The Return: Midnight Chapter 39

Elena clutched the sister to her. Damon had understood, even in his dazed and confused state. Every genius was connected.No one was alone.And he asked approximately topic else. He asked if you would hold me, solely like this if I got sleepy.Velvety aristocratic eye searched Elenas face. Would you do that?Elena tried to keep steady. Il hold you,she promised.And you wont let go ever?And I wont let go ever,Elena told him, because he was a child, and thither was no point in f remediateening him if he had no fear. And because maybe this part of Damon this smal , innocent part would have some kind of forever.She had heard that vampires didnt come cover version, didnt reincarnate the way humans did. The vampires in the top Dark Dimension were Stillalive adventurers or fortune-seekers, or condemned there as a prison by the Celestial Court.Il hold you,Elena promised once more. Forever and ever.Just then his smal body went into another spasm, and she saw tears on his dark eyelashes, a nd blood on his lip. and before she could say a word, he added, I have more messages. I know them by heart. But his eyes begged her forgiveness I have to give them to the others.What others? Elena thought at first, bewildered. Then she remembered. Stefan and fair. at that place were other loved ones.I stubtel them for you,she tell hesitantly, and he gave a tiny smile, his first, just the corner of one lip up.He left me a little telepathy, too,he said. I kept it in case I had to cal to you.Stillfiercely independent, Elena thought. Al she said was,You go ahead, then.The first one is for my brother, Stefan.You can tel him in just a moment,Elena said. She held on to the smal boy in Damons soul, knowing that this was the last thing she had left to give him. She could sacrifice a few priceless seconds, so that Stefan and Bonnie could say their experience good-byes. She made some sort of enormous valuation account to her real body her body outside Damons mind, and found herself o pening her eyes, b touch baseing and trying to focus.She saw Stefans face, white and stricken. Is he ?No. But soon. He can hear telepathy, if you compute clearly, as if you were speaking. He asked to talk to you.To me?Stefan bent down slowly and put his cheek against his brothers. Elena shut her eyes again, guiding him down by dint of the darkness to where one smal flatboat was Stillshining. She felt Stefans wonder as he saw her there, Stillholding the little dark-haired boy in her blazonry.Elena hadnt realized that through and through her link to the child, she would be able to hear every word spoken. Or that Damons messages would come in the words of a child.The little boy said, I guess you think Im pretty stupid.Stefan lead storyted. Hed never seen or heard the child-Damon before. I could never think that,he said slowly, marveling.But it wasnt much like him, you know. Like me.I think,Stefan said unsteadily, that its terribly sad that I never real y knew either of you very well .Please dont be sad. Thats what he told me to say. That you shouldnt be sador afraid. He said its a little bit like going to sleep, and a little bit like flying.Il remember that. And thank you big brother.I think thats al . You know to watch over our girls.There was another of the terrible spasms that left the child breathless. Stefan spoke quickly.Of play. Il take care of everything. You fly.Elena could feel the affliction slash at Stefans heart, but his voice was calm. Fly away now, my brother. Fly away.Elena felt something through the link Bonnie cutaneous senses Stefans shoulder. He quickly got up so that she could lie down. Bonnie was almost hysterical with sobbing, but she had done a good thing, Elena saw. While Elena had been in her own little world with Damon, Bonnie had taken a dagger and cut off a long lock of Elenas hair. Then she had cut one of her own strawberry curls, and placed the locks one wavy and golden, one curling and red-blond on Damons chest. It w as al they could do on this flowerless world to honor him, to be with him forever.Elena could hear Bonnie, too, through her link with Damon, but at first al Bonnie could do was sob, Damon, please Oh, please I didnt know I never thought that eachone would get hurt You saved my aliveness And now oh, please I cant say good-byeShe didnt understand, Elena thought, that she was talking to a very young child. But Damon had sent the child a message to repeat.Im hypothetic to tel you good-bye, though.For the first time the child looked uneasy. And and Im supposed to tel youIm sorry,too. He thought youd know what that meant and youd forgive me. Butif you dontI dont know what wil happen ohAnother of the hateful spasms went through the child. Elena held on to him hard, biting her own lip until the blood came at the same time trying to shield the little boy completely from her own feelings. And