A/N: A very special thank you to JemiCloisFan who beta'd this chapter. Thank you to everyone who offered ... all 2 of you. ;) Thank you all for your kind reviews and encouragement. They really mean a lot to me. Meanwhile, what do you think about Kat and Chris are doing conventions in Europe right now? The irrepressible fangirl in me is so thrilled! At the same time I'm dreading their panel on the 30th for some reason. I just wish sometimes that Bonkai gets zero media coverage and they just leave us to fangirl and fanwrite and fanvideo in peace, you know?

6

Gambit

Kai had taken the bed. There hadn't been a discussion. He had just plopped himself on Liv's 1,000 count cotton sheets, complete with shoes and pizza box and made himself at home, firing questions at her between mouthful of pizza until he abruptly fell asleep.

Liv had stared at his unconscious body for half and hour and contemplated murder. It was only after she had fully convinced herself that he was more valuable to her alive than dead, that she finally gathered a blanket, the books she was going to pretend to study, and headed to the common room to crash.

She was lucky enough to bag a chair by the fireplace, and she even surprised herself by cracking open her Economics 301. Magical algorithms and fiscal formulas added up surprisingly lucrative spells for an enterprising witch. The three of them – she, Luke and Bonnie – had actually started working on a spell of this nature last year… then certain events had caught up on them.

Sometimes Liv wondered if the hope of escaping her destiny wasn't more of a curse than a blessing. The Merge Ceremony had loomed over her life for as long as she could remember. Indeed, she and Luke had probably understood their destiny long before their oldest brother realized he was being cheated of his. Liv had never been happy about it. But she had felt about it the way most people felt about death – it was horrible and it was inescapable. Her father had done it, and his mother before him, and her grandfather before her. There was no other future for her or Luke. That was just the way things were. In Liv's own way, she accepted this.

Until the fateful day when the possibility had presented itself: The possibility that with enough power, power enough to create another world, she could break the Gemini curse and free herself from her doom… And then it became more than a possibility. It became a reality. The power existed. It could be found. It could be sourced.

It was that hope that had turned Olivia Parker into a different person. A person that was willing to forsake her destiny. A person that allied with vampires. That betrayed her people. That stained her hands with blood. That served up as a sacrifice the life, the very soul of a girl that had grown up with her as close as a sister.

"It's our chance. A chance to live full, normal lives…"

"At what price? Bonnie's? Make no mistake, Liv, if she tries to wield Expression, it will consume her and she will die."

"She is a Bennett witch on both sides. If any one has any chance of harnessing Expression magic, it's her."

"Are you willing to take that chance? To risk Bonnie's life?"

"I'm not risking her life. She believes she has a chance. I have faith in her, unlike you."

"Don't you dare try to turn this around, Liv. Bonnie is doing this because you made her think she has to. She's doing this for you, for Caroline. You're. Using. Her."

"She's doing it for all of us, including herself. It's a risk but it's a risk that is worth taking—"

"Shut up, Olivia!" He never called her Olivia. "Are you even listening to yourself! Who are you? I don't know who you are anymore."

Visions of Luke dying at her hands. Of herself dying at his. Of Bonnie falling, falling, falling into the waters of Nova Scotia. Of Malachai's blood-soaked shoes and the sound of his baseball bat scratching against the wooden floor…

Liv woke up to the sound of loud music and noisy co-eds. Her phone alarm was screaming above it all and she glared blearily at the three little digital bells on the screen.

9am Appointment at DuPont … Caroline Forbes.

She groaned.

Somehow, she managed to retrieve her lanky frame from the confines of the armchair. Feeling like she had spent the night under a moving train, she dragged her feet to her room.

Kai was awake. He had showered, shaved and changed clothes and was now seated her desk, logged into her laptop. He barely looked up as she approached him, his eyes flickering as rapidly as the screens he was calling up. He looked very much at home, and had clearly had a far better night than she did.

She slammed her books and her cell by his elbow, missing him as narrowly as she dared.

"Oops."

He did look at her then. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, look what the cat dragged in. Walk of shame, Livvie, really? Haven't you earned a drawer yet?"

