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"Oh, God, no," Elena whispered. She went on whispering it, backing away, scarcely aware that she
was doing either. Her mind simply could not cope with this horror; her thoughts were running wildly
in panic, like mice trying to escape a cage. She wouldn't believe this, she wouldn't believe. Her body
was filled with unbearable tension, her heart was bursting, her head reeling.
"Oh, God, no – "
"Elena!" More terrible than anything else was this, to see Stefan looking at her out of that animal
face, to see the snarl changing into a look of shock and desperation. "Elena, please. Please, don't…"
"Oh, God, no!" The screams were trying to rip their way out of her throat. She backed farther away,
stumbling, as he took a step toward her. "No!"
"Elena, please – be careful – " That terrible thing, the thing with Stefan's face, was coming after her,
green eyes burning. She flung herself backward as he took another step, his hand outstretched. That
long, slender-fingered hand that had stroked her hair so gently –
"Don't touch me!" she cried. And then she did scream, as her motion brought her back against the
iron railing of the widow's walk. It was iron that had been there for nearly a century and a half, and in
places it was nearly rusted through. Elena's panicked weight against it was too much, and she felt it
give way. She heard the tearing sound of overstressed metal and wood mingling with her own shriek.
And then there was nothing behind her, nothing to grab on to, and she was falling.
In that instant, she saw the seething purple clouds, the dark bulk of the house beside her. It seemed
that she had enough time to see them clearly, and to feel an infinity of terror as she screamed and fell,
and fell.
But the terrible, shattering impact never came. Suddenly there were arms around her, supporting her
in the void. There was a dull thud and the arms tightened, weight giving against her, absorbing the
crash. Then all was still.
She held herself motionless within the circle of those arms, trying to get her bearings. Trying to
believe yet another unbelievable thing. She had fallen from a three-story roof, and yet she was alive.
She was standing in the garden behind the boarding house, in the utter silence between claps of
thunder, with fallen leaves on the ground where her broken body should be.
Slowly, she brought her gaze upward to the face of the one who held her. Stefan.
There had been too much fear, too many blows tonight. She could react no longer. She could only
stare up at him with a kind of wonder.
There was such sadness in his eyes. Those eyes that had burned like green ice were now dark and
empty, hopeless. The same look that she'd seen that first night in his room, only now it was worse. For
now there was self-hatred mixed with the sorrow, and bitter condemnation. She couldn't bear it.
"Stefan," she whispered, feeling that sadness enter her own soul. She could still see the tinge of red
on his lips, but now it awakened a thrill of pity along with the instinctive horror. To be so alone, so
alien and so alone…
"Oh, Stefan," she whispered.
There was no answer in those bleak, lost eyes. "Come," he said quietly, and led her back toward the
house.
Stefan felt a rush of shame as they reached the third story and the destruction that was his room.
That Elena, of all people, should see this was insupportable. But then, perhaps it was also fitting that