It was as dark as in a hell pit in that cave. It smelled of faint decay and dampness, and his uneven footfalls echoed around as though Kai was trying to hammer his way through a wall instead of limping. And damn, it hurt to walk. Every step sent a lightning of pain from each stab wound to zap through his body, making it harder to keep his breathing in order. The lantern did little to light the way and only made a creepy shadow out of him to stalk across the walls and ground.
His shirt clung to his back soaked in blood, so did the jeans leg where Bonnie's knife had struck next. Kai was torn between a bitter feeling of irony, as though he knew she would do something like that, and hurt, profoundly deep and encompassing. She didn't even make an effort to truly listen to him, not once. Not fucking once.
He failed to notice he was in a room rather than a cave before he ran into something solid with his hip and groaned a curse. It was a table, Kai saw with growing wonder. And when he limped around it and carried his pathetic lantern to the right, an ashen face jumped out of the dark. Kai's heart stopped, and for the next terrifying second he thought it wouldn't restart. It did, and Kai took a better look.
The thing's skin was wrinkly and grey, veins dark and saturated under it. There were other figures outlined by the shadows; they were sitting in a semi-circle.
What are they, mummies?
Kai scrutinized the first one, momentarily forgetting his pains as curiosity took over. "What the hell are you…" he murmured, and the mummy's eyes snapped open.
The world tumbled over around and under Kai, and he heard his own cry before a bolt of pain ripped into his neck and leaked further through his shoulder and arm and chest, swift like quicksilver. The mummy's eyes – colorless and dead – flashed on his mind's screen as he jerked…
There was a strangled groan Kai sluggishly recognized as his as he stirred and winced. His neck was nagging as if he had been sleeping with it bent in the wrong way for a day or two. His whole body was stiff and sore, especially the right side he was lying on. He couldn't feel his hands as though he no longer had them, but his wrists screamed in pain. The poorly lit room slowly came into vision, blurry but familiar. The thick stench of smoke was the biggest clue Kai would have smiled at if not for the cough that tightened his throat.
He smelled her, too.
Bonnie was busy with her phone, scrolling through section after section of random newsfeed tweets, attempting to take her mind off things for a while, when a groan filled the air. She glanced down at the figure before her on the floor, locked her phone, and swung her legs off the cot.
"Though I do love that trick," Kai said in a husky voice that sold out his horrible thirst, "it really sucks you did it. I thought we were talking! But never mind." He rolled onto his back, wincing as the burning in his wrists neared the teeth-grinding level, and looked at Bonnie with a weary, dry amusement. "Let me guess: I'm still alive because you wanna force me to undo the spell on you and Elena. I really can't – not even sorry to disappoint you on that." He thought of tearing the ropes, but there was no familiar surge of magical energy. There was something wrong with him, and he did feel much weaker than he normally would. A lazy smirk of wicked knowing touched the corners of his mouth as he locked his eyes on hers. "I see you took precautions. I'm a little impressed, you brave little witchling. It might help for a few minutes, all right. Don't waste them, for they can become your last."
"The safety measures weren't my first choice, but with your newfound feeding habits and desire to rip my friends' throats out, it makes it hard to trust you," Bonnie responded, sliding off the cot, squatting beside him to take a hold of his shoulder, easing the pressure off his bound arms to help him into a sitting position. The first step in signifying her means for truce. She released his shoulder once she was sure he was good, and walked out of the cell to retrieve a blood pack.
Kai shifted a bit towards the wall and leaned back against it, taking a small moment to assess his aches and control his breathing, taking a deeper one in and releasing a longer one out. The smoke ate at his airways, adding to the hunger dry-out.
Slowly unwinding the plastic tube around it to act as a makeshift straw, Bonnie crouched before him. "Thirsty?"
Kai gave her a long searching look, the smallest of curious smiles playing over his mouth. He couldn't decide whether she was really that confident or really that stupid. And it bugged him, like a mosquito's high-pitched whining somewhere in the same room with him would. Vervain on his ropes didn't please him, either, and he needed blood to fix things he didn't like. He opted for a nod, never taking his probing eyes off her.
Bonnie held his gaze for as long as was necessary for him to trust that she wasn't trying to wangle an angle, not one that was a detriment to either of them, anyway, otherwise she would have killed him, right? Just like he could have killed her a couple of dozens' times tonight. A light smile played upon her mouth at his approving nod; she guided the plastic to his parted lips without hesitation, trusting that he wasn't stupid enough to bite her and that maybe he didn't want to. Who knew with this guy? Bonnie kept a firm hold on the blood pack, letting him feed at his leisure or at least until he'd managed enough to feel more settled.
Kai's lips parted obediently as she offered him the blood and helping the plastic tube between them. It was too cold and so much different from the live and warm kind you got directly from the vein, but, for that moment, it was a liquid ambrosia that coated his sore throat and muffled the ache. He had three quarters of the pack down when Damon's voice called for Bonnie from somewhere outside the cell – Kai figured Salvatore couldn't even get down the stairs, and it made him smile a little. Bonnie didn't trust them around each other and was right, since Damon didn't have it in him to think before he acted. Kai, however, felt no fixation on killing him unless provoked. Not when Damon's plans for the next hundred years or so included pining after an eternally snoozing girl.
"Bonnie?!" Damon yelled, hovering at the door and in front of the barrier she had cast. "Bonnie, what the hell?!"
Bonnie knew that, as soon as he was conscious and smelt the smoke in the air, there would be severe damage control. She cringed and involuntarily made to remove the plastic 'straw' from Kai's mouth.
"Excuse a second," she said as if they were having a civil everyday conversation, leisurely walked out the cell, leaving the door open to purposely let Kai know he wasn't a prisoner – at least not in the bars sense.
Kai surveyed the open door, wondering once more what her intentions might be. Confidence and ignorance looked very alike at times.
"What the hell are you doing?" Damon raged. "Why can't I get down—"
"What's wrong?" Bonnie asked, ignoring his blazing blue eyes and questions.
"What do you mean what's wrong? My gut was slashed open, there is smoke in the house and—"
"Have you been upstairs?" she chipped in, once again cutting short his mention of the basement and the barrier spell – she didn't want that revealed too soon.
He frowned, looking peeved. "Upstairs?" he echoed, his right hand clutching an empty blood pack, clearly wanting more and wrestling with his next plan of action: Bonnie, the pack, or the looming mystery of what lay in wait upstairs.
"Your room," Bonnie added to help speed along his indecision, his eyes widening with fear and what she knew would be rage by the time he saw his bed, books and bathroom.
He took off without a word, leaving her to stare after him for a second or two and hear as he released a pent-up roar of distress like an injured animal.
