Kismet | Damon Salvatore

Chapter 15

They packed quickly.

It took only a few moments to grab what they wanted to bring with him. Maribel really only cared about her notebook and her dad's sweaters.

They followed Kai out onto the lawn, where Damon picked up the daily newspaper he hadn't retrieved yet.

"You're wandering around like a crazy man, why?" he asked, folding the newspaper into an airplane and tossing it ahead of them.

"Looking for the exact right spot," said Kai, looking through a small hole in the Ascendant.

"That's what he said," muttered Maribel quietly, causing Damon and Bonnie to snort.

"We need to find where the power of the eclipse is focused," continued Kai, not having heard her.

"You know," said Bonnie, "you could have just shown us the Ascendant to begin with."

"Yeah, but I wanted to feel your hand on my chest."

Bonnie made a face. "There's something not right about him." She stopped to pick up the paper airplane, and frowned, starting to read.

"Hey!" said Damon when Kai started heading into the forest. "What's up with the nature walk?"

"I used the Ascendant to figure out where we need to be standing during the eclipse."

"Great. Let's do some magic and get the hell out of here."

"Oregon," whispered Bonnie, pointing at one of the articles. "I read this paper like a thousand times, and there's something in it about Oregon."

"What do you mean?" asked Maribel, who never cared to read the newspaper.

"You know, Kai said he had all these brothers and sisters." She read off the paper, "'Family massacred in Portland. The only one missing was the oldest boy, a twenty-two-year-old named Malachai.'"

"Who names a kid Malachai?" asked Kai. "It's like they expected me to be evil."

"All these kids were murdered!" cried Bonnie.

Kai appeared offended. "Hello! Not everyone died. I had a soft spot for one of my sisters. 'Cause otherwise, I would've cut her lungs out, and not just her spleen."

Maribel choked. "Wait, what?"

"You can survive without a spleen."

"I know that. But why would you do that to your sister—? What about the other kids?"

He pointed down at the pictures of the children. "Look, well, these two, I, uh, hung off a stairwell railing. Then I put a hunting knife in her abdomen, and him, I drowned in the pool. But, he kept fighting me. I was like, 'I saved you for last, you ungrateful little...'" There was a faraway look in his eyes, "Anyway, that was that."

Bonnie stared at him. "You just killed your whole family?"

"Coven, to be precise," said Kai. "Oh, you know, family of witches."

Damon snorted. "You're making us jump through hoops, and you're a witch?"

"Sort of, yeah. No powers, obviously, just like Maribel. Oh, and of course, Gemini Coven did not take it too well when they heard what I did in Portland. It's why they banished me here."

"This place is a prison," said Bonnie. "They created it for you." She tossed the newspaper to the floor. "We're not letting you get out of here."

"Oh, come on, Bonnie!" said Kai. "You wanna go home to your friends, I wanna go back and give the rest of the Gemini Coven an excruciating death. Win-win."