With a twang and a soft swoosh, the arrow flies through the air. It arches smoothly upward and then downward, embedding itself in the throat of the dummy attached to the tree. Bonnie can't help but sigh in disappointment, relaxing her back as she lowers the crossbow. It eases the weight on her arms as well and she rolls her neck.
"That was good. That's a lot closer to the head," Caroline enthuses. "You're getting better."
Bonnie knows that Caroline is trying to help and she gives her a smile and a gold star for effort. "Thanks, Caro, but getting better isn't the same as being good." Bonnie hands the crossbow to Caroline's waiting arms, glad for the reprieve and envying the way Caroline easily cocks, reloads and cranks it, but not the reason that Caroline can do so with ease.
"I don't know why we're doing this." She shakes her head, feeling her single ponytail bounce against the light perspiration on the back of her neck. She hasn't checked the time and has lost track of how long she and Caroline have been out here so that Bonnie could practice with the lightweight crossbow that Ric and Matt thought would be a weapon that Bonnie would be able to handle. A distance weapon, one that would keep her out of direct melee.
The plan was good. The execution, not so much. She understands the reasoning, but she doesn't have the heart to tell them that it's not good reasoning. What happened, happened. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't Damon's fault and even if she could fire a weapon, it's not like she would have gone into the old witch house armed.
Looking back at the Salvatore mansion isn't required to know that there have been eyes and faces at the upstairs windows - the ones not boarded over - since she and Caroline wandered out after breakfast, armed with the crossbow, bolts and took up a position the requisite distance from the target dummy and tree.
"So that you can defend yourself against zombies," Caroline explains gently, handing the crossbow back to Bonnie.
"I'm starting to think I should just practice running." Bonnie takes aim, concentrates and releases the bolt.
This one lands in the jaw of her imaginary - and stationary - zombie attacker.
"And wow." Damon's voice somewhere behind them makes her jump, though thankfully she doesn't squeal or cry out. Just a flinch of surprise and a glare thrown over her shoulder as he invites himself to join them. "Now, that zombie won't be saying anything or eating anything."
"If you just came to heckle, you can leave," Caroline tells him, shoulders back and chin held high.
Damon curls his lip up, giving her a scowl and slightly wrinkling his eyes - and pretty much saying more with his face than he can with any number of words. Bonnie wonders how it is that Damon seems to have mastered the ability to communicate with looks and facial tics, and then wonders if there is anyone who can actually interpret and understand the entirety of his peculiar language. "I didn't come to heckle, Blondie."
Giving a gentle tug on the crossbow, Damon pulls it from Bonnie's hands. She releases it without a second thought because it does get heavy and bulky, and Bonnie is happy to not hold it between shots. Damon holds out his hand to Caroline for a bolt, and receiving it - with a dark look and loud flesh slapping clap to his palm that has to sting or break bones - at least temporarily - begins to reload the crossbow. "I came out here, because . . . I'm wondering the same thing you are."
The vampire doesn't look as he aims the crossbow and looses the bolt. "Why are you doing this?"
The bolt hits the 'zombie' squarely in the forehead with a loud thunk.
"Show off," Caroline huffs.
Bonnie rolls her eyes, not at Caroline because she completely agrees with her best friend's assessment that Damon is showing off, but at Damon's antics. The witch crosses the distance to the tree and begins tugging on the first crossbow to free it. "So that I can defend myself and protect myself. I might not always have someone to watch my back."
She draws a breath, and tenses before relaxing as she feels Damon's presence right behind her. One of the most exasperating things about the man is that he has no sense of personal space or simply doesn't care that other people do. Bonnie is ready to step to the side or elbow him into giving her some space when one of his hands wraps around hers and the other reaches around her other side, grabbing the crossbow bolt in the 'chin' of the 'zombie.'
It effectively traps her in the cage of Damon's arms, sandwiching her between him and the tree. It's intimidating and uncomfortable - both of which the witch is certain are intentional. Bonnie is this close to sending him a scathing aneurysm when he tugs the bolts free in unison and hands them to her as he turns and steps smoothly to the side to free the third bolt. "Yes, but you're a witch."
"I don't think that makes me immune to zombie bites." Bonnie glances at the bolts in hand and reaches for the third one, only to have Damon hold it just out of her reach.
"No, but it means you don't need this." Damon waves the bolt for emphasis.
"What's she supposed to do?" Caroline asks.
