Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Consuming all the air inside my lungs

Ripping all the Skin from off my bones

I am prepared to sacrifice my life

I would gladly do it twice

Would you have mercy on me

I am a puppet on your string

And even though you got good intentions

I need you to set me free"

Portland, Oregon.

There’s still blood on the walls.

The spell worked. Everyone got what they wanted—returned to their homes, their families, their shiny new beginnings. No one stayed to help me wash it off.

I could magic it away. One flick, one whispered word, and it’d be gone. But part of me thinks it should stay. That maybe the house needs to remember.

Jo offered to stay, to help me find Olivia and Luke, but I told her no. She has her own ghosts to deal with. And this place—this place is full of mine.

The pool out back still reeks of chlorine and death, the memory of my son holding his sibling under until the bubbles stopped. Upstairs, the air is thick with something colder. That’s where my wife died. Where she carried two unborn siphoners who drained every spark she had left.

I remember that night like a scar.

She was barely three months along, but already weak. Her magic flickered and stuttered each day like a candle burning at both ends. She tried to hide it from me—tried to smile through the pain—but by the end, she could barely stand.

I found her in bed, shivering, whispering words that made no sense. The room smelled like metal and ozone—magic pulling out of her faster than she could hold it. Her hands were on her stomach, her eyes wide with terror.

“They’re feeding,” she said, voice cracked and wet with tears. “They won’t stop. Joshua, please—make it stop.”

I knelt beside her, pressed my forehead to hers, my hands shaking. I’d spent my whole life mastering control, but there’s no control when it comes to mercy.

“Please,” she whispered again. “Set me free.”

And for a long moment, I couldn’t. I told her we’d find a way, that I’d fix it, that I could still save her. But she looked at me—not like my wife, not like the woman I loved—but like someone already halfway gone.

Tears blurred my vision. I kissed her forehead, her hair, her trembling lips. And then I did what she asked.

Mercy, I told myself. It was mercy.

When it was over, I stayed with her body for hours. The room went silent except for the sound of my breathing and the faint echo of magic dying in the air. I remember touching her face, still warm, and thinking that something in me had gone with her.

Kai and Jo were nineteen then. I told the kids she passed away in her sleep. They believed me—or maybe they just wanted to.

Now, the house is too quiet. Too clean in some places, too stained in others.

I put on gloves and start with the walls. The blood’s dry and dark, flaking at the touch. I scrub until my arms ache, until the smell of iron fills my lungs. Each stroke feels like penance, like I’m trying to wash away something that’s seeped too deep into the bones of this house—and maybe into mine too.

~~~

I visited once.

Mystic Falls was gray that day, wet leaves stuck to my shoes, and I remember thinking how quiet the Bennett house was without laughter in it. Sheila met me at the door, her eyes sharper than I remembered, older in a way that wasn’t just age.

I asked her for her blood. For the spell. For a way in.

She didn’t move, didn’t even blink. Just looked at me—really looked—and said, “Maybe it’s time. He’s spent too long alone. Ten years in there would have done him more harm than good.”

She said it softly, but it hit me like a curse. Because she was right. I knew it, even then.

I found him in Mystic Falls after doing the spell.

Or… parts of him.

The wreckage was still smoking when I got there. A private jet torn in two in the middle of a field, aluminum twisted like paper. I remember the smell—fuel, burnt metal, and blood. For a moment, I couldn’t tell what was human and what wasn’t.

He was scattered. Dead. Not alive. Pieces of him everywhere.

Deliberate or not, the crash wasn’t an accident. It was decay.

He was getting worse.

And I knew then, as I looked down at what was left of my son, that I could never let him out again.

Even if he screamed my name from the dark.

Even if part of me wanted to answer.

~~~

Paying Ben was hard.
Too much of the illusion, and she’d see it. Too little, and she’d see through it.

It took three spells to stabilize the projection — one for the skin, one for the tone, one for the soul impression that mimicked human presence. Expression always demanded sacrifice, and this one left me hollow. A week to recover, hands trembling, blood thick with the residue of overused magic.

But it had to be done. Someone had to keep an eye on her.

I told myself it was protection — that I was watching over her because she was carrying something dangerous. But deep down, I knew it was also about redemption. I had failed once — failed my wife, failed Kai — and now this girl was my last chance to make something right.

Still, when I sent the projection to her door that morning, I hesitated.

Sunlight spilled across her porch. She looked fragile standing there, skin too pale, eyes dulled by exhaustion. The kind of tired that lives in the bones.

“Morning, neighbor,” I said through Ben’s borrowed mouth, the illusion smiling the way I hadn’t in years.

She didn’t trust easily. Stood half in the doorway, posture defensive, voice cool. “Morning.”

She was beautiful in a haunted way — the sort of beauty that grief sculpts. I had seen that look before. On my wife.

“I brought these,” I made Ben say, lifting the flowers. Harmless. Human. I needed her to believe in the ordinary. To think she was safe.

Her fingers brushed his. Mine, through him. And in that instant, I felt it — the faint hum of something not yet born but alive all the same. Magic, deep and ancient. The twins.

It chilled me.

When she closed the door, I let the illusion dissolve and stood there for a moment in my own body, alone in the silence of my study. My hands were shaking. Her aura had flared when she touched me — protective, suspicious, powerful.

~~~

I monitor her from a distance. The spell allows me to keep the illusion but only for short bursts. Too much time and I feel like something is being torn inside me.

A week passes. Seven days of her solitude, her lies to her friends, her slow, careful movements. She doesn’t realize I can hear every call, sense every ripple of pain when the twins feed too deeply.

When the first cramp hits her, I feel it like lightning. The resonance nearly snaps the tether between me and the illusion.

She doubles over, her breath catching, and through Ben’s eyes I watch the panic bloom on her face.

She drives to the pharmacy. Human instinct — searching for something normal to fix the unfixable. And when she steps inside, I force Ben to be there. I don’t know why. Maybe because she shouldn’t be alone. Maybe because I can’t stand the thought of losing another woman to the same curse.

He turns, smiles — my voice through his mouth — “Morning, neighbor.”

I can feel her magic react before she does, a wave of pain that nearly crushes the illusion. When she collapses, I don’t hesitate. I move him forward, catch her before she hits the ground, whispering words meant to calm her but mostly to steady myself.

For a second, I almost let the mask drop. Almost show her who’s really there.

But she wouldn’t understand. She’d see me and think it was another manipulation, another Parker trick.

So I carry her through Ben’s hands — trembling, careful — and take her to the hospital.

~~~

The hospital lights flicker across my study wall as I scry. Ben’s illusion stands beside her bed, clipboard in hand. His tone is soft, professional — the perfect facade.

“I’m prescribing some pills,” I say through him. “Should help with the pain…”

She looks small in the bed, fragile but not broken. I can see Elena, Caroline, and Damon around her, their worry bright and clumsy. But it’s her eyes that hold me — dark, searching, always trying to see what’s behind the veil.

“You scared me,” Ben murmurs. My own voice sounds distant, like someone else’s regret.

And she smiles, tired. “Guess I owe you one.”

I swallow the guilt that rises in my throat. If she only knew who she was really speaking to — the man who once called killing mercy.

When she relaxes, I withdraw the illusion slowly, like peeling skin from bone. The projection fades; I collapse back in my chair, breath ragged, veins burning. Blood trickles from my nose. Expression has always demanded a price.

In the quiet, I whisper the truth she’ll never hear:
“I’m sorry, Bonnie. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

~~~

I find her there, floating between here and nowhere, suspended in a place that isn’t meant for the living. Colors bleed into one another, sound distorted, like water pressing against her ears. She’s fragile, untethered, and I can’t touch her—not really—but I can see her. That’s enough.

She looks at me, eyes wide with confusion, fear, hurt. “You can go now,” I say softly. Not a command, not a push, just a key. My words carry weight, though I don’t want them to, because I know how heavy the world already feels on her shoulders. “You don’t have to stay here.”

Her silence stretches, and I feel the hesitation, the longing to cling. I want to tell her to stay, to fight, but I also know the truth. She needs the choice. She always does.

“…Why?” Her voice is small, tremulous, but it slices through the haze. “…Why did you do that to Kai? Why make him feel… alone? Like a villain?”

The question lands like a stone in my chest. I look away, hands tightening into impossible stillness, as if the centuries of mistakes could be held in my palms and weighed. “I know,” I say. “I could have been a better father. I should have been better.”

Every word tastes like ash. Every syllable carries the weight of all the nights I failed to stand where I should have. “That’s why I’m giving him the chance to do it right. To be there for you… for everything he’s meant to protect.”

Her lips part, a silent argument forming that dies before it even breathes. I can feel her disbelief, her unwillingness to forgive, but that’s not for me to demand. I only offer the path I chose. Sacrifice isn’t about recognition. It’s about responsibility, and I carry it like armor made of regret.

She studies me, really studies me, and I see the understanding flicker there. Not forgiveness. Not acceptance. But recognition. That’s enough. For now, it has to be enough.

And then I let go. Slowly. Softly. Like smoke curling from a dying fire. I disappear, leaving her suspended in silence. Leaving her to decide. Leaving her to live.

~~~

Chapter Text

"Oh, I’ve been shakin’,
I love it when you go crazy,
You take all my inhibitions,
Baby, there’s nothin’ holdin’ me back.
You take me places that tear up my reputation,
Manipulate my decisions,
Baby, there’s nothin’ holdin’ me back."

Bonnie

Being five months pregnant for six months really has its perks.

Like how the only thing I can stomach is lasagna—bubbling, cheesy, slightly burnt at the edges—and that dessert whose name I can never remember. Strawberries, whipped cream, and sponge cake in a glass. A miracle disguised as sugar.

And of course, there’s the illusion. The spell that keeps the bump hidden, keeps the questions away, lets me walk through Mystic Falls like I’m still just Bonnie Bennett, witch and friend, not Bonnie Bennett, secret ticking time bomb with Kai Parker’s twins growing inside her.

Sometimes I almost believe it. The normalcy. The mornings where I wake up with my head on his chest, his heartbeat steady and warm beneath my ear, the world outside that room reduced to a hum. 

