Well, here it is: the final chapter in part one. It took me almost three weeks, but I was feeling epic so I took my time. I will probably begin writing/posting part two in early January, perhaps on the anniversary of the very first chapter I put up. Between now and then, though, I'll probably write a few fluffy holiday one-shots because I doubt I can go without my girls for that long (and I feel like that may be true for a lot you too). To anyone who has been along for the ride from the beginning, or to anyone for whom this is the first they're seeing of this fic, or to anyone in between, from the very bottom of my heart, THANK YOU. I am tearing up as I write this because I am so grateful for everything you have given me, even if it was just your eyes/ears processing my words. I appreciate you and love you forever.
Soundtrack:
Tall Ships – "T=0" from Everything Touching
Preoccupations – "March of Progress" from Viet Cong
Tom Odell – "Another Love" from Long Way Down (cheating, I know, but hey, Bonnie deserves an epic love too)
Pela – "Latitudes" from All in Time
date unknown, closest approximation April 4, 2014
"Again I ask you—though to be honest these little chats aren't the worst thing in the world, or Hell, whatever—what kind of master plan is this bullshit? The little snippets I've seen look like scenes from a goddamn romance novel. Everything you throw at them, they surmount. I think you may have underestimated Bonnie Bennett."
"Perhaps. As I have told you repeatedly, my influence is limited—a push here, a pull there. But I can see how these small interferences affect the larger picture, the near-indestructible glacier of time shuffling endlessly forward."
"So does that mean everything is preordained? I was always going to die when I did, and there's nothing I could have done about it?"
"Nothing is preordained, Ms. Petrova. To say so would be to imply that there is some fixed point or entity from which everything flows in brittle stasis. Time's general trajectory is set but its specific destinations are not. This is the way of our reality: just enough free will to remain engaged with existence, more than enough inertia to prevent any single individual from making too large of a wave."
"And you just go through the motions, acting them out? Is that what you are? The most powerful thing in the universe and you're just a puppet scribbling notes on a script?"
"For one, I highly doubt I am the most powerful thing in the universe. If I were, I would not require the help of so many to accomplish my goals. No offense, of course. And two—we're all puppets, Katherine. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings. And who can tweak them every once in a while, if I'm lucky."
"Well that's depressing. Here I was thinking I'd been palling around with a guy who's basically God."
"I should be flattered, I suppose. Here, let me show you. You'll be needing to take over this place when I leave anyway. When you open your eyes, you'll see it all, all of it, spread out before us in sublime simultaneity . . ."
December 5, 2013
"Bonnie Bennett? You appear tired."
"Nora, how... unexpected. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I have a toy. For a tot."
"You shouldn't have."
April 4, 2014
Nora is simultaneously the last person Bonnie expects to see and the only person she ever thought could even be there when she opens the door. They just stare at each other in silence for a good ten seconds, both sets of eyes instantaneously retrained to lock in invisible connection with their corresponding halves.
Tears begin to well on both sides of the scorching gaze, and as Nora opens her mouth the slightest bit to say something that sounds like it would have been "I'm sorry," the hot maelstrom of emotions that has been whirling a vicious spiral in Bonnie's insides since she first laid eyes on the face that broke parts of her heart she didn't even know she had suddenly coalesces into a single surge of need, and then their lips are together and their bodies are together and their souls are together again.
September 6, 2009
Bonnie laughs. "Psychic, Grams? Really? Did Mrs. Bleecker down the street sell you some of her moonshine again?"
Sheila rolls her eyes and scowls good-naturedly. "Enjoy a stiff drink once in a while and before you know it everyone thinks you're the town lush," she mutters to herself.
"Well what are we supposed to think when you go around telling people they're psychic?"
"I ain't going around anywhere telling anybody. I'm telling you, for your own good. I'd guess you've already started having some minor premonitions. And it's only gonna get worse if you don't let me help you."
"Grams, if I were having premonitions, I'd have played and won the lottery by now."
"If I didn't think you should take this seriously, I wouldn't have brought it up. You have to listen to me, Bonnie. Our family has a long and tumultuous history. Being a Bennett—it comes with more than a few asterisks. From the witch trials in Salem to right here in Mystic Falls, it's never been easy for us."
"Now you're scaring me. I start junior year tomorrow, Grams! I don't have time to worry about having supernatural powers with homework and cheerleading." Bonnie sticks out her lower lip in a defiant pout. "Can't you just admit you're messing with me? Please?"
