"Damon, I thank you for being concerned about me. Now would you mind leaving Matt and me for a moment so that I can tell if he's still breathing?"
From inside the Ray-Bans, she thought she could discern a single flash of red.
"Somehow I thought you might say that," Damon said. "And, of course, it's your right to have consolation after being so treacherously abandoned. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, for example."
Elena wanted to swear. Carefully, she answered, "Damon, if Stefan appointed you as my bodyguard, then he hardly ¡®treacherously abandoned' me, did he? You can't have it both - "
"Just indulge me in one thing, all right?" Damon said in the voice of one whose next words are going to beBe careful orDon't do anything I wouldn't do .
There was silence. The dust devils had stopped whirling. The smell of sun-warmed pine needles and pine resin in this dim place was making her languid, dizzy. The ground was warm, too, and the pine needles were all aligned, as if the slumbering animal had pine needles for fur. Elena watched dust motes turn and sparkle like opals in the golden sunlight. She knew she wasn't at her best right now; not her sharpest. Finally, when she was sure her voice would be steady, she asked, "What do you want?"
"A kiss."
Chapter 22
Bonnie was disturbed and confused. It was dark.
"All right," a voice that was brusque and calming at once was saying. "That's two possible concussions, one puncture wound in need of a tetanus shot - and - well, I'm afraid I've got to sedate your girl, Jim. And I'm going to need help, but you're not allowed to move at all. You just lie back and keep your eyes shut."
Bonnie opened her own eyes. She had a vague memory of falling forward onto her bed. But she wasn't at home; she was still at the Saitou house, lying on a couch.
As always, when in confusion or fear, she looked for Meredith. Meredith was just returning from the kitchen with a makeshift ice pack. She put it on Bonnie's already wet forehead.
"I just fainted," Bonnie explained, as she herself figured it out. "That's all."
"I know you fainted. You cracked your head pretty hard on the floor," Meredith replied, and for once her face was perfectly readable: worry and sympathy and relief were all visible. She actually had tears pooling in her eyes. "Oh, Bonnie, I couldn't get to you in time. Isobel was in the way, and those tatami mats don't cushion the floor much - and you've been out for almost half an hour! Youscared me."
"I'm sorry." Bonnie fumbled a hand out a blanket she seemed to be wrapped in and gave Meredith's hand a squeeze. It meantvelociraptor sisterhood is still in action . It also meantthank you for caring .
Jim was sprawled on another couch holding an ice pack to the back of his head. His face was greenish-white. He tried to stand up but Dr. Alpert - it was her voice that was both crusty and kind - pushed him back onto the couch.
"You don't need any more exertion," she said. "But I do need an assistant. Meredith, can you help me with Isobel? It sounds as if she's going to be quite a handful."
"She hit me in the back of the head with a lamp," Jim warned them. "Don't ever turn your back on her."
"We'll be careful," Dr. Alpert said.
"You two stayhere ," Meredith added firmly.
Bonnie was watching Meredith's eyes. She wanted to get up to help them with Isobel. But Meredith had that special look of determination that meant it was better not to argue.
As soon as they left, Bonnie tried to stand up. But immediately she began to see the pulsating gray nothingness that meant she was going to pass out again.
She lay back down, teeth gritted.
For a long time there were crashes and shouts from Isobel's room. Bonnie would hear Dr. Alpert's voice raised, and then Isobel's, and then a third voice - not Meredith, who never shouted if she could help it, but what sounded like Isobel's voice, only slowed down and distorted.
Then, finally, there was silence, and Meredith and Dr. Alpert came back carrying a limp Isobel between them. Meredith had a bloody nose and Dr. Alpert's short pepper-and-salt hair was standing on end, but they had somehow gotten a T-shirt onto Isobel's abused body and Dr. Alpert had managed to hang on to her black bag as well.
"Walking wounded, stay where you are. We'll be back to lend you a hand," the doctor said in her terse way.
Next Dr. Albert and Meredith made another trip to take Isobel's grandmother with them.
"I don't like her color," Dr. Albert said briefly. "Or the tick of her tocker. We might as well all go get checked up."
A minute later they returned to help Jim and Bonnie to Dr. Albert's SUV. The sky had clouded over, and the sun was a red ball not far from the horizon.
"Do you want me to give you something for the pain?" the doctor asked, seeing Bonnie eyeing the black bag. Isobel was in the very back of the SUV, where the seats had been folded down.
Meredith and Jim were in the two seats in front of her, with Grandma Saitou between them, and Bonnie - at Meredith's insistence - was in the front with the doctor.
"Um, no, it's okay," Bonnie said. Actually, she had been wondering whether the hospital actually could cure Isobel of infection any better than Mrs. Flowers' herbal compresses could.
But although her head throbbed and ached and she was developing a lump the size of a hard-boiled egg on her forehead, she didn't want to cloud her thinking. There was something nagging at her, some dream or something she'd had while Meredith said she'd been unconscious.
Whatwas it?
"All right then. Seat belts on? Here we go." The SUV pulled away from the Saitou house. "Jim, you said Isobel has a three-year-old sister asleep upstairs, so I called my granddaughter Jayneela to come over here. At least it will be somebody in the house."