"Ligandi atque hanc animam precor," Bonnie said in preparation of Elena's sealing spell, reading the words aloud over and over on the piece of paper she'd scrawled it on the night before, making certain her pronunciation was correct. She didn't want any more mistakes. "Ab iniuria et totum."
Caroline and Stefan progressively circled her in silence, placing candles upon the thin ledge that ran along the inside of the crypt, lighting them as she'd previously requested.
Damon was gone, skipping the last step of their goodbye to Elena, making himself scarce as soon as the lid closed on her prison. He didn't want to be around when they locked away his budding happily-ever-after.
Matt couldn't stick around either, he was distraught and doing his best keep Tyler together. Who, like Alaric, appeared to be livid, devastated and unintelligible once awoken, a volatile mixture of emotions one would expect from a man that lost his wife, or from a guy who had been forced to kill his girlfriend in order to survive.
Jeremy had come, had his moment with Elena, barely looked Bonnie in the eye, and was gone again. He said not a word to Bonnie, not even a 'hi', which made her think he was still mad. She didn't blame him.
Bonnie set the piece of paper down and rubbed at her stinging eyes. She hardly remembered sleeping as her brain had been too active in its need to replay every nitty-gritty detail of last night's events. It started the same: her leaving Kai in the nineteen-o-three, his mass revenge, and then the ending, the culmination that became seedier with Damon and Caroline's provoking accusations. Bonnie didn't read into it, she refused, but somehow she harbored a lot of guilt anyway, like she was doing something wrong and that it wasn't her subconscious running away from her to give life to the nightmares they'd implanted in her head. She wanted to talk to Caroline about it, to air the accumulative feeling that came from the bite, yet the blonde's previous reaction stuck with her. What if Caroline again suspected her of harboring some unexpressed feeling for Kai? What if her friend turned on her like Damon did?
It reminded Bonnie of something her grandmother used to say and believed in. Voicing your issue would manifest it and give it a face. Bonnie didn't want that, she didn't need that hold trying to suffocate her. It was bad enough she couldn't stop thinking about him finding another way to hinder her salt barrier, and that he'd kill them in their sleep, or more specifically, everyone else. At this point in time, Bonnie suspected he wanted nothing more than to torment her, and that like any decent horror movie villain types, Kai probably planned to save her for the last.
But then why in her dream, when Kai finally stepped away from her, did he look at peace? Like he was prepared to die? Or was that merely her head playing tricks on her, giving her some silly view of what she wanted to see? It was laughable, really, as she didn't see him giving Stefan a run for his money in the hero department, and yet Bonnie knew she expected a certain degree of good from Kai in order for this to work, the same way she anticipated it from Damon or anyone else in their lives.
It was a lot to undertake in less than twenty-four hours and there was no end in sight – not anytime soon.
"We're done. Now what?" Caroline folded the packet she was holding, stuffing it into Stefan's right side jacket pocket. He didn't seem at all bothered or surprised by what she did.
"Now you two go home," Bonnie said. Elena's coffin was placed in the delineated hole in the crypt wall and all that was left to do was to set the blank headstone.
Both Caroline and Stefan appeared muddled by the announcement.
Caroline looked apprehensive. "The last time I left you alone—"
"Those were different circumstances," Bonnie retorted, cutting short her unease, casting a glance at Stefan, hoping to find of the usual support in him. He gave her neither this time as though he, too, feared for her life."I'm not going to kill myself, guys."
"No one said you would," said Stefan. "It's just that after last night and after what Damon said, we just want to make sure you're okay and that you know we don't expect some kind of sleeping beauty miracle."
Bonnie smiled a little, unable to help it, incapable of accepting that for the first time in a very long time, she didn't feel pressured to give into the responsibility bait thrown at her.
Bringing people back from the dead was impossible and, as her grandmother reminded her time and time again over the years, unnatural. In all reality Bonnie shouldn't be here, she shouldn't have been able to get to that prison world and she sure as hell shouldn't have been allowed another chance at life after she threw it away. Yet she was. If she'd come to learn anything from her time in the prison world, it was that she needed to stop letting people use her, manipulate her and otherwise coax her into devaluing her own life.
"Trust me, I have outgrown suicide missions. I won't push myself," Bonnie felt obliged to add.
Neither looked convinced, not with her past conviction and the volatile figure bunking in Stefan's basement.
"Fine," Caroline said after a second's consideration, taking a hold of the younger Salvatore's hand, tugging him toward the crypt's entrance. He didn't fight her. "We'll wait outside."
Bonnie wanted to tell her she could do with the walk home to clear her head and that she needed some time to think of how best to tackle Kai next. She didn't get the chance and knew Caroline wouldn't take it.
Bonnie emerged from the burial chamber ten minutes later, spreading her arms at her sides to display she was in one piece. Both Caroline and Stefan looked appeased and threw her an indecipherable smile before walking away. Bonnie frowned slightly at their reaction, taking a step forward to trail after them, and caught sight of something or someone approaching her from her left. It was only as she turned to look that her heart leapt into her throat.
"Jeremy?" she said and stopped, taking in the handsome planes of his face and how he seemed to have changed with his time away, he even had a hint of stubble growing, like he hadn't seen a razor in a few days. "What are you doing here? I thought you left. I mean… are you here to see Elena?" He'd already seen her, but Bonnie assumed—since he was here—he might want to see that she was secure.
"Yeah, I—" he seemed at a loss for words as if he were trying to come up with something to say. Bonnie longed to hug him, to feel his arms around her and have him do away with this discomforting awkwardness growing between them. "I was gone. I mean, I am still going and was at the 'you're now leaving mystic falls' sign when Matt told me you were here and suggested I talk to you."
