Bonnie stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds, staring at the lifeless man on the mattress, heedless and unfeeling of her nudity, abhorring herself for how far she'd let this escalate. That was a senseless error!
"That's it," she heard a voice state behind her with exasperation as the manager pushed himself off the ground. "I'm calling the police and I'm going to throw you the fuck out of here!"
"Duratus," Bonnie decreed in a steely and deadly murmur. She didn't even need to look back, finding herself unable to do so, and feeling listless and as if Kai had slain a small part of her along with the stranger before her. The manager gaggled, cursed and found himself unable to move.
"What the fuck," he murmured, his face turning ashen with unease. Bonnie used her right hand to beckon him over the threshold, the door slamming shut behind him as she guided him into the bathroom. "Y-you—you let g-g-go of m-me r-r-right this instant!" he choked out, irresolute of what was going on, but like any sane person sensing he needed to be afraid when whatever was going on was far from godly.
"Manere," she responded, releasing him, seeing his features contort with terror when he found himself incapable of leaving the bathroom, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. "I'll come back for you. But first, I have some unfinished business to attend to."
"What?" he said, indisputably confused and overwhelmed by what was going on. Bonnie crouched and rummaged through the same bag Kai had, yanking free another shirt and a pair of clean navy-blue boxers. She pulled both items on.
"I suggest you don't draw too much attention to yourself," she instructed, heading for the door. "This'll be hard to explain and things will only get more complicated. I'll fix this." The same way she planned to fix Kai.
"Are you crazy?" he spat back, making her see red, an image of Damon's spiteful features springing to mind like a slap to the face. "You c-can't leave me here, lady! This… this is a federal crime! It's kidnapping!"
She ignored him, picking up the lamp off the side of the table, and smashed the bulb.
"Hey! Y-you can't do that! That's destruction of property!"
Bonnie ignored him, throwing aside the remainder of the small lamp, keeping a small shard to cut her palm, concentrating on the blood that flowed to the surface – his blood. A medium she used to have a better sense of Kai, to make finding him easier. With the small distance between rooms, she didn't suppose he'd pick up on the link again – not yet, anyway, but he would if he tried to run any further. But wherever he was, she made sure to shorten the leash—to reel him in like a fish on a hook—temporarily cutting short his air supply and making things all the more uncomfortable for him.
"Remember what I said," she jeered, feeling far angrier than she needed to be with the man. "No complications."
She started for the door, satisfied that Kai would be incapable of feeding on anyone else at the moment, knowing that only as they drew closer he'd once again find ease. She gave in to the equivocal tingles working as an internal GPS, surprised to find that he had headed back to their room.
Kai washed his face, then sloshed some water around in his mouth and spat it out into the basin, willing to part with the guy's lingering scent and taste. It wasn't his meal of choice, and he intended to do whatever it took to make sure he didn't have to resort to junk food anymore. Voices from the scene he had left behind reached him here faintly, and from them he realized Bonnie used magic to contain the flabbergasted motel manager who had to be in shock or something, because otherwise Kai couldn't explain how he didn't notice the dead body on the bed.
He dabbed his face dry on the remaining towel and was halfway to the table with the TV set to get the remote for it when Bonnie burst in, clad in the dead guy's shirt and boxers that were big for her and had already slipped threateningly low on her hips.
She glared, craving to set the whole place, and him, alit as he'd done her so many times over the last hour.
Kai let out a chuckle – it was hard not to, given the hilarity of her look and that fierce expression on her face, her hair in disarray, a flush of hurry and anger adorning her cheeks.
"You've made your point. You win," she said, extending a hand to immobilize him the same way he'd done her, the same way he'd so carelessly rendered her helpless. "But that's the last time."
Kai considered fighting her power, but held it back just yet – if she finally decided to retaliate, it was worth it to let her – and regarded her with a lenient, understanding expression. "You'll have to elaborate, sweetling. I'd rather not opt for reading your mind right now – from the way you're scorching me with your eyes, I might catch fire in there."
"You killed him!" she snapped, reaching down to grasp the boxers, pulling them up once more to keep them from falling off completely. She needed her own clothes. She stepped inside and swung the door closed with her foot, keeping him in place – not quite done. "You didn't have to do that."
She knew the information was pointless and yet she needed to air it, to make it known, not only to him, but to herself. She needed to be reminder that he went too far – that it was his fault. And yet, in spite of all that, it did nothing to soothe the hatred, not only for him, but herself. Bonnie sauntered toward the mattress, eyeing the black ash, the residual scrapes of evidence and what she remembered was their—her—money. Fuck. She walked toward the pile, touched a hand to it, remembering, as it spread upon the carpet like fine dust, that it had taken her phone, too. If Caroline didn't get a hold of her soon—or at least when she called—she'd be frantic.
I should have just fed him.
She walked over to the bathroom and released her hold on him, slamming the door shut behind her, unconvinced she could handle staring into those mirth-filled eyes any longer. She needed a breather. She needed to think.
She didn't even consider it would help locking him up now – he'd already done all he could do and Bonnie now had a mess to clean up.
Kai felt her power let go and flexed his shoulders before grabbing the remote he was heading for. It was disappointing to see she still had some miles to cover before she started to fight back. He sprawled on the bed with an arm behind his head and turned on the TV. "Your vampire sense is a bit off, Bonsy," he called to her, flicking through channels. "I did have to do that. Who would scrape off the icing to eat just the cake? That's crazy. And don't pout – after all, I merely did what I told you I'd do. Fair and square."
Tears of frustration once more stung her eyes. She chuckled softly, a sound that held zero merriment and all kinds of anger. What of any of this was fair? She walked over to the sink, bending over at the waist to wash her face, and then snatched some toilet paper off the holder, dabbing at her eyes and nose. She felt a bit better – cooler.
She stayed quiet, choosing not to respond to his quip as she lifted the end of the shirt into her mouth, rolling the waist of the boxers over and over to make it thicker, hoping it would act as a crude belt.
"I'm going to go clean up," she stated, hardly waiting on his response as she headed for the door—knowing now that he'd stay—why else would he have come back here?
Kai made a sound of acknowledgment, returning his eyes to the TV screen. "Have fun!" he called after her as the door swung closed, and grinned, stretching.
Bonnie headed for the car, needing to get her grimoire and some of her ingredients. She couldn't leave the manager there – once he calmed down, he'd realize that the person on the bed was dead and then—well, that would make for a whole new explosion.
Damon marched into the boarding house, slamming the front door behind him, heedless of its age or his vampire strength. He was too angry to care. Caroline appeared in front of him, fire poker in hand.
