The New World Part 2

"Nothing has ever hurt like that before," Bonnie whispered through the tears that fell from her eyes in great droplets, "It feels like being set alight from inside." She sat on the bed, clutching her chest with one arm as if she were cold, with the burnt arm stretched before her and illuminated by the candle he held over the rapidly healing skin. His eyes were so dark, she thought, that even in the flickering light of the candle they shone black.

"Without the magic of a ring like this one," Damon shook his ring-hand a little as he spoke, "facing the day and it's many shining rays is impossible."

Meredith shook her head and continued reading the heavy leather book, "No, Elena. I don't think it's wise to go after Damon today – at least not while Bonnie is missing. Rational Damon you can deal with, but Irrational? Elena, you've seen what destruction he is capable of, and who knows what frame of mind he is in?"

"I just..." Elena paused in her pacing to pirouette on one foot and fix Meredith with a disbelieving look. She was good at those looks. "Don't you think it's a bit too much of a coincidence that the moment Bonnie disappears Damon takes off without a word?"

"What are you getting at Elena? I'm pretty confident that it is just a coincidence," she saw the look in the other girl's eyes and stopped. There was something in that gleam that was more than just fear for a friend's safety, something closer to anger. Why was she angry? Who was she angry with? Was it Damon, for jeopardising Bonnie's safety, or was it Bonnie, for stealing Damon away?

"Well I'm not," Elena replied, her tone saying that there would be no arguing, "I think we should go after them," she had a fierce glint in her eye, "-to make sure she's safe." she added, as if it were only an after thought, "...and to make sure Damon understands that it won't happen again."

Bonnie straightened from her leant position over the white rabbit, wiping the excess blood from her lips, and Damon thought that he could at least understand a little of what she was feeling. His princess wasn't comfortable with the idea of taking blood from living creatures, or at least not yet. He tried to remember how long it had taken him to become accustomed to drinking the red liquid and remembered that it hadn't been very long, but he had been a very different kind of human than she was. He had already been used to taking what he wanted and the transition into vampirism had been swift and almost seamless. He remembered thinking that he had been born for such an existence, but he didn't try to lie to himself that Bonnie's was the same.

"Better?" Damon asked, watching as her skin grew slightly rosy.

She didn't know how she should answer his question. She could admit to herself that she felt better than she ever had before, more alive than any living human could ever be, but admitting that seemed like admitting too much. She nodded, rising to her feet and moving into the darkest of the shadows, away from where he could see her face. "Is it dead?" she asked him of the little creature at her feet, fearing that she had killed it.

There was an ache inside him that he wasn't used to feeling, like chagrin but more bitter. It seemed the wrong thing to do to tell her the truth on this occasion, and yet he knew that the right thing to do would be to tell her the truth – it was what he owed her for the life he had thrust upon her so recklessly.

She could see the answer in his face, in the shadows of his eyes, in the set of his jaw. She could tell just by how he pursed his lips that he thought she wouldn't understand the concept of death, which was silly. How could she not understand after everything she had been through and all that she knew? It didn't hurt any less, her slaying of one of nature's creatures, but she knew that it was just how life was for her now.

"Damon, I've seen death before, there's no need to protect me from the truth."

He forgot that sometimes, but it wouldn't change anything now that he remembered. She was still his red-bird, and he would still be her protector against any evil that tried to hurt her.

There was a snap of twigs under feet from behind them and they both spun around simultaneously. It was as if they both were thinking the exact same thing as they waited in the near silence of the forest, both waiting for the thing watching them to make the first move. When there were no more rustling in the trees, Damon stepped forwards and growled a warning than all the creatures in the forest could understand. It was a very primal sound.

"Who's there?" he snarled, his eyes turning as black as midnight, "Come out and show yourself, unless you're frightened..."

Something as hard as stone wrapped around her waist, getting tighter and tighter, constricting her like a snake. She tried to speak but she could hardly breathe and with every second it only grew harder. Damon! She called in her mind, praying with everything she had that he would turn around before the thing stole her away, Damon!

There was a pressure at his back and he turned with that vampiric quickness to see Bonnie's frightened face being pulled back into the wall of trees by something with claws the length of knives and eyes that glowed red in the dark.