Free The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall by L. J. Smith Page B

the darkness.”
    Bonnie shivered inside. She didn’t like the thoughts that those words summoned up: into the darkness .
    “But…” Matt began, and Bonnie realized that he felt the same way she did—stunned and sick, as if they were getting off some cheap carnival ride.
    “Listen,” Stefan said, “there’s another reason why we can’t stay here.”
    “What other reason?” Matt said slowly. Bonnie was too upset to speak. She had thought about this, somewheredeep in her unconscious. But she’d pushed the thoughts away every time they came.
    “Bonnie understands it already, I think.” Stefan looked at her. She looked back with eyes that were misting over with tears.
    “Fell’s Church,” Stefan explained gently and sadly, “was built at a meeting of the ley lines. The lines of raw Power in the ground, remember? I don’t know if it was deliberate. Does anybody know if the Smallwoods had anything to do with the location?”
    No one did. There was nothing in Honoria Fell’s old diary about the werewolf family having a choice in the founding of the town.
    “Well, if it was an accident, it was a pretty unlucky one. The town—I should say, the town cemetery—was built directly over a place where a lot of ley lines cross. That’s what made it a beacon for supernatural creatures, bad or—or not quite so bad.” He looked embarrassed, and Bonnie realized that he was talking about himself. “I was drawn here. So were other vampires, as you know. And with every person who had the Power who came here, the beacon became stronger. Brighter. More attractive to other people with the Power. It’s a vicious cycle.”
    “Eventually, some of them are going to see Elena,” Meredith said. “Remember, these are people like Stefan, Bonnie, but not people with his moral sense. When they see her…”
    Bonnie almost burst into tears at the thought. She seemed to see a flurry of white feathers, each tumbling in slow motion to the ground.
    “But—she wasn’t this way when she first woke up,” Matt said slowly and stubbornly. “She talked. She was rational. She didn’t float .”
    “Talking or not talking, walking or floating, she has the Power ,” Stefan said. “Enough to drive ordinary vampires crazy. Crazy enough to hurt her to get it. And she doesn’t kill—or wound. At least, I can’t imagine her doing that. What I’m hoping,” he said, and his face darkened, “is that I can take her somewhere where she’ll be…protected.”
    “But you can’t take her,” Bonnie said, and she could hear the wail in her own voice without being able to control it. “Didn’t Meredith tell you what I said? She’s going to wake up. And Meredith and I need to be with her for that.”
    Because we won’t be with her later. Suddenly it made sense. And while it wasn’t quite as bad as thinking that they would be not-anywhere-at-all, it was more than bad enough.
    “I wasn’t thinking of taking her until she can at least walk properly,” Stefan said, and he surprised Bonnie with a quick arm around her shoulders. It felt like Meredith’s hug, sibling-ish, but stronger and briefer. “And you don’t know how glad I am that she’s going to wake up. Or that you’ll be there to support her.”
    “But…” But the ghoulies are still going to come to Fell’s Church? Bonnie thought. And we won’t have you toprotect us?
    She glanced up and saw that Meredith knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “I would say,” Meredith said, in her most careful, measured tones, “that Stefan and Elena have been through enough for the town’s sake.”
    Well. There was no arguing with that . And there was no arguing with Stefan, either, it seemed. His mind was made up.
    They talked until after dark anyway, discussing different options and scenarios, pondering over Bonnie’s prediction. They didn’t get anything decided, but at least they had thrashed out some possible plans. Bonnie insisted that there be some means of communication