"Do you mind getting that thing out of my face?"
"Sorry," she responded after a moment's consideration, making no move to lower her threatening arm, disappointed to see he wasn't carrying a flailing Bonnie in his arms. "I thought it might be the second wave."
"What now?" he asked, an irritated frown marring his brow in unobtrusive inquiry.
"Your mom."
Damon grunted in acknowledgement of the trouble his mother was causing before swiftly discharging it. He wasn't concerned with Lily's drama, leaving that solely to his brother to take care of.
"You didn't find Bonnie?" Caroline asked,
"Does it look like I found her?" Damon spat.
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
"No, I didn't find her. I was too late," Damon snapped, seizing the fire poker, holding it with two hands as he walked around her, testing the weight, remembering the last time he'd used it. He could go for another round.
"Did you try her house?"
"That was the first place I stopped."
"Her grandmother's place?"
Damon cast a jaded look over his shoulder, craving to use the piece of steel on her skull.
"Okay," Caroline responded, reading his annoyance, her hands raising in irritable defensiveness. She hated talking to him. "What about the gas station on route forty? She had to stop somewhere to fill up."
"I can guarantee you that after a dozen or so arguments about nothing over the course of four months I've checked every available nook and cranny she likes to run off to! She isn't here."
Caroline made a sound of distress and plopped down on an armrest. "I spoke to her about an hour and a half ago."
His brows arched in a way that suggested she had his interest and should keep talking.
"But only for a second."
He rolled his eyes, sliding the poker back into its slot beside the fireplace, moving to the liquor cabinet.
"Bonnie said she was okay but she didn't tell me where she was. I tried to call her again a little bit ago and all I'm getting is a direct to voicemail message. What if something is wrong?"
"Something is wrong."
"What?" she asked, muddled by his statement and worried that he may have learnt something new, something he was keeping to himself as he regularly tended to do.
"You're dating an idiot."
"Excuse me?" Caroline balled her hands into fists before forcing herself to loosen them. "Stefan is not an idiot. He is cleaning up your messes. And I'll have you know we're not dating."
Damon pooh-poohed, rolling his eyes again, and poured himself a drink to numb the brain cells it took to listen. He wasn't in the mood for any more of their relationship drama. Not when his was nonexistent.
"We've talked about it," she continued as if she needed to purge and make him understand some the trivial rationality they'd reached. "And we're talking things slow."
"You're virtually married," Damon observed after downing his first glass, enjoying the acquainted burn and dash of inhibition killer. He needed more. He needed a lot more. He poured another.
"Can we not talk about this right now?"
"I wasn't," Damon said, sounding bored by the topic and as if he were a little tipsy already. Maybe he'd been drinking while he was hunting? She wouldn't put it past him. "I was stating facts."
Caroline pushed off the chair with an uncontained sigh and stared into the unlit fireplace in silence.
"Where is he, by the way?" Damon asked, making sure she knew he only wanted the need-to-know specifics.
"Upstairs. He needed some sleep."
The older Salvatore made a sound of acknowledgement and traced his fingers up and down the ridges of the decanter. "He shouldn't have let her go," he said, a glass poised against his lower lip, propping his hand on top of the bottle. "He should have wrangled her down to the ground and hogtied her."
Caroline looked disgusted but made no move to defend Stefan. Not that it was his fault. She had also played a part, she had also given Bonnie the legroom to move. Caroline should have been more insistent.
"I'm surprised you didn't," Damon stated as if he'd read her mind and where those thoughts were headed, eyeing her thoughtfully over the rim of his glass, and finished off his fourth drink with a quick flick of the wrist.
"I'm not so sure she would have forgiven me," Caroline said, her blue eyes darting to Damon as though she knew she made a mistake by voicing that. He smirked for all of a second before becoming surly again. "She seems pretty adamant about doing things on her own."
"But she's not alone," Damon pointed out, as if Caroline had somehow forgotten about her murderous hanger-on. "She's out there somewhere. With him. With the hellboy."
Caroline said nothing, raising a hand to her lips, nervously chewing on one of her nails. She hadn't done that since her pre-school days and nor did she think she'd let up until her friend was with her again. Caroline checked her phone, making sure she hadn't missed a call, and redialed Bonnie. Damon watched her and waited.
"Fuck," she uttered under her breath. "Still voicemail. I—I don't know what, but—I feel like something is wrong. She promised she'd call me back, that she'd keep me up to date on the hour and now—"
Damon picked up his fifth drink, swirling the contents, watching the amber liquid go round and round.
"Wha—what?" Jeremy asked around a mouthful of bread as he walked into the parlor. He was wearing a tank top, boxer shorts and looking as if he was suffering a hangover, sporting a balloon-sized lump on his forehead.
"Whoa," Damon commented, eyeing the injury. Wasn't hunter-healing supposed to help with that? What of vampire blood?
"Yeah," Jeremy agreed without sparing him a look. His head was killing him.
"Are you feeling okay? Do you need painkillers?" Caroline asked, feeling sorry for him and a touch guilty.
"I've taken something," Jeremy said. He knew the house well enough, and he and Matt stocked up on pharmaceutical drugs, things the Salvatore brothers hadn't had the time to rid the place of yet. Thankfully.
Damon didn't bother to apologize for his mother's antics, in fact, he didn't hold himself responsible for her actions at all. Why should he? Lily didn't kill Jeremy, after all. He was still here and ready to annoy another day.
"What were you talking about?" Jeremy asked, pushing past the awkward and tense silence wrapping around the three of them.
Caroline glanced at Damon and delicately shook her head, not wanting to alert anyone else of what she'd told him. Well, not Jeremy at least. He was here for Alaric, and Bonnie wouldn't appreciate getting him involved any more than he already was.
"Bonnie," Damon answered, walking away from the bar to take a seat on the armrest she'd abandoned. Caroline glared, her penetrating gaze fixed upon his face.
"What about her?" Jeremy looked around, as if he only now realized she wasn't in the immediate vicinity and that she should be. "Where is she?"
"Missing," Damon informed, making no move to explain or put the suddenly troubled boy's mind at ease.
"Missing?" Jeremy parroted, setting aside his plate of food, pushing himself to a wobbly standing. He'd been sleeping for over five hours and he still looked off-color. "Missing how? Where?"
Damon sighed, refraining from rolling his eyes as the foolhardy kid stiffened and prepared to go into battle mode. All he needed now was a crossbow and the look would be complete. "We don't know." Damon was unperturbed by his lie or the fact that Caroline was becoming more annoyed by the second. He didn't need Jeremy jumping down his throat.
