A/N: I really liked writing this chapter. It was kind of cathartic after that finale. I hope you guys feel the same. No Bonkai interaction-well, maybe a little but not really. You'll see. Can't wait to get your thoughts. And as always, thanks for reading and reviewing.
Oh, and someone asked why Bonnie didn't get caught when Kai touched her last chapter. Bonnie was afraid of his touch b/c of his siphoning. But with the veil spell up, even if her magic was out, Kai couldn't see her aura. If he got it into his head to try to siphon again or if she outright used magic were the only ways for him to know. Which her magic did leak out at one point, but *ahem* he was otherwise too busy to notice. ;)
And one last oh...I am totally taking liberties with the whole Expression magic thing. Excuse anything that doesn't mesh with canon. Ha. Canon. Ugh. Anyway, enjoy. :)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He knew as soon as she left.
With the other women clucking all around, fussing over Liv and serving as obstacles between him and the door, he couldn't get to Bonnie in time to leave with her. It didn't surprise him, her escape. He was quick to pick up on things and she had broadcasted her intent with her behavior after the other two returned to the room. But Kai had patience on his side. Her skittishness was an inconvenience he could learn to live with.
After making his own excuses to his sister, and disentangling Fiona from his side, he made his way to Bonnie's room. She wasn't there.
Frustration surged over him, not all of it sexual in nature. Much as he'd tried to persuade himself at first that this was just a mundane attraction to a pretty face attached to a mysterious personality, he knew now that wasn't what was happening here.
He liked just talking to her, as much as he did tonguing her nipple and hearing her moan.
Tearing off women's lacy underthings to engage in raunchy sex was nothing new. And, okay, yes, those things and more, he wanted to do with Bonnie. Repeatedly and in numerous positions. But he had control, dammit. If it wasn't a normal girl at a random bar, it was a witch sending him magical smoke signals, looking for a meaningless hookup or trying to entice him into a relationship for the benefit of strengthening community alliances. Whichever way, he didn't break. The liaisons he had, he chose them, whether human or witch, and they never lasted more than a few weeks at a time. Relationships...well, come to think of it, he had no use for those. The closest he'd ever allowed himself to dabble in that nonsense was that one time, with the succubus when he was a teenager and attempting weird things; and that other time, with the nymphomaniac older Gypsy who knew all the tantric mystical spells and had completely invaded every part of his smaller brain, for an entire summer.
Now, though. That manic feeling under his skin when he was around Bonnie...the manner in which his closely guarded thoughts scattered to the wind when he interacted with her. That was new. Not normal.
While he couldn't honestly say that he liked it, one thing he was sure of was that he couldn't get enough of it.
Downstairs, he prowled the lobby and the other conference rooms. Still no Bonnie, although plenty of other guests loitered, dressed and eager to catch a glimpse of anyone interesting. He had to stop and play host periodically, here exchanging meaningless words with the humans among the crowd, there reading into subtext in his chit chat with the witches, a number of them uniformly seeming to expect two things: that papa Parker was going to put in a surprise appearance, and more importantly, that Tyler wasn't.
Because with an hour and a half left before the ceremony, the groom had been noticeably hiding himself away.
"He keeps saying he's almost done," Dex reported. "But he won't let anyone in. Matt went to drop off his tux and Tyler made him hang it on the doorknob outside his room. It's still there."
"Where's Matt?"
Dex shrugged. "He said he had some things to take care of, I guess he needed to get ready, too."
Kai rolled his head to look up in aggravation, holding back a curse. Why Tyler's own best man didn't think to explore this potential problem with the groom, who knew? He was sorely tempted to kick the bucket and have Dex track Matt down.
Here was Bonnie, missing, and the window of time that he had with her getting narrower and narrower.
Such bad timing.
With quick, precise steps, in no time at all, Kai stood in front of Tyler's room. He scooped the tux up and looped it over his shoulder as he leaned against the door frame, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Knock, knock!" he called loudly. "It's Kai, your future favorite brother-in-law!"
"Leave me alone..." came the raspy, weak voice on the other side.
Kai dropped his act as he straightened, eyeing the door. "Tyler, what the hell is going on? You sound like you're dying in there, or at least ate a severely expired dairy product."
No answer.
His hand hovered a few inches over the knob, an instant tell-tale click reaching his ears. Having instructed the other men to stay downstairs, Kai took a quick glance around the empty hall, making sure nobody was on hand to catch a glimpse of whatever was going on behind the door.
"Hope you're decent, because I'm coming in!"
Still no answer.
