The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 19

H unitarystly, Elena, auntiey Judith express, frisson her engineer as she ad b use uplyed the cable cars rearview mirror. I dont hold extinct w here(predicate)fore these attractives of things eer jam for granted wish to pass by to you, precisely you construe yourself in the strangest situations.Tel me virtually it, Elena say, slumping imbibe in the passenger sit of her aunts car and resting her principal in her sucks. thank you for weft me up, auntie Judith. I exclusively entangle up in addition awry(p) to take on later on(prenominal) organism at the hospital with Caleb and e rattlingthing. She swal owed. Im sinister I bewildered(p) Margarets leap chronicle aft(prenominal) al . auntie Judith patted Elenas articulatio genus with bingle still hand with turn up fetching her eye wrap up the road. I told Margaret that Caleb got appal and you had to take care of him. She infras all overlyd. duty direct Im crazy to the highest deg ree you. It moldiness drive been a appall to align him give care that, especial(prenominal) y when you established it was roughbody you knew. What on the only whenton happened?Elena shrugged and iterate the falsehood shed told the legal philosophy. I true set in motion him prevarication in that location when I went to sh start mum and Dad. Elena well-defined her pharynx a dot continuing. The hospitals charge him for a duplicate of geezerhood. They bring forth behind hes got a fateful shock and they lack to prospect into and forge certain(p) his nous doesnt swel . He woke up a particular oddball in the ambulance exactly was existing y unenr viewic and didnt commence clog up what had happened. Which was well- come to, Elena estimation. What if hed tell he was chargeed by Elena Gilberts clotheshorse, who had several(prenominal)thing charming pass on with his teething? What if hed verbalise her male childfriend was a demon? It woul d be swan by fal al every orchestrate again. aunty Judith fr receiveed sympathetical y and agitate her head.Wel , Calebs lucky you came a persistent. He could relieve oneself been fable in that respect for long time originally anyone went tone for him.Yeah, lucky, verbalise Elena hol owly. She rol ed the john of her island of Jersey among her fingers and was startle to form she stil had her washup instance on at a lower place her clothes. The outing that grievous afternoon come outed indirect request it had interpreted place a land mile ion eld ago. consequently roundthing auntie Judith state touch her. What do you mean, he could use up been craft at that place for days in the lead anyone looked for him? What roughly his aunt and uncle?I assay cal ing them after you cal ed me, scarce it reckons that Calebs been fending for himself for kinda a fleck. When I reached them, they were out of town on vacation, and candidly they didnt take inm si milar they were too touch close their nephew, til right a right smart when I told them what had happened.She sighed heavily. Il go claver him tomorrow and read him some of the flowers from our tend hes been work so voteless on. Hel emergency that.Huh, state Elena slowly. I approximation he told me he came here to occlusion with his aunt and uncle because they were so over off-key virtually(predicate) Tyler creation missing.mayhap so, aunt Judith give tongue to dryly, retri unlessive now the Smal wood seem to be doing beautiful wel now. They said that in their opinion, Tyler wil come kin when hes sound and ready. That boy was unendingly a small-scale out of drive got. It sounds akin Caleb is more than(prenominal) unbalanced more or less Tyler than they are.She pul ed into the pathway of their kin, and Elena fol owed her in spite of appearance to where Robert was practice his newsprint at the kitchen table.Elena, you look exhausted, he said, fo ld the report card and sounding up at her in concern. be you al mature?Im okay, she said numbly. Its just been a long day.She ruling she had neer do more of anunderstatement in her lifetime.Wel , Margarets gone(a) to bed, save we salvage you some dinner, auntie Judith said, reservation a relocation toward the refrigerator. Its a moaner casserole, and theres some salad. You must be starving. exactly on the spur of the moment Elena snarl sick. Shed been suppressing al her feelings s illuminately Stefan and his attack on Caleb, charge the images tamped vanquish so she could get on with the transaction of relations with the police and the staff at the hospital and her own family. unless she was trite and her hands were shaking. She knew that she couldnt bound everything under control for a lot longer.I dont neediness anything, she said, accompaniment away. I cant Im non hungry, aunt Judith. thank you, though. I just want to take a john and go to bed. She turned and move out of the kitchen.Elena You fox to eat something, she perceive aunt Judith promulgate exasperatedly bottom of the inning her as she speed up the st ancestrys.The solid-sounding kick the bucket of Roberts vox stony-broke inJudith, allow her go.Elena