Liv gaped. "What?"

"A drawer in his dorm room? Or is it hers – or theirs? I'm totally open-minded about these things. As long as you practice safe -"

"I am not having this conversation with you!"

"Oh thank god. It's a bit too late in the day for me to play big brother. You are clearly out of control. Besides, while you were out doing god knows who, I've been up for hours checking the State population database for every single 39-41 year old white female with first name Josette, Jo, Josephine, Josie. Did you know that in 1972, Josie was number three on the list of most popular baby girl names in the State of Virgina? I have half a mind to round up all these women and kill them for wasting my time. On the other hand, I could be going about this all wrong. Maybe Sissy is going by Cecilia just to spite me."

"Yesterday, you didn't even know what Google was and now you're hacking into the State's database?" Liv was impressed despite herself.

"Amazing what you can learn when you actually apply yourself, right? In my time, going to college was more intellectual self-actualization, less orgies. Does the Great Coven leader even know you're shacking up in a co-ed dorm?"

"You're disgusting," Liv retorted. "For your information, I crashed-"

"Spare me the gory details!" He actually put his fingers in his ears. "The good thing is you're finally here and I'm starting to get hungry. Take my word for it, you do not want to see me hungry."

She stalked to the desk phone to call the delivery service. She was still on hold when she heard the buzzing of a vibrating cell phone. It was hers, on the desk besides Kai, flashing a close up of Bonnie Bennett's face.

Kai glanced at the phone by his elbow and froze. The half-irritated, half-irritating look on his face switched off as abruptly as if he had pulled a plug. He was, Liv noticed in surprise, literally paling; his face was bleaching of both color and expression.

In a movement that seemed more of a reflex than a conscious action, his fingers twitched at the screen.

And the call connected. He stood up so abruptly that his chair fell back.

"Liv?"

Bonnie's soft voice with that slightest of Southern drawls filled the room. The speaker had come on automatically.

"Hi, Liv. Getting ready?"

Liv would have picked up the phone, switched the speaker off, and continued the conversation in relative privacy but she was too fascinated by Kai's reaction.

He was still standing, his hands were clenched at his sides, and his knuckles were white. He was staring at the phone – at Bonnie's picture – so fixedly that he had literally stopped blinking. A muscle was pulling in his jaw.

"Can you hear me?" Bonnie sounded spooked.

Liv reached for the phone.

Kai grabbed her hand and slammed it flat on the table.

She glared at him and gasped. His face was so fixed in its blankness that it was almost inhuman.

"She's going to hang up," she mouthed.

The muscle in his jaw pulled again. Once. Twice. Then he pushed away from the desk, and turned his back on her, reaching the window on the other side of the room in rapid strides.

Liv switched off the speaker and put the phone to her ear. "Bonnie? Bonnie, are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here, Liv. Where were you? You were just silent on me."

"Sorry. I had to get the door." She answered distractedly.

Bonnie was going on and on about the pedicure appointment and Liv could barely get a word in edgewise. She was tense and nervous, wondering if Kai was going to do something to reveal his presence in her room and ultimately, Liv's own betrayal. There hadn't been time to discuss what role, if any, she was supposed to play for Bonnie – whether to stay close to her or avoid her completely. Liv preferred the latter. It would keep her hands a little less dirty.

She watched him anxiously as she muttered something noncommittal on the phone, waiting for some kind of cue, but he just remained by the window, his back pillar straight as he stared out at campus.

Gradually, some of Bonnie's rambling filtered through to Liv.

"Anyway, maybe you should skip it, if you have other things to do?"

The appointment at DuPont. She was giving Liv an out. Once again, Liv tried futilely to catch Kai's attention.

"I don't have other things to do," she said at last, cautiously.

Apparently, that was not the answer Bonnie wanted to hear. Because in her usual, non-confrontational, butter-can't-melt-in-my-mouth, sweet-natured-little-Bennett way, she hemmed and hawed until Liv finally snapped,

"What's the matter, Bonnie, you don't want me to come?"

Bonnie sighed. "Actually, Caroline doesn't want you to come. She said, and I quote, 'if I see Liv Parker, I will kill her.'"