Turning the knob, Kai stepped inside the room. The shades were drawn and none of the lights on, but it was mid-afternoon and daylight still seeped through enough that he saw, with perfect clarity, Liv's groom-to-be huddled in a fetal position on the bed, shaking and breathing unevenly.
"Huh," he said to himself, blinking away surprise. "That's never a good sign."
He moved quickly to the other man. Tyler was drenched in sweat, his face pallid. Kai didn't even need to put his hand on him to feel if he was warm, the heat rising from the other man's body was enough to know. Thinking quickly, he rubbed his hands together, then blew out a breath and held them a few inches above Tyler. He closed his eyes in concentration.
"Sanare infirmitatem bene, sanare infirmitatem bene..."
Several minutes later, as his magic began to weaken, Kai struggled to keep the incantation going when he saw that Tyler's condition was slightly improved. Healing spells, especially his, never took this damn long to take effect. Whatever was wrong with the other man, it was serious. Poison was Kai's guess. He poured more of his magic into his casting, changing up his words. After another moment, Tyler shifted position. No longer huddled, he lay now on his back, his breathing a little more regular. When he sat up, Kai stopped chanting.
"You okay?"
The other man brought a hand up to his head, shaking it. "No." He struggled to his feet. "I need to find Bonnie."
Kai took in that statement with a clenched jaw. "Really?" he asked lightly.
Tyler gasped as he stepped forward.
"You're not much in any position to be out and about."
"I'll feel better," Tyler managed. "When I'm outside."
Kai took a closer look at the other man's face, still drawn and pale. "Call me crazy, Tyler, which incidentally you already have-but I'm gonna go out on another limb and say that's a bad idea."
"Don't get in my way!" the other man growled.
Kai nodded, shrugging. "Ookay," he said, as Tyler walked with shaky steps to the door.
Seconds later, he was asleep on the floor, knocked out by a sleeping spell.
Kai sauntered over to his prone form. "Technically, it's not getting in your way," he said cheekily. "If you decide to take a nap before reaching the door."
He pondered his next step, thinking of the other man's plan to find Bonnie. Now what, Kai wondered, could a human woman do for someone in his condition, that would make her be the first person Tyler looked to for help? Not Liv, or Luke, or Kai himself, or any of the other witches. Interesting, that.
Not for the first time since the weekend started, he remembered his father's ominous warnings. He contemplated the sick, sleeping man on the floor, leaning the lower part of his nose and mouth between his thumb and index finger.
Outside of whatever was ailing Tyler, something was clearly just not right about him. And probably with his friends. Most definitely with Bonnie, was the next thought that hit Kai with such deep, profound hurt that he couldn't see straight for a minute there.
At the end of the minute, though, he knew.
It was time for him to stop overlooking things.
Someone pounded on the door. "Hey, man!" came what sounded like an aggravated voice. "Are you ready in there? People are asking questions."
Kai strode to the door. Opening it, he found Matt on the other side.
"Well, what do you know, the best man," Kai said, his voice scornful. "FYI, you're kind of a fail."
Matt rushed in, face accusing as he took in Tyler's unconscious form. "What the hell did you do to him?" he demanded.
Kai brought his hands up, eyes widening in mock outrage. "Me? Nothing. I mean, put him out of his misery temporarily for a bit, yeah. He's sleeping. But Tyler has some serious issues that I definitely had nothing to do with." His tone became less amused. "Your friend is very sick."
Matt leaned over Tyler's form. "What's wrong with him?"
"Dunno," Kai said. "Actually, he looks better than when I got here. My healing spell worked a little, but wouldn't you know it, the idiot thought he was well enough to go out and look for Bonnie." He tilted his head and eyed Matt closely. "Why do you suppose that is, hmm? Your girlfriend a doctor or something?"
Matt's face assumed a closed-off expression, shuttered and unreadable. It was almost impressive, and Kai recalled Liv introducing him as the deputy sheriff in his hometown.
"You know, I was really hoping," he said with a dramatic sigh. "That you of all people would be a little more forthcoming. Officer of the law and everything, right?" Kai shook his head. "Shame, that. For you, I mean."
Pulling himself back up to a stand, Matt adjusted the glasses on his face, the lines of his body tense. Kai saw his hand drop to his hip, a subtle movement that Kai knew brought the other man well within reaching distance of what was probably a concealed gun.
"We need to get Tyler help," Matt said in a low, even tone. His police officer voice.
They faced each other across the room, resembling to Kai's amusement one of those old Western cowboy faceoffs. "You ever watch reruns of Bonanza when you were a kid?" he said, almost laughing. "Because I'm getting that vibe here."
