"He couldn't have gotten that far from us," Bonnie groused, frightened for the history teacher and feeling helpless. Alaric wasn't thinking straight and Kai was able to move from one place to the next in seconds, like Damon, like any vampire. "We should have caught up by now."
"You forget he is a trained hunter," Damon stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and as if she should in some way feel embarrassed for forgetting. "If he doesn't want to be found. He won't be."
"And you forget that he lost the love of his life," Bonnie retorted, feeling the tension rise in the air. She didn't have to see his face to know she'd hit a sore subject. A matter she knew would be with them for as long as she continued to live and Damon was deprived of the love of his life. "And that he is acting impulsively."
"You said it yourself, Bonbon. He lost the woman he loved, and right now, he has absolutely no ground to stand on. He hardly knows which way is up."
"That doesn't give him the right to go charging off into the unknown to get himself or anyone else killed," she said, aware of how hypocritical that sounded considering she'd been the one to start this.
"Maybe not," Damon agreed. "But for the few seconds your world is spinning out of control and you have no way in which to anchor yourself anymore. It helps."
Bonnie wished that was something Damon mentioned during his spellbinding speech some weeks back, while trying to recruit her for his mission and before she involuntarily assisted in the murder of a coven and her new friend.
"So much for my niffler theory," she muttered, removing her phone from her pocket, tapping at the screen to bring up the torch app, hopeful that she would recognize and understand where he was heading herself.
"A… what now?"
"A treasure seeking—whatever, look, shouldn't you be able to pick up on his cologne or something?"
"It's not that simple."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Kai's been busy. This place is saturated in blood from every approach and to a vampire—even one as controlled as me—that can be a little overwhelming."
How long had they been walking anyway? Ten minutes? Fifteen? It felt like forever and that lingering fear still swept through her, increasing as soon, it seemed, as she put her mind to it. She stiffened, feeling a rush of anxiety close around her heart, prominent distress taking a hold of her being like a puppet master pulling at unwilling strings, it wasn't as bad as the first course, but it was perceptible.
Damon, too, seemed to pick up on something, his face unseen in the dark as he stared ahead, his arms suddenly wrapping around her, unaware of her inner turmoil as he picked her up and raced through the forest. There was nothing to do but hold on and make sure she didn't drop her phone.
When he set her down on her feet she immediately registered the human-shaped lump and rushed toward it, raising her phone to help make out what the moon and the trees overhead hadn't allowed her to fully see. "Oh god, Tyler," Bonnie whispered as soon as she saw who it was, his face gray and streaked with similar lines she'd seen on a desiccated vampire. How was that even possible? He'd only recently transitioned back to wolf.
"Looks like Lockwood Junior finally bit off more than he could chew," Damon remarked indiscreetly.
"Damon," she barked, glowering at him, imploring him to focus, two fingers automatically attempting to find a pulse, and failing. "Oh, God," she murmured in horrified disbelieve, her heart thumping in her chest erratically, nausea pulsing its way up her throat threatening to steal her breath. "I can't find a pulse. Damon… I can't-," her voice cracking, unable to voice aloud what her head was screaming, 'He's dead!' She and Tyler might not have been best friends, but they grew up together, played sports together, and had been a part of each other's lives since they were six years old.
"It's there," Damon responded and crouched on the other side of our fallen ally, biting into his wrist, prying open his mouth to force the blood down his throat. "His heartbeat," he clarified. "But it's faint."
She kept a hold on Tyler, briefly wondering if it had been him she felt a few moments ago or if this was an unhappy coincidence.
If it was, that meant Kai was still close by, right? That this was recent?
Bonnie blinked the tears from her eyes and distractedly noticed the dissimilarities in color upon the ground, an unsettling feeling taking a hold of her as she raised her phone to take a better look, her eyes widening at the sight of the blood she was kneeling in. She shot up like a bullet, as if stung, and gasped at the grotesque picture before her. Tears coursed down her cheeks unchecked.
Damon pulled his wrist free and glanced over at her for a second, still tending to Tyler, taking over where she'd started and waiting for the magical lifesaver to do its job.
"Where are we?" Bonnie asked, hoping they were closer to having a response.
"Nearer the cemetery," Damon answered without hesitation, having been in this area enough over the last few months to know.
"Are you sure?"
"Niffler nose, remember?"
She nodded, trusting Damon to be right, and wasted no time calling Caroline, hating the feeling of Tyler's blood soaked into her pants, sticking to her knees in dreadful reminder of what happened. She felt uncomfortable.
"Bonnie?" Caroline answered, sounding nothing like herself, as though she feared to hear someone else on the other side of the line.
"It's me."
"Oh, thank God! Are you alright?"
"No," Bonnie answered, feeling no need to hide from her.
"Are you hurt?! Stefan said you went after Kai. Why didn't you tell me?!"
"No. I'm okay. I'm fine—I mean physically. Caroline—it's Tyler."
"Tyler?" she echoed, sounding alarmed and confused all at the prospect of what Bonnie might tell her.
Bonnie knew that their relationship—at least romantically—was over, but they were good friends. They meant something to one another, the same way Jeremy would always mean something to her.
"Is he—"
"No," Bonnie responded. "I don't know— Damon gave him of his blood, but—"
There was a sob from across the line and Bonnie heard Stefan mutter something supportive, offering to take the phone from her. She refused.
"You need to come get him. Alaric's gone Rambo rampage and Damon as I are trying to get up to him."
Damon stood as though in reaction to the mention of his name. Three shots ringing out in succession.
