lifeline ⇾ kai parker

43┃to the bone

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

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"PROWLING AROUND A HIGH School baseball field late at night? Really? Could he be more of a creep?" Lizzie popped her head in from the backseat right as Mila parked her car at the side of the street. Once the key was turned in the ignition and the vehicle's headlights shut off, the only thing counteracting the pitch black color of night was the floodlights of the Mystic Falls High School baseball field.

Mila scoffed. "He played when he was in high school."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised he knows his way around a baseball bat."

Mila lets Lizzie's jab go in one ear and out the other. Her body fully collapses in the driver's seat after spending the entire ride rigid; fingers flex away the soreness that came from a tense grip on the steering wheel.

Her gaze goes to the distant figure out on the field, throwing baseballs up into the air and swiftly getting into position to swing at them. A cracking noise could faintly be heard from the distance when he managed to hit it perfectly. Mila couldn't tell how far the ball was sent flying, but she predicted it went an impressive distance.

"Okay... so I'll approach him. You girls stay hidden until I give the signal," she recited the simple plan she wished was more foolproof. Scheming was definitely more of Kai's thing.

"What signal?"

"I don't know. I'll call him a dickhead or something," Mila resorts, throwing her hands up in the air. "Something not suspicious."

"So wait until you insult him?" Josie frowns from the passenger seat.

"Are we talking like 'idiot' or are we going full on explicit like dropping the F bomb? Because if we're doing this, I think you should go all the way. Spare no feelings," Lizzie suggested. Mila could see her blow a few loose tendrils that unraveled from her pigtails out of her face.

Josie twisted in her seat. "Upsetting him isn't going to do any good, Lizzie."

"Uh, neither is letting him walk around like a psychopathic Babe Ruth. He needs to be put in his place, especially after how he's been treating Mila."

"Okay, that's enough!" Mila interrupts before the argument could escalate any further. "I can't even believe I agreed to this, but we're here now. I need you both to be careful."

"Relax. We're professionals. We know how to kick supernatural ass," Lizzie states, not a tremble of worry in her voice.

"And we really do want to help," Josie adds.

Mila takes a much needed breath before uttering, "Alright. Let's do this."

The three of them emerge from the car, Mila heading straight across the lawn towards the surrounding fence of the field while the twins went another way around the school. The temperature was surprisingly low with it being so close to summer, and the chill to the air made Mila wind her arms around herself. A long-sleeved henley and dark-washed jeans braced against the cold, but the weather was the last thing she needed protection from.

Reaching the gate, surprisingly unnoticed, she pauses. A hand weaves into the chain link fence, watching him through it with an unreadable expression. The repetition of his movements, the ease to them, paints him in a  liberating shimmer. He's unburdened. Completely set free from the world — no thanks to her.