"We need to find out," Jeremy stated as if it were a mere walk in the park.
"That's what we're trying to do, Robin Hood. I don't suppose you've made any fancy friends at that new art school of yours?"
Damon knew he hadn't gone there, Alaric told him about it a day after he put him on the bus, and to be honest, Damon supported it. Why not? Jeremy was a hunter, why let that go to waste? He never told Elena and he'd have denied it had she asked him – it wasn't his business.
"What?" Jeremy looked mildly confused by the question and the implication he read in Damon's tone. Caroline, too, looked muddled. She glanced between them awaiting an explanation.
"Witches," Damon clarified. "You're an out and out hunter now, aren't you? That's what you're doing?"
Jeremy remained close-lipped.
"No need to worry, Jer. Big sister isn't around to scold you. You're free to make your own decisions."
"You know?"
"Ric told me. He thought it best I knew so that if he ever needed my help to get you out of something, we'd skip a few channels and save him the hassle of trying to come up with an explanation."
"Did um… did Elena know?"
"You think she'd be locked away in a tomb playing sleeping beauty if she did?"
"I guess not," he replied, his eyes glazing a second as dizziness swept over him.
Caroline reached for him, helping him to sit down, crouching to check on him like his sister would have. "Are you sure you're okay? Are you sure we shouldn't take you to see a doctor?"
"I'm fine," Jeremy said stubbornly, brushing aside the concern to focus. "We need to find Bonnie." And then another thought dawned on him, one that filled him with renewed rage. "What about Kai?"
"See, that's the thing, buddy," Damon sneered unkindly. "Bonnie took him on a walk about."
"Why would she?"
"Because Damon's an asshole," Caroline iterated, spearing the culprit in question with a heated look.
Damon shrugged, not at all caring about her opinion. He was what he was.
"What did you do?" Jeremy spat, his cheeks flushing with indignation, ever ready to protect her from the big bad. He still hadn't realized that there was more to their relationship and things had changed.
"I tried to protect her," Damon stated, finishing off his final drink, setting aside the glass.
Caroline didn't protest his statement, her eyes focusing on him thoughtfully. She was still trying to wrap her head around their relationship and the hypothetical trust they had in one another. Caroline had yet to see it.
"So, back to my question and what I hope is a beneficial answer," Damon looked at Jeremy. "Do you know any witches?"
"No, I err…"
"Great." Damon heaved a defeated sigh and removed his phone. He didn't want to call Lucy again, to pull her into things, especially after he took blood from her before to help retrieve Bonnie from nineteen-ninety-four. But this was an emergency. He needed a locator spell, and he needed one now.
"Damon?" Caroline said as he turned to head out of the parlor. He needed to make the phone call in a quiet space needed to come up with an adept lie. She'd believe that Bonnie was kidnapped by a crazed witchpire, right? Why wouldn't she. It was true, sort of.
"Go wake Stefan and make sure junior finishes his dinner. If I accomplish what I want, we might be on the road tonight."
"The road to where?" Caroline asked, totally confused. One minute they were talking solutions and the next? Damon made himself scarce without replying. "Damon! Dammit." Frustrated, she curled her hands into fists at her sides as he disappeared. She didn't go after him, instead turning around to glance at Jeremy who was looking at her questioningly. "I guess I'll go wake Stefan."
Jeremy nodded and stared after her as she disappeared, his head reeling with thoughts of why Bonnie would do this, why she would leave willingly, what Damon did to upset her, and why she'd taken Kai.
How could she take off with Kai?
Thankfully, in her haste to find Kai Bonnie left the keys in the Ford's ignition and hadn't pocketed it. She bent down, feeling around for the latch for the trunk, straightening up as it popped open, coming face to face with a pair of inquisitive green eyes beneath one of the few blue lightbulbs that ran along the outside.
"Hi," Bonnie greeted, a bit startled by the lady's presence. She hadn't expected to see anyone or at least she had hoped that the world stopped spinning to make things easier. The woman looked as though she was searching for something or more significantly – someone. What if she knew the deceased?
No, Bonnie. He was alone.
Or was he?
"Hi," the woman parroted, tucking a strand of her messy blonde hair behind her ear. "I, um… you didn't happen to catch the earlier commotion, did you? I went in search of Gris, but he doesn't appear to be behind his desk."
"Gris?" Bonnie asked, unaware she'd been holding her breath for a second or that her heart was racing again.
"The manager of this place," she answered as though Bonnie missed the biggest clue, putting to rest some of Bennett's fears and jumpstarting a whole other issue.
"I haven't seen him—well, not since I checked in," Bonnie fibbed with an apologetic smile. She walked around the back of the car, hoping the woman would leave before Bonnie was forced to head back into the room for pretense sake. She opened the trunk, pulling her bag from inside, balancing it on the edge, and lifted the strap to her shoulder.
"If you do see him," the woman began, taking a step off the pavement and toward her, making sure she was seen, "please do me a favor and send him to C16." Bonnie nodded and tendered her a wider smile. "It's in the middle," the woman determined, jerking a thumb behind her and about six doors down. It was one of those Bonnie had knocked on.
"Well, um… nice meeting you. I should go and try to get some sleep," Bonnie said, opting to forgo her earlier plan to head directly for the murder victim's room.
"Aren't you staying this side?" the blonde asked, unable to contain her need to pry, pointing toward the door Bonnie had parked in front of. Bonnie guessed the tee-shirt and boxers were too offensive.
"No. It's, ah, it's my friend's. I'm staying this side." That sounded stupid coming out of her mouth. What if the woman saw her on the other side again? "At least for ah… to-tonight." Bonnie totally sucked at this whole cover-up-a-murder thing.
"Oh," the woman's smile dimming, her eyes narrowed uncertainly. Maybe she had seen the manager come in? Maybe she'd spoken to him? "Anyway. Please don't forget to send Gris my way."
"If I see him," Bonnie amended, forcing herself to stay confident and relaxed. The blonde walked alongside her, slower, eyeing her like a hawk as Bonnie came within reach of the room's doorknob. Bonnie twisted it, pushing it open, and waved slightly as she slipped inside. She locked the door behind her, dropping her bag to the carpeted floor.
"What did you do to him?" Gris said from his position on the bathtub's rim, his eyes fixed ahead and through the girl, on the motionless figure on the mattress. He was either stoned or stunned. Bonnie couldn't tell.