"Okay," Caroline said, sounding more determined. Bonnie could already hear her walking, her footsteps echoing off the hospital tiles, along with raised voices here and there in the background.
"Bonnie!" Damon said in a rush, gesturing sidelong into the distance, taking off without her.
Bonnie detested that she needed to leave Tyler unattended and prayed the blood would kick in. "We're in the forest nearer the cemetery. Hurry! He won't be too hard to find, but be careful, Caroline and do me a favor," she said, sounding out of breath as she ran after Damon.
"Anything."
"Don't stick around! Take him and go!" She hung up, grunting as the blood slicked to her boots sent her sailing off balance and crashing to the ground. She yelped as her knees connected with an unseen stone, the phone slipping from her hand, temporarily lost beneath a pile of fallen and broken leaves. She knew it would bruise instantly—or might have—if not still for the blood in her system. She drew in a breath, forcing herself up again, shaking out the pain, and collected her phone, using the light to navigate the way, her stomach promptly filling with a sinking feeling, one she instantly recognized as being artificially induced.
Kai was attacking again.
Kai was in no particular hurry and quite sated, so he drew it out a little, taking pleasure in the way Alaric's body still fought for life while his mind lowered its weapons and shields wishing for the torture to be over. His heart beat erratically against Kai's temples like a scared bird thrashing in a cage at a cat's approach. Kai pulled long, full gulps from his vein, still feeling he could use extra fuel tonight before the dark dissipated. Alaric's good old pump began to slow and stagger, and each convulsive contraction of it sent a jolt of energy through Kai's body, igniting the nerve endings as if in anticipation for a grander pleasure. Those last moments of their lives, Kai found, were the drug all vampires craved, the big finale with fireworks and exaltation.
Damon found the two without difficulty, a branch in his hands swung like a hefty baseball bat, effortlessly dislodging the psycho from his best friend's neck, sending him sailing across the uneven sand. Damon attempted to replace him, biting into his wrist and trying to press it to Alaric's slack mouth, scarcely wasting time to see if he was too late or if Kai managed to get to his feet again.
There was a firecracker, all right, but not the one Kai was nearing. It exploded in the back of his head, and as the hit sent him flying into a tombstone, he saw some constellations that weren't supposed to exist. Pain shot through his bones and muscles as he propelled into the stone, momentarily blinding him; a bone crunched breaking in his shoulder. Propped on his fours, Kai jerked it straight, grunting, then found his feet and spent a second observing Damon cradle Ric in his arms, pressing his wrist to the pale man's lips.
Kai raised a hand and Damon floated up leisurely, like those warriors in Chinese movies before the attack. "You son of a bitch!" Salvatore spat, glaring, his limbs flailing as if he were trying to stay afloat in water. "Put me down and let's fight like men."
Kai laughed. "Yeah, I noticed you're the best at that specific way of fighting – like men – aka hitting from behind." He turned his wrist, and Damon cried out as his spine broke in three places.
On the ground, beneath Damon's flailing feet, Alaric groaned weakly.
"Now, what should I do to you?" Kai mused, eyeing the older Salvatore like he were an exotic butterfly pinned to a cardboard. He could hear Damon's spine heal – the tiny sounds that you might mistake for your own brain cells shifting around. It was like claiming you heard how the trees grew, but it was exactly the analogy to pop in his mind. He flicked his wrist again; Damon gave a strangled cry as something crunched and broke along his body. His legs hung like lifeless rags, his eyes rolling slowly, on the verge of passing out. Kai smiled. "Funny you all came here tonight – dying in the very place of your eternal rest has a certain ring to it. I like it. Too bad you can't compose a few lines about this beautiful moment like samurais did – not because you're in such pain, but because I honestly believe you don't possess enough brainpower or imagination to muster something like that. Shame. But one thing I can do for you: I can grant you the spectacular end of a samurai. You'll have it easier – in a way – I'll have to gut you myself whereas those brave fellas did it with their own swords and hands. And I shall be your kaishakunin to take your head off when you're done taking your noble torture." A slow smile of wicked diversion shimmered over his mouth as Kai pointed a finger at Damon and began shifting it sideways while Damon jerked and screamed.
His shirt darkened on his abdomen as a gash opened in his right side and crawled towards his left like a cracking grin spilling blood like a cut wineskin. A first ribbon of intestines slithered out, like a bond of sausages from a torn pack, and hung in a lifeless loop over his crotch.
Bonnie kept low as she rushed past and through row after row of headstones, foolishly nursing the idea that Damon might have waiting for her, unable to sense in what direction to go and becoming frustrated with herself. An agony-filled cry punctured the air, anguish, Bonnie acknowledged immediately, belonged to her former partner in crime. She reached around her waist to take hold of the improvised stake, assuming she'd tucked it into her back pocket, grimacing when she found it wasn't there. She couldn't remember when she last held it and resigned herself to the unfavorable fact that she'd dropped it when Damon zapped her from place to place.
"Too bad you can't compose a few lines about this beautiful moment like samurais did – not because you're in such pain, but because I honestly believe you don't possess enough brainpower or imagination to muster something like that,"she heard Kai say, panic flitting through her.
Bonnie snuffed out the light on her phone and pocketed it, relying on the dim light provided by the moon, hoping his distraction would buy her a little time. She remained crouched—unlike she did earlier where she thought she could walk in and take control of the situation—this time was different, this time she wasn't going to play life's risk. She closed her eyes, diving deep into herself, ignoring Kai's yammering in the background and the screams that filled the air.
She had to.