Kai listened half-heartedly while most of his attention coursed through his system like an intelligent computer scanning program in search of flaws and running diagnostics. The blood was gradually doing its job and he could feel the charges of renewed energy collecting in his muscles and cells, smoothening the soreness away. Kai pulled his legs to his chest and slid the loop of his arms up along them, ending up with his tied hands on his lap. The hands resembled those of a corpse with the blood flow cut off by the ropes; his skin around the wrists burnt and bloody. He closed his eyes, concentrating, assessing his resources. He could sense it more distinctly now – whatever Bonnie injected him with to bind his magic. Kai strained his bound hands as if intending to tear the ropes apart, wincing at the pain bursting across the damaged skin and saturating the flesh beneath. Blood oozed, soaking the ropes and eventually dripping to the floor while he sat with his eyes closed, guiding the foul potion out of his system.
Bonnie traipsed back downstairs and into the cell again, knowing Damon would be away a couple more minutes and that priority one of his was trying to see what survived the unexpected fire. "I'm guessing the fire was you?"
He looked at her and simpered. "Probably." Then added, "Fraktus," under his breath, parting his feet and hands once the ropes ripped and flew sideways in shreds as though he tore them with a flourish of a Hulk.
Bonnie gasped and automatically stepped back as he tore free of his ropes. How the hell did he even do that? She swallowed, taking another step back, rapidly weighing up her options, trying to decide whether or not she should make a run for the basement stairs or if she should stay. Running would be the smart thing to do—especially in light of his earlier threat—but it was also the most efficient way of provoking him to attack her, or red-flagging her detoxing plans.
Kai hissed softly, rubbing at his healing wrists, and gave her a faint smile. "That's much better. Now tell me, Bons: do you ever think your plans through thoroughly or just go with the flow and thus screw up every time?" He meticulously registered every spark of fear and mild panic that blinked across her face once she saw the ropes fly off his ankles and wrists. She fell back a few steps and stopped just behind the threshold of the cell, her fingers unwittingly tightening on his unfinished blood pack. She made a huge effort to contain her emotions and appear cool, and he found himself liking that about her yet again.
"I find the flow works a lot more efficiently," Bonnie responded, having thought that this would be a bit easier, that vervain ropes and a magic nuke would be the thing needed to put him on time-out for at least an hour. "Especially in this case. Otherwise, I probably would have foregone the illusion and staked you while you were out cold." She beckoned to the open canister of salt sitting at the wall in the corridor. It tipped over, salt crawling across the floor like white ants within seconds, lining the entranceway of the cell like dutiful little soldiers in need of a singular word to seal him in. Bonnie only hoped it wouldn't be necessary and that a bluff would be enough.
Kai squinted pensively, thinking about it. Illusion, she said. He let on a slow smile of a dawning recognition as some pieces of this puzzle crawled towards each other to create a picture in his mind. She pulled off an illusion of staking him for some reason – which he was yet to find since he was hardly a total secret sitting in the Salvatores' house, of all places.
Her gaze flicked down, and as his followed, Kai saw a white line of salt crawling along the doorstep. He nearly spilled a laugh over it, but restrained it instead, raising a mock reprimanding stare to meet hers. In an instant, he was hovering before her, his hands propped on the doorframe, the tops of his boots a hair shy of the salt border.
Bonnie locked her gaze upon his, her heart skipping a transitory beat as he appeared so close. Too close. He'd been doing that particular trick long before he even became a vampire – it unnerved her. She forced herself to not look down, to not break eye contact and broadcast her alarm – though, by now and with all his fancy new senses in place, it was only a matter of time before he recognized it. Unless he already did.
Kai was still smiling his faint, inscrutable smile, regarding her. "Why didn't you stake me for real? Did my little revelation shocked you into pity? That'd be funny given how late the reaction is for this party. Haven't I said that? I think I did. And I think you're not as good at listening as you are when it's Damon yapping about his sorrows and failures."
"I wouldn't call it pity as much as it is enlightenment," she said in a calm voice, surprisingly good at maintaining that confident air while her pulse and scent gave out a different kind of vibes. "As for Damon, he's had his trials. All of which he formerly failed miserably, time and time again. But he's changed, he's trying to be better and less a psycho killer. At least to some degree and as far as I was aware." She paused briefly as if revising it in her mind. "He's a work in progress," she concluded. "Like you."
Kai screwed his eyes a little in an automatic expression of ironic distrust, registered her heartbeat quickening a notch. It usually happened to people who ventured a phrase unsure of the other person's reaction and expecting the worst. It made him ponder whether she was trying to lie to him again.
"The only difference is, he's stopped fighting it, stopped trying to blame the world and has taken a little responsibility for his actions. Like me. I've made mistakes. And I could be making one right now. Probably my second biggest this month." There was a note of morose humor in her voice, the awareness that if he wanted to follow through with his threat, it would take no more than a second and a certified flick of a wrist to do so.
Kai cracked a wider smile that said she might be on point here.
"Yet, for some reason, I don't believe that I am," she continued. "If anything, your speech tonight has made me realize that. I know that it sounds hollow coming from me now, that you believe I'm trying to pacify you for some substantial gain." She thought of how a few weeks ago he begged her to trust him, to believe he'd changed overnight, and how she refused to take in an idea so unfathomable. Their roles seemed ironically switched. "But I'm going to need you to take a leap of faith and trust that I'm not and that unlike who you were two weeks ago, forgiveness doesn't come easy to me. I'm trying to step out of my comfort zone, I'm trying—" she searched for a better word, went for it: "I want to help you."
For a lengthy moment, they merely stared at each other – Kai with a curious attention and Bonnie with a wary one.
Silence stretched for what felt like an eternity for Bonnie, and his face was absent of even a hint of his thinking or if she managed to break through his uncompromising defenses. She chose to take it as a good sign. A negligible second of optimism that rushed through her, positivity he eradicated within moments as if to punish her for it. She should have been ready for it, she should have uttered the word before he struck, but there had been no time.
Kai gave a soft hem of acknowledgment and shared a sardonic look with her before his hand darted forth like a striking viper and yanked her back to his cell by the throat. The blood pack dropped on the floor like a dead piece of meat; the salt line was swept across the floor by her feet. Kai had her pinned to the wall, much like in the barn earlier that night, before a gasp escaped her mouth. Heat of magic warmed up his palm, seeping from her skin through his before she could spit a spell out; he leaned in to her as though for a kiss, but not quite. A smile so amiable formed on his face it was out of place in their current roles. Kai could see her grimace at the ache of his siphoning, probably cursing herself for stupidity of trusting she was safe with him.
"God, you're so plucky, Banzai, it beats me how Damon stays immune to a turn-on like that."
Bonnie's mouth fell open faintly, restrained gasp after aching gasp tumbling from her lips, eyelids fluttering, threatening to close as a means to ward off the blaze of magic being pilfered from her body and to do away with his smiling face.
Kai's smile widened a tad, releasing a pleased hem, then his eyes took on a keener look relying it was a random remark in an actual talk of business. "Help implies I've asked for it, Bonsy. That there's something I want or desire, while, to be honest, right now, I come to realize there's hardly anything I want or desire. I think I just… am, pretty much. Like a force of nature. And a force of nature doesn't want. I got all I wanted, so what is it that you, little presumptuous witchling, wanna help me with? Do enlighten me in your turn." Nudged by a sudden playful curiosity, Kai released her gently to see what she was going to do. The borrowed magic hummed in the fibers of his body like electricity in high-voltage wires. It quickened his own pulse, and added a subtle touch of arousal.
