Chapter 2

Bonnie awoke with a splitting headache. She felt like she had been run over by a truck, and she couldn't move her arms or legs. She struggled to open her heavy eyes, and when she did, it took her a moment to focus and realize that she was tied to a chair. She saw the lit fireplace out of the corner of her eye, then lifted her head just enough to stare straight ahead, where she was met with the sight of a smiling Kai.

"There she is," he sang. "Good evening, Sleeping Beauty."

"What..." Bonnie started to talk but her throat felt like it was full of rocks. Kai hopped up and offered her a cup of water. He pressed it to her lips but she moved her head to the side and grimaced.

"It's not poisoned. Promise," he said with a sick smile.

She cleared her throat and swallowed to help ease the thick feeling. "What do you want with me?" she asked.

"I thought that would be pretty obvious, Bon-Bon. I want you to help me get out of here."

"I can't. The Ascendant was destroyed."

"Yeah, I saw," he said with a frown. "Oh, well, we'll just have to figure out something else, won't we?"

He offered the cup again, but Bonnie only eyed him with disgust. He shrugged and tossed the water into the fireplace.

"No need to be rude," he said.

"I'll never help you. Even if I could, I'd rather sit here and rot and than let you return to the real world. You should just kill me."

"Thought about it. I seriously, seriously thought about it. When you were sleeping so soundly, I wrapped my hands around your neck and almost choked you until your eyes bugged out." Bonnie tried not to shiver in fear as he looked at her like he was talking about the weather. "But I kinda need your Bennett blood to get out of here and unfortunately for me, dead witch blood doesn't work. So, no, I won't kill you."

She sighed, feeling only a slight sense of relief. "Then what are you going to do?"

Kai smiled like he was happy she asked the question, and he pulled up a chair. He turned it around so that he was sitting in it backwards, with his knees grazing against Bonnie's.

"We are going to wait for your boyfriend to come back and save us."

Bonnie's stomach clenched when she thought of Damon coming back for her. She had secretly wondered if he would, if he could, but she didn't want to get her hopes up.

"He can't come back," she said softly.

"Sure he can! Where there's a will, there's a way."

She didn't respond and he cocked his head to the side.

"What? You don't think he'll come back for you? You don't think you mean enough to him? Are you worried that now that he's back with his epic love, Elena, that he'll just let you die here with me?"

Bonnie tightened her jaw so he wouldn't know that he was hitting all of her insecurities about where she stood with Damon. She wanted to believe that she mattered to him, but their history was littered with his callous comments about her and his lack of concern regarding her safety. But things were surely different now. They had bonded in a weird way. She needed him. She missed him.

"You say his name in your sleep," Kai whispered as he got uncomfortably close to her. He ran his finger along her cheek and she scooted away as much as her bindings would allow. He smiled. "You think he loves you as much as you love him?"

She closed her eyes so that she wouldn't get caught in his creepy gaze and so she wouldn't allow her mind to slip into that territory. She and Damon weren't like that. They were friends. They had each other's backs.

"This little will-they-won't-they thing you two have going on is awfully entertaining, I'll give you that," Kai continued. "That's why I waited so long to reveal myself. I was kinda hoping that maybe one day, all that bickering would lead to some hot, steamy sex that I could join."

"You're disgusting," she spat.

"I've been called worse."

He finally moved away and Bonnie slowly opened her eyes. He hopped on the couch with his feet propped up.

"And now we wait," he said.

"Even if Damon comes back for me, he'll never take you with us."

"That's where you're wrong, sweet cheeks. See, while you were sleeping, I borrowed some of your magic and bound us together as a little insurance policy. If I die, you die. If you go home, I go home. Get it?"

He chuckled and Bonnie didn't know what to do. She felt weak and tired and she knew that her magic was low, if not completely depleted. She had to fight every urge not to hang her head and cry, and Kai swung his legs off the couch and again began to approach her. She winced when he grabbed the ropes around her arms and to her surprise, he untied her. He freed her from the leg restraints and for a brief second, she considered breaking away from him. But she was too weak, and Kai roughly grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the stairs. She fought him as best she could but was ultimately powerless when he forced her down the stairs and into the dirty basement of the Salvatore mansion.

"I know you were all snuggly and warm in Damon's bed, but this is your new bedroom," he said as he threw her inside.

Bonnie fell on her knees and by the time she managed to get up, he had already slammed and locked the door. He looked through the bars and grinned.

"Sleep tight."

