Two Can Keep A Secret (Bonkai)

XI

As Bonnie stepped out of the car, she snorted. She tried to hold it in, slapping a hand over her mouth, but the sound still echoed. And, even if she had successfully hidden the sound, it wouldn't have passed Caroline's ears, of course.

"Oh, gosh, don't tell me you hate this house already too?"

"No, It's not that, it's just..." Bonnie licked her lips, unsure how she could explain to Caroline the conundrum about this specific house.

It was the twelfth they'd seen. Kai had oodles of money lying around, just for her, and acquiring it had been pretty easy. The guy at the bank had seemed to know, which of course was impossible, but he'd made a weird mention about pregnancy and the Gemini family line. He was obviously a warlock too, but nowhere near as powerful as the Gemini line, nor strong enough to be able to pick out her secrets.

Still, it had unnerved her.

Well, it didn't matter, because she had walked away with literally a small fortune, and this was apparently only a drop in the bucket of what the Parkers owned and which she now owned too. Enough to buy a proper house, which if she were having twins, was the right choice. They would need space to grow and preferably a space Bonnie could magically force-field so that their terrible tantrums didn't result in blowing out a hole in an apartment building and killing ten people.

Caroline had taken it upon herself to be Bonnie's realtor. She had a hand in everything here, of course. She'd offered for Bonnie to live at the Salvatore House, but Bonnie couldn't bring herself to.

Not only was she terrified someone there would figure out who the father was, but she knew it would be a bad time living there again. Around every corner would be a ghost of Kai and their time in the first Prison World and well, she just couldn't have that.

Caroline was put out, which had led to Bonnie agreeing to her blonde friend to be her house-searcher. It seemed like a good compromise. No one simply told Caroline an outright 'no'.

Caroline hadn't bothered her too much about the money thing. Bonnie had claimed it had been in a fund left by her grandmother and, until now, she hadn't a need to use it. This had held up enough, because one...Grams was mysterious as heck and it probably wouldn't have surprised Bonnie if there was a lot of money laying around somewhere and two...until now, Bonnie truly hadn't a need for more. She'd been more than comfortably living on her salary before this in her studio, the type of thriving where she was able to order take-out twice a week.

She had been expecting more of an inquisition, but Caroline had just blinked and said, "Well, I'm glad you saved it for a rainy day."

Huh.

But as it was, this marked the twelfth house they'd looked at. Three Bonnie had vetoed on sight, due to many reasons including not enough space between her neighbors, already too small, or just that she didn't like it. Caroline, once they'd walked through, had vetoed another five on other issues, and even if Bonnie had liked one, it was rather clear that this one was no longer an option. The rest were okay choices.

Bonnie wanted to see if there was 'the one' house out there, but she was satisfied she had choices to fall back on.

This led to the house in front of her.

The exact house that Kai was locked in.

Well, not this one literally, but also sort of. It was the house of this current year, not the house in 2018 where Kai resided. It looked a bit different; a paint color changed on the outside, new windows, possibly a new room on the top floor where a creaky attic existed in the Prison World. Still, Bonnie paused, as though expecting to see Kai lounging on the front porch like he had the last time she'd made her drop off.