"Is everything a joke to you?"
"No, not everything." Kai angled his head, a hand going to his mouth in thought. "Betrayal of trust, for example? Not funny to me."
Matt grimaced. "What're you talking about, Kai?"
"Well, Matt," he raised his brows pointedly. "Since you're a cop and supposedly trained to spot things that appear off...care to explain to me why you, Tyler over there, and your oh so lovely and supposed girlfriend strike me as being...I don't know...not what you appear?" His hands gestured carelessly. "Bonnie's ditzy act, I already flushed out. And last night, you pretty much confirmed that you two are not an item."
"You stay away from Bonnie."
Kai waved dismissively. "Ah, too late. Seriously, she and I are way past that." He stopped, faltering for a moment, as her face floated to mind. Flaring his nostrils in annoyance, he willed the image gone. "See, I can tell you're one of those Old Yeller type of boyfriends, you know the kind that's annoyingly faithful and protective. And come on, there's Bonnie. I can't imagine you'd really be dumb enough to jeopardize losing a woman like her over just anyone. Because that's what happened last night, right? You were getting so busy with the stripper slash bartender in the back room of the pool hall you couldn't even make it out in time to keep Tyler from getting bit by a vampire." He took a step forward, his face grim. "And now, here's Tyler. Poisoned, I think. But, instead of reacting like any other normal human to a basic healing spell-everything about him is wonky."
"How do you know it's poison?" Matt demanded.
"I don't, it's my best guess." Kai narrowed his eyes at the man. "Here's what I'm thinking. How about you volunteer to tell me the truth about you and your Mystic Falls friends?"
The blonde man stood in silent defiance.
"No? Okay." Kai's head tilted, as he let his smile grow sharp. "I'll just dig it out of you."
Matt's hand flew just as Kai's fingers twitched. The other man suddenly began choking, hands clawing at his neck as his breath came out in short, jerky wheezes. Kai strolled up to him, watching as the invisible sleeper hold knocked the man unconscious.
"There was a less painful way to do that," he muttered. "But you're really irritating."
Snapping his fingers, the two men slid against the far wall, their forms sprawled next to each other. Tyler's face appeared to be growing haggard again, his sleep disturbed.
Kai cursed, rubbing his hand over his stubble, shaking his head in disbelief. It was almost funny, really, because Joshua Parker had been a little bit right after all.
One of Kai's worst memories was of watching his father and mother gather the elders in a candle-lit room, with him and Jo standing back to back in a circle. Their bare feet surrounded in etchings drawn from the blood of the elders in the coven, Jo had been frightened of everything-the hooded people, the circle, the candles. But not Kai. His father had taught him about the proferrance ceremony, another of the Parker family's contribution to Gemini tradition. When the blood on the circle dissipated, Jo and Kai would have their powers, his father had told him excitedly.
Jo had cried from the pain of the ritual, but once the blood disappeared, Kai remembered his father's face, so proud, because behind him, scaredy-cat Jo had done something with her shiny new magic. And then that proud face had turned to Kai, waiting and waiting. And nothing had happened. Kai had panicked, reached out blindly for his sister's hand behind him. When Jo started screaming-and his father's face had gotten so ugly, like he wanted to throw up, and his mother had started crying-Kai hadn't been sure why they weren't happier. Because suddenly, he had waved his hands around and the spark of flames dancing atop all the candles had all died. So they should've been proud of him, too.
That was the first time that Kai had known that there was something very, very wrong. It was a visceral moment that stayed with him, embedded deep in his gut and even seeping into his bones. It was why he always, always trusted his instincts.
Until now. The nagging sense of fuckery afoot had been plaguing him from the beginning of the weekend, and for one reason or another, from a distraction here and there-mainly Bonnie-Kai had let it slide until this point. But now, it wouldn't do anymore to keep ignoring his gut.
Now, he was fed up.
Whistling, he set to work with a smile.
Bonnie found her sitting on a bench overlooking the lake. The strangest thing about it, she wasn't aware that she'd even been looking for the woman. Until the moment her eyes set upon Maggie Durant's tranquil face, wearing the gentlest, most understanding smile, Bonnie had been wandering aimlessly around the grounds, lost in a storm of conflicted thoughts, most of them centering around her questionable judgment in general, and Kai Parker in particular.
A maudlin wave of feelings was threatening to overtake her, and made her want to give herself an aneurysm. Seeing Maggie helped.