Liv gasped. She wasn't in the least bit shocked that the vampire would say something like that behind her back. She and Caroline barely tolerated each other on the best of days. But it was completely out of character for Bonnie to repeat them.

"Look… Liv."

Of course, Bonnie took it back at once. She always did. She rarely lost her temper and when she did, she would immediately feel guilty.

Bonnie could be so predictable. It was what made her so easy to manipulate.

"She believes she has a chance. I have faith in her, unlike you."

"Don't you dare try to turn this around, Liv. Bonnie is doing this because you made her think she has to. She's doing this for you, for Caroline. You're. Using. Her."

Liv overrode all Bonnie's apologies, twisting the knife of guilt as much as she could before she ended the call. A few more choice words, and she'd probably have got Bonnie to change her mind but she hadn't wanted that. She knew Bonnie well. But that went both ways. Bonnie would be able to tell at once that something was going down with Liv. And the first thing she would do would be to tell Luke. So until she and Kai found Jo, Liv needed to stay as far away from Bonnie – and her twin – as possible.

"If anything happens to Bonnie, I will never forgive you."

A jolt of anger and fear went through Liv and she shook herself. She wasn't a monster. No matter what Luke thought. He would understand in the end.

He had to.

"So you're free this morning."

She looked up. Kai had turned. He still stood in front of the window, and his face was shadowed. She couldn't make out his expression, or if he even had one. His voice, though, was cold, almost completely devoid of emotion.

She shrugged.

"Good. We're going to Sheila Bennett's house."

Liv stared. "Why?"

"She helped Jo hide in the first place. If anyone would know where she is, it's Sheila."

"Sheila Bennett died last November." Liv barely knew the old witch. For a long time, Bonnie had not wanted anything to do with her grandmother and Abby had encouraged that.

"I don't need to raise the dead," Kai said, his voice laced with darkness. "I just need to raise her magic."

January 2011

"I want Emily's Grimoire."

"You want it? Or Joshua Parker wants it?"

"I want it. You told me you'd give it to me when I'm ready. Well, I am ready. I have studied. I have trained."

"There's more to magic than formulas and incantations, child. You're ready here," she tapped Bonnie's head, "but you're far from ready here." She tapped her heart.

Bonnie swallowed hard. She had practised with the twins on what to say. She remembered every argument that she was going to put up against her grandmother. But first, she would need to speak past the humongous lump that had formed in her throat. She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears and failing.

"Oh child," Sheila whispered and reached for her but Bonnie flinched, taking two steps back.

"Why?" she managed to whisper.

"You're not there," Sheila said softly. "If you were, I would know. I won't hold anything-"

"But you did. You do," Bonnie cried. "You hid my magic from me for years. You left me alone, defenseless."

"For your own good, Bonnie! Magic does… magic has a price. I didn't want you to pay it."

The tears were flowing freely now. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to hurl in accusation at her grandmother.

Why did you let her take me? Why didn't you fight for me? Didn't you love me? Didn't you want me?

I miss you, Grams. Sometimes I get scared. So scared.

I want to come home.

She didn't say any of these things. She just stood, struggling and failing against her tears, barely listening to a word her grandmother said as she desperately searched her face for a sign, for a clue, for anything to make this hole in her heart stop aching.

"She didn't want you, Bonnie. If she did, she'd have come for you."

Abby's voice echoing in her head.

"My little Bonnie," Sheila said now, her voice breaking. "I love you. I would never, ever wish you harm."

No, you don't love me.

Bonnie ran from the room, tears pouring down her cheeks.

And once again, Abby was waiting in the rented car for her, waiting to take her back to Portland.

Back home.

Bonnie stepped through the glass doors of the office building, and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered, still in shock.

"Cold?" Caroline asked, at once removing her shawl and wrapping it around the smaller girl.

Bonnie smiled, "thank you."

Caroline kept her arm around Bonnie's shoulders, nudged her. "You don't have to go right away, you know. There's plenty of time after the wedding."

Sheila's words:

"You're ready here." Her head. "But you're far from ready here." Her heart.

