A/N: Hello, beautiful people. I know it's been a good, long minute since I've updated but I do have a reason. If you haven't checked out my bio page, here's what happened. I lost access to Word in January on my laptop. So I was scrambling, trying to think of ways to write, but then I also saw it as an opportunity to recharge my batteries. Anyways, I still don't have a solution to my issue, and I haven't figured out how to save my work to a USB drive using google docs so that's out. I head to the library when I have a moment, but not even that environment is conducive to writing, what with little kids doing kiddie activities loudly , people having loud convos on their phones, and the library being a virtual icebox. So just bear with me and in the mean time enjoy this update.

Violence ahead...

He didn't drop her even as he fell to the floor sliding on his knees. Cradling Bonnie close to his chest, Damon checked her quickly to see if she was injured. She had a cut on her cheek that wept small dribbles of blood, but other than that, she was fine. Pissed but fine.

Looking over his shoulder Damon peered through the hazy smoke from the grenade. Several people were sprawled across the living room floor. He couldn't quite make out where Alaric or Jo was, but if he knew his friend—bearing Alaric wasn't knocked out cold—he was off to get his weapons. Moans from the Gemini coven leaders grew increasingly louder. Someone coughed, another person cursed.

"Is it Kai?" Bonnie wheezed.

"I don't know."

Bonnie wiggled to get free. Damon drew her closer, hunching protectively over her, pulling the skin tight around the areas he'd been pierced with the projectiles from the grenade.

"Can you…?" he groaned.

Bonnie carefully pulled the projectiles out of Damon with a wince.

"Healing?" she questioned.

"Yeah."

"Is everyone all right? Is anyone hurt?" Ray Parker asked as he slowly got to his feet, waving a hand in front of his face to clear away some of the smoke.

"I caught something in the leg. I'm bleeding. Shit. Fuck," a coven leader hissed.

"Jo!"

"Hmm," the physician whimpered. The pregnant woman was on her side instinctively cradling her bump. She coughed a few times and stilled hoping nothing would come up, not blood or vomit. Her ears were ringing and the room swam, but other than that she felt okay. Disoriented but aware. Jo jerked at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes popped open and she stared up at her dad.

"We need to get you out of here."

Another ping hit the ground. A round metal object rolled across the floorboards and exploded five seconds later. The blast sent Ray flying, his back smacking into the wall. Jo and anyone else who was conscious screamed and feebly covered themselves from whatever came next. Objects shattered, smoke plumed, and something very valuable was nicked right from under their noses.

Damon cursed, groaned, and shoved at the body that lied on top of him because it sure as hell wasn't his girlfriend.

"Bonnie? Bonnie…answer me!"

She didn't.

Dammit she was gone—no, taken. Veins erupted across his sclera. Slamming his fist on the ground, Damon gritted his teeth.

The blaring of sirens rattled in his ears. The cops and the fire department were on their way. He couldn't afford to get tied up into an inquest when his girlfriend was out there fighting against who the hell knew what. The idea that Kai had returned and gotten the jump on them chafed more than Damon's ego, it gripped his balls in fear.

His mind had shut down into a single-minded goal and that goal propelled the vampire to his feet with fluid agility. He was blind to the debris, the scorched walls, the scattered and sprawled coven members, their bleeding appendages. Damon almost hopped over Alaric who was struggling to rouse Jo.

"Damon? Damon wait!"

"Get your fiancé to the hospital, Rick. I gotta find Bonnie." He tore through what was left of the front door.

A few of Jo's neighbors had crept outside that Damon shouldered past. Angrily, the vampire shrugged out of his ruined leather jacket flinging it to the ground. He marched with a determined stride to his Camaro, firing up the engine, tires spinning and squealing against the road. Brows narrowed to the bridge of his nose, his entire demeanor was stone; from the way his jaw was set to the grip he had on the wheel. Hard and unrelenting. His girlfriend was becoming like sand. Easy to gather in your hand but impossible to hold.

Out of habit he reached for his phone to call his brother, yet remembered Stefan would be useless in this situation.