"Nothing," she blurted out. "I never—"
"You killed him," he replied as if things were falling into place for him and he could now suddenly understand what was going on and what he was playing witness to. "I tried to call for him, I tried to—"
"No!" she struck back straightaway, feeling the need to clarify. "No, that was—"
"Why would you do that?" he asked, cutting her off, smothering her excuse. "Why would you kill him? Is it money? Are you looking to ransom me? To rob me?"
"None of the above," she retorted, feeling a cold chill to lace through her. Even saying it aloud sounded like a lie and as if she was hard-pressed to believe her own stories. "I don't want to hurt you. Nor was I trying to."
She grabbed the end of the duvet, pulling it over the dead man's head, and then stepped onto the mattress, grabbing the fabric to pull him higher, straining and doing her best to roll him up like a human burrito. She managed to turn him over three times. A process that took her near on forty minutes.
"Help me carry him to the bath," she instructed, seeing the manager stare at the doorway with open horror. She closed her eyes, removing the barrier spell, beckoning for him to join her. He took one step, then a second, and by the third was charging for the front door. It was as if his fear made him stupid, his hand grazing the door like a skittish animal's claws, dropping the key in the process, giving her enough time to immobilize him.
"Wha—What are y-you?" he asked, looking sickly pale and far smaller than his 5'7" as she turned him to face her.
"Screwed. Now help me," she commanded, forcing herself to be firm. She released him, seeing him tremble as he made his way toward her, fearful, scared of what she might do if he didn't comply.
"Did he come with someone?" She grunted, gritting her teeth once they started dragging him to the bathroom. "A girlfriend? Boyfriend? A mother?"
"No, no… he was… I don't know."
"Think," Bonnie hissed, pushing the corpse from the back while the manager pulled. She wheezed as they hauled him into the bath, her arms feeling like deadweights.
"He… he was alone," the manager began after some genuine though, exhaling as he lowered himself onto the toilet to catch his breath and soothe his aching aging back. Bonnie did the same.
"You're sure?" she persisted, not wanting to be rid of the body when she knew there might be someone out there looking for him – for his car.
"Yes," Gris answered after a lengthy consideration.
Bonnie nodded, pleased that at least one thing seemed to be going right. Her luck was looking up. She stared down at the body, inhaling softly, considering a eulogy of sorts. What could she say, though? 'Sorry for getting you killed, I wish I hadn't been so stupid?' She leaned over the tub, turned on the water and waited a few seconds for it to fill up just enough to line his body and to make casting the spell all the easier.
"I suggest you don't scream," she instructed, readying to say the spell. "Phasmatos… incendia." Within an instant, the body went up in flames, swallowed whole by the uncompromising magic just like her clothes, keys and money, driving a piercing scream to the air, the manager's body crumbling to the floor in an unconscious heap.
She collected her bag, dropping it onto the mattress, scanning her grimoire for reference after reference of compulsion, seeking herbalist ways in which to erase the man's memory. It wasn't easy, but there were different variants, of which she was only capable of doing two. He wasn't out long.
"Drink this," she said once she found him sitting up in the bathroom, extending him water in a plastic glass meant to hold one's toothpaste and toothbrush. He hesitated, sniffing at the contents, and then dropped it.
"What the hell," Bonnie hissed in surprise, taking a step back. "I wasn't trying to poison you."
"Get the hell away from me!"
"Ah!" she gasped as the man lunged at her, driving her back a step, ramming her into the sink, her elbow hitting the towels railing with a crippling pain that shot up her arm. His fist connected with her stomach harshly. She doubled over, fighting for breath, pain radiating from the center of her chest like a beacon. "No!" she strangled out as he dashed past her and headed for the door a second time. Then he was out.
Bonnie pushed off the floor, trying to ignore the pain in her abdomen as she ran after him. What if he alerted the woman in C16? Bonnie saw him run for the office, no doubt hurrying for the phone and 911. She charged after him.
"Stay the hell away from me!" he demanded as soon as she stepped into his office, his hands clutching at the baseball bat he kept behind the counter, the phone awkwardly cradled against his ear. There wasn't time for him to dial.
"Put that down," she said, extending her hands before her, gesturing to both the landline and the makeshift weapon. "Just listen—I'm—"
"Stay back!" he hissed, using the bat to point at her and then swinging, sending his calendar flying off the counter toward her. She winced and dodged it.
"I don't want to hurt you. I'm trying to help!" Bonnie beseeched, seeing his eyes narrow contemptuously. "Please just calm down. I can explain this—I can fix this!"
"Not today, girly," he spat, peering down at his phone, his stubby fingers poking at the numbers with clumsy angry haste.
Bonnie uttered a word and watched as it flew out of his hands, ripping from the wall.
"What the—" Another motion of her hand and the bat wrenched free of his grip, too. He didn't even stop to linger, taking a wide step back as soon as he saw it appear in her hand, slamming his office door behind him.
"Fuck," she cursed, trying the door's handle, hoping to God he wouldn't have a shotgun or something similarly scary on the other side. "Motus," she muttered, knocking the door handle off, simultaneously pushing the door open.
How the hell he wasn't there?
She approached the wide window to the left, one that faced the back of the office and the nearby forest. Unfortunately, it had gotten much darker outside, making it impossible to see him and where he was running – and if he was running at all. That was it. She couldn't do this alone!
She felt a cold sweat break out across her skin, panic setting in as she turned back, dropped the bat, and made to run for the double doors, steering clear as she charged across the parking lot for the room she shared with Kai.
She barreled through the door, mindful of alerting anyone else of their troubles, hoping that the rest of the motel patrons were either having an early night, or out of the way.
"Get up!" Bonnie demanded, unable to contain her concern and heading for the bed to haul Kai up. "I lost him—I lost that guy! He's running around here somewhere. You need to sniff him out and fix this!"
After a couple of sitcoms, Kai stumbled upon I Know What You Did Last Summer and settled on it, still having an ear cocked to Bonnie's whereabouts and activities. Those proved to be rather amusing – almost more so than the movie. She appeared to have her hands full in that dead guy's room where she got rid of the body and futilely tried to pacify the motel manager. The manager wasn't the bravest man in town, or strongest, but for a scared, desperate and tired witch like Bonnie he became a tough nut to crack. Kai felt a few pangs of sympathy – meek ones, too – but her troubles only played in his favor, one way or another. They also fueled his amusement.
Bonnie was at it for two hours, give or take. The movie had ended and Kai found a Hitcher rerun on another channel. Hardly a full ten minutes from the beginning. In the dark of the room with just the screen shining, Kai was rather cozy.