Because when Kai sleeps, he looks human. Just human. Not the monster everyone swore he was. Not the man who’s done unspeakable things. Just mine.

Some mornings he wakes first and brushes my hair back with that lazy grin. Other mornings I wake to him whispering Latin under his breath, fingers tracing runes over my stomach like he’s warding off the world.

“Protection spell,” he says when I catch him. “Just in case.”
I don’t ask in case of what. We both know there’s always a what.

For a few precious seconds, I forget that one day he might be gone again—and that I’ll be alone. Again. Because as the saying goes make the moments last, right?

We even manage girls’ nights.
Elena insists on hosting, of course, with candles everywhere and that soft, too-perfect smile she wears now that she’s human again. Caroline brings movies and mocktails (because she insists I can’t drink anything, even magically diluted wine).

I sit cross-legged on the couch while they argue over whether Damon would survive a rom-com.
Caroline laughs—bright, fake, practiced—and Elena gives her that look. The one that says she knows something’s wrong but doesn’t know how to fix it.

When Elena goes to get more popcorn, Caroline slumps next to me. “You ever feel like you’re holding your breath, Bon?” she asks, eyes glassy.
“Every day,” I whisper.
She nods, smiling too hard. “Yeah. Same.”

It almost feels real. Almost.

Until it isn’t.

The bubble pops.

Caroline cracks.

The grief she’d been holding back for her mom finally claws its way through, and when it does, she flips the switch. Turns it off. The light in her eyes. The care. The love. Gone.

And Stefan—God, Stefan—he follows. Maybe to save her, maybe to feel nothing at all. Two vampires with their humanity off. One a ripper with a history that could paint whole cities red.

Damon calls late that night. His voice is sharp, brittle around the edges.
“They’re gone, Bon. Stefan and Caroline. They’re not themselves.”

Kai’s next to me, half-listening, his hand still over my stomach. His thumb traces slow circles on my skin as if to calm me—or maybe the twins.
“Let the dead deal with the dead,” he murmurs when I hang up. “It’s not our problem anymore.”

I turn to look at him. “Caroline’s my friend.”

He meets my eyes, calm, unflinching. “And you’re pregnant. With my kids. Maybe start prioritizing the living, Bonnie.”

The words sting. Because he’s right. And because he says it like love and logic are the same thing.

That night I can’t sleep. Kai’s sprawled across the bed, half-asleep, one arm draped over me.

For a moment, it feels safe again. Warm. Almost human.

But somewhere outside, I can feel it—the shift. The danger moving closer. The world cracking open, one scream at a time.

And inside me, the twins twist, like they can feel it too.

~~~

I pace the kitchen, arms crossed over my chest, the smell of burned lasagna still clinging to the air. Kai sits at the table, picking idly at his food, pretending not to hear me.

“So, that’s it?” I snap. “You’re just not going to help?”

He looks up, that infuriating calm in his eyes. “Bonnie, I’m not saying we can’t help. I’m saying we shouldn’t. Two vampires with their humanity off—it’s not exactly a rescue mission. It’s suicide.”

I glare at him. “They’re my friends.”

He leans back, crossing his arms, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me.”

The words sting more than I want them to.
I take a deep breath, trying not to cry, trying not to let the exhaustion show. “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”

He exhales sharply. “Bonnie—”

But I’m already grabbing my coat.

The night air bites, cold and clean. Mystic Falls is too quiet, the kind of quiet that feels like a bruise. I drive to Elena’s. She opens the door with tired eyes and that kind smile she keeps trying to believe in.

“She killed someone, Bon,” she whispers before I can even say hello. “Caroline. And Stefan’s gone with her. Damon’s trying, but—”

I shake my head and pull her into a hug. “We’ll find a way through this. Somehow.”

She nods against my shoulder, small and shaking. And for a heartbeat, I believe the lie I just told her.

When I get home, Kai’s exactly where I left him—except now there’s a map spread across the table, and his expression is different. Focused. Excited. Dangerous.

“I know where Damon’s mom is,” he says without looking up.

I stop mid-step. “What?”

He glances up, eyes glinting. “Lillian Salvatore. You said she was dead.”

“She is dead,” I say automatically.

He grins, sharp and pleased with himself. “No. She’s alive. Dead-alive. Vampire. Locked in the 1903 Prison World.”

I stare at him, my pulse tripping over itself. “That’s impossible.”

Kai shrugs, that familiar spark of mischief lighting his face. “You’re talking to the guy who made the impossible his hobby.”

The room feels smaller suddenly. The air thicker. If what he’s saying is true…

I don’t even wait. I call Damon.

When he answers, I can hear the disbelief in his voice. “My mother? No, Bonnie. She died of consumption in 1858. I saw her grave myself.”

“Then go check it,” I tell him quietly.

An hour later, Damon calls back, his voice flat, hollow. “There’s nothing in her coffin.”

And just like that, the ground tilts beneath us again.

~~~

Damon

You tell yourself you’ve seen it all.

Hell, I’ve buried enough people to fill a small town. Staked friends, burned enemies, even dug my way out of coffins myself. Death’s just another Tuesday in Mystic Falls.

But this—
This is different.

The Salvatore crypt smells like rot and memory. Damp stone, old roses left to die, iron in the air. I haven’t been down here in years, and every step feels heavier than the last.  Father’s name, Mother’s—Lillian.

The name looks smaller than I remember.

I stop in front of her tomb, fingers tracing over the cold letters. “Hello, Mother.”
The word still feels foreign in my mouth. Like something that belonged to someone else’s life.

The last time I was here, I brought flowers. Thought it meant something—closure, forgiveness, whatever sentimental crap Stefan believed in.

Now Bonnie’s voice echoes in my head: Then go check it.

So I do.

The stone grinds as I pry the coffin open. The sound slices straight through the silence.

And then—
Nothing.

Not decay. Not bones. Not even dust.

Just emptiness.

I stare at it for a long time, waiting for the punchline. The trick. The something.
Because she’s supposed to be here. Because I mourned her. Because I drank myself half to death over her.

My fingers grip the edge of the coffin until my knuckles ache. “No,” I whisper, even though there’s no one to hear it. “No, no, no…”

The candles flicker, shadows crawl along the walls like they’re laughing.

I close my eyes and suddenly I’m that boy again—standing at her bedside, watching her skin pale, her chest rise and fall slower and slower until it didn’t anymore. Stefan crying beside me, Father silent.

And now she’s gone again.
Only this time, she took her death with her.

Bonnie’s words ring again: She’s alive. Dead. Vampire. 1903 Prison World.

I run a hand through my hair, pacing the length of the crypt, the stone echoing beneath my boots. A vampire. My mother.

The part of me that knows how this world works should’ve seen it coming. The part that’s still her son just feels sick.

“Guess the family curse never dies,” I mutter to the empty air.

Then I pull out my phone. “Bonnie,” I say when she picks up. My voice sounds rough, hollow. “You were right. She’s not in there.”

There’s a silence on the other end.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or the beginning of something worse.

~~~

Kai

The phone rings once. Twice.

Bonnie answers, voice hushed. I can’t hear what Damon’s saying on the other end, but I don’t need to. The look on her face tells me everything.

Her spine stiffens. Breath catches. Eyes widen just enough for me to know she’s not expecting whatever came next.

I lean back in my chair, watching her like I’m watching a movie I’ve already guessed the ending to.

When she finally hangs up, she just stands there for a second—hand still clutching the phone like it’s the only thing holding her together.

“He checked,” she says quietly. “She’s not there. Damon’s mom… her coffin’s empty.”

I smile before I can help it. Not the mean kind, not the one that used to make her roll her eyes and threaten to set me on fire. This one’s softer. Intrigued. Maybe a little proud.

“Of course it’s empty,” I say, getting up. “I told you. Vampire. 1903 Prison World. The Gemini coven was a lot of things, but we didn’t misplace corpses.”

Bonnie looks at me then—really looks at me—and I can see the storm behind her eyes. The witch part of her is already spinning, calculating, ready to fix something that was never her problem to begin with.

She shakes her head. “This is bad, Kai. If she’s trapped in another world, it means someone put her there. Someone powerful enough to create it. And if we bring her back—”

“She’s Damon’s problem,” I cut in. “Let him deal with his mommy issues. You’ve got enough to worry about.”

Her jaw tightens. “You mean your twins.”

There’s that fire I love. That edge that makes me want to pull her close and infuriate her until she smiles again.

Instead, I shrug. “Ours, technically.”

She crosses her arms. “You don’t even care, do you?”

I grin. “About your friends’ endless parade of supernatural soap operas? Not particularly. About you throwing yourself into it while you’re carrying two siphon babies and running on four hours of sleep? Yeah, that bothers me. Drives me insane.”

She rolls her eyes and starts pacing, mumbling spells under her breath—old habits, old defenses. I can feel the hum of her magic in the air, faint and restless.

“You don’t get it,” she says finally. “It’s not just about Damon. If Lily’s alive, if there’s another Prison World—”

That stops her.

Her eyes flick up to mine, and for a heartbeat there’s something like fear—or maybe understanding—between us. Because she knows me well enough to hear what I’m not saying:
There are other worlds. Other loopholes. Other ways this could all fall apart.

I walk over, slide a hand to the back of her neck, thumb brushing her pulse. “You did good, Bonbon. You found the truth. Now let the rest of them deal with it.”

Her breath trembles against my palm. “You sound almost jealous,” she whispers.

I smile. “I am. Every time you pick them over me.”

Outside, the wind picks up—sharp, cold, electric. Somewhere out there, Damon Salvatore is digging up ghosts. And in here, I can feel the future shifting again, like a spell gone slightly wrong.

The calm before another storm.

~~~

Chapter Text

Bonnie

“You didn’t tell me I’d have to freeze my ass off to be here,” I mutter, rubbing my hands together as the wind whips through the trees.

“You insisted on doing the spell with me,” Kai says, tone far too casual for someone standing in what feels like an icebox.

“Well, you should’ve told me, you asshole,” I snap, teeth chattering. “There’s a difference between brisk and arctic.”

“Guys, if you’re done?” Elena cuts in, exasperation edging her voice.