Bonnie stayed rooted where she was when he let her go, handling her with far more care than he started off with. She was angry, every square inch of her body stinging with defeat, longing to punch him out of mere need for justice. She exhaled through her nose, taking a few seconds to calm down, to remember that he was doing this on purpose and that this was as nasty a test as any. She should have expected it. And a part of her did.
She chuckled, a sound that held little mirth and came across as more of a scoff, and lifted a hand to the phantom imprint left behind by his unexpected siphoning. "Presumptuous?" she echoed. "Maybe. But it's been my experience that those that fear rejection or think themselves beyond repair seldom ask for help, Kai. You know why? Because they've been doing it their whole lives and all they know is to run. They're ashamed of facing themselves, petrified of confronting what they've done to cope and scared to feel anything remotely real because they don't know what to do with it. You've been seeking recognition from your family for eighteen years. Forty, if we really want to dive into it. You think that feeling up and poofs out of existence because they're dead? It doesn't. And it's only going to get harder for you from here. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but down the line, another eighteen years for now, you're still not going to have gotten what you wanted, you'll still just be the assumed abomination his family up and scratched from existence. Is that who you want to be known as for the rest of your very long life?" She didn't believe so, not after what he'd shared and the hurt that clearly started all of this. He wanted to belong, she was sure.
Her speech put a damper on that playful spark twinkling in Kai, fueled by her closeness and the magic he took, and now there was an acrimonious frustration like a drop of poison spreading its deadly strings through the clear waters of the well. She was trying to read him and never quite hit it, and while she refused to stop poking around, it was getting to a point of irritation that bordered with ire.
"Answer me this," she added, scrutinizing him, "if you were given the chance, if you by some means possessed the power to go back, to hold off from stabbing your sister in the gut and starting world war three. Would you? Or would you simply do it all over again?"
A somewhat morose smile of resignation tugged at Kai's mouth as the same bile-bitter feeling rose from within like a bloated corpse rises up from the bottom of the river. She was stubbornly pulling at the strings he had deliberately cut because all they did was give him more trouble instead of the liberation he sought.
Kai looked at her like one would look at a child that struggles with understanding and yet demands answers to questions she's not supposed to worry about at this age. "Would I kill my family if I had a chance to change it? I would, in a heartbeat."
Bonnie stared at him in wonder and with something like a flicker of disenchantment, incapable of processing how quickly he tore her hope to shreds.
"Because it's always been like that between me and them: they never stopped trying to put me away. They not just intended to rob me of my birthright, but of my life as well, and I couldn't let them. It was always me or them, Bonnie. And like it happens in the wilderness of nature, the strongest survives. I chose to be that, and it is my responsibility – I'm fully aware of it and state it here and now: it was indeed my choice to survive them. Jo – she was carrying another threat to my powers in her, and I couldn't let them live."
It's not that Bonnie anticipated he would become a turncoat or start handing out food parcels at a shelter or adopt stray puppies from the SPCA. She wasn't trying to make him good, she didn't hold that power, and frankly, she didn't want that kind of responsibility. What she did need and sought was a true hint of remorse in Kai. She wanted to know that after all the horror they bore tonight and over the last few months wasn't for nothing, and wouldn't end up with any more people dead.
Kai squinted cunningly as though warning of a major hint to come. "Not after you left me in nineteen-o-three, a bloody breakfast for a bunch of desiccated heretics. Funny enough, it even made me think my own prison wasn't so bad, after all – and that's the biggest blasphemy ever, I tell ya. I left her in peace after she gave me her powers. And I guess I could've figured out a way to solve that problem with her twins, but then – plot twist! – I end up in a prison world to feed a pack of bloodsuckers not all of which knew how to be gentle."
Her heart seemed to stop, that nauseating feeling returning at full force, tears burning behind her eyes for a second. She forced herself to blink away the swelling anguish, to stop it dead in its tracks before it fully manifested or coursed down her cheeks. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of winning – not again, not in this department. It didn't matter how many times tonight Kai spitefully attempted to make it clear that Bonnie was as accountable for the death of Jo's family – it would never stop hurting her. She knew that as well as that the sky was blue. And in this moment, she, too, wished she never made it out of that prison world, that she was still back there and this was another of the many frightening nightmares she invented for herself.
In a fracture of a second, Kai had her in the same grip, his palm heating up with her magic readily flowing in. Her fingers dug in his wrist, desperate to remove his vice grip and cut short by his siphoning power. This was as efficient as any neck snap in her book.
He smiled a smile of a cat playing with a mouse. It was coming back again, the arousal of power. "You wanna know if I'm sorry? I was very damn sorry when I told you so – and I did many times. You didn't listen. And now we both can be sorry – you for not listening, I for killing my sister who could have been the only one of them I actually felt anything for, because being twins has its effect even on a senseless bastards like me – and it won't change anything. I did what I did because I wanted to do it, because I chose to do it after things that happened to me. It's not the blame you think I put on others – those are simple, dry facts that brought me to where I am now. And right now, it's too late to tell me how I crave for understanding of my family – I killed them because I stopped wanting it a long time ago. I'm not scared to feel what's real – there's just nothing worth feeling."
Bonnie's mind kept working, tossing more into the guilt pile. Unlike Damon, who made shitty life choices and continued to make them when things weren't going a particular way or, more importantly, his way, Kai, for even a second, had tried to stay on track, to give the merge a refined attempt. And yes, he'd been manipulative, pushy and his unpredictable self in his efforts, but not once in the two days that Bonnie mingled with him had he possessed the same sneer or grade of chaos in his eyes. She cynically believed it was an act—and now the roles were reversed, and this time Kai didn't care to see it anymore since that kind of happiness and self-acceptance had been snatched from him too many times. Years of continual conditioning provided by his family and himself. And now, her.
He yanked her from the wall to him, her back lined up with his front as he held her to him with an arm across her chest, his cheek against her temple. Kai simpered pensively as if a sudden idea came into his head, and traced a finger of his free hand down the side of her neck. He saw the vein pulsing rapidly, and began getting hard. "Except for the only real thing a vampire can feel… that you can still give me."
Bonnie's eyes widened at the implication, preoccupied by his hard-on and misleadingly gentle attention provided by his touches. An uncontrolled gasp spilled from her lips in anticipation of his bite, evoking to memory how viciously Damon ripped into her neck all those years ago. She squeezed her eyes shut, endeavoring to blot out the image, and forced herself to relax, to accept that there was nothing she could do to prevent it – and that this was it.
Eyes closing, Kai nuzzled into her skin, taking in that scent that made him waver on the edge of self-control, and skimmed his parted lips over the beating vein, testing himself. He wanted it so badly it scared him deep down. And it also excited him too much to step back. Now he could no longer backtrack, and that thought coaxed his fangs to elongate and his mouth water, like an approval from beyond reason. Vaguely, Kai was aware how his own heart hammered away against her shoulder-blade, as frantic as hers but for all the different reasons.