Bonnie bit her lip. "I know but… I want to. It's mine now. All of it. I thought she'd leave something for Abby but… she left everything to me." She swallowed and tilted her head back, blinking hard.

Caroline squeezed.

"She. She saved my life," Bonnie whispered. "I think they were going to send me to Hell. The ancestors. They were going to punish me for using Expression. Strip my magic. Banish me to … somewhere beyond the Other Side. It was Grams that stopped them. She died to give me a chance."

"Oh, Bonnie."

"She died for me, Care. I always thought she didn't love me, that she didn't want me. For a long time, I blamed her for Abby taking me away. I thought she could have fought harder for me.

"And then she turns around and dies for me."

Caroline wrapped both arms around her and rested her chin on Bonnie's shaking shoulders.

"I didn't understand. I wish I had. I wish I could have taken it all back."

"She understood, Bonnie. She understood enough for both of you."

She pictured her grandmother the last time she had seen her. The look on her face as Bonnie had backed away from her, ran away from her. Then she had thought it was guilt. Now she realized what it was: heartbreak.

So much time wasted. So much love wasted. They could never get it back now.

Bonnie would never see her grandmother again.

The weight of grief was so enormous that it was only Caroline's arms that literally kept her from collapsing under it.

Even then she still said, "You don't have to come. Mystic Falls is a long –"

"Please shut up, Bonnie."

After almost four hours behind the wheel, even a supernaturally powerful and a near-supernaturally upbeat vampire like Caroline Forbes would be exhausted, crabby and in need of a hot bath and bed.

And that was before they drove into Mystic Falls, Virginia.

The once picturesque idyllic town, the place she had called her home for most of her life was officially a dump. She drove past boarded up shops, homes with foreclosed signs on their overgrown lawns, and the burnt shell of Mystic Falls high school and came close to weeping. Beside her, she could see the same shock and grief on Bonnie's face.

"I don't remember it being this bad," Bonnie whispered.

"It gets a little worse every year. Sometimes some money comes in, what's left of the council tries to resurrect the town… but my mom says it's like putting a BandAid on a bullet wound. Sometimes, she says it's like putting a BandAid on a corpse."

The town died the day Damon Salvatore opened that tomb, Caroline thought bitterly. And for what? Katherine Pierce had never been inside it.

"I can't believe your mom is still here," Bonnie said.

"I keep trying to get her to leave but Mystic Falls is her home, she says. You know my Mom. Tough as nails and stubborn as… stubborn as…"

"You?"

"Bonnie!" They laughed. "When I finish law school, I'm dragging her out of this town if I have to compel her to do so."

Caroline told the Sherriff as much when they turned up at her door a few minutes later. Liz was just getting off-duty herself and she was still in uniform. In between cries of delight and hugs and tears (mostly, Bonnie's), Caroline counted two new lines on her mother's beautiful face.

They stepped into the home and the girls made identical sighing sounds. The same coloured walls. The same pictures. The same tasteful and functional furniture. Even Caroline's room was the same, as if frozen in time. At least while inside here, they could pretend their town wasn't dying around them.

Hours later, after dinner and over wine glasses, Caroline repeated her declaration to forcibly relocate Liv from the town. Her mother just laughed, and deftly changed the subject when the topic of her residence threatened to turn into a well-worn argument. Instead, she turned to the girl she had known since before she was born, and who a few months ago, she had been told was dead.

"Oh Bonnie, we thought we'd never see you again! Losing you and then Sheila at once, I'm so glad you made it back to us."

Liz Forbes knew about the supernatural, of course. Technically, as a member of the Founders's Council, she probably knew more about the supernatural than her vampire daughter and her daughter's witch best friend.

The two girls gave her an abridged version of Bonnie's story. They had already decided on the details that Liz really did not need to know.

"So," Liz said as soon as they were done. "You're still going ahead with the wedding."

It was only supreme self-control that clearly stopped Caroline from jumping to her feet and shouting, "You tell her Mom! Tell her!" Instead, she gave Bonnie a sharp, pointed glare.

Bonnie covered her eyes with her hand. "Please, Aunt Liz, not you, too."

