~~~

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry for leaving you in nineteen-o-three," she said, making Kai shudder.

Her voice reverberated within his body, physically aching and ripping at the strings of his weakening self-control.

"I'm not. And I'm not going to apologize for stabbing you in the back or even attempting to kill you," she continued, clueless to how close to another bout of torture she was teetering. "Not after you came back and did the very thing I knew you would. The very thing I feared you would. These people didn't deserve this, Kai. Your sister didn't deserve this. Jo was a good woman, marrying an equally decent man whose life you ripped apart without even thinking."

Another shiver traveled through him instead of a nervous laugh he thought would slip out. Without thinking… He had a long fucking time to think, that was for sure. If anything, he'd thought about it thoroughly.

"I even know that this it isn't entirely your fault. That I—" he heard her throat click as she swallowed, "I'm mostly to blame. I drove you to this, obviously. I… whatever you suffered by the hands of those… things, those people… That's all I can ask forgiveness for."

"Forgiveness," Kai repeated dumbly. The pool of blood started morphing into a black patch of starless space, a crack in reality, making him dizzy. He was distantly aware he was losing it a little along the stitches. The smell of blood was suffocating, and her voice still rang inside his skull, words bouncing off the walls like dry peas.

"Forgiveness," he repeated in a soundless breath, probing himself for reaction. He felt like someone threw a thick tarp over his raging emotions and they kind of lost their direction under it, groping their way around, not knowing where to step. And then laughter started in his chest, like a buzzing cell phone gradually gaining volume, as he turned to look her in the eye.

Bonnie studied him, unmistakably seeing him stiffen, half-expecting Kai to lash out at her, and grimaced when instead he started laughing like a maniac. She'd heard it enough to know the difference and tonight, that lethal look in his eyes, the one he currently zeroed in on her, held none of its former frivolity. No, this was someone else, something broken, and something she now knew she had a part in creating.

He must have looked like a loony, he reckoned, laughing like a cartoon villain amidst the chaos he's caused, but none of the glee was real or heartfelt. At this moment, Kai wasn't sure where his heart was and if it was. "What the fuck is that forgiveness and why would you want it? Look," he spread his arms at the wrecked room.

She looked, agreeing with him internally, knowing there was no way to make up for murdering these people. How could there be?

"Is there a thing like forgiveness in the world like that? I dared to think so – and then you know what happened. So tell me, Bonnie," all gaiety drained from his face as he fixed her with a sharp, heavy stare, stepping away from the stage towards her, "why would I forgive you for dismissing my efforts as if I were shit stuck to your dress shoe? Why would I forgive you for handing a dozen chances per day to Damon and denying me a smidgen of that share?"

Bonnie flinched slightly, recalling how earnest he seemed in his attempts to make nice with her, how afraid she'd been, how incapable of trusting that Kai could be anything other than the monster that haunted her nightmares.

"And why would I leave my damned family to live happily ever after when they never stopped plotting to lock me away to rot? Why? They could've just killed me, for crying out loud, if I were that much of an ugly duckling to them, but they PUT ME IN HELL! What I did to them here is mercy compared to what they dealt me."

"You're right," she responded, taking an automatic step back as his voice rose, swallowing away the lump in her throat, forcing herself to forget what he'd done to her minutes ago and stick to her prior resolve.

Kai could smell it she was placating him, and for a second, thought he would launch himself at her to see how much of her blood he could drain in one gulp.

"They alienated and pushed you away for something that was beyond your control. It's harsh, it's lonely and it's hard. But do you honestly believe you're the only person in the world to deal with inattentive assholes for parents? That you're alone in feeling neglected and unloved? Say what you will, Kai. Pass the buck. Blame me. Blame your father for putting you in some hellish prison world. God forbid you can even blame your brother Timmy," she studied him, hoping—for some unknown reason—to see a flicker of what had been there before she dropped him in nineteen-o-three, "the one that struggled as you drowned him in your pool, you remember him, don't you?"

He did. It was something from another galaxy. Something he must have seen in some stupid thriller.

"I'm sure whatever he did to you was deserved and far less brutal than having to endure eighteen years of solitude. At least you have a life—something you can try to mend and heal from, what does he have? What does your sister, her twins and would-be husband have?" She knew she was playing with fire, that if he wanted to, he could snap her neck or worse, but she didn't care. "You think this is mercy?" she said, spreading her arms in the same way he had before. "It's simply proving what they always thought you were. What I believed you were."

In the dark abyss of his being, Kai sensed the dying out ember of anger brighten to life in the flare of helpless despair. He was never getting out of this vicious circle. Trying it before indeed was stupid.

"When does it stop?" she demanded. "With me? I clearly wasn't mature enough to embrace that concept. With you? Where? Did I truly break you that much?"

Kai stared at her, nonplussed, for a long moment of blankness. Then it hit him like a bat upside the head, pushing the baffled disbelief up like a giant air bubble rising from under water to the surface to release poisonous gas. A brief, uncontrolled laugh fell from his mouth, and he drew a deep breath, squelching the urge to resort to violence and just take it all out on her instead of having to cough up explanations that, obviously, were as useful as a condom with its end cut off. His lips drew back in a little sneer of a man who's found out that what he thought was a nightmare happens to be real. Then a glint of dour knowing flickered in his eye as he regarded her, pondered on pouring it out, decided to go with a point-blank. "Did it truly break you that much when he walked away?"