Advice Bonnie had dispensed to the group smacked him in the head…Stop thinking like a hero and think like a villain. Well, in this case he'd have to think like a witch. Where would a witch take another witch if they were determined to kill that witch? Somewhere remote. A location imbued with power they could tap into. The good thing about living in a rural, off the beaten path town was the abundance of places one could go for privacy. The bad thing about living in a rural town was the abundance of places a body could be dumped to rot for years. The choices were too many to narrow down quickly. More than likely, Bonnie was taken to a spot that held significant meaning to her. Or to her kidnapper.

The light bulb went off in his head. Digging his phone out of his pocket, Damon fired up the Find My Friend app.

He had her location.

Engine screaming, Damon drove the rubber off his tires to the outskirts of Mystic Falls.

Grass cushioned her body. Her fingers twitched against the ground before burrowing into the damp soil as her limbs tingled with life. Eyes fluttering, Bonnie pushed herself to wake up and when she did, rising with leaves stuck to her cheek and in her hair, her dark mood went to another level.

She was confronted with a field of closely compacted trees. Directionally she had no idea where the hell she was other than in the most obvious place—the woods. She thought of Mystic Falls' geography. The trees weren't this dense around the cemetery or the quarry, but they were, particularly, around the Fells Church ruins, the Lockwood cave, and her makeshift memorial.

Echoes of laughter taunted her. Bonnie tuned her ear to the sound and not the feeling it invoked, which was mostly irritation. It had come from a woman. Had an arrogant lilt, and was partially seductive. The wind shifted and the laughter she heard now sounded giddy, like a child being tickled. The best way to keep an enemy off their game was to inundate them with confusion. Was she dealing with a woman, a young child, both? The steady breeze that had been blowing—stopped. Her hot skin reacted to the sudden drop in temperature, producing whiffs of steam that was going to give her away.

A bunch of clichéd sayings went through Bonnie's mind: "You're messing with the wrong witch" "Show yourself", "Come at me, coward". They probably wanted her to scream for help, beg to be let go and returned to where she was kidnapped from. Nope, she wasn't going to give them any kind of satisfaction. Plus she wasn't new to this. This wasn't her first rodeo. The only way out of this situation was to fight her way out or be rescued, and being a damsel wasn't her thing. Bonnie pushed to her feet, wincing slightly because her right hip and left knee hurt.

Howling. The howl of wolves froze her in place. Wolves had once lived in Virginia but not any more, not for a long time. Those howls couldn't have come from werewolves either because there weren't any left. The ones Klaus hadn't managed to turn into hybrids fled so they wouldn't suffer the same fate. But there was no mistaking that what she heard had been the call of a wolf.

Carefully Bonnie looked over her shoulder unsure of what she might see. One wolf? Two? A pack?

One pair of glowing eyes peeked from the darkness, followed by another, and another, until five pairs were trained on the witch who swallowed thickly.

The moon that stared at her like a voyeur was full.

Bonnie was Frodo Baggins and those wolves were ringwraiths forming an arc formation around her, closing in. The wind carried the smell of their fetid saliva dripping off their sharp canine teeth. The snapping of their jaws was like a hammer striking steel.

The alpha broke ranks and prowled closer. This wolf was bigger than an Alaskan Husky; a lot less fluffy and, obviously, less friendly as well. Its paws were the size of a man's fists, snout long and angular, teeth sharp and able to snap cartilage. Those flashing, glowing orbs never looked away from its prey, and now stood less than ten feet from Bonnie who hadn't moved or flinched despite her heart being lodged in her throat.

She waited for real, immeasurable fear to gnarl her insides; to spew out in earsplitting screams for them to leave her alone. That innate neurological response never arrived but a smile did.

Weres were obviously different from vampires, but they had blood vessels in their brains just the same. Aneurysms would slow them down. Broken bones would get them off her ass long enough to make a run for it. Fire would singe the fur off their lycan tails, but wasn't it time for something new? To try a different method?

