Bonnie snapped a leg off one of the damaged wedding chairs, being cautious to do so, not wanting to alert Kai of her objective while he busied himself with his werewolf bite. She stalked towards him, slowly approaching from behind, brandishing the polished stake with the purpose of driving it into his back. All she needed was one passable arc of the wrist and her walking-talking boogey-monster-riddled nightmare would be over. Along with every shortness of breath, the increasing anxiety of what she knew—and now witnessed—he could and would do – all of it. That would be done, this chapter of her life would be over and the ugliness that consumed her for the better part of two and a half years would disintegrate. Just like that and just like he would. It was that simple. She had to believe it.
She did believe it.
"You know what's funny? I didn't even know werewolves were real until I got bit by one," he piped up suddenly. "The thing is, Bon, the only way a guy turns into a wolf is if it's magic, right? So technically, their venom's magic, too."
Bonnie tightened her sweaty grip on the piece of wood the closer she got, blood pumping in her ears, practically drowning out what he was saying, kicking both anticipation and adrenaline into high gear.
"So I just went ahead and siphoned it up."
Wait. What did he say?
She blinked, mulling over what he'd chattered about the last few seconds, her mind racing almost as fast as her heart, an instinctive and warning sweat breaking out across her flesh as he stood. No, she thought with uncontrolled alarm, her eyes widening as he turned to face her.
"No, no, no, no," she muttered over and over, reading his immediate intent, the strength and determination seeping from her body almost as swiftly as it reentered his own. This was all wrong! This wasn't possible!
She gasped, contradicting her thoughts as an invisible hand closed around her, immobilizing, the piece of wood slipping from her grasp as she rose to the air, guided like a puppet being pulled from its stage. She wanted to cry, to scream and rage as he stared at her, his face amass of indecipherable emotion, no longer looking as though he was taking pleasure in what he was doing and every bit as though he planned to skin her alive.
That look frightened, haunted her dreams, and fuelled what she always knew: he was a monster.
He appeared to read her thoughts, his face devoid of its usual mirth and momentarily contorted with hatred as he sent her flying across the spacious room. Air rushed from Bonnie's lungs as she bounced off the wall and crashed to the hardwood floor, hand-delivered to the layer of dead bodies already scattered around the shaken barn. She briefly blacked out, a sob tearing from her throat in panic as she hurdled back to reality, pain radiating throughout her body—agony she'd never experienced before—tears streaming down the sides of her face.
I can't move, she told herself in a voiceless panic, unable to flex her hands, to move her legs, and more importantly, she had to fight for her breath, her increasing heartrate doing nothing to support her troubles. She didn't want to go like this, she didn't want to feel her life slipping from her hands and know that she wouldn't get the chance to experiencehaving a family of her own, a career or even something as indefinite as an actual future. She wanted those things, she wanted to make good of the vows she made to herself, and she no longer wanted to be alone.
Damon appeared as he always did, like they'd had a tiff moments ago and he realized what an ass he'd been. He'd fix this, he'd fix her and the pain would be gone.
"D—Damon…" she sobbed, his name barely struggling from her lips, her body prickling with overpowering relief that fleetingly overrode the blinding discomfort.
"Bonnie… Hey, Bonnie?" he said in a bemused voice, crouching beside her, taking a moment to catalogue her injuries, the look in his eyes further frightening her.
"So, Damon," Kai interjected from somewhere, making himself known once more, "here's the thing. Your choice just got much easier to make – you're welcome, by the way. We all know how much of a wreck you are without your 'damn girlfriend' as you put it earlier, so hereby you get a chance to reunite with her… in, say, a few minutes."
'No!' Bonnie wanted to scream, picking up on what he was trying to do, tears leaking from her eyes, losing themselves in her hair, another sob ripping from her throat in a weak attempt to stop him.
"Bon's not doing so hot," Kai remarked as he went on. "Of course, you can throw it off by a hundred years – witches are good at longevity. Or you could just let her collapsed lung do its job, no blood on your hands. Kiss and hug and make up and walk away and then you get what you want. How about that? Happily ever after was tonight's motto – or was supposed to be, after all, right?"
"Da—Damon," Bonnie struggled. "P—Please…" 'I don't want to die', she craved so desperately to shout at him, unable of find the voice to do so, her breath tittering into my lungs haphazardly, nearly choking her.
Various emotions played over Damon's face, agonizing seconds ticking by, time feeling as though it had stopped altogether, brutally transporting Bonnie back to the moment she'd shared with Matt in the Salvatores' Parlor.
"You have to get out town now, Bon," Matt had stated as soon as he'd viewed Kai's message.
"I'm not letting Kai win," she had replied.
"Bon, Elena's the only thing that Damon Salvatore cares about," Matt had beseeched, trying to make her see reason, his voice and concerned face fading away to make room for Damon's contemplative one.
In the past, Bonnie might have followed Matt's advice, but things were different now, she and Damon were friends — close friends. What they'd experienced in 1994 and the value of their friendship wasn't something either of them could just brush off.