Wind picked up slightly, howling through the treetops like a caged beast seeking escape, ruffling her hair, temporarily thrusting her back to the time when she was determined to contact Qetsiyah, dealt with expression and searched for assistance to subdue Silas. A man, who, at mere thought alone, filled her with hatred so intense it took mere seconds to link Kai and her. Was that expression? Or simple magic? She didn't even know, but she felt it lock in, twisting and rooting itself in her soul and his like a perceptible chain that would prevent him from getting away from her a second time.
Kai's cut had crawled almost two thirds of its way across Damon's abdomen, the loops of his intestines slipped further down from the gaping wound. His screams turned into wheezes; his limbs trembling a little as though there was a low current running through his body disguised as pain. Kai could imagine how bad the pain was – it was one of the things he knew firsthand and wished to forget.
And then, he sensed it. A bashful dab like a lackadaisical breath of wind on the tight and thin strings of his inner sensors. She is here. Bonnie made it here.
Kai found himself smiling. Somehow, it felt right, like a long and jumbled scheme suddenly clicked in place and everything finally fit. There was more to it: a feeling of being watched from the inside of his own head. As the wind picked up, shifting the dead leaves between the tombstones and trees, he knew she had done something to pay back his own trick. It made his smile wider, he didn't mind. It could only make things more interesting.
She stood, trying to catch her breath, trying to ignore the delicious hum of power that spread through her as the wind grew stronger, closing around the crypts delineated area like an invisible barrier. She emerged from hiding, her eyes widening slightly as they fixated on the scene ahead filling her with nausea that soon turned to ferocious hate. Bonnie rung her hands together, imitating snapping Damon's neck, making sure he would no longer have to undergo Kai's savage torture. "Motus!" she hissed, wasting no time in awaiting on a retaliation, sending Alaric skittering across the dirty ground and away from Kai as though he were a human puck being swatted by a giant hockey stick.
Saltzman stilled a dozen yards away, let out a meek groan and didn't move. Kai reckoned Damon hadn't managed to put enough blood in him for any effective healing to take place. Then again, Kai didn't really care. His eyes went to Bonnie who strolled towards him, wind playing with her hair, moonlight spilling over her figure, outlining her form and making her seem like the goddess Nemesis.
There could have been an adoring expression plastered on his face, Kai recognized, and didn't care to change it. A wave of his hand sent Damon's body flying; the vampire collided with a tree trunk and dropped at its roots, his guts clustered at his middle like dead snakes.
Bonnie steeled herself as Kai dismissed Damon, forcing herself to keep eye contact and not look where he landed. Kai was grinning, too, like a sadistic fool.
"Bonster! Finally. I was starting to miss you – your friends are being a bunch of bores. So, what now?" Tipping his head sideways, Kai smiled a friendly smile. "Revise the old tricks or got something new? Or maybe you decided a set of fangs would suit you better than magic that never saves anyone the way you want it to, mm?"
"I've never been a fan of fangs. Especially in regards to my neck." Her lips twisted into a deceptive smile that matched his own, much like it had earlier in the evening, fading as abruptly.
Kai could see right through her smile, and it was the same as before – no, even more steel behind it, cold and distant.
He hurt her in return – and succeeded. His blows had found their aim, just like he wanted and knew they would. Somewhere behind that wall of steel she had built, there was the heated core of duty that brought her back to him. He was a bit curious, but his curiosity had hurt on its arm. It still nibbled at him that she would never see his side of the story, that she would always pick another side and deem him a reckless beast. And it still bothered him that he could never even begin to explain what exactly had made him this way. There were things that could not be explained, or put to words. They could only be experienced; and they could only twist you in unnatural ways and directions, many times over, until you believed it was what you really were.
"I think I'll take my chances with the magic," Bonnie said, giving way to tight voice, a hand clawing at the air, stealing away the breath she knew he had no need for, squeezing his windpipe to give weight to her answer. "All this practice with and on you is positively helping bring up my average. Besides—" she flung him back against the nearest tree as if she'd shoved him, "—I'd love to know what you did to Tyler and how it's even possible to desiccate a werewolf."
Kai waved back, hitting a tree behind him so the remaining air whooshed out of his lungs. He made a swooping gesture, and she went down as though he swayed a leg under hers. Her magical grip loosened and Kai chortled, unnecessarily rubbing his throat as he made a few steps away from the tree trunk. "The marvelous thing is, I've no idea and yet I did it." He gave a laugh of a person that has finally flipped a pancake in the air without dropping it on the laminate instead of the pan.
Bonnie was scrambling to her feet, her face momentarily distorted with the small aches and bruises of the fall. That revelation frightened her. What else could Kai do? Would he be able to compel her? He was a witch, after all, and a huge contrast to Klaus—who was a mix of vampire and werewolf—she didn't want to find out.
"There are not too many ways to pacify a rabid dog, you know," Kai shared. "Funny thing about rabid dogs… Have you ever given it a thought? I did. You see, I've read that story once that I liked – Cujo by Stephen King. And it teaches you that rabid dogs don't consider themselves crazy – rather all the rest of the world starts to seem that way, a little too noisy, a little too nuts. So, if you ever – God forbid – find yourself cornered by a rabid dog, Bonsey, before you hate it, remember something: 'It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog.'" Merriment seeping out of his countenance, Kai had her in his own clutch and suspended, the soles of her shoes a couple of inches short of the dust beneath. His fingers wiggled, and her chest tightened, allowing breaths too shallow for comfort.
Oh, god, no! Bonnie made a bid to deflect his intention and felt her chest tighten with what she assumed to be anxiety, afraid of further repetition, a phantom pain running up her spine in preparation of what she believed was to come. That anxiety grew, revealing what she recognized was Kai similarly stealing her breath away as she had only done moments ago, merely playing games with her head and heart.
