8

Crash

After spending over a decade in a Prison World, plotting to reclaim his birthright and enact vengeance on the people that imprisoned him – Kai Parker liked to believe that he had thought and prepared for everything.

He hadn't prepared for Bonnie Bennett.

The girl, her effect on him, were all wildcards that he would rather not deal with before the Merge Ceremony. Which was why he had gone out of his way to actively avoid her during his time on the Whitmore campus, even though it would have been so easy to seek her out.

Even though it had been so difficult to stay away.

So it made absolutely no sense for him to step into Sheila Bennett's house, knowing whom he would find in there. It made no sense for him to siphon a path through the powerful wards, to go up the steps, down the corridor and step through that door.

She was on her feet, fists clenched, magic coiled around her like a tightly drawn bow.

Until then, Kai thought he would never forget the way Bonnie Bennett looked – her deep green eyes, cupid bow mouth, that heart shaped face, the perfectly curved little body that had fit against his own like matching puzzle pieces.

But he realized his memory of her was like a faded photograph, sharp in his head but dim and flat compared to the real thing. The real thing was flashing jade fire, wild dark curls and golden skin and a mouth that he wanted to devour so badly, he thought he would pass out from wanting.

Vaguely, Kai realized that a part of him had assumed that being literally and figuratively stabbed in the back by this girl would have dimmed his ardour somewhat.

Apparently not.

Heart pounding, he wasn't even aware that he was moving towards her until her arms went up, palms facing him.

"Take one more step and I will melt your face off."

He smirked. "Is that how you greet all your exes?" He took a very deliberate step closer.

"Stay back!"

"Are you really going to set fire to your Grandma's library?"

She splayed out the fingers of one hand and he flew into the wall.

The impact sent a current of pain from his tailbone to the tips of his fingers, his teeth jarring in his head. He must have blacked out for a second because when he opened his eyes, she was flying through the door, her bag slapping against her.

Kai grinned and cricked his neck. The pain was a pleasant wake-up call, a reminder that he dealt best with this girl when he acted the role of antagonist.

"You wanna play, Bonnie?" he whispered. "I've missed our little games."

He stalked into the corridor, looking over the railing at her tiny figure pounding down the steps.

"Hey, Bon."

She flashed a look of panic over her shoulder just as he stretched out his hand and grabbed at her with magic.

She shrieked as she stumbled, her hold on the handrail the only thing that saved her from tumbling down the stairs, then she righted herself and kept on running.

Damn. That spell was supposed to freeze her not trip her. He had forgotten about the wards. He probably couldn't use magic against her in this house.

Very well. There were ways around that.

He closed his eyes and thought and when he opened them, he was standing at the foot of the steps and she was about to come crashing into him.

Bonnie's eyes widened, her hair flying around her face, and her mouth opening in the shock of a silent scream. For a wild moment, Kai imagined catching her and closing that mouth with his own.

The moment cost him. Because he didn't notice her hand reaching over her shoulder for her satchel until it was swinging at him.

It went right into his gut, and he bent over, too winded to even shout.

She followed after the bag, shoving at him with her fists so that he went sprawling as she ran to the door.

"Motus!" Bonnie screamed. Even though he was on the floor, he stretched out his hand, trying to shut the door back, before he realized what the spell was for when he felt the bag sliding away from him.

He got on his knees and grabbed for it, just catching it at the same time that her fingers curled around the straps. The bag stretched taut between them. He pulled.

She came flying at him and this time Kai was ready.

He caught her wrists and pinned her onto the floor. He quickly switched from one grip to another, so that he held both her wrists with one hand and his other hand was free to clamp around her neck. He leaned over her and ever so slightly, he pulled at her magic…

Bonnie screamed, her eyes filling with tears. He stopped.

"I can make it worse," he reminded her with a deadly whisper, his eyes trained on her left ear, a few inches past those shining, hate-filled eyes. "Use your magic on me and I will dry you up."

"Get off me," she gasped, trying to kick him. He held her down with one knee. She jerked, her body spasming off the ground.

"Stop it," he snapped, because he could barely manage to be as near her as this, feeling her skin on his hands, her scent in his nostrils and keep himself off her. He wanted nothing so much than to push his body on her and feel her writhing against him.

He had a death wish.

"I'm not here for you," he said through clenched teeth.

She gasped incoherently.

"What?" he asked, loosening his grip on her neck ever so slightly and bending near.

Her eyes were as sharp as knives. Her words cut deeper, spilling out from that wicked mouth. "Do you have any idea how much I hate you?"