Bonnie balled and flexed her fingers, cracking her knuckles."When you woke up this morning did you say you wanted to die? No. No, of course not. You woke up this morning thinking you'd get to tear into human flesh, and enjoy the thrill of the hunt. But...did you even stop to consider that the one you were sent to hunt might feel the same way about you?"

The moon glowed with a strange adularescence while the air began to feel hot and pressurized. The wolves ears twitched while the nerves in their paws buzzed.

"I'm known for being nice, maybe even something of a pushover when those I care about are threatened, but...it's just me and the five of you. So here's my proposal: leave. Leave right now and live to see another day, if I can be cliched for a moment. Your choice."

The weres only snarled in reply. They crouched, a sure sign they were ready to attack. Bonnie saw they weren't backing down.

"Too bad."

It went silent. The wolves felt the ground beneath them shifting, breaking apart, and reforming.

Then the rumbling came.

Tree roots burst from the ground into flesh tearing spikes with the same concussive surprise as the opening of a Tchaikovsky symphony. Grunting at the force, the tendons in her neck protruded with the amount of power Bonnie pumped into their transmutation. The wolves whined and growled at the attack, some skirting farther back into the dark safety of the woods, a couple leaping in the air like frightened house cats. The alpha snarled disregarding its flank was sliced and bleeding. Issuing its own command in a series of sharp, distinct barks, the alpha wove through the spikes. The others followed.

Eyes burning marigold, Power furled out of Bonnie as she brought her hands together in a thunderclap that produced a tidal wave burst of wind so potent it bent trees, stripped a few of them bare, and knocked the pack of dogs sixty yards away. Their bodies bounced and rolled across the grass, paws scrabbling for purchase to stop their momentum. Their surprised and helpless yelps were music to her ears, yet she couldn't enjoy it because now, now it was time to run.

After imbuing herself with the speed of a vampire. The speed came with a price but she would use it until it petered out.

Making it easy for them to trace her scent and pursue? Of course not. She funneled her scent in a dozen different directions, concentrating most of it southeast of where she presently was. Divide and conquer. She created sinkholes, spelled the trees to grow horizontal spikes some eight feet long. Bonnie looked up through the dense canopy searching for the North Star. Follow it and you'd always find your way home.

One wolf was running at a fast clip lateral to her, closing the distance. She gave herself no time to think about the person within the wolf. He, she, whoever was after her to kill her. Point, blank, period. They didn't give a shit about her age, her life, or if she would be leaving behind people who loved her if they managed to get her neck within its jaw. If they were compelled, enchanted, or paid to come after her, she'd process that later for it was obvious they were part of whatever agenda this was. What had to be done, had to be done.

So she pushed aside guilt, lifted her arm, and muttered the invocation of death. The wolf launched itself, jaw widening. Oh no. Bonnie felt herself slowing down. She pushed, angled her body away from the impact she saw as inevitable, closed her eyes and finished the spell.

Blood splattered the right side her body, speckling her cheek. When she glanced, the werewolf laid crumbled at the base of a tree, peeled like a banana. The sight and smell made her stomach sour.

A vampire dropped down beside her.

The relief that swept through Bonnie was so acute she nearly tripped. "What are you doing here?"

Damon's smirk was a slash of white against the dark, "Funny, seeing you run as fast as me. Magic never ceases to amaze. As far as what I'm doing here, what does it look like? I'm your muscle, your hammer, the one who watches your back. Use me."

"Damon…"

"No arguing."

"A bite from a were…"

"I know what it can do to me and I'm willing to take my chances. I can lead them to the edge of the quarry, let them plummet to death."

"No. More than likely they know the area, marked it as their territory. They'll know where the pitfalls are."

Seeing her hypothesis could be correct, Damon went with instinct and spontaneity. Snatching Bonnie by the waist, he bent his knees and propelled them upward. Airborne, Bonnie clutched Damon tightly feeling like a black Lois Lane to his undead Superman.