Rutger Hauer was about to force a scared-shitless and weeping C. Thomas Howell to utter 'I want to die' when Bonnie stormed into the room.
"Get up!" she commanded, cutting to the bed in three wide, hurrying steps and gripping Kai's arm to pull him up. "I lost him—I lost that guy! He's running around here somewhere. You need to sniff him out and fix this!"
"I don't need to do squat, I told you he was your tail." Not moving from his comfortable pose despite her pulling, Kai took his eyes off the screen reluctantly for a quick once-over at her, and snickered. "Gee, I'm impressed you haven't lost your boxers yet. Have you glued them to your butt with magic? Or they stuck because he'd used them before? Ow, that's nasty. You might wanna shower real soon and thoroughly."
She kept a hold of him, unwilling to let go, ignoring the idle and amused way in which he looked at her. She couldn't afford for that guy to make it to the cops or to alert anyone else of what he'd seen her do. "Would you quit the jokes and focus for one goddamned minute?" she hissed with apparent irritation, automatically dropping a hand to the boxers, glad that her manipulation of the elastic appeared to keep it in place for now. She didn't want to worry about making any more of a splash than was necessary. "I'm not the only one that'll be in trouble if this thing goes south," she implored, hoping he'd see reason, all too aware that longer she sat here trying to get him to cooperate, the more time they were wasting.
What if Gris circled back to the office, or worse – decided to run for town instead?
When Kai made no reply, still half distracted with the movie, she let go of his arm, which drew his eyes to her.
Giving him an inkling of space, she tried another less forceful approach. "You think the world's ready to hear things like 'A girl miraculously incinerates a body in a bathtub'? Is that something you want to see plastered on tomorrow's headlines? You didn't see that guy, he was scared shitless. And not only is he going to go to the cops, but he is going to tell the next person he stumbles upon." She hated how helpless she felt and how little she could do to rectify this situation without Kai. There was the possibility of a locator spell, but that would take time—finding something she could use—and concentration she didn't have right now.
Kai gave a brisk shake of his head as if relying that she was making a hassle out of nothing, and turned back to the TV.
"Please," she added after a second's continued and internal deliberation, despising how beseeching that word sounded. "Just help me sweep this under the rug and we'll… we'll talk feeding, new terms, whatever."
Frankly, feeding was all the terms Kai wanted her to willingly accept. But he scoffed in return, folding his arms, and peered at her, smiling mockingly. "I don't care for the headlines, nor this guy, or whatever it is that will go south as you say – none of it will touch me. Nor, maybe, you, for that matter. So what he'll find cops? Who'd believe him? There's no body, and if you burn the clothes you're wearing, you'll probably dodge the chance to become the CSI show's subject."
"You expect me to accept a maybe and someone thinking him insane? You really are new to this whole vampire thing, aren't you? I wonder, how did you plan on getting away with murdering your family? I mean, if none of them survived and you'd managed to succeed in killing all of them. Or didn't you think that far?" She didn't even know why she thought to bring that up or why she hoped it stung. His indifference and nonchalance to everything was exasperating her.
"Why should I?" he asked again, watching C. Thomas Howell discover the slaughtered family inside the car he'd seen drive past him earlier and puke on the curb, then turned to give her a patient look people reserve for slow ones. "I don't foresee any big trouble for myself if police would be looking for me. Besides, when they threw me in the prison world, dad made sure to erase all the traces of my existence from this reality. And after a while, they announced me as good as dead and put a tombstone with my name on it next to our deceased kin. Whoever murdered my family – it wasn't the long gone son and brother who went missing eighteen years ago and had never been heard of ever since."
"And now you're suddenly expunged from culpability?" Did he even know of compulsion? Bonnie couldn't recall seeing him use it. Had Damon? Was Kai even aware that he could do it? From what she could remember, he didn't know much about vampires and hadn't dealt with them too much. Not since she abandoned him in 1903, anyway. "That's not the way life works. Your face will be remembered, and the next thing you know—sketches or images of a dark-skinned girl and her similarly chill associate will be plastered everywhere. Besides, this guy has clearly been living here all his life, what makes you think they wouldn't read into it and show up outside our door? I go, you go. That's just the way it is and it's more of a superficial infliction than that of a natural progression. We're linked."
Kai tore his eyes off the TV and peered at her suspiciously.
"Now, unless you want to spend the next fifty years in some state correctional facility for manslaughter or… attempted murder, I suggest you get yourself up and out. There might still be time to catch up to him."
Kai shook his head with a brisk laugh.
Bonnie tensed as he laughed, irritated that everything she said seemed to bounce off of him as though he were made of rubber. Did he not have a single empathic bone in his body? Was he really that unfeeling?
"You don't seem to get how my life works right now. I'm a hybrid, Bonsy. I can do whatever I want. There will be no facility that can hold me. If there are cops at my door – I'll kill them and anyone else who gives me trouble. As for your manager buddy: he saw you, and of me he only got a glimpse he might as well have thought of as a glitch of his imagination. If anyone's gonna be plastered everywhere – it's the tanned girl with no associates." He composed a mock I'm-so-sorry-honey look, and turned back to the screen where Rutger Hauer appeared once more to haunt the poor lad Howell out of his sanity.
Bonnie wanted nothing more than to pull him down a peg or twelve—make him realize exactly how invincible he wasn't. But dealing with someone without any more to lose, well, she guessed she had her work cut out for her. Was he seriously just too supped up on the benefits that he'd forgotten that the very people who had chewed on him for the last two weeks had been stuck in their prison world for over one hundred years? Or more? She wasn't even too sure on their history. Either way, containing him wasn't impossible.
"So that's you answer then?" she asked. "Anyone who comes to that door asking question dies? Well, that's not really productive, is it? Unless you're looking to make a splash as a serial killer?"
Now it was her turn to laugh. And she did, heartily, hysterically and wearily.
She laughed with a hysterical, morbid merriment that excited the tiny nerves along his spine and touched his lips with the smallest of smiles as Kai stared at her. Bonnie suddenly was fun, more intriguing than the classic thriller.
"For someone who despises Damon, you sure as hell sound a lot like him," she stated.
With a poke of displeasure, Kai noted it wasn't a farfetched observation.
Bonnie snatched the remote from him and flung it against the wall. Astonished, not without a thin trace of pleasure, he watched it burst and fall down in a rain of plastic and batteries. A sneaky sneer flicked on Bonnie's face upon the deed.
"Sad, really. I was almost convinced you were entirely more than some mindless murderer. That maybe," she eased onto her knees beside him, inching closer with the teasing pretense of getting a better look, "you actually have the capacity to feel something."