"Oh," she reacted, feeling a hint of indignation wash over her. She scolded herself immediately. She brought this attitude and distance on herself. She was the one who told Jeremy over the phone that he'd never see her again. But at the time it seemed the most logical. What would he have been able to do aside from mourn her early? They'd had enough of those memories to serve them a lifetime, and selfishly, she wanted to make new ones, to make their last few days stand out. And it had been good. At least for her.
"Not that I didn't want to," he replied, taking into account the look that swept onto her face.
"I could tell."
"Bonnie—"
"It's okay," she said, cutting him off with a dismissive wave of her hand. She didn't want to hear some guilt-driven apology and nor was she expecting one. "I get it."
"I just… with everything that's happened to Elena, seeing you—it seemed easier to make a run for it."
That, Bonnie knew, was a Gilbert trait. They never faced their issues head on, they played around it, worked their way up to it until it was too late or someone else got hurt in the process.
"You don't owe me an explanation," she countered.
He peered down at the ground, stealing a glance at the crypt and then in the direction Caroline and Stefan walked off. "I missed you," he said once his eyes settled on her again.
Bonnie found herself incapable of believing that as she'd heard all about his sleazy coping methods. Humanity-off Caroline had spilled the beans. Bonnie shouldn't have been surprised, sex was and always had been Jeremy's go-to means of resolving things. And she, too, had been guilty of using it, using him, as a means of comfort. That was what she did in her last few days, wasn't it? She took all she could from him and prayed that it would blanket her from the unavoidable, and yet, it did nothing to stave that fear or to ready her for death. She didn't suppose anyone would be ready when they're staring it in the face, when there is no way or means to turn back.
"I missed you, too," she said, smiling back softly.
They stayed staring at one another for a few seconds, neither moving to hug the other or provide them with comfort, no longer knowing how. Could they fall into those patterns when they hadn't been there for each other in so long? Would it be that simple after everything Bonnie did? She knew she didn't want it, that she needed to find a means to stand on her own two feet without relying on anyone else for emotional sustenance. It's what she needed in the past, what she felt—and could now admit—he didn't understand, and why she stuck to their relationship for so long, even when she couldn't trust him in some aspects. Unimportant aspects.
"I should get going," she said, snapping out of her musing, gesturing to the right and in direction of the small car park nestled within the line of trees. "Caroline and Stefan are probably waiting for me."
"Actually I told them I would take you home. That's okay, right?"
She nodded and smiled to herself as she turned away from him, slowly walking back to the grungy parking area.
"Elena's car?" Bonnie climbed into the passenger seat, pulled the door and her seatbelt on.
"Alaric gave it to me," he said and slid the keys into the ignition, a McDonald's packet lying strewn in the backseat, along with an open clothes bag and Elena's laptop.
"Oh." Ric was a mess this morning, quick in his goodbye and hardly coherent. "Did he say anything to you about last night? He hasn't been talking much and we're all really worried."
"You mean about Jo? About his life being over? No."
"Then how did the keys come about?"
"He threw them at my head."
"You're kidding me," Bonnie said with a subtle frown, not liking the fact that Alaric still appeared so violent or indifferent. That was unlike him and from what she'd seen yesterday – not at all good for any of them.
"Actually, I am. Damon gave it to me."
She arched a brow, surprised that Damon would think to do anything for Jeremy now that Elena was gone.
"I didn't leave him with much of a choice," he explained, his hands resting on the steering wheel as he turned to regard her again. "So where to?"
"The Boardinghouse."
"You're living there now?"
"No. Well… sort of camping out."
"Why?" Not at all subtle in his approach, like he was fishing for something he already knew.
"I guess I spent so much time there in nineteen-ninety-four that it feels like home now."
He looked interested but made no attempt to enquire about it. She hated that.
"And that's it?"
She chuckled softly, reaching forward to turn on the radio, unaffected by the look of offense that flashed across his face. She couldn't bring herself to feel guilty for what she was doing or planned to do for Kai. "What more is there?"
"How about the psychopath you're keeping locked up in their basement?" he asked, purposely busying himself with the steering as he pulled out of the parking lot.
"Who spilled? Damon or Matt?"
He didn't look happy to tell, and for a moment she could see he was wrestling with the notion. "Damon."
"Is that why you're here, then? Why you came to the cemetery?"
"I wanted to make sure you were okay."
She threw him a glance. If he wanted to make sure she was okay, he could have spoken to her this morning when he'd seen her and before he decided to hightail it out of town. He hadn't.
"Also, Damon thought I might be able to talk some sense into you."
She folded her arms across her chest and stared out the window. She wished they got there already. "I don't need a lecture."
"And I'm not going to give you one, Bonnie. But he killed Jo, he linked you and Elena, and he's the reason my sister can't be here anymore. Why she's stuck rotting in some coffin for the next however many years!"
Bonnie understood his anger and she knew anything she said from here on would make zero sense to him. "I know." She drew in a small breath. "But will murdering him solve anything? Does that not make us exactly like him? Like Damon? I've been there, Jeremy. I did it. That's why we're here to begin with and I'm trying to fix it."
"Trying to fix what, exactly?"
"I guess…" She gave some serious thought to the question everyone was plaguing her with. "Us."
They were both broken by each other. Who else was there to fix it?
Jeremy was silent the rest of the way to the Boardinghouse. Bonnie could tell he was still mad and wanted nothing more than to practice his hunter moves on Kai. He could be stubborn when he set his mind to something and she could tell that she'd lost him to whatever Damon force-fed him.
She climbed out of the car as soon as it pulled into the drive, walking around the front, planning to see him off, to reassure him that everything would be okay, and frowned as he got out. "You don't have to see me in."
"I'm not. Damon said I could stay for a few days. That it would probably help with Alaric—"
"What? Here?"
"You don't want me here?"
Actually, she didn't. Not if Kai was going to be running around. She couldn't trust him yet, and after seeing what Kai did to Tyler, she was afraid of what Jeremy would do—what he'd provoke.
"It's not that—" she started, seeing a knowing look flitter onto his face, as if he'd sensed her disapproval.
