Kai
After what was clearly a psychotic break, Kai decided to throw a party in honor of his lost sanity.
It's hard to throw a party when you're the only one in the world, but Kai managed it. He'd headed to Caesar's Palace and hooked up some speakers to blast some music before making a row of cocktails to consume at leisure. (He was good at cocktails. He'd spent all of what he thinks was 2001 learning how to muddle and shake and shit, so now he can whip up a perfect pineapple margarita, which was a great way to get fucked up quick.)
Now he's floating in the pool, staring at the night sky that the city lights have bleached of stars. "Farewell, sanity," he said, raising a glass. "It was nice knowing ya."
He knocked it back, the sweetened tequila trickling down his throat. He was reaching for another glass when he caught a whiff of woodsmoke and paused.
That was weird,Kai heard over the bass as his mouth filled with the taste of cheap beer, skin breaking into goosebumps from a nonexistent I touched you, I saw a crow.
The world shifted.
He's in the woods, a chill nipping at his skin and mind crawling with an anxiety that isn't his own as people dance and laugh in the light of a bonfire.
I'm drunk, he hears without hearing. It's a girl. He can hardly see her among the herd, but he can make out green eyes and dark hair and slender fingers clutched around a 's nothing psychic about it. Yeah? Okay, I'm gonna get a refill.
Kai blinked, and he was back in Vegas, gripping the stem of a shattered glass.
Bonnie
"Try and look a little less hungover when you get inside," Bonnie told Caroline as she pushed the phantom taste of pineapple from her mind.
"Mom's probably at the hospital getting statements," Caroline grumbled, rubbing her bloodshot eyes. "It's not like she's going to see me or anything."
"Didn't she ask the neighbor lady to keep an eye on you?" Bonnie asked.
"Ugh,fine,"Caroline groaned, slipping out of the car with all the fluidity of a teenage drunk.
"By the way," she said as Bonnie helped her onto the porch, "I'm sorry for bitching about my love life for like, the last three hours."
"It's fine," Bonnie said. "What are friends for?"
"I know, but you haven't dated anyone since you broke up with Colton, right?"
Not this again."Mhm," Bonnie hummed.
"You need to get some action, girl," Caroline lectured. "I can set you up with a guy on the football team. Or wrestling, if that's more your style."
"Thanks, but no thanks," Bonnie said with a forced smile. As much as Caroline complained about coming second to Elena in everything, she had no problem finding boyfriends. Once she started dating again, she'd forget about Bonnie's love life completely. (Thank God, because her taste in mensucked.)
"I'll see you at school tomorrow," Bonnie said, gently pushing Caroline through the door. "Make sure you drink some water."
"Okay,mom."
And with that, she drove home.
Bonnie lived in a neighborhood she liked to call 'trick-or-treater hostile.' Houses were settled on acres of their own and separated by swathes of treesjustthin enough for neighbors to peek through and envy each other. Driveways were absurdly long, snaking through meticulous lawns. It was a neighborhood meant to flaunt money, and flaunt it they did.
The downside of this was that if Bonnie got murdered, nobody would hear. Not that she would get murdered or anything! She was just a little jittery from the booze and caffeine. And Vicki's mauling. And Grams's witchy nonsense. And the visions…
Not visions, Bonnie thought, keys jangling as she let herself into the empty house. Dad was in Norfolk for some business trip, leaving his daughter to stew in anxiety.
"I'm a big girl," Bonnie muttered, slipping into her pajamas, a pair of fleece shorts and an old cheer camp shirt. "I can deal with a spooky house."
The shadows seemed longer, and every creak took on a sinister edge as she carefully brushed and braided her hair, tucking it into a satin bonnet. It's been a long night, she thought to herself as she slipped into bed. Everything will look better in the morning.
Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on,Bonnie heard, the scent of chlorine filling the air. There was a yanking sensation behind her navel, and then she was standing in a shallow pool, its water glimmering with party lights. Greek columns lined the pool, and Bonnie was dwarfed by the stone and glass hotels that towered above everything, and…
Oh God, there's a body.
Lookin' like a tramp, like a video vamp,the speakers roared, the music rattling Bonnie's bones as she rushed over to the man floating facedown in the woman can I be your man?
"Shit, shitshit—" Bonnie hissed as she turned him over. He was dead; his skin was freezing, leeched of color, and although he hadn't started bloating yet there wasn't a pulse—
His eyes snapped open, and Bonnie screamed as the man flipped her over, pinning her by the wrists.
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet, little miss innocent sugar me…
"Well, well, well," he said, smiling as Bonnie struggled. They were in the shallow end of the pool, her face well above water, but whatever was happeninghurt-something was being pulled from her, and it left shards behind."What do we have here?"
"Let go!" Bonnie screeched, aiming a kick at his nuts, which he easily avoided by sitting on her legs.
"That's not nice," the man said, eyes zeroing on her shirt. "Mystic Falls Cheer Camp,huh?"
Bonnie stopped struggling, muscles aching with sudden exhaustion, and the man let her go. "Not a breakdown after all," he said softly, flexing his hands.
There was another tug, and Bonnie was back in bed, clutching damp sheets.
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up…