With that, he was gone. Bonnie groaned in frustration, then she screamed loudly, letting all her hurt and pain escape in her anguished cry. A million thoughts raced through her head, mostly related to regrets about the all the decisions she'd made that had led to the situation she was in. She was broken and alone and pathetic, and pathetic was not something she ever was.

She made her way to the cot in the corner of the room, where there was a small travel-size pillow and an old, itchy-looking blanket. She crawled underneath it and looked around her dank surroundings. This was bad, no doubt. There was no guarantee that Damon would, or even could, come back for her. So she had to depend on herself. She was going to get her strength up, let her magic slowly return, and then she was going to fight like hell.

...

Damon was drunk. Again. Lucy had proven herself to be a waste of Bennett blood. Yes, she was older than Bonnie and therefore more experienced and in control of her magic. But she was also significantly less powerful than her younger cousin and she knew next to nothing about the Other Side and alternate dimensions. To make matters worse, Damon and Stefan had taken a trip to Oregon that proved to be nothing but a waste of time and money. The people in the small town where the Gemini coven lived claimed to know nothing about a boy named Malakai or a group of witches. Damon knew they were lying but there wasn't anything he could do about it.

So he was drunk again and sloppily going through any and all papers that he had collected about the coven. Everything was vague and not very helpful. He recalled the newspaper that he and Bonnie had seen, the one that detailed the deaths of all of Kai's siblings. He tried to find a copy while they were in Oregon, which no such luck. He was Googling the hell out of it on Ric's computer and still coming up empty.

"Hey, I'm going out for a little while. You'll be okay?" Ric asked.

"Yes, Dad, I promise not to pee in my bed."

Ric cracked a smile. There was a knock on his door and Damon didn't glance up when he heard a woman's voice. He heard Ric and the woman greet each other, then there was an awkward silence that he knew revolved around him.

"So, this is my friend and very temporary roommate, Damon," Ric said.

"Nice to meet you," she said.

Damon still didn't look up. "Charmed," he said dryly as he took a long swig of his drink. After all, he wasn't really in the mood to make nice with a woman who, knowing Ric's dating history, was probably batshit crazy. He could practically heard Ric rolling his eyes.

"He just got back from an extended trip and he's kind of cranky," he explained. "Ready to head out?"

"Yeah, let's go. Try not to drink too much, Damon, or I'll end up having to pump your stomach."

Ric laughed heartily at her lame joke and Damon flipped her off just as they were closing the door. He abandoned his fruitless google search soon after and shut the computer down. He sank into the couch and tried to watch TV but his mind was on Bonnie. He had stopped letting himself wonder if she was alive. She was Bonnie Bennett; of course she was alive. She would go down kicking and screaming. So now he wondered what she was doing, whether she was in pain, how much hell she was giving Kai.

His thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone rang. It was Elena, and he put it down without answering. She had been blowing up his phone for days, wanting to talk about "them" as well as get information on Bonnie. Damon just didn't have the energy for either of those conversations. He'd already told the Bonnie story twice, once to Stefan and once to Ric, and he wasn't going to tell it again. He was still furious with Elena for erasing him from her memory and he had no intention of giving her the easy way out by talking about it.

He turned off his phone completely and returned to his mindless TV watching. He wasn't sure how many drinks or shows he'd been through, but he woke up suddenly when the door opened and Ric and his female friend crashed through. They were kissing and groping and seemingly unaware that he was still there. A fiendish smile broke out on his face.

"Don't fuck her too hard, Ric," he said, and they sprang apart. The girl's eyes were as wide as saucers and Ric's face was red. "Or I'll end up having to pump her stomach."

Ric looked like he might attack Damon, but the lady broke in and shook her hands.

"No, it's okay," she said. "I really should get going. I'm on call tonight and I need to be available in case there's an emergency."

"Oh, okay, yeah," Ric nodded, even though he was still looking like he wanted to continue their session.

"I'll call you, okay?" she said, and then flitted out.

Ric shut the door behind her and slowly turned around to Damon, who was smirking.

"Cock blocker," Ric said.

Damon held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, man, I'm all about a free show. I just wasn't sure if your lady friend was."

"Her name's Jo."

"Wow, interesting," Damon said dryly.

Ric stopped in the kitchen for a beer and then joined Damon on the couch.

"She is interesting," he defended. "She's really nice. And sweet. And smart. She's a doctor."

"Haven't you had your fill of crazy ass doctors?"

"She's not crazy. She's very normal."

Damon didn't respond because he didn't really care either way. They sat quietly and watched TV for a few minutes.

"Well, she's kind of normal," Ric said.

Damon frowned. "What?"

