ATHENA

"Tough day, huh, Damon?" the guy asks. I look at Damon wide-eyed and he returns my confused look. "Oh, sorry. I forgot my manners. I'm Kai."

He's attractive. Very attractive. His green eyes are perfectly shaped and have a sort of look to them like they're stuck in a state of slyness and his lips are upturned into a smirk. You have just run into a guy who seems to have stalked you and your friends in a version of hell for four months and you're caring about his looks? Stop it, Athena.

"Nice to meet you," Kai says, flashing his perfectly aligned teeth. Oh my god, pull yourself together, Athena. He ruffles the packet of pork rinds around and holds them out. "Pork rind?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "I think we'll pass."

He shrugs. "Your loss." He starts rocking on his seat and pops another pork rind into his mouth. It makes an excruciating crunching noise as his teeth crush it and I find myself wincing at the annoying sound.

"That is going to have to stop," I say.

He grins. "Oh, you find this annoying? Try listening to you, Bonnie and Damon bickering all day."

"So you've been following us?" Damon asks, raising his eyebrows at Kai.

"Of course I have," Kai says. "You're the closest thing I have to a T.V. It's no Baywatch but - oh, god! Remember Baywatch?"

Damon's eyes bore blankly into Kai. "No. No, I do not."

Kai looks disappointed more than anything. "Oh, man! You have to watch it." He sticks another pork rind into his mouth. "You like lifeguards? Like, hot ones?"

Damon quirks an eyebrow. "This has been a monumentally bad day in a sea of bad days," he says. "So I'm going to need to know who you are, what you're doing and why you're following us or I might just tear your throat out."

Kai looks up at the vampire. "Your temper's going to get you in trouble, Damon," he says. "It's already driven Bonnie away how many times? Oh, oh, I know. Thirteen."

Damon cocks his eyebrows at Kai. "You think my temper's bad with her? I like her. But you, not so much."

"Damon," I sigh. "Don't overreact. He seems like all he does is eat pork rinds and watch TV shows that are older than me. He doesn't exactly scream threatening."

Damon is on Kai in a second, lifting the man up by his collar. "Okay, okay," Kai says, fear filling his eyes. Damon sets Kai down and Kai puts his hands up in a gesture of defence. "Have a drink," he says. "You should have a drink. That usually calms you down."

Damon eyes the shelf and then takes a bottle of bourbon. "Thanks," he mutters.

Kai looks thoughtfully at Damon. "Then angry and then sad and then calm again," he says, "and, look, if you really want to know the reason I'm following you, it's because I want to kill you."

I barely have time to move a muscle before Damon takes a swig from the bourbon and spits it out, the flesh around his mouth raw and sizzling. His knees go from underneath him and he starts coughing violently.

I grab the nearest bottle to me by its neck and smash the bottom half against the shelf. It has to do. With whiskey running down my arm and a firm grip on the broken bottle, I draw my arm back. But before the sharp glass has a chance to come into contact with Kai, I'm taken by surprise as he snaps a beach umbrella over his knee and holds out the stick. "That's a shame, Athena. I knew you were impulsive. I didn't know you were impulsive enough to try and use a bottle as a lethal weapon." I groan as he drives the stake through my gut. "I don't know much about Amazons, but I do know that they don't heal like vampires."

I feel my knees give way beneath me and black spots swim in my eyes. With a grunt, I pull out the stake and press my palm to it.

Kai laughs bitterly, turning back to Damon. "Vervain in your bourbon. Who didn't see that one coming?" He raises his hands as if addressing an audience more than two people. He looks down at the other half of the umbrella in his hand and them back at Damon. "Who buys patio furniture from a grocery store? I mean, someone must or else it wouldn't be here."

Stunned at how quickly I'm losing blood, I gingerly take off my jacket, grunting when I move my body. I fold it up and press it to the wound, wincing in pain. "But now, I'm a little unfamiliar with vampires," Kai continues. "But from what I've gathered, a stake in the heart should do it." Damon makes a pathetic attempt at getting up. I wince as Kai embeds the other half of the makeshift stake into the back of Damon's outstretched hand. "Ah! You can aways play dirty, Damon. Like that time that you and Bonnie were playing Monopoly and you stole from the bank. Not cool."

Damon looks up at Kai, narrowing his eyes. "I'm gonna rip your head off."

"No," Kai refuses. "You're not." And with a sharp jerk of his arm and the stake in his hand, he sends half of the bottles off of the shelf and crashing over Damon. The sizzling sound of vervain hitting Damon's skin is almost too much to bear and I find myself wanting to take my hands off of my makeshift bandage and press them to my ears. "I didn't know which bottle you'd take, so I vervained them all."

I breathe a sigh of relief. Because whether it was some divine coincidence or she was here to rescue us, Bonnie stood against the harsh light of the wall of windows. "Stay away from him," she orders Kai.

Kai perks up. "The useless one is here," he mocks.

"Thank god," I mutter.

Kai continues. "I've watched you try to do magic for months now. What are you going to do, fail at me? It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for you." Jackass.

