"This hell isn't yours, Damon. It's mine"
He'd said it over and over and over again, calling it his own personal hell.
This had unintended implications for Bonnie. Well, the implications were intended on his part, meant to cut her, let her know he'd rather spend his time with anyone else, but she hadn't meant to let them get to her.
She thought she was being saved when the clues started popping up, she imagined this mysterious shadow was an angel sent to save her. She'd spent so many nights crying secretly in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in her bed, wherever Damon wasn't. She'd never expected to be so lonely in someone else's company.
But Damon hated her and he kept making that clear.
She harbored a new found darkness, a kind of self-loathing that had never reared its head at her before, but now it roared deep in her gut. It pricked her skin with its claws and knocked against the backs of her teeth. It stung her throat like acid and threatened to choke her just as viscously.
There were times she wished to be free of this prison.
By any means.
Times when he was lamenting her existence she wished he'd torn her throat out and left her to bleed on the dirty ground all that time ago. And still there were times when she wanted to show him her tears, let him know he got to her, let him know that for a martyr like her being called useless was the cruelest jest possible.
She didn't though.
Maybe he needed this, needed to be mean and nasty to ignore the pain he felt inside. She could be a punching bag, she could suffer. That was a skill of hers, suffering and silence, usually simultaneously. Ever the sacrifice, always the fowl.
So she'd been overcome with silent pleading when the signs began to appear. She thanked Grams and God for the angel she'd been sent and prayed she'd reveal herself soon. The angel would take pity on Bonnie and lift her away. She didn't much care if Damon came along or not. She spoke of hope so dangerously, like her world depended on it. Her world and her sanity-and they did. Both of them.
Imagine her despair when Satan himself turned out to be their companion.
In a blaze of fire he revealed his form, armed and ready to strike. This demon mocked her as viscously as Damon had- never had she felt so forsaken.
"The useless one is here"
"What are you going to do? Fail at me?"
"I'm embarrassed for you"
God had not sent her an angel, but a toy. He wasn't the kind of toy you played with though, he was like some sick gangly yo yo, dangling her back and forth and up and down on a loose string. He'd threatened them then claimed it was for a greater purpose, he'd tricked her into using magic, then revealed it was a ploy. He even got close to her, made her think maybe he really was that angel, then delivered the cruelest twist of all, he was beyond redemption. He lead them outside and told them plainly, this was his hell.
Malachai, even his name filled her mouth like a curse.
She was certain now, he was no angel. He had been one before, at some long passed point, but he was cast out. Much like Lucifer himself he was banished for his sin and left here to rot, but so was she. It did something to her psyche to know she deserved a fate shared with Satan, something cruel and irreversible. She was staring it down-an eternity of damnation.
What had she done? She prayed, went to church, saved her friends countless times, sacrificed her life for them, led herself to the slaughter. She was the lamb! How had she thrown herself on the alter and ended up cast aside? Wasn't the offering sacred? When witches burned didn't the smoke always rise? She felt weighed down, she felt like an anchor, but she'd played that part already; maybe this was her fate . She was tethered to this rotted ground and nothing could pull her up; no ascendant or otherwise.
By the time they got to the cave she was resigned, she knew it was too late, but even now she prayed for forgiveness. When Kai told them this was his hell she misunderstood. She took him to mean this was his realm of suffering, but it wasn't. This was his realm of torture, she would come to know that soon enough. So she sent Damon home, this wasn't a place for him. She had no fear of consequence, she'd let herself deal with the devil. If she had to throw herself onto that blade again then so be it. As Damon was engulfed by brilliant white light and pulled skyward, toward her God and not his, she knew with complete and utter certainty, this tailor made hell was not for him nor for Kai; this hell was decidedly hers.