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The trapped vampire let out a high, wordless shriek and tried to scrabble away from Damon, his chains clanging against the bars of his cage. Streams of gasoline ran down his legs, leaving long, wet patches on his clothes. Elena gritted her teeth and kept herself from looking away. This was important. This was to avenge Stefan, to save Damon. Besides, she thought wearily, he would be healed again in a matter of seconds.
“Stop fighting,” Damon said, his voice flat. The young vampire kicked at him, but Damon grabbed hold of his leg through the bars and pinned it for a moment as the vampire tried to twist away. “Hand me the lighter, Elena. ”
Holding her breath to keep from inhaling the fumes, Elena reluctantly pulled the lighter from her pocket and handed it over, then backed a few steps away, watching them nervously. Damon flicked it and reached through the bars to touch the flame to the edge of the vampire’s pant leg.
The cloth burst into flame immediately and burned fast, green and blue flames flickering off the vampire’s body, his skin blackening. He screamed again and kicked free of Damon’s restraining hand. Losing his catlike grace for a moment, Damon stumbled back into Elena, knocking her forcefully into the wall.
“Elena!” he cried.
“I’m okay, I think,” she said, rotating her shoulder experimentally. It hurt where she’d hit the wall and her mouth had a coppery taste of blood, but she would be fine.
Damon picked up a fire extinguisher from the floor beside him and sprayed it across the young vampire, quenching the flames. “Cooperate,” he said again, his voice low and threatening.
“What’re you going to do if I don’t, set me on fire? That’s not working out too well for you so far,” the vampire said, breathing hard. His face was smudged with smoke and his pants were in tatters, but the skin beneath the clothes, which had been blackened a moment before, was already pink and healthy again. “When I get loose, I’m going to kill you. ”
Damon laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “Okay, kid, you do that. ”
Scrambling to her feet, Elena grimaced. Their prisoner was glaring at her defiantly, dark eyes in a pale pointed face.
“So fire doesn’t work either,” Damon said thoughtfully to her, tapping his fingers against the bars of the cage. “We’re running out of ideas on how to kill him. I fed him rat poison yesterday, but it didn’t do a thing. ”
Elena felt a twinge of discomfort, and she knew Damon sensed it by the way he tensed in response. “I’m not sure we should keep torturing him this way, Damon,” Elena said reluctantly. Damon was enjoying this too much. He’d been careless and ruthless, sometimes, but he’d never really struck her as vicious, not before Stefan died.
A warm feeling of affection came through their bond. Damon loved that she wasn’t as ruthless as he was, Elena knew. He loved the human side of her. All he said, though, was, “He’d killed three teenagers that I know of before I caught him, if that’s any comfort to you. Friends of his. I buried them to stop from causing a panic. ”
The vampire boy, already recovered from the flames, shot Elena a narrow smile and rattled his handcuffs against the bars of his cage. The sound echoed throughout the cavernous empty basement. “They were delicious,” he said, eyes tracing over the vein on her throat. “I’d do it again if I had the chance. ”
Elena leaned back against the bars of the storage unit on the other side of the aisle, as far as she could get from the vampire boy’s malicious gaze. “Did you try to influence him?” she asked Damon.
“No use,” Damon replied. “Watch. ”
He leaned in close to the bars and looked into the boy’s eyes, his gaze intent. Elena felt the stirring of his Power as he pulled upon it. “Bite your own wrist,” he said to the boy soothingly. “Tear it open. It won’t hurt. ”
For a moment, Elena thought it might work. The young vampire turned his wrists thoughtfully, pulling against the handcuffs. Then the boy’s lips curled into a sneer, and he spat directly in Damon’s face.
“Ugh,” Damon said, pulling back and wiping at his face. “Nasty little thug. We’ll go on seeing how long it takes him to starve then, shall we?” This was said with a sharp glare at the boy.
“What will that prove? It’s not like we can starve Jack,” Elena said uneasily. Again, she felt that flash of affection from Damon. He liked when she disagreed with him, liked their verbal sparring. She glanced up to see him watching her, his dark eyes intent. He was sensing her anxiety and trying to make her feel better, she knew, and something in her relaxed. He couldn’t be going off the deep end, not if he still wanted to make her happy.
Elena didn’t quite know what to do with the warmth of the feelings passing between them. Stefan, she thought, and bent her head, hiding her face behind her long fall of hair.
Damon cocked his head, listening to sounds too faint for Elena to hear. “Finally. They’re here. ”
It smelled stale and musty in the basement, and Matt’s sneakers and Jasmine’s boots kicked up little clouds of gray dust as they walked. Jasmine had a black bag full of medical supplies dangling from one hand, and she looked tense and expectant, her lips tight.
“You don’t have to do this,” Matt said suddenly. He couldn’t lie and say that having a doctor on their side wasn’t a big help, but they could figure something else out if they had to. He didn’t want to involve Jasmine in
this—at least, any more than she was already.
Jasmine shook her head, frowning at him. “I told you, I’m all in. ” Her lips twitched in a small smile. “Besides, how many doctors get the opportunity to study this kind of physical transformation?”
They rounded the corner into another row of barred storage rooms. Smoke hung in the air, and there were scorch marks on the concrete floor. Damon and Elena were outside the only occupied one, Elena leaning back as far from the locked cage as she could get. Above their heads, a fluorescent light flickered dizzyingly.
“Thank God you’re here,” Elena said. “We really need a new tactic. Just attacking him isn’t doing anything. ”
As they drew level with the cage, Matt took another look at the vampire Damon had caught. He seemed like some little high school punk, the kind who, when Matt had been in school, would have had a skateboard and worn a lot of black clothing. “He doesn’t look like he’d be hard to handle. ”
Damon stiffened. “He’s stronger than he looks,” he said defensively, and Matt managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Damon was so touchy sometimes.