Without a word, she took the seat beside the woman. For a long time, there was no sound except a few birds, the gentle swaying of branches in the forest behind them, and the rustle of small animals scurrying among the dead leaves. The water was before them was calm, unmoving, offering a dark reflection of the cloudless skies above. Giving Bonnie no comfort in its stillness. Her turmoil needed venting.
Her fingers twitched, and the center of the lake simmered in response. In another moment, the water rose to a boil, as steam began to rise. Bonnie watched it, her furrowed brows clearing slowly. She heard the pop and hiss of more water bubbling to the surface of the heated lake. A fine mist grew out, spreading across to mar the picture perfect vista from before. Soon they could no longer see the lodge behind the fog.
"Bonnie," came Maggie's quiet voice.
Leaning back against the bench, Bonnie sighed. The simmering boil in the middle of the lake eased abruptly, leaving just remnants of steam. Bonnie turned her face up, closing her eyes, finding comfort in the fine mist landing on her lashes and cheeks.
She exhaled slowly, turning to face Maggie. "I'm ready," she said simply, tears brimming in her eyes.
Maggie reached over, embracing her, and much as she tried not to, Bonnie couldn't help a lone tear from falling down one cheek. She wiped it off right away. When she leaned back, Maggie had a handkerchief out.
Bonnie raised a brow, her eyes now dry.
"Oh," Maggie said, putting away the linen square. "Marvelously quick recovery."
Bonnie laughed, long and loud, and it felt nice to let it out this way rather than to cry.
Maggie patted her hand. "What is always expected to remain strong can sometimes turn brittle," she said. "I'm very glad to see in your case, that doesn't apply."
Bonnie sighed deeply.
"'All great and precious things are lonely,'" Maggie said, smiling sadly. "That's a line from one of my favorite books. Have you ever read East of Eden, Bonnie? Time was, it used to be common reading in high school. I don't know about now."
Bonnie nodded. "I read it one summer. Long time ago."
"Do you recall the characters Cal and Aron?"
"The brothers based on Cain and Abel?"
Maggie stared out at the water again. "Their mother was a prostitute, a toxic presence in the story. Cal took after her in personality, showing evil tendencies. Aron was more like his father, good hearted."
Bonnie frowned, because she remembered the book a little differently. "Cal overcame his inherent evil, though. And Aron was weak, he used different things to escape from the real world. He was always so sensitive and..." Bonnie paused, her face clearing as she glanced intently at Maggie. "...moral."
Maggie remained quiet. Bonnie tried to wrap her head around what Maggie wasn't saying. If she recalled correctly, it was a combination of Cal's actions and Aron's choices that had indirectly resulted in Aron's death. How did this have any bearing on Bonnie now? Was Maggie implying she resembled Aron?
"I thought my Grams cornered the market on cryptic messages," Bonnie muttered, "But you might be edging her out." A sense of foreboding rose from her stomach to her chest and latched on. "Maggie, tell me what you know about Kai Parker. Please."
For the first time, the older woman's aquamarine eyes held shadows when she returned Bonnie's gaze.
"You warned me that I would make an enemy of someone that could be my greatest ally. It's him, right? I need to know more."
"I'm not averse to sharing what's within my right." The old woman appeared forbidding. "But I would hate to see him hurt. I'm rather fond of the boy, you see."
"Would you believe," Bonnie said in a bitter undertone. "Might be getting there myself."
Maggie's eyes softened.
"But he could hurt my friends."
"It speaks volumes you didn't say that he could hurt you. Or you, him."
It was true enough, she knew. They each could wreck the other badly enough, if the intent was to engage Kai and the rest of his coven in a winner-take-all battle. But this wasn't their plan. At the outset, she, Liv, and the others had promised to take the road of least resistance, fleeing at the smallest sign of trouble in order to avoid any casualties. The plan hadn't sat well with Bonnie at first, because it was patently ridiculous to think people could avoid getting hurt in a witch fight. But Liv had begged on behalf of her family, for Bonnie to use extreme caution. And she had compromised, that if she had to use any of her magic, it would only be to disable, not permanently harm. Especially when it came to drawing from Expression, Bonnie knew to tread far more carefully with that, making a promise to herself to use it only in the direst of need.
And now it made her ill, the possibility of needing to use it against Kai, even if it was only to neutralize him. What made it worse was, without flinching, she could picture him unleashing his powers on her. Yet what triggered the gnawing hurt in her chest was imagining herself doing the same to him. She tried to shake her head free of the self-flagellation-never an attractive habit, and one of her worst.
She was really beyond screwed.
