CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE
[75]
song: black out days by phantogram

THE MEDICAL CENTER was much busier than expected, people in scrubs rushing around with clipboards in hand. While there didn't seem to be any emergencies taking place, the fast paced walking of all the nurses and doctors sure made it seem like there was.

Daisy walked behind Kai, the two of them making sure to blend in with the guests as much as they could. "We're just gonna walk up to her?" Daisy says, in a hushed whisper. "Like now?"

Kai nods. "That's the plan."

"And then what?" Daisy asks, narrowing her eyes at him as they walked behind a group of medical students.

"Okay, I haven't planned that far." He says. "We'll just get a quick gage of how she's doing magic-wise, so I can see how high my chances are of winning the merge." He shrugs, like it was nothing. "She won't even know we were here."

"How high your chances are?" Daisy questions, narrowing her eyebrows at him. "They're pretty high, aren't they? You said you'd win—"

"And I will." Kai interrupts. "But it doesn't hurt to check on our competition."

Daisy let's out a huff, as she follows Kai up to the front desk where a nurse sat behind a computer. He leans against the counter and smiles. "Hi," he says sweetly.

The nurse slowly looks up from her computer. "Can I help you two?" She asks, glancing in between the two.

Daisy nods. "We're looking for Josette Laughlin."

The nurse nods a bit. "Do you have an appointment with her?" She asks.

Daisy and Kai exchange glances before returning their attention to the nurse. "Yes." Kai nods confidently. "I've got a horrible rash on my back and like-" he motions to his back, "It's getting really itchy, and gross-"

"A rash?" The nurse stops him.

Daisy couldn't hide the disgusted look on her face as Kai nods along with a frown.

"Dr. Laughlin doesn't treat those kinds of things, you'll need to go to the dermatologist." The nurse says.

Kai stifled a frustrated sigh, as he tapped his rings on the counter he leaned on. "Nope, nope- see I have an appointment with her." He says, gesturing towards the computer.

The nurse sighs, unamused. "Name?" She asks.

"Malachai Parker." Kai responds, as Daisy looked around the lobby and kept watch.

"I don't see a Malachai for today." The nurse responds, she gets out a sticky note and a pen. "I'll take your name and number and have her call you when she's done with the med students."

"With the med students?" Daisy says, refocusing her attention back to the nurse.

The nurse nods, writing down Kai's name on the sticky note. "Phone number?" She asks.

Kai shakes his head. "No need, she'll know the name." He takes a breath. "Make sure you write Daisy Hendrix, too."

"Are the med students here, right now?" Daisy asks.

"Yes, she's giving a demonstration in the ICU right now. Should be done in a few." The nurse nods, then looks up at the two after she finished writing their names. "I'll let her know you stopped by."

Kai smiles proudly. "Appreciate it." He gently taps the counter, before leaning up and off it.

Daisy follows him as he turns the around the corner towards the exit. They stare at the glass doors for a few seconds before turning and facing each other. "ICU?" Kai asks.

"ICU." Daisy nods.

At the same time, Kai and Daisy turned back around and ducked down before they made their way around the corner. They practically crawled their way past the nurses station, trying to avoid being seen by them as they made their way out to the other hallway.

When they made it out the other side, and out of the view of the nurse they just spoke to, Kai gently grabbed Daisy's wrist and muttered a quick spell.

"What are you doing?" Daisy whispers, as she stood back up, looking around the halls.

"Cloaking spell." Kai says, after letting go of her wrist.

She narrowed her eyebrows at him. "Could you maybe have done that two seconds ago before we crawled across the floor to avoid being seen?"

Kai thinks for a few seconds, before eventually nodding in agreement. "Whoops." He says, he opens his mouth to speak but stops when something over Daisy's shoulder catches his attention.

Daisy follows his gaze, turning around and seeing a group of students in matching maroon scrubs, head down the hallway in a pack- a woman with pale skin, dark hair, and icy blue eyes leading them.

Kai grabs Daisy and pulls them out of the way of their walking path- as she was frozen in place. Daisy stumbles backwards at Kai's force, but doesn't take her eyes off of her as she walks by.

It felt like only yesterday she was getting rides from this girl and her brother before school, or studying together afterwards, or going to football games with her- or festivals, or parties, or sleepovers, or school dances.

Though her eyes looked as youthful and bright has ever, she's aged- grown into her face, and let her natural black hair overgrow the hazel brown she had it dyed in high school. There was a strong sense of familiarity to her despite the fact that she looked so different- Daisy held back the urge to approach the woman and start talking to her about what she's been up to.

Kai had a similar look of disbelief and amusement on his face, although he looked more angry than shocked. He barely moved as she walked by, though his wide, fiery eyes followed her trail.

As Josette fell out of view after turning the corner into a new hallway, they both let out breaths they hadn't realized they were holding. Daisy turned to Kai, almost feeling the anger radiate off him. His back was still turned to Daisy, as his eyes lingered at the end of the hallway where Josette just walked.

Daisy stepped forward, gently nudging his hand with her fingers to remind him of her presence. He grabbed onto her hands, though he had yet to turn to face her.

She opened her mouth to ask if he was okay, but he spoke before she could. "She doesn't have magic." He says.

Daish narrows her eyebrows. "What?" She asks.

Kai shakes his head, turning around to meet Daisy's eyes. "She doesn't have magic, I could feel it." Kai says. "She must've put it somewhere."

Daisy disregarded the darkness in his eyes, and the lower tone of voice he used to speak. "Well that's good, right?" Daisy says. "That'll make winning much easier."