"I thought you were repairing him," Jeremy said.
"He isn't a dust buster," Bonnie retorted, unable to contain annoyance. "He's a person."
"A murderous bloodsucker witch of a person."
"Jeremy, please… I don't want to argue with you—"
"What is there to argue about? You've clearly got your hands full. You need help."
"I don't." Not the kind she was sure he'd want to give her. "Caroline is spotter."
"Okay," Jeremy moved to the back of the car, heaving his unzipped bag from the backseat.
"I'm not kidding about this, Jeremy."
"I know… and neither am I. I told you. I'm here for Alaric."
"You also told me you were leaving."
He shrugged and slammed the passenger door closed, slinging the bag over his shoulder as he went for the driver's door, removing the keys, locking the car, and pocketing it. Bonnie sighed, peering around, searching for Caroline or Stefan's car, and saw none. She guessed they hadn't made it back, yet. She headed for the front door, trailing after Jeremy, watching as he walked ahead and upstairs to claim his room. She didn't follow him, seeing no point in talking anymore and headed for the basement, desperate to make sure Kai was still there and not lurking around the house as she feared or had dreamed all night.
By the animation and voices sounding from upstairs, Kai knew the morning came.
He hadn't moved much ever since he lay down on the cot and drifted off. He couldn't truly sleep any longer, so he kept himself dipped in a deep meditative state that allowed him to ignore the growing hunger. The Boardinghouse inhabitants left, and there was silence for long enough time if he wanted to get out and feed, but he wasn't inclined to cheat that much. He was still waiting to see their next step.
When the voices came back, he felt as good as asleep. They talked, and it came like a sound of a TV from another room when you are trying to catch some shuteye. A bit irritating, but not too much of a bother. Hunger was pretty demanding by then, and he found himself reluctant to surface and change his position with an arm beneath his head and another hand resting on his stomach. Vaguely, he recognized Jeremy's voice, but the words he uttered Kai ignored, not too interested. There was Bonnie's voice, too – arguing with him, from the tone of it, but Kai still didn't care much. He had a feeling he knew what it was about, anyway. Like a movie he had seen as a kid and could recollect if he wanted.
Soon enough someone approached the cell. Her faint scent tickled his nostrils, coaxing him to reality. However, he made no hint to let her know he was awake yet. He lay as he did with his eyes closed and waited.
Bonnie peered down at the undisturbed salt line as she approached the cell and then cast a glance inside. Was Kai still sleeping? It seemed highly unlikely, considering everything that happened today and the fact that he'd been without blood for so long. Also, he'd never been this silent, not even in nineteen-ninety-four when he was giving them the conversation go-around. Why wasn't he raging? Why wasn't he trying to blow up the house? Was the vervain still weakening him?
She stood there awhile, studying him, and he could literally sense her scrutiny like subtle charges tickling his skin. At last, she ventured with words.
"Can I assume you're waiting for me to step inside to check on you?" She narrowed her eyes on his figure, taking in his closed eyes and the practiced serenity on his face. He looked asleep. But even she knew that predators liked to lay in wait, and he'd been one long before he actually became one. "Because I can assure you that won't be happening." Not if she could help it or was able to keep a safe distance.
It was a little bit funny to him, and even a little bit pathetic, in a way someone chased up a tree by a pack of hungry wolves would lecture them from a cracked branch how they would never get to sink their teeth in her ass. The branch would crack eventually, and down she'll go.
Kai didn't stir or indicate he was awake. Inside the bubble of serenity and stillness he had cocooned himself in, he felt too good to make a useless effort.
When Kai didn't move at the sound of her voice, she opened her mouth to call him, to wake him up the conventional way. And yet some inkling of annoyance held her back. This wasn't some ill-timed sleepover. He was her hostage—well, sort of – at least until she could figure out how to get him to cooperate without gutting anyone.
Through the thick walls of his bubble, Kai still could catch a whiff of her uncertainty and wonder and wariness, all twirling together like differently colored coils of smoke.
Bonnie took a few deliberate steps away from the door and headed over to the freezer, wrenching free the unfinished blood bag from yesterday, eyeing the remaining contents wearily. She assumed he'd scent it and that unknowingly, if he was still asleep, those newfound senses of his would kick into overdrive.
"You must be hungry by now," she stated, nearing the door once more, pouring the blood out onto the dirty cement floor, really feeling the need to make an impact.
Liquid hit the floor, deafeningly in the quiet of the basement and echoing off the walls. The smell reached him and wrapped around his senses thickly, layer by layer, pulling at his guts. He stirred not, however – if he did, it was going to be worse. The smallest of smiles yet touched the corners of his mouth. "Not enough to salivate like a dog and dance before you on my hinder legs, tail waggling, for a rotten canned meal. I do prefer it warm and alive."
Bonnie couldn't help the small smile of satisfaction that spread onto her lips once he responded, euphoria that dimmed as his eyes opened lazily at half-mast to focus on her. He looked too relaxed, like he'd been waiting to see what she'd do.
"Have you slept well? You don't really look perky enough to tease me like you dare."
"Considering yesterday's gory adventure and the fact that I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends at the crack of dawn, I would say I look a lot like I feel. You on the other hand, don't look half as rundown or rabid as I expected," She closed her hand around the top of the plastic blood pack to seal it off and stared at him inquisitively, half-expecting a threat or an ultimatum.
Why wasn't he pulling this place apart brick by brick to get out? Most did. But not Kai. Maybe he was tired? Perhaps their little feasting session had gotten to him and he was starting to reconsider his actions? Could she be that hopeful? She guessed she had to start somewhere.
"You had a chance to escape last night, to make a run for it… and yet, you're still here."
Kai thought of his little night trip upstairs, peering at her with the same unchanging serene face.