He canted his head to one side as if admiring a piece of art on his wall, and smiled a little. "And he tried, indeed. He might not have fully known what it was like – no dog ever knows until its shown the way and, most importantly, the encouragement to do the right thing – but he did try. It was a bit like groping your way through a dark room where no shadow makes sense before you find the light switch, but he did try. He wanted to try. And then he still got that damn rabies. Life's not fair, is it? It never fucking is. Or maybe, just for that godforsaken dog. In any case, he tried and then shit happened, and he could try no more."
"Phas—" Bonnie choked out in an inaudible whisper of panic, struggling to form the words needed to break his hold. She gasped softly at the gentle squeezing of her ribcage.
He approached her with leisure steps, tightening her sternum ever so slightly, and searching her face in the moonlight. "Take a good look, Bonnie Bennett, for before you stands what you have created. From the look in your eyes I take it you don't like what you see. Now, take a wild guess, why the Frankenstein monster killed its creator? I'm dead certain it's for that precise look in his eyes." His face twisted with a brief grimace of either disdain or pained dismissal, and he released her to slump.
Gravity promptly delivered her to her knees, giving her a few unforeseen seconds to try and expel the lingering sensations that still threatening to smother her. Bonnie unconsciously took his counsel, staring up at him, really looking at the person she allegedly created, and trying to gauge her next attack.
"You're not a Frankenstein," she retorted, glad her voice showed no signs of strain or fear or anything that might make her appear weak or as if she was trying to pacify him. "And nor are you a rabid dog infected by an incurable disease." Although, out of context, both equivalences made a lot of sense. "You're sick," she said, feeling the truth dawn on her amidst the reiteration of his heartfelt speech, by no means meaning offense or trying to sound spiteful. "I was alone for two months, maybe more and I couldn't hack it. You were alone for eighteen years. It eats away at your state of mind—it did mine. I'm still not sure I've recovered and at times I doubt I ever will," she deliberated, undaunted that he might scoff at her approach, explaining only what she'd shared with Damon and what even Damon didn't seem to comprehend. It was as if that connection they'd made—to some degree—was lost and she was alone again, floundering on the outs, trying to find her footing on a skyscraper ledge."What you're doing now," she motioned to Damon who was still unconscious and probably would be until his intestines were returned to the inside of his body(or, at least, she hoped so), "what you did tonight, was a conscious choice. I never made you be this person, I never meant for you to be this person." And she still didn't. "You say you're the product of the people around you – well, so am I. Trust breeds trust. And this person," she gestured to his chest, "this is who I believed you were – the one that scared me so much the only way I could think to continue with my life… was to get rid of him." She'd said it once tonight already, but she needed him to know she meant it and that he'd only further reinforced that thought. You couldn't turn your back on a pit bull and that you almost always got bit. Damon had done it multiple times in the past, and although she was her friend now, although she trusted him to a certain extent—she hadn't forgotten and never would. Damon, like Kai, was unpredictable and would stab you in the back—or front—with a smile, friend or foe. "You want to prove otherwise, you want me to see the light and go back to thinking you're just a good-looking guy with a very wordy vocabulary? Then do something about it – be better than me. Or…" she added, an invisible hand finding Kai's throat once more, the other used to immobilize him, drawing him forward slowly as though skating on ice and to his knees in front of her so that they were eye to eye. There was no malice in the action, only determination. And why now? Why suddenly she felt it important to see how badly she screwed up—or whether or not he was trying to play her—she didn't know.
Kai felt a hold tighten on his throat once again, and without even trying yet, he suddenly knew he couldn't move. She was pulling him towards her and down to his knees, and there they stood on the same eyelevel. She was scrutinizing his face – and there was wariness, a whole lot of it, while she tried to gauge whether or not he was going to lash out, but there was also something he'd craved to see back in the barn: she was no longer wearing the amicability camouflage while seeking a weak spot to hit from underneath it. She was being honest, or at least strived to be.
"I can just take a look in your head and see at what you've been so quick to tell me. But afraid to really show me." Bonnie released the pressure on his throat, as well as his limbs, and raised a hand, slowly leaning forward to brush her index and middle fingers against his temple, anticipating his attack or allowing for his permission. Something she knew would make or break how they moved on from here or whether or not one of them was really going to die tonight.
Things she said were thrumming in Kai like a thunderstorm over the ocean, waves clashing and crushing, lightning cutting through the dark and catching the tumult in blinding snapshots. It was near to impossible to snatch the emotions from the boiling stew to dissect. Indignation was there, he recognized vaguely. So was hurt, his ever loyal accomplice, and so was despair with its faint fragrance of decay. Amidst them, there was a tiny, dying firefly of hope he dared to pick up. He wasn't sure if it would live or he could as well smash it now to spare it misery.
Kai chuckled, like an alien trying to mimic it for the first time. "Trust is something out of this world for me, Bonnie. I might as well ask you to explain it to me at this point, but that'd be long – not for you to explain but for me to perceive." He shook his head with another meek chuckle, took her hand in his gingerly and drew it down from his temple, looking at her with a penetrating gaze.
Bonnie made no move to withdraw her hand, a show of acceptance and a temporary truce. His touch was gentle and deceptively different, and not in a way that was entirely unpleasant.