He snaked his other arm around her waist, tender as a lover before planting a kiss, and scraped his teeth against her skin, as if teasing himself. A bead of crimson swelled on the small scratch and he picked it up with the tip of his tongue.
When Kai didn't immediately sink his teeth in and get to it, Bonnie exhaled shakily, aching to tell him to stop fucking with her. Her eyes snapped open as a second arm snaked around her waist, his lips persistent in their torturous devotion, blunt teeth scratching along sensitive skin, a soft sound of disquiet escaping her lips.
"You're gonna be more than I even expected," he whispered against her neck. "Exquisite."
"I'm not so sure," Bonnie said in a taunting matter, finding her voice at long last, her nails digging into his forearm through the denim sleeve of his jacket in a bruising clasp as if she needed to hold on in case she were to float away or something. "I've been known to be pretty bitter."
"I've been known to have a wicked taste." Kai dabbed his tongue on another bead of blood growing on her scratch, and the urge to tuck into her flesh and have a full swallow or ten became unbearable, but he still held himself back like a rider trying to keep his tempered stallion from bolting. He literally felt the sores on the palms of his restraint where the stallion's reins scraped the skin off. If he could stop and think of why he was still holding back, Kai would have had no answer. He felt another tremble in her, her breath labored, her heart racing – and all of it was like a candle set under the strained rope of his need to stay in control.
Her body's reactions consumed him so much he almost missed the swift whiplash of air responding to a vampire dashing to them to attack. Kai caught Caroline in midair, an inch short of her goal that was his spine, and threw her backwards. She propelled through the cell's doorway into the wall and dropped with a grunt.
"Saepio," he whispered, waving a hand at the door.
Caroline rushed back the same second, and bumped against the invisible barrier sealing the cell closed. Panic and wrath mingled on her face riddled with dark veins under her bloodshot eyes, her teeth bared as she hissed and rapped her fists against what looked like nothing but air.
Bonnie stared in unspoken disbelief. Where Klaus had been demoralizing and ruthless with his attacks, Kai was breathtaking and daunting, exuding power that far outweighed the notorious hybrid and anything she'd ever touched. Caroline appeared once more to test the theory, bouncing off the barrier, her face awash with uncontrolled emotion.
Kai smiled and returned his full attention to Bonnie shivering in his embrace. He replaced his arm around her waist, drawing her focus away from the blonde. "Scared of pain, aren't you?" he mused, and licked off another drop of blood on her skin. "In fact, we never live without pain – there's always a net of tiny little pains here and there in our bodies that actually make us feel at all. So we know we're alive. Strange, isn't it? Or twisted, like so many things in life and nature are. There are so many nervous endings in your neck, Bonsy. And they all run through your whole body, to every corner of it, because it's a web. It's why your neck is an erogenous zone – pain and pleasure have too fine a line between them. Too fine a line…"
Bonnie could already imagine his sharpened teeth locking on her throat and the flash of pain that would follow as he tore through flesh and zeroed in on the vein like a rabid animal. She wasn't looking forward to it. Yet another—lesser—part of her couldn't help but wonder if it would be different. His tone sounded far too seductive to her ears, a technique that, for once, didn't go amiss and strangely settled her nerves as he drew her close, permitting a hint of decipherable arousal to make itself known to her.
The anticipation was scorching his veins and gums; Kai let his fangs sharpen once more, his eyes closing as he felt her jugular beating under his lips like a tiny scared bird. He laved it with his tongue, unconsciously pulling her body closer to his as his teeth gingerly cut into her skin. She gave a moan, or it was his own – he no longer could tell. Her flavor blazed through his senses, flooding, much like Noah's Flood overran the earth in the beginning of times.
Bonnie gasped with the expectance of agony, a response that swiftly transformed into a startling moan, one that echoed his own pleasure. Gratification that transformed into numbness, dizziness and lethargy far too quickly, weakening the hold she had on his jacket, her head lolling sideward, her eyes threatening to close.
He drew a swallow after swallow, relishing in the way it ignited his every nerve, making them tingle and vibrate as if to a tune too high to catch by ear. It became an ageless moment where nothing else existed and it was perfect. The best way a world could be.
Bonnie's heart gave an uneven beat, staggered, and began to slow. And the rush of sensual anticipation Kai would have normally wanted pulled him back from the ninth cloud. He withdrew, as gingerly, and licked his lips. He was trembling, both inside and out, and it took him a second to regain a shred of awareness and see that Bonnie was leaning into him heavier than before; her eyes at half-mast. She was taking shallow breaths.
Kai shifted her in his arms to face him, an arm around her waist and a hand to support her head upright. Her eyes met his drowsily. "This is the moment where I would've asked you if you wanted to live. I shan't, for I know the answer."
He kissed her, coaxing her sluggish lips open with his, and slipped his bitten tongue between her teeth.
Before Bonnie could comprehend what he was talking about or could think to be frightened, his warm mouth was on hers like a soothing balm, his tongue probing against slightly parted lips, seeking entrance, all of which she inevitably permitted. Her eyes fluttered closed treacherously to involuntarily savor the acquainted coppery taste and the kiss itself for a second or two.
Her heartrate gave Kai the clue his blood worked, and he released her slowly and fell back two steps, the smallest of smiles shimmering over his mouth – as if Bonnie and he were now sharing a secret no one else could perceive.
Bonnie opened her eyes as his arms fell away from her waist, taking with it the stability provided by his chest, her legs still weak, barely holding her upright as the exchange of blood began to repair the damage he'd caused. When her eyes steadied on his, registering the small indecipherable smile on his lips (one, she thought, looked strangely accepting), Kai waved a hand at the door.
Caroline stormed in like a meteor, and then the bright flash of pain in his neck stole Bonnie's image away.
Bonnie faltered, confused for a minute, and flinched as Kai's body crumbled to the floor at her feet. Caroline towered over him like a pit bull foaming at the mouth. She wasted no time, swiftly biting into her wrist, hardly sparing Bonnie a chance to refute her offer, one hand behind Bonnie's head, the other spoon-feeding more of the healing blood into her friend's system. Bonnie gasped when at last Caroline allowed her the chance to pull away, and lifted a hand to her chest to slow her racing heart and to catch her breath.
"Are you okay?" Caroline asked after a beat, her voice shaking despite her confident stride, her body trembling with what looked to be excessive rage or a severe chill.
"I'm fine," Bonnie replied, fingers probing at the area the wound should have been, shuddering briefly as she recalled the experience to memory.
"Good," Caroline said, being oddly monosyllabic, her hand swiftly meeting Bonnie's cheek with a harsh and unexpected smack.
Bonnie gasped in response, automatically raising a hand to soothe her stinging cheek.