"Not that I'm complaining, I prefer knowing where you are. I'm just… I'm inquisitive." And then, as if it should have been obvious enough, another thought came to her. "Is it the heretics? Are you waiting for them to make their grand entrance to save you? Because if so… they aren't here, Lily couldn't find them. They never made it." Or at least she thought they hadn't. Stefan had said as much. His mother was still out searching. Who knew what she was still doing? So long as she stayed away from Bonnie, far away, Bonnie didn't care.
Kai smiled a little. He knew about the heretics, about Lily, and none of it mattered to him. He knew how every question Bonnie offered him nibbled at her mind every moment she let it, and he liked her inquisitive. He liked her interest, even if it had to contain a bitter note of wariness and mistrust. That bitter note didn't spoil the dish. He could have talked – she got too used to his talking and expected it to start happening soon if she coaxed with questions – but at that moment, talking seemed an excessive effort. There were no clues he was eager to throw at her.
And so he smiled, and said nothing.
Bonnie furrowed her eyebrows when he didn't start rambling as he usually would. What was he doing now? Taking a vow of silence? Impossible! Or was it that she'd figured it out? That alarmed her. If the heretics were anything like Kai, if they were loitering around or something, then Bonnie's friends were screwed. She could barely contain Kai—or at least it had taken a hell of a lot of effort—she could only imagine how many others there were.
She stepped away from the doorway, turning her back on him, and went to retrieve another blood pack. She kept her back to him as she moved, heading toward the next cell where there was a new batch of vervain being grown. They needed it for their arsenal, along with wolfsbane also growing in there.
She glanced down at Jo and swallowed heavily, shaking off the morbidity that consumed her as she worked, crushing off the vervain to carefully throw it into the blood pack. It would sting as he drank, that was an unfortunate guarantee and something she wished he wouldn't be aware of, but what else was there to do? She couldn't afford to feed him and having him building strength. It was safer this way. She popped of the raw leaf into her mouth for extra measure, grimacing at the taste as she swallowed.
She closed the pack again, squeezing it to make sure it was okay and wouldn't break if she were to toss it, and headed back toward his cell. She tossed it inside without a word, suspecting it would be enough of a white flag for him to start talking and do away with his continued silence.
Kai never turned his eyes from her to watch the pack's short trajectory before it plopped on the floor like a dead thing. "I'm not your pet in a zoo, Bonnie, and don't pick up my food from the floor. The only chance to feed me off your palm goes with the offer of a live blood from your vein."
"I'm not trying to treat you like a housebroken pet," she argued, deliberately ignoring his comment about feeding from her and the anxious ache that shot through. She almost lost the ability to talk just thinking back on it. Bonnie glanced down at the pack on the floor, feeling as though its presence in some way contradicted what she was trying to do now that he mentioned it. "Think of it more as a bribe to get you talking and a way of making you comfortable? Besides Damon, Stefan and Caroline all live off this stuff, it just takes some getting used to. Also, it's less messy and easier on the population. Like takeaway. Phasmatus adducam." The pack shot from the floor and into her right hand. She dusted it off, expressly wiping it on her shirt, making sure no dirt clung to it, and allowed for a smile to twitch onto her lips invitingly. "Moreover… I'm on vervain now, it wouldn't do you any good to feed on me."
"You like to decide for others, huh? The way everybody decides for you all your life?" Kai let out a quiet hem, as close to a laugh as he was willing to come. "I'm not your vampire friends, and I don't settle for what I don't want. Besides, you did offer it yourself, back in the barn. What, taking it back?"
She scowled momentarily, then composed herself back to a friendly mien. A hint of pretense Kai found himself disliking yet again.
"That was a one-time snack option," she said, glancing down at the pack, holding it between her two hands in an idle attempt to warm it up and rid it of its chill. "I wasn't exactly looking at it extensively. In fact, I can admit that it was nothing more of a martyring stall tactic. I was looking at saving some other girl or boy's poor neck—" Not that it worked. But it was the truth. "Here, now… different, more civilized scenario." She hugged the cool pack against her chest as if it were a suitable miss cuddles replacement and then slowly dangled it between index and middle. "Why not be adventurous and explore your options? I could microwave it?"
Kai winced in a feeble disgust. "I've had a pack earlier and know I won't be having any more. That's final, so it's either you or whoever else I find to feed on – your choice."
Did he miss the part where vervain was flowing in my system? she reflected. And why was he talking as though he had options? He couldn't get out. She glanced down at the border of salt and then back to his relaxed state.
With the demeanor Kai upheld, he might have come off as too lazy to pay attention, but in truth, he did pay a lot of it to every detail. He noticed the ghost of surprise and dismay in her gaze at his condition. He noticed her eyes flick down to the salt border, assessing it, then back to him with a hint of disbelief and doubt. He could see her battling with herself or common sense while considering her options.
"Fine," she said after a lengthy consideration, deciding it best not to rile him up and make him uncooperative. She knew that wouldn't get them anywhere and they could play these games all day. "But from my palm or wrist only. No neck."
She glanced down at her hand, studying it, wondering if it would be painful, if it would nullify the neck bite and the sensations it stirred—and those damned commentaries—and keep things in perspective. "Deal?"
Kai let her stew for a few moments as he considered. He wasn't happy about it and didn't see why he had to resign himself to things he didn't want to accept. "As you said, I should explore my options, so I suppose I can take your wrist this once as a compromise, or a token of good will, you might say. But further on, I do insist on the neck."
Bonnie opened her mouth to object to his conditions. How was that even fair? It was her body, it should be her choice where he feeds from, especially if it was good-naturedly.
A small sneer creased his mouth. "Not without your presentation back in the barn, by the way. The image of that generous offering you made is forever scorched into my mind. All actions have consequences, you know. And so it does, now."
She gave a soft sound of disbelief. He hadn't wanted to bite her then, he'd openly dismissed the option, and now, unexpectedly, she was facing penalties? She didn't like it, she didn't like that Kai thought he was able to negotiate and take a semblance of control.
