredith corrected. “You in particular, Elena. She said Death was waiting.”

“I don’t care what’s waiting,” said Elena. “If
that’s where Stefan is, that’s where I’m going.”

“Then that’s where we’re all going,” said Meredith.

Elena hesitated. “I can’t ask you to do that,” she said slowly. “There might be danger—of a kind you don’t know about. It might be best for me to go alone.”

“Are you kidding?” Bonnie said, sticking her chin out. “We
love
danger. I want to be young and beautiful in my grave, remember?”

“Don’t,” said Elena quickly. “You were the one who said it wasn’t a game.”

“And not for Stefan, either,” Meredith reminded them. “We’re not doing him much good standing around here.”

Elena was already shrugging out of her kimono, moving toward the closet. “We’d better all bundle up. Borrow anything you want to keep warm,” she said.

When they were more or less dressed for the weather, Elena turned to the door. Then she stopped.

“Robert,” she said. “There’s no way we can get past him to the front door, even if he’s asleep.”

Simultaneously, the three of them turned
to look at the window.

“Oh, wonderful,” said Bonnie.

As they climbed out into the quince tree, Elena realized that it had stopped snowing. But the bite of the air on her cheek made her remember Damon’s words. Winter is an unforgiving season, she thought, and shivered.

All the lights in the house were out, including those in the living room. Robert must have gone to sleep already. Even so, Elena held her breath as they crept past the darkened windows. Meredith’s car was a little way down the street. At the last minute, Elena decided to get some rope, and she soundlessly opened the back door to the garage. There was a swift current in Drowning Creek, and wading would be dangerous.

The drive to the end of town was tense. As they passed the outskirts of the woods, Elena remembered the way the leaves had blown at her in the cemetery. Particularly oak leaves.

“Bonnie, do oak trees have any special significance? Did your grandmother ever say anything about them?”

“Well, they were sacred to the druids. All
trees were, but oak trees were the most sacred. They thought the spirit of the trees brought them power.”

Elena digested that in silence. When they reached the bridge and got out of the car, she gave the oak trees on the right side of the road an uneasy glance. But the night was clear and strangely calm, and no breeze stirred the dry brown leaves left on the branches.

“Keep your eyes out for a crow,” she said to Bonnie and Meredith.

“A crow?” Meredith said sharply. “Like the crow outside Bonnie’s house the night Yangtze died?”

“The night Yangtze was killed. Yes.” Elena approached the dark waters of Drowning Creek with a rapidly beating heart. Despite its name, it was not a creek, but a swiftly flowing river with banks of native clay. Above it stood Wickery Bridge, a wooden structure built nearly a century ago. Once, it had been strong enough to support wagons; now it was just a footbridge that nobody used because it was so out of the way. It was a barren, lonely, unfriendly place, Elena thought. Here and
there patches of snow lay on the ground.

Despite her brave words earlier, Bonnie was hanging back. “Remember the last time we went over this bridge?” she said.

Too well, Elena thought. The last time they had crossed it, they were being chased by … something … from the graveyard. Or someone, she thought.

“We’re not going over it yet,” she said. “First we’ve got to look under it on this side.”

“Where the old man was found with his throat torn open,” Meredith muttered, but she followed.

The car headlights illuminated only a small portion of the bank under the bridge. As Elena stepped out of the narrow wedge of light, she felt a sick thrill of foreboding. Death was waiting, the voice had said. Was Death down here?

Her feet slipped on the damp, scummy stones. All she could hear was the rushing of the water, and its hollow echo from the bridge above her head. And, though she strained her eyes, all she could see in the darkness was the raw riverbank and the wooden trestles of the bridge.

“Stefan?” she whispered, and she was almost
glad that the noise of the water drowned her out. She felt like a person calling “who’s there?” to an empty house, yet afraid of what might answer.

“This isn’t right,” said Bonnie from behind her.

“What do you mean?”

Bonnie was looking around, shaking her head slightly, her body taut with concentration. “It just feels wrong. I don’t—well, for one thing I didn’t hear the river before. I couldn’t hear anything at all, just dead silence.”

Elena’s heart dropped with dismay. Part of her knew that Bonnie was right, that Stefan wasn’t in this wild and lonely place. But part of her was too scared to listen.

