Chapter 3 - A Little Expression Never Hurt

"Well?" Damon huffed.

I sneered, glancing up to meet the vampire's annoyed glare. Damon sat on the opposite side of the table from me. He forwent all manners and rested his feet on the polished oak wood, sullying it with his dust-coated shoes. While his feet may have concealed the bottom half of his face, I still could see his frosty eyes tinged with impatience.

"Well?" I mocked.

"Do your witchy magic." He waved me off hastily. Damon was always an impulsive person, wanting to dive headfirst into any task without thinking over the consequences. Didn't mean he was going to drag me into his bad habits. "Hocus pocus, presto chango, bring Bilbo back from the dead-o."

Was he trying to be funny?

Looking back onto the dead cat in the shoe box, I tried sighing away my apprehension. Like rain drenched clothes, a sinking feeling weighed heavily on me. My hands were clammy enough to make chowder out of and the goosebumps budding along my arms wasn't because the Salvatore Manor was drafty. This was a sign from the Spirits.

I could feel them reaching out to me as best they could. The irregular dim lighting in the living room. The frosty temperature. It was almost as if they were in the air, circulating like electricity. This was a sing. They didn't want me to go through with this.

"Just give me a minute."

"I've given you ten." Holding open both hands, Damon wriggled his fingers. "All you've done is stared at the dead cat."

"And all you've done is gotten on my nerves."

He stuck out his bottom lip defiantly before giving in to a shrug. "Comes with the territory."

"This goes against nature." I had to try changing Damon's mind one more time. "What's dead should stay dead."

I waited for Damon to give a snarky remark. Something along the lines of, 'Well technically I'm dead so... now what?' but silence was the only response I had. I didn't have a clue as to what was going on in his mind, I couldn't even hear his breathing which coincidentally coerced me to hold my own breath in anticipation of his response.

Suddenly, he spoke.

"I wouldn't have asked you to do this if I weren't one hundred percent sure you'd be safe." Yeah, sure. I waited for something rude or condescending to come out his mouth. It wasn't every day Damon thought of someone other than himself. "You've raised the dead, Bonnie, and have done things I didn't think plausible until I met you, you'll be fine."

A single butterfly fluttered freely in my stomach at his words. Finally, someone had given me the recognition I deserved. It felt good to hear it spoken aloud. There wasn't really any time be thanked when you were busy trying to save lives, but hearing it from time to time was reassuring.

Had it been from anyone but Damon who was giving the compliment.

I almost believed him. How could I have been so stupid?

This was Damon Salvatore, he wasn't a nice person and he didn't think of anyone but himself. That confession was all just a means to an end and he had to have been stupid to think that I'd fall for it.

"You're only saying that because you want me to do this for you."

"Friendly reminder that you're doing this for yourself – so that your secret won't get out."

"Don't try that reverse crap on me, I'm not Elena."

"Ouch." Laughing, Damon opened up a bottle of whiskey. "And I thought you both were friends."

"Is the alcohol necessary?"

"When is it not?" He poured the amber liquid into a glass, scooting it over my way. "Drink?"

He was out of his mind if he thought I was going to accept that. We weren't friendly enough.

"Since when were we drinking buddies?"

"More for me then," he guzzled a gulp straight from the bottle before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Let's get on with it now. I've got better things to do then conversate with you."

"Converse." Rolling my eyes, I gave way to a smile. "It's converse."

"What are USC's school colors again?"

I shook away as much of the outside world as I could and mentally prepped myself to use expression. If bringing back Bilbo was the only way of keeping Damon's mouth shut then I had no other chose but to appease him. Even if this had, 'Bad Idea' curb stomped on it.

Placing my hands onto the cat's matted fur, I concentrated on nothing but reviving it. That's all expression was – tapping into a witch's own powers and manifesting them into whatever they wanted to do. It was purely based on will. No spirits, no good magic nor bad, just raw limitless power.

Lights flickered, enshrouding Damon and myself temporarily in darkness before popping back on as if a child were playing with the switch. Chairs flew from one end of the house to the other and crashed into various valuable objects. I ignored it all and kept chanting what I wanted to happen over and over in my head like a mantra. There was no stopping now.

"Bonnie." Damon's uneasy sigh called out, but it was too little too late. Breaking the link between myself and the magic I was tapping into wasn't an option any longer. I'd warned him about doing this and now there was no going back. No matter how much I wanted to.

I ignored not only his protests, but the damage this spell was causing. The table beneath Bilbo rattled as if an earthquake were taking place. I struggled to keep my balance as nausea swept over me like I were on a ship during tumultuous weather. My chest tightened and I grit my teeth, tasting copper as the blood drizzling from my nose met my lips.

"Bon-" Damon couldn't finish my name before he was thrown backwards. He collapsed into a bookshelf, tumbling onto the floor as Morella and Jake Barnes joined him.

This wasn't right. I felt cold – lifeless. Resuscitating a cat wasn't supposed to result in me aching to die as a scream ripped from my throat. Lightbulbs shattered, slicing deeply into my skin as the glass hailed onto me. Icy, boney fingers clawed at my soul, threatening to yank it away from me. I fought to endure it all. The only thing that pulled me through was ensuring Elena's happiness. I'd done so much to protect her that I couldn't bare letting her down and watch her lose something dear to her again. Not even a cat, because Bilbo meant so much too her. She'd gone through enough.

My body stiffened as if I'd been plagued with rigor mortis. All the magic engulfing me dissipated like particles in the wind. The pain dulled until no traces of my torment were left. My hearing had been replaced with a dull ringing and I wheezed out the last remnants of air in my lungs.

Atropos had snipped my thread of life.

The last thing I saw before my sight snapped to black and I fell to the floor was Damon's face riddled with mortification.