Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries nor am I making any profit from this. Characters, etc. all belong to their respective owners.
A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, etc.! I truly appreciate it!
Enjoy!
Bonnie's head is still whirling the next day as she gives Matt a lift for his shift at the Grille.
"You okay?" Matt asks, noticing Bonnie's knuckles have practically turned white from how hard she's clutching the steering wheel.
"Yeah, fine," Bonnie lies. No matter what, though, her mind keeps drifting back to the previous night.
"All these murders that have been occurring lately…the victims are all supernatural," Kol tells her.
Her jaw drops open and she steps farther away from him in surprise. "Wait," she whispers, shaking her head. "You're telling me that the family found murdered this morning in the town over, they…"
"Skinwalkers," he supplies helpfully. "Oh, come now, darling," he adds upon her look. "Surely you must have considered that creatures beyond witches, werewolves, and vampires exist."
Bonnie shakes her head. Yeah, she's wondered about it, but she figures that, with their luck, if anything else had existed that they would have run into by now. Then, something else occurs to her."
"But the Founders' Council," she replies weakly. "There's no way they were."
"Ah, no," Kol assures her. "That particular one was actually my doing. Wasn't easy getting all the vervain out of the good pastor. I couldn't quite pass up the irony…murder and suicide are two hefty sins. If you believe in that sort of thing, of course."
She stares at him speechlessly, more than a little horrified.
"I believe the words you're looking for are thank you," he continues, stepping closer to her, boots thudding heavily in the dirt.
Bonnie scoffs. "You made an innocent man commit suicide and mass murder and you're seriously looking for gratitude? Why the hell would I be grateful for that?"
"Innocent?" he repeats wryly with a smirk to match. "Hardly. They seemed perfectly content to attempt to kill you, your precious friends, and my sister simply for being what you are. Although, truth be told I actually thought that they might have been the ones doing all this," he gestures at the hybrid bodies lying on the ground. "But that's obviously giving them too much credit. Well, that and they were dead by the time these particular killings happened."
She doesn't know which to focus on. The fact that he's relishing in blowing up over a dozen people or that someone apparently was on a killing spree and the victims were all supernatural…that is, if Kol could be believed.
"Bonnie!" She jerks out of her thoughts, realizing that she's almost passed the Grille.
"Sorry," she mutters, quickly pulling into a spot.
Matt wants to ask her again what's wrong, but he doesn't. She'll deny anything being wrong once again, even though something clearly is.
"I think I'll grab a bite to go. I've got a lot of work to get done tonight," Bonnie says, unsnapping her seatbelt.
As they head into the Grille together, they notice a truck parked on the side of the road with a large red bow.
"I guess someone is get a very nice present tonight," Bonnie comments as they pass by the truck.
Matt grunts, but doesn't respond. He can't help the little twinge of jealousy. Some people had all the luck and just got things handed to them, while he…
He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. When they enter the Grille, he heads in back to get ready and Bonnie goes to order her food. Then, she goes to sit at a table, waiting for her order to be finished.
"Hey, judgey, swap any more bodies lately?" Damon asks dryly, as he slides into the seat across from her, a bottle of bourbon in hand.
"Why?" Bonnie asks dryly. "I'd be more than happy to put you in the body of a ninety-six year old grandma…all you have to do is ask nicely. Then again, no one deserves to have your soul stuck inside them."
"Rude."
"How's Elena?" Bonnie asks.
"Oh, now you care?"
Bonnie opens her mouth to give a sharp response, but becomes distracted when she overhears the new on one of the overhead TVs.
Yet another series of bodies have been found in the area. This time, the body of a man and a women were found in the Chub Sandhill Forest Preserve. Authorities are now looking into the possibility of a serial killer."
"Who names the forest preserves in this state?" Damon asks, glancing upwards at the TV.
Bonnie sharply hushes him, looking up at the TV. They were already moving onto a report about some art show that was coming to a nearby town.
"There's more every day," she murmurs.
