Monday, June 8, 11:15 p.m.

Dear Diary, I don't seemtobe sleeping very well tonight, so I might as well write you. All day today I've been waiting for something to happen. You don't do a spell like that and have it work like that and then have nothing happen .

But nothing has. I stayed home from school because Mom thought I should. She was upset about Matt and Meredith staying so late Sunday night, and she said I needed to get some rest. But every time I lie down I see Sue's face.

Sue's dad did the eulogy at Elena's funeral. I wonder who's going to do it for Sue on Wednesday?

I've got to stop thinking about things like this.

Maybe I'll try to go to sleep again. Maybe if I lie down with my headphones on, I won't see Sue.

Bonnie put the diary back in her nightstand drawer and took out her Walkman. She flipped through the channels as she stared at the ceiling with heavy eyes. Through the crackle and sputter of static a D.J.'s voice sounded in her ear.

"And here's a golden oldie for all you fabulous fifties fans . 'Goodnight Sweetheart' on the Vee Jay label by The Spaniels..."

Bonnie drifted away on the music.

The ice cream soda was strawberry, Bonnie's favorite. The jukebox was playing 'Goodnight Sweetheart' and the counter was squeaky clean. But Elena, Bonnie decided, would never have really worn a poodle skirt.

"No poodles," she said, gesturing at it. Elena looked up from her hot fudge sundae. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. "Who thinks of these things anyway?" Bonnie asked.

"You do, silly. I'm only visiting."

"Oh." Bonnie took a pull at the soda. Dreams. There was a reason to be afraid of dreams, but she couldn't think of it just now.

"I can't stay long," Elena said. "I think he already knows I'm here. I just came to tell you..." She

frowned.

Bonnie looked at her sympathetically. "Can't you remember either?" She drank more soda. It tasted odd.

"I died too young, Bonnie. There was so much I was supposed to do, to accomplish. And now I have to help you."

"Thanks," Bonnie said.

"This isn't easy, you know. I don't have that much power. It's hard getting through, and it's hard keeping everything together."

" Gottakeep it together," Bonnie agreed, nodding. She was feeling strangely lightheaded. What wasin this soda?

"I don't have much control, and things turn out strange somehow. He's doing it, I guess. He's always fighting me. He watches you. And every time we try to communicate, he comes."

"Okay." The room was floating.

"Bonnie, are you listening to me? He can use your fear against you. It's the way he gets in."

"Okay..."

"Butdon't let him in . Tell everyone that. And tell Stefan..." Elena stopped and put a hand to her mouth. Something fell onto the hot fudge sundae.

It was a tooth.

"He's here." Elena's voice was strange, indistinct. Bonnie stared at the tooth in mesmerized horror. It was lying in the middle of the whipped cream, among the slivered almonds. "Bonnie, tell Stefan..."

Another tooth plunked down, and another. Elena sobbed, both her hands at her mouth now. Her eyes were terrified, helpless. "Bonnie, don't go..."

But Bonnie was stumbling back. Everything was whirling around. The soda was bubbling out of the gla.s.s, but it wasn't soda; it was blood. Bright red and frothy, like something you coughed up when you died. Bonnie's stomach convulsed.

"Tell Stefan I love him!" It was the voice of a toothless old woman, and it ended in hysterical sobs. Bonnie was glad to fall into darkness and forget everything.

Bonnie nibbled at the end of her felt pen, her eyes on the clock, her mind on the calendar. Eight and a half more days of school to survive. And it looked as if every minute was going to be misery.

Some guy had said it outright, backing away from her on the stairs. "No offense, but your friends keep turning up dead." Bonnie had gone into the bathroom and cried.

But now all she wanted was to be out of school, away from the tragic faces and accusing eyes-or worse, thepitying eyes. The princ.i.p.al had given a speech over the P.A. about "this new misfortune" and "this terrible loss," and Bonnie had felt the eyes on her back as if they were boring holes there.