I huff and mutter a quick heat spell under my breath. Warmth pulses faintly around me, and I feel the twins—who had been stirring uncomfortably—settle to a steady, rhythmic thrum. 

I can feel everything now: their moods, their energy, the subtle hum of magic in my veins when they calm.

Damon stands a few feet away, silent. Too silent. His hands are shoved deep into his jacket pockets, eyes fixed on something distant.

“You okay?” I ask softly.

He nods, once. A lie. Elena moves closer, taking his hand, and together towards the cabin. They need space—maybe all of us do.

The place looks like it hasn’t been touched in decades: gray wood, frost on the windows, a porch that creaks when I step on it.

“So,” he says, “we’re gonna sit here and wait it out?”

“Wait what out?” I ask, faking innocence as I peel off my gloves.

He grins, wolfish. “Family reunion. Mom meets son.”

“Yes,” I say flatly. “That.”

His hand slides around my waist before I can move away, fingers warm even through the layers of my coat. He presses a kiss against the side of my head, soft but deliberate.

I elbow him sharply. “Don’t.”

He laughs, low and unbothered. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

“Now’s not the time,” I warn, stepping away.

He doesn’t listen. He never does. He leans in again, pressing another kiss to my cheek, slower this time, his breath brushing my skin.

The spell of heat I cast earlier flares a little hotter.

The snow crunches under my boots as I shift my weight, hugging my arms tighter around myself. The cabin door closes behind Elena and Damon with a hollow thud, leaving Kai and me outside under the grey morning (or evening) sky.

“So why is Damon’s mother in there?” I ask, nodding toward the cabin.

Kai leans closer, his breath ghosting against my neck before I can pull back. He presses another kiss there—light, quick, almost teasing.

“Heretic,” he murmurs.

I blink. “What?”

He straightens, looking annoyingly pleased with himself. “A heretic. Part vampire, part witch.”

My stomach twists. “You can’t be both,” I tell him automatically, because every rule I know says so.

“They are,” he says simply. His tone is maddeningly casual, like we’re discussing the weather.

“They are?” I repeat, disbelief curling through me.

“Yes. A sort of group. Or cult, depending on how poetic you want to be.” He glances at the cabin, then back at me, a shadow of amusement flickering in his eyes. “Damon’s mother and five or six others like her. All trapped together once. Now... not so much.”

I stare at him, stunned. “And you’re telling me this now?”

Kai’s smile sharpens. “You didn’t ask before.”

My jaw tightens. “That’s your excuse?”

He shrugs, unbothered. “You were busy. And then—well—other things happened.”

I swallow hard. “A heretic,” I repeat softly, as if saying it aloud will make it less impossible.

“I have to go in,” I tell him, already taking a step toward the cabin.

Kai’s hand shoots out, fingers closing around mine before I can move farther. He shakes his head slowly, eyes dark, certain.
“No, Bonnie. You’re not.”

“Kai—”

But before I can argue, he mutters something under his breath—words too fast for me to catch, old syllables heavy with power. The air around us crackles, humming with that familiar current that always means him.

Everything happens too fast.

Wind. Pressure. A surge of heat that claws up my throat. Light blinding and white.

“Kai!” I scream his name, reaching for him, but my fingers close on nothing.

Then the ground tilts. My stomach lurches. And when the light fades—

I’m home.

Our house. Mystic Falls.

 My pulse hammers as I look around, disoriented, trembling. The twins kick, restless, sensing my panic.

The silence feels wrong. It’s too still.

I press a hand to my chest, trying to steady my breathing. “Kai,” I whisper into the emptiness. “What did you do?”

***

Damon

Elena lifts the photograph from the dusty mantle, brushing her thumb over it. “You were cute as a kid,” she says softly.

I manage a small smile. “Yeah, well. I peaked early.”

The air feels too still. My throat’s tight, and the weight of the cabin presses in on me—the smell of old wood, the dust, the silence that sounds like it’s waiting for something.

“My mother is dead, Elena,” I tell her. The words come out flat, like if I say them enough times they’ll start to sound true. I have to believe it. Because if not…

If not, then I’ve spent a century mourning a ghost who didn’t even stay dead.

I turn away from the photo, running a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the feeling crawling up my spine.

That’s when the door creaks open.

“Bonnie, I told you there’s no one here,” I start, not bothering to turn. “You don’t need to—”

Something crashes to the floor. A sound that doesn’t belong in this century or in my head.

I spin around.

And she’s standing there.

“Damon?”

Her voice is soft, disbelieving, the same melody I used to hear in dreams and in nightmares.

My body goes cold. The room shrinks.

“Mom?” I whisper.

Every part of me wants to step forward, but I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Because dead people don’t walk through doors. Dead people don’t look at you like that—like you’re still her son.

She takes a small step toward me, and I can’t stop staring.
Her face is the same and not—the same sharp cheekbones, the same eyes that used to catch the light when she laughed. But there’s something off now. Too still. Too careful. Like she’s afraid the moment will collapse if she breathes too hard.

“Damon,” she says again.

It hits somewhere deep, in a place I thought I’d bricked over a long time ago. The sound of my own name in her voice cracks something open in me.

“I buried you,” I whisper. “I—” My throat closes. “You were gone.”

Her lips tremble, the faintest flicker of guilt or grief or whatever the hell passes for it after a century. “I was,” she says softly. “But not the way you think.”

Elena shifts beside me, quiet, careful, like she’s trying not to intrude. My hand is still clenched in hers, but my mind’s a thousand miles away.

“I watched you die,” I say, my voice rough. “You left us. You left Stefan. You left me.”

Lily flinches, just slightly. The same small, human flinch I remember from before she stopped being human.

“I didn’t choose to,” she says. “None of this was meant to—”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “None of it ever is.”

The silence between us is thick and old, and it smells like dust and regret.

Part of me wants to hug her. The other part wants to stake her, just to make the world make sense again.

Elena’s voice breaks through the static in my head. “Damon,” she says gently, “she’s really here.”

I let out a slow breath, finally meeting my mother’s eyes.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

***

Chapter Text

Kai

"Family reunion’ over yet?” I ask as I step inside the cabin, letting the door thud shut behind me. The smell of wood smoke and old pine hits me, but it’s the tight lines of everyone’s faces that actually make my stomach twist.

“Why is everyone so tense?” I add, letting my gaze sweep over the room. Stefan’s absence, the way Lily tenses at my presence, the sharp glance Damon throws me—it all tells me I’ve walked into a storm.

“You didn’t tell us that she was a vampire,” Elena says, voice clipped, eyes narrowing.

“And how exactly did you think she made it to 1903? Alive?” I counter, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. My tone is sharp, but there’s curiosity hidden behind the edge.

“This is not for you, it’s for Stefan,” Damon says, jaw tight, voice low.

Lily perks up, suddenly alert. “What happened to him?” she asks, her voice trembling slightly, like she’s afraid of the answer.

“He’s a Ripper now,” Damon spits out. “Has turned off his humanity switch. And you… you’re going to help get it back on.”

“I cannot leave my family,” she says firmly, hands clenched at her sides.

“I am not here for your family,” Damon says.

“And I am not leaving without them,” she snaps back, voice rising with defiance.

“He is your son!” Damon shouts, the weight of the words hanging in the cabin like a thunderclap.

“And they are my family!” she shouts back, fury and fear tangled together.

I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck. “I cannot perform the spell for more than four people alone,” I state flatly. A lie, obviously—but no one here is a witch, so no one will know.

“Where is Bonnie?” Elena asks suddenly, voice softening, worried.

“She went home,” I reply casually, shrugging. “Said something about cramps.”

There’s a pause, and then the question I’ve been expecting hits. “So if I help you, then I can come back and get my friends?”

I nod, slow, careful although there is no way I am ever freeing a bunch of heretics, they’d paint towns red before sunrise.

***

Bonnie

He’s grinning at me like he hasn’t just spent the last hour baiting my temper for sport — that easy, infuriating smile that makes me want to light him on fire, every inch of that smug face, those eyes that pretend to be harmless — liar.

Heat crawls under my skin and I feel the urge to do something spectacular and very, very final.

“You look good in my sweatshirt and those tiny shorts,” he says, voice soft and dangerous, as if he’s confessing something holy. “Makes me want to ravish you, Bonbon.” He reaches for my arm like it’s already his.

My laugh is a blade. “Say hi to your house in Portland for me,” I snap, and yank my sleeve down over my knuckles as if to hide how much his words land. The light through the window makes him look younger than he is, which is somehow worse.

“You can’t be mad at me for keeping you safe — vampire locked up that long would’ve been hungry,” he says, shrugging, as if locking someone up is a favor, as if the world is a puzzle he gets to rearrange.

“I am not a damsel,” I tell him, each word measured. My fists clench at my sides. The babies shift inside me, a small, private rebellion.

He smiles — that coy, unreadable thing that always makes my stomach do stupid flips. “And I am not a knight, Bonnie. But these people? They make Stefan look like some saintly goat. Heretics are not to be meddled with.” His tone goes flat and sharp. For a breath he’s all teeth and purpose.

“I can take care of myself. And the twins too,” I say. I don’t beg. I don’t plead. I state facts. It’s a line in the sand I mean to hold.

He studies me like he’s cataloguing every small defiant thing about me — the way my jaw tightens, the way my hand rests unconsciously below my ribs. His fingers hover near my wrist, almost grazing. I hate and love the electricity when he’s near; I hate and love how safe he makes me feel. “You always were full of surprises,” he murmurs, half fondness, half challenge. “Fine. Be stubborn. It’s…cute, Fireheart.”

Cute. The word tastes like ash. The nickname rolls out of him like a secret, something he’s tasted before speaking.

I do not like both.

“Don’t keep things from me like that,” I say, voice low and sharp. My eyes lock on his like I’m daring him to lie. “Don’t make decisions that put me—or the twins—on the end of your cliff, Kai.”

He blinks, genuinely—one small, guilty motion that makes my chest clench. For a second he looks almost boyish, like that Kai. “Okay,” he says, slow. “Fine.”