"I'm only trying to understand," Liz said calmly, "the need for the rush. Shouldn't the Gemini coven be more concerned about this Prisoner of theirs? I'm law enforcement so maybe I'm biased but I'd think hunting down a fugitive would be the most important thing right now."

"They are hunting him down. It's only a matter of time before he's caught." Bonnie's eyes were shadowed.

"But-"

"Please don't go at me about the wedding, too. Please!"

"Oh, Bonnie." Liz sighed. "I've known you since - well, since before you were born. When they called me back to duty, and I had to leave Caroline, I'd leave her with Sheila and Abby, and the two of you slept in the same crib. Even after moving to Portland, you both made your friendship work. It wasn't easy but you did. You're as much my daughter as she is. You know that, don't you?"

"I do," Bonnie whispered softly.

"So what I say now, I say out of love. One of the last things, Sheila told me before she passed away was that she didn't want this marriage for you. She never meant for you to be as involved with the Parkers as you are now."

"They are good people, Aunt Liz. The Gemini coven fight evil, they police the supernatural. They're the good guys."

"You can help them without being wed to a man you don't love, a manyou can't love. Don't you want any happiness of your own, Bonnie? Someone to love? A family someday."

"I'll have a family with Luke." She gave a nervous giggle. "That's like, the whole point. My Bennett blood getting into the next generation of Parkers. Magic will help with any … difficulties."

Caroline's wine glass shattered in her grip. "Sorry!" she shouted, springing up. "I like… need to clean this up… and get out of here for a moment."

She stamped out of the room.

"I take it Caroline has expressed her opinion on this," Liz said with a small smile.

"Expressed is an understatement," Bonnie said, dryly.

Despite herself, Liz laughed. "We love you, Bonnie. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Help the Gemini by all means, but not at the sacrifice of your own future."

"The Parkers are my future," Bonnie said, earnestly. "I may not be in love with Luke, but I do love him and he loves me. I know what I'm doing, Aunt Liz. I wish you'd believe me."

Liz bit her lip, weighing her next words.

"Stephen was gay."

Bonnie's eyes bulged and she squirmed, clearly mortified.

Yes, Bonnie, Liz thought. Prepare to be embarrassed if that's what's going to make you see reason.

"I loved him so much that I refused to see the signs that, well, that had been there all the times we were dating. And I'm glad I did because otherwise I won't have Caroline. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. If not for her, there were times…" Liz sighed. "When Caroline was ten, I met someone. Someone I cared for very much."

"Aunt Liz…" Bonnie said, nervously, clearly wanting this conversation to be over.

Liz ignored the unspoken plea. "He was one of the good ones. He couldn't with a married woman. It didn't matter that Stephen was gay. So I had to choose. I chose my family."

She nodded at the shock on Bonnie's face, and beneath that, the glimmer of understanding. "No matter how much you think you can love Luke, how much you're ready to understand, and to be content with the life he gives you… If – no, when – you find someone. When you find yourself in a position where you're not choosing an idea or a dream or a hope of love, but a person – choosing between the man you owe a duty to and the living, breathing man you want – what will you do?"

Bonnie swallowed hard, her hands clenched tightly around each other. "I'll choose Luke," she said fiercely. "I'll be his wife. We'll have a family. I'll choose my family."

"And you'll hate Luke for that. Maybe not right then," she raised her voice over Bonnie's protests, "maybe not even that week, that month. But it will build and build and build in your heart until it comes crashing down on you. And it won't end with him."

Bonnie was shaking her head, her eyes shining. "That's never going to happen to me."

"Bonnie-"

"You don't understand. It's never going to happen. This … perfect person… this person that I'll connect with, that I'll feel I was born to be with, that I'll want beyond reason?" Her mouth twisted painfully. "I will never choose him."

She stood up, wrung her hands painfully together, and turned on her heel and ran.

May 10 1994

He didn't deny it.

Up until then, she had refused to believe it, had refused to believe Katherine, even with the evidence laid stack before her eyes. There was a reasonable explanation. Kai would give it to her. Then things would go back to the way they were before. They'd get out of 1994, they'd prove his innocence to the Gemini coven and she'd break off her engagement with Luke.