"Right now," he said, "I feel there's only been betrayal, because we always yearn for happy moments and yet tend to remember the sad. Isn't it twisted? No matter how bright a happy moment is and how deep it touches you, this memory will fade like an old picture while the tiniest embarrassment will haunt you for the rest of your life craving to become your obsession. I've had quite a few to compete for the obsession title, but somehow your back-stab stands out. I've figured my family out pretty early in my life, and I always expected a hit in the back with them, so they just merely confirmed it. But you – oh, you I had thought of differently. There was trust I put in you, but it bred your darkest dreams coming true – the very ones you said you were trying to end. Ironic, huh? Is this world really screwed up or what?" Kai gave another laugh he didn't really mean. They came like some unwitting physical reactions he no longer watched closely. "You say you didn't mean for me to turn into this – then tell me, Bonnie, what the hell did you mean? Did you really want to kill me despite having Jo and the rest of us the Flintstones die? Or did you intend to trade your nightmares for mine? For it's exactly what it looked like, and guess what – you got me good."
Did she want to kill him at the time? Yes, yes and yes! Bonnie admitted as much twice tonight and might have done it a third time if he'd given her room to do so. She felt compelled to do so. Her grams used to tell her that it was wrong to run away from your problems and that eventually—no matter how long you thought you could hide—they'd come back and bite you in the bum. Bonnie was too weak to remember that, so consumed by everything and trying to reacquaint herself with the noisy world that she'd become selfish. She could admit that, too. But what did Jo have to do with it? Or the Flintstones? Or was that one of his many crypt references?
"You wonder what it was like to live in it?" he asked. "What I'm afraid to show? It was indeed like a dream you can't wake up from. At first, it's a wonder – the way all new things are. You poke around it and try to decipher, but later it gains new colors and those colors darken by the second with every drop of realization to seep in. And then you start wondering whether you'd be better off if you let the madness in – it's right there teetering on your threshold anyway."
Bonnie knew was he was talking about, she felt part of that madness when she stabbed him in the back and arranged to finish the job. It had been scarily overwhelming, an inexplicit high and like this dark abyss that sucked you in whole. Even now as she continued to meet his keen gaze and recalled that moment to memory, she couldn't imagine that that was her. It felt as if it were someone else, someone new, someone far feistier and determined to protect herself. It scared her and made her wonder when she lost herself and when the idea of murdering someone—no matter how immoral—became acceptable to her?
"And then you fear it," Kai continued, "because it's the scariest thing of all – even for a man stuck in his nightmare – to lose himself. Because, at that point, Bonnie, himself is the very sole and last thing the damn man has left. And then, after eons of the same torture with no hope of getting out, you decide oh fuck it and let it in, and guess what – it doesn't. Help. Squat. Madness is just not designed to soothe your sufferings. It adds a new edge to every picture, but the edges are sharp. And also, while you're testing its limits, it steals the very core that is you, grain by grain, until there's nothing but a stump you can't relate to. And then the hell really starts when there's no longer any ground under your feet and you're falling into an eternal rabbit hole with nothing to grab on to stall it. It all blurs into the same – just darkness, just pure, raw agony with nothing to make out and blame it on. And when there's nothing to grab on, you can't fix it. And then there was you." He put her hand on her lap when he became aware he was still holding it, and let go, releasing a shaky breath and partially hating himself for biting the bait and coming too close to the edge of the pit he tried his best to keep away from ever since he got out of the prison.
The longer Bonnie stared at him, the more she felt the gradual rising of guilt start to stir. Kai was no innocent, she knew that, she believed that wholeheartedly and he'd even gone so far as to prove it—more than once—but a part of her now understood it better, saw things from his perspective and could relate on a level that humanized him. How was he supposed to be good, to try and make things okay when people—like her, like his family—were unwilling to do so or at least give him the benefit of the doubt? She didn't want to hear it, not when Damon brought him to her and not when she met him in that diner, purposely ignoring every single sign that made her second-guess her intentions or what she might do, determined to believe that the merge was temporary and that when it changed, she'd be the first on his hit list. Bonnie guessed that was something she'd learned from Damon, Elijah and Klaus. They didn't respect weakness or civility and as soon as you showed them even the slightest hint – it was over, someone you loved paid the cost, and for once in her life, she wasn't going to leave things to chance.
She glanced down at her lap, curling her fingers into her palm, disconcerted by the sudden lack of warmth that spread throughout her body, and feeling as wrecked by his emotions as she was by her own.
Kai looked at her face again, no longer certain he had any feelings left – peeking in that pit exhausted them, sucked out their souls. "I bet you at least once wondered why I only revealed myself to you two after four months. Truth is I had to first backtrack to being human again – and boy, was that impossible. I watched you to remember what it was to be a human, how to interact with another human, and to build back what I had been before I was a void." Kai swallowed hard and drew a deep breath, forcing himself away from the ever hungry pit of darkness engraved into the floor of the main hall of his inner self. "Trust me, you don't want me to actually show it all to you, because when you peek into the abyss, it peeks into you. You hurt me really bad, Bon, and a part of me thinks it's fair to plant the same pain in you that you chose to revive in me. So be careful what you ask for – you could get it."
She swallowed, shaken by the impact she—they—had on his life and how much of a shock it must have been for him. She could hear the pain of such an admittance in his voice, like he was afraid to be vulnerable again.
He rendered her speechless, making her reevaluate her desire to slide a decent amount of wood through his heart and end this story once and for all. His pain would be over and justice would be served. But at what cost and for whose gain? It wouldn't change anything. Jo would still be dead, Alaric's life would still be ruined and Bonnie'd still be trying to keep her head above water. Death wasn't the answer—not this time—and suddenly, in light of what he'd said and what she now understood, Bonnie found herself unwilling to repeat her mistake.
A heartbeat picked up behind Kai, and he sensed Alaric stir.
