Taking the money from the counter had been such an impulsive decision. After all, he had seen her but she hadn't seen him. It was easy for him to locate her since the bubble of magic burst from her location when she'd first arrived. He'd driven like a bat out of hell to Mystic Falls - a place he hadn't traversed in several months.

He always found himself back in that sleepy little town.

When Kai first saw her, he thought she wasn't real. Just a figment of his imagination. After all, he'd been living in solitary confinement for damn near twenty years. It shouldn't have been a surprise for him to start hallucinating. Granted, he was late in the game, but it was still a possibility.

But unlike any illusion he had ever come across, this woman never interacted with him. She never turned her gaze in his direction and there was never any ill intent. She did not torment or taunt him. She did not entice him on a level that gave him pause. At least not negatively.

Her lips were full and sweet and her complexion a soft mocha that made his heart thud in his ribs. Chestnut hair was pulled back away from her face and the bits that fell free often danced with her subtle movements. There was a familiarity in her eyes, malachite and soulful that resonated with him in a way that it probably shouldn't have.

Kai wished he could hear her speak. He wanted to hear her voice. No. He needed to hear it.

Was she like him? A prisoner? Was she a witch? Had the Gemini felt the need to punish her as well? He found it hard to believe she was even capable of committing any crime. Not with the way that she tended to the flowers in the gardens of various homes; with how she stood in the middle of an open field and soaked up the sunlight on her skin.

She was so beautiful that it hurt to even look at her.

Kai left Mystic Falls for a day. Maybe he really was hallucinating. He needed a day to get himself together and pull his thoughts out of the hellish pit he'd made for himself. After a week of following this enigma - this farce - he would come back and there would be no one. He would be alone.

Like always.

When he returned, his legs carried him back to the house that she had taken up residency: the home of Sheila Bennett. Sheila was the one responsible for helping create the prison he was currently in, but she was also the one witch who had believed in him. She believed he was capable of so much more than what his own coven had laid out for him. Believed he was more than the abomination that his father branded him to be.

There were times when he missed her. Missed the simpler days when she would bring her daughter, Abby, to the Parker family home in Portland. Abby truly believed she would become a superstar and often spoke of how she hated the responsibilities of being a Bennett witch. She and Kai frequently fought because she at least had her own magic, unlike him.

What he wouldn't give to have his own magic. To have his revenge.

"Who are you?"

A voice. Not his voice. A different one. It startled Kai and he found himself snapping out of his daze long enough to refocus his vision.

There, in his line of sight, stood the supposed figment of his imagination. She was dressed in a pair of high rise denim shorts, a black crop top with a black and white checkered button up covering the rest of her. But he got a clean view of her beautiful bare stomach - the muscles flexing at feeling his gaze rove over her. The heels of her combat boots shifted across the wooden porch as she folded her arms across her chest in waiting.

Kai's lips parted but he couldn't find the proper words. After all, her voice had taken him by surprise. All this time, he'd believed she wasn't real.

She canted her head to the side slightly - still waiting for his answer. He took a step back when he saw her moving from the porch. Kai couldn't bring himself to run, however, and felt nature rooting his Converse-clad feet to the ground.

The girl circled him, inspecting him. He felt like a freak on display but he still couldn't voice his displeasure. He could smell the hint of her perfume. Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds.

She finally stopped, standing directly in front of him. Her eyes seemed to pop even more in the mid-morning sunlight. Her perfectly arched brows raised and there was a soft glow of bronzer on her cheeks - further accentuating her heart-shaped face. Full lips parted and she slowly reached a hand out toward him. Kai hadn't realized that he'd been holding his breath.

"...are you real?"

Impulse took over reason. His hand zipped out and grasped her wrist and she gasped. It took on a red glow and Kai realized it too late. A sharp intake of breath issued from her and Kai did the same. But while hers was from pain, his was from absolute euphoria and it swept through him like a miniature hurricane.

Magic. It was magic! She was a witch!

Pleasure rippled from him but she quickly yanked her hand free. Taking a step back from him, Kai was immediately tossed up in regret. Well, so much for first impressions.

He'd never been very good at them. Maybe she wouldn't hold it against him?

She glared at him - green eyes dancing between outrage and confusion. Did she look even prettier when she was angry?

"What the hell did you just do?!"

Kai didn't stop his smile from forming. Yes. She most definitely looked prettier when she was pissed.

Holding his hands up in both apology and to showcase he wasn't intent on hostility, he took a breath. "Sorry, I got a little carried away there." He lowered his hands a measure, keeping one hand up while extending the other one slowly toward her. "I'm Kai. And you are?"

The witch eyed his hand cautiously. He couldn't blame her. Reaching out with a finger, she poked at his palm and then quickly pulled it away in case he repeated his earlier actions. Kai felt his smile widen as he watched her do this three more times before finally slipping her hand fully into his.

There wasn't a hint of friendliness on her face as she looked at him. In fact, there was a hint of a threat in the way that she gripped his hand. But Kai merely tilted his head to the side in waiting.

"Bonnie."

His grip increased just a bit before he shook their hands.

"Nice to meet you, Bonnie." He held her hand a little while longer, relishing in the fact that he knew she was, in fact, real, before releasing her. "So, I guess we both have a little explaining to do, yeah?"

"You're a...siphon?"

"Mmhm."

"So, you pull magic from people?"

"Not just people, but magical objects too."

"I see."

Bonnie studied Kai as they sat Indian style across from each other on the grass in her Grams' front yard. They had spent the last half hour talking - mostly prodding at each other to figure things out. He was gauging her just as much as she was gauging him. Neither of them, however, broached the subject of why they were both residing in Apocalypse Falls.

