ELENA

I was frozen in shock. Not even a gasp came from my lips – I didn't have air for that. I couldn't even breathe. Damon made a soft, rather astonished sound and doubled over. The next few moments happened in a blur.

I knew what my eyes were telling me, but what they were seeing simply couldn't be real. Damon, despite having been stabbed, stood up straight again and grabbed Stefan by his jacket. He lifted him up as if he weighed next to nothing and, without even putting much effort into it, threw him up in the air and sent him flying into the shelved wall behind his back. He crashed into it so hard that I heard the splintering of wood and the breaking of bones. I cried out in horror, looking at his unmoving figure that was now lying on the ground like a scrambled rag doll – for about two seconds. Then Stefan got back onto his feet, slowly, but quite obviously not seriously injured. Which was impossible. He turned, saw me standing motionlessly in the doorway – and stilled.

Damon turned and saw me, too. "Elena!" he said casually, and pulled the pointed, bloody object that Stefan had driven into him out of his stomach. His slight grimace was one of annoyance more than pain. "We didn't hear you come in!"

I blinked, swallowed, forced myself to breathe. For a brief moment I was waiting to pass out, but I didn't. Flooded with adrenalin, my mind was racing. "What's going on here?" The question – formed by my lips without any brain involvement – came out barely audible, sounding as thin and weak as I was feeling. "I don't understand..."

Stefan just stared at me blank-eyed, obviously shaken, too. He seemed more disturbed by my presence than by just having been thrown into a wall. Damon, on the other hand, seemed unruffled.

"Your boyfriend and I got into a discussion," he explained and examined his shirt, as if indeed no more than unfriendly words had been exchanged. "I guess we both got carried away a little..."

"Carried away a little?" I echoed what must be the understatement of the century. "Stefan stabbed you! You have a stomach wound..."

"Ah, it's not as bad as it looks," he said dismissively, then frowned. "Except for the shirt. That was a John Varvatos, dude! You ruined it."

I felt like I was in one of these surreal movies: The lines of the actors didn't seem to fit the pictures. "Stefan crashed into that wall like a wrecking ball," I insisted, ignoring the craziness of my discussing this with him. Yet reasoning seemed the best way to try to make sense of what I had seen. "He surely must have broken bones from the impact. And yet he's standing there as if nothing happened... This is bizarre – to the point of being completely unnatural! Just – what are you?"

Damon raised his eyebrows, shooting Stefan a look of feigned surprise. "Oh, I see you haven't had your coming-out yet..." Stefan slowly shook his head, returning his gaze almost pleadingly, which Damon pointedly ignored. He shrugged carelessly, barley hiding a smirk. "Well, I'm sure it's coming up now!"

"Stefan?" I looked at him, hoping that he would say something that would turn my world right side up again. But there could be no logical explanation for what I had just witnessed.

"Elena, don't listen to him!" Stefan implored. "He's just trying to cause distress."

"Well, he's succeeding!" I stated flatly.

"Come on, you had to tell her at some point, Stefan," Damon put in, trying to sound helpful. "I think now might just be the moment... unless you're planning on making her forget what she just saw. But wait – you can't do that, can you?"

"You're a pain in the ass, Damon. Shut up, or I will make you!" Stefan's words were full of menace, but Damon only gave a snort. "Too bad you can't do that either! Though I'd like to see you try!"

Seeing them resume their fight pulled me out of my stupor. "Stop this, both of you!" I shouted. "I want to know what is going on! And I want to know now!"

"Elena, please, let's just leave. I'll explain everything to you, but not like this..." Stefan pleaded.

"No!" Now that I had found my voice back, I managed to use it firmly. "Damon is right," I said, ignoring Damon's smug expression. "There's something you've been hiding all along. What are you being so secretive about? What's with all those cryptic little hints that Damon loves to drop from time to time? I think you two had better tell me now."

Stefan looked at me almost desperately, while Damon's gaze turned expectant. "I thought you had figured it out by now..."

"Figured out what?"