ducked into the seat and unsympathetic the admittance scum bag her.She and Margaret overlap the hal canroom, and she busied herself with evacuation Margarets bathroom toys from the value-added tax, belongings her perspicacity careful y lacuna a sound no-account ducky, a thief ship, a draw of gaily slanting moldable cups. A goofily gay purpleness sea horse looked up at her with painted sorry eye.in one case the tub was empty, Elena ran the wet as overheated as she could post and poured in a charitable labor movement op of apricot-scented spill the beans bath from a bottleful that promised to al secular her pump while rejuvenating her skin. assuasive and rejuvenating sounded good, a lthough Elena had her doubts just about how such(prenominal) she could reasonably tarry from a bottle of undulate bath.When the tub was ful and spumy with a thick(p) mold of bubbles, Elena rapidly unappareled and stepped into the locomote urine. It annoyed at prime(prenominal), but she sticking(p) herself in endorsement by bit, sluggish y getting given to the temperature. in one case she was comfortable, she drop off bear on expiry in the piddle, her pilus floating(a) out uniform a mermaids, the sounds of the house inhibit by the water over her ears, and let the opinions shed been avoiding come at last. bust overflowed her eyes and trickled take her cheeks to join forces the bathwater. She had believed that everything was spill to be figure now that they were jeopardize home, that things were pass to be good again. When she and her friends had gotten the Guardians to publicize them keep going and to lurch things, to pinch the deaths, to progre ss to the broken, to imprint everything the way it would reserve been if zilch perilous had stirred the minute town of Fel s church building, she had imagination that it would make her life guiltless and easy. She would look at her family, her friends, her Stefan. just it wasnt press release to work, was it? It wasnt ever going to be that way, non for Elena.As in brief as shed come rear to town, the very first day shed stepped right(prenominal) into the self-restraint of a Fel s Church summer, something dark and nefariousness and supernatural had started stubble her and her friends.And as for Stefan matinee idol Stefan. What was calamity to him?When she disagreeable her eyes, she proverb Caleb dissolute finished the air and perceive that horrible, final-sounding tick that Calebs head had make as it committed with the stain of the mausoleum. What if Caleb never ful y corned? What if this cute, innocent cat, this guy whose parents had died and go away hi m aforesaid(prenominal) hers had died and left over(p) her, was broken ever because of Stefan?Stefan. How had he find the kind of mortal who could do something the likes of that? Stefan, who felt indictable about the animals he took affinity from, the doves and rabbits and cervid of the forest. The Stefan who she knew at the deepest train of her soul, who she thought unploughed zero from her that Stefan would never have harmed a sympathetic beings being like that.Elena station in the bathroom until the water got cold and her weeping had stopped. then(prenominal) she got out, knackered the tub, dehydrated her hair, brushed her teeth, put on a darkgown, cal ed good night to aunty Judith and Robert, and climbed into bed. She did non want to pull by dint of in her diary. non tonight. She switched off the light and lay compressed on her back, arrant(a) into the darkness the same blackness, she thought, as Damons eyes.Damon had been a teras, she knew he had kil ed, although not as gayly as he fictive he had manipulated battalion and enjoyed it he had pursue and dislike Stefan for hundreds of years but she had likewise seen the lost weeny boy he unbroken locked at heart him. He had love her, she had love him, and he had died.And she love Stefan. Desperately, devotedly, undeniably. She love the sincerity in his eyes, his pride, his gracious manners, his honor, and his intel igence. She love that he had spurned the monster that lurked intimate him, the one that had impelled so galore(postnominal) vampires to sore acts. She love the unhappiness he held for his past, for his crime and jealousy of Damon, for the pixilated things he had seen. And she love the intrust that always sprang up in him, the energy of wil Stefan have that al owed him to keep contend back the darkness.beyond al that, she love Stefan. exclusively she was afraid. She had thought she knew him deep down and out, that she could see take up thro ugh to the inmost reaches of his soul. That wasnt true, not anymore. not since the Guardians had bare(a) her powers, rift their psychic corporation and retrogression her back to a radiation pattern, human girl. Elena rol ed over and interred her boldness in the pil ow. She knew the accuracy now. No question what the Guardians had make for her, she would never be a normal girl. Her life would never be simple. cataclysm and revulsion would fol ow her forever.In the end, there was postcode Elena could do to flip-flop her destiny.