Sheila sighs heavily. "I should have known you weren't ready. Hell, I wasn't either at your age. But soon enough it won't matter."
"What the hell does that mean? Grams? Grams?"
ca. 2214 B.C.
A young boy of about six in a dirt-covered wool tunic sits still on a log, eyes forcefully closed and hands pressed against his ears in an attempt to shut out the neverending onslaught of disembodied thoughts streaming into his mind at every second ever since he learned to speak. It doesn't work. He collapses to his knees on the dry ground, eyes still shut tight, though tears are now beginning to leak from the woefully imperfect seals.
February 1, 2012
As Bonnie stares at Katherine in horror in the wake of her disturbing revelation, the smirking brunette finally puts both hands on the anchor's shoulders and smugly says, "Okay, now I'm ready."
But nothing happens.
Katherine furrows her brow in confusion, lifts her arms back up, tries again. Still nothing.
Panic starts to creep into the large chocolate brown eyes that have seen so much, a new kind of panic, the kind where the very fate of your soul is in question. "Nothing's happening. What's wrong?" It must be this little bitch Bonnie. She's preventing me from crossing over.
But Bonnie looks just as confused as Katherine. "I don't know. This has never happened before."
Katherine grabs her again, more aggressively this time, before her anxiety manifests as anger. "Bonnie, what are you doing? Let me pass through. Why won't you let me pass through?"
"I don't know." Bonnie seethes with wide eyes, shrugging out of Katherine's claws, her face set in an expression of astonished reverence. "I don't control it."
"What?" Katherine's heart feels like it's about to beat out of her chest.
"It's not up to me."
Katherine scowls and rolls her eyes. "Then who is it up to?"
The church, just moments ago warm in both lighting and temperature, suddenly grows dark and cold. The candles are still lit but it's like the light of their flames no longer has any ambience, and so they flicker like plastic toy imitations, dead. An icy wind creeps in from nowhere, picking up speed and volume every second. Katherine shivers. Scraps of paper start to whip up into a skeletal tornado as the freezing air continues to increase its velocity, and then suddenly she feels every atom of her body being pulled backward, toward the church doors, and she flies away from Bonnie before sprawling on the floor, hands desperately scrabbling for purchase.
Bonnie stands stock still and just stares at her, both fear and awe trembling in her eyes.
"Bonnie?" Katherine gasps with what little air she has—all the oxygen seems to be seeping out of her lungs.
"I can't help you, Katherine."
"What?" She has never been truly terrified until now. Never. "No, no, NO!" she screams over and over as the invisible force continues to pull her backward. And then one last "NO" that never actually ends, as she is yanked up and out of this mortal coil, into the cold burning darkness.
February 9, 2014
Enzo stands motionless before the tempered bulletproof glass, watching the pathetically crumpled human form that comprises his only surviving family begin to stir and rise from the bare floor in bewilderment. It doesn't take her long to see him; the glass can be converted to one-way with no view out from the cell, but Enzo wants her to know who put her in here. She locks eyes with him and sneers, wiping some blood off of her face with a grimy hand, her normally perfectly straight, immaculately shiny black hair now erratically parted and sticking out every which way.
"I should've known you were a worthless little rat. All your father's records say so. He despised you, you know."
"Good morning to you too, Alex," he replies in a clipped, formal tone.
"What happened? Did Bonnie Bennett bat her eyelashes at you and dupe you into thinking that for once someone actually wants you? Or, wait, I know, Damon told you that you two could be murder buddies again. How cute. Do you realize how profoundly fucking sad your existence is? Alive for over a century, more chances at life than any lowly human could ever dream of, and this is where you've ended up. Abandoned again, alone, at the end of a long chain of failed connections and attempts at doing something meaningful. I pity you."
Alex's words cut deep. But Enzo has been steeling himself against all kinds of pain for twice as long as she's been alive, so he shows no sign of perturbation. "You're the only pitiful one here, Alex. You were willing to take away the last family Bonnie has left just for vindication because she wouldn't open this blasted vault. Why? What is in there?"
Alex just glares at him and then spits on the floor between her and the glass. "I'll make you pay for this."
"I'm a St. John," he almost sings as he strolls away. "We don't pay for anything."
July 26, 1790
Cloaking darkness surrounds a seething orb of bright orange fire that roils like no fire of this world should. Fractured chants and screams of agony follow the flying sparks into the emptiness above. The earth is wounded once again.
