Bonnie glanced at her watch for what felt like the twentieth time in ten minutes and then laid her head back, relaxing upon the couch, legs lifted into position to try and relax. It wasn't long thereafter that he finally joined her, looking no better but wearing a smile nonetheless.
"We better get moving if we don't wanna miss the train. Oh, and… don't forget the knife."
"The knife?" she parroted, swinging her legs off the couch, feeling her stomach somersault intensely. That did not insight any kind of joy or eagerness in her. "You can't be serious?"
She jogged toward the kitchen anyway. Kai took her backpack from the chair and hauled one strap onto his shoulder, scanning the parlor with a quick eye to make sure they weren't forgetting anything important. The atlas stood out on the dark screen of his mind, and Kai stubbornly looked the other way. If he told her, she would clasp onto it, and they would have to wait, travel to the edge of the world for that damn thing – whatever it was – and then hope for the best. And that all in case she didn't screw him over the same way he did her. In Kai's book, people loved to get even and pay back the embarrassing and hurtful debts. Even a person as perfect in moral sense as Bonnie seemed to be – he couldn't bring himself to trust her goodness that much. Not yet. Not unless he had no other option.
Bonnie grabbed the knife off the dry rack, clutching it in her right hand once she got outside and caught up. He wasn't moving too fast.
"I know you have a particularly gruesome part two plan in mind. But I—I err… don't think it's a good idea to try and kill zap again."
Kai heaved a sigh, and stared at her with barely hidden tired irritation.
It wasn't that Bonnie didn't want to go home. But how was that going to legitimately work? Was she to kill him? Take his hand and hope for the best? There were so many things to complicate it. "You're not recovering as you thought you would and I think we should stick to what I have and hope for the best."
What was the worst case scenario? They sit out another day? The magic fades away altogether? That thought filled her with dread—almost making her wish she could retract her hesitation—as more likely scenarios flooded to the surface. What if he died and she still didn't make it? Where would she be then? Who would come for her again? Damon? He'd left her to rot here for two months already, how long would it take to get to her if Kai was gone entirely? She didn't want to think about it.
"We'll have a repeat of yesterday, and if you don't recall your reaction to that, let me resume that neither of us enjoyed it."
Bonnie could admit that she'd lost it, that once again that chance of escape had been snatched from her grasp and that he could relate, granted how many times she'd done it to him in the past.
"So I suggest you suck it up and we do it my way which seems to have more chances to get us out of here." Kai plucked the knife from her hand and tucked it into the backpack as he strode towards the woods. "You coming?"
Bonnie regarded him pensively as he went ahead. He'd only seen one way to do it and knew that she wouldn't help him. Bonnie had been so brave then, too, so uninformed of what she was getting into, so ignorant—with Damon's help—of what Kai was truly trying to escape. She now knew.
They traveled to the caves in silence, neither happy about the cliffhanger of their fate. Bonnie straggled after him in silence, keeping an eye on him, registering how sluggish his walk was as opposed to what it was the day before. He put up a good front and radiated a fair amount of confidence, but she couldn't help but think his culpability was making it difficult for him to see what he was doing to himself. She respected his choice and in some way, selfishly, she was grateful. Bonnie averted her gaze to the invariable sky overhead, having come to loathe and take comfort in the eerie silence around them. There was no rain, no colder weather, no birds and zero land type animals to signify life outside of this world. It was purely a cold merciless and unfeeling copy.
She followed him down into the cave, watching him struggle, making sure to refrain from babying him any more than was necessary, not wanting to overstep her bounds.
They unpacked the ascendant and the knife, and Bonnie shot an acute glance at him that Kai pretended not to notice as he wrapped his fingers around the knife's handle, preparing himself for the final plunge. It was never easy enough, but now it appeared to get harder every time he did it to himself. Maybe because of how he hardly felt good and healthy, anymore, and any new addition to his discomforts seemed excessive. He hoped the fit he had earlier at the sink wouldn't come for a replay when the eclipse started.
