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back and forth, shouting. Dr. Feinberg, Mr. McCullough, Reverend Bethea . The still point of the circle
was Bonnie lying on a pew with Meredith and Aunt Judith and Mrs. McCullough bent over her.
"Something evil," she was moaning, and then Aunt Judith's head came up, turning in Elena's direction.
Elena scuttled up the stairs as quickly as she could, praying Aunt Judith hadn't seen her. Damon was at
the window.
"I can't go down there. They think I'm dead!"
"Oh, you've remembered that. Good for you."
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"If Dr.Feinberg examines me, he'll know something's wrong. Well, won't he?" she demanded fiercely.
"He'll think you're an interesting specimen, all right."
"Then I can't go. But you can. Why don't youdo something?"
Damon continued to look out the window, eyebrows hiking up. "Why?"
"Why?" Elena's alarm and overexcitement reached flash point and she almost slapped him. "Because
they need help! Because youcan help. Don't you care about anything besides yourself?"
Damon was wearing his most impenetrable mask, the expression of polite inquiry he'd worn when he
invited himself to her house for dinner. But she knew that beneath it he was angry, angry at finding her
and Stefan together. He was baiting her on purpose and with savage enjoyment.
And she couldn't help her reaction, her frustrated, impotent rage. She started for him, and he caught her
wrists and held her off, his eyes boring into hers. She was startled to hear the sound that came from her
lips then; it was a hiss that sounded more feline than human. She realized her fingers were hooked into
claws.
What am I doing? Attacking him because he won't defend people against the dogs that are attacking
them ? What kind of sense does that make? Breathing hard, she relaxed her hands and wet her lips. She
stepped back and he let her.
There was a long moment while they stared at each other.
"I'm going down," Elena said quietly and turned.
"No."
"They need help."
"All right, then, damn you." She'd never heard Damon's voice so low, or so furious. "I'll " he broke off
and Elena, turning back quickly, saw him slam a fist into the window-sill, rattling the glass. But his
attention was outside and his voice perfectly composed again when he said dryly, "Help has arrived."
It was the fire department. Their hoses were much more powerful than the garden hose, and the jet
streams of water drove the lunging dogs off with sheer force. Elena saw a sheriff with a gun and bit the
inside of her cheek as he aimed and sighted. There was a crack, and the giant schnauzer went down. The
sheriff aimed again.
It ended quickly after that. Several dogs were already running from the barrage of water, and with the
second crack of the pistol more broke from the pack and headed for the edges of the parking lot. It was
as if the purpose that had driven them had released them all at once. Elena felt a rush of relief as she saw
Stefan standing unharmed in the middle of the rout, shoving a dazed-looking golden retriever away from
Doug Carson's form.Chelsea took a skulking step toward her master and looked into his face, head and
tail drooping.
"It's all over," Damon said. He sounded only mildly interested, but Elena glanced at him sharply. All right
then, damn you, I'llwhat ? she thought. What had he been about to say? He wasn't in any mood to tell
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her, but she was in a mood to push.
"Damon& " She put a hand on his arm.
He stiffened, then turned. "Well?"
For a second they stood looking at each other, and then there was a step on the stair. Stefan had
returned.
"Stefan& you're hurt," she said, blinking, suddenly disoriented.
"I'm all right." He wiped blood off his cheek with a tattered sleeve.
"What about Doug?" Elena asked, swallowing.
"I don't know. Heis hurt. A lot of people are. That was the strangest thing I've ever seen."
Elena moved away from Damon, up the stairs into the choir loft. She felt that she had to think, but her
head was pounding. The strangest thing Stefan had ever seen& that was saying a lot. Something strange
in Fell's Church.
She reached the wall behind the last row of seats and put a hand against it, sliding down to sit on the
floor. Things seemed at once confused and frighteningly clear. Something strange in Fell's Church. The
day of the founders' celebration she would have sworn she didn't care anything about Fell's Church or the
people in it. But now she knew differently. Looking down on the memorial service, she had begun to
think perhaps shedid care.
And then, when the dogs had attacked outside, she'd known it. She felt somehow responsible for the
town, in a way she had never felt before.
Her earlier sense of desolation and loneliness had been pushed aside for the moment. There was
something more important than her own problems now. And she clung to that something, because the
truth was that she really couldn't deal with her own situation, no, she really, really couldn't&
She heard the gasping half sob she gave then and looked up to see both Stefan and Damon in the choir
loft, looking at her. She shook her head slightly, putting a hand to it, feeling as if she were coming out of a
dream.
"Elena & ?"
It was Stefan who spoke, but Elena addressed herself to the other one.
"Damon," she said shakily, "if I ask you something, will you tell me the truth? I know you didn't chase me
off Wickery Bridge . I couldfeel whatever it was, and it was different. But I want to ask you this: was it
you who dumped Stefan in the old Francher well a month ago?"
"In awell ?"Damon leaned back against the opposite wall, arms crossed over his chest. He looked
politely incredulous.
"On Halloween night, the night Mr. Tanner was killed. After you showed yourself for the first time to
Stefan in the woods. He told me he left you in the clearing and started to walk to his car but that
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someone attacked him before he reached it. When he woke up, he was trapped in the well, and he
would have died there if Bonnie hadn't led us to him. I always assumed you were the one who attacked
him. He always assumed you were the one. But were you?"
Damon's lip curled, as if he didn't like the demanding intensity of her question. He looked from her to
Stefan with hooded, deriding eyes. The moment stretched out until Elena had to dig her fingernails into
her palms with tension. Then Damon gave a small shrug and looked off at a middle distance.
"As a matter of fact, no," he said.
Elena let out her breath.
"You can't believe that!" Stefan exploded. "You can't believe anything he says."
"Why should I lie?" Damon returned, clearly enjoying Stefan's loss of control. "I admit freely to killing
Tanner. I drank his blood until he shriveled like a prune. And I wouldn't mind doing the same thing toyou
, brother. But awell? It's hardly my style."
"I believe you," Elena said. Her mind was rushing ahead. She turned to Stefan. "Don't you feel it?
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