Kai felt his mouth crease in a slow jovial smile that had a predatory hint to it. He had an unfinished business. But as he dashed to oblige, a harsh yank in his solar plexus stole the air from his lungs and brought him down on his knees again, yards shy of where his sister's lover lay. He started to laugh quietly and looked around at Bonnie with wicked mirth. "That's what you did! You put a leash on me."
Bonnie steeled her nerves, shrugging dismissively, matching his sudden change in attitude, and stood.
Laughing, he got up, eyeing her with a wry admiration. "Neat. But so stupid."
She swallowed, ignoring the bout of fear that automatically wanted to play into her nervous system, and forced herself to remember that he was still unable to hurt her and that he'd spent ten minutes pouring his heart out to her. And it wasn't an act, it wasn't some means of trying to win her over.
"How stupid is it to hold a rabid dog on a leash and jerk at it? Huh? Oh, I remember you said I could prove I wasn't that bad, after all. But don't you remember in your turn when I told you I could do it no more? There was that moment when I wanted to – I didn't know why but I goddam wanted to!" Anger spilled its warmth in his gut, and Kai felt a little comforted, a little more grounded again. "And why, why would I want it now when you freed me from the sole motivation I had to do so?"
"I don't believe that," she said, refraining from moving, not wanting to treat him like the savage pup he deemed himself to be, that wasn't the point of this exercise. She wasn't that stupid. "It's not over for you, you don't get to give up because times are hard and the people you care about can't see past their own self-centeredness to grant you a little faith. Being bad isn't easier, it's cowardly. And I should know. I've been there, I've been to the place you are right now and frankly, I didn't like it. You, on the other hand, fall upon it like it's habit. Like Damon," she stated with trivial disgust, registering that this one was yet to wake up and fully out for the count. Kai did a number on him.
Kai scowled at the name. God knew he was done hearing it for tonight.
"You blame the world for your issues and your family for what has happened and refuse to take even the slightest responsibility for anything yourself. I did you wrong, but that man—" she gestured toward Alaric, "—he hasn't. But that doesn't matter to you, does it? Because you're too scared of what it would mean and too afraid to admit that you've taken this too far and don't know how to stop, don't know how to turn this around and make it better."
With and expression of a geek attending a lecture on the deep space telemetry, Kai listened with a mixture of vague wonder and sardonic humor while she tried to dissect his current state of mind. The recollection of his 'dark hour of the soul' took so much his feelings were dazed from the overload. He couldn't relate to what she was saying he should be feeling, and it struck him a little bit funny.
"I get it," she said. "Until this moment I didn't know how, either. But I'm going to help you."
Abruptly, Bonnie snapped his neck with the same efficiency she had Damon's.
"And you're going to let me."
"Quod videtur realis, non," Bonnie murmured, extending a hand in front of her, flipping Kai over onto his back, dragging him toward her with no more than a beckoning motion. She met him halfway.
She could make out Alaric's silhouette in the dark as she stepped over Kai, crouching down on him, a hand lowering into the dirt beside his sprawled form. "Quid est autem, non."
A piece of wood materialized in her right hand as she pulled it from the earth itself. Her knees coming to rest on either side of his hips as she straddled Kai's waist, hesitating for a second as an image of his frightened face sprung to memory, only this time he had nowhere to go and couldn't poof himself to safety. And surprisingly, knowing she would win this time was nowhere near as satisfying as Bonnie remembered thinking it would be. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the killing blow, and swiftly stabbed the wood into his heart, his body quickly starting to gray, veins webbing their way across his face and anything else left exposed in the moonlight.
Bonnie looked up, barely able to disconcert what Alaric was thinking or to fully make out his expression. He came no closer and nor did he say anything, seemingly quiet as he backtracked into the forest and took off again.
Her heart went out to him but she didn't give chase. She stayed seated on Kai's unmoving frame, removed her phone from her back pocket and redialed Caroline.
She answered after one ring. "Bonnie?"
"Did you find Tyler?" Bonnie asked immediately, forging the usual greeting, scrutinizing the body beneath her.
"He was sitting up by the time I got there, muttering about Liv and crying. God, there was so much blood, Bonnie. I nearly lost it. I tried to take him to the hospital but he outright refused. I couldn't talk him out of it," her voice cracking with concern for her former boyfriend's health.
"Is he okay?" Bonnie wasn't really referring to his physical health, more so worried about his emotional state.
"I doubt he or any of us will be for a while. But Matt's with him," she responded, taking on a morose tone, one Bonnie could sense broke her heart. She hated change. "He killed her, that's how he triggered the curse—"
"Who?" Bonnie asked automatically, feeling her heart skip a beat and a sinking feeling of dread seep into her bones.
"Liv. She was dying and she asked him to—" Caroline couldn't even finish what she was trying to say and Bonnie selfishly didn't want to hear it—not wanting the horror story to influence what she was planning to do.
"Was it Kai? Did he do something to her?" Bonnie asked, incapable of keeping her curiosity at bay.
"No, well, I don't know. I was passed out at the time. He snapped my neck. Stefan said they were linked."
There was a drawn-out pause between them while Bonnie wrestled the infliction of doubt that gnawed at her gut, instinct that refused to bring Caroline into her plans or ask any more questions. Unfortunately, if there was one thing Bonnie learnt over the years: lies and doing things behind her friends' backs never went well – not for her.
"Bonnie, are you still there?" Caroline asked, her best-friend instincts kicking in. Bonnie never was good at lying to her and found that over the years she only permitted it because she'd, too, had a lot going on in her life.