"You were so brave, so noble when you told me it'd be you or no one. It won me over. You aren't gonna take that away, are you, Bon? An act of higher sacrifice for higher good? For saving lives? Are you still into saving lives, Bon?"
"I'm still here, am I not?" she retorted without a second thought. She ventured a look at the stairs, making sure they were still alone, not that she expected anyone—other than Caroline—to walk in on them. She didn't want to get caught feeding him, not when they were so quick to jump to assumptions and make things even more uncomfortable. Bonnie turned back to look at him, he still hadn't moved and she wasn't ready to cross the bloodied border again. She extended her right hand palm-up and beckoned him over wordlessly, aware that — like last time — he could very well pull her inside, but believing he wouldn't.
Kai smiled and made a tsking sound. "Aw, come on, Banzai. Trust breeds trust, remember? Your words. Come in here."
Bonnie licked her unexpectedly dry lips but made no move to lower her arm. Kai was right, that was what she'd been saying and yet she couldn't bring herself to blindly heed his sardonic suggestion. He could turn on her on a dime. "And as we established, trust isn't something you or I can just hand over. Baby steps," she said, attempting to stand her ground and take back the control she'd undoubtedly lost the night before. "Besides, I'm still smarting from your last feeding session." She let him interpret that any way he chose, without explaining or further highlighting the subject. "I feel safer this side of the door."
"I'm disappointed, Bonnie. You locked me up in a cold, damp basement cell in the house full of people eager to kill me, and there you are talking about feeling safer?"
Put like that, it did sound a bit ridiculous, she thought, or it would, if he wasn't so powerful.
"I believe I'm the one with deeper trust issues here," he said, "given the very betrayal of yours that drove me to the things I've done. If you believe in your mission, you will come in and have no fear. I'm beyond trusting words. I'm more into actions these days."
She lowered her arm and pensively studied a spec of dirt on the floor, powerless to deflect the guilt that kicked in. Bonnie knew he was manipulating her, that he was going hard at getting what he wanted, and yet she still swayed. Then she stepped over the invisible border and into the confines of the cell, forcing herself to take security in the fact that there was vervain in her bloodstream. "I took a leap," she said, making no move to approach the cot, forcing herself to remain confident in spite of the urge she felt to jump back over the line. "You going to meet me halfway or keep pulling at those strings?"
Kai couldn't help a quiet laugh, swaying his legs off the cot. "Is that a leap? Looks more like a flinch." He got up and started towards her slowly. "Are you that afraid of me?"
Bonnie could admit to herself that she was. From the moment Kai revealed who he was, logic told her to be weary and she suspected she would never entirely shake herself free of it. Not when what he's done is still so fresh in my mind.
"Or is it your friends stuffing you with their fears every minute of every day as if you're a toddler unable to think on your own? Tell me something, Bonnie – or better tell that to yourself: when was the last time they let you make a choice and follow it through without a friendly intervention? When was it not them who dictated you when you should live or die or throw your life off a cliff for greater good someone else believed in?" He stopped before her, holding her eyes with his. "Do you even believe in any decisions you make on your own, anymore? Or is it the eternal turning and spinning of wheels and pins inside your head comparing your choices to what they tell you is the right thing you should do?"
Bonnie narrowed her eyes slightly, observing his every step as he approached her, unsurprised by how composed he looked, how calculating and open. Like he was offering her impartial advice and not trying to stir. How did Kai even know this stuff? How was he even aware of all the intimate details? She never even told Damon how she felt in that regard and couldn't recollect a single instant when either of them brought it up. She saved that hurt purely for her journal, a form of therapy she started in nineteen-ninety-four after her first fight with Damon. That was the thing with that place, it left far too much time for a person to think, to meditate on the things that happened in their lives. She jotted down everything, things that happened before she even became a witch. She wondered now as he stopped a few steps away from her, if he'd read it or if by some cruel chance of fate he could read her mind. At this point, she probably wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter.
He cracked a sudden boyish smile she knew so well from the prison world, and beckoned. "Half the way – deal's a deal."
Besides the ever-present hint of wonder in her eyes, Bonnie tried to keep the wariness down as much as she could while her body betrayed her to Kai's ears. Her pulse picked up even more upon hearing him out, and he was sure her mind catalogued every word he uttered for later obsessing over. Just as he thought it would.
She stepped towards him when beckoned, and her eyes fell to his chest, widened. Her hand reached out tentatively to touch the shirt as if she were afraid it would blow in her face. He caught her hand with his gently before the tips of her fingers grazed the material, and winked at her with a jolly smile, stepping slightly to the side and peeling her sleeve up to her elbow.
Bonnie stiffened as soon as his hand enclosed around her wrist to forestall the action, her eyes instinctively darting to his face, distracted by his wink and that pleasant smile that eased onto his lips. She blinked as if in a momentary daze as he pushed the material up her arm and out of the way, running his fingers along the inside of her wrist, rousing an assortment of indescribable tingles that mingled with her rampant nerves.
He felt her shiver. He touched his lips to her pulse point, skimming them teasingly against it as his gums itched and burned and hunger turned his innards over.
She shuddered a touch and stared at the top of his head, fighting the urge to close her eyes as his lips skimmed her skin and anticipation kicked in. Despite of what she convinced herself of, this time she wasn't worried about it hurting—not like she had before. Now she unconsciously feared the exact opposite reaction.
His teeth slung in her flesh with the same smooth ease as they did in her neck the day before. Kai heard her gasp and then lost himself in the taste washing through him like a summer gale; his eyes fluttered closed, a hum vibrating from the base of his throat into her wrist.