He moves before I can brace. One step, two; his shoulder brushes mine and the room narrows to the space between our faces. His hand finds my wrist and this time he doesn’t hover—he holds. Not possessive, not quite; steady, an anchor. My pulse bangs against my teeth.

“I won’t keep things from you,” he murmurs, close enough that I can smell the faint pork rinds and something sweeter—citrus, maybe—from his breath. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

I open my mouth to tell him that words aren’t enough, that promises bent the way he makes them never stay straight. Before I can, he leans forward and kisses me.

It’s not theatrical. It’s not the rough, claiming thing he does when he wants to prove a point. It’s softer, surprising—an apology folded into pressure, a short, careful press of lips that says more than his explanations ever would. For a beat I try to pull away—anger a reflex, pride a shield—but the babies hiccup against my ribs and the sound of them steadies something in me.

His thumb brushes my cheek, warm and sure. When he pulls back, his breath fans over my mouth. “There,” he says, voice small in a way that makes me want to wrap him in blankets and hide him from the world. “Honesty. Starting now.”

“You say that and mean it,” I tell him, keeping my hands clenched so I don’t steal his shirt again. My throat is thick. “No more surprises that involve locking people up without telling me. Ok locked up people I do not know. No more ‘I did what I had to’ with a shrug.”

He nods once, as if that is the hardest thing he’s ever agreed to. Then, impossibly, he smiles—soft, almost shy—and something in his eyes shifts from mischief to something like reverence. “Okay. No more secrets. I’ll tell you everything. Even the stupid stuff.”

“You’ll tell me even the stuff you think will make me hate you?” My voice is quiet; I don’t know if I want the answer.

He hesitates. For a wild second I see three things in him: the man who plans and fights, the echo of another who aches differently, and the shadow of whatever Luke left behind. He swallows. “Even that,” he says. “Even if it hurts you. Especially if it hurts you.”

I let my hand fall into his. “Then start talking, Kai. Because I’m tired of finding out things after the fact.”

He pulls me a fraction closer, forehead resting against mine, and for a second the fight drains from me. “I will,” he promises. “Right after I make sure you’re okay. Right after I make sure the twins are okay. Right after I make sure you’re still only mine to aggravate, Fireheart.”

A corner of my mouth twitches despite myself. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

He laughs—a real, delighted sound—and presses another brief kiss to my temple. “Noted, Bonnie,” he says. “No petnames… for now.”

***

Damon

“I thought you were dead,” I say again, slower this time, because it still doesn’t make sense. “All those years, I mourned you. Buried you. And you were alive? Having tea with your little vampire club in 1903?”

She looks at me with that same calm, unreadable expression — the one that makes my skin crawl. “I was trapped, Damon. I didn’t choose to stay away.”

“Right,” I scoff. “Because prison worlds come with room service, don’t they?” I tilt my head, studying her. “You could’ve reached out. Found a way. You’re a Salvatore — guilt-tripping people into doing the impossible is practically genetic.”

Her lips curve faintly, but it’s not a smile. “I thought you were gone,” she says. “You and Stefan both. When I lost control, I thought I’d lost everything.”

I look at her — really look — and it hits me that she’s not lying. She believes her version of events. But the problem is, she doesn’t sound like my mother. She sounds like someone’s idea of her.

“Yeah, well,” I mutter, “you didn’t lose everything. You just misplaced your humanity and traded your sons for a bunch of homicidal roommates.”

She stiffens. “They’re my family.”

“Your family?” I bark out a laugh. “Lady, your family is standing right here, trying to figure out why you’d rather play house with a coven of psychos than even look at us.”

She doesn’t flinch. She just sighs, as if this conversation bores her. “You wouldn’t understand, Damon. They needed me.”

I feel Elena flinch beside me. Her hand brushes my arm. “Damon, please,” she whispers. “Let’s not do this now.” But I can’t stop.

“Funny,” I say, leaning in, voice low. “So does Stefan.”

That gets her attention.

“He flipped his humanity switch,” I continue, eyes narrowing. “He’s out there ripping hearts out for fun, and I thought maybe, just maybe, seeing Mommy Dearest might remind him how to care again.”

Her gaze softens just a little. “And you think I can bring him back?”

“I think he’ll at least stop killing long enough to hear your voice,” I say. Then, quieter, “He was your favorite, remember?”

There’s a flicker in her eyes — guilt, nostalgia, I can’t tell.

“Please,” I add, though the word feels wrong in my mouth. “Just talk to him.”

She hesitates, then nods once. “For you,” she says.

But I hear it. The lie under it. She’s not doing this for me. She’s doing it for what she’s lost, for the illusion of control. And somehow, that hurts worse than if she’d said no.

Still, I give her my best crooked smile. “Great. Family therapy, vampire edition. What could go wrong?”

***

Damon

Stefan’s standing there — arms crossed, eyes dead, that same cold smirk carved into his face like marble.
Lily looks small in front of him. Smaller than I ever remember her. She’s wringing her hands like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to reach for him.

“Stefan,” she whispers. “My darling boy.”

He tilts his head, unimpressed. “You’re not real,” he says. “You’re a trick. Damon’s latest stunt to make me feel bad.”

“Stefan, it’s me.” Her voice shakes. “I thought I’d lost you. Both of you.”

He gives a short, humourless laugh. “You did.”

Lily takes a step closer. “You have no idea how sorry I am—”

“Sorry?” he cuts in, all venom and ice. “You abandoned us. You left two scared boys with a monster for a father. And now you show up centuries later playing mother of the year? Spare me.”

 I cannot keep quiet. Not when Stefan looks at her like that — like she’s just another ghost to bury.

“You know what, Stef?” I say quietly. “Maybe she deserves it. Maybe she deserves to hear what it sounds like when her own son doesn’t give a damn.”

Lily’s eyes fill with tears. Real ones. And that’s when I get the idea.
It’s cruel. Desperate. But that’s what family brings out in us — the ugliest parts dressed up as love.

“Mom,” I say, meeting her gaze. “Play along. Trust me.”

She hesitates, but something in my voice must convince her. She nods, barely.

Then, with a trembling sigh, she clutches her chest and staggers.

Stefan freezes.

“Mom?”

She crumples, gasping. “Damon— I— I can’t—”

“Elena, get back,” I mutter, playing the part. But my eyes are on Stefan. His smirk falters. The predator look slips. For the first time, there’s panic.

He drops to his knees beside her. “Mom! Hey—hey, stay with me!” His voice cracks, human again.

Lily’s fingers brush his cheek. “My sweet boy…” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

Stefan’s breathing ragged now. “No—no, you can’t— you can’t die again. Not again.”

Something shatters. I can feel it. The air shifts, the numbness in him breaks.

And then — it’s there. The horror. The guilt. The love. His humanity flooding back in, hitting him like sunlight after too long in the dark.

Stefan clutches her, face buried in her shoulder, and for the first time in too long, he sobs.

I exhale, tension bleeding out of me. The sound of it almost hurts — that raw, strangled grief of someone waking up inside his own nightmare.

Elena turns to me, eyes wide and wet. “Damon…”

I shrug, forcing a smirk. “Told you it’d work.”

But my throat’s tight, and I can’t look at Lily — not when she’s holding him like that, not when part of me still wants to believe she could have loved me the same way.

So I look away, shove my hands in my pockets, and say the only thing that keeps me standing:
“Welcome back, brother.”

***

Chapter Text

You can't, you can't catch me now
I'm comin' like a storm into your town
You can't, you can't catch me now
I'm higher than the hopes that you brought down
You can't, you can't catch me now

Bonnie

“What is that?” I ask him.

He doesn’t reply.

The words hang there, useless against the strange hum in the air. I know I’m a witch — I’ve seen my share of horrific, impossible things — but the image before me still punches the breath from my lungs. Kai is suspended midair, eyes closed, the moonlight carving silver shapes across his face. His lips are moving silently, too fast, and something in the air ripples around him — like the room itself is holding its breath.

I scream before I can stop myself.

His eyes snap open, unfocused at first — then they lock on me, sharp and too bright. He drops to the ground in one fluid motion, shoulders heaving once before he straightens, expression blank.

I force myself to look away from his face and down at the thing glinting near his hand. “What do you need a dagger for?” I ask, my voice small, breaking.

“It’s not mine,” he says flatly, already crouching to pick it up.

I move faster, snatching it before he can. It feels wrong the moment I touch it — the hilt is icy, the stone set into it swirling with slow, liquid movement, crimson and alive, as if there’s something breathing under its surface.

“Kai…”

He rips it from my grasp, eyes dark. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“Not until you tell me what that is.”

I cross my arms even as I start shivering. The floorboards are freezing beneath my feet. I should’ve brought a robe, or at least the blanket, when I noticed the empty spot beside me — but paranoia’s a bitch, and the second I saw he was gone, I’d followed the trail of cold air through the hall like it meant something.

“It’s a phoenix stone,” he mutters finally, ushering me down the hall with a hand at my shoulder. “Traps the souls of vampires.”

The contact should warm me, but it doesn’t. I’m trembling too hard. “Why are you so cold?” he asks, frowning, rubbing my arm with the hand not holding the dagger.

“Why do you have it?” I whisper.

“Stole it from sissy’s boyfriend. He’s got this ridiculous collection of relics.”

I blink at him. “You have a sister who’s alive?”

He smirks faintly, tired. “Two, actually. And yes.”

That shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does — but it does. I’d thought he’d murdered them all. I realize, suddenly, how little I really know about him, about his coven, about anything outside of this strange, dangerous gravity that keeps pulling us together.

“So why do you have it?” I ask again, quieter now.

“I’m going to destroy it.”

The words make my stomach twist. “There’s no way to destroy those things. Imbued items don’t just die — they kill the one who tries.”

He tucks the blanket around me and looks down with that crooked half-smile that used to mean danger and now just means him.

“You sound like some all-knowing Bennet,” he murmurs.

“And you sound like someone who’s going to get himself killed,” I whisper back.

For a second, neither of us moves. The moonlight slips across his face again, softening everything except his eyes — and there, just for a heartbeat, I think I see it: fear.