Half way through her long speech, he had got up and walked to the window, and he stayed like that until she was done, his back turned to her. She wanted to ask him to look at her.

But she was already afraid.

When she finished, the silence stretched out for minutes. With each minute, she felt the foundations of her heart shudder.

"Please… say something," she said at last.

He turned to her and she gasped. She had never seen this man before. This emotionless, empty face… these soulless eyes… this was not her Kai.

"I always used to wonder," and his voice was touched with madness, echoed in its vastness. "Who names a kid Malachai? It's like they expected me to be evil."

A four hour road trip was barely enough for eighteen years of questions but Kai certainly made the most of it. He ate up the information he got from Liv as eagerly as he ate up the packet of pork rinds he had found with great joy at one of their rest stops. Coven intrigues – the families that had risen and the ones that had fallen, the witches that were revered for magical skill and power and the ones that were feared for dabbling into the darker arts – he needed to know everything there was to know for when he eventually seized power.

He also asked about things like the economic recession (Pam Anderson's house was up for sale? Bummer!), the Red Sox winning the World Series (pictures or it never happened), if there was a cure for HIV yet – no (so practice safe orgies, Liv) and cloning.

"Now, that's a bummer," he decided when Liv informed him that contrary to his expectations, human cloning was not yet available for order via Amazon. "I would have loved my own personal doppelganger."

Liv dozed off sometime during the last hour of the ride. Kai turned the volume of the radio to max and sang along loudly. She stirred fitfully, but she remained fast asleep. He gave up after a while, and sipped thoughtfully at his soda, then at hers for the rest of the ride.

It was late evening by the time he drove past the 'Welcome to Mystic Falls' sign. Feeling pangs of déjà vu, he navigated through streets that were both familiar and unfamiliar to him. He had lived in this town for the last three months of his time in Prison. The sensation of something crawling just behind his ribs, trying to clutch his heart was also both familiar and unfamiliar. He hadn't realized until now that being back here would probably make it worse. He squashed it at once, like he always did.

Mystic Falls had great significance to him.

He parked in front of their stop and glanced at Liv. She was still fast asleep, a sad little frown line in her forehead.

He poured the rest of her soda on her face.

Turned out that his little sister knew curses in English and Latin. Kai laughed so hard that he literally could not breathe.

"… and where the Hell are we?" She said, by way of finishing her tirade.

They were parked in front of a ranch-style building with faded paint. The street was empty, except for them and the dead leaves and crumpled newspapers sweeping in the breeze. There were at least four street lamps but only one was lit, casting shadows on the house and a signboard with the words 'Salv tor Boardin H use'.

"What a dump," Liv said. "No way I'm sleeping in there."

"The nearest hotel is at least an hour away." She started speaking and he cut her off. "You can walk there if you insist."

He grabbed his bag and the keys and got out of the car. He passed through the broken gate and started climbing up the steps. In a few minutes, he heard the car door slam as Liv grudgingly followed.

The door was locked. Kai left his finger on the bell while Liv muttered things about the possibilities of electricity, running water and rodents. He was contemplating whether carrying her dead weight was worth the relief of knocking her unconscious when the door opened.

A faded woman in faded clothes stared at them.

"Can I help you?"

"We have a reservation. Two rooms." Proudly, Kai handed her the printouts he had prepared with Liv's computer and printer.

The woman collected the papers without glancing at them. She stared at them with faded eyes.

Kai stared back.

Liv fidgeted. "Look, if you're all booked-"

"We have rooms," the woman said. She turned away and walked into the house.

Kai and Liv exchanged glances. Then they gathered their bags and followed.

The hallway was dimly lit and what could be seen of it was old and faded. The woman had waited for them to come in, then she had gone to stand behind the receptionist's desk.

Liv stood in the middle of the room, looking around her with increasing gloominess. Kai strolled up to the desk.

"So I take it you have a vampire problem in Mystic Falls."

The woman stared at him, an empty look on her face.

"Do you have any other house guests?"

"Not at the moment, no." She slid two keys across the desk to him.

