Elena was upset, he thought.

Damon got to his feet from his chair and helped Elena into her jacket.

"You are upset," he said as they walked towards the elevator.

She glared at him. "I'm pissed. There is a difference between upset and pissed."

She hadn't spoken a word since he told her she shouldn't go to Caroline's wedding.

"I still can't believe you told me I can't go to her wedding," she said.

"You know the reason, Elena…"

"My safety." She sounded grumpy but she didn't care. "You know how much I have spent on the bridesmaid's dress and the shoes? I'm pissed because I was supposed to wear it to my friend's wedding."

"I can't let you go to Mystic Falls. The town is a good couple thousand miles from Chicago. We have to arrange for some agents to be sent from Richmond as backup…"

"Can't you arrange that?" she asked. "Caroline has planned this wedding for years—it means a lot to her. I'm her best friend. And I'm also the bridesmaid."

"Mystic Falls is somewhere in Richmond. I can't guarantee we can arrange for some agents to be sent from Richmond as backup. Trust me, you don't want to put everyone attending the wedding in danger, do you?"

"How dangerous is it?" she asked. She did not bother to conceal her scepticism. "Caroline's mum is the sheriff. I'm sure she can do a good job in terms of security."

"I'm sure the sheriff can," Damon said as they moved inside the lift. "But Elena, the killer is not an amateur. I can't take any chance here."

"I'm sure you are exaggerating. I'm sure the sheriff will be very careful."

"The problem is we don't know who we are dealing with. It is better to be safe than to be sorry."

Elena fixed him with a cool glare. "Matt will be pissed off if he has to step in as the maid of honour. Frankly speaking, I don't like the idea Matt replacing me as the maid of honour."

"Look, I'm sorry," Damon said. "I know this is hard on you and your friends. I will talk to Wes and see what he thinks."

"Hmm."

He was pushing her, and it was clear she didn't like it. Elena had every right to resent his actions. He knew how close she was with her friends.

"If we can send some agents there as back up and set up a security system, maybe we can get you to the wedding."

She brightened. "Really? You think it will be safe?"

"It is possible as long as we plan it properly."

She smiled. "Great. Okay. At least there is still hope."

"I said it is possible. It is not guarantee. Let's get out of here," he said as they got out of the elevator. He made it an order.

Elena shot him a questioning look, but she did not argue. Without a word, she moved towards the entrance. At the front of the building, she opened the heavy metal door and started to step outside.

Maybe he caught the small flash of light in the trees on the opposite side of the road because his senses were spiking on high alert. Or maybe it was just dumb luck. Whatever the reason, he reacted before the logical side of his brain could present a laundry list of reasonable explanations.

He wrapped one hand around Elena's upper arm and dragged her out of the doorway.

There was a solid thunk when the rifle round punched into the metal door frame. He heard the screams and saw Elena's blank expression of horror and incredulity.

"Damon!"

"I'm okay," he said. He rolled off of her. "Get away from the door. He may try a couple of wild shots, hoping to get lucky." He yelled at the security guard inside the building. "Call 911! Now!"

Under most circumstances, she didn't take orders well, but Damon seemed to know what he was doing. And it wasn't like she was an expert in this sort of thing, she thought.

She sat up and crawled quickly away from the partially open door, moving deeper into the building. She watched Damon shift position taken a gun from the holster at the small of his back.

Damon flattened himself on the floor and fired three fast shots. She could see from the angle of his weapon that he was firing at the trees across the road.

The shooter across the road did not return fire. A moment later the sound of a rapidly accelerating engine reverberated in the distance; the roar faded quickly as the vehicle sped away.

"He tried to kill one or both of us," Damon said.

Elena exhaled the breath she did not realize she had been holding. "I could see that. What now?"

"You are going out the back door. I will get the car and bring it around the building to pick you up."

"Are you sure it is safe to go out the front door?" she asked.

"He is gone," Damon said.

"You are sure?"

"Very sure."

"But you still want me to go out the back way?"

"Humour me, okay?"

"Okay," she said. "But promise me you will be very careful when you go out the front."

He smiled at her.

"I will be careful," he said.

She waited tensely at the rear door of the building, listening hard. She relaxed only somewhat when she did not hear any more shots.

