BK
The middle of nowhere was twenty miles from Baton Rouge. Just outside the border of Marcel's magical reach.
They pass a crumbling convenient store, Fontenot's, with blacked-out store front windows and a row of three payphones lining the entrance by the outside freezers and Bonnie asks if they can stop.
"Why?"
She catches the last of the store in the side-view mirror, "Won't we need food?"
Klaus tells her that he will run to the nearest Walmart and get provisions for their stay as he veers the SUV onto a dirt road and then quickly driving off-road, maneuvering between trees and dips in the terrain.
They both jostle on leather seats as Bonnie counts the minutes traveled from the main road.
Klaus finally parks the suburban inconspicuously behind a throng of dead brush, in between mossy trees, six minutes from the clay paved road.
He unlocks the glove department and twirls a semi-automatic gun in his hand. "This belongs to my driver. It's equipped with a round of wooden bullets. Until we get you fully trained, you will do as the locals do. Shoot first and ask questions later. I believe that's the colloquialism of these parts," He says, placing the heavy weapon in her lap.
Grabbing the grimoire from the back- seat, he yells out to her as she lingers with the weapon at her side by the vehicle, "Come on, we will have to walk the rest of the way."
BK
The once vibrant pink and beautiful Creole farmhouse was now a pale blush from the years of wear and completely charred on the left side of the home. The roof had collapsed on that side and demolished the quartered rooms. The jagged blackened beams, remnants of the former structure were like exposed skeletal ribs that extended into the right side of the house which was still breathing.
It reminded Klaus of how he had discovered Bonnie.
The porch sagged in the middle, where the house was caving in on itself, the once white-washed porch was now dull from deterioration.
"We will make this place safe for you."
She trailed behind him through the unlocked front door.
There had been a fire, obviously, around the turn of the century, and the flames had destroyed half of the home and half of the antiques that were ancient before the owner had ever set foot in the Americas. But the rest of the home was still immaculate, beautiful in its decay.
"Weird. I can't believe this furniture is still here. It's like whoever lived here just got up one day and never came back." Bonnie wonders aloud, setting the gun down to run her hand along the foyer table, collecting decades of dust on her palm, scrutinizing how long the dead stems in the flower vase had been there.
She is still barefoot and Klaus advises her to be careful. He would hate for her to snag her skin on a rusty nail.
She follows his voice into the kitchen as he opens cupboard after cupboard, rummaging through dusty tin cans and dinnerware, awakening rodents and roaches that scurry from the light.
"Today is our lucky day." He smiles at her.
He had found what he had been looking for.
Salt.
The Morton package had turned brown over the years but the contents still flow freely from the spout, the tiny white grains collecting into a small pile on the counter.
He motions two fingers for her, leading her, and she's right behind him, step after step, right onto the front lawn of the home.
"Turn to page 97 and read exactly what you see on that page. I want you to hold my hand while we do this. We are going to do it together, love," He instructs, intertwining his fingers with hers as he slowly guides her around the grounds of the home, pouring out the salt.
And she hesitates over the foreign script on the yellowed page.
"Why am I not hearing you?" He halts, and she bumps into his back.
"I don't know these words."
"You do not know them at this moment, but you knew them before and I am positive with practice you will know them again," He states, resuming the hand-holding and the salt pouring.
"Hanc oblationem in domum meam, ut protegere salis"
After they encircle the entire home in a circle of salt and she has read the last word, they arrive back at the rotted porch steps and she asks him what spell was performed.
He flings the door open for her to enter first and bows with a smirk, "Now the only two people in the world who can enter without invitation is myself," He says pointing to his chest and smiling at Bonnie, "And you, Ms. Bennett."
BK
He had hoped to have at least two weeks to train Bonnie because although she is brimming with raw magic, she is incapable of a full-on war with Marcel and his witches.
Mama T's death had thrown a wrench into his plans.
After the novena will be Mama T's funeral which gives Klaus exactly nine days to prepare Bonnie for a grand unveiling.
