When Bonnie opened her eyes, she had to squeeze them shut again. The sun's brightness penetrated. Blades of grass tickled her cheek. A light breeze caressed. Leaves chattered in the trees.
Her mouth was so dry. She could hardly swallow. When she tried, the pain in her neck came rushing back. But she was alive. Asleep on the ground in the middle of the town square, but alive. And thankfully without witnesses. Except one, somewhere.
Thinking of him made her eyes dart around. Where was he? Surely not near. Surely for his own safety he was nowhere near her.
Set on the ground somewhat close to her face was a clear plastic cup with a lid and straw. A sticky note on the side of the cup read in a chicken scratch scrawl: Drink me. Inside the cup: a sad amount of a viscous, dark red substance.
She conquered the task of sitting up and reached for the cup. The substance hardly sloshed when the cup shook in her weak hand. Wincing in anticipation of a fowl taste, Bonnie put her cracked lips on the straw. On the mental count of three, she sucked. She watched the red liquid travel shyly up the straw and tightened her throat when it hit her tongue. Vampire blood. Cold vampire blood. Cold Kai blood, coating the inside of her mouth. Her stomach lurched.
The instant she swallowed, the edges of the wounds on her neck and her hand prickled to life. That was his blood at work. Bonnie couldn't resist watching the skin on her hand fiber itself back together. She liked the tickle of the healing at her skin's final clasp. It was going to be ok. For the moment.
Bonnie walked home leisurely swirling the cup of blood in one hand. It could've been any other day, any other stroll through town with an iced coffee. Nature, even in its bound pattern, seemed attentive to the witch's restoration, as if to coddle her after experiencing near death. The light wind urged her home while the sun continued its open armed beams of light upon her as it crossed the sky. If there were birds, she knew they would be singing for her. She caught herself occasionally, and too late, taking extra sips of blood from the cup. It didn't taste like blood to her, she was realizing. She knew that it was for sure blood, but it had a sweet hint that she for some reason couldn't resist. The cup was empty by the time she hit her street, and she felt indisputably amazing. It was a beautiful day.
The day's color dimmed a hue when she reached her Gram's house and her eyes fell on the Styrofoam box, complete with a sticky note, waiting on the porch.
Her boots clunked hesitantly up the wood steps. She crouched down to read more of the same messy scrawl: Eat me. LOL
Swallowing against another expectant contraction in her throat, Bonnie lifted the lid on the box.
A slice of pumpkin pie. What the fuck.
She gave up. Pie sounded great after a night in Hell with the devil himself. She sat on the top step, picked up the piece of pie and ate it like a slice of pizza, watching the trees sway. Afterward, a wave of drowsiness all but took over her and she passed out on her living room couch.
Scraping. Thunks. More scraping. Tinkering.
Bonnie's eyes flipped open to nothing. The house was dark. She had slept all day. The strange noises continued. She bolted up and looked toward the sound. The porchlight shone in through the hole in her living room where a door used to be. A man's hands cut across the space and straightened a different, detached door against the front of her house. Fury claimed her.
"You've got some nerve showing up here so soon," she said, crossing the living room to stand in the foyer atop the old door that still lay there.
He suppressed a laugh when he saw her. "Yesterday's clothes? That's sanitary."
She held her hand out to her side and willed a wooden shred from the broken door up through the air and caught it in her hand, clenching the weapon in its splintery power. She brandished it in Kai's direction. "Get off of my porch."
He laughed, "Ok, farmer Bonbon."
Bonnie wouldn't be tested. With all her anger, there was no room inside her for fear. She stepped through the doorway, toeing her path to him.
"Whoa, look who's stepped into the ring," Kai mocked. "She's outside, she's so brave."
He didn't seem to believe she intended to do anything with the wood sliver in her hand. To prove him wrong, she feigned defeat and lowered her arm. After another suppressed laugh from him, she plunged the wood up into his front, between the ribs, encroaching on his heart. The look on his face was enough to satisfy her, but she drew out her pleasure.
"Bonnie, don't," he croaked.
"Why not? You'll just regenerate," she said pleasantly, shifting the wood a tickle closer to his heart. He wrapped his hands around her assaulting arm and she felt the burn of his siphoning, and a subsequent ringing in her head. She let go of the wood to let it jut out from his body on its own.
She stepped back from him and sat on the wicker porch sofa, watching him gently tug the wood out from his flesh. When he was finished, he threw her a reprieved look and dropped the sliver, dashing a future bloodstain to her Grams' porch.
"I'll pretend you just hated my shirt," he said.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Kai smiled at her, pulling some thick door pins out of his pocket. "What does it look like?"
"In the dead of night?"
"Yeah, those fancy daylight rings are made with Bennett magic. I would be proud to say I've figured that spell out, but I haven't. And I would ask for your help, but I know you won't say yes."
"At least you know one thing."
Kai ignored her and continued fitting the new door in the frame.
"So is this your way of apologizing?"
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Maybe I'm just fixing your door. And if it was an apology, you strike me as a baby steps kind of forgiver, so expect more favors and consider me a hot chocolate, cause I'm fucking whipped."
"Whipped, you say?" She prepared herself to dissect his statement in light of recent events and show him how wrong he was.
"Yeah," he laughed, "You taste amazing. And I feel great. No way am I fucking that up."
She blanched, not sure if she was embarrassed or flattered. The only way she knew how to react was in retaliation.
"You almost killed me, Kai. What makes you think it's ever happening again?"
"I'll be honest. Last night got a little out of hand. But throw me a bone, ok, that's like one of the first times I've ever fed. As soon as you left, I got it under control. Next time will be different. Now would you mind pushing that other door out?"
Fifteen minutes later, the brand new door swung swiftly open and closed as Kai tested it, a small smile on his lips, admiring his work. Bonnie raised her eyebrows and commented, "I thought you only knew how to break and ruin things."
"When you spend years alone with a bad temper someone has to fix what you break."
Bonnie rose from her spot and stepped back into her house, trailing her fingers along the new red door. The woodwork was nice. It must have been expensive… not that he paid for it. She stopped just inside, safe from his reach and glanced up at him, trying to appear thankful without actually having to thank him.
Kai returned her gaze with a cutting half smile and said, "Now all you have to do is invite me in."
She glanced down at the glaring bloodspot in his shirt, the rip barely concealing his healed abdomen. "If I say no, are you going to huff and puff and punch the door down?"
"Not so soon after putting it up."
"You can't come in, Kai. Sorry, not sorry."
He rolled his eyes and shook the rejection off with a twist of his shoulders. Against her better judgement, she felt the desire to supplement whatever hurt feelings he may or not have held inside him. She asked, "When will you be hungry again?"
An honest smile graced his face, apparent appreciation unshackling Bonnie from her guilt like she hoped it would.
"I'm always hungry," he admitted.
"I need a week."
"Fine. Wednesday. Dinner at my place."
"Your place?"
"Foreclosure on Jubilee."
She shuddered. All that time she spent with his hum drilling into her senses, he'd been dwelling only two streets away. "Don't you think we should meet somewhere more neutral?"
"I want to cook for you. Without stabbing you afterward. I'm thinking gourmet mac n cheese, bottled beer, a low budget horror movie afterward while I give you the longest, most dedicated back rub you've ever had. And then chew on your neck for a second."
She hissed her polite disapproval.
"Ok, a high budget romantic comedy," he amended.
She pursed her lips, still unamused.
"Highlander. Everybody loves Highlander."
"No they don't."
"You pick the movie, then. I still have 18 years of cinematic history to catch up on."
"Fine."