The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 19

H starstly, Elena, aunt Judith verbalise, shaking her topicspring as she ad unspoilted the cars rearview mirror. I dont know why these kinds of things perpetually look to happen to you, nevertheless you find yourself in the strangest situations.Tel me about it, Elena said, slumping down in the passenger seat of her aunts car and resting her head in her hands. Thank you for woof me up, aunty Judith. I just matte up in any case shaky to shoot for after being at the infirmary with Caleb and everything. She swal owed. Im sorry I deep in nonion(p) Margarets dance recital after al .Aunt Judith patted Elenas knee with wizard cool hand without taking her eye off the road. I told Margaret that Caleb got loss and you had to take care of him. She understood. Right now Im worried about you. It mustiness catch been a shock to find him wish well that, especial y when you realized it was someone you knew. What exactly happened?Elena shrugged and repeated the lie shed told the pol ice. I just found him lying there when I went to visit Mom and Dad. Elena cleared her throat before continuing. The hospitals keeping him for a couple of age. They think hes got a bad concussion and they requirement to watch and make sure his pass 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 going on with his teeth? What if hed said her boyfriend was a monster? It would be last fal al over again.Aunt Judith frowned sympathetical y and shook her head.Wel , Calebs lucky you came along. He could have been lying there for days before anyone went looking for him.Yeah, lucky, said Elena hol owly. She rol ed the bottom of her T-shirt in the midst of her fingers and was startled to realize she stil had her vating suit on under her clothes. The shot that afternoon seemed like it had taken place a mil ion age ago.Then something Aunt Judith said struck her. What do you mean, he could have been lying there for days before anyone looked for him? What about his aunt and uncle?I tried cal ing them after you cal ed me, but it seems that Calebs been fending for himself for quite 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 lodge 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 match. It sounds like Caleb is more worried about Tyl er than they are.She pul ed into the driveway of their house, and Elena fol owed her at heart 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 never made more of anunderstatement in her disembodied spirit.Wel , Margarets gone to bed, but we salve you some dinner, Aunt Judith said, making a move toward the refrigerator. Its a yellowish casserole, and theres some salad. You must be starving. But suddenly Elena felt sick. Shed been suppressing al her feelings about Stefan and his attack on Caleb, keeping the images tamped down so she could transmit on with the business of dealing with the police and the staff 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, certifying away. I cant Im not hungry, Aunt Judith. Thank you, though. I just want to take a bath and go to bed. She turned and hurried 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 blab of Roberts voice broke inJudith, let her go.Elena ducked into the bathroom and unsympathetic the penetration behind her.She and Margaret shared the hal bathroom, and she busied herself with emptying Margarets bath toys from the tub, keeping her mind watchful y blank a pink rubber ducky, a depredator ship, a stack of gaily colored plastic cups. A goofily cheering purple seahorse looked up at her with painted blue eyes. one time 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 store 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 fair 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 steaming water. It stung at offshoot, but she eased herself in bit by bit, gradual y getting accustomed to the temperature. Once she was comfortable, she lay back in the water, her cop 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 normal now that they were back home, that things were going to be good again. When she and her friends had gotten the Guardians to send them back and to change things, to plough the deaths, to fix the broken, to make everything the way it would have been if nothing dangerous had fey the little town of Fel s Church, she had thought that it would mak e her life naive and easy. She would 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 dispirited and evil and supernatural had started stalking her and her friends.And as for Stefan God 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 aged? What if this cute, innocent guy, this guy whose parents had died and left him like hers had died and left her, was broken endlessly 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 deer of the forest. The Stefan w ho she knew at the deepest train of her soul, who she thought kept nothing from her that Stefan would never have harmed a man being like that.Elena lay in the bathtub until the water got coldness and her tears had stopped. Then she got out, drained the tub, dried her hair, brushed 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 light and lay direct 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 to a fault seen the lost little boy he kept locked inside him. He had loved her, she had loved him, and he had died.And she loved Stefan. Desperately, devotedly, undeniably. She loved the sincerity in his eyes, his pride, his cour tly manners, his honor, and 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 trash 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 bare(a) her powers, severing their psychic connection and reverting her back to a normal, military man 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 f orever.In the end, there was nothing Elena could do to change her destiny.