April 4, 2014
The sun has completely set by the time they roll to opposite sides of Bonnie's bed, spent, sweaty, panting, and utterly giddy with happiness. Bonnie can still feel the conversation that inevitably needs to happen creeping up in her dopamine-soaked brain, but with the fingers of her right hand interlaced with Nora and a massive wave of pleasure to still come down from, she can't exactly get serious right now.
"Is this a dream?" she asks in breathy gasps, lazily turning her head so that her eyes are trained on Nora's again, who has just completed the exact same motion.
"I hope not," the brunette replies, reaching her other arm over to softly stroke Bonnie's shoulder. "Because in that case I probably couldn't choose what I say next. What I need to say next." She takes a deep breath. "Which is that I love you. So much. And the only thing that can compete with that is how sorry I am for leaving you."
Bonnie had been expecting an apology, but it's still a shock as her mind awkwardly shifts to what she knows she should logically feel toward Nora right now—anger, disappointment, betrayal—from what where it just was, which just happened to be the happiest she's felt in months. But facts are facts. "That's easy to say now," she eventually says.
Nora closes her eyes slowly, and when she opens them they're wet with tears. "I know. And I don't expect you to accept it anytime soon, if ever, let alone forgive me. But I also need to say that these past few months have been good for me. And that I will never forgive myself for hurting you the way I did, but I am a much better person than I was then."
Bonnie purses her lips and rolls off the bed, grabbing her underwear and t-shirt and pulling them on. She suddenly doesn't want to be naked right now. "And we couldn't have discussed this as a couple? Talked through a plan before you left on your soul journey? I love you, Nora. I would never stop you from doing something you felt like you needed to do. But when you cut me out like that, when you just leave without treating me like I matter at all, it hurts." She's almost put on a full set of pajamas by now, and the entire time she's been talking she's looked at pretty much everything in the room other than Nora. "And then you just show up at my door like three months later? How am I supposed to do this?"
"You aren't supposed to do anything, Bonnie. It's me who's supposed to do whatever is best for you. If you want me to leave you alone, I'll do it."
"Is that what you think I want?"
"No." They're looking at each other now. Nora has pulled the covers up to her neck and is sitting on the bed with her knees against her chin, and the return of the familiar sight, once again contrary to Bonnie's best judgment, fills her with warmth. "And it's not what I want, either. But I want you to know that from now on, in whatever capacity you allow me to remain in your life, if at all, I will always put you first."
They just look at each other without speaking for a good ten seconds. Bonnie can hear the throbbing bass from some party upstairs. She sighs. Right now it's like she's simultaneously feeling every single emotion her amygdala can muster and not feeling anything at all. Which makes it pretty difficult to make any decision, let alone this one. "Nora, I—"
"It's okay. I'll leave you to think. I'm sorry for showing up like this, it's just— I needed to see you. Before—"
ca. 750 B.C., translated from unknown hybrid dialect of Ancient Greek and Arabic
Somewhere, just cresting overtop of the white hot agony zigzagging through her body from her crumpled, fractured limbs, she can feel death coming. And it's not warm and peaceful like the stories. It's cold and brutal and bleak. And so as the sister who betrayed her frets over her broken form she pleads to someone, anyone.
And someone—who is far from just anyone—obliges.
"Oh, my beautiful, broken children," the man says, his eyes glimmering with every bit of light left in the dark island night, clothed in a woolen shift not unlike the ones worn by the men in their village (or what used to be their village), the lighter points of his perfect teeth and the faded read wool making his skin look black as obsidian as the moon emerges from behind a cloud.
Sybil sees him first, but she can see that her sister feels his presence behind her, and so she turns to face him. "Who are you?" Seline asks.
"You know," he answers calmly, smile sparks dancing in his pupils even though his lips barely move.
"Arcadius."
"Everyone calls me Cade."
Seline shrinks back from him. "You're supposed to be dead."
Now he smiles, but only slightly. "Rest assured, I am."
Seline looks to Sybil, whose eyes are now barely staying open, and then back to their mysterious savior. "My sister. Can you help her?"
"Yes. But there is a price."
Seline's expression narrows from fear to determination. "Anything."
July 18, 2015
"What do you mean she's back? How did she escape the Armory again?" The suddenness of the problem is the only thing stopping Bonnie from crying. She can feel the life they've built together over the past year slipping away all at once.
"I don't know, I don't know, I don't KNOW," Nora half-mutters, half-yells as she zigzags around their apartment, tossing essentials into a small suitcase.
