stinking blankets and Stefan’s pallet and no one screamed when lice
jumped on them because everyone knew that Elena would have turned
and ripped their throat out like Saber. Or rather, like Saber, but as Ms.
Courtland had always said, with feeling. To Saber it was just a job.
Then somehow—things had begun to become
disconnected—Elena was watching Stefan’s beloved face and gripping
his litter, and running—he didn’t weigh anything—up a different
corridor than the one she’d fought and shouldered and pushed and
floundered in on her way in. Apparently all the Shi no Shi’s salmon had
chosen the other corridor to swim up. Undoubtedly there was a safe
place for them at the end on that side.
And even as Elena wondered how a face could be so pure, and
handsome, and perfect, even when it looked almost like a skull, she was
thinking, I can run and stoop. And she bent over Stefan and her hair
made a shield around them, so that it was just the two of them inside it.
The entire outside world was shut out, and they were alone, and she said
in his ear: “Please, we need you to be strong. Please—for me.
Please—for Bonnie. Please—for Damon. Plea—”
She would have gone on naming all of them, and probably some
over and over, but it was too muc