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"I… don't remember," he said bleakly. "I used the Power to persuade him to do what you wanted.
Then I left. But later I felt the dizziness and the weakness come over me. As it has before." He looked
up at her directly. "The last time it happened was in the cemetery, right by the church, the night Vickie
Bennett was attacked."
"But you didn't do that. You couldn't have done that… Stefan?"
"I don't know," he said harshly. "What other explanation is there? And I did take blood from the old
man under the bridge, that night you girls ran away from the graveyard. I would have sworn I didn't
take enough to harm him, but he almost died. And I was there when both Vickie and Tanner were
attacked."
"But you don't remember attacking them," said Elena, relieved. The idea that had been growing in
her mind was now almost a certainty.
"What difference does it make? Who else could have done it, if not me?"
"Damon," said Elena.
He flinched, and she saw his shoulders tighten again. "It's a nice thought. I hoped at first that there
might be some explanation like that. That it might be someone else, someone like my brother. But I've
searched with my mind and found nothing, no other presence. The simplest explanation is that I'm the
killer."
"No," said Elena, "you don't understand. I don't just mean that someone like Damon might do the
things we've seen. I mean Damon is here, in Fell's Church. I've seen him."
Stefan just stared at her.
"It must be him," Elena said, taking a deep breath. "I've seen him twice now, maybe three times.
Stefan, you just told me a long story, and now I've got one to tell you."
As quickly and simply as she could, she told him about what had happened in the gym, and at
Bonnie's house. His lips tightened into a white line as she told him how Damon had tried to kiss her.
Her cheeks grew hot as she remembered her own response, how she had almost given in to him. But
she told Stefan everything.
About the crow, too, and all the other strange things that had happened since she had come home
from France.
"And, Stefan, I think Damon was at the Haunted House tonight," she finished. "Just after you felt
dizzy in the front room, someone passed me. He was dressed up like – like Death, in black robes and
a hood, and I couldn't see his face. But something about the way he moved was familiar. It was him,
Stefan. Damon was there."
"But that still wouldn't explain the other times. Vickie and the old man. I did take blood from the old
man." Stefan's face was taut, as if he were almost afraid to hope.
"But you said yourself you didn't take enough to harm him. Stefan, who knows what happened to that
man after you left? Wouldn't it be the easiest thing in the world for Damon to attack him then?
Especially if Damon's been spying on you all along, maybe in some other form…"
"Like a crow," murmured Stefan.
"Like a crow. And as for Vickie… Stefan, you said that you can cast confusion over weaker minds,
overpower them. Couldn't that be what Damon was doing to you? Overpowering your mind as you
can overpower a human's?"
"Yes, and shielding his presence from me." There was mounting excitement in Stefan's voice.
"That's why he hasn't answered my calls. He wanted – "