The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 19

Honestly, Elena, auntie Judith say, shaking her head as she adjusted the cars rearview mirror. I dont know wherefore these kinds of things always reckon to happen to you, but you find yourself in the strangest situations.Tel me closely it, Elena say, slumping mow in the passenger seat of her aunts car and resting her head in her hands. Thank you for picking me up, aunt Judith. I just felt also shaky to drive after world at the hospital with Caleb and everything. She swal owed. Im gamy I missed Margarets dance recital after al .aunt Judith patted Elenas knee with one cool hand without taking her eyes false the road. I told Margaret that Caleb got hurt and you had to organize care of him. She understood. Right now Im hard-pressed nigh you. It must slang been a shock to find him standardised that, especial y when you realized it was someone you knew. What exactly happened?Elena shrugged and repeated the inha pussy shed told the police. I just found him lie there when I went to let down Mom and Dad. Elena cleared her throat before continuing. The hospitals obtaining him for a bitstock of days. They think hes got a bad concussion and they want to watch and learn sure his brain doesnt swel . He woke up a little bit in the ambulance but was real y groggy and didnt remember what had happened. Which was lucky, Elena thought. What if hed said he was attacked by Elena Gilberts boyfriend, who had something weird loss on with his teeth? What if hed said her boyfriend was a daimon? It would be last fal al everyplace again.Aunt Judith frowned sympathetical y and shook her head.Wel , Calebs lucky you came along. He could suck been lying there for days before anyone went looking for him.Yeah, lucky, said Elena hol owly. She rol ed the puke of her T-shirt between her fingers and was startled to realize she stil had her bath tubing suit on under her clothes. The picnic that afternoon seemed like it had taken place a mil ion eld ago.Then something Aun t Judith said struck her. What do you mean, he could have been lying there for days before anyone looked for him? What approximately his aunt and uncle?I tried cal ing them after you cal ed me, but it seems that Calebs been fending for himself for preferably a while. When I reached them, they were out of town on vacation, and frankly they didnt seem like they were too concerned about their nephew, even when I told them what had happened.She sighed heavily. Il go visit him tomorrow and bring him some of the flowers from our garden hes been working so hard on. Hel like that.Huh, said Elena slowly. I thought he told me he came here to stay with his aunt and uncle because they were so upset about Tyler being missing.Maybe so, Aunt Judith said dryly, but the Smal woods seem to be doing pretty wel now. They said that in their opinion, Tyler wil come home when hes good and ready. That boy was always a little out of control. It sounds like Caleb is more hard-pressed about Tyler than they are.She pul ed into the driveway of their category, and Elena fol owed her inside to where Robert was reading his newspaper at the kitchen table.Elena, you look exhausted, he said, folding the paper and looking up at her in concern. Are you al right?Im okay, she said numbly. Its just been a long day.She thought she had neer made more of anunderstatement in her life.Wel , Margarets foregone to bed, but we saved you some dinner, Aunt Judith said, making a give the sack toward the refrigerator. Its a chicken casserole, and theres some salad. You must be starving. but unawares Elena felt sick. Shed been suppressing al her feelings about Stefan and his attack on Caleb, retentiveness the images tamped down so she could get on with the business of dealing with the police and the provide at the hospital and her own family. But she was tired and her hands were shaking. She knew that she couldnt keep everything under control for much longer.I dont want anything, she said, O.K.ing aw ay. I cant Im non hungry, Aunt Judith. Thank you, though. I just want to take a bath and go to bed. She turned and go out of the kitchen.Elena You have to eat something, she perceive Aunt Judith cry exasperatedly behind her as she hurried up the stairs.The solid-sounding murmur of Roberts voice broke inJudith, let her go.Elena ducked into the tub and closed the door behind her.She and Margaret shared the hal bathroom, and she busied herself with emptying Margarets bath toys from the tub, keeping her mind careful y blank a pink no-account ducky, a pirate ship, a stack of gaily colored waxy cups. A goofily smiling purple seahorse looked up at her with assorted blue eyes.Once the tub was empty, Elena ran the water as hot as she could stand and poured in a generous dol op of apricot-scented bubble bath from a bottle that promised to soothe her spirit while rejuvenating her skin. Soothing and rejuvenating sounded good, although Elena had her doubts about how much she could reasona bly expect from a bottle of bubble bath.When the tub was ful and frothy with a thick layer of bubbles, Elena quickly undressed and stepped into the muggy water. It stung at first, but she eased herself in bit by bit, gradual y getting accustomed to the temperature. Once she was comfortable, she lay clog in the water, her hair floating out like a mermaids, the sounds of the house muffled by the water over her ears, and let the thoughts shed been avoiding come at last.Tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her cheeks to join the bathwater. She had believed that everything was going to be recipe now that they were confirm home, that things were going to be good again. When she and her friends had gotten the Guardians to send them back up and to change things, to reverse the deaths, to fix the broken, to birth everything the way it would have been if nada dangerous had touched the little town of Fel s Church, she had thought that it would make her life simple and easy. She w ould have her family, her friends, her Stefan. But it wasnt going to work, was it? It wasnt ever going to be that way, not for Elena.As soon as shed come back to town, the very first day shed stepped outside into the sunshine of a Fel s Church summer, something dark and evil and supernatural had started stalking her and her friends.And as for Stefan graven image Stefan. What was happening to him?When she closed her eyes, she saw Caleb flying through the air and heard that horrible, final-sounding crack that Calebs head had made as it connected with the marble of the mausoleum. What if Caleb never ful y recovered? What if this cute, innocent guy, this guy whose parents had died and unexpended him like hers had died and left her, was broken forever because of Stefan?Stefan. How had he become the kind of person who could do something like that? Stefan, who felt guilty about the animals he took blood from, the doves and rabbits and cervid of the forest. The Stefan who she knew at the deepest level of her soul, who she thought unploughed nothing from her that Stefan would never have harmed a human being like that.Elena lay in the tubful until the water got cold and her tears had stopped. Then she got out, drained the tub, dried her hair, napped her teeth, put on a nightgown, cal ed good night to Aunt Judith and Robert, and climbed into bed. She did not want to write in her diary. Not tonight. She switched off the legerity and lay flat on her back, staring into the darkness the same blackness, she thought, as Damons eyes.Damon had been a monster, she knew he had kil ed, although not as blithely as he pretended he had manipulated people and enjoyed it he had haunted and hated Stefan for hundreds of years but she had also seen the lost little boy he kept locked inside him. He had love her, she had love him, and he had died.And she love Stefan. Desperately, devotedly, undeniably. She loved the sincerity in his eyes, his pride, his courtly manners, his honor, an d his intel igence. She loved that he had rejected the monster that lurked inside him, the one that had driven so many vampires to terrible acts. She loved the sorrow he held for his past, for his hatred and jealousy of Damon, for the terrible things he had seen. And she loved the hope that always sprang up in him, the strength of wil Stefan possessed that al owed him to keep fighting back the darkness.Beyond al that, she loved Stefan. But she was afraid. She had thought she knew him inside and out, that she could see clear through to the innermost reaches of his soul. That wasnt true, not anymore. Not since the Guardians had stripped her powers, severing their psychic connection and reverting her back to a normal, human girl. Elena rol ed over and buried her face in the pil ow. She knew the truth now. No matter what the Guardians had done for her, she would never be a normal girl. Her life would never be simple. Tragedy and horror would fol ow her forever.In the end, there was not hing Elena could do to change her destiny.