"That implies either you care little if each of you were to destroy the other," Maggie said gently. "Or too much." She paused. "Is the very idea painful, Bonnie?"
Bonnie stilled, saying determinedly, "I have to protect my friends, Maggie."
The other woman heaved a disappointed sigh. "For being Sheila Bennett's granddaughter, you can be quite reckless." She turned in her seat to face Bonnie fully. "Have you considered that other livelihoods rest in the balance? Outside of your friends? I'm sure you know about the merge ceremony."
Bonnie nodded.
"Winning it gave Kai true leadership in the coven. It doesn't signify that officially, he's only the heir. Joshua may hold the title, but the ritual bonding and the permanent powers that Kai gained point to the truth." Maggie nodded to the lodge. "Inside that building are men, women, and children whose lives are linked to the Gemini coven leader. If Kai was killed, you would be killing them as well. Are you prepared to have their blood on your hands?"
Bonnie shook her head, still calm. "No, I'm not. He isn't going to die..." she stopped, disturbed at the echo of these words in her mind. "I don't want my friends hurt, but where do you get that I'm willing to go to the extremes of killing off an entire coven for it? Or Kai? At a wedding?" She scoffed in disbelief. "Give me some credit."
"From my own observation, you've willingly died for your friends. On a regular basis, you put yourself in harm's way for them without much heed. For a Bennett witch to feel the need to sacrifice herself so often, as if her life were worth so little...exactly how much credit should I be giving you, Bonnie? From what I've seen of some of your friends, they don't deserve all your trouble, my dear. And if you value your life so little compared to theirs, how much worse would you value the lives of other witches, for the sake of your friends?"
Bonnie glared at her. "I guess you've been keeping tabs on me."
"Sheila threatened to haunt me otherwise. What else could I do?" She reached out, her wrinkled fingers a soothing maternal touch on Bonnie's cheek. "I'm sorry that you've been alone for so long. You should have been among others of your kind. The benefit is that you, my dear girl, have quite a unique perspective for someone whose witch bloodlines date back thousands of years." The smile she gave was sudden and brilliant, like the sun breaking through a bundle of clouds. "No one could ever accuse you of being a snob."
"I thought you were going to talk about Kai," Bonnie said, uncomfortable because she wasn't liking the focus on her shortcomings and the pitfalls of her lone witch upbringing.
Maggie laughed. "A Bennett daughter raised outside the constrictions of normal witch society is as fascinating a subject matter as the Gemini coven's prodigal son." Her smile waned. "My only wish is to help you both."
"So help me understand him," Bonnie pleaded. "Liv told me only a little about their childhood. How their father is."
"Joshua Parker is a poor excuse of a father," Maggie said sharply. "As a coven leader, he was effective because of intimidation tactics and the alliances he built. All of his children were only ever an extension of the influence that Parker family power could yield him. He had his favorites, as a result. You've met some of them."
"Kai wasn't one of them."
"Oh, you misunderstand, Bonnie. In the beginning he was. Joshua gave Kai the world for a few years. Ruthlessness and cunning are what made his leadership work. Joshua was overjoyed to see his firstborn inherit those traits."
None of that gave Bonnie any reassurance.
"But when the boy showed his natural ability as a siphoner, that all disappeared." Maggie sighed. "What was once a nurturing environment turned into-well, neglect and abuse. You can imagine how that would have affected a boy like Kai. It got so bad, he routinely killed the animals in the family pens, that Joshua used for ritual sacrifice."
"Revenge," Bonnie muttered, not to try to excuse Kai, but because imagining herself in his shoes, she might've considered doing the same. The thought suddenly shocked her. She was sympathizing too much with him, allowing her feelings to color her better judgment. Stockholm syndrome.
"His mother tried interventions," Maggie continued, "But after the initial evaluation by a psychiatrist, Joshua took over and used it as a platform to keep Kai in isolation." Maggie paused. "All, mind you, while they were also raising seven other children in relative normalcy. Well, as close to normal as possible, when one's father is Joshua."
Bonnie tried and failed to picture such a household, of a family living day to day, with one child locked away somewhere in abject misery. There was never a cure for the trauma of an abusive childhood, she knew this. But the Kai that she'd gotten to know didn't fit the bill of a psychopath. Somehow, he'd worked his way through this, and even if he was damaged goods, he didn't appear to be beyond repair.
Bonnie's anger burned bright, as she asked, "What the hell kind of mother lets that happen to their child? I think I would kill anyone if they ever tried."