When the bell rang, she was the first person out the door. But instead of going to her next cla.s.s she went to the bathroom again, where she waited for the next bell. Then, once the halls were empty, she hurried toward the foreign language wing. She pa.s.sed bulletins and banners for end-of-the-year events without glancing at them. What did SATs matter, what did graduation matter, what did anything matter anymore? They might all be dead by the end of the month.

She nearly ran into the person standing in the hall. Her gaze jerked up, off her own feet, to take in fashionably ratty deck shoes, some foreign kind. Above that were jeans, body hugging, old enough to look soft over hard muscles. Narrow hips. Nice chest. Face to drive a sculptor crazy: sensuous mouth, high cheekbones. Dark sungla.s.ses. Slightly tousled black hair. Bonnie stood gaping a moment.

Oh, my G.o.d, I forgot how gorgeous he is, she thought. Elena, forgive me; I'm going to grab him.

"Stefan!" she said.

Then her mind wrenched her back into reality again and she cast a hunted look around. No one was in eyeshot. She grabbed his arm.

"Are you crazy, showing up here? Are younuts?" "I had to find you. I thought it was urgent." "It is, but-" He looked so incongruous, standing there in the high school hallway. So exotic. Like a zebra in a flock of sheep. She started pushing him toward a broom closet.

He wasn't going. And he was stronger than she was. "Bonnie, you said you'd talked to-"

"You have to hide! I'll go get Matt and Meredith and bring them back here and then we can talk. But if

anybody sees you, you're probably going to get lynched. There's been another murder."

Stefan's face changed, and he let her push him toward the closet. He started to say something, then clearly decided not to.

"I'll wait," he said simply.

It took only a few minutes to find Matt in auto tech and Meredith in economics cla.s.s. They hurried back

to the broom closet and bustled Stefan out of school as inconspicuously as possible, which wasn't very.

Someone's bound to have seen us, Bonnie thought. It all depends onwho , and how much of a blab they are. "We have to get him someplace safe-not to any of our houses," Meredith was saying. They were all walking as fast as they could through the high school parking lot. "Fine, butwhere ?Wait a minute, what about the boarding house ... ?" Bonnie'svoice trailed off. There was a little black car in the parking slot in front of her. An Italian car, sleek, svelte, and s.e.xy looking. All the windows were tinted illegally dark; you couldn't even see inside. Then Bonnie made out the stallion emblem on the back. "Oh, myG.o.d" Stefan glanced at the Ferrari distractedly. "It's Damon's." Three sets of eyes turned to him in shock. "Damon's?" Bonnie said, hearing the squeak in her own voice. She hoped Stefan meant Damon had just loaned it to him.

But the car window was rolling down to reveal black hair as sleek and liquidy as the car's paint job, mirrored gla.s.ses, and a very white smile. " Buon giorno," said Damon smoothly. "Anybody need a ride?" "Oh, my G.o.d," Bonnie said again, faintly. But she didn't back away. Stefan was visibly impatient. "We'll head for the boarding house. You follow. Park behind the barn so n.o.body sees your car." Meredith had to lead Bonnie away from the Ferrari. It wasn't that Bonnie liked Damon or that she was ever going to let him kiss her again as he had at Alaric's party. She knew he was dangerous; not as bad as Katherine had been, maybe, but bad. He'd killed wantonly, just for the fun of it. He'd killed Mr. Tanner, the history teacher, at the Haunted House fund-raiser last Halloween. He might kill again at any time. Maybe that was why Bonnie felt like a mouse staring at a shining black snake when she looked at him.

In the privacy of Meredith's car Bonnie and Meredith exchanged glances.

"Stefan shouldn't have brought him," said Meredith.

"Maybe he just came," Bonnie offered. She didn't think Damon was the sort of person who got brought anywhere.

"Why should he? Not to help us, that's for sure."