An incredulous and incomprehensibly bitter laugh automatically spilled from Bonnie's lips, her eyes unconsciously darting over her shoulder to where Damon still lay. Kai damned well knew that it hurt as he'd seen their friendship unfold as if it were his very own entertainment. Damon was her confidant and her best friend. She loved him. Just thinking about it now was like enduring that back-breaking pain all over again, gripping and twisting her heart, literally squeezing until she was left with nothing but agonizing frailty.

She stared at Kai, studying his features, eyeing the significant smile that twisted his lips, like he'd shared something she'd missed by a mile.

And then, like a Mack truck, those cutesy little looks he'd given her, the weirdly endearing commentary about her palms and his insistence 'I'll go if you go' seemed to make sense.

It was like Damon said: You're just not used to guys hitting on you.

He regarded her expression that was a quickly changing slideshow: hurt, bemusement, disbelief, ire, inquiry, shreds of feelings that had no time to grow roots and swept past and twirled around. She studied him like someone would study their apartment upon discovering it has been redecorated while they've been away for lunch.

"You hardly know me," she began, suddenly finding the entire situation surreal, not wanting to voice aloud what she was thinking in fear of giving life to something she wasn't sure she was ready to hear the answer to. "I mean, I hardly know you. And what I do know is downright terrifying." In an odd panic, she took another glance around, suddenly saddened by what he was trying to imply. "Or it was. Is." She exhaled as if to focus. "I get it," she said, having assured herself that she'd come to the conclusion, that the comparison was easily explained, and that he was simply projecting. "I felt it too when you left me there. That place, the loneliness, it swallows you whole and breaks away pieces of who you are, who you used to be. It's only natural that you'd feel a connection to the people who'd shared that experience with you." And why was she even talking about this? None of this changed anything, nothing about his confession would bring these people back or revive Jo. What's done is done.

Head tipped to one side, Kai watched her trying her damned best to play a shrink, to humor him. To lie to him. Again.

"So… what now? Where are we supposed to go from here? Am I supposed to feel guilty?" She quirked up a brow, curious, genuinely wondering what he expected from her. "Because I do. And not because I didn't feel it back." She needed him to recognize that, needed him to know that although there was an attraction of sorts in the beginning, she never viewed him the same. Not after his happy family-hunting stories came to light. "Or that I didn't see it and couldn't fathom something like that, but because all of this could have been prevented somehow. That is the point of this, right? That's why you linked me to Elena, why you can rally your victory in driving a wedge between Damon and me? You healed me so that he can despise me, so that I can hate him for not choosing me as much as you do me. Right?" She took a step forward, no longer feeling quite as scared as she was before, suddenly feeling as if she'd found all the answers and his entire game plan had been revealed.

With a feeble wonder, Kai discovered he could still be hurt more. Something cringed inside his chest, then a silent pulse went through his being, like a sonic wave after a nuclear explosion, deafening his feelings. And the only solid feeling he was left with was exhaustion. An exhaustion of a man who's been there from the day one of the earth. Too long to be. It started to seem to him he had accidentally switched his humanity off, but then a thin thread of hurt glistened in the distance, lacing through the fibers of his soul. He drew in a long breath, let it out, looked at her listlessly. "I linked you to Elena because of Damon, yes." He shrugged, a tiny fleeting smile with no joy in it creasing his mouth as he did. "Maybe, it was to make you both pay. Or maybe I gave you both a chance each. For you to see how he truly felt for you in return for what you obviously felt for him against all odds that were Elena and his inhuman temper that drove him to be the monster you only see in me."

Damon and what Bonnie might be feeling were the least of her concerns at this very moment in time. Even if she knew Kai was right. She did love Damon. How and to what extent? She wasn't sure, yet. She mentally shrugged off trying to decipher the standing of their relationship—still too hurt, still too numb—and what it never would there it was again, the revealing repetition that she saw him as the enemy – what she was gradually starting to believe was the actual reason he was so hurt. Clearly recalling that during their not-so-horrible pre-peace thanksgiving dinner that his father referred to him as an abomination and treated him as such for years. He'd looked hurt sharing that piece of information, much like he was now, briefly surpassing his deceptive twenty something looks in essence. It made Bonnie wonder if that was why he chose to go this far, and if he was merely giving her what she'd asked for and believed she needed. A monster.

"And for Damon to pull his head out of his ass and notice the treasure at his feet he never noticed while staring anywhere but – and that I could only do by taking away his main fixation that was Elena."

Bonnie stared, uncertain of how to handle the backwards way in which he confessed to wanting to see her happy. It was a sacrifice no one else had ever made for her—and guiltily, as much as it hurt knowing her best friend's life was erased from existence for the next fifty or sixty years—another part of her was overwhelmed.

His face distorted momentarily with a scornful wince as her last argument refreshed itself in his mind. Ire – that had been slowly boiling under the thick crust like lava – now started bubbling towards the surface, sizzling as it mixed with hurt.

Kai locked his eyes on hers in a penetrating stare. "No, Bonnie, I didn't heal you so he would despise you – I don't give a rat's ass about what he feels for you or Elena or anyone else. I healed you so you didn't die." He backed away from her in a tardy stagger, like a drunkard trying to get out of the closing pub, overwhelmed with equally strong urges to tuck into her neck and merely ghost away from here, away from her. He felt the veins of wrath and hunger swell under his eyes; the sharp tips of his fangs pricked his lower lip, gums itching savagely. "Get the fuck away from me before I take it back."