Maggie smiled sadly. "His mother was a victim in her own way, Bonnie. She was firmly under the control of Joshua Parker." Her smile turned cold. "The coven nearly fell apart when she placed the hex on Joshua. It gave her enough time to set Kai up under his grandfather's guardianship. It also left a permanent imprint on Joshua. He was never the same after that. Merely a husk of his former self. Another small blessing, that. The poor woman at least had a measure of peace for a few years, before she died of a stroke."
Bonnie wondered if mother and son had ever reconciled properly, if she had ever sought atonement, if Kai had even been inclined to forgive. It was all so fucked up, and made her abandonment issues with her own mother look like small peas in comparison.
"Kai returned for her funeral, and shortly after he stepped into his role, following the merge with Jo. He performed a spell that, combined with his siphoning, took only her powers without taking her life." Maggie looked once more out to the water, her eyes troubled. "His resurfacing caused quite a stir, you can imagine. The entire coven feared retribution. They were all guilty of participating in Joshua's abuse, or at minimum, condoning it."
Yet here they all were, enjoying the easy life courtesy of a Parker family wedding. And it seemed to her like the one person at the helm responsible for keeping things sailing on smooth waters, was the very same one who had probably earned the right to sink the whole damn ship if he so wished. And take the rest of the coven with them.
"So the million dollar question," Bonnie said. "Why didn't Kai do anything to these people? If he was the monster they all claimed?"
"When I met Kai, he was seventeen, charming, and well on his way to becoming unhinged. That version of him, left unchecked, I could believe capable of all kinds of violence towards his family and the coven." Maggie's shoulders lifted. "Throughout the years, the few times that Theo brought him round, I saw some progress with each visit. His eyes, they became less and less empty in slow degrees."
Kai's face flickered up in Bonnie's mind, exactly as it had looked when they'd shared a laugh in Liv's room. Open and inviting, as if he could warm her with just his gaze.
"The year that both his grandfather and his mother died, I thought to check on the boy. What do I find but him living as a recluse?" Maggie shivered. "Dreadful. I nearly leveled a small town arguing with him about rejoining the real world, as his grandfather would have wanted."
"Kai didn't want to?"
"Grief," Maggie said softly. "He was heartbroken, Bonnie. I think for the first time in his life." Maggie smiled sadly. "It took Theo twenty years to decondition Kai from the idea that he was a monster. And his death to cement the boy's humanity."
Bonnie's throat closed up, and tears stung her eyes again, but she focused on Maggie's words. "Twenty years? But he doesn't look much older than me."
Maggie patted her hand, her head shaking. "Sometimes," she said under her breath. "I really feel as though if Sheila were here, I could throttle the woman."
"Sorry, I didn't realize that I was-supposed to know the answer to that already?" Bonnie asked in confusion.
"Pocket dimension," Maggie said succinctly. "Every so often they pop up, and the Geminis have been known to dabble in it." She seemed to want to add something else, but then shook her head. "Notoriously difficult to create. They serve many purposes, but in the case of Theo and Kai, it became a haven. It also kept them both from aging, as time doesn't progress in these worlds the way it does normally."
"That kind of spell..." Bonnie was flabbergasted. "Serious mojo, there." She caught the flash of distress on the woman's face that vanished as quickly as it came. "Maggie, what is it?"
The other woman's smile appeared strained, to Bonnie's well-honed eye. "Merely trying to decide the necessary things to share," she admitted. "What I can I tell you, is after a good deal of trial and error, some of them painful for both parties, Kai received the upbringing that he should've had from the outset. Theo set it up so that half the year they were in the pocket dimension, Kai learning how to function as both a witch and a normal human-with feelings and morality and such...and the remaining half of the year, they put his learning to the test by bringing themselves back to the real world. He learned socialization in this way. By the end, just before his grandfather died, he excelled at it." Maggie shrugged in disdain. "It's why he's now considered quite the catch among the witch covens hoping to strengthen alliances. You've met Fiona, I think?"
Bonnie refrained from snorting.
"She's one of many women keeping an eye on that empty seat beside Kai in the council."
It escaped Bonnie why she should care about any of that and paid it no thought despite the way Maggie kept looking at her. She drew in a long breath, her mind sifting through the new information, and grabbed the other woman's hands gratefully. "I know you didn't have to share all of this. Thank you."
"Oh, Bonnie," Maggie said, her eyes filled with concern. "I did. And I'm not quite done. There are other things you must know."
Bonnie sensed the change in her tone, and moved sideways in the bench, bringing her legs up to sit cross-legged as Maggie sat back in her seat, her aqua gaze appearing far-off.