He blows out air he doesn't breathe, exasperated by the weight of what he needs to accomplish in Bonnie in such a short amount of time.
The back seat is overloaded with Walmart shopping bags, full of camping gear sans the camping tent. There are two rolled up sleeping bags, kerosene lamps and stovetop, cotton dresses, under things and a pair of camel coloured hiking boots for Bonnie. There is also a Styrofoam cooler of ice with bottled water, a loaf of bread, sharp cheddar, assorted meats and two bottles of whiskey, everything they needed to survive.
He decides to take the cooler first and come back for the rest.
Carrying half of his haul through the thick of dead undergrowth, he does not hear Bonnie's heartbeat.
And he reminds himself that he was very clear when he stressed to the witch that the protection spell could not protect her if she did not stay put and it was imperative for her to stay put now that Marcel would be inclined to kill her, since he had murdered two of his henchmen and one of his witches.
Dropping the cooler where he stands, he enters into the farmhouse.
Maybe she wanted to walk down to the bayou, she is a witch, it is vital for her to bond with nature and maybe she is missing this connection.
He calms himself down with this idea, but then he utters a fuck under his breath when he sees that the shiny silver pistol he had given her that was on the foyer table when he left has gone and with it has gone Bonnie.
He slowly struts out on to the porch, the creamsicle sky melting into a sea of indigo.
Shrugging out of his shirt, he sniffs the air, kicking off his boots and jeans, and he stands stark naked in the last of the sun.
There is a crunch of bone and a gnashing of teeth as his muscular human form shifts into a white wolf.
And he leaps off the porch into the woods to find Bonnie.
BK
Sticky with sweat, she runs, armpits and forehead drenched, the salty liquid burning her eyes and souring her mouth.
Moonlight chases her.
Spotlighting her every footfall in the pitch black as to say, 'there you are, I see you, you can't get away from me.'
Panting for breath, she bounds blindly, trusting her legs are carrying her to the main road.
She didn't run away immediately, there was a short torment over what to do; scared to stay and scared to go.
On the cobwebbed stairs she sat, staring at the pistol. Was Klaus her kidnapper or her savior?
Recent memory had proven neither.
Legs pump up and down, the balls of her bare feet pounding the dirt, cut and bruised from thorns and debris.
Her heart thumps so violently in her throat that she feels as if she is choking on the organ.
But fear is a motivator, so she does not stop to catch her breath. She runs. Runs from the horror of severed heads and gutted hearts and from the deranged vampire whose blood bolsters inside her veins.
The humid air blows warm over the seeping cuts on her limbs, and she grips at the pistol slippery in her hand from the stream of sweat.
Klaus said it would defend her; he had explained wooden bullets could kill a human just as quickly as a supernatural creature.
And she is prepared to shoot even if it is Klaus who she has to aim the barrel.
BK
Darting out from under the hem of the woods, Bonnie stumbles downward into the shallow mosquito infested water of the steep ditch separating the woodlands from the highway.
Her ankle twists awkwardly.
And there are tears, big fat disgust-filled tears and a wincing from a sharp pain. But now was not the time to cry out and wish she could be who she used to be, convincing herself that whoever she was before would never be in backwoods Louisiana running from a vampire.
Lamenting the O.G. Bonnie was not fucking helpful.
Her fingers graze over her ankle and she bites down, and steadies herself on to her feet, putting her weight on to the injured appendage.
If she were to let the scream inside of her out; they would hear her in New Orleans.
She tosses the pistol onto the blacktop, clawing weeds and dirt to pull herself up from the trenches, elbows digging into the soil to create leverage as she swings her legs upward to roll her body onto the asphalt.
And she succeeds, and rolls right in front of a battered Ford truck barreling toward her in the westbound lane.
She scrambles to her knees but isn't fast enough. Headlights mark her for death a second time.
The driver swerves, fishtails a couple of yards down the road and abruptly halts, tires screeching and billowing smoke.