"I tried to compel her to forget me. It didn't work."

"She's probably on vervain," he shrugged.

"Yeah, maybe."

Something about the way Ric responded led Damon to believe that he suspected it was more than vervain at work.

"Maybe there is something kinda weird about her," Ric said, mostly to herself. "I mean, nothing too much, just..." He kind of waved his hands around and Damon waited for the punch line. "She's 35, no kids and no family. She hasn't come right out and said it but I get the feeling that her childhood was bad or something. She's never said anything about brothers or sisters or parents. It's just weird."

"Maybe she's one of those career-first chicks. It doesn't sound that weird."

"But to end up in Mystic Falls, Virginia without some kind of family ties?" Ric asked. "Who does that? People either live here because they're from here, or because they're supernatural."

"How do you know she's not from here?"

"She told me that she's from the northwest somewhere. I was too busy trying not to rip her throat open to listen. Maybe Seattle or Portland or something?"

Ric took a swig of his beer and at first, Damon brushed off the whole conversation. But as they sat there, quietly, his mind began to point out some red flags to him.

Jo was a woman. She apparently had no kids or family. She was from the northwest and potentially supernatural. Before he could stop himself, his mind made a leap. What if she was Kai's sister? All the pieces were there: the fucked-up childhood, lack of relatives, possibly from Oregon and maybe even a witch incapable of compulsion.

"Call her back here," Damon said.

"What?"

"Jo. Call her back up here. I want to ask her something."

"Why? You barely acknowledged her earlier."

"Just do it!" he snapped.

Ric frowned and eyed him suspiciously. He must have made the same connections that Damon had because his frown eased slightly but he shook his head.

"You don't think...?"

"I do think. I need to know if she's the person I've been looking for."

"You do realize this is like a million to one shot, right?"

"One's better than zero."

Ric was hesitant but he slowly pulled out his phone and called Jo.

"Hey, Jo, it's me," he said. "Have you gotten very far away? No? Ok, great, do you mind swinging back by? I think you...uh...left your watch." He smacked himself in the head for the lame reason and Damon shook his head. "Sure, see you soon."

He hung up and Damon asked, "Really? She left her watch? That's the best you could come up with?"

"I panicked!"

"You have absolutely no game, Ric. Remind me to help you with that when all this is over."

A couple of minutes later, there was a knock on the door and Damon hopped up excitedly to answer it.

"Your girlfriend works fast," he said over his shoulder. He swung the door open, expecting to see Jo but finding Stefan, Elena and Caroline, all of whom looked worried.

"Did you know your phone was off?" Stefan asked.

"Yeah, kinda did that on purpose."

"Damon, what is going on?" Elena demanded, marching into the room like it was her apartment. "You've been acting all weird since you've been back and you won't tell us anything about Bonnie."

"You could fix all your concerns by having Ric wipe your mind again. That seemed to work last time," he sniped.

Caroline jumped in before they could start arguing.

"Damon, please," she asked softly, "There's obviously something you haven't told us about Bonnie. Is she dead or not? And if she's not, why are you doing all this running around and getting Lucy involved? I need to know if I should finally give up hope or not."

Damon sighed heavily. He wanted to tell all of them to fuck off, but something about Caroline's heartbroken face tugged at his undead heartstrings.

"I don't know if she's dead or not," he said. "We were supposed to both come back and things got screwed up and I'm trying to fix it. Okay?"

Caroline took a deep breath, but then nodded.

"What can we do to help?"

He put his hands on her shoulders and said, "stay out of my way."

Several people began speaking at once. Stefan said Damon should welcome any help he could get. Ric asked why the hell everyone had decided to congregate in his apartment. Elena wanted to know since when Damon cared so much about Bonnie. It was a question he couldn't even begin to answer because Elena didn't know him anymore and she didn't know what he and Bonnie had gone through.

Luckily, there was another knock that halted all conversation. Damon opened the door, this time to see that Jo had returned. She looked at him with wild wide eyes and smiled sheepishly.

"Ric said I left my watch?" she asked, holding up her left wrist and showing the watch there.

"Ric is terrible with women," Damon said with his most charming smile. "He wanted you to come back and that was his best pick-up line. Kind of pathetic, I know."

"It's cute," she said with a smile.

Damon held out his hand. "Come in."

He could tell from her facial expression that she was wondering if he had multiple personality disorder, but she walked inside and then looked a bit startled at all the new people inside.

"Uh, hey," Ric said as he got off the couch and approached her. "There are some more of my friends: Stefan, Elena and Caroline."