"Where will we go? To St. James'? She won't be able to track you there."
"No, we can't, there are too many vampires in New Orleans to take that risk." Nora suddenly stops her packing scramble and stares at Bonnie. "Wait. What do you mean 'we'?"
"Well I'm coming with you, obviously."
Nora closes her eyes, and when she looks at Bonnie again her emerald irises are full of pain. "We don't have time for this. There's nothing in the world I would want more than for you to be by my side. But I can't put you in that danger. She's ruthless and she will kill anyone who stands between her and me."
Bonnie crosses her arms. "Good thing it isn't just your decision, then."
"Bonnie—"
There's a loud THUD at their front door. Nora's face goes white. "No. She can't be here already. There's no—"
Another thud, this time accompanied by splintering noises.
"Run!" Bonnie yells. "I'll hold her off as long as I can."
"You can't, magic doesn't—"
A final thud that's more like an explosion and the entire slab of wood shoots outward from the door frame and across the living room, shattering a vase and a few framed pictures on the wall. Neither of them have much time to react before two darts zip in from the hallway behind the cloud of smoke and sawdust, and the last thing Bonnie sees before her vision fades to black is two black leather boots stomping away and Nora's unconscious body being dragged behind them.
September 12, 2009
The harsh fluorescent light from both above the locker room door and the football field in the distance makes Bonnie's tear-filled eyes sting even more than they already do as she looks in horror at the metal sign on the wall displaying the building number, then the open parking space, then the license plate of the car parked near Mr. Tanner's bloody corpse, and the overwhelming din of the animal control officers and the police sirens and the chatter of all the other rubberneckers in the growing crowd behind her dulls to a shrill, piercing whine, every millisecond, every minuscule strand of this moment horrifically proceeding exactly as she had foreseen it, exactly, the numbers themselves almost glaring at her with their defiant, sinisterly apathetic presence: 8. 14. 22.
April 5, 2014
"And do you believe her?"
"Yeah, I think I do."
"Then what's the problem?" Caroline picks up two cardboard boxes stuffed with baby clothes and hurls them one by one over the railing into the catwalk balcony above them, then yawns and takes a drink of her coffee like she didn't just display a feat of superhuman strength.
"What do you mean 'what's the problem'?" Bonnie finishes unpacking the last of the mugs and glassware from her own box and looks around for another menial task to distract herself with. They're in the cute little condo Ric just signed a two-year lease on—he had apparently mulled over the idea of getting a more permanent teaching position somewhere else, specifically Phoenix or (Bonnie shuddered at this one) Dallas, but nothing panned out in time—which will essentially serve as massive nursery for the twins, who are currently sound asleep in their (for now) sparsely furnished bedroom. There are few things Bonnie hates more than moving, to be honest, but she needed something to get her mind off last night's events, and Caroline was happy to have the help, or perhaps just a new person to boss around and fret over.
Caroline looks as if she's about to reply, but then Bonnie realizes she's actually focused on the loveseat against the wall behind her; Bonnie moves out of the way for her friend to casually lift the entire couch with one hand, move it to the wall perpendicular to where it just was, step back to examine it, and then move it back to what looks like the exact same spot, nodding with satisfaction once she sets it down.
"Better?" Bonnie asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, obviously," the blonde vampire replies, brushing her hands off and sipping her coffee again. "So, as I was saying, if you believe her about putting you first, and I mean, you were clearly pretty happy to see her, then what's the holdup? Isn't this what you've been waiting for?"
Bonnie scoffs. "Do you want to sit down on that loveseat while I tell you a little story called you and Stefan two years ago?"
Caroline rolls her eyes. "Oh please. If Stefan had apologized the way Nora did it would have been a hell of a lot harder to stay as mad as I was. I mean, at the time the last thing on my mind was fucking him. But in this case—"
"Remember when you promised not to judge me for having hot ex sex?"
"I'm not. Truly. You were well within your rights. But I'm saying that you might not be as mad at her as you think you are. Or want to be."
Bonnie doesn't answer, because she knows her friend is probably right. Finally, after leaning over to slice open a taped box—out of which popped a small explosion of clothes as if they were spring-loaded, like a thrift store jack-in-the-box—she says, "Okay, you're right. But what does that say about me? Isn't the rule of thumb generally to not take back the person that broke your heart?"