Her face was too close now, her breath hot and ticklish on his mouth, and her scent all up in his nostrils, quickly stirring his calm, making him want her blood and body and all she could give.
Not that Bonnie expected such a trivial sentiment from a sociopath. She did enough crosswords and otherwise to know that she was barking up the wrong tree. That even as a human he was pretty much vampire. Still, for some reason and the more he rebuffed her, the more compelled she was to stir something aside from humorous indifference, and before she knew it—before she even grasped how far she was prepared to go—her lips were firmly pressed to his.
It was a daring, confident kiss that wasn't like her, wasn't what Kai waited from her – not yet, anyway. It shocked him into submission for a second or two, and that second or two was enough for his pulse to spike and his jeans to feel a bit tighter. And then, Kai reciprocated, brought a hand to cup her cheek, caressed it down to her shoulder, and in an inhumanly swift move pressed her into the bed beneath him. Ire wiggled into his gut. She was trying to manipulate him, testing for weak spots. And not with violence he knew how to handle, but with a way every good-looking woman knew no man could resist. That made his ire swell.
Bonnie let herself be lost in the taste of his lips, using the transitory sensation as a break from reality and a way of washing away her increasing frustrations. It didn't matter that it was Kai – the very reason for said craziness. All she knew was that she craved something varied and that she wanted an immediate gratuitous reminder that things weren't as hopeless and ugly as they seemed. Influence that broke as his hand grazed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. She blinked up at him, minutely confused as he hovered over her.
Regarding her amazed face and eyes flickering in the changing light of the TV screen, Kai covered his anger behind a simper. "I wouldn't recommend teasing me unless you're ready to go all the way, Banzai."
His words highlighted the threat, creating a knot of anticipation in the pit of her stomach. Bonnie stayed quiet, trying to battle her cagy considerations, shivering in wake of his warm lips upon her throat and his hand upon her waist, flushing at the provided implication. She should have known better than to tempt this impulse.
He brushed his lips along the side of her neck, tempting himself with the rush of her blood in the pulsating vein, and slapped the waistband of her boxers against her skin before pulling away with a mocking grin. "Whenever you're not wearing a deadman's underpants."
It crushed any concerns she might have been having and the reasonable 'no' she was formulating. Bonnie wasn't the type to bang her nemesis in a seedy motel on a whim or for the sake of having one last hurrah. That was… She didn't even know who to compare that to or who of her friends would ever stoop that low.
He extended a hand, muttering a spell, and closed his fingers on the repaired remote, waving it at Bonnie. "That was rude. It's the motel's property, your buddy manager would shit a brick if he saw you do it. It was hot, though, I give you that. You should do it more often, you know. Let your emotions fly free. It's empowering, isn't it?"
She licked her dry lips, watching as the remote reappeared repaired in his hand, and frowned with an inkling of displeasure. He was retracting everything she did. She raised a hand to his chest, using the other to sweep the remote from his hand a second time, the force she used sounding like that of a gun as it rebounded off the wall and broke.
"Guess it's a good thing my buddy isn't around to bitch at me. Which reminds me," she said, pushing at his chest, nudging him off her so that she could sit up. "I'd better go get my bag, make sure our neighbor doesn't snitch on me and pray Gris has fallen into a ditch somewhere."
"He didn't," Kai said, and once again collected the repaired remote into his hand, laying back against the head of the bed to resume with the movie. "He's probably trotting along the curb of the highway, waiting for the first car to pick him up and bring him to the town and the sheriff's office. It's not too lively on the road now, but not dead, either. Fifty-fifty that he's caught a lift already." He gave her a teasing smile and returned his eyes to the TV. "You better pray real hard."
She wondered how he knew that or if he was simply taking a guess, trying to intentionally spook her. She narrowed her eyes contemptuously, irritated by his sustained dismissal, and fixed a glaring look on the TV. It didn't last long under her scrutiny, exploding outward while thick black smoke billowed out of the back.
Kai threw a hand before him, shielding himself from the debris, and glared at the witch.
"Enjoy your movie." She turned to head for the door, hauling the TV off its stand with a motion, a slow smile spreading onto her lips as it dropped to the floor between the bed and the assumed desk. Kai was right. There was some part of letting go, of not giving a damn about certain things, that was empowering, and that moment had been one of them – however minor.
"Naughty bitch!" he called after her with mock infuriation. Her footfalls headed away towards the parking lot. He coughed, observing the dead TV, and smiled slowly. She was doing really well. A moment and a few words later, Kai stretched with an arm behind his head and the long-suffering remote on the bed by his side, watching the cops chase the poor bastard Howell around to pin the murders on him.
Bonnie peered around the parking lot, glad to see all the doors were closed and that no one was making use of the pool. How long had she been with Kai? How much of a head start had she given the manager? Fifteen minutes? Ten? She had lost track of time.
She used the cars to shield her as if she were some common criminal running from the law, which, if left up to Kai, she would be. She avoided the office entirely, wondering, as she slipped into the dead guy's room on the other side of the lot, if there was CCTV? This place might not look like much, but it certainly had people coming in and out, any place like that had to have some form of stable security, right?
She wrinkled her nose, imagining the stench of death in the air. She never wanted to see this place again. Bonnie walked into the bathroom and hauled the sheet from inside the tub, stuffing it onto the top of her open bag to get rid of later. There was blood on it. She stood, giving the room a once-over, pausing when she noticed the guy's wallet on the bedside table. She extended a hand to pick it up, pausing mid-way as guilt crept into her bones.
That's not what I'm here for. Just because he's dead doesn't mean I have the right to steal him blind.
She withdrew her hand, curling slender fingers into her palm, ignoring the way her nails nervously pressed into her flesh – a means of punishing herself. Kai had her doing a lot of immoral things, hell, he'd forced her to get rid of one body and was making her hunt the other just to keep their secret safe. She didn't have to add robbery to her already growing list of offenses. She wouldn't.
Bonnie walked over to his bag, stuffing the shoes at the bottom of the bed, along with some more clothes upon the top of it, pausing to collect his toothbrush from the bathroom before finally shoving his wallet into it, too. They'd get rid of it later. For now, she just wanted to get rid of any and all signs of his existence.
She started out of the bedroom five minutes later, one bag on her back, the other hugged to her chest as she made her way back to her room, feeling rather annoyed as she stepped inside and found the TV repaired.
"So," she said, opting to cut to the chase instead of having to spend another twenty minutes or more trying to catch up to the manager. "What is it I'm going to have to do to get you to help me? What do you want?"