Matt said nothing. He didn't even seem to notice the tension in the car. He just stared through the windshield, lost in himself .

The sky was clouding up.

"Matt?"

"Just leave it alone, Bonnie," said Meredith.

Wonderful, thought Bonnie, depression settling like a dark blanket over her. Matt and Stefan and Damon, all together, all thinking about Elena.

They parked behind the old barn, next to the low black car. When they went inside, Stefan was standing alone. He turned and Bonnie saw that he'd taken off his sungla.s.ses. The faintest chill went through her, just the lightest p.r.i.c.kling of the hairs on her arms and neck. Stefan wasn't like any other guy she'd ever met. His eyes were so green; green as oak leaves in the spring. But just now they had shadows underneath.

There was a moment of awkwardness; the three of them standing on one side and looking at Stefan without a word. No one seemed to know what to say.

Then Meredith went over to him and took his hand. "You look tired," she said.

"I came as soon as I could." He put an arm around her in a brief, almost hesitant hug. He never would have done that in the old days, Bonnie thought. He used to be so reserved.

She came forward for her own hug. Stefan's skin was cool under the T-shirt, and she had to make herself not shiver. When she pulled back, her eyes were swimming. What did she feel now that Stefan Salvatore was back in Fell's Church? Relief? Sadness for the memories he brought with him? Fear? All she could tell was that she wanted to cry.

Stefan and Matt were looking at each other. Here we go, thought Bonnie. It was almost funny; the same expression was on both their faces. Hurt and tired, and trying not to show it. No matter what, Elena would always be between them.

At last, Matt stuck out his hand and Stefan shook it. They both stepped back, looking glad to have it over with.

"Where's Damon?" said Meredith.

"Poking around.I thought we might want a few minutes without him."

"We want a fewdecades without him," Bonnie said before she could stop herself, and Meredith said,"He can't be trusted, Stefan." "I think you're wrong," Stefan said quietly. "He can be a big help if he puts his mind to it." "In between killing a few of the locals every other night?"Meredith said, her eyebrows up. "You shouldn't have brought him, Stefan."

"But he didn't." The voice came from behind Bonnie, behind and frighteningly close . Bonnie jumped and made an instinctive lunge for Matt, who gripped her shoulder.

Damon smiled briefly, just one corner of his mouth up. He'd taken off his sungla.s.ses, but his eyes weren't

green. They were black as the s.p.a.ces between the stars. He's almost better looking than Stefan, Bonnie thought wildly, finding Matt's fingers and hanging on to them.

"So she's yours now, is she?" Damon said to Matt casually.

"No," Matt said, but his grip on Bonnie didn't loosen.

"Stefan didn't bring you?" prompted Meredith from the other side. Of all of them, she seemed least affected by Damon, least afraid of him, least susceptible to him.

"No," Damon said, still looking at Bonnie. He doesn'tturn like other people, she thought. He goes onlooking at whatever he wants no matter who's talking. "You did," he said. "Me?" Bonnie shrank a little, uncertain who he meant.

"You.You did the spell, didn't you?" "The..." Oh, h.e.l.l. A picture blossomed in Bonnie's mind, of black hair on a white napkin. Her eyes wentto Damon's hair, finer and straighter than Stefan's but just as dark. Obviously Matt had made a mistake inthe sorting.

Stefan's voice was impatient. "You sent for us, Bonnie. We came. What's going on?"

They took seats on the decaying bales of hay, all except Damon, who remained standing. Stefan was leaning forward, hands on knees, looking at Bonnie.

"You told me-you said that Elena spoke to you." There was a perceptible pause before he got the name out. His face was tense with control.

"Yes." She managed a smile for him. "I had this dream, Stefan, this very strange dream..."

She told him about it, and about what had happened after. It took a long time. Stefan listened intently,

his green eyes flaring every time she mentioned Elena. When she told about the end of Caroline's party and how they had found Sue's body in the backyard, the blood drained from his face, but he said nothing.