“You’re not coming home with us?”—Meredith,
straight-from-the-shoulder.
“I order you to get in—and make it quick!”—Elena.
“Such a dominant woman,” murmured Sage. “Ah, well, it seems
the Great Pendulum has swung again. I am only a man. I obey.”
“What? Does that mean you’re coming?” Bonnie cried.
“It means I am coming, yes.” Gently, Sage took Stefan’s wasted
body in his arms and stepped into the little cubicle inside the door.
Unlike the first keys Elena had used today, this one seemed to work
more like a voice-activated elevator…she hoped. After all, Shinichi and
Misao had each only needed one key for themselves. Here, a number of
people might want to go to the same place at once.
She hoped.
Sage back-kicked Stefan’s old bedding away. Something rattled on
the ground. “Oh—” Stefan reached helplessly for it. “It’s my Elena
diamond. I found it on the floor after…”
“Plenty more where that came from,” Meredith said.
“It’s important to him,” Damon, who was already inside, said.
Instead of crowding farther into the elevator, the little room that might
disappear at any second, that might be gone for Fell’s Church before he
could turn back, he walked out into the lobby, looked closely at the
floor, and knelt. Then, quickly, he reached down and then got up and