"That's a stupid question," Kai chided and turned to give her a mocking sneer. "Even a kid would answer that for you. The real question here is what do you want. If you're just running from Mystic Falls, having me with you doesn't fit the image of Bonnie your friends hold on to. If you wanted to 'release me back into the wild' – you had plenty of chances. If you wanted to get rid of me with no witnesses – well, plenty of chances for that, too. Something tells me you don't really know what you wanna do, yet, and that might become a problem. It actually has already started to turn into problems around you – simply because of the fact that you haven't bothered to come up with a solid idea of what you're doing and why."
She inhaled, folding her arms across her chest. "Is now really the time to be giving me a lecture on what I want from life? I've told you, I'm trying to help you, and letting you go so you can kill someone else isn't an option. I'm not a particular fan of that, if you hadn't noticed." Although now—and in light of what had happened—it was a waste to even use that as some kind of an excuse.
Kai had to chuckle, especially when it dawned on her that it was something they could put a check mark on.
"As for my friends, their expectation is no longer my worry. What is my concern is you, your teeth and those six other supped up magic freaks with mother Salvatore at the helm of their crazy. Do I have a plan? Have I thought this through? No, and no. Should I have a plan? Yes. Do I have the time? No. Because, let's face it, and I've said this multiple times already: you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be in nineteen-o-three rotting away, just—just being or whatever. Jo is supposed to be on her honeymoon, and me, I'm supposed to be free of witch servitude. I'm supposed to be getting a degree of some kind, hating homework, dating college boys and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life! Instead I'm here… with you, chasing some frightened kickboxer, feeling guilty as shit, not only for costing some poor undeserving soul his life, but for everyone!"
She wanted to throw something she was that worked up, wanted to destroy the TV all over again or punch something—someone, the same way the manager had punched her.
"I know you only underwent that feeling for, what was it, two weeks? A month? Days? So it must be hard for you to identify with, but being overwhelmed or imprisoned isn't going to get me any closer to a workable answer." She crouched down beside her bag and grumpily removed the confiscated sheet, wedging it against the other bag of his to clear up the space needed to pull free her grandmothers grimoire.
"You need to sort out your answers, Bonbon," Kai said, observing the Howell lad and his blonde girl try to outrace the police.
What was the rush? Why did she have to have all the answers now? Or was this about Kai? What he needed and expected from their arrangement and why he chose to stick around?
"But fine," he added. "I can help you track this manager down in return for my meal. Our blood pact's back on." He flashed her a jolly smile, swinging his legs off the bed, and extended a hand. "Accept?"
She eyed him skeptically. All this refusal and suddenly he caved? She couldn't help but wonder why or if he just took a particular pleasure in making her crazy. She assumed it was the latter – that, like Damon, he liked playing with his victims. Not that she was his victim, she wouldn't be – not again. And not this time. Bonnie pushed off her haunches and turned to face him, taking a hold of his hand to shake it.
"Deal," she muttered, hating herself for feeling relieved. She kept a hold of his hand once the deal was resealed and made her way outside, tugging him behind her slowly. "So," she said after giving him a couple of seconds to hone his newfound senses, trusting that their brief interaction before was enough for Kai to pick up on the manager's distinctive scent. "Where are we headed?"
Kai gave an ironic hem. "You can take your car and follow the highway to the town while I take advantage of my speed. If you wanna find him, I must go alone – you'll slow me down."
How was she going to catch up to him when Kai was capable of covering miles within only a few seconds?
"Fine," she said with a sweeping gesture. She wasn't going to argue his logic. "Go. I'll catch up."
She observed Kai as he headed off toward the office and made her own way toward the car. She stopped on the passenger side, pleased to find it unlocked. In all her former haste, there hadn't been time to do otherwise. She reached for the ignition to grope for the keys. They were still there, dangling like a metaphorical alleviation to her stress. She'd left them there after her talk with lady C and before her body burning. She waited two minutes when he disappeared inside, keeping an eye on the lot and then slid inside the car, casting a final glance at the office to see where he was and if he were headed into the forest.
She'd grabbed a hold of the keys and prepared to turn on the engine, feeling the air briefly leave her lungs and her heart skip a beat when all of a sudden her door flew open and she was pulled from the inside and thrust against the side of the car. There wasn't time to scream.
Kai trotted to the office. It looked like after a breaking and entering. A baseball bat lying on the floor among some papers probably spilt from the old desk, and a telephone ripped off the wall. He looked around and found what he needed: the manager's jacket hung neatly on the chair's back at the desk. He inhaled, locking on the scent and energy, and took a few seconds to enable his magical sensors. He tossed the jacket on the desk and dashed out the office. Barely a few yards from it, something yanked him hard on the solar plexus as though there was a cord going out of there, made of his live guts. The yank knocked the air out of him as he doubled over with a wheezing gasp.
"Dammit," he muttered and backtracked, appearing at the open driver's door of Bonnie's car. He pulled her out of by the shoulder when she was about to key the ignition.
She started and gave a squeal, then saw it was him, and fright flipped into anger.
"You wound me, Bonnie, with your lack of trust. That leash is humiliating." He lifted her into his arms and sprinted, following the trail.
What was he even? What leash? Before Bonnie could think to question him on it, to remember the link she'd cast hours earlier, he'd lifted her into his arms and taken off. All that was left for her to do was hold on. And she did.
It was still hot, and in a few minutes of circling in a head-spinning speed, mimicking the frightened manager's path, they found themselves where Kai predicted the manager would be: on the curb of the road, barely trotting now. He was limping and seemed quite exhausted. There was about half a mile left to the town he was eager to reach. Kai put Bonnie down and held a hand out. The manager froze in his tracks and turned in a slow robotic movement like some product on a spinning showcase.
"Oh no no no," he was muttering as Kai pulled him to them. His face was morbidly pallid, his eyes wide as saucers, rolling in their sockets as he looked between the two. His face was working into a crying grimace. "What… what are you, people?" he uttered, his mouth creasing as the first tears welled.
Bonnie felt herself flush, feeling the pit of her stomach roil in response to the ghastly fear written all over his face. She knew that feeling, had experienced it many times in the past and even now.
"I'm solving problems," Kai told him with the most charming friendly smile he could compose, and turned to Bonnie. "See, here's your problem."
Kai flicked his wrist, something cracked like dead leaves, and the manager's complaining moans stopped abruptly as he went down like a heap of dirty laundry. Life seeping from his eyes before Bonnie could even register what happened. For a minute, the world seemed to evaporate before her eyes and only the three of them existed.