Bile filled Kai's throat and he barely managed to swallow it. He leaned over her, his face inches from hers. "Right back at you," he snarled and he kissed her.

Bonnie's breath hitched once and then her mouth was open, her body arcing into his own as he slid his hand from over her throat to under her neck, his fingers slipping into her hair to cradle her head and angle it to his own. Her arms – he didn't even realise he had freed her hands – wrapped around him like vines.

It should have been a brutal kiss, more a punishment than a caress.

It wasn't.

Their bodies curled around each other with the same desperation that their tongues tangled, twisted, mated, their mouths coming together over and over between short, frantic gasps for breath. His heart was pounding so loudly, it deafened him. Her breath kept hitching, as if she was fighting back sobs, but her arms around his body were like iron, drawing him tight against her. He moaned into her mouth and he felt her body shudder against him before she kissed back harder. They were slightly out of sync: Kai would reach for another taste just as she struggled to catch her breath, and she was nibbling at his lips while he gasped against her mouth.

It was fiery and desperate, and it burnt its way through him, igniting all the nerves in his body. Bonnie was gasping his name now, her body arcing even more into his own, her leg rubbing against his inner thigh, curves pressing against him, fitting into him perfectly and he felt like if he would go mad if he couldn't have her, right there and then on her grandmother's floor.

Her fingers were in his hair, and he felt them tighten, pulling by the strands until he broke off the kiss.

They stared at each other, panting.

Bonnie's mouth was red and swollen, her hair wild, her eyes wilder, her skin glowing in a way that sent the little blood left in his brain rushing south.

So of course, he was completely unprepared when her fist rammed into the side of his face.

The explosion of pain sent Kai reeling to his side, and the punch that went into his gut threw him on his back. He landed on something that stabbed into his side.

He heard rather than saw Bonnie scramble to her feet, her breath thick with sobs, and with a gasped "Motus", she was out the door before he could stop her.

His head stopped spinning long before the sensation of utter desolation left him.

The Sheriff's office was humid, as always the air conditioning was a bust and the lazy ceiling fan barely stirred the air. Caroline needed a tall glass of something – blood or alcohol. Either was looking pretty good right now. For the heat and for her head that was about to split into two.

Vampires were supposed to have super-healing so how come she still got headaches?

Because she had a major migraine right now: it had started sometime in the past hour she had spent poring over this case file with her mother.

"Look," Caroline said now, trying a different variation of what she had been repeating for the past half hour. "I know a lot of Mystic Falls Open cases are supernatural crimes. But this was an accident. They still happen, you know. You've duelled with so many monsters, you're seeing them everywhere, Mom."

The Sheriff frowned in reply, and retorted with the same response she had been giving her skeptical daughter for the past half hour. "I had a bad feeling about this right from the night of the accident. The scene… it was wrong, OK? Don't ask me how I know this. It's a cop thing. I was positive there'd be an investigation but it was closed abruptly."

"Mom, that doesn't mean-"

"Caroline, even our 'animal attacks' get investigated! We just decide not to publish our findings. But the Sheriff then handled this personally and closed the case within days. The moment I became Sheriff, I re-opened the case privately. I've turned over every piece of information on record about this case. I wanted to be wrong about this, Caroline. I wanted to convince myself that it really was just an accident. Or worse, just a random vampire attack where poor Rudy was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But instead… I found Pandora's box. It took me years before I showed this to Sheila and Abby."

Caroline was shaking her head. "There's nothing I see here that can't be explained away as circumstantial."

"Caroline-"

"My god, Mom, I wish you hadn't shown me this!" Caroline snapped, losing it. "She already has so much going on right now. Now I'm going to throw this theory of yours on the pile of crap that's her life!"

"You don't have to-"

"Of course, I have to tell her. We don't keep secrets from each other. You knew that, didn't you? Isn't that why you showed this to me?"

Liz dabbed the sweat at her brow. "No, it's not. I'm showing this to you because I know you keep in touch with Stefan Salvatore" – Caroline squirmed – "Maybe he can have a look at this? Ask around the supernatural underground?"

"First, Mom, please don't ever say supernatural underground again. Secondly, if Sheila and Abby never found anything after all these years, what makes you think that Stefan will?" Caroline asked, sceptically. "Thirdly, 'in touch' is the opposite of where Stefan and I are right now. I stopped being on speaking terms with him and his brother after the whole business with Bonnie and the Cure." Her face turned wrathful.

"You're going to have to put all that aside now if you want to help Bonnie. Sheila was a very powerful witch. But she was too close to this," Liz said firmly. "It didn't take her a moment to not only believe me when I told her but to conclude… Well, two guesses whom she thought was responsible?"

