"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, Bon-Bon. 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 my 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 I 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. /
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.
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.
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 wine-skin. 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.