Revelation
"Why didn't you just tell us where the Ascendant was in the first place?" Kai asked, shielding his eyes from the sun.
Bonnie Bennett sat in a branch, holding the Ascendant above her as she squinted through the gears, apparently trying to figure out something with the instrument and the sunlight. Against the glare, all Kai could make out of her were the glints of red in her curls and one long shapely leg dangling from the tree. She had scrambled up it in her extremely short skirt without so much as a by your leave. Kai had gone bright red, then automatically turned to give her the privacy she didn't seem to need, glaring at Damon until the vampire had stopped gaping and done the same.
"You got to cop a feel, didntcha?" She answered back and even though he couldn't see her face, he could hear the smirk in her voice.
His face got even redder as blood rushed through his ears, reliving that moment.
Damon guffawed.
"There's something wrong with her," Kai whispered fierecely to Damon. She wanted something else from them, he just knew it.
Damon snorted, eyes fixed at the figure in the tree, the stupid grin on his face telling how thoroughly he was enjoying the view. "You're just not used to girls hitting on you."
Kai shot him an angry glare. "I can't wait until we're back home and I can talk to some other people."
"Great. I've found the best spot!" Bonnie yelled.
Kai didn't care what Damon thought. The vampire was so eager to get home that he bluntly refused to see all the holes in Bonnie Bennett's story. Or question why she refused to tell them how long she'd been in this place, but she had the Ascendant and seemed to know just what they needed to escape.
And now this: this place had the same never-changing day repeating over and over again. And she was only just now figuring out the best spot?
The best spot for what exactly, Kai didn't know. Just that it was obviously something Bonnie didn't need magic to find.
Some things just didn't add up.
"I'm going to jump. Kai, come catch me!"
Kai's ears burned and he tried to avoid the meaningful look that Damon threw at him. "Er… D-Damon's the vampire. H-he's stronger," he stuttered out. And he immediately wanted to kick himself but he couldn't take the words back.
Now, Damon was giving him a look Kai was more - and painfully - familiar with. The 'you're useless and too stupid to be alive' look. Then he stepped forward – a little too eagerly, in Kai's opinion – to catch her.
She didn't give a word of warning. One moment, her second leg had joined the first that was dangling and the next, she was in Damon's arms, her long curls hanging over his arm. They stayed in that position a little too long in Kai's opinion before Damon slowly lowered her to her feet. Even then, one long, slender arm stayed around the vampire's shoulder.
"I guess chivalry is literally dead," she said in a low voice that seemed to shake something inside Kai. Only she was speaking to Damon and staring up at him with those large, green eyes of hers.
For a split second, a red haze filled Kai's vision and he imagined burning Damon with his mind.
Damon's back was to Kai and he and Bonnie were angled in a way that Kai had a partial view of her heart-shaped face and the slow smile that was spreading across it. It was a smile that sent a flush of heat through Kai, and he wasn't even on the receiving end of it.
But he would have been if he hadn't been so chicken-shit and he wondered if he could discreetly kick his head with his foot without either of the other two noticing.
Instead, he kicked a stone on the ground and watched it bounce of the newspaper a few feet away.
Damon and Bonnie were still standing in each other's arms, talking in low voices. After four months of hearing Damon harp on about Elena, he sure wasn't acting like someone that had a girlfriend, Kai thought furiously.
He kicked another stone at the paper, looked up and then inhaled sharply, because Bonnie was watching him now, and those swimming green eyes seemed to trap him where he stood, like a fly in a web. He swallowed hard. She pouted, her full lower lip jutting out and Kai felt his chest tighten as he imagined what it would be like to -
Then she tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned to Damon, laughing up at him.
Kai felt his face burn.
After a moment of standing frozen like an idiot, he stomped angrily to the newspaper and picked it up, rattling the pages noisily with the hope of getting the attention of the the other two.
Then something caught his eye – a side article that he had seen a million times but it struck his interest because of what Bonnie had casually said a few hours ago.
'The Ascendant is in Portland.'
'Arson – Kids Massacred in Portland.'
He opened the newspaper.
"All these children were murdered?"
Bonnie sighed.
"Answer me!" Kai shouted, feeling sick, and he didn't know he had moved towards her until he felt Damon's hand at the back of his shirt, holding him back.
"Hey, not everyone died," Bonnie stated. She rolled her eyes. "Obviously, or you won't be here going all judgy-eyed at me. Josie was the only one of Abby's friends that was ever nice to me so I just carved out her spleen."
Kai gagged.
"You can survive without a spleen," Bonnie said casually. "But yeah, I pretty much tied up everyone else and set the house on fire. Appropriate right? Witches. Fire. Burning… Get it?"
When Damon and Kai just stared at her with stony faces, she tossed her hair out of her eyes. "Clearly not. This was fun and I'm sure you have so many questions about your mom's pot smoking days, but can we get moving, Kai? The eclipse is not going to wait for us."
"You were right," Kai said faintly to Damon. "This place is a prison."
"Yup," Bonnie said, her green eyes glinting, full lips curling into a dangerous smile. Behind her, the sun darkened as the eclipse started, and the shadows around her deepened.
I liked her. I was attracted to this. Kai could finally admit that to himself, now that horror and self-disgust were warring inside him. A part of him reminded him that he probably still was, but he pushed it down far into his gut.
"Only it's not Damon's prison, Kai. It's mine."
A/N: This is dedicated to everyone who has left a review! It is always a pleasure to get feedback, so please keep them coming. Also, my fics are unbeta'd so if you notice typos, etc, I'd appreciate you let me know so I can edit. Sorry I didn't get to do any specific requests but maybe next time... :)