"She's supposed to use her powers." Damon is answering Caroline but his gaze is focused on Bonnie. In the bright light of the day, his eyes are clear and as blue as the overhead sky, and unsettling in their intensity. It's the one thing about Damon that has always unsettled Bonnie - the depths of intensity in those eyes that make her want to look away and make it nearly impossible as well.
I'm sure it's the reason that he's always had such an easy time compelling his victims. They're trapped before they know it.
Blinking, Bonnie shifts her gaze over his shoulder, stretching on her toes to reach for the third bolt. "Like what? I didn't see any spells in the grimoires for fighting zombies."
Damon lowers his arm and allows her to have the bolt. "That's because you're not thinking about it strategically." His dark head tilts, his eyes still zeroed in on her though he has to realize she's taking a break from meeting his gaze. "What about that thing you do where you use your Jedi mind powers and toss me across the room like a rag doll?"
Her attention slides back to Damon, her eyes meeting his. She hates herself for it, but Bonnie feels the corners of her mouth turn up slightly in smug pride. "It's a simple knock back spell. I just knock you back if I don't want you close." The witch blinks, considering. "But that doesn't help me. It's not like I can knock back more than a few at a time, and they still get back up."
"But it buys you time." Damon points out as though it's the most logical thing in the world. "You can run, you can hide, you can arm yourself. You can pick them off and let one of us move in."
Biting his lip, Damon acknowledges Caroline with a quick glance, but his attention quickly returns to Bonnie. It's a bit unsettling because Bonnie is certain Damon hasn't been this fixed or focused on her since the night she faked her death to throw off Klaus. "And the aneurysms? How does that work?"
"It's an aneurysm." Bonnie heaves a sigh. "I don't think it would work on zombies. That works on you because your physiology is still enough intact that it hurts and incapacitates you. They don't feel pain."
"Maybe not, but can you modify it? Instead of just blowing blood vessels, can you blow them all at once? Make their brains explode inside their heads?"
It's on the tip of her tongue to object, but Bonnie stops herself. She can't object because she doesn't know. She's never tried to do such a thing. It's overkill for putting down a regular vampire, but it's not so dissimilar from what she was doing to Klaus after the ritual. "I ... don't know."
Damon gives her a slow forming, conspiratorial grin. "Would you like to try?" Quick as a blink, he's plucking the crossbow bolts from her fingers, tossing them at Caroline and leading Bonnie across the yard with his hand gently wrapped around her elbow. "Let's go into town for some experimental target practice."
They're across the yard and almost to the house and up on the back stoop with Caroline trailing behind them, protesting before Bonnie snaps to and has the presence of mind to give a jerk to her arm. "I can walk, thank you very much."
By that time Ric and Matt are spilling out, Matt looking as though he's ready to take on Damon all on his own, which Bonnie recognizes as being an uneven and easily lost match before it's start. Ric looks concerned and ready to intervene calmly, a prospect that will yield better results than challenging one more than a century old vampire.
Also, Damon listens to Ric.
"What's going on here?" Ric folds his arms across his chest.
"Oh please Ric don't get your tighty-whities all in bunch." Damon rolls his eyes, though he does let go of Bonnie's elbow. "Bonnie and I are going for a little ride into town."
"You're making her go on a supply run?" Matt takes a step forward, but Ric subtly shifts his body into Matt's path.
Damon's face takes on a mask of utter boredom. He chooses not to even look at Matt or respond to the inquiry. "We're going to see if she can use her witchy-ju ju against zombies. Unless," Now Damon looks past Ric, his head tilting as he studies Matt, "You'd like to be a guinea pig?"
Caroline glares at him and snaps. "Damon."
"Bonnie, are you okay with this?" Ric turns his gaze on her.
"Yeah, Alaric." Bonnie nods her head. "You guys saw me with the crossbow. I sort of suck."
"Oh, don't hold back, we're all friends here," Damon tells her. "You really, really suck."
Ric's light eyes move between the pair, and scrubbing his hand over his head, he sighs. "I'll get the keys. I'm coming with you."
A brief argument later, mostly over which vehicle to take and who's driving and they're pulling slowly into downtown Mystic Falls. They're in Ric's truck, with Damon behind the steering wheel and Bonnie tucked into the passenger seat. The streets are empty and quiet, though experience has shown that such won't last long.
"What's the plan again?" Ric asks. "To sit here until zombies appear?"