"Sorcery is a befuddling thing," she said. "So many arcane and varying types of practices to find. I'm sure you've encountered your share. Such as Expression magic. Volatile, that."
Bonnie kept steady eyes on the woman.
"Brave or foolhardy," Maggie said aloud, as if griping to someone. "I'll never know."
Bonnie smiled. "You sound like Grams."
"Oh, dear, I hope not. Your grandmother was quite the nag." Maggie shuddered. Then she shifted in her seat. "Do you know what I miss about Sheila? She had such excellent timing. I try, but I just don't have her style."
"I don't know, you seemed to pop up at the right moment just now."
"Utter coincidence, I assure you," Maggie said. "Or perhaps destiny decided for us." She hesitated. "Do you believe in fate, child?"
Bonnie shrugged. "I haven't made up my mind," she said truthfully. There were far too many senseless acts of horror that she'd witnessed, to make her believe that such things happened for a reason. But then other times, things fell into place so perfectly that she had no difficulty envisioning a guiding hand behind.
After several moments of quiet, Maggie turned her eyes back to the lake. "When I was young, I always played in my mother's garden," she said. "One rather ordinary day, there I was-all alone, I thought-except for a girl that suddenly walked by. She was smiling and laughing, but I couldn't hear her. She had my favorite doll in her hand. And her face was my own. It drove me mad for weeks, seeing her."
Bonnie lifted a questioning glance.
"My coven convinced my parents to put me in-well, it basically amounted to an asylum, for witches."
"Why would they do that?" Bonnie asked, horrified.
"Not to worry, darling, I escaped. Although it was indeed the worst summer of my life."
"Who was the little girl? A ghost?"
Maggie blinked. "Haven't you been paying attention, child? It was me."
"Astral projection?" Bonnie asked.
Maggie shook her head.
Suddenly Bonnie remembered one of her grandmother's grimoires, dedicated to cross-universe spell casting. It had been one of the most difficult tomes to work through, appearing at times more like an astrophysics and cosmology text. "An alternate version of you," she said, wonderingly.
Maggie's face brightened in approval. "Just so."
"I read about it," Bonnie said in awed tones, "but never heard of anyone making contact with themselves."
"Not quite contact, rather it was more...a telepathic imprint. She and I never spoke. I don't even believe she was aware of my presence." Maggie shifted again, sighing. "They happen from time to time, among the witches receptive to such things. It runs in my family."
"So they're not visions, but glimpses of events that are actually happening-in a parallel universe?"
"Precisely. My magic brings me-very tiny windows, you could say, with which to see into these worlds. A reflection of something, someone, somewhere. Not always clearly, and not even with much reason sometimes. But enough for me to recognize patterns." Maggie smiled benignly. "I don't choose what to see, Bonnie. But my magic remembers. More importantly, I can recreate them."
Bonnie watched guardedly, as Maggie seemed to weigh something. The woman's strange blue eyes were intent on hers as she leaned towards Bonnie, brought two fingers up, closed her eyes, and chanted softly. The touch on the side of her temples made Bonnie flinch, her own eyes shutting tight as a rush of images filled her brain, displacing all her own thoughts.
She saw multiple versions of herself moving on the canvas in her mind. All with different hair and clothes, in places that looked familiar and others foreign.
All of them interacting with different versions of Kai.
...Bickering, as they bounded out of a small plane and onto an empty, pristine white sandy beach with a resort looming behind that looked completely abandoned. Still arguing, she ran along the shore, and he followed close behind, chasing her towards the ocean. She tossed a backwards wave behind her, and he fell face first. Looking behind her to see his face pop up and his mouth spit sand, she laughed and kept running away, kicking water up behind her feet...
...She lay on the floor, a line of blood seeping out of her mouth, with Kai nearby in a bloodied tux, standing with a confused, indignant look on his face. Just before Damon appeared behind him, and chopped off his head...
...Huddled together in a small study, pouring over thick stacks of tomes, empty wine glasses and a scatter of scrolls surrounding them. Her face was a mask of concentration on the grimoires, while he kept stealing glances at her...
...He walked up the stairs of her grandmother's house, carrying her. Her clothes were bloody and the color of her face pale as he gently placed her on the bed. He tried to feed her blood from his other wrist, but she wasn't responding. His hand was on her wrist, checking for a pulse, and panic showed on his face. He shook her shoulders, then yelled at her in helpless rage, just as Damon burst through the door. Without glancing up, Kai's finger sliced the air, and Damon's hand fell off his arm, his daylight ring rolling under the bed. A flick of Kai's head had Damon sailing through broken shards of glass out of the window. Suspended in mid-air, he burst into flames from the sun glaring brightly outside. In the bedroom, with shaky fingers, Kai traced the lines of her lifeless face...