"No," Bonnie responded stubbornly, ignoring his notice, remembering what he'd been searching for when she walked in. "You're hungry and newly turned vampires typically struggle with controlling their bloodlust." She squatted, picking up a piece of glass from one of the broken lamps, inhaling slightly to work up a little courage, and stood again. She'd never been the type for having vampires feed on her—and was the last to volunteer—but somehow, where Kai was concerned, it seemed fitting as she'd accidentally slotted him into a similarly brutal situation. Also, she wasn't thrilled at the prospect of him running off to contribute to his overloaded body count. She wanted no one else to get hurt tonight.

Like a man in a dream, Kai watched her pick up a shard of glass from the debris on the floor. He could see the struggle on her face, all plain and vivid – imagining the pain and coaxing herself to do this. It split his attitude in two: the anticipation of her scent hitting him with new force made his mouth water but it also made him nauseous. What was it, the last test? To contribute to the monster image? Or she actually had a plan to end him by luring into a trap she was sure he wouldn't escape?

"If you're going to be feeding from anyone," Bonnie said resolutely, running the piece of glass across the smooth untouched flesh between neck and shoulder, "it's going to be me." She observed him gape at her, looking shaken to the core by the blood and, at the same, time like a lethal animal fighting the urge to pounce its prey.

His breath catching, Kai couldn't resist looking at the gash, at the blood welling up and trickling teasingly over her collarbone and down her cleavage, soaking the blouse. The itching in his gums became unbearable, his lips pulling back in a half snarl of hunger and dismay. The room around him swayed as if in a slow dance while he found himself transfixed. Her pulse invaded his head, beat in his temples, her blood flushed in his ears, calling out to him, pulling – as though she had a leash around his neck and tugged at it. A cramp gripped his solar plexus, making him wince, and actually jerking him awake from the trance.

He staggered back, tearing his eyes from the wound to glare at her. "What the hell do you want from me?" he screamed, fury sizzling in his veins like ignited gunpowder. "You want me to kill you? Or you want another proof of what a rabid beast I am?"

Neither, she opened her mouth to say, but within an instant, he was on her, and her back hit the wall as Kai pinned her to it, his hand wrapped around her throat. Her hands automatically clutched on his wrist, fingers digging. Her eyes were wide with surprise and fright. Her nerves dispersed temporarily, and fear yet again wormed its way into her belly like an unwelcome acquaintance.

Hunger wrenched Kai's innards, but he paid it no mind. "I'm not your typical vampire, Bon," he uttered in a deceptively soothing tone, their faces so close to each other their breaths mingled. "I'm nothing typical, if you think about it. But you can still get what you want. You wanna die?" He gave a small, mad-hatter chuckle. "Need I remind you what that would mean with my blood in your system? Ah, Bon. You might make such a hot vampire… Oh, and what if that was my plan all along…"

Terror rushed in on Bonnie like tempered water, threatening to drown her, drawing a muffled sob from her lips, a sound she hardly recognized.

Kai donned a mock amiable expression, taking in how fear broke the barriers and whooshed into her, making her pulse race and her pupils dilate. "Because what would be the worst thing to happen to a witch if not losing her powers in favor of becoming a supernatural parasite… right?"

"If you were that hard up for my blood you'd have tasted it by now," Bonnie responded before she could think to tapper down the anxiety and anger vying through her, her eyes meeting his resentfully. "You're trying to scare me." She removed the bloodied hand she'd used to cut herself, hoping to prove a point as she brought it against his cheek, cupping it with deceptive tenderness befitting of a lover.

Kai felt a thrill run through him at her touch, and at the same time, his wrath that had been boiling and steaming started to grow cold, allowing calculation. He searched her face and read pretense in big, bold letters. And hated himself for yearning to see she meant it.

"You're trying to push me away so you don't rip my throat. I may not know you as well as you know me. But I do know one thing… and that is that you're a remarkable liar," she stated, surprised her voice wasn't shaking and that she sounded far calmer than she felt on the inside. "I fell for it once," she removed the restraining hand from his wrist, allowing him the chance to snap her neck if he wanted, instead taking a hold of his suit's jacket in attempt to draw him closer. "I'm not falling for it again."

Kai looked at her with a surprised adoration, a subtle smile playing over his mouth. "Oh, look at all that openhearted trust! I'm awestruck, Bons. Except…"

Bonnie sensed—before he even spoke—that her gentler tactic failed to hit its mark.

He slowly leaned in to her ear – the aroma of her blood almost unbearably tempting and eliciting another bout of hunger to bite him on the inside – and whispered, "you're a little too late to grant it."

She refused to wholly give into the fear and sorrow progressively bubbling to the surface. Going from feeling full-fledged loathing to unspeakable regret and wishing badly she hadn't followed through with the spur of the moment revenge Damon presented to her a couple of weeks ago. Bonnie knew he'd been manipulating her, saying what she needed to hear to get what he wanted—same as she'd ultimately done to Kai—but at the time she'd been too consumed with her fears.

None of which healed or faded even after she abandoned him in 1903; in fact, it had only gotten worse.

As slowly, Kai pulled away to his previous position to read her face hovering so close to his. There was some unspoken conversation flowing between them like a current. And he sensed her fear swell a little more.

