“What were you doing to her?” Meredith finished.
Damon looked past them to where Elena was lying on her hospital bed, tethered by the IV tubing. She returned his glance with the faintest of smiles, her message clear. She trusted
him.
“Ah . . . shock treatment,” Damon said, thinking rapidly. “She’s a—a very sensitive girl, and I had to give her a jolt to bring her around.”
“Shock treatment?” Matt shook his head. “That’s, like, electric, and they take you and put you in a room—”
“There’s another kind.” Damon’s mind was racing over the annals of human history. “It’s—I could have slapped her, all right? Like General Patton with that private in World War II. But I thought—”
“That those are the only two alternatives?” Meredith, in contrast to Matt, was perfectly composed, and also perfectly infuriated. “Girls are in sad shape when they have to be ‘shocked’ with sex or violence. Shame on you, and with Malala Yousafzai’s memoir out and all!”
“She deserved the Nobel Peace Prize,” Elena put in.
“Wait a minute!” Damon tried to gather his wits. He was as angry as Meredith, and he actually had a better reason. He had saved Bonnie from a rogue malach, if not worse. But he couldn’t tell anyone the truth. They would simply think he was insane, or was trying to drive Bonnie insane. He was absolutely chock-full of virtue, and . . .
. . . and about to be slapped. Oh, no; oh, yes—and he couldn’t even duck. Meredith might have forgotten she was a black belt four ways, but she would have a motor memory of how fast she was. If he were faster, he would have to be very strange indeed, and his strangeness factor was already building up dangerously.
Instead of evading he just went a bit with the slap.
“Ow.”
“Hey!” Elena sat up fast. Now she looked furious. “Why did you do that?”
“I . . . don’t know!” The words tumbled out of Meredith’s mouth, as she stared at her own palm in disbelief. “I . . . actually, I was going to kiss him and then say, ‘how do you like it when someone suddenly shocks you?’ I wasn’t going to hit him!”
“I—I didn’t actually mind what he did,” Bonnie put in with soft reproach. “I mean, it didn’t feel that bad.”
“You hit pretty hard by accident, Meredith,” Matt added, examining Damon’s face curiously. “Were you trying to draw blood?”
“I just told you that I didn’t—”
“Hang on, everybody. I almost have this stupid thing out,” Elena announced, still sounding absent-minded.
Bonnie shrieked. Meredith drew in her breath sharply. Damon looked up in horror from the blood that he’d wiped from his lip with his fingers. He saw that Elena, with her usual consummate courage, and with an unbelievably unusual lack of judgment, was on the verge of pulling her IV needle out of the crook of her elbow.
“I think one more yank—” she announced.
“More blood! Oh! No!” Bonnie gasped, and sank backwards so suddenly that Meredith and Matt were just barely able to steady her.
Damon, on the other hand, had reached Elena in time to capture both her wrists and hold her immobile. “Princess, stop! Why are you doing that?”
“I can’t have people smacking you!”
“She didn’t mean it! It was a cross-wired kiss!” Damon was tasting his own blood and wishing he could enjoy the irony of the situation. He had no doubt that somewhere, deep in Meredith’s subconscious, there were a few neurons Stefan had missed, and that they must be smirking right now.
“Please leave your IV line alone,” he finished earnestly, still holding Elena’s wrists. Even so, blood was already darkening the tape that held the large bore needle in place.
“I don’t think I feel well,” Bonnie was whispering. “I feel all tingly, like when I had those trances.” She was clearly enjoying the idea of being a sensitive girl who had to be shocked with kisses.
Damon saw Matt and Meredith exchange a look, obviously able to read Bonnie’s thoughts as easily as he could.
“Bonnie,” Meredith said gently, “do you know what you say in these trances of yours?”
Bonnie looked defensive. “No. I guess it must be scary, since Damon had to wake me up.”
“You told Elena that she was going to die. In fact, you said that we all were going to die.”