Bonnie reluctantly rolled out of bed when the pressure on her bladder became too much. After all, she had finished off last night's wine and slept for a couple of hours. When she was finished, she pulled on a pair of white cotton pants with and a purple tank, slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops, moisturized a little to buy herself some time, and lazily ran a brush through her hair. She wasn't particularly thrilled about making her way out of her makeshift cave, not when she was still mad at Kai for what he'd said and avoiding the mess she'd made in the study. Where did he come off assuming to know their relationship? And what gave him the right to even think he could somehow diminish it? And why did it hurt so damned much?

Bonnie shook off her thoughts and exhaled softly. She only hoped Kai was asleep downstairs when she got there. She'd feel better—far more responsive—if they tackled things fresh tomorrow.

Before she left the room, Bonnie pulled her bed's quilt straight, tossed the towel to dry on a chair and picked up the notepad she'd used to write a letter to Damon. She hadn't sent it, deciding at last minute to hold back, pondering if it were a waste of her magic – of Kai's magic. She involuntarily read over the words with a ration of dejection and distain, snapping it shut angrily, tossing it toward her desk as she headed for the door.

She made her way down slowly, scanning the foyer, straining her ears to listen for any noise or indication of where he could be. When she heard none, she hunted for him.

She visited the parlor first, then the TV lounge, the study, the kitchen and even the backyard. All she managed to come across was a discarded bottle in the parlor. She clutched it to her chest like a lifesaver, feeling an inkling of hysteria kick in. The fire was on, dying out since no one was there to stoke it, but still on – it meant he'd made it from the forest. But where did he go? Why wasn't he here and why didn't he at least tell her he was leaving?

'The same reason you didn't want to talk to him, Bonnie', she chided herself internally. 'He needs space. He'll come back. Where else could he go?'

She grimaced at the prospect of him somehow fleeing, of maybe getting caught up in the wishy-washy crack his whacked-out fever was the driving force behind.

What if he is hurt?

"Kai?!" she called, bottle swinging at her side as she rushed for the downstairs bathroom, it was the one of the two other places she hadn't checked. Damon's room was the other.

She lifted a hand to her mouth as she emerged from Damon's room, gnawing at a nail in consideration, making a sweep of the other guest rooms.

He was nowhere to be found. She checked the garage last. All the cars were still there. She opened the garage door, slipped into the driver's seat of Damon's car and decided to drive around. Not that she was sure where he'd be, but maybe he decided on a pub? A dance setting? An arcade place? He liked music, right? Maybe he went in search of something to take his mind off their shitty day and was holed up somewhere entertaining himself?

'Or maybe,' an evil, more insecure part of herself stirred to life as she started the engine and pulled from the garage, 'he, too, has had enough and decided to abandon you.'

They all eventually do.

After the brandy level in the bottle dipped below the half, the driving started to seem less real and more like a video game simulator. A very authentic one and yet something detached from him. It was a fun thought to toy with, and Kai let out a laugh between the gulps, letting that impression linger and deepen its roots. With the liquor drooping towards the bottom of the bottle, he finally realized he was sleepy as hell. All of a sudden, his eyelids weighed a ton each, and all he wanted was to let them close for at least a few seconds. The wind through the broken window was good on his feverish skin, making the fire within him bearable. It also coaxed to give in to slumber.

The road ahead seemed straight, and there was a forest starting ahead, he noted groggily. The sun was beginning its way downward and hung to the right of his car like a glaring eye of God, peeking into the salon every now and then, burning the side of his face unpleasantly. Every time it flickered on the dashboard or a side-view mirror, Kai squinted, all the more eager to let his eyes close.

The forest ahead framed the road like a magical tunnel, a secret path to some dark kingdom of whimsical fairies or demons that had lain a trap to swallow the racing-to-nowhere Ford Explorer with him behind the wheel. Kai heard another laugh slip his lips, watching as the slightly blurry mass rushed towards the car.

He didn't notice how the almost empty bottle slipped out of his right hand that held it propped loosely against his thigh. He failed to notice how his eyes didn't open after the next blink. By the time Ford Explorer flung itself into a tree instead of taking a rather tough turn, Kai was fast asleep and blissfully dreamless.

Bonnie turned on the radio and flipped over the tape inside to listen to side B of the short list of nineties hits, softly singing along with Paula Abdul. She needed to remain calm.