"Had you gifted me with that trust when I needed it so damn much – it'd all be different. But now, Bon – now…" He trailed off as though there was suddenly something important to contemplate. "You know, I'd think I'd be exploding by now with all the frustration and hatred – oh, you really made me mad with hate and rage… I wasn't sure which it was most. But now… it's like you reached out and switched it off in me. There's… nothing."

For a second Bonnie was concerned he'd turned off his humanity and that any minute now that incredulous look in his eye would turn deadly. She'd witnessed it once tonight.

He gave a short amazed laugh and looked at her as if dumbstruck. "I think you finally finished him – that Kai who nearly died on your birthday while trying to help you, the Kai I became before you dumped me in that hellhole with Lily's heretics. And that means, little Bonster, you're in real trouble."

Damon had filled her in on the short point version of what had happened during their mock birthday party. Kai showed up uninvited with newfound feelings of guilt, they manipulated him into helping with the device, Liv murderously intervened, and things got messy and ultimately Jeremy was the one who'd saved Bonnie. Damon hadn't spared much of the small details and she hadn't asked.

What more was there to know? She no longer felt confident about her former assessment.

He was smiling again, whereas she looked more worried to him by the second. It was good. The balm he sought to ease his soreness. "I can turn you any time – unless you end me first, of course – I've never dismissed how tough you are." He laughed softly. "I always believed in you, Bon, unlike you in me. Anywho… I think there is a sharper edge to vengeance when I can just let you live and continue to kill in your name." He looked at her ingratiatingly, assuming the same kind of tone to accompany it. "Every person I feed on from here on will die because of your choice to deny me the chance I asked for when I did. And there's no lie in it, either: I truly wouldn't be here right now the way I am if not for the choices and decisions you made. I could even do better and bind each of my victims to you and you would feel every death, up close and personal. Oh no, not physical pain – I believe you've had enough of that to last you for eternity. But we both know physical pain is not the worst kind." He unwrapped his fingers from her neck and took his hand away, holding her eyes with his and smiling a little.

A wave of dizziness momentarily overwhelmed her, more than capable of grasping the terrible picture he'd painted in her mind's eye and unable to accept that more people would pay for her selfish weakness. She wanted to plead he see reason while at the same time feeling as though the only thing to do was finish what she started – and not miss this time. Kai was beyond saving, he said so himself, and planned on going out of his way to prove it to her. In fact, if the bodies that littered the barn were of any gruesome indication, he'd already done so.

How many more people needed to die before she did something about it?

A groan reached them and a few glass shards shifted against the dusty wooden boards. Damon started to come to his senses.

Bonnie's head snapped to the sound, and when she looked back, Kai wasn't there, anymore. Only a faint gust of wind kissed her face in the wake of his departure.

Kai stood at the red Jeep, peeking into the trunk through the window that needed washing for a week or two. Jo's face seemed so beautiful and peaceful through the blue of the gauze veil Alaric covered her with. Like the Sleeping Beauty. Only her sleep was eternal and would certainly begin to ruin her beauty in a few days. A small pang, like a drowning swimmer too weak to fight the current any longer, made itself known with a last splash in Kai's chest, then gave up and went down under.

There was a grunt; a heartbeat picked up a notch.

Kai walked along the side of the Jeep and squatted beside Alaric's sprawled form. His useless handgun lay a couple of feet away, glistening in the electric decorative lights, as if taunting. He wasn't fully awake yet, and Kai didn't need him to be. He leaned over his never-to-be brother-in-law. "God, you're a bit slow today, buddy. I didn't even hit you that hard… But whatever. We might still have a score to settle there, Ric. When you're ready, you know where I'll be. I believe you'll find me. Find me, Ric. Jo's waiting for you. Don't make her wait too long."

He got up and ghosted away into the night that grew deafeningly quiet.

Anticipation kicked in as Bonnie bent to quickly pick up the improvised stake she'd dropped earlier, hardly sparing Damon a look as she charged for the door, intending to follow and, with a bit of luck, catch up to Kai before he got too far. She was barely outside a minute when she was sharply whirled around, the stake impulsively raised in defensive.

"Whoa, careful where you point that thing, pokey!" Damon nit-picked, wincing as the tip of the wooden chair leg brushed his stomach. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"It's the least you deserve," Bonnie jeered, yanking her arm free—which he'd allowed her to do—permitting her the chance to put distance between them. She didn't want to look at him.

"Bonnie," he said, using her full name, immediately recognizing that any former flatteries at this time would be lost on her. "About what—"

"Save it," she said, cutting short his apology, the crippling pain of desertion taking a hold of not only her heart but of her body, unable to hear anything but his gentle 'sorry' before he intended to have her die.

"Bonnie, please—" he retorted in an uncharacteristically pleading tone, his sparkling blue eyes locking upon hers. Damon very rarely gave into this façade. "I know what you must be thinking and feeling—"

"Do you?" she spat, narrowing her eyes to regard him a moment, wondering if he, in fact, knew her half as well as he thought he did. "Because what I'm feeling right now is hurt and inexplicable amounts of rage."

"I made a mistake. I misjudged Kai," he began, once more trying to cut through her heavy defenses. "I thought that maybe if he believed I'd given up on you, that I'd sneak up behind him and—"

"I nearly died," Bonnie tossed in for extra measure, sounding every bit as bitter as she felt.