There is a brief moment, as if the driver were considering if they should double back and see what they nearly killed. And Bonnie stops breathing, not knowing what will exit from that truck, and she quickly picks up the pistol still lying nestled in the weeds where she threw it. But the Ford's tires slowly rotate forward and Bonnie lessens her grip on the gun as she watches the red backlights disappear in the dark.
She lunges across the road, jogging with a distinct limp toward her destination.
Fontenot's is illuminated by a single light pole overlooking its empty parking lot.
The store is visibly closed, with a padlocked chain wrapped around the metal door covering the glass front entrance. But Bonnie didn't run all this way to alert a local clerk she was in trouble.
The deciding factor for her escape came to her on those stairs when she remembered the sign she had seen hung up over the payphones as they sped by the convenient store earlier.
'In Case of Emergency. Call 911.'
Exhausted, she braces her weight against the phone stand, her hand trembling as she dials the numbers and from the very real dread that Klaus was near to snatch this victory away.
Pressing each digit, she has no clue what 911 is or what would be on the other line. But this was her emergency.
She waits, and waits, imagining a person picking up and listening to her ordeal, and being just as fucking frightened as she is right now, and she turns her face to the road waiting for someone who will never pick up because she finally realizes there isn't a ringtone.
And the same battered Ford Truck that couldn't be bothered with Bonnie a minute ago, decides to pull into the parking lot and flood the very spot where Bonnie stands with its headlights.
Squinting from the harsh light, she notices three figures. Two exiting the front cab and one hopping from the back of the truck.
She softly places the dirty plastic phone back on to the hook.
BK
"Are you hurt?"
The caked blood on the dress does not belong to her. But she does not reveal this to the men, she points her stare at the hulking one, the one she assumes is the leader, "I need a phone."
The one with the beady eyes and dirty-blond mop hair, spits out his chew and says, "Cell service is shit here," he states, waving his useless cellphone in her sight, "We were headed to Jax's Grill a couple miles downward, he has a cell tower from the oil companies. You can hop in and we can take you there, you'll definitely be able to use a phone there."
She doesn't move a muscle, hiding the weapon behind the short skirt of the dress.
And the third one, the one who hopped out the bed of the truck, he snorts, "Can you hear girl?"
"I think I will just walk back to my house and see if the phone is working now," She states, hoping they would leave soon so she could run further down the road to find another pay phone.
The hulking one grimaces and inches closer to Bonnie, "Look, I came back 'cause my conscience got the best of me, but it was crazy, you kinda appeared like out of nowhere," He laughs and then asks, "Are you out here all alone?
Fear has a memory.
The pit of Bonnie's stomach is recalling eons and eons of wisdom that she is not conscious of at the moment, but she decides to heed the advice of her gut.
Pulling the gun from around her back, she unsteadily cocks the trigger, her hand shaking just like Klaus had warned her not to do when he had demonstrated.
"Get back into your truck and leave."
The beady one spits again, stepping forward, his eyes shading yellow, "You see we can't do that ma'am. Marcel would be mighty disappointed if we showed up without you."
Before Bonnie is able to pull the trigger he knocks the gun out her hand, the pistol flying across the parking lot.
The hulking one yells not to damage the goods as the beady one fists Bonnie's hair, yanking her forcefully, causing her to crash onto her knees. She claws at his grip on her hair, screaming curses, her bare legs scraping the sharp gravel as he drags her toward the driver's side of the truck.
"Ain't she supposed to be some kind of witch?"
"Get her in the truck!"
Beady eyes tries to shove her into the front cab, but she is bracing her legs against the door frame, kicking it repeatedly, struggling to free herself.
"Where's the goddamn rope?"
She sees the great wolf first. The white monster trotting from the woods over to the parking lot, its snarling mouth, alarming her attackers of its presence.
"Shit."
And then there is a gelatinous squish of flesh melding into a naked Klaus right before her eyes.
