Free The Struggle by L. J. Smith Page A

unfamiliar. Just three lines. She read them and felt the world rock. This was too much; she couldn’t deal with anything more.
    “What is it?” said Stefan.
    “Nothing.” She thrust the bit of paper back into the side pocket, pushing it down with her fingers. “It’s nothing, Stefan. Let’s get outside.”
    They stepped out into driving needles of rain.

7
    “Next time,” Stefan said quietly, “I won’t leave.”
    Elena knew he meant it, and it terrified her. But just now her emotions were quietly coasting in neutral, and she didn’t want to argue.
    “He was there,” she said. “Inside an ordinary house full of ordinary people, just as if he had every right to be. I wouldn’t have thought he would dare.”
    “Why not?” Stefan said briefly, bitterly. “I was there in an ordinary house full of ordinary people, just as if I had every right to be.”
    “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that the only other time I’ve seen him in public was at the Haunted House when he was wearing a mask and costume, and it was dark. Before that it was always somewhere deserted, like the gym that night I was there alone, or the graveyard….”
    She knew as soon as she said that last partthat it was a mistake. She still hadn’t told Stefan about going to find Damon three days ago. In the driver’s seat, he stiffened.
    “Or the graveyard?”
    “Yes … I meant that day Bonnie and Meredith and I got chased out. I’m assuming it must have been Damon who chased us. And the place was deserted except for the three of us.”
    Why was she lying to him? Because, a small voice in her head answered grimly, otherwise he might snap. Knowing what Damon had said to her, what he had promised was in store, might be all that was needed to send Stefan over the edge.
    I can never tell him, she realized with a sick jolt. Not about that time or about anything Damon does in the future. If he fights Damon, he dies.
    Then he’ll never know, she promised herself. No matter what I have to do, I’ll keep them from fighting each other over me. No matter what.
    For a moment apprehension chilled her. Five hundred years ago, Katherine had tried to keep them from fighting, and had succeeded only in forcing them into a death match. But shewouldn’t make the same mistake, Elena told herself fiercely. Katherine’s methods had been stupid and childish. Who else but a stupid child would kill herself in the hope that the two rivals for her hand would become friends? It had been the worst mistake of the whole sorry affair. Because of it, the rivalry between Stefan and Damon had turned into implacable hatred. And what’s more, Stefan had lived with the guilt of it ever since; he blamed himself for Katherine’s stupidity and weakness.
    Groping for another subject, she said, “Do you think someone invited him in?”
    “Obviously, since he
was
in.”
    “Then it’s true about—people like you. You have to be invited in. But Damon got into the gym without an invitation.”
    “That’s because the gym isn’t a dwelling place for the living. That’s the one criterion. It doesn’t matter if it’s a house or a tent or an apartment above a store. If living humans eat and sleep there, we need to be invited inside.”
    “But I didn’t invite you into
my
house.”
    “Yes, you did. That first night, when I drove you home, you pushed the door open and noddedto me. It doesn’t have to be a verbal invitation. If the intent is there, that’s enough. And the person inviting you doesn’t have to be someone who actually lives in the house. Any human will do.”
    Elena was thinking. “What about a houseboat?”
    “Same thing. Although running water can be a barrier in itself. For some of us, it’s almost impossible to cross.”
    Elena had a sudden vision of herself and Meredith and Bonnie racing for Wickery Bridge. Because somehow she had known that if they got to the other side of the river they’d be safe from whatever was after