Testing his dexterity, Damon sprang from the tips of tree branches amid the petulant howls of the wolves that wouldn't be getting a free meal tonight. He whistled through the air on what he wanted to believe was his awesome immortal abilities alone, but he could feel the little push from Bonnie keeping them afloat when by Newton's Law they should have fallen straight back to earth. He couldn't exactly levitate, but he could bound upwards of fifty feet, give or take, from a single jump. And as romantic as this might seem, flying through the air with his arms wrapped around his lover, Damon remained hypervigilant because they were far from being out of danger. Call it his spidey sense, but a presence was watching them, heavy with judgement. Toying with them. Dangling them on a precipice before—

You found yourself violently yanked, balled up like paper, and being thrown across space.

Tailspin. Damon was almost convinced he'd been sucked into the engine of a plane and was spit out on the other end. Sky, ground, the sky again, he went spiraling with Bonnie very noticeably absent from his grip.

"GAWDAMMITTTT!" he roared.

Bonnie became an honorary comet soaring and shrieking through the sky. Her arms pinwheeled as she grabbed uselessly at air. Her body smashed through the shingled roof of a house, and landed on a bed that buckled and broke. Damon, acres away…landed ass up in a pig trough. With a broken neck.

Pain exploded in Bonnie's shoulder. Dislocated. She gave herself a full minute to lie there staring up through the hole in the roof her body created. She was beginning to feel weightless and nauseous. Her lids drooped and Bonnie forced them back open, yet a second later they weighed a ton, and when they sealed shut…they didn't open...

...Bonnie regained consciousness. The pain returned with a renewed vigor. Her spine and head throbbed maddeningly. Hoping to see her living room, she was disappointed to discover she was on a bed with stale and haven't-been-washed-in-who-knows-how-long sheets. She could feel the mold growing on her lungs from how pungent the stench was. That's enough now move. Holding her dislocated arm close to her body, she carefully scooted out of the bed, breathing hard, sweat breaking out across her brow. It was dark in the house, cold as well. It appeared no one had lived in it for a while if the buildup of dust and stuffy smell was anything to go by. Getting to her feet, Bonnie made her way to the door that was wide open.

Presented with a hallway she summoned a ball of light to help her navigate her way through the unfamiliar house to the front door. The staircase was to the left. She approached, eyes darting, ears listening for the minutest of sounds. The squeak of a field mouse made her jump, but she kept moving. Her foot caught on something, she pitched forward but hastily grabbed on to the railing that shook under her weight. Her ribs took the brunt of that fall and the cartilage in her shoulder pulled. Move, Bonnie. Get out. She didn't like the feeling this house gave her reminding her of endless lonely nights wandering the boardinghouse in the prison world. Despite the light, darkness converged on her, wrapping around her like thick bands of muscle. It was getting harder to breathe; her movements were becoming sloppy. Finally making it to the living room, Bonnie stormed toward the way out and stopped abruptly.

That wasn't just a shadow taking up the far corner of the room. And that wasn't the sound of her breathing either.

"Hello, little doll."

...

More often than she cared, the taste of her blood wet her tongue, flooded her esophagus. Sniffling its metallic scent, Bonnie flung out her left arm, fingers extended, "Phastmos exscindo!"

Power rippled out of her like she was a match—a red phosphorous head striking against glass powder to ignite.

Light bulbs shattered, windows splintered and cracked before blowing out completely. Furniture blew apart, wind howled obnoxiously. It was a beautiful exhibit of destruction. Regrettably her display had little effect, missed its target by a mile. Bonnie's breathing turned labored. Her bones and joints ached, her head much like her heart pounded; this part she did not miss.

She stood limply across from her opponent who smirked at her.

Bonnie's stomach sank. What if this was someone seeking retribution for the anonymous person she killed her first day of training with Dahlia?

"It doesn't matter," Bonnie said aloud. Resolute. That's how she had to be. Just like in the woods with the wolves.

So she needed to find a weak spot, a chink in the armor, a crack in the foundation. It would be helpful to at least know who the hell she was fighting, but that was difficult. Shadows weren't totally to blame for Bonnie's inability to get a clear, unfiltered picture of the sorcerer's face. They were purposely blurring their features, and also masking their physique. One minute Bonnie could testify her opponent was her age and a little taller, but in the snap of the fingers their torso would elongate, the shoulders would become broader, the neck thicker suggesting it was a warlock and not a witch.