As Kai removed the knife from her backpack and psyched himself up for the final blow, Bonnie couldn't help but notice the look of uncertainty that flickered on his face. He might have massacred his family, stabbed her and left her for dead, but the look she was reading on his features now was that of implicit fear and indecision. He didn't know what he was doing, he didn't know if this would work and was taking a chance – a fatal one. And in good conscience, she couldn't calmly sit back and let him maim himself. Not again. She didn't even have to murmur the spell this time. She was so worked up the knife simply wrenched itself from his weak grip, sliding across the ground to ricochet off a boulder, temporarily lost to our sight. She hardly paid mind to where it landed.
The knife escaped his hand so quick he hardly noted the very moment before it swept away from him across the stony ground and clanged against a stone somewhere ahead where he couldn't see. Kai stared dumbly in the direction it went, then snapped a what-the-hell glare at Bonnie.
"I'm sorry," she said as he turned to stare at her. "But I'm not going to let you kill yourself. You've given me what you can and we're going to make due." She walked over to him, reaching into the bag for the ascendant, using the sharper side of it—as she had done in the past—to slice into her palm. She squeezed her blood onto the center of the key, peering up at the sky where the sun was readying to be blanketed for a minute or three.
Kai watched her, uncertain of how he should feel, aggravated or grateful. Was she sympathizing or merely worried for her only source of magic in this world? What if she knew of Nova Scotia? Would her attitude change then? Would she still be willing to keep the team or rather make sure he stayed behind to never haunt her outside this place?
She uttered the words needed to unlock it, waiting, not wanting to waste any time, and extended a hand toward him. "You coming?" There was still a few more minutes to wait, but she wanted to be ready to leave as soon as.
Kai blinked and looked at her hand extended to him. Above them, the shadow was creeping towards the glaring eye of the sun. He nodded and took her hand, standing before her. There was a meek nauseating sensation around his stomach, and he could only hope nothing drastic would happen before they were out – IF they were out at all. She hardly had enough magic; Kai couldn't make himself believe she did no matter how hard he tried. It was going to be another epic failure, and another nervous breakdown back at home. It struck him bitterly funny how he thought of the Boardinghouse as home. It also smelled ominous, as if that damn house truly was about to become their last home for eternity.
Bonnie closed her eyes and started to chant as the light gradually dimmed upon her pretty face; the shadows from her hair and eyelashes shifting faster across her cheeks. Kai peered at the blood painting the center of the ascendant and felt no elated anticipation of going home.
Because we're not going home.
Bonnie guided Kai's one hand beneath her own as she'd done for Damon in the past, showing him how to hold the ascendant with her—not that she knew—and took a firm hold of his other hand. She peered up at the sky, making sure the moon was shifting into place and starting to cover the sun as it had done so many times over the last six months. She took a moment to pray that nothing else go wrong and closed her eyes. She needed to make this count – for the both of them.
She reflectively tightened her hold on his hand as a breeze picked up around them the more in tune she became with the spells momentum, filling her with inherent excitement that soon turned into that of anticipation the longer that brilliant beam took to make itself known.
The twilight embraced them and dipped the caves around them in abyss-like dark. A breeze rose and breathed around them, blew Bonnie's hair and tickled the nape of his neck. Gooseflesh broke on his back and arms, nausea strengthened. He could almost feel a few beads of sweat about to stand out on his temples as if he had fever. He actually was feeling feverish. He noticed his bones aching, all through his legs and spine. Kai shivered as if with a chill. And then there was a kiss of cold on his cheek. Bonnie was still chanting, her voice lower now, saving energy. Colors danced over her face as if on a disco party. Small white flakes fell between and over them. Snow. It was snowing.
Kai tried to look up and glimpsed a shining rainbow before a white flash of pain in his brain stole the view. He cried out, staggering back and clutching at his head. A few throes, and then it loosened, as suddenly as it began. He slumped onto his knees and against a rock, catching his breath.