There was absolutely no reason to flip out. Kai couldn't leave. He was stuck here as much as she was. What had she been thinking all those months ago when she proposed they stay?

She stopped outside The Grill and took a look inside, next was a bar at the end of town, a movie theater in the middle and a video store toward the main road.

By the time she stopped outside Mystic Falls one and only grocery store, she had flipped the tape a second time and was no longer choking out her own renditions. She hated feeling helpless. She hated that she couldn't call him and that he'd simply taken off without a word. The jerk!

She walked into the grocery store, her stomach rumbling as she spotted a loaf of bread. She hadn't eaten in over eight hours and before they had left. Bonnie walked past a till, grabbed a plastic bag and helped herself to some junk food. Chips, two chocolates, muffins and a can or two of Coke. She needed a pick-me-up, something to work the liquor from her system.

She walked toward the liquor aisle, driven by wistfulness and some odd sense of comfort. There wasn't a day when Damon was around and they were shopping that they didn't stop here. He was always drinking, always seeking that numbness. It didn't always work.

She guessed that was why he tried so many different options and why they had caved to weakness.

She exhaled deeply, strolling down the aisle, plucking free a rum and screwing off the top, intending to take a sip when she noticed there was a bottle missing from the brandies.

She set it down, fingering the open space, a slow smile spreading on her lips.

"Kai?!" she called, whirling around, the bottle forgotten as she headed for the home-furnishing section of the store and where he'd first made himself known. She almost expected Kai to be seated in the colorful beach lounger, grinning and chiding her for her stupidity.

"Answer me, you bastard," she commanded in an ire-filled whisper. He wasn't there and nothing looked disturbed. "Dammit," she hissed, hitting out at the nearest furnishing, kicking over a nearby container of pink flamingoes. Who even bought this?!

She stared down at the scattered decoration, plopping down on the end of the lounger, reaching into the plastic bag dangling from her arm to rip open the packet of chips. She was halfway to finishing when she rose to her feet, spotting something useful, something she should have used from the get-go. A map!

Bonnie plucked one from the shelf, unfolded and smoothed it out on the patio table in the middle of the room. She found a candle, a knife, and before long was casting a locator spell – using magic and her desperation to find him as the anchor.

It worked and before long she was back on the road, heading out of town with her snacks and a new map in case she needed to try again.

She had flipped the cassette three times and stopped to fill up the car once, making sure she wouldn't break down on the side of the road. There was no one else to call for help if she did. It was as she approached the point that had been shown on the map that she started to worry. It was in the middle of nowhere and pitch-black, Bonnie could hardly see anything.

Her heart stopped when in her tireless search she in due course came across a car, one she'd never noticed before and almost hoped was part of the prison world. She acknowledged it from its place outside the store in Mystic Falls, smoke rising off the engine, the backlights blood red and solid as though someone was sitting on the brakes. Bonnie pulled up behind the wreck, using her headlights to see, and dashed for the driver's door. She gasped upon seeing the damage, the door somewhat crunched up. She yanked it open with a flip of the wrist, stepping inside of it and immediately took Kai's face into her hands, blood running from a cut on the top of his head, a cut made by the windshield's glass.

"Kai," she said with desperation, trying to coax him into consciousness, too afraid to move him in fear he might have been really injured. "Kai! Open your eyes. Kai!"

He didn't respond.

She released his bloodied face and eyed the steering wheel. She didn't like how close it appeared to his body. Bonnie pressed a hand to his chest to keep him in the chair, securing him there. "Phasmatus subcinctus," she murmured.

The chair abruptly rolled back as she tried to make space, allowing her the chance to try and help him out of the front seat. She struggled, unsure of how to grip him, and then conceded to further use of magic, afraid of jostling him. She strained as she did and set him down in front of Damon's car so that she could see in the light.

He was awake now—he had stirred when she moved him—but struggled to breathe. She crouched down beside him, wincing as he groaned—a sound riddled with discomfort. She took his hand, aware of the distinct smell of alcohol in the air now that she was away from the engine's smoke. What made him think drinking and driving was a good idea?

"I thought you were smarter than this," she chided, peering down at him, his eyes still closed, his mouth parted slightly as he struggled to inhale. He must have punctured a lung. "What the hell were you thinking?"