"I'm so sorry, Bon," he whispered in an apologetic tone, shocking her, stealing the sparse breath from her damaged lungs, her head jerking toward him as though he slapped her. Blurred in her watery vision, Damon leaned down to press a misleadingly tender kiss to her forehead, her strength temporarily returning as he pried himself free, her nails clawing at the top of his hand, desperate to hold onto him for as long as possible. Which was no more than a second. Her hand shot back to her chest and was cradled against her aching heart, her face turned away from him as she silently wept.
"Did you see that, Bon? That was it. He just left you. Wow, man. I mean, one would think four months is a long enough time to get to know someone, but look at that! And not only I didn't know anything – you were as clueless."
For those few seconds she'd forgotten Kai was there, his every word like a swift hand purposely rubbing salt into the wound. Again, he was right and everything she thought she knew and believed was wrong. So very wrong.
"Fate's sense of humor is a twisted thing, hey, Bon. Or call it karma or whatever else – the point stays the same."
Bonnie paid no mind as she heard him take a seat beside her, probably so he could have a front row seat and enjoy the remainder of her painful show.
"You know, when I sat back there with those heretics sucking my life out, one painful drop after another, I dreamt of this moment. It was a bit different every time, but frankly, I couldn't imagine it quite like it's panned out. This is really more than I could ask for – it shows you exactly what the one person you trusted most stands for, and how much you're worth to those you consider your family. Oh, I'm so experienced in that kind of hurt – and I really, really wanna feel glee now that you've discovered that pain and joined my club… but somehow it sickens me. It sickens me to see you betrayed me for a bogus. It sickens me to see you've thrown me back in the pit of hell when I only just climbed out – for this."
Her eyes welled up, each word striking a cord—and it was meant to—making her hate him all the more, making her hate herself for ever believing that her friends would see some kind of value in her. That maybe—this one time—she wouldn't have to face the big bad wolf and her impending doom alone. She believed she had that in Damon, she thought she had that in Elena and yet—as fate always had it—here she was, staring up at Kai who'd both emotionally and physically ripped her to shreds in a span of minutes, exposing her every insecurity like he knew exactly which buttons to push.
God, she hated him.
"You'll never get it, don't you?" he asked. "You'll never actually grasp it, no matter what I do."
What the hell did that mean?
"It's always gonna be me to pin the blame, huh. He walked away, and it's still my fault? Right? Of course. Would it still be my fault if it were you the sleeping one and neither of them ever remembered about you while living out their happily-ever-after? Of course… And you know why? Because it's always easier to justify those you love. That's why they screw you over – because you let 'em."
Bonnie continued staring up at him, trying to make sense of what he was trying to tell her, confused by his apparent need to make her understand. Was he crying? She could hardly tell through her own waterworks.
She rasped, cutting short the thought, the pressure upon her chest increasing painfully. She blinked when he unexpectedly pressed his wrist to her parted lips, and took his offering with both hands, her eyes closing to savor the taste, her tongue caressing the wound as though her life depended on it. And it did, as she wanted nothing more than to live and hardly stopped to think of what it meant or what new game he'd cooked up in his head.
When he pulled away, got up and walked off from her, Bonnie stayed where she was for a couple of seconds, feeling the searing agony fade away and her breathing return to normal.
She raised herself up on her elbows, peering over her shoulder to where Kai was studying something on the floor, and then sat up, pausing for half a second when she caught sight of Damon sprawled upon the floor. She pushed off, shaking off the phantom numbness in her legs that threatened to send her tumbling again, and stumbled over to her former friend's body. She inspected Damon from head to toe with her eyes to make sure Kai hadn't killed him – not permanently. The still raw feeling of betrayal cutting through her like a hot knife through butter.
"Go away," Kai said, jarring her back to the present once again reclaiming her attention. "Get away from me."
Something in the air shifted, taking with it the encompassing fear that struck her senseless earlier. Bonnie didn't even know what it was, but somehow it felt as if their quandaries reached their climax.
"I'm not going to say I'm sorry for leaving you in 1903," she began, staring at his back, feeling the need to say something, wanting him to understand that what transpired wasn't something they could simply take back. "I'm not. And I'm not going to apologize for stabbing you in the back or even attempting to kill you," she said frankly. For whatever reason, she needed him to know that. He'd hurt her, scarred her in a way that no one else ever had, physical reminders neatly tucked just under her ribs. "Not after you came back and did the very thing I knew you would. The very thing Ifearedyou would." She shuddered, throwing a glance at a woman grotesquely draped over a chair; her back clearly had been broken in the middle of his vivacious revenge. "These people didn't deserve this, Kai," her voice breaking slightly as she walked up behind him, taking note of the dark bloodstain he was staring at. "Your sister didn't deserve this. Jo was a good woman, marrying an equally decent man whose life you ripped apart without even thinking." She felt anger seep into her tone. "I even know that this isn't entirely your fault. That I—" she swallowed thickly, feeling tears gather behind her eyes again, hating that in spite of her better intentions, and of healing herself, she'd contributed to destroying a family that hadn't had a chance to bloom. "I'm mostly to blame. I drove you to this, obviously," she gave a bitter laugh, his speech having made her see that. "I… whatever you suffered by the hands of those… things, those people…" she deliberated, trying to shake off the image he'd placed in her head, "that's all I can ask forgiveness for." Whether he got up now, snapped her neck or laughed in her face, she'd said what she'd said and that was it – what more could she do?