Damon, looking somber, just shook his head. “Redbird, you can’t keep an enormous, untamed, unneutered dog in your room. It’s not fair to him, and eventually you’d get expelled.”
“Rusticated,” Elena began, and then fell silent, frowning.
“Rusticated . . . sounds familiar somehow,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“But I have to protect him! I’m going back right now and getting him—”
“You’re not going anywhere in your nightgown and bare feet!”—Meredith.
“You can’t keep a wolf-dog in a dorm room!”—Caroline.
“You’re not going anywhere without protection for yourself!”—Elena.
“The dog or hybrid or whatever is already gone—I’m sure.” That was Damon, seeming perfectly serious, looking perfectly competent. “He ran away at the sight of Indoors. That’s not where he wants to be.”
Everyone nodded at this, and Bonnie knew that they would all take his word for it; because he was a junior and they were freshmen, because he had traveled, and they hadn’t; because he could deal with the bitch queen on wheels that Elena could be sometimes, and nobody else could. And because of a whole different reason that she couldn’t even think of right now.
The unfairness of this made her so angry that she said, while more or less in her right mind: “Maybe he ran away when he saw you. You were the one who said that ‘damon’ meant run away in every language. He growled at you. If he did run, maybe he ran away because you were so mean!”
Everyone turned to stare at Bonnie in silence. She realized she’d confounded them. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she didn’t care. Her heart was beating fiercely.
Damon looked less confounded than the others. He did look hurt, though, and very tired.
“Little redbird—”
“I’m not your little red bird!” Bonnie cried through the sting of tears, burning her bridges behind her. She had no idea why she was saying all this, but she felt betrayed and unhappy, and . . . and fuming mad. She felt even more betrayed and miserable and angry than the loss of the beautiful white dog would seem to justify. And because she couldn’t fight with her muscles; she had to use words.
“You’re Elena’s boyfriend; you shouldn’t even be calling me that! And it’s not your job to protect me! It’s none of your business!”
“It’s my business if you go out there again tonight and freeze,” Damon said. Something inside Bonnie noted that he looked harried and pale, but another, more selfish thing noted that his voice was almost harsh—and he had almost never before been harsh toward her. “In fact, I will make it my very own personal business if you even try to do that.”
“And it’s my business, period, because I’m the one who would have to live with the ginormous mangy, flea-bitten, wild wolf-dog if you did find him,” Meredith said flatly. Bonnie couldn’t believe that she was siding with Damon, especially when he was being so . . . mean!
He didn’t even look right, Bonnie thought wretchedly. His eyes looked too dark. Not a bit like spring leaves—but then why should he have green eyes like Caroline? That was a weird idea. She didn’t know any guy with vivid green eyes.
Meanwhile, her mouth was saying to Meredith, “He wasn’t mangy or flea-bitten! He was gorgeous! And he was there with me when I woke up—and when you disappeared!”
“Bonnie, that’s cra—that’s unreasonable thinking!” Meredith flashed back.
Bonnie knew it was unreasonable. She couldn’t help it. If she was going crazy anyway, and everybody knew it, why should she even try to be reasonable?
“Okay,” Elena said in her clearing-away-obstacles-in-one-fell-swoop voice. “We’re all tired. We’re all on edge. We all need a little time to cool down—”
“I’m already cold enough, and so is your boyfriend!” Bonnie snapped, feeling as if she were drowning in a bitter, salty sea. “He’s as cold as—ice! He doesn’t even care about a poor, scared dog that’s outside getting frozen—”
“He’s an Alaskan Husky—or a wolf-dog,” Damon said. “They’ve both got coats that let them sleep on glaciers! I don’t think a little October Virginia weather is going to freeze him. Even if it snowed on him, he—”
“You’re going to make it snow on him! Don’t make it snow on him!” Bonnie cried, bursting into all-encompassing sobs. Even as she heard the words she realized that she must be having one of her psycho trances, where she said peculiar things without knowing it. Weird that this time she was aware of speaking.
Damon made a gesture of flinging out his hands and looking pointedly for other-worldly intervention. Instead of rolling his eyes upward, however, he looked sideways, toward the wall with the large wooden turquoise and gold letter E. Matt, Caroline and Meredith glanced back and forth between the wall, Damon, Elena, and Bonnie. Eventually, though, they all focused on Bonnie, maybe because Elena had never taken her eyes off her.
Matt ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up even higher on one side. He wet his lips. “She’s . . .”
“Yeah,” Meredith said.
“No,” Elena corrected. “She isn’t having an episode. She’s scared to dea
th, is all. And I don’t think I feel well, either.” She massaged her forehead with both hands, then began rubbing her closed eyes with her palms. “Bonnie? Why . . . do you think that Damon can . . . damn it! . . . make it snow?”