Caleb staggered to his feet, grimacing with pain, and this time charged clumsily at Stefan, his face flushed. He got one arm around Stefan's neck and yanked him to the side, but then Stefan, with an easy strength, tossed Caleb to the ground once more.
Stefan loomed over him threateningly as he stared up at him from the grass. "You can't fight me," Stefan growled.
"I'm stronger than you. I can drive you out of this town, or kil you just as easily. And I wil do either if you make me think it's necessary. I won't hesitate."
Elena grabbed Stefan's arm. "Stop it! Stop it!" she shouted. She pul ed him toward her, trying to turn him so she could look into his eyes, so she could get through to him.
Breathe, she thought desperately. She had to calm things down here, and she tried to steady her voice, to sound logical. "Stefan, I don't know what you think is going on with Caleb, but just stop for a minute and think."
"Elena, look at me," Stefan said. His eyes were dark with emotion. "I know, I'm absolutely sure, that Caleb is evil. He's dangerous to us. We have to get rid of him before he gets a chance to destroy us. We can't give him the opportunity to get the better of us by waiting for him to make his move."
"Stefan..." Elena said. Her voice was shaking, and an oddly rational, detached part of her noted that this must be what it felt like when the person you loved most lost his mind.
She didn't know what she was going to say next, but before she could even open her mouth, Caleb had risen again. There was a long scratch down the side of his face, and his blond hair was tangled and ful of dirt.
"Back off," Caleb said grimly, coming toward Stefan. He was limping a little bit, and clutched a fist-size rock in his right hand. "You can't just..." He raised the rock threateningly.
"Stop it, both of you," Elena yel ed, trying for a fierce general's voice that would command their attention. But Caleb just hoisted the rock and threw it straight at Stefan's face.
Stefan dodged the rock, moving almost too quickly for Elena to see, grabbed Caleb by the waist, and, in one graceful motion, flung him into the air. For a moment, Caleb was suspended, seemingly as light and boneless as a scarecrow tossed from the back of a pickup truck, and then he hit the side of the marble Civil War monument with a sickening crunch. With a thud, he fel to the ground at the foot of the statue and was stil .
"Caleb!" Elena screamed in horror. She ran toward him, shoving her way between the bushes and clumps of grass that encircled the monument.
His eyes were closed and his face was pale. Elena could see the light blue veins in his eyelids. There was a spreading pool of blood on the ground beneath his head. A streak of dirt ran across his face, and that dirt and the long red scratch on his cheek suddenly seemed like some of the most heartbreaking things she had ever seen. He wasn't moving. She couldn't tel whether he was breathing. Elena dropped to her knees and felt for Caleb's pulse, fumbling at his neck. As she found the steady thrum of a heartbeat beneath her fingers, she gasped in relief.
"Elena." Stefan had fol owed her to Caleb's side. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Please, Elena."
Elena shook her head, refusing to look at him, and shrugged his hand away. She felt in her pocket for her phone. "My god, Stefan," she said, her words clipped and tight, "you could have kil ed him. You have to get out of here. I can tel the police I found him like this, but if they see you, they're going to know you two were fighting." She swal owed hard as she realized the streak of dirt staining Caleb's shirt was Stefan's handprint.
"Elena," Stefan pleaded. At the anguish in his tone, she final y turned toward him. "Elena, you don't understand. I had to stop him. He was a threat to you." Stefan's leaf green eyes beseeched her, and Elena had to steel herself to keep from crying.
"You have to leave," she said. "Go home. I'l talk to you later." Don't hurt anyone else, she thought, and bit her lip. Stefan stared at her for a long moment, then final y backed away. "I love you, Elena." He turned and disappeared into the trees, through the older and wilder part of the cemetery.
Elena took a steadying breath, wiped her eyes, and dialed 911. "There's been an accident," she said, her voice panicky, when the operator picked up. "I'm in the Fel 's Church Cemetery off Route Twenty-three, over by the Civil War monument near the edge of the newer section. I've found someone... It looks like he was knocked unconscious somehow..."
Chapter 19
"Honestly, Elena," Aunt Judith said, shaking her head as she adjusted the car's rearview mirror. "I don't know why these kinds of things always seem to happen to you, but you find yourself in the strangest situations."
"Tel me about it," Elena said, slumping down in the passenger seat of her aunt's car and resting her head in her hands. "Thank you for picking me up, Aunt Judith. I just felt too shaky to drive after being at the hospital with Caleb and everything." She swal owed. "I'm sorry I missed Margaret's dance recital after al ."
Aunt Judith patted Elena's knee with one cool hand without taking her eyes off the road. "I told Margaret that Caleb got hurt and you had to take care of him. She understood. Right now I'm worried about you. It must have been a shock to find him like that, especial y when you realized it was someone you knew. What exactly happened?"
Elena shrugged and repeated the lie she'd told the police. "I just found him lying there when I went to visit Mom and Dad." Elena cleared her throat before continuing. "The hospital's keeping him for a couple of days. They think he's got a bad concussion and they want to watch and make sure his brain doesn't swel . He woke up a little bit in the ambulance but was real y groggy and didn't remember what had happened." Which was lucky, Elena thought. What if he'd said he was attacked by Elena Gilbert's boyfriend, who had something weird going on with his teeth? What if he'd said her boyfriend was a monster? It would be last fal al over again.