***

Lily

The moment Stefan’s sobs fade into silence, I rise slowly, still trembling from the act. For a second, I let myself look at him — my boy, my sweet, broken boy — and something in me cracks. But it’s not enough. One son doesn’t make a family whole.

“I did it,” I whisper, mostly to myself. “I brought him back.”

Damon turns, wary. “Yeah, congratulations, Mother of the Year. You managed not to traumatize him again.”

I ignore the sting in his tone. My eyes are far away now, past the cabin walls, past this fragile little reunion. “They’ll be wondering where I am,” I murmur.

“They?” Damon repeats.

“My family,” I say simply. “The ones who were trapped with me in the 1903 world. They need me, Damon. I promised I’d come back for them.”

He stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “You mean your merry band of blood addicts? Yeah, they seemed super well-adjusted. Maybe they can form a choir or a support group.”

“You don’t understand.” My voice trembles now, but it’s not weakness — it’s urgency. “They’re not monsters. They were lost. Just like I was. Kai can bring them back.”

At the name, something dark flickers across Damon’s face. “Kai?” He says it like it tastes foul. “You’re joking. You want me to take you to him?”

“Yes.” I step closer, eyes wild. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. He opened the door once — he can do it again. He can free them. All I need is to find him.”

He scoffs. “You do realize that Kai's family is the reason you were trapped there in the first place, right? Psycho witch coven, ring any bells?”

But I keep going, words spilling out faster, more desperate now: “He’s powerful, Damon. Dangerous, yes — but clever. I’ve seen him bend the world itself. You don’t understand, I need him. They’re waiting for me.”

Damon tilts his head, his voice suddenly quiet, almost pitying. “You’ve lost it. You finally got out of that hellhole, got your son back, and the first thing you want to do is break bread with the maniac who killed his own family?”

“They are my family!” I shout, voice cracking. “Beau, Nora, Mary Louise — they’re all I had for over a century. You can’t ask me to just abandon them.”

Damon’s jaw tightens. For a second, I think he might understand, but then his eyes harden again. “You know, I used to think Stefan was the codependent one in the family. Guess it runs in the bloodline.”

I grab his arm — too fast, too rough — and he freezes, meeting my eyes. “Please,” I whisper. “You said you wanted to help me make things right. Let me do that. Take me to Kai. Help me bring them home.”

There’s a flicker of something — pity, maybe guilt — before Damon pulls his arm back.

“You really think Kai Parker gives a damn about you?” he says his voice notches higher.

I shake my head, trembling. “No but he won’t hurt me. He owes me.”

Damon exhales sharply, half a laugh, half disbelief. “You really are his kind of crazy.”

But my eyes are already far away again, filled with conviction. “You’ll see,” I murmur. 

And when I look up, there’s something unholy in my calm — the same serene delusion that used to terrify me as a child when my mother went quiet before a storm.

Damon must see it too, because for the first time that night, he looks genuinely uneasy.

“Fine,” he says finally, voice low and sharp. “You want to find Kai? We’ll find him. But don’t come crying to me when your little vampire family reunion turns into a bloodbath.”

I smile faintly, serene again. “Thank you, Damon. You won’t regret this.”

But as I walk away, Stefan’s soft voice cuts through the air:

“She will.”

And Damon doesn’t argue.

***

Damon

The drive to Portland is long enough for me to start regretting every decision I’ve ever made — especially the one involving her in the passenger seat.
Lily sits rigid, hands folded neatly in her lap like she’s at Sunday mass, eyes fixed out the window. She hasn’t said much since Stefan. Just murmured things under her breath, names I don’t recognize, promises to people who aren’t here.

When we pull into the street, I slow down.
“This is it,” I say, scanning the familiar stretch of road. “Kai’s little murder shack.”

Except—

There’s nothing.
No house. No driveway. Just empty lots and trees whispering in the wind.

“The hell—” I mutter, cutting the engine.

Lily’s already out of the car, her movements sharp, frantic. “This can’t be right.” She’s pacing, eyes darting across the treeline like the house might flicker back into existence if she just stares hard enough.

“Oh, it’s right,” I say, stepping beside her. “It’s just invisible. Cloaking spell.” I raise my voice toward the nothing. “Nice trick, Kai! Real mature! Maybe throw in a neon sign next time that says ‘Go away, Salvatore.’”

Lily turns to me, desperation cracking her voice. “He’s here. I know he is.”

“Lady, if there’s one thing Kai’s good at, it’s disappearing.” I fold my arms. “Guess he’s not taking visitors today.”

She spins, face pale. “No… no, you don’t understand. He promised.”

There it is again — that tone. The same blind loyalty she used on Stefan when he was ten and still believed in bedtime stories.

I sigh. “Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, but psychopaths aren’t exactly known for their customer service.”

Her eyes flash. “You don’t know him.”

“Oh, trust me,” I say, stepping closer. “I know him way too well. He gutted his siblings and oh yeah — tried to kill Bonnie about three hundred times. Ringing any bells?”

Something flickers in her gaze — guilt, maybe, or pity. “He promised,” she insists.

“Right,” I mutter. “And I’m the Tooth Fairy.”

She doesn’t answer. She’s already moving again, scanning the field like she can sense the ghost of a place that isn’t there. And the worst part? Maybe she can.

After a minute, she freezes, her head snapping toward me. “Bonnie,” she says suddenly. “If Kai’s hiding, he’ll be near her. He always is.”

The way she says it makes my skin crawl.

“Why would he be near Bonnie?” I ask slowly.

“Because she matters to him,” Lily says simply, like it’s obvious. “Like my family matters to me. He’d keep her close. One foot in the world he wants, one in the one he can’t have.”

I blink. “That’s… disturbingly insightful.”

She ignores me. “Take me to her house.”

“Fine,” I mutter. “But if he’s not there, we’re done. I’m not spending the night chasing invisible houses with your psycho pen pal.”

She doesn’t answer — just slides back into the car, that eerie calm settling over her again like a veil.

When we reach the street where Bonnie’s house should be, my stomach drops.

Same story. No house. No trace. Just the faint shimmer of magic in the air — the kind that makes the hair on the back of your neck rise.

Lily steps forward, touching the space where the front gate should be. “He’s cloaked them both,” she whispers, almost reverent. “Her and him. He’s protecting her.”

I stare at the emptiness and feel something cold twist in my chest. “Protecting her? Or keeping her?”

She turns to me, eyes glassy but glowing with conviction. “You can’t tell the difference when you love someone that much.”

And for a second, I swear — there’s something familiar in the way she says it.

Something I’ve seen before.

In me.

***

Chapter Text

Bonnie

Lily’s voice cuts through the night like glass.
“Why is she screaming at us?” I ask, squinting at her from the porch steps. She’s pacing at the edge of the yard, yelling, pointing, her face twisted in fury. But her eyes… her eyes aren’t focused on me.

Kai sits beside me, looking infuriatingly calm, one arm draped over his knee, the other holding the melting cone he’s been pretending to eat. “Well,” he says, smiling as if this is all a show for his amusement, “it’s because she can’t see us.”

I pause, spoon halfway to my mouth. “What?”

He licks a drip of vanilla from his thumb. “She can’t see us, Bon. None of them can.”

My frown deepens. “What are you talking about?”

He glances at me, blue eyes glinting with that familiar mix of mischief and menace. “They can’t even see the house.”

I look back toward Lily. She’s screaming into empty air, her movements sharp and frantic, like she’s trying to claw her way through an invisible wall. My stomach knots. The house behind us is still and dark, no light bleeding through the curtains — but somehow, I feel the pulse of his magic everywhere, like static in the air, humming through the boards beneath my feet.

“You’re insane,” I tell him, standing now, the uneaten ice cream dripping down my fingers. “She’s a ripper, Kai. Once this fades, she’ll rip your throat out.”

He laughs softly, not moving. “That’s the thing, Bonbon,” he says, tipping his head to one side, eyes dancing. “The spell doesn’t fade.”

I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

“It lasts indefinitely,” he says, his voice low, almost proud. “Or at least until I want it gone.”

The porch light flickers, responding to the energy in his words. Somewhere beyond the cloaking barrier, Lily screams again, her voice swallowed by the wind.

I look at him — really look — and realize he’s telling the truth. The cloaking spell is woven deep, invisible threads laced through the air like a living heartbeat.

I hate that part of me — the witch part — recognizes the beauty of it.

“Indefinitely?” I whisper.

He meets my eyes, grin curving slow and dangerous. “Guess we’re alone, sweetheart. Just you and me, and a world that can’t find us.”

The way he says it makes my skin prickle — half terror, half something I refuse to name.

***

It’s been two days since Lily left.
Two days of quiet too heavy to feel like peace.

Kai is sprawled on the couch, tossing grapes into his mouth and missing half of them. The house still hums with the echo of his cloaking spell—like static in my ears that won’t fade.

I lean against the doorframe. “I need to see Elena.”

He doesn’t even look up. “No, you don’t.”

I take a step closer. “Caroline’s humanity is still off. She might be going on a killing spree. and—”

“—and?” He rolls another grape between his fingers, smiling that careless smile that always makes me want to throw something. “Let her. You and I both know she’s had it coming. Maybe she’ll work through some issues.”

I glare. “This isn’t funny. I’m not sitting here while everything burns down out there.”

“‘Out there’ can’t even see us,” he reminds me lazily. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Well, you also didn’t die when Lily showed up in one of her fun ‘ripper’ moods, so maybe a little gratitude?”

I fold my arms. “Drop the spell, Kai.”

He sighs, mock offended. “Bonbon. Always rushing toward other people’s problems. You ever think about yourself?”

“That’s rich coming from the man who killed his entire family because they didn’t clap for him loud enough.”

The smile fades. For a heartbeat, his expression is unreadable — something old and sharp beneath it. It was a low blow and we both know it but I am too adamant on leaving this house.

“You want to go?” he says softly. “Fine. Go. But don’t expect me to come save you when you get yourself killed for a Salvatore problem.”

I move past him toward the door. “I’m not asking you to save me.”

His voice rises, sharper now. “Then what about them?”

That stops me. Just for a second.

Then the pain hits.

It’s sudden, brutal — low in my stomach, curling and hot. My breath stumbles out of me, and I double over, grabbing the edge of the table.