Caroline stared blankly. She didn't follow. "Who would have been responsible? There's no motive. Nobody stood to gain any wealth outside his immediate family - his mom and his daughter. He and his wife had divorced years ago."

"And after he died, she got full custody of their daughter, moved across the country and was welcomed with open arms by the Gemini coven."

Caroline's mouth fell open as the pieces clicked into place. "No way, Mom. No way," but she wasn't sure she was saying 'no' in shock or 'no' in denial.

Liv leaned back on her seat, a look of satisfaction on her face. "You want to help her get out of this … contract she was roped into? This might just be your only chance."

Liv Parker's Volvo tore out of Mystic Falls as if all Hell's demons were at its wheels.

On their way to Mystic Falls, Kai had driven like an accident waiting to happen – running through lights, doing impromptu drag races with every fast car that tried to pass him.

Now, Kai drove like an accident wanting to happen. He turned bends without lifting his feet from the gas, he cut across cars with inches to spare. Everytime Liv opened her mouth to yell at him, she'd take in the sense of barely leashed fury pouring out in waves from him, and close it.

He had told Liv nothing about how his expedition at Sheila's house went. He had returned to the boarding house with a face like thunder and all but dragged her out to the car. At first, she thought that he failed – that he was unable to enter the house, or he had bombed at finding the Grimoires – until he threw two of them at her.

Which just made things even more alarming because now Liv had no idea what was pissing Kai off, only that she was the most likely to die because of it.

They stopped once to buy gas, and she tentatively suggested he get something to eat. Her ears were still ringing from the way he had cursed her out for that.

The car lurched forward now, gaining speed on the Prius in front of it, and her heart lurched with it. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her breakfast down, and flicking through the Grimoire on her lap at the same time.

"Sheila's only mentioned Jo a couple of times," she said now. Although, there had been several mentions of the Gemini coven and the Parker family in general. And Liv had studied for a long time the page containing the spell that had been used to trap Kai in the Prison World – but she was careful not to state these things. "She gave Jo references and set her up to study premed in Whitmore College. Then either they fell out of touch, or nothing to do with Jo's been worth journaling since then. So the premed thing is our only clue. I can't find anything about a concealment spell."

"Keep looking," Kai said grimly. "Sheila had to have used magic to hide Jo from the coven all these years. The Bennetts are about the only witches that have the power to cast a spell that's too powerful for our coven to break; and the only ones fearless enough to do so."

"You're damn right about the power and the fearlessness. This stuff is awesome. I still can't believe you got two Bennett grimoires," Liv said, excited despite everything. "If Dad could get his hands on these! Do you know how many times Bonnie tried to get - WATCH OUT!"

For the car had veered off its lane, curving in an arc that cut across three lanes, pushing forward in a burst of acceleration and then curving back into its lane, now ahead of the Prius and three other vehicles.

Liv tried to calm down. Failed.

"What the hell was that? Are you trying to get us killed?"

At the moment, her sudden fear of death by automobile accident had overpowered her constant fear of death by homicidal brother.

Kai didn't speak at first, just changed gears. Literally. The car jumped forward again and Liv almost lost her breakfast.

"What does the grimoire say about Josette?" he growled.

"What is your problem?" Liv shouted back.

"What does the damn Grimore say about finding my damn twin?" Kai said through gritted teeth.

"I'm not going to read another page of this book until you slow down and drive like a normal person. We're not vampires, Kai. If you put us in the middle of a metal sandwich, we're going to bleed and die. So much for your plans for vengeance and world domination. The whole coven is going to have a good laugh over how Kai Parker survived nearly twenty years in a Prison World only to die in a car crash like a muggle."

He reached over and pinched her. Hard. Siphoning magic out of her in a short, spiteful burst that made her pass out.

Liv came to a few minutes later, according to the clock on the dash. The needle of the speedometer was closer to normalcy.

Beside her, Kai was… still an ugly knot of even uglier emotions. But he seemed to have settled down to steaming, not boiling.

Well, Liv was this close to boiling over herself, and she lashed out with magic at him.

He deflected it back without lifting a hand from the wheel.

He laughed, and it sent shivers down her spine. "Just give me a reason, Olivia." His voice was calm and smooth as a cobra's hiss.

She bit down every angry, spiteful thing she wanted to throw at him – what was the use? – and turned back to the Spell book in her lap.

The sooner she got to the end of this barely mutually beneficial alliance, the better.