Before she could dive into her body's response, a gasp passed across her lips, her free hand automatically coming to rest against his side as his teeth latched onto her flesh. Generally, the second go-around wasn't as satisfying as the night before, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as she assumed and hoped it would be. She let him drink a few more mouthfuls and flattened her hand against his side, arranging to pinch him to keep him from going too far if the vervain didn't kick in speedily enough. She didn't want him to weaken her.
She tasted like a salty breeze in the hot day, fresh and rousing. Kai didn't notice the burning at once, but when it spread all over his mouth and down his esophagus like a heartburn, he remembered vervain. It didn't stop him – not for a while, until her hand pressed into his side, fingers digging gingerly.
Restraining a groan of simultaneous pleasure, discomfort and frustration, he pulled away, licking his lips. "I'll need a refill sooner this time – that was a kiddie portion." He gave a frivolous smile, making no move to step away from her or let go of her hand that still rested lightly in his.
Too perturbed by his nonchalance to care about the lack of distance or the fact that he hadn't let go of her wrist, she studied him in silence. Was Kai immune to vervain? Was it because of his part-witch factor? It seemed unlikely when he was still a vampire and magic was an addition, something that was unnatural, impossible for most of their kind. Except that he was something else entirely, maybe it was actually the witch side of him that sucked up the vampire side? But then why the need for death to turn?
She faintly shook her head to clear it of the complex musing, offering him a smile in return, and gently removed her wrist from his hold, prudently inspecting the damage caused by his teeth as they started to fade. Caroline's blood was still in her system. "We'll have to remedy that later. I don't think I have much else to give, not until I get something of my own in my stomach." Something with more substance than a handful of grapes. That could wait, though.
She took a deliberate step to the side and slipped a finger into her mouth to wet it, lightly rubbing at the drying blood, thoughtfully doing away with the evidence, not wanting Jeremy to pick up on it if he happened to be waiting upstairs.
"Now that I've done my part, you'll quit it with the therapy sessions and get to hard tax?" she asked, remaining jovial, even going so far as to take a seat on the cot. "As in the heretics? Who are they? How many are there and where are they?"
Kai laughed. Smooth, Bennett. "They are six vampire mutants, like myself. Not too talkative – unlike myself – so there's not much I know that you don't already." The vervain burning was getting on his nerves, but he couldn't take care of it while she was here. He tried to ignore it and seated himself by her side, leaning back against the wall and setting his feet on the edge of the mattress.
Kai had been locked away with them for a week and he expected her to believe he didn't know much about them? This from someone who spent months observing Damon and her and their every habit before revealing himself? Bonnie watched him sit beside her, not at all feeling threatened anymore, surprised by how comfortable they'd gotten in the span of a minute and how the air shifted.
"However, there's not much you know in general, as far as I noticed," Kai continued, ruining the moment by knocking her back to reality. "Like, for instance, you've no clue what you're doing here with me. And all that pressure your friends are happily applying doesn't quite spur your thinking process, does it?"
She met his eyes, unflinching but feeling her cheeks warm at the accusation. He wasn't wrong. She didn't know what she planned to do with Kai. She knew what she wanted to do, what she'd been thinking when she snapped his neck instead of making his heart go pop in his chest cavity. But saving people from themselves was never an easy task and this was her first. Usually she was the one picking up the scrapes or sacrificing herself when things weren't repairable anymore.
Kai looked at her jeeringly. "Come on, Bons, prove me wrong. What's the plan – you have one, right? Pull intel from me and then let Damon have his revenge and hope the finality of my death undoes the Elena spell? Well, first of all, I'm not giving out any intel for your blood – that wasn't the deal. The deal was that I'm not killing other people if you voluntarily become my donor. That I might accept, and that's it. I'm not here to help you, or be your friend, or ally, or fight the heretics off by your side. I'd rather see them turn this town to ashes, for all I care. Perhaps it's better off in ashes. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…" He smiled. "It might take all your troubles with it. Poetic."
Bonnie swayed between fury and acceptance at his closing proclamation. She wasn't expecting Kai to be her friend, redeemed or otherwise, in fact, everything she was doing was for her and her alone.
"You're right about one thing. I don't have a plan for you," she supplied and after a second's contemplation, her voice surprisingly neutral. "And I don't know what I'm doing. I don't usually go around trying to find redeeming qualities in the big bad. I don't negotiate and I'm not quick to forgive."
Kai smiled imperceptibly. Oh, but you do negotiate, Bon.
"As for the heretics," she said, choosing to ignore his commentary about her friends and their murder, "we've faced a lot over the last two years. Murderous doppelgangers, hybrids, a kamikaze coven, a thousand-year-old witch hell-bent on mind control, and you. We might be slow on figuring it out and a little messy on our execution, but we'll get there. With or without your help." Or she would.
Bonnie pushed off the cot and glanced down at his chest in passing, once again taking in his unmarred shirt, choosing to say nothing in regards to what she now believed as she headed for the door.
Kai observed her go; a strange amusement flittered in him, like a butterfly over a flower lightly touching it with the tips of its legs. "Slow's the key word – you got that right, so damn right," he said, stretching on the cot and assuming his lounging position she found him in.
Bonnie stopped before the door and turned to look at him.
"And it will ensure your Scooby-gang's loss because those heretics won't play around or require time for some grand spell or bother bending your thoughts to amuse themselves. Think about it: if you'd been kept in a prison world for more than a hundred years just because you were an outcast mutant, would you be keen on waiting for do-gooders to thwart your vengeance plans by killing or imprisoning you yet again when you're finally free? I think this time it's safe to say you're screwed beyond all hells and heavens. I know it. You know it, too – even if you don't wanna admit it to yourself. Trust your intuition, Bonnie. I bet it was the favorite lesson of your Grams. Not optimism, or pessimism, or wishful thinking, or hope – none of it. Just raw logic, pure facts. You weren't at the wedding – I give you that to justify the confidence you show now. Mere confidence is fragile without power to back it up, and if we compare the power of six Kais to that of one Bonnie - … well." A shark-like smile spread slowly over his mouth. "Do the math."