"What the hell, Bonnie?!" Caroline spat before Bonnie could think to ask her the very same question. "I thought you said you had this covered." She let go of Bennett as abruptly and crouched over Kai. Her right hand—Bonnie realized almost too late—was already buried in his chest.
"Caroline! No!"Bonnie yelled, reading her noxious objective. Caroline's eyes snapped to her, like a ferocious lion being interrupted during a vigorous meal, looking as dazed and shook up as Bonnie felt. "Caroline! Stop!"
"Stop?" she mimicked incredulously, making no move to remove her hand from his chest, her lips turning into an ugly line of discontent. "Stop? Stop?! Bonnie, he tried to kill you!" She sounded bitter and odious. Bonnie had never seen Caroline like this, never seen such voraciousness in her before. "Whatever you think you're doing is not working, you're—" she drifted off as if too scared to finish the sentence, her voice trembling slightly. She squeezed at his heart, testing its durability, as if she expected it to be made of steel or stone.
"Caroline…" Bonnie pleaded, dropping to her knees on the other side of Kai's motionless body, enclosing a hand around Caroline's trembling wrist, unmindful of the blood that coated her fair skin. "Please don't. Please—"
"Please?!" Caroline hissed, withdrawing her hand from his chest sharply, bone and other bits crunching.
Bonnie stiffened, pulse racing with momentary dread, settling only once she realized his heart wasn't sitting in Caroline's bloodied grip like a macabre trophy.
"Please? Listen to yourself!"
"I know—" Bonnie replied as the blonde jumped to her feet. She forced herself off the icy floor, too, seeing her friend's increasing distress as she headed for the cellar door. Bonnie took a step over Kai, trying to take a hold of her forearm to forestall her action and to reassure her that she, Bonnie, was fine, that she was healing, a mission she scarcely managed before the flat of her blonde friend's hand connected with her face.
Caroline's eyes widened, her expression as correspondingly dazed as Bonnie's. "I trusted you, I told you those ropes weren't strong enough to hold him and you reassured me they were!"
Bonnie stared at her, trying to figure out what she was trying to accuse her of and smarting from the sting on her face. Was Caroline implying Bonnie wanted Kai to attack her? And that Bonnie in some way set it up that way?
"I get what you're trying to do with Kai, I understand the guilt you must be feeling and how overwhelming tonight has been. But what happened at the wedding is not your fault. You don't have to take this—" Caroline gestured to Kai, "—upon yourself. You didn't know this would happen, you didn't know Kai would come back here and play Ted Bundy. You've been through a trauma, Bonnie. You've been back less than a week, for Christ's sake! You're allowed to be weak."
Involuntary tears gathered in Bonnie's eyes, incapable of controlling the rush of emotion that spiraled to the surface. As if she hadn't done enough crying tonight.
"I know you feel responsible for what happened to Elena. I know you love her. And I do too. But, you can't keep doing this to yourself. You can't keep throwing your life as if you're some sacrificial lamb. I refuse to accept that, I refuse to support that." Caroline sounded both resolute and heartbroken. "I lost my mother, Bonnie," she said, intertwining their hands, pulling Bonnie close, holding onto her as if she were afraid Bonnie'd drift away or reject what she was saying. "I refuse to lose my sister. Not this way and not today."
Bonnie nodded in understanding and squeezed Caroline's hands, doing her best—for now—to reassure she wasn't going anywhere.
When Caroline released her and wordlessly drew back, they moved to sit beside each other on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, both lost in their respective worlds.
"Salt," Bonnie said after a lengthy silence, seeing the blonde frown with her eyes trained on her bloody hand. "I need salt," she clarified, yanking her gaze from Kai's stock-still figure.
"Right," Caroline said, wearily pushed off the ground, moving to exit the cell.
"Caroline," Bonnie called before she could get too far; the blonde head swiveling around to face her again. "What happened to your mother isn't your fault either, you know. You were trying to help her. You did the best you could." Elena told Bonnie about the experiment and Caroline's definitive goal. The result had been obvious. "I'm sure she knew that."
Caroline's lower lip trembled, a small smile tweaking at her lips as she turned away, leaving the room to go get more of the salt she'd bought earlier.
By the time Caroline returned, Bonnie had injected Kai with a weak dose of vervain and of the magic-negating potion, diminishing what he'd stolen from her. She wasn't sure it would remain that way for long, but she hoped at least that the vervain would keep him tempered and from causing anymore chaos.
"Damon is pacing like a mad man up there. You didn't tell him about Kai?" Caroline extended the new salt packet to her.
"There wasn't time," Bonnie reasoned, moving to pour it across the open doorway, gesturing that Caroline retrieve the unfinished blood pack from the cell.
She did and tossed it onto the closed freezer. "What do you mean there wasn't time?"
"I mean—" Bonnie dropped the empty packet to the floor, picking up a rusty awl, wincing as she stabbed it into her palm. Caroline looked confused but didn't resist as the witch took her hand to repeat the process. "There wasn't time. I've been busy. And he's been recovering and then—"
"And then you got bit," Caroline clarified, wincing slightly.
"Exactly." Bonnie kept a hold on her hand, allowing their blood to drip onto the salt. "Sigillum anima," she said, watching as the crimson expanded and seeped into the grains, discoloring them, binding them to their blood, making it so that only Caroline and Bonnie would be able to open it up for him.
"Are you sure you want to keep doing this, Bonnie?"
Bennett threw aside the awl, picked up the empty salt pack off the floor, crumpling it in her hand, then took the half-finished blood pack off the freezer's lid and dropped it inside so that it wouldn't go to waste. "Yes," she answered, unsure of why, when she should have known better—he'd tried to convince her, not once, but three times—that he wasn't interested in changing his newfound course. Still, she refused to give up that easily. She gestured for the stairs, taking only a handful of steps before Caroline broke the silence.
"Do you feel something for him?" she asked at random, remembering something else she'd picked up on in the air during their feeding session, a scent she could still smell lingering on Bonnie's skin.
"What?" Bonnie asked with apparent disbelief. "No, of course not. He's—"
"It's just that…" Caroline cut in, for the first time in her life unsure if she should proceed or how to go about tending to this topic. "You know what, forget it. I just— I mean there hasn't been much time and we haven't spoken or caught up on this prison world thing."
"There isn't much to talk about." Bonnie tried to gauge the sheepish expression on her face.
"Bonnie," Caroline said, canting her head as though she could sense her friend closing off.
"Caroline," she hit back, flashing a light uncompromising smile. "I promise we'll talk. Just not tonight. I need to shower, I need to get rid of all this gunk—" gesturing to the black stains on her pants legs, the dried blood having glued them to her shins unpleasantly. "And I… I need to tend to Elena."
Caroline nodded, accepting the excuse, and started out of the basement.
Damon was already waiting, drink in hand. "Bonnie," he greeted, raising his glass in mock salute, briefly sharing a look with Caroline. "So good to see you again. I was beginning to grow worried that whatever has you secured in the basement might have swallowed you whole."
Straightaway Bonnie could tell he was being acerbic, that he hated being left out of the loop.
