Suddenly, clearly she seemed to be a spectator to a scene in a horror movie, only she was the star.
She observed everything in a few seconds of time. She never paused to consider how so much information had been absorbed in such a impossibly short amount of time.
Then she knew everything, all the details of how Damon felt when he discovered she was gone. Experienced his rage and fear for her.
Understood that he had entered her mind to gain the truth, and fully realized the awful truth itself.
She gave a gasp and rocked back, jerking her hand from his shoulder. Her eyes were wide.
In a instant Damon had grasped her chin and looked at her.
He was worried that she was experiencing the uncommon side effect-the ability to read the other persons thoughts. Elena realized, as his thoughts rushed over her. He was not sure what to do…How did he react if she found out?
Then, as their eyes met he knew, he knew she knew, that every thought and memory of his, every experience, was transferring from him to her. He jerked away.
Elena sat frozen, her lips moving slightly.
She was caught in a vortex of chaos, thought, images, memories, all swirled around her in such an rapid pace she was unable to process them.
"Damon…" She gasped. Reaching for him instinctively, it was like the last clutch of a drowning person who knows they are going down for the last time.
He jerked farther away, if she was able to read him through physical contact he had to prevent that at all costs. There were a few stories of humans who had been affected this way… And he vowed that Elena would not become one of them.
Images of her as a mad woman, driven insane by the remembered, second hand recollections of a demon, caused him to wince.
A humans mind could not handle the sheer volume or depravity of what had just been essentially "downloaded" into her mind. Would she even remember the rape? When confronted by all the other things stored in his mind, would that even register with her? Or would she even care?