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soon… now.
The boarding house was dark. Elena knocked at the door but received no answer. Thunder cracked
overhead. There was still no rain.
After the third barrage of knocking, she tried the door, and it opened. Inside, the house was silent
and pitch black. She made her way to the staircase by feel and went up it.
The second landing was just as dark, and she stumbled, trying to find the bedroom with the stairway
to the third floor. A faint light showed at the top of the stairs, and she climbed toward it, feeling
oppressed by the walls, which seemed to close in on her from either side.
The light came from beneath the closed door. Elena tapped on it lightly and quickly. "Stefan," she
whispered, and then she called more loudly, "Stefan, it's me."
No answer. She grasped the knob and pushed the door open, peering around the side. "Stefan – "
She was speaking to an empty room.
And a room filled with chaos. It looked as if some great wind had torn through, leaving destruction
in its path. The trunks that had stood in corners so sedately were lying at grotesque angles, their lids
gaping open, their contents strewn about the floor. One window was shattered. All Stefan's
possessions, all the things he had kept so carefully and seemed to prize, were scattered like rubbish.
Terror swept through Elena. The fury, the violence in this scene of devastation were painfully clear,
and they made her feel almost giddy. Somebody who has a history of violence, Tyler had said.
I don't care, she thought, anger surging up to push back the fear. I don't care about anything, Stefan; I
still want to see you. But where are you?
The trapdoor in the ceiling was open, and cold air was blowing down. Oh, thought Elena, and she
had a sudden chill of fear. That roof was so high…
She'd never climbed the ladder to the widow's walk before, and her long skirt made it difficult. She
emerged through the trapdoor slowly, kneeling on the roof and then standing up. She saw a dark figure
in the corner, and she moved toward it quickly.
"Stefan, I had to come – " she began, and broke off short, because a flash of lightning lit the sky just
as the figure in the corner whirled around. And then it was as if every foreboding and fear and
nightmare she'd ever had were coming true all at once. It was beyond screaming at; it was beyond
anything.
Oh, God… no. Her mind refused to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. No. No. She wouldn't
look at this, she wouldn't believe it…
But she could not help seeing. Even if she could have shut her eyes, every detail of the scene was
etched upon her memory. As if the flash of lightning had seared it onto her brain forever.
Stefan. Stefan, so sleek and elegant in his ordinary clothes, in his black leather jacket with the
collar turned up. Stefan, with his dark hair like one of the roiling storm clouds behind him. Stefan had
been caught in that flash of light, half turned toward her, his body twisted into a bestial crouch, with a
snarl of animal fury on his face.
And blood. That arrogant, sensitive, sensual mouth was smeared with blood. It showed ghastly red
against the pallor of his skin, against the sharp whiteness of his bared teeth. In his hands was the limp
body of a mourning dove, white as those teeth, wings outspread. Another lay on the ground at his feet,
like a crumpled and discarded handkerchief.