The three of them said hi as their names were called and Damon saw the perfect opportunity to jump in and find out if Jo was indeed the woman he was looking for. He walked her to the couch and poured on the charm.

"So, Jo, Ric tells me that you're not from around here. What brought you to our lovely little town?"

"Oh, you know, residency, medical stuff. I came to the area and just loved it, so I decided to stay."

"No kids? Brothers and sisters? Parents?"

"Damon," Ric said in a warning tone.

"No, it's okay," Jo said. "Uh, no, unfortunately my family all passed away in an accident and I've been kind of a gypsy ever since."

"Sorry to hear that," Damon said with not an ounce of sincerity. "Where are you from exactly?"

"Oh, this little town in Oregon you've probably never heard of."

"That's interesting because I just met a guy from Oregon and all his family passed away, too. Maybe you know him?"

Jo, as well as Elena and Caroline, looked at Damon like he was crazy.

"Well, it's a big state, I don't..."

"His name is Kai. Malakai, to be precise."

Damon knew he had hit paydirt when Jo's face drained of any traces of color. Her mouth was still open from her previous statement, but she tried to overcome her shock.

"I don't know who that is," she said.

"Tell that to your racing heartbeat," he said lowly.

Jo looked at him and recognition flooded her features.

"You're a vampire," she whispered.

"We all are," he shrugged.

The horror was obvious on her face as she looked at each one of them and stared at Ric like he was disgusting. Damon felt slightly bad about outing him, but hey, this was for Bonnie.

"Now, about Kai," he started, but Jo jumped up and shook her head.

"I'm leaving."

"Oh, no, you're not."

He let her get to the door before he sped in front of her and gave her the vamp face. She backed away slightly as the red and black veins took over his eyes.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, her fear evident.

"I want to know how to get my friend back."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. I think you know that Kai was banished and punished to live the same day on repeat for the rest of his miserable life. Somehow, my friend and I ended up there and she's still there. I want her back."

Jo shook her head and tried to walk past him again, but he blocked her. She held out her hand and gave him an aneurysm, but he shook it off and laughed, much to her surprise.

"You think that little witchy migraine is going to do anything to me?" he asked. "Bonnie's been giving them to me for years so I've built up a little tolerance. Not to mention, she's way stronger than you so this little thing you're trying to do isn't doing anything more than tickling my brain."

Jo dropped her hand and looked around the room for some kind of help, but none came. Ric looked down at his shoes and she turned back to Damon.

"I can't help you."

"Can't or wont?"

"Take your choice," she spat. "Kai can never be released. He's a psychopath and kills just for the fun of it! Do you know what he did to my family?"

"I'm not going to get him. I'm going to get Bonnie."

"He'll find a way out. I can't let you do that."

"So you'd prefer that an innocent girl stay there with him while he tortures her?"

"Better her than me."

Damon allowed her to walk past him for a moment, then he ran after her, turned her around and grabbed her by the neck. "Damon!" Ric shouted, but he didn't listen. He slammed Jo against the wall and choked her just hard enough to cause some panic.

"You will help me," he directed in a sinister voice. "Or I will haunt you every day of your life and make it a living hell for you. I can do it. Just ask my brother. And when I get bored with you, I'll rip your heart out and eat it."

"Damon," Elena said, and he realized that she and Caroline were pulling on his arms, trying to get him to let go. But he had more than a hundred years of vampire strength over them and he shook them off like flies. He squeezed Jo's neck just a little harder, watching the fear take hold.

"What's it gonna be?" he asked.

"Yes," she managed to get out before she fainted.

He let go and she gasped for air, holding her neck and looking at him like a scared rabbit. He saw tears collect in her eyes and he would have felt bad if he wasn't plagued with guilt over leaving Bonnie. He didn't care who had to step on or kill to get her back. He could almost hear her judgey little voice lecturing him about choking people and why that was bad. He almost smiled.

"You need a Bennett witch," Jo said after finally catching her breath.

"Perfect. I've got one. Next?"

"A blood sacrifice from someone who loves the one you want to save."

"Me," Caroline said immediately. "I'll do it."

Jo stared at Damon for a long time, and he stared right back.

"We'll open a portal," she explained. "You've got 24 hours to get her and then the portal opens one last time. If you don't make it, you're stuck there. There is no redo."

Damon thought about being stuck there, in hell, with Bonnie and a guy who couldn't be killed. All he'd wanted when he saw there was to get back home. And all he wanted now was to retrieve Bonnie and make sure she was safe, even if it meant risking the rest of his never-ending life.

"I got it," he said. "Let's do this thing."