"I'm sorry," he said, making her smile bitterly in response to how easy those apologies were coming to him now, looking as downtrodden as he had the day he'd tried to force Kai on her at the Rave.

"You're sorry?" she parroted, brushing off his remorse, strolling forward, and loathing that she was spending time quarreling with him when she should be searching for Kai. "Is that what you would have said at my funeral? Is that what you would have told Elena while she was firmly nestled in your arms at night? That you're sorry? And that when you had the opportunity to help me, to put an end to my excruciating pain you instead chose to play games with my life?" Damon hadn't listened when she told him she didn't want to be a part of his 1903 debacle with his mother and nor had he cared about her when he handed the device to Lily. He needed Bonnie then, he needed her in 1994, and now – now Damon simply didn't know what to do, and who to choose. Bonnie knew it probably wasn't his aim to have her die and that he probably hadn't entertained the idea of Kai's retaliation, but she couldn't help but be bitter at the thought of the giant 'what if' floating about between them. "Just go," she said, waving Damon off, heading down the side of the hill toward the cars parked in the distance. "I can take it from here. You should be with Elena."

"Team Blondie and Broody has it covered."

"And you think they'll be enough? What if Kai backtracks to the hospital?"

Damon seemed to contemplate this for a second, his hands balling into instinctive fists. "It seems too obvious and unlike his scheming neck-snapping style. Besides, there is no way I am leaving you here while you're running around looking and smelling like Buffy the blood-stained buffet."

"If he wanted to kill me, he'd have done it by now," Bonnie said in disagreement, sounding deceptively indifferent.

Damon didn't look convinced. "He wants to kill everybody! That's the point!" he retorted with exasperation, staring at the Bennett girl as though she'd missed the biggest clue and like she was deliberately trying to be pigheaded.

She inhaled deeply, taking wider strides to put a little more distance between them, fighting the urge to run, almost wanting to snap Damon's neck for the sake of getting him to leave her alone like he originally planned.

A distant groaning caught her attention. Damon's expression having changed before he dashed away, leaving Bonnie's heart to plummet into her shoes and her to give chase.

When she caught up, he was crouched beside a broken Alaric, the former history teacher, cradling his head, blood seeping from the wound above Alaric's eye. "Ric! You okay, man? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Alaric stared at his best friend as though he didn't even see him, looking glassy-eyed and distant. He shoved Damon's hands away, his features contorted into a hateful grimace as he looked up at Bonnie.

She crouched beside Ric, cautiously checking the wound with one hand, searching his neck for any signs of vampire teeth, and helped him to his feet, ignoring the way he'd jerked himself away from her once standing.

"I thought you said he couldn't get back here," he stated after a prolonged silence, addressing her first, his eyes gradually yet accusingly darting to Damon. "I thought you said we were safe. That you had this covered."

"I'm so sorry," Bonnie said, feeling the ache of his loss in her heart, further contributing to the pain already there.

Alaric chuckled, a hollow laugh devoid of even a hint of humor. He dropped his gaze, searching for something, and then staggered over to what Bonnie acknowledged was a handgun. He reached down to pick up it up, holding onto the nearby Jeep to keep from falling on his face. He checked it, tossing aside the empty clip and smoothly replaced it with a new one he'd retrieved from the inside of his car.

He'd never scared Bonnie more.

"I know you're suffering right now, that you're angry, but it's not her fault," Damon said, standing up for Bonnie, trying to assess the situation, sensing his friend was losing it. "None of us could have predicted he'd get out."

"Jo did," Alaric interjected as though talking to himself, his voice low, almost unheard by either of them. "She often feared that he would, that he'd come for her, for our unborn children."

Bonnie's heart sank as she, too, dreaded that very thing, especially with Lily Salvatore so adamant on returning to 1903 to collect her out of control family. Bonnie knew she'd set Kai free.

"Bonnie destroyed the ascendant to make sure he couldn't," Damon explained, putting stress on the word destroyed. "It wasn't possible. It shouldn't have been possible."

Bonnie felt a chill thrust through her. She had destroyed the ascendant, but only to prevent Lily from going back. That ascendant was of this world. Kai and the heretics had their own in there. She swallowed, refusing to voice it. Damon surely knew, he just probably tossed it to Ric to reassure him for her sake. She didn't know what to say to that, didn't know how to justify what happened when she'd been having recurring nightmares of his return since the day she'd left Kai to rot in that prison world.

"You're right," Alaric murmured, no longer sounding like himself. He turned the gun on them, squeezing the trigger.

Bonnie gasped and Damon jerked, a sound of pain spilling from his lips before either of them could comprehend what Ric had done. Bonnie's eyes were wide, round and fearful.

"It's your fault," Ric declared, accentuating the accusation with another bullet.

Damon dropped to his knees, his hands clutching his stomach in shock.

"If you'd left Isobel alone I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have come to Mystic Falls searching for you," Alaric hissed, tears streaming down his drawn face. He lowered his arm before Bonnie could think to intervene, ignoring the sounds of agony coming from Damon, the blood pouring from his mouth. "I wouldn't have lost another woman that I love because of you! First Isobel, then Jenna... and now—" Alaric reached into his car, pocketed something and shut the passenger's door. "I'm going to make sure that son of a bitch doesn't see sunrise."

Bonnie ignored Damon, rushing after Alaric, making a grab for his suit jacket to forestall his suicide mission, only to have him turn on her, the gun's muzzle suddenly pressed beneath her chin.

