He had never felt physical pain like that.
Nor, Kai realized as he slowly came back to consciousness, had he felt internal pain like that. It was as though his organs were somehow scorched from the inside, but they weren't his organs at all, instead something just as vital.
He rolled over and coughed, acutely aware of the gash on his neck. The room was still barely lit from the candle he had carried into it. Kai felt his chest constrict, and if he had an emotional vocabulary he might have described himself as infected with panic. He used the unnamed sensation to propel him to his feet, clumsily. His eyes scanned the room. He tried to regulate his own breathing.
Where did that vampire go?
Kai spun around suddenly, feeling the tickle of hot breath on his neck, but he saw only shadowed emptiness. A hand reached instinctively for the wound on his neck, having agitated it by the abrupt movement. Two small punctures. Still wet blood in a thick line down to the collar of his shirt.
"Huh," Kai hovered his palm over the base of his neck, tapping the punctures with his fingers.
Why are they so small?
"Because I healed you."
A voice he could have only dreamed into reality caught him like the wafting scent of a fresh pastry, still puffed with all its magical qualities.
"Well, I only sort of healed you. I left the rest to your humanity."
Kai could sense his spine being overtaken by something that made him crave the immediate comfort of the floor. He wanted to sit down on a surface stronger than his own body so he could let out the two syllables that hung in his throat without fear of being anchored down by them.
What is happening to me?
"That, I don't know. I am just as surprised as you are."
His throat clung tirelessly to those two syllables, as his eyes made themselves drunk with the vision before him. Finally, he blinked. "Bonnie."
She did not reply. Her eyes stung him. He felt a surge of anger in his chest at the fact that anyone could make him feel so helpless. "Why are you here? You left me behind. I saw you leave. I watched you zap you and your friends up into the sky out of this prison world."
"Since when have you become the kind of person that relies on perception? Sociopaths are always one step ahead. Sociopaths create perception." Bonnie took a step towards him, settling her arms folded across her chest.
"I know you don't think I've changed Bonnie, I know. But I have. Listen to me, please." He narrowed the space between them with his own step forward, half expecting Bonnie to flinch, but when she did nothing at all he felt his face begin to flush.
What is happening to me?
"I told you Kai, I don't know." She slid her words out slowly, as if they carried a thousand secrets in each intonation.
They remained standing, squarely across from each other, for at least a few minutes. Kai could not tell if the silence was comforting or terrifying. It seemed to oscillate between the two. He strained to extract meaning from Bonnie's expressions, but they were unreadable and sleek like marble. They reminded him of the Northern Lights.
It was Bonnie who broke their stillness. "You were sexier when you were evil. Now you're just boring," she deadpanned.
Her words struck him as more odd than even seeing her in the first place. He felt that ambiguous rumble inside him again, the one that resembled panic. "Are you okay, Bonnie? What's going on? Why are you here?"
Arms still folded, Bonnie let a sigh ease its way out of her. "I'm not Bonnie. Well, I am Bonnie. I'm just not all of Bonnie. Apparently magic can separate you from yourself. Imagine that." She tossed her hands up, beginning to walk past Kai towards the door. It was then that he noticed the laziness in her movements. Bonnie was usually more deliberate in the way she walked. And she certainly reacted much stronger to stress than this Bonnie seemed to be.
Kai followed in her wake towards the door, hanging back a polite foot or two so she could exit first.