Free Phantom by L. J. Smith Page A

night, and Bonnie and I will pick up in the morning.”
    “You should have been a general,” Stefan murmured to her, earning himself a quick smile.
    “I don’t need guards,” Meredith said irritably. “I’ve been trained in martial arts and I’ve faced the supernatural before.” It seemed to Stefan that her eye rested speculatively on him for a second, and he forced himself not to bristle under her scrutiny. “My stave is all the protection I need.”
    “A stave like yours couldn’t have protected Celia,” Elena argued. “Without Stefan there to intervene, she would have been killed.” On the couch, Celia closed her eyes and rested her head against Alaric’s arm.
    “Fine, then.” Meredith spoke in a clipped tone, her eyes on Celia. “It’s true, out of all of us, only Stefan could have saved her. And that’s the other reason this whole team effort to protect me is ridiculous. Do you have the strength and speed these days to save me from a moving train, Elena? Does Bonnie ?” Stefan saw Bonnie, coming in with a tray of lemonade glasses, pause and frown as she heard Meredith’s words.
    He had known, of course, that with Damon dead and Elena’s Powers gone, he was the only one left to protect the group. Well, Mrs. Flowers and Bonnie had some limited magical ability. Then Stefan amended the thought further. Mrs. Flowers was actually quite powerful, but her powers were still depleted from fighting the kitsune.
    It came to the same thing, then: Stefan was the only one who could protect them now. Meredith might talk about her responsibilities as a vampire hunter, but in the end, despite her training and heritage, she was just another mortal.
    His eyes scanned the group, all the mortals, his mortals. Meredith, serious gray eyes and a steely resolve. Matt, eager and boyish and decent down to the bone. Bonnie, sunny and sweet, and with a core of strength perhaps even she didn’t know she had. Mrs. Flowers, a wise matriarch. Alaric and Celia . . . well, they weren’t his mortals the way the others were, but they fell under his protection while they were here. He had sworn to protect humans, when he could. If he could.
    He remembered Damon saying to him once, laughing in one of his fits of dangerous good humor, his face gleeful, “They’re just so fragile, Stefan! You can break them without even meaning to!”
    And Elena, his Elena. She was as vulnerable as the rest of them now. He flinched. If anything ever happened to her, Stefan knew beyond a doubt that he would take off the ring that let him walk in the day, lie down in the grass above her grave, and wait for the sun.
    But the same hollow voice inside that questioned Elena’s love for him whispered darkly in his ear: She would not do the same for you. You are not her everything.
    As Elena and Meredith, with occasional interjections from Matt and Bonnie, continued to argue about whether Meredith needed the efforts of the group to guard her, Stefan closed his eyes and slipped into his memories of Damon’s death.
     
    Stefan watched, foolish and uncomprehending and just not fast enough, as Damon, quicker than him till the last, dashed toward the huge tree and flung Bonnie, light as dandelion fluff, out of the reach of the barbed branches already plummeting toward her.
    As he threw her, a branch caught Damon through his chest, pinning him to the ground. Stefan saw the moment of shock in his brother’s eyes before they rolled backward. A single drop of blood ran from his mouth down his chin.
    “Damon, open your eyes!” Elena was screaming. There was a rough tone in her voice, an agony Stefan had never heard from her before. Her hands jerked at Damon’s shoulders, as if she wanted to shake him hard, and Stefan pulled her away. “He can’t, Elena, he can’t,” he said, half sobbing.
    Couldn’t she see that Damon was dying? The branch had stopped his heart and the tree’s poison was spreading through his veins and arteries. He was gone. Stefan had