Gasps and curse words are exchanged, finger pointing between the three and then fast- talking with apologies hurled at the vampire.
"We weren't gonna touch her, we weren't gonna do anything. Marcel just wants to talk to her."
The first kill happened so suddenly that Bonnie wasn't sure what had happened exactly but saw the heart that was tossed thud against the windshield, smearing a bloody trail as it slid down to the hood.
The hulking one grunts and yells, tussling with Klaus holding a whittled wooden stake, the pointed edge aimed in the wrong direction to harm Klaus as the vampire is forcing the hulk to take his own weapon in his heart.
The melee incites Beady, as if she is the one who has killed his buddies, and he backhands her, her head whipping backward as her body goes limp, and for a moment she leaves her body.
And she sees black, the monstrous black barrier of fear, and she wants to tear it down, she wants to revel on the other side.
She doesn't want to be afraid anymore.
And she quickly reconciles she will probably never remember who she was, and if she can't remember who she used to be then it was best to invent the person she wants.
"Incendia." She whispers so softly that beady doesn't know what has caused the flames to ignite the ends of his hair, and rapidly engulf his skull and face like a human matchstick. He screams and screams dropping to his knees, rolling over and over on the gravel to put the fire out and Bonnie feels orgasmic, his screams tightening the excited knot at the core of her.
Power can be a gluttonous feast. And Bonnie has had her first taste.
A head is tossed at her feet, and Bonnie becomes lucid to whom she was running away from in the first place.
Klaus picks up the pistol and puts a bullet into the burning man to stop his wailing. "We do not need the attention."
Bonnie coils her fingers, stirring the fire to flame for the stars, and Klaus laughs, his bloody mouth stretched into a wide smile that quickly fades when he notices Bonnie hexed hands curled in his direction.
He snorts, "It won't work on me, love."
"Why?" She asks staring at his muscular white form glow in the incandescent light of the parking lot.
And he confidently closes in on her, resuming his charming bloody smile, "Because my plucky protégé'. You were restored from blood of my blood. Made flesh of my flesh. We are cut from the same cloth. I will not hold it against you this one time, but let me be clear. I am not your enemy, Bonnie. "
Her eyes locks with the pair she first gazed into upon her wake.
"And you would not want me as one." He states, biting his wrist and tilting his head downward, in the direction of her swollen and very broken ankle.
The burnt stench of human flesh fills their nostrils, the crackle of bone melting into embers and ash.
"It feels good, doesn't it?" He beams.
And she scans the carnage he committed for her and the blood that is being offered, dripping onto the gravel.
"No more secrets."
"No more secrets," He repeats, and surprising her by placing his blood smeared lips at the corner of her pouty mouth, lingering to where she wonders if he will go further, tightening the knot inside of her.
But He quickly presents his open gash and this time he doesn't have to coerce her.
She grabs the wrist and drinks her fill.
BK
The bayou water ripples as the silver of the tailgate glints under moonlight before descending under its dark depth.
Klaus had stuffed the men into the truck, stacking them on top of one another, sliding their detached appendages under the steering wheel.
There was an art to disposing bodies, he explained to her, weighing down the bodies with a concrete parking pillar he had yanked from the convenience store parking lot.
"Gator bait," He beams as the swamp hides their kill.
Bonnie stands off to herself on the bayou's muddy bank. She did not assist Klaus in her first lesson, and he did not appear to need her help; he seemed completely delighted to handle it on his own.
Bored of the stifling heat, she quietly summons the wind under her breath and a balmy breeze breaks through the trees and whistles into Bonnie's ear as she looks down and observes the prickling of her flesh.
She smiles, toothy and wide.
She glances over to the naked man, the silhouette of him, the scattered black birds over his left shoulder, the sharp lines of his abdomen and jutting hip bone, and then she steals a quick look downward at the defined muscle of his thigh and the considerable length of his flaccid penis.
"You don't need a full moon?"
His brow quirks and she points upward at the partially swollen moon.