"Come on, Elena," he challenged. "You already know it. You just refuse to admit that it's true..."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Well, then, shall we think it out loud? Mysterious things have been happening ever since mysterious strangers showed up in town. They stay out of the sun, never eat garlic and are just entirely too good-looking to be true. Girls get bitten and behave strangely, witches are getting weird vibes and disturbing rumors start to circle... Take a wild guess!"

"Don't make fun of me." I refused to even consider the conclusion all the enumerated facts were pointing to.

"I'm not," Damon replied, an uncanny glint in his eyes. "Shall I bite you to prove it?"

Something made me withdraw instantly. He had always warned me he was dangerous, but so far, I hadn't really believed it. I did now.

"Damon, stop it! Leave her alone!" Stefan took a step towards me, but stopped, when I recoiled instinctively.

"Chill, Stefan, I didn't mean it," Damon said placatingly, but with a roguish glint in his eyes. As nobody bought the lie, he admitted: "Alright, I did! But I won't do it, at least not while he's watching. Pinky promise!" He smirked, as if this was all hilariously funny. Noticing that the flippancy he displayed in the light of the gravity of the situation was not helping, he put on his sober face. With a sigh, he walked over to his coffee cart and poured a glass of his beloved bourbon into a crystal tumbler. But instead of drinking it himself, he held it out to me. "Here, I think you could use this. Take a sip, it'll calm your nerves. You look like you're about to freak out."

"About to freak out?" I stared at him disbelievingly. "What kind of reaction did you expect? Telling me you are freaking vampires..."

Damon raised a finger in objection. "I didn't say 'freaking'..." he corrected, pointing his index at me: "You did! In fact, I didn't even say 'vampire', though that's admittedly what I was hinting at." Again, he held out the glass invitingly. When I ignored it, he just shrugged and downed it himself.

"Vampires kill people!"

"No!" Stefan instantly objected, not wanting to let things get any worse. He ran is fingers through his hair, which I knew by now was a gesture of irritation and emotional upheaval.

"At least not on a regular basis!" Damon toned down not only my presumption, but also Stefan's instant negation of it.

"Thanks," I said, audaciously sarcastic. "That's really making me feel safe!"

Damon mocked surprise. "Did he tell you that you are supposed to feel safe around us?" Again, it was Stefan who jumped in, passionately this time. "She is! I'll make sure of that! Don't be scared of me, Elena! I'd sooner die than to ever hurt you. Please, trust me..."

"Well, I guess that depends on whether or not I'm food in your eyes! What do you live on?"

"Blood!" Damon said, enunciating the word as if answering a really stupid question. "They wouldn't call us vampires, otherwise!" He pointed to Stefan with a turn of his head. "Though I'm not sure if it's an adequate term for him. Try 'bunny-eater', instead."

"You're feeding on animals?" I asked, grasping for hope. Damon immediately crushed it with an ironic smile. "Every once in a while. It's healthy to have variation in your diet."

"I don't feed on humans!" Stefan's face was dead serious. I could tell from his expression how vital it was for him to make me believe that.

"Yeah," Damon snorted, contempt in his voice. "He's trying to be like Edward from the Twilight-tales. Well, I'm not. Nor am I some sort of a wood chopping nature guy. We're not in the stone ages anymore, with people hunting mammoth in the woods."

"So you're hunting people instead?"

"I'm not hunting people." He smirked. "I don't have to. They come to me willingly – just like that!" He snipped his fingers in demonstration.

"Yeah, sure!" I managed to convey my doubt with a snort, wondering briefly why I was still standing frozen to the spot, when I should be running away screaming.

"It's true," Damon insisted. "Most people find me hard to resist. Except for you, that is... But I always like a challenge!" His eyes were smoldering again, which instantly got Stefan's hackles up. "Don't you dare try any of your games with her!"

"Or – what?"

"Would you please stop this alpha-male bad-ass behavior!" I implored, feeling as if my head was going to explode from overload. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and took a deep breath, trying to concentrate. "I still don't get any of this... Do Alys and Dr. Daniels know?"