Damon looks back over his shoulder and gives an exaggerated eye roll. "No. The plan is to go zombie hunting." He waves to the crossbow on the floor of the backseat. "Ric, grab your crossbow. Bonnie, do whatever you do to get ready. We're going to go up to the top of the town hall building. Best view of the town square and plenty of opportunities to pick off zombies."
###
Damon likes being right.
It's easy pickings from this vantage point. It's like one of those fraternity parties filled with drunken, half-dressed sorority girls; a veritable all you can eat buffet.
Make that an all you can kill buffet.
Bonnie stands by the edge of the roof, hands resting against the low protective wall. It took her a few tries and a little bit of trial and error to figure out how to use the power and what to do, but since then, she's been picking off the zombies at a steady rate of one or two every ten minutes. Her gaze is focused, though while Damon expects to see tension in her body, there is none.
She's merely a girl with a mission, nothing more and nothing less.
Damon half-perches on the retaining wall, one foot on the ground and one leg folded next to him. It's difficult to know which zombies the little witch is targeting, not immediately. There are signs though, as one of the pack begins to slightly alter its gait, turning more shambling and unfocused right before blood bleeds through its eye sockets and out of its ears. It drops to its knees and just stops. Granted, Bonnie's method isn't very dramatic - not once she figured out how to stop blowing the tops of their heads off and creating a puffing cloud of red and gray matter - but it works.
"All those dead witches that you're channeling," Damon says when she takes a break and reaches for the bottle of water by her hand, "And you can't pick them off in droves? You're stuck doing one or two at a time?"
Bonnie takes several long swallows and then makes recapping the bottle a fine art. "I don't have it anymore."
Damon shifts, turning to face her completely. He frowns a bit, "What?"
"I'm cut off from that power. The witches took it away after I brought Jeremy back." Bonnie looks down at the bottle and picks with the label with her nail. After her a moment, her eyes lift and her emerald gaze shifts back to him. "They said that I abused their gift, that I used it to twist the laws of nature." The label peels back in an easy strip and the witch winds the bottle out of the wrapper instead of unwinding the wrapper from the bottle. If Damon was into psychology, he'd say that meant something, but as it is he can only see it as contrary to what other people would do.
Contrariness is not a trait that he dislikes.
When the bottle has been freed of its wrapper prison, Bonnie places the bottle back on the ledge and releases the wrapper to float to the ground below. "They said that there would be consequences for me bringing back Jeremy. Maybe this is it." She rests her palms against the retaining wall and looks out over the shambling zombies shuffling through the streets of Mystic Falls.
It takes Damon a moment to process what she's saying. Then he gives her a slow blink. "This? You think that you caused this?"
One of Bonnie's shoulders lifts in a half shrug. "Zombies aren't exactly normal even for us. This is a perversion of nature."
Damon scoffs. "Look . . . I liked Jeremy." Funny how acknowledging that he didn't dislike someone as much as he claimed comes easier once they're dead. "Not as much as you did obviously, but I don't think that raising one teenage boy from the dead brought the zombie apocalypse down on our heads."
"Something did."
"But not that." Ric has been walking the perimeter of the roof, and stops on the other side of Bonnie. "I admit that our lives are all kinds of screwed up and have been for a while, but if love caused this -" Ric waves his hand toward the zombies on the ground beneath them, " - Then the metaphysical laws of nature and the universe itself are fucked."
Bonnie's head whips to Ric at his words and Damon guffaws. "Wow. Ric, way to completely shed the responsible teacher skin once and for all." Damon flashes the man a grin, "Do I need to wash your mouth out with soap?"
"Shut up, Damon." Ric rests a hand on Bonnie's shoulder. His gaze flickers briefly back to Damon and then focuses on the teen witch. "Bonnie, you didn't cause this. We don't know what did. We might never know what did, but you didn't. No matter what a bunch of dead witches might have led you to believe. You have to believe that, okay?"
There's a long moment where the young woman doesn't answer. Damon rolls his eyes and turns back to watching the zombies. He alternates between picking out the people he knew and making up stories about the ones he didn't.
"I will. I'll try," Bonnie says finally.
"If the heart to heart is over, can we go back to blasting zombies?" Damon asks. "I sorta liked it when you popped their skulls open."
"That was gross."
"I like to think of it as entertainment." He blinks innocently off Ric's chastising look and Bonnie's oh-so-delicate frown. "What? There's no television anymore."