A bird crashed through the top of the tree above her, and Elena looked up with a burst of relief. But it was just a blue jay, not the sleek black crow she was waiting for.
Maybe she should give up on subtlety and just shout Damon’s name until he answered her. No, that would only make him suspicious.
If he was nearby, there was one thing that ought to draw him out. Blood.
Elena uncrossed her arms and looked around carefully. A rough gray boulder lay half-buried between two trees with twisted roots growing up around it. That might do. Steeling herself, Elena wandered toward it.
Her toe caught on a root, and Elena tipped forward, eyeing the sharp-edged rock. About right. Pretending to lose her balance, she threw herself onto the ground hard.
Her teeth clacked together as she hit the ground more violently than she’d meant to. There was a jolting, blinding pain in her knee. Her palms were stinging, scraped by tree roots. Winded, Elena lay gasping for a moment, fighting back tears of pain. She glanced down at her leg and was relieved to see a trickle of red blood. She didn’t want to have to try that again.
“Let me help you.” The voice, husky and a little unsure, was so familiar, so loved. But it was the wrong one.
Elena looked up to see Stefan Salvatore standing above her, his hand extended. His face was shadowed so that she couldn’t quite see his expression. Tentatively, she laid her hand in his and let him pull her gently to her feet.
Upright again, she winced a little, and Stefan quickly turned her hands palm-up, carefully brushing away dirt and bits of dry leaves. “Just a scrape,” he told her quietly.
“My leg,” she said, looking up into his face. Her voice cracked, and she had to swallow hard. He hadn’t changed. Of course he never changed; he was a vampire. Elena’s heart ached, and for one mad moment, she wanted to forget everything and throw herself into his arms and hold him tightly, weep with joy that he was alive.
“Let me see,” Stefan said, letting go of her hands. He didn’t look her in the eyes, but instead knelt in the dirt, pulling a white silk handkerchief from his pocket. Unfolding it, he tucked something small—Elena couldn’t see what it was—back into his pocket. Gently, he blotted at her knee and then tied the handkerchief around it as a makeshift bandage. “There, that should get you home.”
He rose, eyes still averted, and backed away. Impulsively, Elena stepped forward and took hold of his leather-jacketed arm. He was so close, so solid, and real. A warm flush of love and relief ran over her. “Thank you,” she said. “Stefan—”
Almost faster than her eyes could follow, Stefan pulled away from her, and stepped back, deeper into the shadows of the trees. “I—” he said and stopped, then began again. “You’re welcome. You should be careful, though, out here alone. Did you hear about the attack?”
“Yes, I did,” Elena said, moving closer to him again, her eyes searching the shadows, trying to make out his face.
“They’re saying whoever did it must have been a monster.” There was an ugly, harsh note in Stefan’s voice. Without the sunglasses, he looked vulnerable and terribly tired.
“I don’t believe it,” she said firmly.
For a moment, their eyes met. Elena could see a wild flicker of hope rise in Stefan’s and then disappear, leaving nothing but grim hopelessness. “Anyone who would do such a thing is a monster,” he said.
Elena was almost touching him now. She wanted to run her hands across the chiseled lines of his face, remind herself how smooth his skin was.
His gaze traced over the curve of her neck, she saw, and his lips parted a little. “You look—” he said. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”
Katherine. Elena suppressed a grimace. The Stefan of this time was still guilt-stricken over the role he thought he’d played in Katherine’s death. She wanted to announce the truth: She’s not dead. Crazy and vicious, but not dead. It’s not your fault.
But she couldn’t. There was no way she could know that now, or at least no way she could explain. And so, Elena said nothing. Instead, she reached out a hand, slowly, carefully, as if she was taming some wild creature, and finally touched him. Just for a moment, her fingers brushing across the bare skin of his wrist.
She couldn’t have him. But this—a moment of touch—she needed.
It was like a circuit connecting. Warmth flooded through Elena’s body, and she wobbled for a moment, ready to fall into his arms. Stefan became utterly still, his eyes dilated and dark as he stared at her. She thought he was holding his breath. There was a moment when it seemed like time was suspended, like anything could happen.
And then, with an intense jolt of sorrow, Elena pulled away, letting her hand fall limply to her side.
“Here,” Stefan said abruptly, pulling something from his pocket with the sleeve of his shirt. His voice shook, and he was staring at his hands, refusing to meet Elena’s eye. He handed her what looked like a handful of scrappy, skinny weeds, a few with small pale flowers. “Keep these with you for good luck. You can even make herbal tea out of them.”
Elena accepted the flowers, recognizing them as vervain. If she kept it close, it would keep vampires from being able to cloud her mind. But Stefan didn’t know yet that Damon was in town, certainly didn’t know about Katherine. Who was he protecting her from? Then she got it.
Himself, of course. It was just like Stefan, to be thinking of himself as a danger while he did everything he could to protect her.
“Thank you,” she said, looking down at the wilting weeds as if they were the most precious thing she’d ever touched.