"Benefits of being a hybrid. I change when I want to."
She trudges beside him, shoulder to shoulder, through the black thicket she had traversed merely hours ago when she was running for her life to get away from him. She carries the pistol at her side, not because she needs it, but because Klaus trusted her with it, even after her failed attempt at setting him on fire. And as they trek back to their spelled sanctuary she tells him that she feels like she isn't being Bonnie, like the whole business of dying and coming back to life might have erased who she was, and that she feels strong enough to set the world spinning in the opposite direction, and he concurs, and explains after training with him that is exactly what she will do once they return to New Orleans.
Shoeless and dirty beyond imagine, she craves the bath tub she left behind at the Mikaelson mansion and wonders what the bathing situation will be like at the farmhouse.
Each shadowy tree they pass, she anticipates another threat jumping from behind its massive trunk and she turns to Klaus, "If there are witches, and vampires and wolves, what else is there?"
"All of those creatures from children's tales are real."
Her eyes light up, "So there are fairies?"
"Yes."
"Goblins?"
"Yes."
"Demons?"
He snorts, "Of course."
"Well, what about Angels?" She asks, imagining six foot beings of light with soft feathery wings, picturing one with the face of a man she now recalls, but if she were sure of her memory like she is of the surge of magic she possesses, she would call him Dad.
But Klaus doesn't answer her, he just pulls back the curtain of thorny brush to uncover their home and kisses the top of her head.
BK
No one would ever confuse Klaus for the affectionate sort.
There have been many women, too many to count, blurry faces and faded names, falling into lust and infatuation, taking lover after lover for over a millennia. And if there were to be a gathering of the many sort he has adored or tortured, there would be an agreeance, every woman would raise her hand and say that his impulsive nature was reserved for the kill and not the bed.
His advances have all been calculated and predatory. Seduction can only be heightened by the uncertainty of his position and the threat of what he might do.
But this compulsion of his, this undeniable desire to press his mouth on Bonnie without premeditation, well, it is strange.
And he thinks of Caroline, her face like the cresting of the sun, and of Josephine with her brown hands over his heart, and of Helen with her neck outstretched under his bite, and of Nicolette with her rosary pressed against her breast, and of the one with the red ribbon in her raven hair….
They deserved his affection, they were the rarity. The ones he loved.
But he believes after the whirlwind of procuring the one weapon he needs to become King and nearly losing his weapon in almost twenty four hours, he thinks he has bested fate and is just feeling expansive.
He reaches for his crumpled jeans on the porch, and while pulling them on over his sweaty and blood smudged skin, he notices Bonnie's curiosity and he quickly kisses the space between her eyes.
BK
"Do you plan on running away again?" He asks with all seriousness, handing her a whiskey with no ice served in a red solo cup.
"What good will it do? She tastes the alcohol, letting it burn her lips before throwing the contents of the cup to the back of her throat.
The whiskey relaxes her and she takes a seat on the wooden steps of the porch.
Klaus refills her cup, "How were you able to cast the spell?"
She shrugs, wondering if she had ever killed a man in her old life and if it ever made her feel as powerful as she is now. "I'm not sure. It was just there. Like somewhere in my brain I just knew what to say when it was time," She responds, looking up at the hybrid hovering over her, grinning, with the whiskey bottle in his hand.
"What?"
"It's…well…not to sound trite but you are growing up so fast. It was only yesterday when you were learning to walk," He smirks, taking a long swig from the bottle.
His grin doesn't disturb her like it did before, instead it warms her as much as the whiskey in her belly.
"What was I like?" She asks, wanting to know more about Bonnie.
He takes up the rest of the wooden slat she is sitting on, and they are once again, shoulder to shoulder, looking out on the front yard and the early morning fog cascading over the grass.
And he sees her, standing in the hallway of his Mystic Falls mansion, wincing at the sight of her mother's killer strung up in his ballroom.
"Loyal, "He stresses, twirling the bottle in his hands.