"You're young but strong. That's easy to see, however I did expect better," her adversary chided and approached, putting one foot in front of the other. "Yield."

Bonnie vigorously shook her head. "No," she wheezed. "No," she said a bit more forcefully the second time. "I'm not giving in."

Lips curled up into a smile that was neither pleasant nor deadly. The opponent inched closer, deflecting objects that were hurled in their direction with the simple flick of a wrist.

"Now that's the spirit I was expecting to hear from you. Always so ready to fight. So ready to die."

"You don't know shit about me or my life," Bonnie cursed.

"Oh, but I do. How many times have you been right here? Right on the cusp of greatness just to have it snatched from you, ripped from your hands? What makes you think this time around will be any different?"

"Who are you? Wh—"

A spell knocked Bonnie to the ground, the blow striking her in the kidney. She grit her teeth stifling a scream that tried to claw its way out as she fought to catch her breath, clear her head, and think of her next five steps.

The person kneeled down to their haunches, and pushed strands of Bonnie's sweat soaked hair off her forehead. They pouted at Bonnie when she jerked away yet crooned, "Why am I doing this? Come, don't ask such trite questions. The why doesn't matter so much as to the fact it's happening. Perhaps I should stop concealing who I am. It's no fun if you don't know who it is that's about to take your life."

Bonnie's heart beat triple time. What if it were Kai or maybe even worse, one of those heretics? In the back of her mind, in the bottom of her heart, in the fiber of her soul she knew it didn't and shouldn't matter because she had been trained to deal with any threat against her. No matter her enemy's level of skill, she had control like she never had before, knew more spells, knew how to stave off the side effects of using too much magic. She was prepared for this. Prepared for anything. And yet, there crouched in a corner was that kernel of fear, that seed of doubt that she still wasn't ready. That she would fail, that nothing about her had changed.

A single flame danced in the palm of the other person's hand.

The cloak fell away revealing an olive complexioned woman in her mid to late twenties with a distinct birthmark that stretched from her hairline to the corner of her brow. Feline shaped gray eyes made Bonnie think she was staring right into the iron core of the earth. They were hard, steely and filled with not just a simple bloodthirsty lust for her death, but with annihilating her from bone to atom. Her nose was long and slightly bulbous at the end, and her mouth, her bottom lip was much fuller than the top, her chin was small with a tiny mole. She was beautiful and possessed the kind of power that was as toxic as iodine-131. The hazard in getting close would have lasting fatal effects that wouldn't just wear off once she went her merry little way. Bonnie recoiled a little.

"Take your fill, little witch because after this who knows what else you might or might not see. Now get up and fight me."

Bonnie shook her muddled head. "You think this is a game?"

"If this were a game you'd actually stand a fair chance of winning," the witch got up from her haunches and cantered away.

"Are you a heretic?" Bonnie asked.

The witch snorted. "No, tytär I'm something far worse."

Such high opinions one can hold of themselves, Bonnie mused as she got up from the cold floor.

Bonnie flung out her hand, and whatever wasn't bolted down hurled at the witch, but before they could reach her they turned into doves. Next Bonnie summoned a shield, but it broke like fiberglass and burst to smithereens. The witch brushed debris off her shoulder, shook out tiny shards of glass from her long, wavy dark hair. A ring of fire was instantly turned into raindrops.

"Whatever you think to come up with, I can guarantee I've already thought of it first," the older witch seemed to read her mind. "Phastmos affligo."

The breath went out of Bonnie the second the two major bones in her legs shattered, protruded through her skin. She collapsed on the rough strewn floor of the house. Screaming, tears rolled down her dirtied and bloodied cheeks.

Bonnie flinched and released a holler of pain as her broken legs throbbed angrily. Her blood trickled, warm and coppery, wetting her jeans and the floorboards.

Murder flared from Bonnie's entire aura. For just a moment she was back at Mystic Falls High fleeing through the parking lot trying to escape from Silas using Jeremy's ghost to get in her head. She had been attacked from the back, her neck ripped into by a pair of fangs that belonged to someone they never should have belonged to. That night she had healed herself. That night she sewed herself up with a mere thought. That night, she shattered bones, delivered pain on a scale she had attempted once before on a being ten times their combined ages. That night she had had to hold back.