A moment later, Damon drove around the corner of the building, braked to a halt and leaned across the passenger compartment to throw open the door. She quickly ran towards his Camaro and hopped up into the front seat.

"Are we going to report this to Wes?" she asked, buckling her seat belt.

"Sure." Damon drove away from the building river. "But I doubt that we will turn up any hard evidence. But the important thing is that word will get out around town that someone took a shot at you."

"That is a good thing?"

"It will put pressure on the shooter. He will think twice before he tries again because he knows that no cop will ignore a second shooting accident. That will buy me some time to find him."

"How do you intend to do that?" She stopped when she realized he was turning the wrong way onto the road. "Where are you going? Your place is the other direction."

"I'm taking you to the FBI office. Alaric will watch over you. I want to search around the area to see if I can locate the place where the shooter stood when he took the shot."

Elena glanced at him. "You think you will find something at the scene that will point us toward a suspect?"

"Maybe. Sometimes I get lucky."

Half an hour later, Damon and Wes were standing at the scene where the shooting took place.

"This is where the shooter stood when he pulled the trigger." Damon studied the scene. "He could see the building clearly. He knew what he was doing. It was bad luck that he missed because of the reflection."

Wes raised his brows. "How do you know that?"

"He was aiming at Elena but when she opened the heavy metal door, there was a reflection and it distracted him."

"I'm so glad no one was hurt.'

"So are we," Damon said. "But he won't stop until Elena is dead."

Wes' heavy jaw hardened. "Why did you say that?"

"He just tried to kill her in front of the building of the U.S. Attorney Office. He is very determined to get rid of her because she is the only witness of Mandy Robert's case."

"Son of a bitch," Wes growled. "We have to find this guy as soon as possible."

"Yes, we have to find him as soon as possible." To keep Elena safe, he thought.

Wes rubbed his forehead, muttering "Jesus Christ. Media are camped out at the FBI office awaiting the word. What a nightmare!"

"I will make sure Elena is safe," Damon said.

"Make sure you do that," Wes warned him. "It will look very bad on the FBI if anything happens to her."

"I won't let anything happen to her," Damon said firmly. He could feel the weariness all the way to his bones but he wouldn't give in to it. There was no way he would get any sleep tonight. "I don't know where the killer is, but I expect to find him soon."

x x x

By turns, Trevor was enraged and nervous.

He had made a fool of himself.

How could he miss?

He must have looked real stupid to Damon Salvatore, when he had thought he was being so clever.

By now everyone in Chicago would have heard the story of how he had missed the shot because the reflection from the metal door distracted him. Trevor imagined the Damon Salvatore wiping tears from his eyes, slapping his knee with hilarity as he told everyone, "He doesn't know how to shoot. What a jackass."

They would have had a good laugh at his expense. Instead of being scared of him, they would regard him as a clumsy buffoon. The thought of that infuriated him. Mostly, though, he was mad at himself. He hadn't done Nancy proud.

He needed to fix that.

And that was what made him nervous, because he wasn't sure what he should do next.

Once he had put some distance between him and the Attorney office, he had switched his truck's license plates with those of another pickup he found at a twenty-four-hour Walmart. He had put on a straw cowboy hat and swapped out his leather vest for a shirt with long sleeves so that nobody would recognise him.

Afraid to stay with the senator in case the police came looking for him there, he had driven around all day, no destination in mind, never stopping for long, just keeping on the move. All the same, he felt trapped, like things were closing in on him.

But by damn, he couldn't get caught until Elena Gilbert was dead. So anything he did now had to count, and it had to count big. He must be bold.

"Take the bull by the horns." That was what he had learnt in the Army.

He knew what he had to do, and it didn't have to be fancy.

Once he had made up his mind, he had decided to go home.

Now, forty minutes after being thwarted again, he reached the duplex. He secured his pickup in the garage, then walked to the front door and let himself in. Groping his way around the living room, he lowered the blackout shades on both front windows. Only then did he move to a table and switch on a small-wattage lamp.

Turning toward the kitchen, he drew up short. "Jesus," he grumbled. "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?"

Nathan Silas stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of feeble light. "I'm here because you completely screw up."