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Chapter 31
“The stake’s touching his heart,” Jack said. “I can kill him in a second. Give me the poison, and I’ll let your boyfriend go. ”
Damon could hardly breathe, and with each tiny movement of the stake in Jack’s hand, he felt dizzy and drained. His whole chest burned as if it were on fire. He stood as still as he could and fixed his eyes on Elena, willing her to listen to the message he was trying to send her. Don’t give it to him. Run away.
He didn’t want to die. But he couldn’t live with himself if they let go of their only chance of killing Jack. Not when Jack had killed Stefan, killed Katherine.
Besides, if Elena did hand over the poison, he would probably shove the stake through Damon’s heart anyway. They knew by now that they couldn’t trust him.
Carefully, Damon tensed his muscles little by little, keeping himself fully aware of the stake. His best chance would be to wait for Jack to be distracted, and then to take him down quickly. Protect Elena, and perhaps even save himself. Adrenaline began to burn beneath his skin in anticipation of a fight.
“What’s it going to be?” Jack said, thrusting the stake a fraction of an inch deeper. Damon flinched.
Elena didn’t answer. She was standing very still, her eyes dark and huge in her pale face. She looked, Damon thought, like someone about to be burned at the stake.
“Stop this,” she said, and Damon felt a pulse of Power coming from her. Jack laughed and shook his head. Whatever Elena was trying, it wasn’t working.
Damon shut his eyes for just a moment. His heart was pulsing around the stake, sending steady throbs of pain through his body. It made it hard to think.
It wouldn’t be so bad to die if he had to, he supposed. He had loved. He had lived.
If only he could be sure that Jack would let Elena go.
The stake against his heart jerked, hard, and Damon’s eyes flew open.
Jack yanked the stake entirely out of Damon’s chest, his arm flinging wide and the stake clattering to the ground. Damon took his cue and leaped forward, ready to fight, but there was no fight to have, not right now.
Jack was being pulled backward, away from Damon, with short, jerky steps. His arms were drawn up and suspended in midair, even as his body writhed, struggling. His face was twisted with rage.
Damon, his hand covering the wound on his chest, turned around to stare at Elena. As he watched, her hands came up and moved, her long elegant fingers plucking in time to the motion of Jack’s limbs, puppet master to Jack’s puppet. Her eyes were shining, and she looked triumphant.
“Good girl,” Damon breathed. “Beautiful. ”
He had never seen Elena use her Guardian Powers with such precision before. Elena twitched a finger and Jack’s head snapped backward with an outraged snarl. He was utterly at her mercy.
Damon headed for Elena and found himself stumbling, moving at half the speed he usually could. Fresh blood was pumping out of his chest and streaming down his body as he moved. The suit would be ruined, he thought dazedly. His body was trying to knit itself together, but there was too much damage. He needed to feed.
“Use the poison,” Elena murmured as he came up to her. Her eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Jack, as if a glance aside would break her power over him.
Damon fumbled open the briefcase at her feet, unlatching the box he found inside. Five needles full of the poison, each shimmering softly in the light of the moon overhead. He grabbed one, unclipping it from the side of the box, and held it tightly but carefully as he turned back toward Jack.
Jack’s eyes fixed on the hypodermic, and his eyes widened. For the first time, he looked afraid.
But Elena’s control was beginning to slip, Damon could see. As Damon got closer, the self-made vampire lunged toward him, grabbing desperately at the hypodermic with one hand, even as the rest of his body jerked at Elena’s command.
Damon grabbed hold of the free arm, trying to force it into stillness as he raised the syringe. Maybe he could inject it here, right in the vein at the crook of the elbow.
He hesitated just for a split second, looking for the long blue line of the vein, and in that second Elena lost control. Like his puppet strings had been suddenly cut, Jack fell forward, knocking Damon to the ground. The syringe fell from his hand, skittering away across the concrete of the plaza.
Damon sucked in a breath, dazed for a moment, and Jack’s fangs sunk into his throat, ripping and tearing. Can’t lose more blood, Damon reminded himself, and struggled, shoving the other vampire away. His teeth gouged at Damon’s throat as they came out, and Damon clawed viciously at Jack’s face, trying to take some vengeance.
He was holding Jack away, far enough that he couldn’t bite, but the other vampire’s hands fumbled at his chest. They found the wound above Damon’s heart and roughly, slowly, wormed their way within.
Damon gasped in shock. He could feel Jack’s long fingers inside him, reaching for his heart.
Everything went gray for a moment, and when the world snapped back into color, Damon’s chest was going cold. He tried to gasp for air, but Jack was above him, blocking out the sky, his presence suffocating.
Just beside Damon, something glimmered. The syringe. Slowly, as if someone else was moving it, Damon saw his own hand slide toward it and pick it up. He fumbled for a second, and it almost fell again. And then, with new strength, he gripped the syringe and shoved it against Jack’s neck.