“Bonnie?” He’s on his feet in an instant. “What is it?”

“I—” The word breaks apart as another pulse rips through me, stronger this time. It feels like something tugging from the inside, pulling at my core, my magic, my babies.

“The twins,” I gasp. “They’re—something’s wrong—”

Kai’s hand finds my shoulder, steadying me. “They’re not doing this on their own,” he says quickly, eyes unfocused, like he’s sensing the weave of magic. “Someone’s pulling on them. A spell. Big one.”

Another jolt hits and I cry out, gripping his wrist. The air around us trembles; the walls hum.

“Whoever it is,” he mutters, “they’re using the connection—to you—to power it.”

“Stop it!” I manage to yell, half plea, half command.

“I’m trying!” He closes his eyes, one hand splayed over my stomach, the other glowing faintly with blue-white light. I can feel the counterspell forming, his magic wrapping around mine — rough, electric, desperate.

The pull doesn’t stop, but it eases, just enough for me to breathe.

Kai’s forehead presses against mine, both of us shaking. “Two days,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Two days of pretending the world couldn’t find us, and now it’s clawing its way back in.”

I can barely speak. “Then stop keeping me here.”

His eyes open—tired, wild, vulnerable in a way he never lets anyone see.

“Bonbon,” he says quietly. “If you walk out that door right now, you’ll walk straight into whatever’s calling them and I can't let that happen, can't lose you or them.”

The hum of the spell thrums louder, like a heartbeat through the floorboards. Outside, the night wind carries the faintest whisper of distant chanting.

Someone is looking for me.
For them.

***

The yard is a blade of shadow and moonlight. My hands are still trembling from the pull in my belly, from the way the twins flinched like something tugged on their strings. I step forward because I can't stay inside and watch everything I love be used like kindling.

Kai's fingers are trembling too, but he makes them steady as he loosens the last knot of the cloaking weave. The threads fall away from the air like dust. The world exhales all at once — streetlamps bloom, windows blink awake, the house's edges snap back into the town's sight like a photograph re-developed.

Lily's face changes the moment the world returns. Relief flashes — raw and bright — and for half a breath I think maybe she's human again, maybe she's come back to us. Then she turns toward me with that look I know so well: hunger sharpened into threat.

“Free my family,” she says, soft as poison. “Or I will hurt them myself.”

There is a witch with her — small, dark-hooded, hands moving in a motion I don't recognize. She isn't saying anything; she lets Lily do the speaking and the fury. The calm of the woman unnerves me more than Lily’s screams. People scream when they're out of control. Silence is always the sign of someone who knows how to get their hands clean.

“You would dare betray your own?” I hear myself spit the words before I can pull them back. It isn't aimed at Kai. It can't be. My voice is a broken thing; it trembles with every memory of what betrayal feels like. The witch doesn't react.

"I will do the spell," Kai says.

His jaw tightens, something shadowing over his features that I haven't seen since the worst of his past. He forced the world away for us. I can feel the warmth of that selfish kindness under my skin and it makes me ache in a way that is only softened because he is the one who gave it.

***

Kai’s hand is still warm in mine. For a breath I think everything will hold: that whatever choice he makes will be the one that keeps us whole.

Then he looks at me with that terrible, deliberate calm he uses before he breaks a thing to make it better.

“I have to go,” he says. The words are small and flat, as if he’s telling me the weather. My gut drops. “What?” I ask, stupidly. “Kai—no. You don’t—”

“You can’t,” I say, but he’s already moving. There is a small bag on the table where he keeps the things he’ll need — a couple of blood bags, syringes, the little coils of his spare charms wrapped around them like talismans. My hand closes on the back of his wrist. “You can’t go alone.”

He lets out a breath that might be a laugh without humor. “I’m not alone,” he says. “You’re with me. Where I go, you go. You know that.”

I do know it — too well. Knowing doesn’t make it easier. I think of Lily’s voice and the phoenix-stone; of my babies’ tugs; of a world that, hours ago, couldn’t find us. Now he intends to go to a prison world to fetch dangerous men and women into our life, into everyone's lives.

He lifts the bags of blood like it’s paper. “They need blood to revive from their desiccation.” He says it plain, clinical, like a man reading from a grim grocery list.  He looks at me, and I see the flash of shame he didn’t bother to hide. “I’ll bring as few as I can. I won’t drown it in commerce. I’ll take what revives them and nothing more.”

I taste copper at the back of my throat, like a premonition. “You stole blood?” My voice breaks in a way I can’t shove back together. “You can’t—Kai, you can’t traffic lives like supplies.”

He folds his hands around mine and the strength radiates through, steadying in a way that is not the same as safety. “I’ll be surgical,” he murmurs. “I’ll only use what’s necessary. I promised you no more bargains made in the dark. This isn’t a bargain. This is sabotage.”

Sabotage, he calls it. I want to hate him for the choices he makes on my behalf, for the way his love keeps trying to pay the world in violence and favors. But the thing about loving someone who has always lived by extremes is that those extremes become part of the pact. I curl my fingers into his and feel the tremor of his resolve. It’s contagious.

“What if you can’t come back?” I whisper the thing I’m most afraid to say aloud.

He looks at me for a long time. The moon lines his face in silver. “I will come back,” he says, and the way he says it is not a promise I can cash. “But if I don’t…” He swallows, and then adds in a voice that belongs to the man who stole me whole, “—you have to keep them safe. No more bargaining. No more letting anyone steal what you love.”

I want to throw myself at him, to stop him with fists and tears and magic. Instead I reach up and kiss him — a quick, raw thing. It tastes like orange and cinnamon and something braced for loss. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” I say, and the words are the only prayer I have.

"I will try," he says, kisses me on the forehead and leaves.

***

Chapter Text

Kai

The plan seems foolproof. Safe. Simple.
Get in, get out.

Yeah, well—nothing stays simple when you’ve got a ripper staring you down like you’re the main course while you feed blood to her hungry little Heretic family.

For a second—just a second—I almost second-guess myself.

Sure, I could snap Lily’s neck, turn invisible, and leave her in this dusty hellhole to rot with her starved half-breed children. Honestly? I wish I could. But who knew rippers were so damn resourceful.

Resourceful as in: find a witch, compel her, and make her craft matching bracelets that magically tether me to said ripper so I can’t escape or ditch her, because only the creator can remove them.

“No hard feelings, I just need to make sure you free my family,” Lily had said, voice thin, almost bored.

No hard feelings?
Damn that witch.
I’m going to find her and make her pay. Slowly. Methodically. With flair.

So here I am—Kai Parker, siphoner extraordinaire—reduced to feeding blood bags to a nest of half-feral Heretics. While I should be at home… with Bonnie.

Bonnie. Curled against me, tub after tub of ice cream, crinkled laughter, sticky fingers, soft kisses she pretends she doesn’t mean.

I shake the thought off. Hard. Not now.

I step back as far as I can, forcing distance between me and them. One of the Heretics—a tall, gaunt one with eyes like a starving wolf—lunges in my direction.

“Call off your dogs,” I snap at Lily.

“They are my family!” she shouts.

“And I don’t care,” I shoot back, voice flat. The Phoenix Stone presses against my thigh, hot and insistent, as if begging me to use it.
But if I try anything… Lily will rip me apart before I can blink. And my twins—Bonnie’s and mine—will die with me.

And isn’t that the hilarious irony? I almost feel bad about refusing to link my life to Bonnie’s—merge our covens, bond our magic, bind our deaths—so if one of us dies the world doesn’t implode.

Almost.

“That is Kai, and he is here to set us free,” Lily announces.

Yeah. Right. As if I came willingly. More like magically blackmailed with a friendship bracelet from hell.

“The coven would never free us,” a girl mutters. She’s right.

“Okay, let’s get going,” I sigh, like I’m bored out of my mind, even though they’re practically salivating at the smell of my magic-soaked blood. Let one of them bite me—they’ll regret it. I poisoned my blood ages ago. Petty? Maybe. Smart? Absolutely.

I begin the spell. Magic flares, sharp and clean, flooding the air in a rush of white heat. The familiar surge lifts my feet for a split second—the world bends—and finally the prison world dissolves.

Thank God.

When I open my eyes, we’re standing in Mystic Falls again. Lily takes her sweet time untying the bracelet, fingers lingering, and the Heretics are eyeing me like dessert they’re not sure they’re allowed to touch.

Sinking my blade into their throats will make this worth it, I think.
Or, you know, trapping them all in the Phoenix Stone. Either works.

I’m halfway through the fantasy when everything happens at once.

Distracted by the delicious thought of their screaming souls trapped for eternity, I don’t see Lily move. Don’t see the shift in her eyes.

I only feel the cold sting of metal as she rams the Phoenix Stone into my stomach.

For a heartbeat, I expect pain. Just pain.
The Stone is designed for vampires—why would it affect me?

But no.
No, I’m wrong. Horribly, stupidly wrong.

Something claws into me—cold fingers, rotten fingers—dragging me downward as if the floor has turned to water. I choke, unable to breathe, unable to scream. My body slumps, soulless, empty, useless, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

Darkness crushes in.
Hands drag me deeper.
Voices scream inside the void.

And the last coherent thought I have—before the Stone swallows me whole—is her.

Bonnie.

***

Bonnie

I hope Kai doesn’t actually expect me to sit here and wait for him like some obedient little housewife.
Not with Caroline out there.
Not with Lily out there.
Not with danger circling like vultures and my magic still out of reach.

So I pull on his sweater—his sweater—and pretend it’s just because it’s warm.
Pretend it’s not because the twins calm when wrapped in familiar magic.
Pretend it’s not because it smells like him: cedar, metal, burned sugar, something sharp beneath it all.

My stomach shifts, the twins restless. Like they know something’s coming.

I open the door.

And there she is.

Lucy Bennett.
And next to her—my mother.

My entire body freezes, stiff and useless, like a deer in headlights. My lungs forget how to function, air scraping at the back of my throat but refusing to go in. The hallway sways. The baby kicks.

Lucy moves first, stepping into my space, her voice low and steady:
“Bonnie. Breathe. Focus on me.”