"Can we not do this right now?" she responded, casting a sidelong look at Caroline, trying to gauge how much she might have spilled.
The blonde smiled guiltily, and gently pried the plastic from Bonnie's fingers, giving the two of them a few minutes of privacy as she headed to the kitchen to throw it away.
"I have had a long night," Bonnie turned back to Damon, "that is far from over and before I continue with it, I'd like to try and rinse some of it away."
"And when would be the more appropriate time?" Damon countered, draining his glass in one swoop. "Tomorrow? An hour? Five minutes? You're going to have to clear it up for me, Bonbon." He stood, set his glass aside on the nearest flat surface, and strolled toward her. "I've never known you to run from a fight."
They both knew it would head there, that was the privilege of living with someone every waking moment of everyday for four months, and it permitted a certain understanding of how things would ultimately go.
"I'm not running, Damon," she said defensively, not at all feeling as though she had the energy or want to tackle this conversation right at this very minute. "I've reached a limit on pigheadedness tonight and I'm wore-out. There's a difference."
"Not in your world," he disputed.
She scoffed, gritted her teeth, and turned away from him to head for the stairs, gasping in surprise as she bumped into his brick wall of a chest. She hated when he did that.
"Things change," Bonnie said and slapped a hand to his torso, making a point of showing him how to put space between them by taking a judicious step back. "I am not as tolerating as I once was, have you not noticed?"
His eyes narrowed perceptibly, his nostrils flaring a bit, a hand lashing out like an unanticipated viper to grab a hold of her wrist. Bonnie winced, confused by his reaction and irritated as he yanked her closer.
What the hell?!
"Damon! Damon, let go me!" She yanked back on her arm, pulling it free within seconds. He didn't fight her on it, in fact, she was certain—as she looked into that perceptible gaze of his now—that he was trying to sniff her. His face devoid of anything but what looked to be a serious suspicion.
Caroline appeared in the hallway, her eyes darting between the two of them with apprehension.
Bonnie took another step back, purposely walking around him while he stood trying to rattle his brain.
"Is that why he is down there?" Damon asked as Bonnie reached for the stilted railing, and took the first and second step, cutting short her escape.
Bonnie felt subjected to déjà vu. She stopped, knowing that if she didn't he'd make her, or worse – follow her into the bathroom. He could be obstinate like that when he wanted something. "What are you talking about now? What is your problem?"
"Kai," he said with stiff clarification, trying to measure her face for a reaction of some kind as he peered up at her. "I'm talking about Kai Parker. The murderous girlfriend-linking siphon sucker. And it's not my problem, it's our problem. Or did you forget that?"
"What are you trying to say, Damon?" she asked, withdrawing her hand from the railing to face him fully. She could sense he was getting to something, but in true Damon fashion he had to drag it out a little.
"He murdered Jo. He might as well have murdered Elena. Which begs the question: why is he here?" He raised an introspective eyebrow, looking oddly like someone trying to piece together a puzzle. "Why is he in my basement?"
Bonnie darted a look over his shoulder to where Caroline stood watching and trying to judge whether or not she should step in. Bonnie inhaled, uncertain of how to answer that and to tell him what she was trying to do. Unlike Caroline, Damon wouldn't be supportive of her mission and considering what he'd been deprived of for the next hundred years, she imagined it would be a bitter pill to swallow. If he hadn't tried to kill her before, he sure as hell would now.
"Caroline didn't tell me," Damon pointed out, taking a wild guess as to the reason for her look. He tapped at the side of his nose, driving home a wordless point. "I put two and two together myself. The barrier, the fact that I can't hear what's going on down there. What I'm trying to understand is why you've taken such precautions." He took a step onto the stairwell, forcing her to take a step back, involuntarily ascending the stairs. "Why he isn't dead and why—" he grabbed a hold of the front of her shirt to prevent her escape, his pupils dilating a second, "—you suddenly seem to smell so appetizing."
"That's enough!" Caroline snapped, appearing beside them on the stairs, removing Damon's hand from Bonnie's top, swiftly shoving him into the railing.
Damon grunted with annoyance and staggered slightly but didn't lose his footing. He was pissed. And who could blame him after the night they all had?
"You two need a time-out."
Neither argued that point, or at least Bonnie wasn't; she didn't quite know how to address the subject with Damon. He'd never accept it or care to understand.
Caroline nodded towards upstairs, "Bonnie, go take your shower."
Bonnie glanced at the back of her blonde head, flicking her eyes to Damon who appeared to be simmering in uncharacteristic silence before proceeding down the stairs to go get himself another drink. Caroline followed.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed, slapping his arm once they stepped into the parlor. "Just give her a break! She's also been attacked today, remember? And then ran around through the woods with you, saving Tyler – and you, by the way. She needs a moment to rest, she's not a vamp—"
"No, what the hell is wrong with you!" he snapped back, eyes blazing. "Since apparently you're the only one allowed down there – what the hell is wrong with you, Caroline? What the fuck were you thinking? He bit her, didn't he? And what, you just stood and watched it like a porn flick or something?"
Caroline's delicate mouth formed an O of disgusted, dismayed astonishment; she watched him as if what he had just uttered had to immediately crack the floor beneath his boots for hell to swallow him whole. Then she found her voice and advanced on him with such fury in her glare that Damon found himself backing away a step. "You have absolutely no right to say this to me, or think that about her. It's Bonnie! How your tongue doesn't fall out rotten for saying this!"
He winced irefully. "Oh stop it, I bet you smelled it sooner than I did. And – moreover – you got to see. So tell me, am I wrong about this? I actually wish to be."
Caroline's resolution wavered the tiniest bit in the depth of her eyes, almost black with wrath, and Damon noticed it and squinted imperceptibly with knowing. She pressed her lips together angrily. "He didn't harm her, and that's what matters."
"You didn't stop him, and that's what matters to me," he smirked darkly, jeering, and yet his eyes searched her face for answers. Then he took her wrist and raised her bloodied hand between them, shaking it once lightly in emphasis. "Or did you? Why too late? And why is this fucker's heart still intact if you did?"
She sighed, annoyed that she had to discuss it with Damon of all people while she was eager to ride Bonnie's back some more about the same. She tugged her hand free. "Look, just give her a little time to shower and change, and then take it up with her. I… I need to call Stefan now and let him know we're all alive, okay? Okay." She brushed past him and went to the kitchen.
Bonnie walked down the hall to Damon's room, wrinkling her nose with distaste as she stepped inside. She made a left into the walk-in closet, glad to see that the actual fire hadn't reached inside and the damage was mostly superficial. She wasted no time in picking out some fresh clothes. A jeans skirt slung over her left forearm, along with a leather belt since she was a size bigger than Bonnie, and her infamous maroon jersey. Bonnie exited his room and headed for the space she'd claimed as her own in 1994. It looked similar, expect that there wasn't even a hint of her in it, the bedspread having been updated and changed, along a light fixture here and there. She set the few things down, along with a pair of black knee-high boots, and brought the jersey to her nose, hoping to catch a whiff of Elena's comforting smell, irked to find that the smoke overrode it. Not only had they lost Elena, but all she owned was now destroyed, too, almost as if Kai had attempted to scratch her from existence entirely.