She moved to push aside his shirt, wincing as she took in the unsightly black and blue bruise across his abdomen, his ribcage undoubtedly cracked. Bonnie gently laid her free hand upon the injury, closed her eyes, chanting softly with resolve, casting a similar spell she'd used on Elena all those years ago to help abate of his pain and to draw it into me. She gasped softly as her bones tweaked, attempting to replicate the injury and mend his trauma.

She wasn't sure if she would be able to heal him completely, but a little problem shared was better than nothing. That was what her grandmother had taught her as a kid.

"Apparently words are never enough for you. I'll teach you how to never try it again."

His voice rolled inside Kai's throbbing head like thunder while a hideous, wrenching agony was eating his arms, bones breaking in new places at every flick of his father's hand clawing the air.

"No… please… st— … stop… ple—please… Dad…" His pleas came out in wheezing croaks, his throat too sore from screaming. Kai was writhing on the floor, the crunching of his own bones deafening him along with blood beating and flushing in his temples. The world was made of pain and sounds, and his brain was about to explode every time a new bone snapped in hid forearm, or in a finger.

"You made me do it," Kai heard him say through a thick pillow of torture, he was too far away and yet close enough to get him. Like some vicious ancient God, the one demanding human sacrifices to spare his subjects a volcano eruption or a lightning strike. "You never listen, but I'll make you remember this. You give me no other choice."

"Don't… You're… killing me…" Kai almost added Dad to it, but then it suddenly occurred to him it was exactly what Dad was doing. Killing him. The best solution. And someone who was killing his fourteen-year-old kid could not be called Dad. Not by the one who was being killed, at least. It was a crazy idea, and Kai felt his busting brain could not contain it. Another bout of agony kicked him with hot, liquid pain flooding his arms and scorching the crushed bones and veins in them. It seeped into his chest, collecting there in a puddle of heavy liquefied metal, scalding and pressing him into the hard floor. He could no longer writhe, nor breathe, and with a faint relief (an absurd feeling in this situation, but it came nonetheless) Kai realized the darkness around him was thickening. Soon enough it would stop it all.

Somewhere in another universe, he heard screams. His father's voice roared over them, overlapping. One of them was Jo. She was closer than Mom who had probably put herself between her husband and son. Jo was at her brother' side, and Kai heard her sobs before the darkness took him.

Bonnie underwent as much of his pain as she possibly could handle, and then steadily released him. He had injured himself too badly, there was nothing else she could do. He would die.

He mumbled something, something she strained to hear at first and became clearer in the eerily quiet night.

"… stop… ple—please… Dad… Don't… You're… killing me…"

She eased onto her backside next to him, oblivious of the dirt and blood that clung to her white cotton pants as she combed her fingers through his hair. He was suffering another nightmare. This time in relation to his father. Perhaps that was who he was running from? It was something to talk about and something that made her curious as Bonnie stared down into his pale features. She heaved a small sigh, tears collecting in her eyes as she attempted to put him at ease, praying that whatever injury he had sustained during his accident would take him swiftly and that soon he'd be on the road to recovery. She didn't move him, didn't even attempt to address him anymore, simply sitting beside him, tentatively nursing her own wounds, all too aware they'd fade with time or once he died.

That was the way of magic.

The sooner Kai was out and could no longer feel anything, the sooner she would get them to the nearest town, which, if Bonnie remembered correctly from the map, was Kilmarnock. They could stay there overnight and when he was ready – make their way back.

She drove along the gravel road and stopped outside a large hotel called the 'The tide inn'. It was eerie stopping at these places but it was the first on the way into town. She pulled to a stop right outside the front door and where it would be easier to carry his body inside. She familiarized herself with the place, hunted for a key and found a ground floor bedroom.

She slipped Kai inside with some struggle, no longer using her magic, feeling it drain on her from her earlier overuse, and settled him onto one of the single beds. There were two, and she claimed another for half-an-hour rest. Bonnie stared at him in thought, wondering why he had done something so stupid or if maybe—in her haste and annoyance—she'd missed how much pain he was in.

Is that why he's gotten shitfaced and ultimately killed himself for the third time? I hope not.

She rose off the mattress to take her mind off things, closing the door behind her as she went to take a look around the hotel, considering the notion of locking it in case he woke up and decided to leave again. She didn't. And nor would she allow herself to believe that he wouldn't be coming back. Not again. Not this time. He would. He had to.