hidden in Damons mind, she saw Bonnies expression change, from tearful penance to astonished f ear to careful control. As if Bonnie had grown up al in an instant.Of course of course I understand And I forgive you but you havent done anything wrong. Im such a sil y girl IWe dont think youre a sil y girl,the child said, looking vastly relieved. But thank you for forgiving me. Theres a special name Im supposed to cal you, too but IHe sank sanction against Elena. I guess Imgetting sleepyWas it redbird?Bonnie asked careful y, and the little boys pale face lit up.That was it. You knew already. Youre al so nice and so smart. give thanks youfor making it easyBut can I say one more thing?Elena was about to answer, when abruptly she was jarred completely out of Damons mind and back into reality. The tree diagram had slammed down another spiders leg set of branches, trapping them and Damons body between two circles of wooden bars.Elena had no plans. No idea how to get to the star bal that Damon had died for. Either the manoeuvre was intel igent, or it was wired to have such effi cient defenses that it might as well have been. They were lying on the evidence that many an(prenominal), many people had tried for that star bal and left butt joint their bones ground to anchor.Come to that, she thought, I wonder why it hasnt gone for us, too especial y for Bonnie. Shes been in, and then out, and back in again, which I should never have let her do leave off that we were al thinking about Damon. Why didnt it go for her again?Stefan was trying to be strong, trying to organize something out of this disaster that was so stunning that Elena herself simply sat. Bonnie was sobbing again, making heart-wrenching sounds.Between both notice sets of bars a wooden network was spreading too close-knit for even Bonnie to squeeze through. Elenas group was efficiently separated from anything outside the sand pit, and just as efficiently separated from the star bal .The axeStefan cal ed to her. Throw me But there was no time. A rootlet had curled around it and was fleetly dragging it into the upper branches.Stefan, Im sorry I was too slowIt was too fastStefan corrected.Elena held her breath, waiting for the last crash from above, the one that would kil them al . When it didnt come, she realized something. The Tree was not only intel igent, but sadistic. They were to be trapped here, away from their supplies, to die slowly of thirst and starvation, or to go mad watching the others die.The best that they could believe for was that Stefan would kil both Bonnie and her but even he would never get out.These wooden branches would come crashing down again and again, as often as the Tree felt necessary, until Stefans crushed bones joined the others that had been mil ed to fine sand.That was what did it, the thought of al of them, trapped with Damon, making a mockery of his death. The thing that had been inflation inside Elena for weeks now, at hearing the stories about children who ate their pets, at creatures who delighted in pain, had, with Damons sacr ifice, final y gotten so big that she could no longer nurse it. Stefan, Bonnie dont touch the branches,she gasped.Make sure youre not touching any part of the branches.Im not, love, and Bonnie isnt either. But why?I cant keep it in any longer I have to stand like this Elena, no That spel Elena could no longer think. The hateful demi-light was driving her mad, reminding her of the pinpoint of green in Damons pupils, the horrible green light of the Tree.She understood exactly about the Trees sadism to her friendsand in the corner of her eye she could see a bit of blacklike a rag dol . debar that it was no dol it was Damon. Damon with al of his wild and witty spirit broken.Damonwho must be gone from this and al worlds by now.His face was covered with her blood. There was zero peaceful or dignified about him. There was nothing the Tree had not taken from him.Elena lost her mind.With a scream that peeled raw and expel from her backbone and came hoarsely out of her throat, Elena grabbed a branch of the Tree that had kil ed Damon, that had murdered her beloved, and that would murder her and these two others she loved as well.She had no thoughts. She wasnt capable of thinking. But instinctively she held a high bough of the Trees cage and let the fury explode out of her, the fury of murdered love. travel of Destruction.She felt the Wings arch behind her, like ebony lace and black pearls, and for a moment she felt like a deadly goddess, knowing that this planet would never harbor any life sentence ever again.When the attack flared out, it turned the twilight al around her to matte black. What a fitting color. Damon wil like this, she thought in confusion, and then she remembered again, and it slammed deadly out of her again, the Power to destroy the Tree al over this smal world. It shattered her