"Ever since they went through the change themselves!"

Once again, I stared at both of them in disbelief. "No! You're not telling me Alys is – like you?" Never. It simply couldn't be. I'd have known. There's no way I could've not have known. Again, it was Damon who answered. Wasting no time searching for words that would sweeten the message, he was quicker in his response than Stefan. "Well, she is, at least by her nature. But she has decided to become a vegetarian and is now sucking up blood bags. Radical human rights activist." He shook his head disapprovingly.

"That's impossible..." I whispered.

"That's what I keep telling her!" Damon agreed, purposely misunderstanding.

"How could I not have noticed..."

"Maybe you did. Maybe she made you forget. But then – maybe she didn't. Wouldn't be ethical, would it?"

"She would never ever do that, Elena!" Stefan chimed in. "She's your friend, and contrary to Damon, she has moral principles. You know that!"

"Make me forget?" I frowned. "What do you mean? Can you control people's minds?"

Damon smiled condescendingly. "Let's say I'm pretty successful in the art of persuasion." Then, with a sideward nod at Stefan he added: "He's not, though. Eating bunnies doesn't give you that."

"Persuasion!" I echoed stupidly. "Sure – that's what vampires need fangs for – to persuade!"

"No, we need them to pierce skin – human teeth are too blunt for that," Damon clarified, not beating around the bush. "That would be awfully messy."

"Animal skin is tough," Stefan hastily explained, still trying to sell the animal diet. "We need fangs to bring the game down, just as we need our faster reflexes and keener senses – like a wide hearing range and night vision – for hunting."

Damon threw him a mocking glance. "Yes, although it's all kind of wasted on squirrels, which we normally do not hunt – except maybe for a snack."

My eyse shifted back to Stefan. "So – you and Alys and Dr. Daniels – you're hunting out in the woods?"

Damon scoffed. "Can you fathom Elijah dashing through the forest at night? Suit-wearing, salon-styled and manicured Elijah? Hardly! I bet he's secretly stealing blood bags from the hospital."

"That's still way better than stalking people!" Stefan said, aggressively.

"It's like eating canned food! Thank you, but no!" Damon shook his head in disgust, before his lips curled up again into a wolfish smile. "I prefer my meals hot and fresh, served in appealing packing."

"That's why Alys has been trying to warn you away from him, Elena. Now you know what he's after. You can't trust him."

"But I'm supposed to trust you? Why should I, after you betrayed me like that? How can you not have told me – all the while?"

"There are various reasons for that," Stefan said, avoidinging my eyes. "Damon shouldn't have told you."

"Ah!" Damon made a face. "You're not talking about that stupid 'Codex', now, are you?"

Stefan seemed reluctant to answer that. "What codex?" I asked suspiciously. Damon shrugged. "Old vampire lore and legends."

Stefan sighed. "There is said to exist a written law binding every vampire to guard the secret."

"Written?" Again, Damon gave a disdainful snort. "Scratched into stone, more likely. I don't think paper had been invented yet when they came up with it."

"Allegedly, it has existed for as long as there are vampires."

"Which would be since the stone ages. If it's true and if any of those originals are still alive, they're probably the only ones who still care about it."

"So what's with this codex?" I looked to Stefan, hoping for an answer that made sense. He obliged me, at least in giving an answer. "It forbids a vampire to ever let any human know about our existence – unless he's planning on changing or killing him. There is a death penalty for breaking it."

"Oh, come on." Damon rolled his eyes. "There is laws and penalties and restrictions on all sorts of things, especially the fun ones which are hard to resist. Like speed limits. Don't tell me you never broke one of those!"

"It's hardly the same thing!"

"Sure it is! They have to catch you to give you a ticket!" Damon grinned mischievously, clearly not taking any of this seriously. "Besides, the supernatural task force is said to be stationed somewhere near Rome, or at least it was – about a millennium ago. I never heard from them, and believe me: This is not the first time I've come into conflict with 'the codex'." He put the last two words into air quotes, lowering his voice as if telling something forbidden, mocking Stefan's concern.