She pursed her lips together, studying him a bit more. He looked to be about her age. Innocent looking features but his slate-blue eyes belied something completely different. But she didn't sense any ill-intent from him. He seemed genuinely perplexed and curious with her presence there.

"You siphoned from me."

His brows furrowed. "I honestly didn't mean to. I thought you weren't real."

Nodding, she fiddled with the laces on her boots. "I didn't think you were real either." Bonnie gave him an accusatory look. "...you were the one watching me all this time, weren't you?"

Kai laughed, shaking his head as he held his hands up in defeat. "Guilty as charged." He leaned forward, bracing his palms on his knees. "But I thought you were some dream. I thought I'd finally gone crazy in this place."

She tried to stop the smile from tugging at her own lips and she slapped her knees to keep it from happening altogether. "What is this place anyway?" Craning her neck, she looked around curiously before letting her gaze fall back on Kai. "I feel like I've been thrown back in time and the day keeps resetting. Do you know why?"

He seemed to consider this and she watched him toss a few thoughts around. Was he trying to dumb it down for her? She almost felt offended. Almost.

"We're in an alternate dimension."

"Like what? Like the Other Side?"

He shook his head and grinned. "Nope. We'd have to be dead for it to be the Other Side. And we wouldn't be the only ones here." Kai held up his hands. "And as I've already demonstrated, you can feel pain so you're not dreaming."

Bonnie folded her arms across her chest in thought. Her Grams had sent her here for a reason. But for what? A break? That felt like only half of it. And she wasn't dead either?

There had to be another reason.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She looked back at him, his expression curious and waiting. They weren't going to get very many answers if they didn't at least come to some kind of mutual understanding. Honesty. They needed to be honest with each other. They needed to trust one another in order to really figure out what in the hell was going on.

"You've been here longer than I have, haven't you?"

May as well just come out with it.

Kai's smile fell just a margin and he averted his gaze. So she'd touched on something. But how bad was this little bit of truth he was hiding?

She sighed. "Look, it's clear that we're both alive and there has to be a way out of this place, right?" His eyes lifted to meet hers and Bonnie did her best to put on a less suspicious expression. "So why don't we just lay out everything we both know and do that? Get the hell out of here."

Bonnie thrusted her hand forward. If she set the ground rules, then maybe this guy would follow. If not, they could go their separate ways and call it a day. The world was a big place when it was only two people existing in it.

Kai grasped her hand and gave it a firm shake. "Deal."

Trust.

She was attempting to establish trust. Something that Kai didn't really take too much stock in since his twin betrayed him. Kai had no reason to trust Bonnie anymore than she had a reason to trust him.

Yet she was trying to put the groundwork down for it anyway.

Little by little, day by day, Kai and Bonnie revealed little things about each other. The suggestion had been to just put it all out there, but Kai knew the true meaning behind that statement. He was fine with it. He'd been there for eighteen years. What were a few more weeks?

The weeks, however, dissolved into months. But, again, Kai didn't mind. It was the first time he was actually happy to be around someone else. He had been in isolation in the real world thanks to his family and, like this world, he was forced into isolation once again. Having another human being there with him to talk to - to hear another person's voice other than his own?

It was...nice.

But the niceness of it almost sickened Kai. Nice wasn't what he was all about. There was the ever-suspicious part of him that wondered just when Bonnie was going to betray him. Was she leading him into some kind of false sense of security? When did the lies and truths start getting confused for the other?

When was he going to start feeling disappointed? When was that proverbial shoe going to drop? Every time he felt his guard dropping around Bonnie, he grew just a bit more agitated with himself.

Kai was in the kitchen making waffles when a loud thud brought him out of his reverie. Bonnie plopped onto a stool, her head peeking over a pile of books. Plating a waffle and adding some sliced strawberries, he offered the plate to her and she took it along with the glass of orange juice.

"Research?"

She bit into a piece of waffle and nodded, taking a book off the stack and flipping it open. "Along with the Ascendant, you said we need Bennett blood, right?" He nodded, taking up a seat next to her as he peered at the pages. "Well, I was thinking that if Bennett blood is required, then a Bennett would have written down the spell somewhere."

Kai had guessed as much. But he'd poured through every grimoire that he could get his hands on. Nothing was helpful and some spell books were crafted to hide certain things from other prying eyes. He'd spent years trying decipher what he could but there was just no way around it. He didn't have any magic and even if he did, if he wasn't a direct descendant then there wouldn't be anything to see anyway.

If Bonnie was as well-versed a witch as he thought she was, then she would know that too. He already knew where the Ascendant was. That was one of three pieces needed to escape that place. The spell and blood? Well, that was something he didn't have easy access to.

"It won't do any good if you can't read the spell," he said, sipping from his glass. "And there is still the issue of Bennett blood."

Kai couldn't have missed that triumphant smirk on Bonnie's face even if he wanted to.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm a Bennett witch, huh?"

His mouth fell open in mid-chew and she laughed, shaking her head as she bit into another forkful of waffle.

"You're a Bennett?" She nodded, her eyes drifting back to the pages of the grimoire. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She shrugged. "You never asked." Bonnie casted a sidelong glance at him. "It's not like we were throwing around last names when we first met."

True. He couldn't argue with that. It made sense now why he was so drawn to her. But Kai had also been curious how Bonnie seemed to know her way around Sheila Bennett's house as well as she did. Which brought about another question gnawing at the back of his brain.

"...do you know Sheila Bennett?"

Bonnie's hand paused, the strawberry just barely touching her lips. She blinked and met Kai's gaze, noting the curiosity glinting in her green depths. He could almost see the desperation on his face reflecting from her eyes.

"She's my grandmother."

Kai dropped his fork.

AN: And it just keeps coming guys. I'm not going waste too much time down here in the notes. Just know that I love you all. Review and favorite and all that good stuff!