"What?" Damon asks, confused.
"All these murders," Bonnie says. "There's been a lot of them…has anyone been looking into them?"
Damon shrugs, taking a swig from his bourbon. "There's been no reports about anything highly unusual about the deaths. No blood drained, no mauling. It's probably just some human serial killer."
"And what human serial killer can leave two or more bodies to be found by anyone without getting sloppy or leaving a trace?" She pauses. "Unless…"
Damon raises his eyebrows, motioning for her to continue.
"Alaric had gone on a killing spree before…"
"That was because of the rings," Damon interjects. "Emily is the only one that knew that spell and she only made two. So unless you've been taking a page out of her book lately—"
"I haven't. Still, something's not right." She doesn't know if she really believes what Kol had told her about all the victims being supernatural, but deep in her she could feel that something was just off.
"Why are you looking for trouble?" Damon asks, eyes narrowing on her.
"I'm not," she says flatly. "Trouble has been coming to me ever since you and Stefan came to town."
Her food couldn't have come at a more perfect time. She takes the box from the server and shoves some money at him, telling him to keep the change. As she leaves, Damon reaches out and snaps a hand around her wrist.
"Let go of me," she snaps, trying to pull away. His grip is iron, though.
"Look, all this anger…you better find a way to deal with it. Otherwise it's going to take you to some pretty dark places."
She actually laughs in his face. "That's really rich coming from you."
She leaves, ignoring the feeling of Damon's icy eyes boring into her back.
With a sigh, Bonnie pulls her into a ponytail as she emerges from her bathroom in a tank top and yoga pants. Heading over to her desk, she picks up the USB drive she had found by those hybrids' bodies last night. She had been up till the wee hours of the morning trying to crack it, but made no headway.
"Look, just stay the hell away from me," Bonnie snaps, moving to head back the way she came. She stops when she hears a crunch of plastic under her foot. Shining her phone done, she sees a USB drive. The black plastic covering had been cracked from her stepping on hit, but as she slides it out, the actual drive looks like is still intact.
"What's that?" Kol asks suddenly appearing next to her, causing her to jump.
"A USB," Bonnie replies. "You can put files from a computer on it so you can just plug it in and have your files on pretty much any computer," she clarifies upon his look of confusion. She supposes that Klaus must have had him in a coffin before things like computers and USBs existed.
"Hmm, interesting. Well, then, let's go take a look at what's on it." He places a hand on his back as if to guide her, but she jerks away from him.
"I don't think so," she says, closing her first firmly over the storage device.
Kol's lips thin out and he lets out an annoyed exhale.
"So how long do you think it'll be before you're a target? You can't afford to turn my assistance down."
"What do you care so much?" Bonnie asks. "Last I checked, Rebekah had taken the only white oak stake in the world after Alaric died."
"You say that like Rebekah can actually be trusted with such a thing. Besides, unlike my siblings, I don't quite believe in there being limitations when it comes to death. If someone really put their mind to it, I would be surprised if they could find a way to kill us. You almost managed to kill Niklaus with your magic."
She doesn't bother to correct him and tell him that it was actually the magic of a hundred dead witches. "Well, I'm sure this maybe come as a shocker to you, but I'm really not all that concerned about what happens to you and your family." With that, she gives him a try smile and walks away again, her curls whipping around her face.
"You better hope that if they decide to come for you that you're stronger than they," he calls out after her.
Bonnie sharply jerks out of her reverie when her phone starts to ring. It's Matt calling.
"Hey, Matt, you get off early or something?"
"Uh, no. I'm on break, actually. I just wanted to let you know that I don't need to keep mooching rides off of you. Rebekah…she, uh, gave me a new truck." He sounds a little sheepish as he says this.
"Oh, wow," Bonnie replies, blinking in surprise.
"Yeah. At first I was going to tell her where she could take her truck and shove it and hope that she didn't try to drown me again, but…"
"I don't blame you for keeping it," Bonnie says. She knows that Matt couldn't exactly afford a new truck.