“We’ve got to make sure,” she said through the constriction in her chest, and she moved farther into the darkness, feeling her way along because she couldn’t see. But at last she had to admit that there was no sign that any person had recently been here. No sign of a dark head in the water, either. She wiped cold muddy hands on her jeans.

“We can check the other side of the bridge,” said Meredith, and Elena nodded mechanically.
But she didn’t need to see Bonnie’s expression to know what they’d find. This was the wrong place.

“Let’s just get out of here,” she said, climbing through vegetation toward the wedge of light beyond the bridge. Just as she reached it, Elena froze.

Bonnie gasped. “Oh, God—”

“Get back,” hissed Meredith. “Up against the bank.”

Clearly silhouetted against the car headlights above was a black figure. Elena, staring with a wildly beating heart, could tell nothing about it except that it was male. The face was in darkness, but she had a terrible feeling.

It was moving toward them.

Ducking out of sight, Elena cowered back against the muddy riverbank under the bridge, pressing herself as flat as possible. She could feel Bonnie shaking behind her, and Meredith’s fingers sank into her arm.

They could see nothing from here, but suddenly there was a heavy footfall on the bridge. Scarcely daring to breathe, they clung to one another, faces turned up. The heavy footsteps
rang across the wooden planks, moving away from them.

Please let him keep going, thought Elena. Oh, please …

She sank her teeth into her lip, and then Bonnie whimpered softly, her icy hand clutching Elena’s. The footsteps were coming back.

I should go out there, Elena thought. It’s me he wants, not them. He said as much. I should go out there and face him, and maybe he’ll let Bonnie and Meredith leave. But the fiery rage that had sustained her that morning was in ashes now. With all her strength of will, she could not make her hand let go of Bonnie’s, could not tear herself away.

The footsteps sounded right above them. Then there was silence, followed by a slithering sound on the bank.

No,
thought Elena, her body charged with fear. He was coming down. Bonnie moaned and buried her head against Elena’s shoulder, and Elena felt every muscle tense as she saw movement—feet, legs—appear out of the darkness.
No
…

“What are you
doing
down there?”

Elena’s mind refused to process this information at first. It was still panicking, and she almost screamed as Matt took another step down the bank, peering under the bridge.

“Elena? What are you
doing?”
he said again.

Bonnie’s head flew up. Meredith’s breath exploded in relief. Elena herself felt as if her knees might give way.

“Matt,”
she said. It was all she could manage.

Bonnie was more vocal. “What do you think
you’re
doing?” she said in rising tones. “Trying to give us a heart attack? What are you out here for at this time of night?”

Matt thrust a hand into his pocket, rattling change. As they emerged from under the bridge, he stared out over the river. “I followed you.”

“You
what?”
said Elena.

Reluctantly, he swung to face her. “I followed you,” he repeated, shoulders tense. “I figured you’d find a way to get around your aunt and go out again. So I sat in my car across the street and watched your house. Sure enough, you three came climbing out the window. So I followed you here.”

Elena didn’t know what to say. She was
angry, and of course, he had probably done it only to keep his promise to Stefan. But the thought of Matt sitting out there in his battered old Ford, probably freezing to death and without any supper … it gave her a strange pang she didn’t want to dwell on.

He was looking out at the river again. She stepped closer to him and spoke quietly.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said. “About the way I acted back at the house, and—and about—” She fumbled for a minute and then gave up. About everything, she thought hopelessly.

“Well, I’m sorry for scaring you just now.” He turned back briskly to face her, as if that settled the matter. “Now could you please tell me what you think you’re doing?”

“Bonnie thought Stefan might be here.”

“Bonnie did
not,”
said Bonnie. “Bonnie said right away that it was the wrong place. We’re looking for somewhere quiet, no noises, and closed in. I felt … surrounded,” she explained to Matt.

Matt looked back at her warily, as if she might bite. “Sure you did,” he said.

“There were rocks around me, but not like these river rocks.”

“Uh, no, of course they weren’t.” He looked sideways at Meredith, who took pity on him.

“Bonnie had a vision,” she said.

Matt backed up a little, and Elena could see his profile in the headlights. From his expression, she could tell he didn’t know whether to walk away or to round them all up and cart them to the nearest insane asylum.