Chapter 3 – charades
Damon paced for almost a full hour.
I damn this poisoned love, I damn it to hell.
"I need something to eat." The straightforward request came from Elena standing in the hallway. She looked exhausted, and Damon could tell from her bloodshot eyes, that she'd been crying since he left the bedroom. A sense of guilt passing through his body. He never meant to cause her harm.
"I'll go get you some, just stay here. I'll be back in about an hour. Don't try to run; you wouldn't know where to go anyway." He closed the wooden door behind him, and set off into the forest, leaving Elena unguarded in the old house.
Without even hesitating for a second, she ran out of the house.
The forest was black, and Elena couldn't even see her own hands. Suddenly she lost balance, and landed face down on the ground. She felt a stinging pain in her head and something wet running down her forehead, into her mouth. Blood. She felt dizzy, and couldn't make her body get up. So she just lay there, slowly loosing conscience. Her mind blacked out, and the next thing she remembered, was waking up in a couch, in the house she had tried to escape.
"You could have died." Damon was wiping her forehead with a wet tissue. Looking sincerely concerned. "If I hadn't found you in time, you could have died." It was almost as if he was talking to himself.
"How did you find me?" Struggling to find the words, still feeling a bit dizzy.
"How do you think? Your blood of course. It made it easy for me to track you. I had to give you some of my own blood to bring you back." He almost looked apologetic, saying those words.
"You gave me some of you blood?" Sounding confused, not angry. She looked in the two eyes hovering above her, inches away from her own.
"I had to, to save you. If you hadn't been so clumsy, I wouldn't have had to." His eyes wandered from hers, down to her mouth. Trying to stay calm, when all he could think of was to touch her.
Her eyes, still lingering on his, now looked grateful. She didn't say anything, too proud or not even aware of it. But her eyes spoke for her. They said thank you.
"Don't think I won't try to escape again. Next time I will succeed." Snap. Back to reality. He pulled away, walking towards the kitchen, almost unnoticeably shaking his head.
"I brought you food. Come get it if you want, or you could try to escape again since that worked out great for you the last time." Back to reality. Back to the charades.
She sat up and walked to the kitchen. She might have felt spiteful but hunger spoke louder. And for now there was no use in trying to escape.
She thought about how her life had changed within the last 24 hours. She didn't know what was to come. She had started off hating Damon with every inch of her heart, and she still hated him up to a certain point, but still there was another feeling gnawing at her brain now. She couldn't figure it out, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to. He had saved her life. She could think of him as the worst of the worst, but she couldn't escape the fact that Damon had saved her life.
She wished he hadn't. Things would be a lot easier if he hadn't.