"Yeah, anyway. I also wanted to check up on you. I know you keep saying that you're fine, but I'm not so convinced."
Bonnie sighs. It's not that she wants to lie to Matt. It's just that she doesn't even really know what's going on herself. And, no matter what it is, she especially doesn't want Matt to get involved. If someone (or something) was really killing off supernatural beings, Matt should be safe because he's human. She certainly wasn't going to risk that.
"Yeah. I swear, everything's fine. Or at least it will be. I'm just in a weird headspace right now because of everything that's happened."
"Okay…" Matt replies, clearly not appeased by that response. "Look, I got to get back to work, but if you need anything…"
"Thanks, Matt," Bonnie answers with a smile.
As she sets her phone down on the dark wood of her desk, she turns her attention back to the USB drive. Truth be told, she had no idea if it belonged to the killer or one of the hybrids. It was so heavily encrypted, that she couldn't get anything off it.
She pushes it into the side of her laptop and, just as she expected, the same encryption that had made her want to throw her computer out a window appeared in bright green letters. She likes to think that she's fairly tech-saavy…at least to an extent. She's certainly no computer whiz and has no idea how to make heads or tails out of this whole thing.
Maybe tomorrow she could talk one of the tech geeks at school into helping her out…
All she knows is that if this USB does belong to the killer and there's any answers to be found on it, she's not going to like a single one of those answers.
As Bonnie heads downstairs the next morning, she pauses. She could smell that coffee had already been made and someone was rustling papers in the kitchen. Cautiously, entering the kitchen, she's surprised to find her dad sitting at the table flipping through a hefty stack of papers.
"Morning," he greets her, looking up from his papers briefly.
"When did you get home?" Bonnie asks.
"Early this morning," he replies. "You were still asleep and I didn't want to wake you because it's a school night."
"So, are you going to be home for a while or are you going to be sent on another case?" she asks as she moves to pour herself a cup of coffee. Her dad tried to come home as often as he could, but work was demanding and he couldn't always help it.
"Actually, I've been put on a case here."
She almost drops her coffee all over the floor.
"What, you mean all the murders that have been happening in this area lately?" she asks, turning to face her dad, hoping that her hands aren't visibly shaking. She's clutching the mug so tightly, she's a little surprised the handle doesn't break off.
She remembers that the news report had mentioned last night that authorities were on the case, but she didn't think that they had meant that the FBI were being brought in. She also can't believe her dad had been assigned to this case.
"Actually, it's been more than lately. A lot of people seem have either died or mysteriously disappeared over the past year and a half," her father replies. He frowns as he finishes his words.
"And they put you on this case even though there's an obvious potential for a conflict of interest?"
"They were concerned, but in the end the bureau decided I'd be more of an asset than a liability on this case." He looks up at her. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. You know how I always get a little nervous when you're on a case?" That definitely isn't a lie.
"Don't worry, baby girl, I've been doing this a long time." He glances down at his watch. "You should be getting off to school. We can talk more over dinner tonight…mainly about how your grades have been slipping."
Bonnie gives him a tight smiles before grabbing her keys and bag and heading out the door. As she stands on her front porch, she lets out a hefty sigh and feels a deep seated worry set in her bones.
Honestly, she could never tell if her dad had believed Grams when she talked about witchcraft and pretended he didn't in hopes that she wouldn't get involved in that or if he really thought that Grams had just been a crazy drunk.
Either way…
She'd like to have hope that her dad is safe since he's human and all, but who knows who (or what) for that matter is really going on a killing spree. And if they (or it) found out her dad (or anyone, really) is investigating it…who knows what they (or it) would do? Not to mention if Kol is really telling the truth about there being more than just witches, vampires, and werewolves out there… Then, there's also the fact that Kol also killed the Founders' Council for apparently having discovered them all.
God, things were getting more and more complicated.
"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said this was complicated," Jake tells her as they sat in a computer lab during a free period.