"Maybe sometimes. But if that really were the case, we'd all be fucked. Myself included." As if on cue, one, then both of the babies start crying. Caroline sighs. "Mommy didn't mean it!" she says as she works her way out from behind all the boxes and starts to head upstairs.
"Hey, I don't know much longer I'm gonna stay," Bonnie calls out to her. "Got, uh, stuff to do."
"That you do," Caroline says just before she disappears up the steps, but then her head pops back to look at Bonnie one more time. "Hey. I know you haven't, like, formally told me about it yet . . . you know, vamp hearing and all that. But I hope it's not because you're afraid of how I'll feel about it. You should go to New York, Bonnie. Regardless of whether this program pans out. Of course I'll miss you. But you will thrive there. I just know it."
Bonnie is surprised, but immediately relieved. "Thanks, Care."
"We shall discuss further. For now, duty calls. Just the kind spelled with a T, I hope."
July 28, 2015
"Are you ready?"
"Are you ready?"
"Funny." Bonnie rolls her eyes at Stefan, who smiles at her as if they aren't about to enter the lion's den of lion's dens. She sends the "GO" text to Beau, who's stationed on the roof with Valerie, both prepared to rain hell from above, then looks across the grassy patio in front of the Armory's front doors to the other stone wall, behind which Caroline and Damon are similarly crouched. Damon gives her a nod and then looks at Stefan, and wordlessly they both pull the pins from the oversized grenades they're holding and toss them toward the doors. Damon's smashes through the glass and Stefan's rolls right up to the foyer, so when both explode simultaneously it's like the whole entryway twists in on itself, reduced to a smoking mess of rebar and rubble in a matter of seconds. Almost instantaneously, ten, twenty, then close to thirty red laser sights cut through the cloud of rock dust, and a pair of flash grenades are thrown out in response, but Bonnie waves her hand and they rocket off away from the building before going off. The plan is to get as many of the Armory's security force into the courtyard as possible while Caroline and Stefan flank and then sneak in behind them, but as the air clears, there are only five or so actually out in the open, and they're quickly picked off by some well-aimed fireballs from the Heretic turrets. Bonnie and Damon make eye contact and then slowly start to advance, the old Bennett grimoire clutched in her left hand, ready to be opened and used at the right moment. But as they get to the ruins that used to be the entryway and she flips to the elaborate protection spell she's been practicing and feels the warm, radiant power of her ancestors gathering behind her, a single word spoken by a single voice stops it all in its tracks.
"Bonnie?"
She freezes. "Nora?"
Damon looks at her, confused. "Bonnie, I don't—"
"Bonnie, is that you?"
The meticulously prepared plan all but falls out of her brain as Bonnie savors the sound of her girlfriend's voice, the voice that she thought she might never hear again. She steps forward, dazed, mindless, as if being pulled mentally by an invisible thread. She feels Damon's hand on her shoulder, hears his concerned words, but it's almost as if her body isn't even a part of her right now. Once her vision focuses on the blurred form in front of her, however, reality crashes back like an avalanche. Bonnie's eyes dart from Nora's terrified face to the grim, malevolent expression of the person behind her: Alex, who is also pressing a military-grade shotgun against her back.
"Tell your friends to stand down, Bonnie. No one has to get hurt," Alex shouts, pushing Nora forward with the barrel of the gun. "That goes for the ones on the roof, too! I know you're up there!"
Bonnie turns to Damon and nods, then quickly waves her hand in front of her face to obscure her moving lips as she whispers, "Find Stefan and Caroline."
He squints at her. "What the hell? I'm not leaving you here with that psychopath. She double-crossed us once, who says she won't do it again?"
"It's Nora, Damon."
Again he looks confused, glances at Alex, then back to Bonnie. "But I don't even—"
His lips stop moving, his eyes loosen, his arms go slack. Something has him. "Okay." And he walks away. The sight is surreal. Bonnie feels like she's losing her mind. What is happening right now? She's at the Armory, and Alex is there, in front of her, and—
Alex grins. Her face drips with malice. "This is for Yvette." And then there is a ringing in Bonnie's ears as the sharp, booming crack of the gun dissipates into horrible silence, and she watches the light leave the eyes of the one she knew was the love of her life, gray spreading up Nora's neck and face from the gaping, bloody hole where her heart used to be, and then the lifeless body falls onto the ground face first, and Bonnie feels the world break in two. Broken, her hands go limp and the grimoire drops to her feet, the protection spell falters and then fades, and she barely has time to register the sight of a red dot trained on her chest that then quickly moves toward her head, and then she—
April 5, 2014
"You had a sister?"