"I don't want to hurt you, Bonnie. But I will," he said, applying more pressure, a soft sound of discomfort slipping from her lips as the piece of wood she'd been carrying clattered to the ground.

"Jo wouldn't want you to do this," she replied, feeling tears well in her eyes once more. "She wouldn't want you to throw your life away like this."

"Maybe not," he said, swallowing thickly, sounding by no means swayed by her pleading. "But… after what he's done, after the people lost… she'd want me to end it. She'd want me to kill him."

"You're going to get yourself killed," Bonnie stated, already envisioning it, knowing that as things were headed Kai probably wouldn't hesitate to kill him. Which made her wonder why he hadn't done it yet.

"And then…" Ric began, lowering his weapon for all of a second, suddenly bringing it against the side of Bonnie's temple, carelessly shoving her out of the way to the ground, "it'll be over."

She dropped to her knees, dazed, as he scrambled away from her, determinedly strolling around the side of the car to get into it. He wasted no time starting the engine and pulling away from the gravel parking.

Bonnie forced herself to focus on the back of his truck, ignoring the drumming in her achy head, extending a hand before her. "Phasmatus ruptis!" she hissed, the car's wheels abruptly popping like four balloons, forcing it to veer to the left and through the nearby wooden fencing. She saw the driver's door swing open and then Alaric appeared at the back of the car, staring at her a moment—angry, she supposed—before turning to regard the car's cabbie window. He didn't look back and, before she knew, he took off on foot, dashing into the forest.

Where was he going? God alone knew. But something told Bonnie there was a part of the conversation that Damon and she were missing and that there was a reason Kai hadn't straight-out killed him.

"And to think that this night started off on a high note," Damon grated, coughing, sounding in pain.

She turned back to look at Damon, allowing her gaze to fall to his belly where he was digging around with his fingers as if looking for hidden treasure.

"Ugh, I hate getting shot," he groaned, gritting his teeth, his hands trembling as he removed them, peering up at her with a mixture of irritation and mild pleading. "Mind giving an old friend a hand?"

She wanted to make some spiteful comment, to rub in how much it must hurt and remind Damon of the condition he'd left her in, but there wasn't time. Not only they were hunting Kai, but Alaric, too, and time wasn't on their side and unfortunately, the fastest way to do that was with Damon's bloodhound of a nose. She said nothing in relation to his comment, feeling surprisingly better as she dropped to her knees beside Damon. She guessed Kai's blood was still doing the trick. She ripped Damon's shirt away, dipping first one finger into the wound, forcing it wider, trying to grab a hold of the lead with her nail, indifferent to his sounds of agony.

"Grab it already!" he snarled, his hand swiftly latching out to clamp around her wrist, averting any further digging, drawing a startled gasp from her lips. What was it with these men trying to manhandle her?

"Stop being a baby. I'm trying to help you," she snapped, glaring.

"Is that what you're doing?" he asked, looking in no way like he believed her.

"It's too slippery."

"Argh," he moaned, forcing himself to let go of her hand. "Just do something. Please—"

Something cold wrapped around her heart, squeezing, reminding her of how she'd begged for herself and how he'd denied her. How easy—if only for appearance's sake—he made it look to walk away.

She removed her finger from the wound, closing her eyes, feeling a breeze pick up around her, and then spoke, "Vitas phasmatis ferro venire ad me." Immediately the two bullets shot from his abdomen, making Damon cry out in shocked pain, his eyes rolling in his head as though he were on the verge of passing out. They floated over him an instant and then dropped. His face white from the pain he'd experienced. Bonnie pushed aside the touch of guilt that writhed its way into her, and stood, going in search of her stake again.

"I asked for that," he grumbled, refraining from complaining like he wanted to.

"You did," she retorted, not at all smiling as she started across the gravel parking lot to wonder into the forest. "Enough dawdling. We need to find Alaric."

"Dawdling? I was shot," Damon pointed out, making sure she didn't mistake his pain for laziness.

"Let's go! Also, you might want to call Stefan and update him on what's happened. Let him know Kai is still running around and that he should be on the lookout."

Damon nodded, produced his phone and did just that.

It was so dark and quiet in the Boarding House it felt like a crypt. And perhaps it was what it was, exactly, for its inhabitants – the crypt of their hopes and dreams for better lives and happy endings.

Happy ending…

Kai chuckled, strolling down the basement corridor, and reflected that this whole 'happy ending' bullshit was nothing but just that: bullshit. There was no such thing: it had been proven to him many times, and he had been the one to prove it to others. No such thing, he thought grimly, observing the trail of blood that belonged to Bonnie. It had almost dried out, but still held her scent. He winced, suddenly angered at how she ingrained herself in him, how she knew that she did, and how she went ahead and used it, attempting to manipulate him and thinking she was so smart and so safe while doing it.

He discarded his bloody costume on Damon's bed, piece by piece, as he pulled on one of Damon's tee-shirts and black jeans. He curved his mouth in a slow smile and whispered, "Phasmatos incendia."

The flames surged up like a hungry tiger leaping, then sprawled across the sheets and covers and pillows, leaking on the wooden posts and headrest.

Smiling, Kai strolled out and away from the Salvatores' mansion.