Occasionally throwing a wary eye at Kai and also the speedometer, Liv flicked through the Grimoire, skipping over the more interesting bits, and rapidly scanning through the entries that looked more like journals than spells, or magical research. Sheila Bennett's Grimoire was a detailed and organised trove of information and several fascinating spells caught her eye. But she tried not to get too distracted – by the rest of the book, and by her brother's maniacal driving.

Although, the latter improved somewhat after their next rest stop. Liv took the initiative of getting some salty snacks and soda for both of them. His mood brightened a bit after he finished the first three bags of pork rinds.

Ninety minutes to Whitmore and battling against a slight headache, Liv finally found something worthwhile.

"Yes," she whispered.

"What?" he asked, anxiously.

"Jo's name finally pops up again, in one of the very last pages. You were right – there was a Concealment spell. I'll have to check back through this whole book to find out which one, exactly. But just before she died, Sheila placed it again on Jo, with one – no two – changes. She anchored it to a magical object – not her own self – I guess she knew she was dying and she wanted to be sure the magic didn't die with her." Liv frowned. "When Bonnie came back, she said she saw –"

"What was the second change?" Kai snarled.

Liv recoiled; his sudden return to his earlier black mood had been completely unexpected.

Anger she could deal with. It was his unpredictability that really frightened her.

"I asked you a question," he said with a tone that clearly indicated that he wasn't going to ask again.

Liv swallowed. "Sh- Sheila turned the spell on Jo from a simple Concealment spell to a Protection spell. It's a reactive spell. If anyone tries to harm Jo by magic, it activates."

"What happens if it activates? What kind of protection kicks into place?"

"It's hard to make out the symbols here. I need to check my translator. I've got this App in my phone-"

The car swerved across the road. Horns blared and people screamed as it narrowly dodged impact and came to a stop on the shoulder.

Liv covered her face with her hands and shuddered.

Kai had already pulled the book to himself, and was muttering over the page. After a while, he reached into the glove compartment for a pad of paper and pen and started sketching. Liv put down her hands to watch him. It hit her then: he was decoding the symbols completely off head.

Despite herself, she was impressed, not that she would ever say so.

"The problem with having your own magic is that it makes you stupid," Kai muttered as he finished the sketch with a swoop and tossed the paper at her.

She was about to spit out an angry retort when she realized what he had drawn. She gasped.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say, based on my past dealings with our great coven leader, that when he realized I had flown the coop, one of the first things he did was to make sure I couldn't merge with Jo. And what simpler and surer way to do that than to make sure there was no Jo for me to merge with?"

Liv said nothing. She wasn't stupid enough to defend Joshua Parker in front of Kai.

Nor was she particularly inclined to. What Kai said was absolutely true.

She knew this because she had been right beside her father when he tried to find his oldest daughter.

And end her life.

Liv mentally shook her head. And Luke still wondered why she had no loyalty to their creepy coven.

"Based on your guilty silence, I think my guess was right," Kai said now. He sounded almost happy. He tapped his sketch. "We don't need to know the type of spell Sheila Bennett put on her. I think we already have a good idea where Sissy must be."

Caroline had barely parked the car in the Lot of their dorm before Bonnie was rushing upstairs, flying up the steps, through the doors, and then across their room as she frantically raked through her closet, throwing clothes on the bed.

"I thought you had packed before we left Mystic Falls?"

"I just remembered that I don't have enough formal wear! I'm meeting coven elders. I can't wear clubbing clothes-"

"Bonnie calm down. You're panicking over nothing. You packed everything before we left Mystic Falls. Remember, I was there? Now go freshen up before you leave. The taxi should be here soon."

Bonnie nodded, biting her lip, then disappeared into the bathroom.

Caroline dropped her own suitcase on her bed, opened it and pulled out the brown envelope at the top. She held it in her hand for a moment, staring.

The visit to Sheila's had shaken Bonnie. The younger girl had met Caroline at the station, completely freaked out and all but begged Caroline to leave Mystic Falls there and then. Caroline had barely managed to convince Bonnie to come home and gather their things. Then they finally got going and were half way out of the town, when Bonnie suddenly insisted on going back to check on her grandmother's house. Whatever she found there, while Caroline had watched hesitantly from the doorway, had shaken her up even more. She was practically in tears as she casted protection spells, wards through the house. She finally locked up, fumbling over the keys twice, and the two girls piled into the car and left for Whitmore.

All through out the four-hour trip to Whitmore, Bonnie had been completely withdrawn, going silent for hours, and barely holding her own end of the few pathetic attempts Caroline made at conversation.

Being in her grandmother's old house had clearly taken a massive toll on Bonnie and now, Caroline felt so guilty that she had left her to go through that alone. She should have insisted on accompanying her.

