Book Four: Solitude (A. Saltzman)

Chapter Forty-Two

Diana pulls on her jacket as she moves through her apartment. Her plans for finding the Monolith put on hold to deal with Elena. She hums a little as she opens her front door, ready to leave, but finds Bonnie on the other side.

"Bonnie?" Diana asks. "What are you doing here?" She then pulls a face when she realises that it's not actually Bonnie, and the hallucination disappears to reveal their true form. "Oh...Silas, I presume" She counters staring at him. "Dude, you....you are truly fugly"

"How are you bypassing my telepathy?" he asks her.

"My mind is stronger than yours" Diana points out. "And I am also a telepath....check your facts. What do you want?" He stands up a little taller to hide that her telepathy hasn't thrown him slightly.

"Descendant of Athena....where is the monolith?"

"I don't know" Diana answers.

"I don't believe you" he argues. "It is your birthright....."

"Yeah, well, my birth mother wasn't exactly all about telling me things..." She adds as she reaches under the back of her jacket for her lasso, her fingers curling around the rope just in case. "I just learned about it...and I have no idea where it is"

"You will find it or I will start killing your friends" He threatens her.

"Yeah and that would work, except I don't care what happens to them, you want to kill them, go right ahead" She brushes past him and walks away.

...............

Diana sits on the hood of her jeep outside of the high school, she can hear the music from inside. This should have been her second chance at prom. She didn't get to go to her first one because she was pushed back a year, and she isn't at this one as she dropped out of school. It's not like she could have gone with Alaric as her date anyway. She was never meant to go to prom. She was never meant to have a normal school experience. She should have stayed in Greece after her parents' deaths, continued her training. She'd only have a year left by now. Instead, she's a 20-year-old widowed single mother with a GED and no prospects. She lets out a breath and looks around. She frowns when she feels probing in her mind. She slides off the hood and turns on the spot to find the source.

"Bonnie?" She asks herself and then walks away fro her jeep.

.................

Elsewhere outside, Silas, disguised as Jeremy, sees Bonnie walking away from him and the prom.

"Bonnie, wait." He hurries after her.

"Get away from me, Silas."

"We can help each other." He offers.

"This is what you do. You wait until I lose control and then you want to swoop in and save me."

"You really think you have a choice? If you don't let me help you, your Expression will consume you from the inside out."

"Get away from me." Bonnie snaps, car alarms start going off in the nearby parking lot as their headlights flicker. Bonnie looks surprised and scared.

"You didn't try to do that, did you? Your magic is taking on a life of its own. You need help controlling it. Listen to me, Bonnie. Breathe."

"I will die before I let you control me again." Bonnie's anger manifests further in a gust of wind that carries the leaves up around them.

"Bonnie, listen to me! Control, Bonnie! Control!"

"Get out of my head!" Suddenly everything - the car alarms, the winds - stops. Bonnie puts a hand to her head. Silas has disappeared. However, Bonnie doesn't have much time to recover before Elena swoops in and attacks her, biting into her neck. Bonnie yells in pain and falls to her knees, but suddenly Elena stops and starts making choking noises. Elena starts vomiting blood while the wound on Bonnie's neck heals supernaturally fast. Elena continues to choke, Bonnie rises from the ground and uses Expression to break Elena's bones. Elena shouts in pain as Diana makes her way over to them. She pauses to watch a moment before closing the distance.

"Bonnie" Diana states. "Bonnie, stop. Bonnie."

"Diana, help me," Elena begs slightly.

"Bonnie, you're killing her." Diana scolds Bonnie.

"I know what I'm doing."

"That's the magic talking. This is your best friend." Diana argues. Elena continues writhing in pain. Elena manages to look up at Bonnie, blood dripping from her nose.

"Bonnie...Please." Elena groans for a moment longer then stops. Bonnie has stopped the spell. Elena gasps in relief. Diana looks at Bonnie.

"You okay?" Diana asks her.

"No, I'm not okay. I almost died. The shell of my best friend almost killed me. None of this is okay!" Bonnie leaves. Diana takes a breath and moves to Elena who is watching her. 

"You back?" Elena asks her, Diana hums and holds out her hand towards Elena, Elena glances at it before she takes it. Diana starts to help Elena up but she staggers weakly. Before Elena has a chance to fully recover, Diana jabs her with a syringe filled with vervain. Elena falls unconscious into Diana's arms. Diana hums to herself as she lifts Elena up and over her shoulder before walking away, she pulls her cell phone out of her pocket to call Damon and Stefan.