"You might happily risk your neck for some entertainment," he replied, aggravated, "but I don't. If you're wrong, it's not only your life that's on the line – it's Elena's, too."

"You're scaring her, Stefan! We can still worry about that if it should ever happen. As far as I know, it doesn't specify by when you have to kill or change the human you've let in on the secret. So as long as Elena doesn't die of a natural death beforehand, I broke no law. Besides, as far as I remember our conversation, I never used the V-word. You did! She was nagging us with all these questions, until she finally put the pieces together. I didn't even say anything!"

He smiled again, clearly enjoying coaxing Stefan into losing his temper and me into doubting my sanity.

"This is too much..." I murmured, suffering from a serious overload of facts and feelings that needed processing. "I don't want this... I just need to get away from you guys..."

"Elena – please..." Stefan touched my arm, trying to hold me back. "Let's just go somewhere so we can talk about this more reasonably."

"No – I don't want to talk anymore. Not now."

"Let me at least take you home..."

"No!" I shook his arm off and started backing away from them. "You just – leave me alone!"

"You can't drive in the state you're in now."

"And you must be demented it you think that I will get into a car with one of you! Don't even dare to come near me, understand?"

It was Damon who grabbed Stefan's arm and held him back. "Let her go," he said calmly, but couldn't seem to do so without getting another jibe in. "We can have dinner some other time!"

The last thing I saw before I made it out of the house was his demonic smile.

*'*'*'*'*'*

I don't know how I made it back to campus safely. My legs were still shaking when I was finally back in my room and locked the door behind me. I locked the windows, too. And, for the first time, I was immensely grateful that Alys wasn't here anymore.

Unconsciously, I was still trying to come up with a logical explanation for everything that had happened. My mind, used to working with logic and experience, refused to accept even the possibility of vampire existence. Yet my gut didn't care about scientific facts and insisted that everything I had heard and seen tonight was real. Like Damon had said – it had been there, right in front of my eyes, I just hadn't seen it. Their strength and speed, all their peculiar little quirks and habits, the darkness that seemed to surround them.

While I was getting ready for bed, I tried to figure out what to do now. Strangely, it never crossed my mind to go and tell somebody. Not that anyone would have believed me. Neither was I scared when thinking of Stefan or Alys. I just felt – betrayed. As if I had just found out that the friends I thought to have never really existed. Damon, well, he was an entirely different story. My gut feeling, which had all along been warning me to beware of him, had proved to be doing its job just fine. He was every bit as dangerous as I had suspected. Without having heard him admit to it, I knew that he had taken human life; that he was capable of killing.

That night in the park, I probably had saved Caroline's life by going after her. Although she had survived numerous dates with him after that, that first encounter had been different. He hadn't known her, then. She had just been a nameless stranger, an easy victim. I started shaking again just thinking of it.

I was desperately longing for some rest, but sleep wouldn't come. Finally, after tossing and turning in bed with my mind going in endless circles, I got up and threw down a sleeping pill. I was going to be dead beat in the morning, and had little intention of going to class. I wasn't ready to confront Alys any time soon.

When the pill started working and I finally drifted off, I slept deeply, soundly and fortunately dreamlessly for about eleven hours. I came round half an hour before the first break, feeling as worn out as I had feared. Figuring that my friends must still be in class, I decided that this was a good time to leave the building without running into anyone who might come looking for me. I would simply take a sick day and head home a day early, back to Mystic Falls.

After having slipped a short note underneath Bonnie's and Caroline's door, I packed a few things and headed for the parking lot. It was an exceptionally bright day, or so it seemed. My eyes hurt and started watering, obscuring my view. I should have brought my sunglasses. They would have also served to hide the dark rings under my eyes.

"Elena!" Hearing my name being called, I turned and blinked. There, leaning casually against the side of his Camaro, was Damon.