Bonnie kept trying, kept preserving the word right until the minute I no longer could. Kai cried out, his hands vanishing from her own as he staggered back to clutch his head. She opened her eyes, staring at him as he slumped against a rock before darting a glance heavenward. They weren't in their part of the world anymore. They were back in rainbow hell.
She was there, saying or asking something Kai didn't care to focus on just yet. It was still dark around – or it was in his head, he couldn't tell. A short charge of ache zapped through his head without warning, having him groan, but he managed to see the colors flicker off replaced by the normal semi-dark of the eclipse, as if they were a hologram.
Bonnie rushed toward Kai, taking a clumsy but gentle hold of his shoulder, hoping the ascendant would still kick in and carry them home. It didn't.
"No," she whispered in distress, watching as once again the world faded away like a macabre picture painting and bestowed them with the tail end of the eclipse.
She stood beside him in silence, uncertain of what to say, unable to believe they had failed. It should have worked, she felt it, the small inkling of a jolt as it tried to take effect.
I was sure of it.
Kai raised his hands to his temples – each weighed a few extra pounds – and rubbed gently, his eyes closed. Then looked at Bonnie. "You didn't have enough magic to pull it off before it went unstable again. You shouldn't have stopped me. We'd be out of here by now if you didn't." His voice held no accusation; it was tired and listless, just like he felt.
Bonnie stiffened and glanced down at the bloodied ascendant in her hand, feeling a lick of irritation creep beneath the surface, along with resentment. Why hadn't Damon tried to come for them? Why were they doing this alone? It had been three days since Kai arrived—free of threats—and with him being good, Liv might care to try again? Or were they resigning Bonnie to her fate? Were they giving up on both of them?
"I stopped you because it was the right thing to do," she replied insistently and removed her hand from his shoulder, taking her place beside him on the rock. "Because had we not made it, you'd still be dead and we'd still be suffering with the same issue. You've done enough in the sacrificial department. And as useful as it feels, you're of more value to me alive than dead." She slid the ascendant into her bag, her eyes once more finding his, a pang of sympathy clutching her heart at how off-color he looked. How close to death.
If only there was a way to figure out what's wrong with him.
She removed the water bottle she'd tucked into her bag, screwed off the cap and offered it to him, he looked as though he needed it. What were they going to do now?
Her words lured, and Kai distantly wondered whether she cared for the magic source or him. He nodded a thanks for the water and drank.
"We need to find out what's wrong with you, there must be something," she mused aloud, folding her arms across her chest.
Kai thought there sure was. Something big and ugly. Though he was scarcely ready to learn what and how big this something ugly was because it meant to chain him to this place for the real eternity this time.
"What if we go back to Portland?" she asked. "It's two or three days drive away. Maybe you family will have something on record? Something to explain this place? Or more?"
He put the bottle in her hand and looked at her with tired pessimism. "Bonnie, I've spent eighteen years in this hole. Don't you think I've checked everything that could be checked? Tried everything that could be tried or researched or thought of. The prison worlds are the biggest secret of our coven; no one ever kept records of anything that touched upon how they tick. It's like placing the prison's plan in the open where the inmate can find it."
"But," Bonnie started in a whisper, wanting to remind him that her grandmother was a part of this whole thing somehow, that she'd willingly handed over her blood to lock him away. Perhaps his family didn't keep a record of these things—although that might have been similar—but Bonnie's was entirely different, and now that she knew there was a link, she could look into it, dig around and see what else those inheritance books have in them.
She meant good, and had any right to suggest solutions, but it still slipped a seed of irritation inside Kai where it started to grow. Nothing seemed to have a point now. He got up, waited out a bout of lightheadedness, and started to leave. "Let's go back. It's over."
Whereas Bonnie had been the one to lose it yesterday, today appeared to be his turn and for once, she had no words of hope or means of comfort. She took one last sip of water, screwed the bottle cap on and slipped it back into her backpack. She trailed behind him, making sure Kai wouldn't break an ankle on the way up, knowing that in his weakened state anything was possible and that unconsciousness loomed all the closer.
I can't afford to have him get stuck down here.