It's at that moment that Bonnie outstretches her hand and the candle to her left lights up with a brilliant glow. Through heavy breaths, I can make out one sentence. "If I were you, I'd run."

Bonnie's voice rings out above the rest of the noise. "Phesmatos incendia."

And with that, my vision turns to flames. With her spell, Bonnie has created a wall of fire around Kai. She's got her magic back, I think in awe.

Kai's eyes flash with alarm. "Okay, okay, okay," he repeats, trying to calm himself down.

Bonnie smirks. "Giving up so soon? I'm embarrassed for you."

Mustering up as much strength as I can, I push myself up with a grunt. Every muscle in body screams at me to stop. I stretch my arm out and with a sharp movement, slam my fist into the side of Kai's head. He lets out something between an angry sigh and shriek and falls to the ground. Still clutching at my stomach, I poke him in the side with my toe. "I hope he's not dead," I say, furrowing my eyebrows. "He was a hottie."

Damon rolls his eyes and shifts his gaze to Bonnie. "Sorry I called you the most annoying person in the world," he tells Bonnie. "I hadn't met him yet."

Bonnie's mouth turns upward into a small smile. "Thank you, Damon." She looks over at me. "You should give her some of your blood."

Damon raises his eyebrows at me and bites his wrist, blood running down his arm. He jams his wrist in between my teeth and I swallow his blood. When he pulls it away, I make a disgusted expression. "How do you even drink blood like this? It's disgusting."

He ignores my comment. "Help me get him out of here."

I nod, the pain in my guy already subsided. I kneel down beside the unconscious man and grab his arms as Damon grabs his legs. We haul him down the aisle and out of the store. Gingerly setting him down in the backseat, I furrow my eyebrows, stretching my arms out. "Where am I going to seat?"

Damon raises his eyebrows. "In the back with the dead psychopath. Where did you think?"

I sigh and sit down beside a very limp Kai next to me. As the car jolts forward and starts the journey back to the house, I study Kai's profile carefully. "He has a nice nose, don't you think?"

Damon looks into the back seat. "Stop getting lured in by his nose. He's a crazy person. He tried to kill us."

"I said that out loud?"

"You did."

Once the car gets to the house, I help Damon drag him inside. Damon tells me to prop him up on a chair while he gets rope. I wait patiently on the couch as Damon retrieves the rope. When he comes back, he ties Kai to the chair and stands back to admire how work. What follows is a whole lot of waiting. That is, until a low, throaty grumble escapes from Kai's lips.

"You're awake," I say, getting to my feet.

"Good," Damon says.

"Now for the Q&A part of the evening," Bonnie announces.

Damon leans forward. "Who are you?"

"Kai."

Damon sighs. "And what are you doing here?"

"I'm trapped here."

Damon asks a few more questions which get returned with obvious answers before I finally interject.

I pick up the iron poker next to me. "We're getting nowhere with this. I think we should try it my way."

I crouch down in front of him, clasping the iron poker in my fists. "Who are you?"

"I'm Kai," he repeats. Jesus Christ.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Who are you? Kai what? Are you a vampire or something?"

He opens his mouth to speak and then shuts it again, smiling slightly. "I'm sorry I'm nervous. You're really pretty."

Oh, wow. I furrow my eyebrows. "I - uh -"

Damon sighs, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "It's amazing how quickly you go from 'I'll gouge your eyeballs out with my bare hands,' to, 'Touch my butt and call me pretty.' "

I turn around and scowl at him. "No, Damon," I protest. I lean towards Kai, planting my hands firmly on the arm rest. "Listen here, Kai. I'm not really in the mood for flirting with pork rind addicted freaks who tried to kill me a second ago, so I suggest you shut up and give us information."

Kai breaks out into a grin. "Am I the only one sensing sexual tension between us?" he asks, his face still a few centimetres from mine.

I retract away from him and pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. "You should shut up before I drive this-" I hold up the poker, "-through your heart."

"You don't have to do that," he says quietly.

"No?" I say, raising my eyebrows.

"We're on the same team," he says, keeping his eyes fixed between the three of us.

Bonnie cocks her head to the side, slitting her eyes at Kai. "Really? Do you always try and kill your teammates?"

"The important thing is that you have your magic back. It worked," Kai says triumphantly. I part my lips in a subtle expression of surprise. Seeing our faces - a mix of confusion and shock - he speaks again. "What, you didn't really think I'd kill Damon and Athena, did you?" He huffs out a low chuckle. "In what universe does that make sense? Who would kill one quarter of our population? I'm not a monster. I knew Bonnie would show up. She always comes back - all thirteen times - and I knew with the right motivation she'd be able to access her magic. Although I-I did get worried that with all your bickering, their lives wouldn't be enough motivation, but turns out it was." He pauses and shrugs. "I guess that's just how you two show your love."

"So you did all that just to make sure I would have my magic?" Bonnie presses on.

"Of course I did," Kai says. "Because your magic is the key to getting the hell out of here."