There was a spell to reveal if a person had been compelled by a vampire. But Kai didn't need magic … just the eyes to see the faded shell of a human being before him.

"Hey, Livvy-poo!"

He tossed one of the keys at her surprised face. She dodged at the last second and the key whistled past her ear, clipping it. Kai smiled at the bright red blood and her shrieks as she clutched her ear and scrambled for the key on her hands and her feet.

Kai cocked an ear, and sent out tendrils of Liv's magic throughout the building. There were all sorts of intriguing magical footprints in this place – some very fascinating magical history had happened here. But what he was searching for – a vampire's aura – was absent, despite all the doubtlessly delicious Parker-witch blood that his sister was so carelessly dripping on the carpet. He curled his left pinkie, parsing through time, searching for shadow auras – a sign that a vampire lived there, even though it was currently absent.

Nothing. The place was, presently, as vampire free as anywhere in Mystic Falls.

Which was not saying much.

He did feel something else, though. What he had felt earlier, only stronger, that sense of his heart being gripped in a vice. He clenched his fist and forced it to stop.

Liv was still scrounging for the key.

Goodness, didn't she remember she was a witch?

With a sneer, he whispered a small summoning spell and her key flew into his palm. "Hey, Liv," he said again.

She marched to him, glaring, and grabbe it. "What is your problem?" she hissed.

He just shrugged.

He had a score to settle with a vampire who had ties to Mystic Falls, to the very family that once lived and owned this particular building. It wasn't very high on his list at the moment, but someday soon, after he had found his twin, won the Merge and gained ultimate power,

(and claimed her)

he would make it rue the day it crossed him.

Soon, he thought with a grim little smile, feeling it start up again, he would make them all pay.

May 10 1994

"It was the vampire, wasn't it? I should have staked her first thing. I knew I'd regret it and damn do I hate always being right. No good deed and all that crap."

"N-no. I figured it out…"

He laughed. Only Bonnie Bennett would try to put herself in front of a five hundred year old vampire.

"You'd never have figured it out on your own, would you, sweet little Bonnie?" He spat out her name like if it tasked like poison in his mouth.

In a way, it did.

"K-Kai?"

"And it was such a good theory, wasn't it?" He rubbed the back of his neck mock-wearily. "The gaps in the timeline, the dagger, the hanging… even the baseball bat. Jo always had a hell of a swing. Heck, I almost started believing it myself."

"Believing what, Kai?" she whispered the question, but he saw in her eyes, that she knew the answer.

Beyond any reasonable doubt.

He widened his own eyes guilelessly. "That I was innocent, of course."

The look on Bonnie's face would have driven him mad.

If he wasn't already there.

"But I can't take all the credit. You staring at me with those big, brown doe-eyes of yours. You'd have believed it if I told you they all committed some sort of ritual suicide pact. You should have seen the relief on your face when I gave you the Josette-did-it-and-framed-me speech. You drank it all up. You so badly wanted me to be innocent, didn't you?" He took a step towards her.

She took a step back.

"You wanted me to be the unjustly imprisoned twin that you were going to save." Another step.

"No. I believed you…"

"Because you wanted to. How else would you reconcile that perfect, flawless, pure-as-untrodden-snow self-image with all those dirty thoughts you were having of Malachai Parker? You believed me because you. wanted. me."

Her back was to the wall.

"No, no." There were tears in her eyes. She was shaking her head, shaking all over. He was so close to her now that he could reach out and grab her. He could wrap both hands round her neck and then he would never have to see fear in the eyes that had adored him before. Never have to hear hate spew from the mouth that had told him she loved him.

Instead he put both hands flat on either side of her face and leaned in, so close that she turned her face away and his lips were almost brushing her cheek. He breathed in her scent.

"Oh yes, Bonnie."

She smelt like clean water and flowers and him. He could hear in her breath the sobs she was fighting to hold back.

There was a hole in his chest that she carved in there and at that moment, Kai hated her more than he had ever hated anyone in his life.

"You fell in love with a child-killing psychopath." He smiled. Wide. Shark-like.

Manic.

"So, Bonnie Bennett, what does that make you?"