The more strength Kai put into making it out of the caves without slipping or stumbling, the more irritated he felt. It was ridiculous how tired he was, and he hadn't been unloading a train of coal or spring-cleaning the Boardinghouse. It had been a mere walk in the woods. It was unreal, and stupid. He felt stupid for letting Bonnie get in the way, and for believing it would be that easy to escape this place. More bitterness leaked from the thought of how he probably should have stayed out instead of sticking his nose back because of the freaking guilt. He did escape. And then—
"So," she began once they made it to the surface and slowly walked back to the Boardinghouse. There was no longer a need to rush. "What do we do next?"
He chuckled, a dry and acrimonious sound, and nursed the urge to spin and shout in her face that there was nothing we could do since she made sure to strangle the only idea that worked.
"Killing you is no longer an option, I'm running on limited magic and it needs to be reserved. How else can we go about finding out what's wrong with you?" He had to have some kind of clue, right? Unlike her, he grew up amidst this kind of thing, he had some kind of base to work with.
"I'm a merged witch, my DNA's different, and that's what's wrong with me," he said, trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice, and afraid she'd catch up and touch him and then he'd throw her against a tree.
Bonnie guessed it was his turn to feel angry and despondent about their failure. Not that she blamed him. He'd tasted freedom and all but lost it because of a good deed.
"Maybe that's the great lesson of this place – that I should suffer in any way possible. Then maybe I should keep killing myself until this whole crap of a scheme clicks right for at least a damn minute. We never get to take notice, but in fact, a minute is quite a nice time. So much can happen within a damn minute. Like, teleporting the hell OUTTA HERE."
"Or maybe, I should attempt to get a message to Damon," she said, not at all liking the prospect of his whole lets-kill-me shenanigans and aware of how against that idea he'd been the first time she presented it. It seemed fitting now, especially with that little magic she had left – it wouldn't get them back home, definitely not.
Kai felt the flames of wrath work their way through him, roaring the damned name like the bloodthirsty crowd was roaring Jesus's once, demanding his death.
"He can talk to your sister and they help give us a boost. The ascendant should still be there, right? Like when we teleport, it stays this side. Wouldn't the same apply on the other side? Wouldn't it still be in the Boardinghouse? I know you said you broke it or whatever, but you got it working again, maybe they could use it to come get us."
He spun around to face her, a furious smile on his face. "Yeah, why don't we text Damon? Wonderful idea!" He patted his pockets in a mocking flourish and composed a shocked expression. "But wait, I've no cell on me. Probably left it in the real world. What a bummer. How about you? Got some fancy futuristic model that can call through realities, don't you? By all means, go ahead and send a message, and we shall see how many years it takes him to tear his mouth from the Gilbert gal and read it."
Bonnie bristled, hating how he made that sound, as if searching for her had somehow become a chore and that it wasn't what Damon was doing to begin with.
"I get it, you don't like Damon," she responded, forcing herself to remain neutral and refrain from asking him to explain what he meant. "And I'm not asking you too. I just—if he knows we're ready, if I can get a message to him, we'll be out of here in no time. It took your sister, like what—a day? There doesn't have to be a wait, there doesn't have to be any more bloodshed or… hopelessness."
Her faith in Damon and his creative mind put to her rescue was sickening to the core, as well as flabbergasting. "You seriously believe either of my sisters would help us? They would be happy to leave you here to rot if they know I'm locked away again as well. We won't be 'out of here in no time', Bonnie! We won't get out unless it's something WE do, do you understand?"
She understood full well the point Kai was trying to make as she'd been trying to get herself out of situations from day one. And from what she knew, Damon, for whatever reason, over the years, became one of the only other people she could count on to get her out of it, even before he became bearable and a really close friend. That was why it hurt so much to know that he'd left her here, that it had been two months and counting since he'd left and she had sent him Miss Cuddles.
"No one else will help, and certainly not your hero Damon. All he cared about was Elena, and now she's in his arms, in his bed. Where you are doesn't bug his mind as often as you might think."