He shook his head. "We can't merge if she has no magic to give me, it doesn't work like that." He lets out a frustrated scoff, rubbing his chin. "She always knew I'd come back, why else would she get rid of it?"

Daisy bit the inside of her cheek as she thought, she began to speak but stopped as a nurse walked by them. She froze, although they were still cloaked, it felt wrong. When the nurse was gone, she continued. "You can't just get rid of your magic, right?" Daisy began. "But you can store it somewhere." She says. Kai cocks his head to the side, an inquisitive look on his face. Daisy continued. "Just like Bonnie and that bear- Josette had to have just hid it somewhere."

"So we find wherever she put it, and force the magic back inside." Kai says.

Daisy sighs, shaking her head. "Yeah but, what are the chances we'll ever find it?"

—

"Found it!" Kai says.

Daisy lifts her head up from exploring the mini fridge, leaning up over the door. "Seriously?!" She says.

Daisy was making herself at home, as she examined each and every thing in whosever dorm they were in. They had a weak selection in terms of food, but you apparently can't expect much from broke college students.

Kai leans forward towards the map he had on the ground, getting out his phone and typing in whatever location he'd just found. "It's somewhere outside of Mystic Falls..." his sentence falls short as he recalls that name.

Daisy looked just as shocked as he did. "Mystic Falls? As in the Mystic Falls that we were just in with the witch and the vampire?" She asks, hoping it wasn't true.

"It was in Virginia?" Kai asks, confused.

"We're in Virginia?" Daisy retorts, just as confused.

Kai huffs, holding the phone out and reading something off of it. "It's only half an hour from here." He says, "Let's go." Kai begins to stand up from the ground, gathering the candles and everything he had just used for the locator spell.

Daisy frowns looking around at the empty dorm room with which they had just gotten to. "We just got here." Daisy says, standing up and shutting the mini fridge door. "And I haven't finished my snack." She gestures towards the block of dry instant ramen in her hand.

"You want to stay here?" Kai questions, glancing around at the messy dorm room which most definitely belonged to a boy.

Three beds sat in a row, all with different blankets and decorations hung above- if that's what you would call a torn up movie poster, and a picture of a female model Daisy didn't recognize.

Kai watched as Daisy's eyes glanced around the room, and he stopped packing up his stuff. "Let's just hang here for a bit." She suggests.

Kai eyes her for a moment. "And do what?"

Daisy looks around the room again before eventually sitting down on the edge of the bed she stood by. "Just hang out." She shrugs.

Kai tried to hide the smirk that fought to appear on his face as he walked over to her. "Just hang out?" He says, raising his eyebrows.

"Mhm." Daisy says, leaning back on her hands as Kai sat down on the edge of the bed right next to her.

Kai narrows his eyebrows at her as she looked at him, not saying anything- just leaning back and waiting. He let out a small laugh, before taking a deep breath. "This is fun." He says.

Daisy rolls her eyes and let's out a more than obvious scoff as she leaned up. Kai turns to look at her. "What?" He says, in between stifled laughs.

Daisy tried not to let it show that he was getting to her. She stretched her neck and let out a huff as she reverted her eyes to anything that wasn't Kai that would hold her attention.

Kai smiled softly, he could see the smile that tugged at her lips despite how hard she was trying to hide it.

Daisy lets out a sigh, and was about to open her mouth to say something, but stopped as she felt a kiss on her shoulder. Her breath hitched, even at the slightest bit of contact from him. She didn't turn to face him, in an attempt to avoid letting him see the red that flushed her cheeks.

He brought up his hand, moving her jacket off of her shoulder. As his fingers gently grazed her skin, she felt her self hold her breath at his cold touch. This time when he kissed her shoulder, he slowly trailed the kisses upwards and towards her neck.

When Daisy gave in and readjusted herself in an attempt to bring him closer, she felt him smile against her skin. He used his other hand to grab her jaw, and when he was done kissing her neck he connected their lips.

Immediately, Daisy sat up and straddled his lap- causing the both of them to fall back into the bed, which led to an exchange of a few quiet laughs. She had her hands tangled in his hair, while his eagerly made their way up and around her back.

He brought a hand up to cup her face before he flipped her over onto the bed. She didn't even get a moment to be surprised, as he was already back to kissing her before she got a chance.

Just as Daisy felt it was the right time for her to begin the whole taking her shirt off process, the sound of a door opening pulled her out of the moment entirely.

The both of them pulled away, turning towards the door to see a guy standing there with a backpack on. Kai let's out a frustrated groan.

"Who the hell are you?!" The guy says from the doorway.

"Get out of my room, you perv!" Daisy yells, grabbing an empty water bottle off the bedside table and chucking it at the guy.

The guy dodges out of the way, "This- this is my room!" He says, although his expression made it seem even he was second guessing if that was the case.

"Nice going, dude." Kai says, shaking his head in disappointment.

The guy, looking more lost by the second, just went back outside and shut the door.

Kai, confused as to how and why he gave up that easy slowly turns to face Daisy- who matched his expression, until seconds later they both broke out into laughter.

"I'm thinking maybe we should go." Daisy says in between chuckles.

Kai raises an eyebrow. "What? Is the stench of some random guy's dorm not turning you on?"

Daisy gives him a forced 'ha-ha', before pushing him off of her and sitting up, letting the last of her laughter out. She watched as Kai readjusted his shirt and walked over to the bag of stuff he had just regathered. "Come on." Kai says with a frown, sounding disappointed.

Daisy nods, matching his disappointed expression. "We'll finish that later." She says, standing up and walking with him towards the door.

Kai nods, eagerly. "Yeah, yeah. I'd appreciate that."

a/n
double update 😸