"I need your help," Bonnie said, swallowing as she did. "And I need you to not talk me out of it. Okay?"
"What's going on?"
She exhaled and told Caroline where to pick her and two other bodies up, informing her that Damon was hurt and that he would undoubtedly need a lot of blood to heal.
"I'll be there in five minutes."
"Oh, and don't tell Stefan. Not yet anyway."
"What? Why?"
Bonnie didn't have an answer for her. "It's complicated." She brought her free hand to her knee, pushed off Kai and the ground, and strolled toward Damon, feeling guilty for having taken so long to get to him. "Please, just do this for me, Caroline."
After they hung up on one another, Bonnie put a fifteen minutes timer on her phone and turned on the device's torch app, her eyes widening, bile rising in the back of her throat at the sight of Damon's intestines resting in the dirt like oversized and stagnant earthworms. She was going to be sick. She tipped her head skyward to stave off the overwhelming nausea, a slight tremor in her hands as she turned her back on him, unable to stomach the image. She could now see why Damon hadn't healed. She took two or three steadying breaths, feeling her head dizzy for a spell and her hands grow clammy as she spun around to face him again. Bonnie forced herself to join him on her knees in the dirt, barely easing him onto his back when a putrid stench assaulted her senses. Queasiness returned at full force, vomit spurting from her lips before she could even think to regain control of her stomach's contents. This continued for five solid minutes.
Bonnie was crying by the time she stopped dry-heaving, tears involuntarily drawn into the works by her puking, the back of her hand lifted to her wet lips to wipe away the traces of bitter sick she could still taste upon her tongue.
She swallowed once she regained her composure, her hand shaking as she placed her phone in the dirt and trained it upon Damon's open abdomen to give her light to work with. Her lips drew down into an unpleasant grimace as she grabbed a quivering hold of the stringy—and no longer slippery—piece of intestine, trying her best to put it back where it belonged, doing her best to ignore the blood she was sitting in.
"Ugh," Damon groaned in agony, coming alive with the contact, her one hand buried inside his abdomen as if he were a human turkey in need of stuffing, while the other worked at a daze trying to make sure she didn't carry twigs and other gross titbits into his exposed underbelly. "That sadistic son of a bitch," he hissed from between clenched teeth, raising his head off the ground like a drunk, his eyes staring down at his stomach and the hand dipped in it, his eyes darting to my face with disbelief.
"Trust me, it feels as gross as it looks."
"Uggh," he groaned, lying back down, sweeping into a fairly painful unconsciousness for about half a second.
Bonnie finished up and pulled her hands free, noticing that he was starting to heal, but sluggishly – he'd lost too much blood.
"If I get my hands on Kai, he's fucking dead," he snarled, coming back for a verbal round two, sounding like a dog caught in a bear trap and struggling to think, at last minute remembering another important piece of his agony-filled puzzle. He raised his head once more to look, unable to see anything but severe stars dancing in front of his eyes like nauseating beacons. He hadn't seen Kai, yet. "Where's Ric?"
"Alaric's okay," Bonnie answered to try and put his mind at ease. "At least in the physical sense." She wasn't so sure about the emotional aspect. "And take it easy," she commanded, placing a hand against his shoulder to calm him down as he tried to get a better look around, doing his best to ignore the blinding pain that stemmed from his belly. "If your guts fall out again I sure as hell am not picking them up."
Damon laughed, hysterical jollity that was short-lived as pain sliced through him and rendered him weak.
She couldn't believe it, either, this had taken their friendship to a whole new level, a routine she never hoped to explore again.
Ever.
She wiped her hands clean the best she could on her soiled jeans, the rancid smell freshly caked beneath her fingernails, as she listened to Damon groan while his body little by little knitted together.
Caroline arrived soon after.
"I thought you said five minutes?"
"Midway here I realized I wouldn't be able to fit two bodies in the back of my car. I went back to Matt's."
Bonnie stared at her, looking worried she might have spilled the beans.
"I didn't say anything. Actually, I didn't even ask him I if could borrow his truck."
"You stole it?"
"I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to lie and lately he's becoming as nosy as my mother used to be. It's a cop thing," Caroline said fondly, brushing it off, peering between Bonnie and the two bodies at her feet.
"Is he—" she began inquisitively, spotting Kai to Bonnie's right, her brows drawing together in notable alarm.
Bonnie faintly shook her head, all too aware of what she was asking.
"Would you two stop gossiping and help me up?" Damon called. "I can hardly concentrate. I have a nemesis in need of murdering and a snoozing girlfriend to get back to."
Bonnie signaled Caroline to help Damon to the truck, motioning that she'd explain later. Caroline nodded and turned her attention Damon. "You reek. Did you change cologne or something?" Bonnie heard her comment in that zero filter way of hers as the two stumbled away, neither looking back. "What is that?"
"Trust me, Blondie. You don't want to know," Damon responded, a pain-filled groan escaping his lips, followed by Caroline's curse and a girlish gasp of horror as he unintentionally revealed the extent of his injury. That was a memory Bonnie wished she was spared and knew would haunt her till her dying day.
Bonnie reset the alarm on her phone two minutes before it would go off for half an hour, pocketed it and crouched beside Kai.
"Phasmatus confractus," she said, his body jerking from the invisible assault as she broke his neck afresh.
Caroline returned a few minutes later, probing Bonnie for answers, refusing to pick Kai up until she got any. Bonnie decided to be honest from the get go, explaining what happened over the last hour or two, what he'd shared with her and what she now felt she needed to do. Damon, Bonnie was convinced, was too weak to hear it, leaving them a little time for privacy.