Or, at least, unintentionally.
Bonnie set the jersey down on top of her selected skirt, moving toward the dresser to take a towel from the bottom, a habit she was happy to find hadn't died out or changed over the years. She peeled off the shirt as she stepped into the bathroom, flipping on the light, seeing for the first time the extent of the damage to her jeans. It looked tie-dyed.
"Gross," she commented inaudibly as she headed over to the shower, turning on the water to let it warm up. She undid the button on her jeans, hesitating when, as she made to shuck off her shoes, she saw Damon seated on the closed toilet seat.
He was observing her, a drink in hand, looking as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He grinned. Bonnie didn't like that grin, she'd seen that grin when he first showed up in Mystic Falls. She had hoped to never reacquaint herself with it again. She guessed, with Elena out of commission, the reason for her demise tucked away within his basement, out of reach, was having more of an effect on him that Bonnie would have liked.
"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?" he asked. "I mean, you've seen all there is to see. You remember, right? That's why we worked on the rules, why we put boundaries into place."
She made no answer, unconcerned with being half-naked in his presence, and stood staring, the steam from the hot water fogging up the large mirror, turning the place into a makeshift sauna.
He waited.
"I'm trying to help him, Damon. I'm trying to set things right."
"What is right?" he asked, staring at her as if he didn't truly see her.
"He deserves a chance."
"Are you hearing yourself right now?" he asked with a cold chuckle, echoing Caroline's earlier bafflement.
"I know it sounds crazy coming from me—"
"Crazy? No, crazy would be killing our only aforementioned means of escape without hesitation in nineteen-ninety-four. You remember that, too, don't you? This is beyond my comprehension."
"I tried to kill him more than once, I tried to leave him behind," Bonnie stated, seeing the truth dawn in his blue eyes, his lips thinning. "Violence doesn't get me anywhere. Jo's dead, her family is dead. I should have trusted Kai when he came to me, I should've had faith that he could change. I made a mistake. I'm trying to correct it."
"You've cracked," Damon responded, in no way able to be sensitive and thinking she needed to know it, as if it explained everything. "You've lost it. There is no way anything good can come from this."
"The eternal cynic," she countered, walking over to him, snatching the bottle of bourbon from his hand. "Would it kill you to have a little faith in me? To, for once, support me without your backhanded commentary?"
"And what exactly is it that you want me to support, Bonbon? You playing witchy-wizard redeemer to a psycho?" he asked, suddenly eyeing her up and down, once again, deferring to that knowing look, as if a need to say something burned on his tongue. "My girl's on indefinite retreat in snooze land, and you're getting cozy with the perpetrator. Has he told you how to unlink the two of you? Have you even tired or—" he reached out to bring a hand to her neck, touching the noticeable patch of dried blood, the recognizable stain that brandished not even a hint of teeth marks. But he knew. "Were you too distracted while he scratched another itch?"
Bonnie flushed, powerless to stave off her reaction, offended and equally mortified.
"Four months is a long time, Bonnie, and you're a big girl with needs. I can smell it on you," he said as to confirm what she'd hoped he hadn't meant earlier, his eyes dipping to her bra and lower. "And I can assure you I'm quite familiar with that scent. However faint."
Bonnie shoved him toward the doorway, annoyed by his misplaced vulgarity and his misunderstanding of everything that happened. Trust him to put some kind of sexual spin on things.
"Fine. We'll continue this downstairs," he said, the humor fading from his face, replaced by fury and bottled irritation, the door closing behind him a few seconds later.
She exhaled deeply, waiting a moment to make sure Damon wasn't going to find a reason to come back, and locked the door, blearily shimmying out of the remainder of her clothes.
With a quick stride as if her hand was burning, Caroline crossed the kitchen for the sink, turned on the taps and washed the blood off vigorously, thinking it would be so nice to wash off the memory it had installed in her mind forever: Bonnie is being killed and she is helpless to do squat. Ire and anxiety whirled around within her in a mad dance, and she bit her lip when she felt tears stinging her eyes. Her hands were shaking slightly under the water flow. They were clean, but she rubbed some more, soaping them up and rinsing before turning the taps off with a deep breath of determination to keep the tears away.
Not the right moment. Not now.
She took a few more deep breaths, drying her hands with the kitchen towel that lay on the counter, then walked to the window, producing her cell phone, and dialed.
Stefan picked up on the first beep. "Hey, is everything all right?"
She caught herself considering. Not everything was. "Yeah… yeah, Bonnie's okay and safe, so is Damon. We're back in the Boarding House. How's Elena?"
"Well, the curse is not broken, if that's what you ask," he said. "Still asleep, or unconscious… I don't even know. No changes here. What about Kai?"
Caroline grimaced as though he caught her red-handed. "He's… taken care of… for now… sort of." She squeezed her eyes shut in momentary helpless repentance, glanced down at her feet, feeling guilty for even trying to wiggle out of explanation Stefan deserved. "Look, it's a bit hard to explain in a few words, but this problem will wait a bit longer. Bonnie's taking care of it. She… she sealed him in the basement, his neck is snapped, he's secured for now. She didn't want to kill him before making sure there is absolutely no way of undoing his spell."
Stefan hemmed acknowledgment – she could sense his doubts and hated herself for it. Then he said, "Okay, we'll talk about it once I'm home. Is Damon coming here?"
"He might be… I don't know, I didn't ask. He's… not taking Bonnie's plan well, so, you know how he is. Drinking, cursing, glaring. A lot."
Stefan chuckled softly, warming her heart a bit. God, she needed him, like, right now. She wanted him here with her, to be the solid rock to hold on to when waves are raging around, threatening to wash them all into the furious sea.
"Yeah, I know. Well, they release her in the morning, so now, if Kai's locked and Tyler's no longer running rampant, I could come home and you'll tell me what you obviously aren't now."
His voice was soft, clear of any accusation, and she felt a surge of love for him for it. She grinned, feeling a little happy for the first time in this horrible night. "Okay."
"Oh, Caroline? What's with Alaric? Is he there with you, guys?"
She felt her heart sink, and swallowed. "Oh my God… No, no, he's not. We… I completely forgot. I'll send Damon to find him, and I'll stay with Bonnie. I don't wanna leave her alone with this psycho in the basement. Even if he's dead at the moment."
"Sure, okay. I'll call Damon in a bit, so ask him to have his phone on him, please?"
"Will do. Come soon, okay?"
"Of course." He was smiling – she could feel – when he hung up.
And as soon as he did, she was dipped back in the cold, muddy waters of their problems. Stefan wasn't happy to hear about Kai, and though he wasn't as rash and direct in expressing it as Damon, she knew the truth. He would be as concerned as she was, and once he heard about what happened down there, his concern would reach the top red mark where her own was blinking now, bright and horrifying.