"Ew, again? I thought you quit? You promised you'd quit." She slapped the guy's arm, scowling, as though that scowl alone would dip him in terror of losing the one and only love of his life if he was to light that cigarette.

He did, smiling as he did so.

She glared. "You're disgusting. Don't bother coming in until you stop stinking." Her heels click-clacked towards the porch, up the three stairs and to the door, then inside. The door slammed shut hard, relaying the indignation and a promise of reprisals for the disobedience.

The guy laughed quietly, drawing deep on the cigarette, exhaling smoke. One moment, he was leaning against his Chevy, and the next, he was gone.

"Smoking is bad for your health and smell, but I do like the rebel spirit," Kai shared, throwing him on the ground behind someone's garage.

The guy grunted in pain, tried to get up while starting to ask what the fuck that moron was doing, and could not. His windpipe – a wide subway tunnel – was abruptly reduced to a pinhole as he floated up into the air directed by Kai's hand, his legs jerking in futile attempts to find a footing. He was scratching at his throat as if to pry the invisible cord away, his eyes bulging with horrified inquiry. He had lost his cigarette somewhere between his Chevy and this garage, but the smell still clung to him.

"You won't be the best drink I've ever had, but you'll do for now," Kai told him, held out another hand, and the guy's denim jacket hung over it. "Not to get messy," Kai explained, dropping it on the lawn, then drew him closer.

The guy wheezed, jerking, his pulse skyrocketed in fright. When Kai yanked his head to the side and bared his teeth, his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets like a horse spotting a snake on the road, and his bladder let go.

Kai grimaced, "Gee, could you be more gross?"

"What th—what the—what…" the guy sputtered.

"Phasmatos attexo," Kai said, and smiled as he added, "Bonnie Bennett says hi."

"Wha—" the guy began again, but the rest of the question drowned in a gurgle as Kai fed.

And while he did, he sensed her as if she were standing next to him, partaking in the feast in spirit. Partaking in every teardrop of fear the nameless guy felt before his heart gave up with no more blood to pump. Kai licked his lips clean, shrugging the denim jacket on, then surveyed the body. "Phasmatos incendia." The orange light reflected in his eyes and flickered across the teeth his smile showed before he turned away and left.

Damon walked ahead of Bonnie, his eyes and nose fixed ahead, sniffing and seeking in turn, hoping to stumble upon his friend soon, disappointed by how much of a head start they'd given Alaric.

"Where could he be going?" Bonnie asked with an inkling of frustration, unable to make out a damn thing in the pitch black of night, relying solely on Damon and his nose to get them there.

"Beats me, Bonnie. I'm not the witch here. Can't you do some supernatural nosedive into his brain and start digging?"

"In order for that to happen, I would firstly need something of his, secondly we would have to stop and thirdly, we don't have the time!"

Damon said nothing, sensing how irritated she was becoming, and chose to chew his tongue this once.

Bonnie stumbled slightly as a rush of fear overcame her, her heartrate picking up all at once; she extended a hand to steady herself upon a tree.

Damon's boots crunched on leaves and debris with every step, unintentionally pulling ahead her as he concentrated on finding his friend.

She inhaled deeply, shaken to the core by the familiar and yet strangely foreign emotion, tears spilling down her cheeks unchecked when it was over. She didn't need to see what had happened to know that Kai had kept his promise and was another step closer to trying to break her. To punish her for her treachery.

"Hey!" Damon asked, suddenly appearing beside her. "What happened?"

"I tripped. I think I might have twisted my ankle."

"Can you walk?" he asked, too distracted to remember the blood in her system.

"Yeah. I'm fine—" Bonnie stated, forcing her tone to sound steady. "Don't worry about me. Just… go."

She couldn't see his face but she sensed his hesitation for a second, knowing he wanted to argue with her. "Yeah. Not going to happen," he said, scooping her into his arms before she could think to tell him to let go of her, making quick work of reclosing the distance he'd made, setting her back on her feet only once he was sure they were headed in the right direction.

A small laugh escaped Kai as he turned to face his stalker. "Oh, look at you – not as speedy these days, are you? I thought you'd never catch up, the way you were huffing and puffing for a mile."

Tyler snarled, his eyes assuming the yellow glint of those of a wolf, reflecting the light of the moon hovering over the treetops above them. He made to lunge at Kai, but there was a loud snap as though someone broke a thick branch over a knee, and he fell on the ground with a wail of pain.

Kai displayed a mock sympathy. "Aw, that's nasty. Though I do respect your resolution to finish our feud despite how bad a day you're having – it's practically that day of the month for you." He laughed. "Funny. But anyhow, we do have an account to settle, I reckon. That in my little sister's name. Gee, those are multiplying – I've got another one of those penciled down for later tonight. Those naughty sisters…"

Another bone snapped, then another. Tyler rolled, screaming; fallen leaves and branches crunching beneath him, too loud to Kai's new vampire hearing. It was as if someone was dancing on the dry chicken bones scattered on the floor within his skull.

Kai heaved an exaggerated sigh, observing Tyler's body torture itself. "That's taking so damn long, pal. I've got a date I'm almost late for."

The werewolf's grunt of pain morphed into a growl as he suddenly leapt at Kai.

Kai dashed to the side the last second, and Tyler collided with a tree, pushing off it to jump the opponent again, his teeth now looking sharper. That one Kai failed to avoid, and they tumbled in a fighting heap. Tyler's jaws snapped a hair shy of Kai's throat before Kai sent him flying backwards with the Motus spell. He found his feet the same instant, and witnessed Lockwood bouncing off another tree trunk. Tyler yapped at the hit, but was up right away, more furious than ever.