Just saying it, throwing those few drops of poison into her crystal-clear well of hope felt good. It felt addictive. Kai searched her face for the mood to argue his point. He almost needed her to give him a reason to say more.
"You're wrong," Bonnie stated, feeling irked by his obvious need to discredit Damon and take his foul mood out on her. She didn't care. She wouldn't stand for it. "He's fought for me in the past and now that—that we're closer, friends even." Another—more illicit—image popped into her head, an inkling of unwarranted hurt stirring at the thought of being abandoned by him, of being disregarded so effortlessly once he'd acquired what he wanted. "He wouldn't just leave me here. He obviously hasn't the resources or the way to get to me."
If before that Kai was trying to rule himself down despite the annoyance, now all restraints went up in flames of fury at her stubborn devotion to a man she hardly meant much to. Kai wanted to crush her believe in him, rip it out and burn it to ashes as she watched. He needed to make her see how foolish she was. And also, a small, deep-dwelling part of him wanted to hurt her in return.
Kai wanted to yell and rage, but instead he squinted searchingly at her as if something new had occurred to him. "You thought after that night he'd be your white knight in armor who'd rescue you from your tower and bring you to his palace to crown the Queen?"
Bonnie stiffened at his subtle and cold mention of 'that night', his laugh sending a sharp buzz up her spine that made her recoil slightly in response.
He barked a laugh. "It's like you never met the guy, Bonnie! Elena's his everything, always was, and seems to always be. I bet he'd do anything to keep that little piece of information as far from her as possible. And guess what you are? You're the walking-talking reminder of the exact thing he's working hard on forgetting – you're a mistake, a drunken comfort-sex slip."
She flinched at his cavalier mention of sex, flushing in response to the knowledge, hating how easily it fell from his tongue and how effortlessly he'd cheapened the entire thing.
"If you stayed here forever, it might suit his harmony with Elena just fine. So what makes you so sure he wants you back and around them?"
Bonnie swallowed thickly and reached to launch into a defense, to let Kai know that they were 'friends' and that over the last few months Damon had grown and changed. Kai didn't allow her that chance, clearly reading the intention in her eyes and looking as though he were a predator about to take down its prey. She wasn't fond of that look.
One didn't have to be a mind reader to see it hit the target. It soothed his heart with acrimonious joy, and Kai aimed again to make it a between-the-eyes one.
"Before I dropped by the Boardinghouse with that letter for Jo, neither of them sought me," he told her in a calmer tone, as if expecting that his facts would comfort her. "And even then it was Elena's idea to try and contact you. You know what they were busy with? They threw you a birthday party. A birthday party without the birthday girl. Cute as can be. It seemed to me like rather a memorial than that. They were saying goodbye to you without voicing it out loud. I thing only Caroline still grasped at straws. Damon certainly didn't."
Bonnie stared at him in mute shock, at a loss on how to even come up with a thought that could assimilate how sick she all of a sudden felt. While she was losing it, trying to grasp onto the last strip of her tilting sanity, they were throwing a party in her honor?
Kai was unyielding. "You know what else I think? That if he wanted you back so badly, he would've gotten more Bennett blood like the last time, sought me out, and made me do it whatever the cost. But he was all over Elena all day every day, even on your birthday when I walked in on them. I might've interrupted a kitchen quickie on the table, next to the cupcakes they made for your party. You should've seen his grimace when he had to keep it in his pants instead."
Bonnie guessed they were making up for lost time. She couldn't blame him, could she? And yet, some part of her did, some part of her wanted to rage, kick and scream. If she were in Damon's position, she'd have been working on a solution night and day, doing everything in her limited power to find a way to bring him back and make this work.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, Bonnie, but he fucked you just because you were there when he needed the only calm pill that worked for him when booze did not. It wasn't you he wanted. And now he's doing what he's perfect at, given the amount of horrid deeds on his conscience: he's working hard to avoid thinking about it, or you, if he can help it. A true hero in a nutshell."