Bonnie recoiled internally, loathing the fact that Kai was right and that he looked so damned smug about it. She desired to slap that smile off his face, to throw the words back at him and to prove herself in some way—not for his sake—but her own. All of which dissipated as the seconds ticked by, giving way to fear and less of an inkling to leave – as if she were scared of what would happen once she did and what she might find upstairs.
As Kai gave the last phrase, she looked to him as if he slapped her. He could sense emotions boiling in her like water in a pot that's whistling and jerking on the burner. Her expression was that of a witch already imagining how his intestines would look being pulled out of his mouth. Her anger elated Kai. He hit the bull's eye again. He felt he couldn't miss.
"Bonnie?"
She blinked and turned her head in the direction of the curious and slightly accusatory voice. "Jeremy?!"
The surprise on the witches' faces was identical before Bonnie turned to see Jeremy approaching in his ever annoyed strut and the same annoyed expression that seemed to be the only one Jeremy knew how to compose.
Jeremy's eyes edged past her, zeroing in on Kai like the predator he could be on occasions, all the anger he felt about Elena having taken an impulse hold of him. Bonnie had been dealing with his moods long enough to see it right away.
Exasperation popped in Kai like a balloon, letting out a whiff of poison. She said she had locked the basement down, and yet every damn motherfucker could sneak in and disturb his work. And Kai was getting so close.
Jeremy fixed her with an I'll-deal-with-you-later glare and stared past her at the hybrid, heating up towards fury. He was going to march to Kai and possibly do his best to gut the bastard alive, but Bonnie would have none of it.
"No," she commanded, knocking him back over the salt border and into a clumsy stumble with no more than a dismissive flick of the wrist. She didn't want to hurt him, but to try and calm him down on the wrong side was only asking for him to get his neck snapped or worse. Jeremy stared at Bonnie, confused, betrayed and angered, then returned his eyes to Kai, deciding to focus it all on the one really responsible. He barely noticed Bonnie stepping forth to him and pressing her palm on his chest to stave any action he might be cooking.
"You might as well have murdered my sister, you piece of shit!"
Kai smiled. "Oh, that righteous ire, gotta love that! I know it hurts so much not to see your sister – I can relate. But let me ask, where were you with your love and support when she was up and running?"
Jeremy's muscles bunched beneath Bonnie's restraining hand, his entire body stiffening in response to Kai's continued bait, a muscle in his jaw ticking with unreserved hatred.
"When Bonnie you were risking both our lives for came back? When she had to deal with all her traumas and hurts and reacquaint herself with that world anew – because living in a prison world even for a week twists your perception out of focus – that you can also trust me on. Where. Were you?"
Bonnie was surprised to find that, despite what she said and in spite of her voicemail to wish Jeremy well with his educational endeavors, she did selfishly want him to be there for her in those times her world spun out of control.
"Moping around and drowning your poor wronged ass in booze and random sex? Or taking that righteous anger out on whatever abomination you could track down? Where were you when your sister and your girl needed you most?"
With a dark, red-glowing glee, Kai saw he was about to throw Bonnie aside like a kitten and rush into his cell. Kai didn't mind putting him back to his place. Hell, he wished to do more than that.
Bonnie scarcely had time to muse on Jeremy's extracurricular activities—of which she only knew of one—and the humiliation that came from everyone else being so well informed, too, before she was shoved aside. Bonnie toppled over, wincing as she hit the ground, unprepared for Jeremy's fury or his unrestrained whim as he dashed into the cell.
"Jeremy!" she shrieked with panic, ignoring the ache in her knees as she dashed for the open doorway, colliding with the doorframe, glad the salt had held in Jeremy's attack and that at least one spell was in effect.
Jeremy already had Kai by the collar and was hauling him off the cot, all fists and no weapon to defend himself from Kai's fangs if the newly turned vampire should feel inclined to tuck into his neck. Kai was grinning, and that was a red cloth for the bull.
"Phasmatusseparate!" Bonnie commanded, not wanting to give the blood-lusting vampire witch any time to conjure up one of his creative responses, swiftly throwing them apart. They propelled in opposite directions, hit the wall and fell down.
Kai got up leisurely, laughing. The damn vervain was still a bit of an inconvenience. I guess you'll have to be my magic, Bonbon, he thought. "Aggression seems to be your first and only answer to everything, Jeremy," he said out loud and shook his head with a feigned disappointment. "That's not healthy, not only for a hunter who should keep a cool head, but for a guy riding that righteous horse you trotted on here. But what's remarkable about aggression is how often it bursts out when your opponent is right. You got nothing else to justify yourself with, and thus you want to shut me up. You selfishly wanted Bonnie to live, so that you could run away, drink your brain to trash, fuck barmaids and think you've done all you could and saved her and thus it's up to her to chase your noble ass around to thank for it."
Bonnie walked over to Jeremy who had a hand pressed to the back of his head to nurse an oncoming headache, his body having collided with the wall a lot harder than that of the robust vampire. That was the thing, hunters were christened and possessed an inkling of supernatural bloodlust to help them with some speed and focus, but nothing of the sort you read in comics or otherwise. Jeremy, unlike Kai, was still very breakable.
Bonnie crouched beside Jeremy, reaching out to touch a hand to the back of his head, checking to make sure she hadn't unintentionally cracked open his skull, and winced as he jerked away from her, staggering to his feet. He was mad and for what she was sure, or knew about, it was as if he didn't see her—as if he didn't care to see her.
Kai sneered, enjoying the homicidal glower in Jeremy's eyes as he stood like an enraged bull ready to dig his hooves into the sand and smack Kai dead.
"It's so typical for you and your sister both," Kai remarked. "You take your own petty frustrations to a sky level and treat them like the end of the world and believe that people around you have to make themselves crazy over your hurt feelings and problems while forgetting their own. And when that doesn't happen, you snap and go rampant and expect your friends to still chase you around to soothe your aches."