Kai caught him in a magical grip as Tyler lunged himself into the air, and kept him suspended, smiling at his momentarily baffled look. "Yeah, no, you can't do that to me again. See, fool me once… and all that. Not gonna give you the second time. Not today." His fingers wiggled slowly, as if beckoning, then bent a little like claws.

Tyler grunted and gave a strangled groan that came out half like a gurgle as blood spurted from his mouth, then ears and corners of his eyes. The trickles were detaching from his face, being drawn from it as though by an invisible magnet, and gathered in a growing, shifting sphere in front of him. More seeped from the front of his shirt, oozing from every pore of his thrashing body and adding to the liquid sphere. His eyes were bulging, as if he couldn't believe it was being done to him and it wasn't a dream he could wake from.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Kai said, a friendly smile taking over his mouth when he looked at Tyler from the sphere of his blood turning in front of Lockwood's chest like a ball of liquid silk, its sides rippling smoothly as new drops added on. "It's what magic is: beauty. And life. It's the live force even when it brings death… But there is no actual death, did you know that? Energy can't just die, or disappear forever. It can only take another form. So let it be your solace, Tyler, for that little clot of energy that you are cannot utterly cease to exist. Poetic, to say the least. And true, to say it all the way it is."

Tyler managed a quiet sound that suggested he either disagreed or didn't have it in him to react properly any longer.

Kai flexed his fingers, speeding it up a tad, and thought of Bonnie, wondering if she had felt any of it tingling the ethereal link they had between them.

Tyler's eyes rolled up showing whites. Even in the moonlight, Kai saw his skin pale and turning greyish, veins standing out in darker color like rivers on a map. His heartbeat slowed to impossible where no human would register any. Then, Kai let him drop.

He gazed at the blood sphere for a second longer, then let it lower and gently spill, soaking the ground at Tyler's still feet. Surely, that amount would bring here any vampire in the vicinity. Kai could think of one, at least, who would probably happen by. Unless the mansion burned brighter than Kai anticipated. "I'm sure you weren't tasty enough to try," he told Tyler's cooling body and hurried away into the forest.

With the silver dollar of a moon hanging in the sky, so brightly white and round, the cemetery looked like one should in the best tradition of the classic horror movies, be it vampires or werewolves to star in them. Kai walked past the Gilberts' stones and into the dark maw of the crypt. If he were human, he reflected, it would be so quiet in here as if the world outside had ended. But it wasn't now. A thin lace of subtle noises, shuffles, whispers and rustles hung around, vibrant, and he found himself lulled by it for a clockless moment until the shuffling sounds from the forest yanked him back to reality.

A figure trudged, wavering, between the trees, like a drunkard on his way from the bar. Something glistened silvery in his hand; his half-undone tie rocking on his chest like a clock's pendulum measuring his last minutes.

Kai watched, smiling, and when the man was approaching the low fence surrounding the crypt, he walked out of its mouth. "Took you long enough, and I thought I'd be late. Your buddy Tyler ate a few minutes of our time."

Ric stopped, rocked on his feet a little as if trying not to fall – Kai suspected he nearly did – and looked at Parker like someone would when trying to recognize a person they didn't see for some decent amount of years. "What did you do to him?" he asked finally in a listless tone.

"Nothing I regret." Kai looked at the gun in Ric's hand and chortled softly. "Look at you, the hero of the west. Yul Brynner, however, is a tough act to follow."

Alaric raised the gun, aiming at Kai's head, but three first shots hit the stony arc of the crypt entrance before he stopped to reassess, and his wandering eyes of a very intoxicated man found Kai leaning against the high tombstone Damon and he had chained him to some weeks ago. Slowly, like moving under water, Ric raised and aimed and shot.

Kai grabbed him by the nape of his neck from behind, his other hand squeezing Ric's wrist and crushing the bones in it. Ric cried out; the gun dropped and bounced a little off the tip of his shoe. His good hand made a grab for Kai's tightening on his sore other, but Kai jerked his arm behind his back. Alaric gave another cry as his shoulder popped, dislocating. "What are you waiting for?" he asked breathlessly. "Finish it."

"Yeah, so easy it's disappointing, in a way," Kai mused. "But I don't feel like dancing here with you all night under the stars and ripe moon. So, sure, I'll send you to Jo right away."

"You killed her for nothing, you freak," Ric uttered between his teeth. "She's not your damn father. She was done with your damn coven for good."

"Oh no," Kai laughed, "one cannot be done with our damn coven until one dies. And she wasn't an angel to me, either, Ric. All these years in the prison, every single one of my six thousand and then some days, her little parting smile of triumph haunted my dreams. Those years were long and many, so I was kinda bitter to begin with. And when your merry band of friends landed me in yet another prison, I kinda started wondering if she was involved. And even if she wasn't, I believe she was inappropriately happy I was locked away again. So yes, Ric, even if I was gonna be more lenient after she gave me her magic and we made nice, that little merry band I mentioned has ruined that to hell. I hope you had your chance to file that complaint to them, because after a few minutes you won't be worrying about this earthly crap."

Kai murmured the link spell, tipped Saltzman's head sideways harshly and tucked into the side of his neck.