"And how would you know that?" she spat, unable to bite her tongue anymore, her right hand sweeping out to send him careening against the nearest tree in spite of his ailment. He'd hurt her, she wanted to hurt him back. Bonnie moved to stand in front of him, ignoring his grimace of discomfort. She just wanted to make him stop. "You don't know him. You don't know what's going on in that unpredictable mind of his, or how we feel about one another for that matter! Relationships take work, effort and a semblance of trust. I trust him and I trust that he has done everything he can to help me. If, for some reason, he's stopped and if, for some reason, he is taking a break in his research or hunting mission, then it is simply a means to tackle the next step. If there is one thing I know about Damon, it's that when he sets his mind to something, he doesn't give up."
Which hurt all the more. Why was she still stuck here? Why hadn't he thought to find a way to get Kai to help him before her birthday? What had been so dire that Damon had forgotten her?
Though Kai knew she would fight and resist and be at her very top of stubborn about it, he still could scarcely believe his ears. He stared at her, gobsmacked, unable to believe she let things he said fly right through while she stuck to her guns.
"And he won't give up on me," she accentuated as though she needed to make that point, sparing Kai one last look as she stomped her way to the house. Wishing, as she drew nearer, that Damon would be waiting for them – for her.
When she released him abruptly and hurried away towards the Boardinghouse, Kai felt both sorry and glad he couldn't use magic, otherwise the urge to send a fireball into her back would have been too much.
"Run ahead and see for yourself, why don't you?" he yelled after her, grimacing as his temples throbbed with the harbinger of what promised to be a nasty headache. "I'm sure he's waiting for you there, with flowers and chocolates, ready to sweep you away and never let go." His lips pulled back, baring his teeth in a snarl, as he smacked a fist into the tree. A lace of pain thrust through his hand and arm, but he barely noticed. His temples gave another sickening throb. He sat heavily against the trunk, working on controlling his breathing.
After a while, he scrambled to his feet, and headed back to Chez Salvatore.
Bonnie eased into a jog, needing to put as much distance between them as she possibly could.
How did Kai even know about what happened between Damon and her? Had he seen all of it? How had he managed to camouflage himself?
She was sweating like a pig by the time she reached the Boardinghouse. "Damon?!" she called, doing so without shame, knowing that Kai would take his time to get here. "Elena?!" she bellowed for extra measure, assuming she'd made the return trip with him. Bonnie got no response to either name. She guessed Kai was right. She walked through the house anyway, making sure nothing was disturbed and that there weren't any messages on the fridge.
"Fuck!" she shouted, giving up on her exploration, hating that fact that Kai was right. She picked up the nearest vase and threw it upon the floor. In four months, you'd think that Damon and she would have had nothing to talk about, but for weeks, he'd kowtowed to intrusive questions about his family, their rich tastes and which art he was most fond of. She'd enjoyed each tale and came to learn every item in this house had a story.
And in her rage, she destroyed a few of them.
It was only as Bonnie ran out of things to throw against the bookshelf or to smash upon the wooden flooring that she stopped to observe the littered study. She didn't even wipe her tears as she wearily walked out of the room, feeling drained, purposely avoiding the parlor in case Kai had returned, to go in search of some wine in the kitchen. She climbed the stairs, pulling her shirt off before she'd even reached the top of the landing, throwing it toward the clothes basket near the bathroom door. She set the bottle down on the edge of the mattress, unlaced her boots and kicked them off, shedding the last of her clothes before heading into the bathroom—wine in hand—to spend a couple of hours soaking away her problems. /
It was quiet in the house, and Kai didn't mind. They both wanted to see each other the least. He snatched a bottle of brandy from the kitchen's shelf, opened it, and tilted to his lips for a few swallows, one after another. They burned and almost stole his breath, but he wanted it to burn and hurt. So it kept his mind from straying and sniffing on things he better left out of sight. He told her what she had to know, and he didn't have to remember it or mull it over. It was her turn to mull. Kai felt done and wasted. He took another swallow and dragged himself to the parlor, where he lit the fireplace and settled on the floor with his back against the side of the couch, and drank, watching the flames.