Tonight she didn't have to.

"Motis."

The satisfying sound of her opponent's gasp increased when she went flying into the far wall, landing in heap of tangled limbs and hair. Bonnie focused on her legs, resetting the bones with a few words, fighting through the excruciating pain of bones sliding back through her skin and mending.

Wobbly Bonnie rose to her feet turning the meters that separated them into inches.

Staring down at her, Bonnie nearly sucked her fingers as if savoring a decadent sauce because she had the high ground, had turned the tables in her favor.

The woman pushed her hair out of her eyes that had grown wide and round.

Something inside of the Bonnie had been activated, the older witch sensed. Whatever it was, it was older than the both of them, a fiber that was shared among those who wielded magic. This made her think of a story she'd heard long ago. That in each living thing was a piece of the power used in creating the earth, and that certain people could tap into it. If she didn't know any better she was seeing Bonnie tapping into that power right now. The older witch didn't need to be schooled that Bonnie could do anything because a pathway had been opened, a shaft that stretched from the cosmos and straight down to her.

Her powers had changed and were capable of releasing a level of brutal violence she had been too scared in the past to develop.

The lion had found her strength.

Bonnie had seen Dahlia turn Enzo into a deformed pretzel. She was sure she could do better. But she would have a little fun with her...first.

The opponent's lungs seized. The already dark room became so pitch-black you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But what she could see were two dots of burning orange-gold narrowed into slits. Dammit, she had pushed the young witch too far.

"Waaaai-!"

Her body left the floor and was slammed into the wall. The plaster broke with the impact, her tongue bit viciously into her tongue, blood flowed. Her brain rattled in her skull. She went flying into another wall, this time face first, breaking her nose and jaw. She was dropped. Her ankle was taken by a pair of invisible hands. Flipped over, her leg was bent in the wrong direction. Her screams were deafening. As she futilely reached for her leg, her arm was twisted like dough, the shoulder popping out of its socket, the elbow as well. Her fingers were forced to overextend, her wrist, and her ankles included. Once more she went airborne, the right side of her body slamming into the fireplace, the bricks tearing into her skin as she slid down their rough surface to the floor. Screaming at this point seemed pointless. She couldn't even plead for Bonnie to stop as the pain was so great it had a taste. A vile, bitter taste that made her mouth water profusely.

Abruptly she was yanked to her feet, an impossible feat considering the state of her ankles...Her back was being bowed, arching, but then her torso began moving as if she were a twist cap on a bottle.

She lost control of her bladder and a stream of warm piss gushed down her leg.

Bonnie was breathing so heavily as she made mincemeat out of the witch every exhale sounded like a gale force wind. A glorious feeling, better than the orgasms she had with Damon scorched through her. She now fully understood why vampires got off on inflicting pain, why they seemed addicted to shedding blood when seeking sustenance wasn't the primary goal, why the spirits wanted to limit how much their descendants could do. Everything made sense. She had made so many judgments, some of them built off the back of superstition, and plenty more she had been dead on about, but she had misjudged this.

"That is enough, witchling."

Bonnie's head snapped sharply in the direction of Dahlia's voice but it was too late. She reacted on instinct hurling a cannon ball of fire birthed from her own sweat towards the figure standing in the doorway.

Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately it didn't reach its target. The dark figure burst into dozens of owls, the collective sound of their flapping wings sounding like propellers as they flew in every which direction. They converged together re-transfiguring into, to the naked eye, a middle-aged woman, the yellow of her irises glowing cunningly.

Dahlia lifted her hand and lit the room. She cataloged the destruction, eyed her bloodied pupil before spying the other battered person writhing and whimpering on the floor. She circled the crumbled woman and bent to her haunches, pushed a few strands of hair off her cheek that had swollen to three times its normal size. Dahlia glanced at Bonnie, stood, and carefully approached. Bonnie twitched which made Dahlia pause. Communicating non-verbally, she let her student know she meant her no harm. She tried once again, carefully inching closer.