...Lounging on a couch in an apartment, she chewed on a pencil with her head bent on a crossword puzzle, while he lay stretched out on the floor, juggling throw pillows above them with his magic. He idly tossed one at her, laughing when her head came up in outrage, and she snapped her fingers to bring the remaining pillows crashing into his face...
...In the living room of the Lockwood mansion, Bonnie kneeling beside Liv as she lay bloodied on the rug and Tyler crouched nearby, his face contorted in pain, his eyes amber and his fangs protruding. Kai stood above him, chanting, and Bonnie screamed at him as Tyler's body lifted in the air and his form changed fully into a wolf's...
...Their faces and clothes all bloodied, they stood in a clearing with the dead bodies of her friends strewn around them. Jeremy alone stood between them, holding up a crossbow, his face a mask of terror and anger. Kai's hand rose, palm open, and Jeremy's heart tore out of his ribcage, leaving a gaping hole. Behind Jeremy, Bonnie sank her face into his neck and tore out chunks of flesh, and Kai stepped forward to join her, his own fangs glittering..
...Standing in a cave, their hands wrapped around a metal object as they chanted in tandem. When a beam of bright light surrounded them, they shared a smile and a kiss, as their forms faded up and away...
...Kneeling beside Kai, shaky fingers hovering over a fresh wound on his neck, as a black wolf loped away in the distance...
...She was in a hospital room, her face pained, mouth opened in a soundless scream, while he crouched low beside her, whispering in her ear as he held her hand. Matching wedding bands glinted from their left ring fingers. And her belly was huge...
...He fell on his back on a field of snow, as she crouched over him with a knife, a sadistic smile on her face as she made a stab for his heart...
"No!" Bonnie cried, struggling to move away from Maggie's fingers, but the woman grasped her face with both hands, holding tight.
...Half facing each other in a clearing once again, they stood within a magic circle, one set of their arms clasped together. A storm brewed around their forms as they channeled each other through their linked arms. They were surrounded by half a dozen strangely dressed figures in long dresses and fancy pant suits, who appeared to be commanding an even larger army of vampires and werewolves in a coordinated assault on the pair of witches in the circle.
Kai held his free arm out, aimed over Bonnie's shoulder, and she followed suit. Blood trickled from their noses and ears as they covered each other's backs against attacks from the strange figures around them. Rocks and debris collided against their protective sphere, already under stress from the merciless pounding and beating of vampires and werewolves. Lightning flashed and fire crackled and spit from out of nowhere, as trees were ripped off the ground, all finding their targets, as Bonnie and Kai by turns obliterated their attackers one by one with nature as their shared weapon. The scene became a mass grave of bodies, until they both turned to the last witch left and moved their fingers in an identical pattern. He was suddenly torn in pieces by an invisible hand, his flesh paper in the wind.
In a soft, fading glow, she and Kai succumbed to the strain of overusing their magic. They fell to the ground at the same moment, their hands still clasped as they died...
Maggie's grip on her face eased. Bonnie opened her eyes, gasping for air, the landscape before her bright and glaring. She put her hands against her eyes and tried to steady her breathing.
"Why?" she whispered brokenly. "Why show me all of that?"
Maggie's hand was soothing on her back. "Sheila came to me a month before her death with a message that she bade me pass on to you when the time came. This was the only way I could think of that would best deliver it."
Vehemently, Bonnie shook her head. "You shouldn't have," she said, squeezing her eyes shut again as if she could force them out of her head through will alone. "It's too much, Maggie."
The older woman grasped Bonnie's upper arms in a comforting grip. "Nonsense. You're a Bennett. You can handle it."
A shiver wracked Bonnie's frame, uncontrollable and fused with magic. Maggie flinched away, stung by it. "I'm sorry," Bonnie said. "I didn't mean to. I just..." her words died as she struggled to find her thoughts.
She heard Maggie sighing again, and when she turned, the older woman appeared haggard, the lines of her face etched with apology. "You needed to know. In every world I've seen, Bonnie Bennett and Malachai Parker are always fated to meet."
Still in a daze, Bonnie barely felt when Maggie touched her shoulder carefully. "It all turns out very differently. Nothing ends the same. But do remember..."
Bonnie blinked, waiting.
"...not everything is death and destruction."