"And here's no problem," Kai announced cheerfully, the nerves along his spine shimmering with anticipation of her frenzy. "You're welcome. Can we go back now? I'm kinda hungry."
"What is wrong with you?!" Bonnie cried, feeling her earlier anger return at full force and exorcize itself like a raging storm that sent Kai flying as though caught in a tornado. "I wasn't looking to harm him!" Not any more than she already had. She jabbed an accusing hand within Kai's direction, his right leg twisting and breaking before he even fully touched down on the ground.
Kai cried out, and fought the urge to retaliate, or defend himself. This was it! She was doing it. She was slipping down the slope. It began. He felt a futile smile tug at the corners of his mouth, distorted by a grimace of pain.
Bonnie shook. The last time she lost control like this—the last time she felt this hollowed out and her power begged to be released, had been when she saw him, freshly upon her return. "I wanted you to compel him!"
She was so fixed on making her point and expelling her hurt that she hadn't even seen or heard a car pull up and someone rush toward the fallen man near the side of the road. Not until it was too late.
Kai braced himself for another bout of misery, but instead her magic loosened and dropped him beside the manager. Ache shot through his knees and legs as he landed on the asphalt. And that's it?!
"Call the hospital, Gloria," a man commanded, crouching beside the manager, and spared Kai a worried glance. "Are you all righ—"
"Somnus," Kai said. The man slumped on the body. Kai stood up, setting his neck and shoulders straight, joints clicking. "Naughty witch," he winked at her and repeated the spell. The woman went down, her phone breaking in two as it hit the road – its battery scattered under the hood of their car. Kai clicked his tongue. "Bonnie, Bonnie. Again – your lack of trust wounds me, and when something does, it's never good for those around."
Bonnie wasn't expecting much from him in the moral department. However, she hated herself for letting him push her every button. She knew that's what he wanted - it's what they all wanted. Damon, Silas, Shane. They all pushed her at some point in her life or at least they had tried to, some more successfully than others. As for Kai, he read her like a book from day one, toying with her head from the moment they laid eyes on him, to the minute he left her to rot in that forsaken prison world. He consumed her every thought. Be it good, bad or ordinary.
Kai studied her with well-hidden but growing frustration. How could she keep swallowing every punch he dealt? Was she so broken and done all that power in her couldn't burst itself out to make a stand? A spark here and there, like a short-circuit reflex in a busted TV set, was all he received thus far. Perhaps, after all the years she had spent with her toxic friends, she had suppressed and stomped her true might so deep into the ground it wasn't able to make it out, anymore. The idea was infuriating. He could have been trying to light a flawed match to oppose his wildfire.
Maybe it's time I cut this rotten limb off. Just drop it and go. I was obsessed with a mere illusion. Away from her, I might make myself believe it.
He winced at the thought like at a nerve pinch in a sore tooth, yanked the newly arrived unconscious man off the manager and lifted the latter by the collar of his shirt like a dead weasel. "He's out cold. Spine-snap was a joke. You could use some sense of humor." Kai let him drop and folded his arms with a sardonic sneer.
Bonnie stared at him as he picked up the manager and brandishing him like a puppet, and tried to anticipate his next move. Watching that sarcastic sneer spread onto his lips, she was convinced that it wouldn't be changing anytime soon. "On the contrary, I find many things funny and happen to be a big fan of comedies. Your stage show could use work, perhaps something that doesn't relate to murder or death."
Kai shrugged dismissively, put his hands in his pockets.
She walked toward them and bent over to pick up the woman's phone, slipping the battery back into place, smiling as the light turned on, pleased to find the screen hadn't cracked. She could call Caroline.
"So, how does this fit into your joke?" she asked, dismissing the thought for now to focus on the three bodies at their feet. "Or is this the punchline?"
"What? The multiplying bodies paving your path? It looks like the joke itself. The punchline might be the handcuffs on your wrists when you get accused of committing my crimes."
Bonnie clutched the phone, no longer possessing place to tuck it as these boxers had no pockets and she was devoid of a bra. She walked over to the car and set the phone down on the hood, scanning the road as he spoke, making sure there weren't any other complications headed their way.
Kai rocked on the balls of his feet slightly, observing her and reflecting on what if the match wasn't as much flawed as his way of lighting it had been. "Don't forget, I'm a vampire now, so murder and death pretty much lace the air around me. As for you, maybe there's a lesson for you there in all what happened. Perhaps the universe tries to tell you your methods don't work that well." He shrugged as if to say who-am-I-to-tell-you-this.
"What methods are you talking about? My means of escape? My attempts to save myself? You're going to have to clarify, Kai. As you know, I've a pretty big list of fuck-ups." She crouched beside the woman, brushed her hair from her face and winced seeing how she'd hit her head upon the concrete. That was going to bruise in the morning. Bonnie moved to drag the woman to their car, huffing as she did. She didn't bother asking Kai for his help this time—he'd do so if he wanted—and wasn't prepared for another of his morbid jokes.
"Well, if you insist. There's a recent fuck-up we can crown a major one for today: you refused me your blood. And here we are," he spread his arms briefly, "in the middle of nowhere instead of cozily tucked back in our bed watching thrillers before sleep." He raised a hand and lifted the Gloria woman from the ground and Bonnie's arms and manipulated her into the passenger's seat. Then repeated it dexterously with her presumed husband, settling him behind the wheel. "You better step away," he instructed Bonnie, who, despite glaring at him suspiciously and with a mute no-more-shit command plastered over her face, obeyed, taking the woman's cell off the hood first.
The car rolled back a few yards, its engine starting, then rushed forward towards Bonnie and Kai, swerving off the curb in the last moment to hit the nearest tree. Bonnie gasped. The engine died, smoke coiled from the crumpled hood. One of the passengers groaned against their air bag.
Bonnie brushed aside the inherent distress, her stomach knotting unpleasantly as Kai turned to her and smiled.
"So, I guess my work's done here. I helped, everybody lives, happy days. Now, don't be long. It's dark and those woods around…" He sucked in air noisily, making an exaggerated tsk. "Not a good combo for a girl that pretty and dressed like you." He grinned wider, waggling his fingers a wave, "See ya."
She opened her mouth to tell him he had to be kidding, that he couldn't seriously be thinking of leaving her out here – but he was gone. A breath of air caressed her face in his wake. She stared after him in angry amazement, trying to remember which way they had dashed in their haste. Her eyes had been closed. And then she cast a look around, half-expecting him to reappear.
He didn't.