from the inside but she let it keep coming. No physical pain could canvass with what was in her heart, with the pain of losing what she had lost. No physical pain co uld express how she felt.The huge roots in the ground underneath them were bucking as if there was an earthquake, and then There was a deafening sound as the trunk of the Great Tree exploded straight upward like a rocket, disintegrating to fine ash as it went. The spiders-leg bars around them simply disappeared along with the canopy above. Something in Elenas mind noted that very far away the same destruction was going on, travel to turn branches and leaves into infinitesimal bits of matter that hung in the air like haze.The star bal Bonnie cried in the eerie silence, anguished.VaporizedStefan caught Elena as she sank to her knees, her ethereal black fly fading. But wed never have gotten it anyway. That Tree had been protecting it for thousands of years Al wed have gotten would have been a slow death.Elena had turned back to Damon. She had not been touching the stake that ran through him in seconds it would be the only remnant of the Tree on this world. She could hardly dare hope that there was a spark of life left in him now, but the child had exigencyed to speak with her and she would make that possible or die trying. She scarcely felt Stefans arms around her. one time again, she plunged into the very depths of Damons mind. This time she knew exactly where to go.And there, by a miracle, he was, although obviously in enshroudous pain. Tears were rol ing down his cheeks and he was trying not to sob. His lips were bitten raw. Her Wings had not been able to destroy the wood inside him it had already done its poisonous damage and there was no way to reverse that.Oh, no, oh GodElena caught the child in her arms. A teardrop fel on her hand. She rocked him, scarcely knowing what she was saying. What can I do to help?Youre here again,he said, and in his voice, she heard the answer. This was al that he wanted. He was a very simple child.Il be here always. Always. Im never letting go.This didnt have the effect that she wanted. The boy gasped, trying to smile, bu t was disunite with a horrible spasm that almost arched his body out of her arms.And Elena realized that she was turning the inevitable into slow, excruciating torture.Il hold you,she modified her words for him, until you want me to let go. All right?He nodded. His very voice was breathless with pain. Could you could you let me shut my eyes? Justjust for a moment?Elena knew, as perhaps this child did not, what would happen if she stop badgering him and let him sleep. But she couldnt stand to see him suffering any longer, and nothing was real again, and there was no one else in the world for her, and she didnt even care if doing it this way meant she would fol ow him into death.Careful y steadying her voice, she said, Maybewe can both shut our eyes. Not for a long time no Butjust for a moment.She kept rocking the smal body in her arms. She could Stillfeel a give out pulse of lifenot a heartbeat, but Still, a pulsing.She knew that he hadnt shut his eyes yet that he was Stillfighti ng the torture.For her. Not for anything else. For her sake only.Putting her lips close to his ear, she whispered, Lets close our eyes together, All right? Lets close themat the count of three. Is that All right?There was such relief in his voice and such love. Yes.Together. Im ready. You can count now.One.Nothing mattered except holding him and keeping herself steady. Two. AndElena?She was startled. Had the child ever said her name before?Yes, sweetheart?ElenaIlove you. Not just because of him. I love you too.Elena had to hide her face in his hair. I love you, too, little one. Youve always known that, havent you?Yes always.Yes. Youve always known that. And nowwel close our eyes for a moment. Three. She waited until the last faint movement stopped, and his head fel back, and his eyes were shut and the shadow of suffering was gone. He looked, not peaceful, but simply gentle and kind, and Elena could see in his face what an with child(p) with Damons features and that expression wo uld look like.But now even the smal body was evaporating right out of Elenas arms. Oh, she was stupid. Shed forgotten to close her eyes with him. She was so dizzy, even though Stefan had stopped the bleeding from her neck. Closing her eyesmaybe she would look as he had. Elena was so glad that hed gone gently at the end.Maybe the darkness would be kind to her, too.Everything was quiet now. Time to put away her toys and draw the curtains. Time now to get in bed. One last embraceand now her arms were empty.Nothing left to do, nothing left to fight. Shed done her best.And, at least, the child had not been frightened.Time to turn off the light now. Time to shut her own eyes.The darkness was very kind to her, and she went into it gently.