"Don't," Bonnie rasped. She wasn't fully there yet. A live wire in a puddle of water was safer to be around than her at the moment.

"It's all right, Bonnie. I'm here now." Dahlia moved closer but kept a bit of distance between them. She gently laid her hand on Bonnie's heart. "Calm yourself, witchling."

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" Bonnie clenched her jaw. Dahlia's touch felt raw and it hurt.

"It'll hurt more the longer you continue to fight it. Calm. Your. Self. Before I do it for you," Dahlia warned coldly.

Bonnie's nostrils flared and her blood pumped hot and fast through her veins. She was willing to chance it, but she was beginning to feel it. Pain. The kind that always led to nosebleeds, unconsciousness, her body being sacrificed. So she closed her eyes and began reciting a mantra.

"Better," Dahlia said in approval when she saw Bonnie using one of the techniques she taught her to stave off the worse of the pull to keep on destroying.

"Who is that?" Bonnie panted in between coaxing the magic inside of her to return to its resting state.

Dahlia waited a beat or two before answering. "Isla, an acolyte of mine. Trained like you under my tutelage. Before I severed our acquaintance I had to be sure you could hold your own against someone who I consider a notch or two below my abilities. There is one who surpasses Isla...well she's not relevant to the matter at hand. In the end you needed to see what you'd be willing to do to save yourself. How far you've come and how much farther you need to go."

"So this had been a test? Another fucking test? I could have...If you hadn't shown up she'd be dead!" Bonnie raged, disgusted.

Dahlia looked at Isla, "She's still in danger of dying. But a look on the bright side it would be a good death."

Bonnie's stomach rolled. "I know I shouldn't continue to be surprised by the things you make me do, and I'm sure you believe this is somehow making me stronger, but what inside of me is...what won't I be able to get..." she stopped abruptly as a shudder ran through her. A shudder of ecstasy as her magical synapses continued to fire. Residual feedback made her shift from foot to foot, heightening her anxiousness. She had to do something to distract herself or she'd resume what she had been doing. "I'll heal her..."

But she was intercepted and led out to the porch where Dahlia made her sit down. "I'll deal with our little friend. You sit here and reclaim your control."

Bonnie pressed her knuckles into her temples and dropped her forehead to her drawn knees. What was this person she was turning into? And why...why wasn't she freaking out about it?

"BONNIE!"

Her head jerked up. "Damon? DAMON!" She was on her feet and running toward him at full tilt.

Their bodies collided, her arms circling around his waist and squeezing, his crossing her shoulders, one hand cupping the back of her neck.

"You okay?" he mouthed against her forehead. He couldn't stand this. Was tired of this shit. Losing had lost its flavor long ago. What was the point of being a vampire if he ended up being as effective as a placebo?

"I...don't know. You?"

"I've been better."

"Where did you end up after we got separated?"

"On the other side of the fucking county. What happened?"

"A lot of things," Bonnie pressed her nose into Damon's chest. Being near him was helping but she couldn't really be sure if his presence was helping to calm or excite.

He looked her over. Had smelled the blood on Bonnie, magic, and something else he couldn't readily name. Metallic in composition. She was shaking but Damon knew it wasn't from the frosty air. These were the kind of shakes synonymous with addiction or restraint. Unsurprisingly Damon found himself shaking too. But his shaking was born out of a place of impotence. He omitted letting Bonnie know his neck had been snapped, otherwise he would have been here sooner and perhaps whatever went down in that house wouldn't have happened. Maybe his girlfriend wouldn't be looking at him like she wanted to swallow the world.

He caught Dahlia watching them. Imperceptibly she nodded and he knew she had agreed to his request. Whatever price she required, he'd pay. Hopefully it would be a reasonable price though he doubted it.

Kissing Bonnie's temple, he took her by the hand and the two of them vanished.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! If you made it this far go ahead and review. Pretty please with a cherry on top! Love you.

Translation: tytär means daughter in Finnish (at least according to Google).