Jake was the head of tech club and was usually put in charge of anything needing technology from school plays to official Mystic Falls events. If anyone could help her, short of some extremely advanced and expensive professional help, it'd be him.
"Yeah, I don't really understand any of it," Bonnie says, tucking a dark curl behind her ear.
"What is all this anyway?" Jake asks, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Uhm, it's something that I found in my Grams old house," Bonnie says. The lie rolls of her tongue flawlessly. She seems to be doing a lot of that lately. "Curiosity is kinda getting the better of me."
"Well, whatever it is, I think your grandma definitely wanted to keep it a secret," he says. "But, if I'm right, I think this is a code. If you know the password, you just type it in the bottom here," he gestures to the bottom of the screen where the encryption seemingly ends, "And then everything should unlock." He leans back in his seat and runs a hand through his spiky black hair.
Great, Bonnie thinks. And how the hell am I supposed to figure out the password?
"Well, hopefully, something will come to me then." She takes the USB from him after he pulls it out of the computer. "Thanks for your help, Jake."
"Sure thing. Let me know if you figure it out."
She smiles and nods, but, much to her disappointment, she has a feeling she'll never figure it out.
She's standing…somewhere. She can't exactly tell where. All she knows is that it's pitch black and she literally can't see a thing.
Then, like alight had suddenly snapped on, she could see everything. In front of her, laid a pile of dead bodies. She tries to scream, but no sound comes out.
She recognizes some of the faces from pictures in the news. And then there were the others—Caroline, Elena, Tyler, Stefan, Damon…and herself.
She squeezes her eyes shut, but she can't run away from it, can't scream.
A whispering begins. It starts softly and becomes louder and louder and it reminds her of the old witch house, how the spirits of the dead witches would sometimes whisper and hiss things at her. There's only one word she can decipher out of it all.
"Vicki, Vicki, Vicki, Vicki…"
Bonnie's eyes snap open and she places a hand on her rapidly beating heart. It almost feels like it's about to come bursting out of her chest any moment. She shakily lays back, trying to process it all.
It's a message, she realizes. It has to be. But…Vicki? What about Vicki? What the hell could she have to do with anything? Unless…
She practically launches herself out of bed, nearly tripping over her bedsheets. She impatiently waits for her laptop to load, jamming the USB port into the side of her compute.
When the bright green lettering pops up again, she quickly types Vicki. An error message pops up. She slumps back into her cheer, frustration and disappointment creeping up again. Because of her dreams she'd been so sure…
She tries again, this time typing Vicki Donovan.
To her surprise the green code and black screen bleed away to reveal a white one with black typing.
Virginia – List 1
Klaus Mikaelson – 150
Elijah Mikaelson - 100
Kol Mikaelson - 100
Rebekah Mikaelson - 100
Bonnie Bennett - 75
Tyler Lockwood - 50
Dylan McDonald – 50
Sylvia Perez – 50
Gray Stevens -50
Jared Lee – 50
Alanna Burke -50
Nathaniel Higashimura – 50
Dean Smith – 50
Kimberly Diaz – 50
Christopher Burt - 50
Samantha Mills - 50
Zoe Hart – 50
Daniel Jung – 45
Kristen Bernhardt – 40
Thomas MacMillan - 40
Payment sent upon visual confirmation.
Press ENTER for next list.
Eyebrows furrowing, Bonnie presses her enter key. She's faced with another code. Only this time, her newly discovered password doesn't work on this list.
Okay, but what is this list, Bonnie wonders, hitting the backspace to get back to the first list. None of this makes any sen…
And then her blood in her veins goes cold as she realized exactly what this is.
It's a hitlist.
A/N: *cue dramatic music*
So, I know in the show they had mentioned that Bonnie's dad was a traveling pharmaceutical rep or something. In this he's a FBI agent. It's a lot cooler and adds more drama.
Anyway, thanks for reading and, as always, reviews are very much appreciated!