There’s a sharp ringing in my ears—high, metallic, like needles scraping glass. It spikes, spikes, spikes—then dissolves as I finally suck in a full breath.

“I see you kept them,” Abby says gently, nodding at my belly.

I nod back, stiff. My tongue won’t work.
What is she doing here?
I don’t want her here.
I don’t want any of this. I want to scream until walls crack.

“Let her in,” Lucy says.

No.
No, I don’t want—
But my voice betrays me: “Come in.”
Numb, mechanical. The curse I carry latching onto moments like this.

We step back and let my mother cross the threshold.

“She can help us,” Lucy murmurs.

Help.
Help. My mother.

I stare at Abby Bennett like she’s a stranger wearing my mother’s skin. I feel… hollow. Not rage, not hatred—not anything. Just an empty vacuum where those feelings should be. A numbness so complete it terrifies me.

“She can’t even do magic,” I manage.

“She doesn’t need to,” Lucy replies. “The spell requires her blood.”

Oh.

So this was intentional.
Lucy wanted us to meet. Wanted me to sit across from the woman who abandoned me. Wanted a scene. A conversation. Something raw.

She could have asked Abby for a vial of blood. Could have texted. Could have left it on the porch.

But no—awkward, painful confrontation is apparently the bonus round of every Bennett spell.

“Okay,” I say, voice thin.

We sit on the floor in the living room. The candles flicker around us, tall and white, shadows climbing the walls like ghosts. My mother sits across from me, knees pulled close, eyes flicking over me and away, over me and away.

Lucy instructs her: “Your palm.”

Abby hesitates. Then holds it out.

Lucy slices it cleanly with a ritual blade. Blood wells up, dark and slow. She drips it onto my stomach. The first drop hits warm, sinking into my skin like ink.

She begins chanting. Latin, mixed with something older, older than the Bennett line, older than anything I should be carrying inside me.

The sound washes over me—soft at first, then rhythmic, then heavy. My eyelids droop, the words thickening around me like fog.

Then—pain.

A sharp sting across my own palm. I gasp, looking down. She’s sliced me too, the blood mixing with Abby’s and glowing faintly.

Every candle flares brighter. Too bright.
White-hot.

Then—darkness crushes in.

Follow their heartbeats, Bonnie, Lucy’s voice echoes, floating somewhere above or below reality. Disembodied. Disconnected.

Thrum.
Thrum.

I can’t see.
I can’t see anything.

Follow their heartbeats.

Thrum-thrum.
Steady. Twin pulses. Not mine. Theirs.

I close my eyes—what does it matter, I’m blind anyway—and let the tug pull me. It feels like being hooked behind the ribs, dragged forward through thick water. Something tries to pull me back—a force, cold and angry—but the heartbeats keep pulling me forward.

“Good job,” Lucy’s voice says faintly. “Now reach your hands out.”

The pulling sharpens. Something claws at my back. Darkness swirls. Pressure tightens against my chest. I reach out into nothing.

White light detonates in front of me.
Blinding.
Severing.

I blink.

I’m back in my house.

The candles are melted down to puddles. Smoke coils in the air.

Lucy is on the floor—collapsed—eyes rolled back into her skull, blood leaking from her nose in a dark stream.

My heart stutters.

That is not good.
That is very not good.

“Lucy?” I whisper.

No response. Her body twitches once—violent, sharp—and I drop to my knees beside her.

Abby pushes in next to me, her face pale. “We need to heal her.”

Of course. Vampire blood.

Abby bites into her wrist without hesitation—something I’ve never seen, something that makes my stomach turn because it reminds me she isn’t… human anymore. She tilts Lucy’s head back and lets her blood drip into Lucy’s mouth.

For a moment, everything is still.

Then Lucy convulses.

Not just a shudder—violence. Viscera. Her whole body bows upward like she’s being electrocuted. She coughs once, twice, then violently retches Abby’s blood back out, splattering the floor with red and bile.

“Lucy!” I try to hold her shoulders, but she thrashes too hard.

This… this is wrong. Vampire blood heals everything supernatural. Everything. Except—

Except her.

Abby’s eyes widen with a fear I’ve never seen on her face before. “We need to take her to the hospital. Now.”

We half-carry, half-drag Lucy to the car. She’s sweating cold, gasping for air like she’s drowning. Her skin has gone grey-blue. Every breath rattles.

The drive is a blur. Bright lights. Sharp turns. Abby shouting for help as nurses swarm. A gurney. A curtain slamming closed.

Then it’s just me and Abby in a too-bright hallway, the smell of antiseptic and fear burning my nose.

Abby squeezes my shoulder—awkward, unfamiliar, too late. “You should go home, Bonnie. You’re pregnant. This stress isn’t good for the twins.”

I want to argue. I want to stay. But the twins pulse inside me—tired, unsettled, pulling at my magic in soft, frantic rhythms.

“Fine,” I whisper. “Call me the second you hear anything.”

“I will.”

She doesn’t look away from Lucy’s curtained-off room.

I force myself to leave. My legs feel heavy. My throat tight. My head foggy from spell residue and fear.

Outside, the night air hits me like a slap—cold, raw, real.
I wrap Kai’s sweater tighter around me, shivering. It smells like him. Safe. Solid.

Home. I just need to get home. Need to see him. Need to sink into his arms and let myself fall apart. Just for a minute. Just long enough to breathe.

I unlock the door.

“Kai?” I call softly, already picturing him leaning against the counter with that cautious, lopsided smile, pretending he wasn’t worried about me. Already imagining his arms around me, warm and grounding, his mouth in my hair, murmuring something snarky just to make me roll my eyes instead of cry.

“Kai?”

No answer.

The house is silent. Too silent.

A cold prickling crawls up my spine.

“Kai?” I try again, stepping into the living room. His shoes are still by the couch. His jacket is draped over the chair. A half-finished cup of tea is on the table, still faintly warm.

But he’s not here.

A sudden shift in the air makes my skin tighten. The twins kick once—hard—like reacting to something I’m too slow to sense.

“Kai,” I whisper.

Then it hits me.

A hollow. A ripping. A silence where his presence should be—faint, irritating, warm, chaotic, him.
Gone.

Not gone like he left.

Gone like someone yanked his soul off the map.

My knees buckle, and I catch myself on the table. Everything inside me goes cold.

He’s not here.

He’s not anywhere.

Something happened.

And I feel it—like a cord snapping inside my chest.

“Kai…” My voice breaks. “No. No—no—”

The house tilts.

My vision blurs.

He’s gone.

***

Kai

You have got to be kidding me.

May 10th, 1994.

My own private hell.
Again.

I’ve already done this three times—no, more, it’s all blurring together—each loop slipping through my fingers like broken film. Every time I try, really try, not to murder my siblings. I tell myself: This time I’ll be better. This time I’ll be calm. This time I’ll prove I’m not—

But rage doesn’t listen.

Rage comes like a tidal wave: absolute, choking, electric under my skin.

The first time, it starts with me drowning one of my siblings.
Accidentally.
That’s what I told myself.
I jerked back—too fast, too hard—trying to get away from the memory of what I did the real night. But here, in this nightmare the Stone crafted from my brain, everything plays out with perfect cruelty.

I pull away.
A hand slips.
A splash.
Then my sibling is thrashing under the water.

I reach for them—panicked, horrified—and then they’re on me, fingers closing around my throat, eyes full of terror and hatred. I’m choking, drowning, suffocating on guilt and river water, so I do the only thing my body remembers:

I shield myself.

Magic flares—violent, instinctive—and the world goes red.

At least that’s what I told myself.

Even when Jo throws me across the room the second time, when I’m trying to tell her I wouldn’t hurt her—she’s crying, screaming, sobbing—and something inside me snaps, and rage worms its way into every vein.

So this time—loop four, or five, or twenty—I don’t go inside. I don’t talk to them. I don’t breathe near them.

I back away from the house the moment the loop starts.
Then I run.

Into the woods behind our home—familiar, damp, mossy, suffocating. My breath hitches. My pulse thrums with fear that’s too sharp, too loud. I hide behind fallen logs, behind rotting trees, in the hollowed-out underside of old roots.

But they always find me.

Every loop, every time—they hunt me down like I’m the monster. And I guess in this place, in the Stone, I am.

They scream at me.
They attack.
Fists, magic, shouts—
And I defend myself. Because in the Stone, defending yourself is the same as killing.

Maybe that’s the point.

The seventh loop, a bear mauls me to death.
Just—tears me apart.
Huge, heavy, snarling thing. I don’t even fight. I just let it happen. For a second, I actually hope it ends the loop forever.

It doesn’t.

I wake right back on the same morning. Same sun. Same breeze. Same dread.

May 10th, 1994.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The days smear together. My hands shake. My mind fractures. I start forgetting which sibling dies in which loop. I start laughing when I shouldn’t. I start screaming when nothing’s happening.

And somewhere in the middle of loop twenty-five, with Jo’s hands wrapped around my throat and my own magic sparking out of control, something breaks loose inside me.

Not rage.

Not fear.

Something deeper.

“Bonnie!”
My voice tears out of me, raw and desperate.
“Bonnie—Bonnie—BONNIE!”

Like her name could anchor me.
Like her voice could reach into the Stone.
Like she could pull me out of this nightmare.

But it doesn’t matter.
It never matters.

Because it always ends the same way—
with their blood on my hands.

And then it resets.

And I do it all again.

***

Bonnie

I wait for him.

I wait and I wait and I wait.

At first, it feels temporary. Like he’s late. Like he got distracted. Like any second now Kai will burst through the door with a stupid grin, some sarcastic comment on his lips, magic buzzing off him like static.

But the seconds rot into minutes.
Minutes drag into hours.
Days pile on top of each other until a week passes.

Lucy finally wakes.

She’s pale, bruised under the eyes, still shaky when she sits up. But she smiles at me—soft, tired. “It worked,” she says. “The connection worked. It pulled you where you needed to go.”

My hand falls to my stomach. It feels the same. The twins thrum as usual—restless, impatient.

“Thank you,” I whisper anyway. I hug her so tightly I almost hurt her and ask her not to ever risk herself like that again. She nods, but I can tell she’d do it all again if she had to.