"Are you sure this is a good idea? You didn't see what he did at the wedding, Bonnie. You weren't there. You didn't hear their screams. You didn't see Jo."
"I know that," she said, speculating what would have happened if she witnessed his sister's murder, too. Would they be here now? Would she be planning to help him recover? She doubted it. "But only a week ago you and Stefan both sent dozens of people to casualty and the morgue."
Caroline stiffened, looking uncomfortable at the reminder and as if she might cry.
Bonnie took a step toward her and touched her arm soothingly, cushioning the excessive blow and letting her know she didn't hate her. Bonnie didn't. "You lost your mother," she said in understanding, rubbing at her arm, knowing they hadn't quite had the chance to talk about it and that Caroline desperately needed to, despite what she said. "If I were in your position, if I had the ability to turn my emotions off," Bonnie said, evoking to memory the crushing loss she had experienced when the last of her family was cruelly snatched from her, "I probably would have turned it off too. And I did." She glanced down at Kai's lifeless features before meeting Care's eyes again. "The only difference is that told myself I was helping my friends by preempting a war, that wanting Kai gone stemmed no further than being incapable of dealing with real life again. He begged me for a second chance, I was too blinded by hatred and fear to see and—" She swallowed, overcome by grief, feeling herself tear up and weariness taking a firm hold of her soul. She could do with a very long rest. "And my friends and his family paid for it."
Caroline opened her mouth to censure what Bonnie was saying – to make it okay.
Bonnie cut her off. "What happened to Elena is as much my fault as it is his. And I'll never see her again. Not alive anyway. I'm not saying he's a good guy or that what Kai did is acceptable, it's not. But there is something inside of him, something frighteningly human that makes me believe he is far more than the monster he's come to depend on. He deserves a chance."
Whether or not Kai took the opportunity was up to him. There was more that needed to be said, more that seemed to ooze between the two of the girls unspoken, but neither of them cared to get into that now. It wasn't the time.
"So where are we holding him?" Caroline enquired, supporting Bonnie without further question and as she always did, reaching down to pick him up off the ground. "You know he has crazy magic. That he literally squeezed everyone's skull at the same time and that even now, I am pretty sure my ears are still ringing."
"Yeah, that is a problem," Bonnie answered as she walked alongside Care. "But if my mother's taught me a thing or two it's that there are remedies to negate a witch's a power. At least for a little while."
"Which brings us back to my previous question? Where. To?"
Caroline grunted softly as she set Kai down on the Salvatores' cellar floor, tying his hands and feet with readily soaked vervain rope, paying no mind to circulation, her hands adorned in a pair of protective yellow kitchen gloves. "You know this isn't going to hold him, right?"
"That's why I'm going to need you to go shopping," Bonnie answered, producing a pen she snagged off the inside table.
"And I don't suppose you mean for clothes?" Caroline retorted, breaking the tension and sounding hopeful. Bonnie could see she was as tired, that everything that happened today was steadily closing in on her.
"Maybe once we're over villainy detox one oh one."
Caroline cracked a smile and extended her arms. Bonnie wrote a quick list on the back of each hand, making sure it was clear and that she could read what Bonnie needed.
Bonnie snapped Kai's neck a third time, hopeful that, once the next time her alarm went off, everything she needed would be prepared, spells would be cast and he'd be locked down indefinitely. She reset her alarm, collected two bags of blood from the freezer, and headed upstairs behind Caroline to tend to Damon who was out cold on the parlor floor in front of the unlit fireplace.
Bonnie sniffed the air as she stepped inside the parlor, identifying another smell, something she picked on—despite the many different soil samples all over her—and immediately recognized as smoke. Caroline seemed to identify it, too. They had been so consumed by what they were doing before that they hardly gave it a second thought. Bonnie glanced at the fireplace, taking note that it wasn't lit, and followed Caroline as she dashed upstairs.
"Caroline!" she called in a panic, dropping the blood bags to the nearest flat surface, charging after her as fast she could. It was then that she saw smoke and brilliant flame licking its way up the corridor.
"Oh, god! Fire!" she yelled needlessly, voicing what both of them now knew. Caroline took off once more. Bonnie's head was reeling, spiraling for a means to calm things down.
Caroline returned with a bucket. "I couldn't find a fire extinguisher. Can you believe these two idiots don't own one of the most important thin—"
Bonnie grabbed her wrist, water from the bucket sloshing over the rim onto the hardwood floor. Her eyes closed to concentrate on dousing the flames, drawing the air from the room around them and away as though it never existed. But it did, and the damage to Damon's personal belongings was extensive. He wouldn't be happy.
"Alright then," Caroline said once they made certain the flames were well and truly doused, the still full bucket of water set down outside Damon's ruined bedroom. "I'll go get started on the shopping."
With that, she was gone.
When Bonnie returned to the cellar half an hour later and the final alarm went off, the barrier spell was in place and no one other than herself and Caroline were able to enter the basement. Bonnie thrust a needle into Kai's arm – a potion that had been used on her more than once by her mother and she took upon herself to condense specifically for Kai. She only hoped it worked, not having tried it on herself.
All that was left to do now was wait for him to wake up.
Caroline had left to go check on Elena while Damon recovered upstairs, passed out on one of the parlor couches—where they'd finally moved him—his belly stitched closed to help speed things along. Neither of them having enjoyed that particular process. He'd even fed a little.
Bonnie sat herself down on the small cot behind Kai, her back resting against the cool wall, legs extended in front of her while she waited. She didn't want him to wake up alone or to have the chance to think Bonnie simply traded one prison for yet another.