She looked at her clean hand and entertained the thought of returning to Kai's cell and finishing what Bonnie had prevented. Bonnie would be mad for days, or weeks, even, but in the end she'd see the light. She would see that Caroline did it to protect her because she wouldn't save herself, not once. Maybe, it was exactly what she, Caroline, had to do. The only sane choice.
She had already reached the doorway when it hit her like a slap to the face that it was exactly what Damon would do if he could. Had he access to Kai, Kai would have been no more. It made Caroline a little sick and conflicted. She wasn't sure if it disgusted her to be similar to Damon even in a situation like this, or she would have approved of him doing it.
"Where's Alaric, Damon?" she inquired, crossing the parlor.
He turned to her, eyebrows raised with brief confusion that swiftly morphed into mortifying guilt. "Dammit. He was in the cemetery, Kai almost drained him. I tried to feed him my blood, but then this motherfucker cut me open like a damn can of beans, and I passed out. Then you came, and… I forgot. Shit." He lilted out his drink, set the glass down harshly and surveyed the room for his jacket.
"Don't forget your phone, Stefan said he'll call."
"Fine." He shrugged the jacket on, hurrying for the door, then turned to Caroline, his hand tugging on the knob. "Don't let her down there until I get back, you got it? No way she goes back down there before we have that fucking talk."
"Not happening," Caroline nodded. "I'll watch her. Just go."
After a moment's hesitation, Damon went.
The stale pain in his neck coaxed a quiet groan as Kai came to, feeling like he had a stiff rusty pole instead of the spinal cord. Wincing, he slowly lifted himself up on his elbows, then sat up, dizzy and achy. His veins were stinging as though there was a mix of ginger and chili pepper flowing through them instead of blood. It had to be the infamous work of vervain. He gave a weak laugh, cocking his head from side to side to set the vertebrae right. They crunched, relieving the ache. "So, you went for the right shot this time, hey, Bons," he muttered, and got up on wobbly legs, holding on to the wall as the comber of lightheadedness passed. When it did, he looked down at himself, and peeled the tee-shirt from his chest with two fingers. A hole adorned it, right where his heart was; its edges stiff with drying blood. It gave him another knowing chuckle.
Oh, Caroline, at least you tried.
Her failure warmed up his curiosity and pleased him like it would please to see your dart stick in the red bull's-eye of the round aim board. A no-miss, after all.
The thick line of salt lay along the threshold. Once Kai felt a tad more confident that his feet would support him, he slowly made his way to the door – still open as if inviting to leave the prison and taste freedom outside – and looked over the salt. He raised a hand, guiding it as if to reach into the corridor, and jerked it an inch back with a hiss as his fingertips got stung. The red, burnt skin gradually paled back to normal. Vervain was slowing the healing, as well. Interesting. The phantom residue of the burn throbbed in his fingers, but there was also a vibration he registered – a subtle trembling, like the smallest, thinnest strings in the world vibrating on inertia after a single chord has been struck.
The barrier magic.
He felt his smile widen as he lay down on the cot, closed his eyes, and made himself relax in spite of the vervain discomfort, muscle by muscle. After a few moments, it didn't feel all that nasty, anymore. He struck a comfortable pose, put at arm under his head, and let himself begin to drift. All he had to do was wait now, so he could as well catch some good ol' shuteye that wasn't neck-snap induced.
Bonnie turned the hot water back on, undid the top of her jeans and pushed her pants down over her hips to her thighs, easing onto the closed toilet lid Damon had been occupying minutes before to remove it completely. She wrestled the sticky fabric, disgusted by the memories attached and growing frustrated.
(You've cracked)
Pressing her lips together into a white angry line, she tossed the pants in the sink,
(getting cozy with the perpetrator)
unclipped her bra, shrugged it down her arms and tried to inspect it
(while he scratched another itch)
but instead stared down at it with some kind of a stupid attention, like a junkie on a slow-coming high, or as if trying to see through it.
(You've lost it)
Her face scrunched up in a sudden grimace of rage, her fingers squeezing on the bra's cups convulsively as she stomped a foot so hard an awl of pain pierced it through the sole and up to her ankle. Her eyes welled up with tears of helpless anger as Bonnie envisioned Damon's face. "No! It's you who lost it! So many times no one can count anymore!" She didn't recognize that hissing voice as hers, but she didn't care. She felt like a balloon that has been blown to its near-exploding limit and then someone loosened the hole and air started wheezing out, relieving the pressure on the walls. And that wheezing was her voice.
Bonnie wanted to smack it out of Damon so badly with anything heavy enough that she could lay her hands on here, and wished he were still here so she could. Panting, she made a step towards the toilet seat on stiff legs and plopped on it, trying to get her breathing back to even. Her heart was rapping away, working on the fuel of anger residue.
(I can smell it on you)
"Fuck you, Damon" she whispered with a worn-out disgust, took a few deep breaths, and noticed she was still clutching her bra in a white-knuckled grip. She consciously loosened her fingers, watching the cups reluctantly resume their form. Sighing, Bonnie began inspecting it again, searching for bloodstains and anything to deem it unwearable. She found a red stain on the left strap, a medium sized patch from Kai's assault and a reminder of how easy it would have been for him to send her to an early grave – again.
Had he wanted to.
His voice, his tongue and teeth on her skin – she couldn't stop herself from recollecting it, like rolling down the slope on a skateboard and unable to stall. Though she tried, clutching on reason and stomping on the brakes of analysis. Bonnie could admit that she made a mistake, that she was weak, and that for an unanticipated second, she gave into Kai's bite, but she couldn't help it – it was beyond her control. She still didn't know why it happened, why even now as she thought about it she could hear that unwitting moan fall from her lips, surprised how smoothly Kai's teeth had latched onto her neck and how the entire processes hurt for all of three seconds, and feel the reminisce of unforeseen pleasure as it pulled from within. It was an alien sensation, completely out of this world to her. She could never understand it or… approve of it? Yes, maybe that, too. What she'd experienced that night in the forest during Emily's possession with Damon's attack had been painful and stayed with her even now. That pain was the reality of it to her.
Bonnie pushed away from the thought and retreated to make more space between them. There was nothing to analyze about it, it was plain and simple to the core: whatever the way it happened, it was still a vampire's bite: the very weapon they use to kill. He could have killed her.
Had he wanted to, she felt her own thought dab at her shoulder tentatively, as if shy to have returned to bother her. But once it did, it was there, as she immediately saw Kai's face the moment before he waved his hand and let Caroline in. It wasn't the face of a man who intended to kill.
Suddenly frustrated, Bonnie got off the seat and tried to shut the door on the reverie. She was tired. She would have no more of this nonsense. She craved a break. A big, solid, long break with sleeping for twenty-four hours and not worrying about a single thing.
She strolled to the shower, reached to turn on the cold tap, smoothed her underwear down her hips and stepped out of it, thoroughly rinsing both herself and the supposed material evidence in her hand.