A beast was waking up in young Gilbert. His eyes were bulging with rage that had to make him run a fever or something. "You don't know anything about me!" he yelled. "Or my sister! You don't talk about her!" Bonnie was all over him, but to him she didn't exist. He started toward Kai again, unmindful of her hands clasping at his shirt and her grimaces of pain as he dragged her in his wake like a rowboat tied to a cruise liner.
Pain shot up her arm as he jerked her off balance and nearly sent her tumbling to the floor a second time. It was like trying to barricade a moving train and even worse than when he first began to display his hunter-type urges.
"Let it go, Jeremy. Let it go!" she repeated, placing herself between them and on his way to make sure he wouldn't be able to get to Kai, not unless he sought to physically throw her out of the way. For an instant – from the look in his raging eyes – she thought he might. "He isn't worth it. Don't play into his hands." She was sure Kai was toying with him, doing away of what she supposed was his jail-time boredom, but she knew that if he wanted to, he'd have ripped Jeremy's spine out by now.
The smile Kai kept on for Jeremy's benefit didn't falter, but deep down, Bonnie's words stung. After all the times of his telling her the truth, she still chose their side – the side of those who threw her in front of the train every time something went wrong in their lives. Kai felt a fury of his own crawl closer, like a jaguar that spotted a monkey for dinner, and made an effort to push it away.
Jeremy finally noticed her and stared between them, as if reading something written in the air that they had been keeping a secret from him. Repulsion came through on his face as if he has perceived she has been cheating on him with his worst enemy. That expression gave Kai a bigger grin. Jeremy shook her off and stormed out, thumping noisily.
Kai wasn't off with his Gilbert reading and what they'd done to her and others around them for years, but it was part of their personality and what their friends allowed them to do. Bonnie was guiltier of that than most, and to be frank, there was very little to be done to change that now. All she could do was stand her ground. And she would. But she couldn't do so if Jeremy was going to force her into questionable positions.
Bonnie looked at Kai, both aggravated and tired. "Was that really necessary? Or do you want to make sure I'm miserable from every angle?"
"Of course not!" Kai gave a smile that hinted it might have been indeed that. Then he shook his head as if simultaneously amused and disappointed. "You're miserable not because of what I do, but because you let them make you as miserable as it gets. It's their habit to push you around and think you'll take it – because you love them. Because they're your family. You know, it's a funny thing about family: they can hurt you most because you let them. You love them and can't fight it, and in the end it brings you more pain. Know why?"
Bonnie refrained from interjecting and folded her arms across her chest, watching as he went to sit down, wondering if that was how he felt about the situation with his family. Did he murder them because they pushed him too far? Because in his own sick way he wanted nothing more than their acceptance and love? Wasn't that the root of what every person at their core wanted?
"They hate changes," he supplied. "We all change, and they do. But when they observe you from early age, be it your friends or parents, they get used to a certain image of you."
Bonnie remembered Elena's humanity-off words to her some years back at the prom when Bonnie botched bringing Jeremy back the second time and refused to give into Silas's cruel temptations to bring down the other side.
'I thought you were gonna bring Jeremy back, but it turned out you were just a brainwashed crazy person, so technically you're a walking reminder of all the horrible things that have happened to me.'
Elena apologized to her, but in some way, those words stuck with Bonnie and fueled her decisions. She didn't want to dismay Elena, her friends or family, especially when they needed so much from her.
"And when you change – even if for the better – they freak out and do all they can to hammer you back into the slot they've reserved for you in their minds. And that's what you've been doing all your life – sitting in that slot to make everybody happy while this everybody kept changing, getting stronger, having the time of their lives. And all their problems were for you to sort out because there's not much else you could do in that slot they kept for you."
Kai pulled another offhanded talk Bonnie'd had with Elena only last week to the forefront of her mind—small and unintentional—but it had gotten to her nonetheless and hurt more than she cared to think about: 'You were stuck there all by yourself while we were back here, living our lives.'
Bonnie scoffed delicately at the thought, hating how easily Kai hit things on the nail and how spending all that time getting to know them, peeking into their lives had given him a Silas-type edge.
She wasn't even back a full twenty-four hours and Damon had been trying to recruit her for his kamikaze mission to 1903. As if she hadn't spent enough time trying to get out of another prison world. What made him think she'd be eager to jump into the next? And had he even cared? No. He had seen his mother and lost his mind. Bonnie could understand the urgency, she could even empathize, but there was a part of her that was hurt. That wanted to disappear and take to the road. But where would she go? Damon was—or at least had been—the one person she knew could sympathize with her and recognize what she was going through. Bonnie needed that from him, wanted it more than she could think to put into actual words.
"Now go ahead and tell me I couldn't be more wrong." Kai lay down, an arm under his head, smiling nonchalantly at her.
"You couldn't be more wrong," she parroted sarcastically, flashing him an artificial grin, one meant to mimic his taunting merriment and to downplay the effects of his words. She didn't linger for his response and headed for the door again, refusing to let him dissect how much his perception had gotten to her.
Kai read Bonnie's body language hungrily, picking out the signs he sought like diamonds from a pile of glass shards. She tried hard to stay detached, but either her eyes, or her pulse, or her breath betrayed her. He concluded every arrow he sent met its target.
"Don't forget my refill for later, Bonsy! You don't want me too hungry," he called after her in a chipper voice. He wasn't going to say any more. Not right now – that would be excessive. No matter how impatient this little cell made him feel, it was a very delicate work where Bonnie Bennett was concerned. A mechanism as fine as hers demanded finer instruments and a great amount of patience. It was hard – patience wasn't his favorite exercise, all things considered – but it made the game more interesting, nonetheless.
Kai let out a long relaxed exhale and closed his eyes for more idle meditation, a satisfied smile dimming slowly on his lips.