Nora nods solemnly. "Her name was Cassandra. She was my fraternal twin. But according to the official Gemini records, she was my parents' only child."
"Holy shit." Bonnie sits down next to her on the couch, stunned. "That's so messed up."
"I'll tell you the whole story someday. I'm not sure I'm ready to now. And this isn't to get your sympathy, either. If you don't want to be with me, that's okay. I just needed someone to know. Because I'm definitely not ready to tell Valerie or Beau yet. I— I just can't."
"Of course," Bonnie murmurs as she wraps her arms around Nora and rests her head on her shoulder. "No matter what, I'll always be here for you. Okay?"
"Okay."
They just stay like that for a few minutes, watching the flames dance in the Heretic house's hearth. Bonnie can feel her heart beat faster and faster as she tries to muster up the courage to say what she came here to say. It doesn't work, but the words eventually just slip out anyway. "I came to tell you that I want to give us a shot."
Nora starts and turns to face her, the green of her irises almost glowing in the dim light of the living room. "Really?"
"Really."
And when their lips meet, it's like the two brittle halves of a broken world melt back into one.
Bonnie wants nothing more than to reprise last night's activities, but she still has more to say. And this one is even scarier. "Do you—" She takes a deep breath. "Do you want to move to New York with me?"
Nora stares at her.
"I know we still have a lot to work on, and it's a huge step, and if you're not ready that's okay, but right before I walked here I got an email from the NYU OS grad program saying that I got in, and I don't know I just—"
A soft, slender finger stops her rapidly moving mouth. When she looks at its owner, there are tears streaming from her beautiful eyes. "Yes, Bonnie. Yes. Yes. YES."
August 14, 2022
There isn't a cloud in the sky.
July 28, 2015
The monster finally emerges from her prison, covered in the blood of a cannibalistic feast, halfway between her human form and what she becomes. Because of him. But today, she is grateful. Sybil feels the sun on her skin for the first time in two centuries, closes her eyes, sighs, and says, "Thank you, master."
Behind her, the Devil's two newest servants blink at the sudden brightness of the light. They've been alive for hundreds of years, together for almost that long, but now they barely remember who each other, or even themselves, are.
But Sybil does. And what's more, she knows the incredible potential they have. Soon, she and her sister will be free of Cade, and be able to find peace.
"Nora, Mary Louise, come. There is much work to be done."
date unknown, no approximation possible
An unfathomably gargantuan mass of colors, sounds, smells, tastes, music, laughter, horror, agony, celebration, grief, hope, despair, and absolutely everything else inches through nothingness like a massive slug. A hole lies in its path, a pit of unimaginable pain and darkness. But just as the front edge starts to tip into the void, radiant columns of light descend from somewhere above, moving with impossibly organic dexterity, like immense, abstract hands reshaping the very flow of time itself. And so it continues. On and on and on and on and on and on and on and
date unknown, closest approximation April 5, 2014
"What the FUCK was that?"
"That was time, Ms. Petrova. At once linear and simultaneous. A thing of both seraphic beauty and profound ugliness."
"And the fingers of light? Was that . . . is that God?"
"Not at all. That, my dear, is the witches."
April 11, 2016
"Had. I had someone like that. And I don't like living without her. Only with her. I can't take it."
"Which brings me to my final point. I had to learn to live without Elena because we couldn't bring her back. Our favorite Heretic, on the other hand…"
"What? Damon. Don't fuck around with me. What are you talking about?"
"She's alive, Bonnie. And we're gonna go get her back for you."
"How do you know? I saw her heart blown out of her chest, Damon. It happened right in front of me. And then I died. Remember?"
"I will never forget. And I will never know what the hell suddenly compelled me to leave you there alone like a selfish shitbag. But as for the first part…"
He holds out his phone to show her a video. It's a grainy security cam clip with the date and timecode in the top right corner. The room looks like an atrium in a hospital; the walls and floor are white and sterile where they aren't smeared with blood and gore. Her eyes naturally gravitate toward the only visible motion in the footage. In roughly the middle of the corpse-strewn area, a lone figure crouches over something, presumably tearing it to shreds with its jaws.
But when the figure looks straight at the camera lens, Bonnie sees that it isn't an "it" at all.
Staring right into her eyes, blood dripping from her mouth and a torn-off, mostly chewed human arm clasped in her hands, is Nora.
"Help me," she mouths.