BEFORE ASKING ME A FAVOR.”
Wildly, Elena looked around—and saw that grass had almost
completely enveloped a kneeling Stefan, who had been too weak to
move as quickly as the others had.
And he had never made a sound to call attention to himself.
“No!” Elena’s desperate scream almost drowned out Shinichi’s
laughter. “Stefan! No!” Even knowing it was futile, she threw herself at
him and tried to rip the grass away from his thin chest.
Stefan simply gave her the faintest of smiles and shook his head
sadly.
That was when Damon came to a stop. He held the star ball up
toward Shinichi’s lowering visage. “Take it!” he shouted. “Take the ball,
damn you, but let the two of them go!”
This time the gale of Shinichi’s laughter went on and on. A spiral
of grass grew from a point beside Damon and an instant later had formed
a hideous, shaggy green fist, which almost reached the star ball.
But—
“Not yet, my dears,” gasped Mrs. Flowers. She and Matt had come
breathlessly from the boardinghouse storage room—Matt limping
badly—and they both held what looked like Post-it notes in their hands.
The next thing Elena knew, Damon was moving at ferocious speed
again, away from the fist, and Matt was slapping a bit of paper on the
grass covering Stefan, while Mrs. Flowers did the same to the greenery