How Much Is Redemption

Chapter 3

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry for leaving you in nineteen-o-three," she said, making Kai shudder.

Her voice reverberated within his body, physically aching and ripping at the strings of his weakening self-control.

"I'm not. And I'm not going to apologize for stabbing you in the back or even attempting to kill you," she continued, clueless to how close to another bout of torture she was teetering. "Not after you came back and did the very thing I knew you would. The very thing I feared you would. These people didn't deserve this, Kai. Your sister didn't deserve this. Jo was a good woman, marrying an equally decent man whose life you ripped apart without even thinking."

Another shiver traveled through him instead of a nervous laugh he thought would slip out. Without thinking... He had a long fucking time to think, that was for sure. If anything, he'd thought about it thoroughly.

"I even know that this it isn't entirely your fault. That I—" he heard her throat click as she swallowed, "I'm mostly to blame. I drove you to this, obviously. I... whatever you suffered by the hands of those... things, those people... That's all I can ask forgiveness for."

"Forgiveness," Kai repeated dumbly. The pool of blood started morphing into a black patch of starless space, a crack in reality, making him dizzy. He was distantly aware he was losing it a little along the stitches. The smell of blood was suffocating, and her voice still rang inside his skull, words bouncing off the walls like dry peas. "Forgiveness," he repeated in a soundless breath, probing himself for reaction. He felt like someone threw a thick tarp over his raging emotions and they kind of lost their direction under it, groping their way around, not knowing where to step. And then laughter started in his chest, like a buzzing cell phone gradually gaining volume, as he turned to look her in the eye.

Bonnie studied him, unmistakably seeing him stiffen, half-expecting Kai to lash out at her, and grimaced when instead he started laughing like a manic. She'd heard it enough to know the difference and tonight, that lethal look in his eyes, the one he currently zeroed in on her, held none of its former frivolity. No, this was someone else, something broken, and something she now knew she had a part in creating.

He must have looked like a loony, he reckoned, laughing like a cartoon villain amidst the chaos he's caused, but none of the glee was real or heart-felt. At this moment, Kai wasn't sure where his heart was and if it was. "What the fuck is that forgiveness and why would you want it? Look," he spread his arms at the wrecked room.

She looked, agreeing with him internally, knowing there was no way to make up for murdering these people. How could there be?

"Is there a thing like forgiveness in the world like that? I dared to think so – and then you know what happened. So tell me, Bonnie," all gaiety drained from his face as he fixed her with a sharp, heavy stare, stepping away from the stage towards her, "why would I forgive you for dismissing my efforts as if I were shit stuck to your dress shoe? Why would I forgive you for handing a dozen chances per day to Damon and denying me a smidgen of that share?

Bonnie flinched slightly, recalling how earnest he seemed in his attempts to make nice with her, how afraid she'd been, how incapable of trusting that Kai could be anything other than the monster that haunted her nightmares.

"And why would I leave my damned family to live happily ever after when they never stopped plotting to lock me away to rot? WHY? They could've just killed me, for crying out loud, if I were that much of an ugly duckling to them, but they PUT ME IN HELL! What I did to them here is mercy compared to what they dealt me."

"You're right," she responded, taking an automatic step back as his voice rose, swallowing away the lump in her throat, forcing herself to forget what he'd done to her minutes ago and stick to her prior resolve.