Another week passes.

I fear I’m going insane.

I see him everywhere—in reflections, in doorways, in the corner of my eye. I wake up at 3 a.m., shaking, starving, and shove half-frozen pizza into my mouth only to retch it up minutes later. So back to ice cream tubs, the only thing my stomach tolerates. Some nights I cry quietly in the bathroom, gripping the sink until my knuckles go white.

I call Elena. I call Caroline. We go searching for her together—not because she needs me, but because I need anything that isn’t the house he left me in. Half the time my mind drifts back to him.

Did he leave me?
Did he get scared?
Did he lie when he said he loved me?

He gave me a ring.
He proposed.
He said I was his everything.

Was he lying?

Another week crawls by.

I melt the ring in the sink using my magic. Watch the silver warp, curl, dissolve. I cry so hard afterward I can barely breathe.

Lucy was right—the spell worked. My belly grows bigger and bigger, too quickly maybe, the twins pressing against each other, restless but healthy. And they’re not siphoning from me—they’re just… there. Loud, present, alive.

We find Caroline. Force her to turn her humanity back on. Stay with her when the guilt tears her apart. Hold her hand when she shakes. Distract myself with her problems because they’re easier than mine.

Damon stops me one night, face too serious.
“The Heretics are out,” he says. “They’re trying to bring back one of their own using the Phoenix Stone.”

My stomach drops.
He asks me about Kai.

I admit I haven’t seen him.

Damon promises—casually, in that Damon way—to kill him for me.
I don’t correct him.

That makes two of us.

Week four.

I storm into the Heretics’ temporary nest—Lily and her little vampire-witch family huddled around candles and stolen antiques. “Where is Kai?” I demand.

Lily blinks at me, surprised. “I never saw him after he freed us.”

So he left.
Just ran.
The bastard.

I make it home before I fall apart. Cry until my throat is raw. Swear—again—to forget him.

For two months, I succeed.

Eight months along, I look like I’ve swallowed twenty watermelons. I waddle. I grunt. I can barely see my feet. My magic feels stretched thin, shimmering with exhaustion.

I do a locator spell.

No flicker.
No shimmer.
No pull.

Nothing.

My heart shatters cleanly, like glass hitting tile.

I bury him.
Truly.
Completely.
I let myself believe he abandoned me. Because believing he died hurts worse.

The day comes.

Caroline and Elena flank me, murmuring that everything will be okay. I don’t believe them. I want to scream that nothing is okay, nothing will ever be okay, I can’t do this alone, I can’t—I can’t—

But all I say is: “I want surgery.”

I can’t handle labor.
Not with this heart.
Not with this grief.

The lights blur overhead. The beeping machines. The cold air. The sharpness of being too awake.

Then crying—thin, newborn crying—splitting through the white noise.

The nurse hands me the twins. One then the other. So small. So warm. So fragile.

Caroline and Elena coo in unison: “They’re so cute.”

But my tears start the second I look down.

One of them has his eyes.
Bright, impossible blue.

My breath stutters.

I clutch them closer, and the sobs come hard and fast.

Even in death—or abandonment—
Kai Parker found a way to haunt me.

***

Chapter Text

Bonnie

I feel petty.
I do.
Moments like these—moments when everything is overwhelming and too bright and too heavy—this is when he should be here.

He should be kissing my cheek, telling me I did great, pretending he’s not terrified of holding newborns.
He should be the one driving me home from the hospital, cracking stupid jokes to distract me, hovering too much, fussing over me, complaining about the nurse who looked at me for too long.

But it’s Elena and Caroline on either side of me instead.

They’re smiling, they’re steady, they’re warm—and I love them, I do—but every time they brush my arm, the absence beside me throbs like a bruise.

I try so hard not to cry.
Really try.

Elena carries the diaper bag.
Caroline pushes the wheelchair even though I insist I can walk.
At home they help me feed the twins, show me how to burp them, how to swaddle them without accidentally strangling them in too much blanket.

They’re there when I feel myself crumbling—when I hand over one of the twins because my hands are shaking, when I stare at the wall for too long, when I whisper “I can’t do this” into the quiet.

I feel neglectful somehow—like I’ve already failed. But compartmentalizing everything—the heartbreak, the fear, the grief—was always going to come with consequences. Everything I shoved aside for months hits me at once, sharp and merciless.

Elena sits beside me on the couch, one of the babies sleeping in her arms.

“Have you thought of their names?” she asks softly.

I shake my head.

The truth is—I’ve thought of them.
Names Kai mentioned once.
Names he said he liked.
Names I can’t bring myself to say out loud.

Because saying them feels like choosing a world where he’s dead.
Where he’s gone forever.
Where my children will never know the man who loved them before he even met them.

My throat tightens.

“No,” I whisper. “Not yet.”

I press my lips to the top of my son’s head—warm, soft, smelling like milk—and close my eyes before the tears spill over again.

***

Kai

I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.
I am insane.

There. Ten times.
Stricken through.
Doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t change a damn thing.

Because I am insane.

I miss her so much it’s a physical ache—like someone carved out my ribs and left my heart dangling, exposed, every loop tearing at the same wound.

The rage hasn’t left me.
It hasn’t even softened.
It’s burned me hollow, burned me sharp.

How long has it been?
A thousand loops?
Ten thousand?
I’ve lost count. Time doesn’t exist here. Only repetition. Pain. Blood. Screaming.

Every cycle starts the same:
I plead.
I beg.

“Please don’t come closer—please—just listen—”

But none of them do.

Even Jo—sweet, stubborn Jo—with blood pouring from her stomach, intestines half out, stumbling but still chasing me around the living room like I’m the one who started it.
And maybe I did.
And maybe I didn’t.

Round and round the house we go.
Through the kitchen.
Down the hall.
Across the smashed photographs.
Upended chairs.
Broken lamps.
My childhood home turned into a slaughterhouse.

Her breaths come wet and ragged behind me, but she doesn’t stop.
None of them stop.

And it always ends the same way.

With me doing it.
With me defending myself.
With them dying.
Again. And again. And again.

Sometimes I stagger back afterward, retching so hard my ribs feel like they crack. Blood on my hands, under my nails, in my nose. Their blood. My blood. I can’t tell.

The loop resets.

Other times…
I just stare.

Blank.
Empty.
Numb.

Watching their bodies on the floor, waiting for the world to lurch and throw me back to the beginning. Wondering how much of this is punishment and how much is memory.

I want to go back to her.

God, I want to go back to her.

Back to my Bonnie—warm, stubborn, fiery Bonnie—with her magic sizzling under her skin and the twins squirming under her palm. Back to her scolding me for making a mess in the kitchen. Back to her laugh. Back to the way she kissed me like she hated herself for loving me.

I cling to hope like it’s a rope over a pit.

Even though I know better.

No matter how powerful a witch is, freeing the right soul from the Stone is nearly impossible. Souls get lost. Scrambled. Trapped in the wrong host. Torn apart.

And my body?
They probably burned it.
Scattered the ashes.
Wiped their hands clean.

There’s no vessel waiting for me. No place to go back to. And I don’t want to inhabit someone else. I don’t want to wear someone else’s skin. I want her. I want home.

Still…

I hope.
I hope.
And I hope, and I hope—

Because hope is the only thing the Stone hasn’t taken from me.

Yet.

***

Lily

I stare at Kai’s soulless body.

His eyes are open—glassy, empty, wrong. His chest doesn’t rise. His skin already cooling. And in my hand, the Phoenix Stone pulses with a sickly red glow, swirling and swirling like a storm trapped behind glass.

Julian is in there.
My Julian.
The love of my life.
Somewhere.

And this monster’s soul—the one who freed us, the one who foolishly trusted me—is trapped in the same purgatory. But that is not my concern.

“Should we burn his body?” Oscar asks lazily, twirling a blood bag like a toy.

I shake my head sharply.
“No. Take it to the morgue. Keep it frozen.”

Burning risks complicating the ritual.
Burning risks destroying a vessel we may need later.
Burning risks ruining any attempt at proper extraction if we need his body intact to stabilize Julian’s return.

Kai’s corpse is a tool. Nothing more.

I hand out blood bags to the others. “Eat. Practice. We will be freeing Julian soon.”

“Soon” becomes a cruel joke.

The Phoenix Stone is unpredictable—temperamental. Half the time, when we perform the ritual, we draw out the wrong soul. Some stranger. Some woman screaming for a child. Some old man begging to die. Some vampire snarling with hunger. Another sobbing “not again.”

And we have to send them back.
Push them back into the void.
Over and over.

It's tedious. It’s messy. It’s infuriating.

The floor of the boarding house becomes a rotating door of the dead.

That’s when she drops by.

Bonnie Bennett.

She stands in the doorway, looking exhausted—haunted—and asks in that clipped, brittle voice: “Where’s Kai?”

I lie without hesitation.
“He left after helping us.”

Her face cracks—not visibly, but internally—and she leaves before I can blink.

Valerie watches her go, eyes narrowed.
“She's pregnant,” she murmurs.

I head snaps toward her. “Are you certain?”

Valerie nods. “Cloaking spell. Strong one. But I felt it. There are two.”

Twins.

My mouth tightens. Nature’s joke. A siphoner spawning more of his kind. My family murmurs about it, but I wave them off. It is none of our concern. None of it matters until Julian is back.

We return to the rituals, the chants, the blood, the offerings, the endless dance of soul and stone.

Days blur. Weeks disappear.
Four months pass.

And then—finally—after what feels like a thousand attempts, the Stone’s light shifts. Not the harsh red glare of rejected spirits, but the soft, deep pulse I remember. Julian’s pulse.

“Julian?” I whisper as the man in front of me gasps—first breath after years suspended between life and torment.

He looks around wildly—rage, confusion, pain—and then his eyes land on me.

Recognition blooms.

“Lily?” he breathes.

I nod, choking on relief. “Yes. Yes, my love.”

He surges forward, strong arms wrapping around me, lifting me slightly off the ground. I crush myself against him, breathing him in—finally warm, finally real.

Julian is back.

And Kai’s body waits in frozen silence, forgotten in the morgue.

***