After a while, rather than inspiring meditation without thoughts, fire made him mull over the quarrel with Bonnie over Damon. His name rang in Kai's tipsy head yelled in her voice and peppered with her arguments that wouldn't stand in court of reality had she tried to think logically over what he'd said. But no, it was much easier to keep grasping at her Damon life-belt as if Kai were here by chance. Or because Damon had sent him.
Which he had not.
Absolutely not. It was Kai's idea and his personal sacrifice. He wasn't opposed to dying to mend at least a part of what he did to her here. No one commanded him to do it. No one had any power of such kind over him. It was his decision.
Then why are you trying to convince yourself of that if you know it for a fact?
Kai winced and drank, unable to stop his mind from replaying Bonnie's lines
(I trust him and I trust that he has done everything he can to help me)
and that desperate, to the level of panic, expression glowing on her face,
(And he won't give up on me)
the need to believe in the words leaving her mouth and ringing in her ears, or otherwise she would lose it. It shook Kai to the core. Holding the bottle up a little by its neck, he waved it, sloshing the inch of brandy still remaining, and thought of how bad that need of her was. How it was the only thread, on which she still hung, and Kai tried to scissor it.
He washed down the small pill of guilt with the last swallow of the liquor and dropped the bottle on the floor. It rolled slowly away from him on a slanted course between the fireplace and a bar table. He refused to feel guilty about anything connected to Damon. It wasn't fair. None of what she said was.
Kai got up on unsteady feet and went in the direction he recalled was a library or a study. He wasn't sleepy as he hoped to be after boozing it up, and figured he had to try a book to yank his mind from all things Bonnie and her pet vampire freak.
The study looked like an aftermath of a hurricane – named Bonnie, he presumed – that had had a few minutes of fun in it. Observing the debris of a few vases and statuettes, he could see her raging, probably with tears spilling over, her lips pulled back in a grimace of both profound hurt and wrath.
Wrath for Kai that should have been directed at Damon.
Kai tasted copper in his mouth and realized he had bitten into the inside of his lip too hard; his hands unwittingly balled into fists. He had forgotten all about the books and sleep and distraction. He wouldn't mind crashing a few items himself, but he stood where he did, stewing in emotions he wasn't sure how to calm.
In the back of his mind, he realized faintly that her breaking things Damon was blowing dust off could have been – was, definitely was – a manifestation of at least some of what Kai had said hitting home. She was frustrated with Damon, too, for still being stuck here while he wasn't, and she let it out on his things, things that were important for him – things she associated him with. But it did nothing to lift Kai's level in comparison to the vampire's in her eyes. So, in the end of the day, it didn't matter. Nothing really did. She was too fixed on Kai being the worst and Damon being the best, and that was it.
It was final.
Kai spun around and left the study, strode hurriedly through the parlor and out of the house. Outside, he ran.
The liquor section was clean and untouched, unlike in his memories where he brought Damon to his knees and then to his belly, like a guilty dog, in the pool of vervained bourbon. He wished to rewind back, to thrust that wooden stick into the vampire's heart this time, and see his eyes dim.
Kai gnashed his teeth together, snatched a bottle of brandy, and went away without looking back. He smashed in the driver's window in a Ford Explorer parked on the store's lot with his elbow, opened the door and swept the glass off the seat before slipping in and pulling the door closed. The glass pleasantly crunched under his boots. He tugged the wires from under the dashboard, picked the needed and connected them. The engine rumbled softly. He pulled out from the lot and stepped the accelerator into the floor, relishing in the wind blowing over his flushed face, soothing and hurting at the same time. He liked the speed with which the black band of the road disappeared under the hood as though eaten by it. He liked the fogginess in his head, hanging there like a veil of mist that hid the shadows and sharp angles. He needed it, something to numb him. Something to cast the thoughts away, leaving just the whistling wind in his ears.
Kai brought the bottle to his lips, gulped, and sped up. A small smile touching the corners of his mouth.