And maybe if she had, Liz wouldn't have had a chance to corner Caroline and give her this explosive secret.

Because Bonnie was clearly not ready for the bombshell in Caroline's hands.

So this would have to wait.

Nodding to herself, she tucked the envelope back in her box just as Bonnie came back in.

"The cab called. It's downstairs," she said. She looked a little better. Unless you stared hard at her eyes, which were strangely wild.

Caroline gave her a hug. "Have fun in Orlando. Take pictures. Try to go to the beach."

"I'll be back by next morning."

"Oooh, see who's jetting across the country like a celebrity."

Normally, Bonnie would have shoved her for that. Instead she just clung harder, hugging as if she didn't want to let go.

They were both crying when they finally parted. "Don't…" don't die on me, Caroline felt like saying.

Bonnie nodded, all the same, as if she understood.

Then she was gone.

Caroline sighed, watching through the window until Bonnie was in the cab and it was pulling out of the Lot. Then she went to find that envelope.

For a moment, she stared pensively at the logo of the Mystic Falls's Sherriff's office on it, and her eyes ran over the keynotes that were already burned in her brain.

Case #C200409-721A

Deceased: Rudy Hopkins

Date of Death: September 7, 2004

Cause of Death: Vehicular Manslaughter.

All the keynotes were typed. All except two words, scribbled in Sheriff Forbes' familiar writing, beside the word 'Manslaughter':

Possible Homicide.

Caroline pulled out her phone and tapped some buttons.

She didn't bother saying hello.

"The way I figure it, you and your brother owe Bonnie big. It's time for you to pay."

They drove straight through the campus and kept on through the town until they were parking in the lot of Whitmore Hospital. Before Kai stepped out of the vehicle, he cast a modified version of his twin tracking spell again.

The link between him and Josette snapped taut.

For the first time that day, Kai felt almost content.

They walked through the hospital doors and into the world of crying brats and agony, as the doctors and nurses fluttered through the mangle of human suffering milling through the building. The stench of antiseptic and the staccato of various beeping machines almost pulled him out of the spell.

He led the way, Liv trailing behind him. He was only half-aware of his surroundings, the other half of his consciousness on the magical cord that was drawing him nearer and nearer to his twin; it was Liv that wriggled them through the inconveniences of Access Control, Security and nosey nurses.

"We're in the ICU, Kai," she murmured, sounding nervous when they passed through the doors – that had Intensive Care Unit written in bold over them – and entered an area of the hospital that was even more sterilized, even more punctuated with those infernally beeping devices.

"Congratulations on your reading comprehension, Liv," he hissed as he turned down the second hallway on the left. This one.

A nurse stepped in their path and he left Liv behind to deal with her, every thought in his head now was of getting to the end of this rope and finding his twin.

Liv caught up with him as he stood before the door.

He stood there for some time.

Kai had been waiting for this moment for the past eighteen years and now that it was here…

He put his hand to the door and it seemed to freeze there.

It was Liv that, with one indescribable glance at him, pushed the door open.

That was where they found their sister, apparently having an extended nap while being monitored via tubes and wires.

According to the chart at the foot of her bed, her name was Dr. Josie Laughlin, and she was, strangely enough, a consultant in this very hospital. Kai stared at the dark haired woman lying on the bed, her lashes closed over eyes that he knew were the same shade as his own – and for the first time he could remember, his knees shook and he barely reached the chair beside her bed before he collapsed into it.

Dr. Josie Laughlin. A.k.a. Josette Parker. A.k.a. Sissy.

After years of being afraid he would forget how she'd look and he'd never be able to find her and punish her and claim his birth-right through her, Kai realized now that he would have recognised this woman anywhere in the world. Not because she looked like the twin sister that he had known all his life, whose face he had known before he had learnt the shape of his own.

He recognised Josette because she looked like their mother.

And that was when it hit him.

Eighteen years.

It had become harder and harder to conceptualise time in a world where it never altered. And even when he had got back, seen the drastic changes in the world, seen that his baby sister was practically his age, it still hadn't quite sunk in, not really.

It took this - seeing the difference in years between his twin and himself – to bring the weight of eighteen years crashing down on his shoulders.

Liv turned worried eyes from the chart in her hands, to the brother on the chair, looking like if he was going to throw up…

To the sister on the bed, in a coma.

"She's been like this for two months, Kai. Nobody has been able to figure out what's wrong with her. But we know. This is Sheila's spell. Jo's not going to wake up until you're dead."

A/N: So like I said earlier, this was posted as 2 different chapters and now they're united.