♡ 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲 ♡

𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 eight

bed the bad.

─── ༺♥༻ ───

KAI PARKER HAD ESCAPED. With a bang, of course. In typical fashion, it was with his lips on the ones of his angel. There was nothing romantic about the ways in which he clung to her face, or how desperate he was with it, her tongue held his only way out. Literally.

The remainder of it sat on her cupid's bow, ironically, and he did what any stable-minded person would do. He kissed his escape from her cherry lipgloss and plump lips like they were lifelines stapled below her blushing nose.

It didn't stop it from catching her off-guard, though.

"Where is he?" Damon yelled as his shoulder brushed against her own, forcing the reality to set in a little harsher than she'd have liked. "Goddamn it, where is he!"

"He was just here," Freya murmured lowly. "Barely a moment ago."

The arrow sticking out of her stomach was hard to swallow around. Kai was her undoing. Physically, mentally, and spiritually, he tore at the fabric of her being until she was too many frayed edges and loose threads that could easily be set alight with a burning stare.

Nothing could make her feel any worse than she did then. Her freedom was at the price of his.

And yet -

"Liv," Bonnie's eyes met Elena's as a look of horror fitted on their faces.

Smoke started to cloud her eyes and the charcoal scent dulled her senses. Still, she remembered the name in passing. The printed name in a dove-shaped newspaper, the person his finger lingered above as he perched over her shoulder, the other twin that survived. The person he'd go for first.

".. Liv as in the sister he tried to murder not 18 years ago?" Freya didn't look up. It was like somebody had chained a cinderblock to her jaw and forced her heavy-hitting stare onto the pavement. "Tell me it's not that Liv."

"Same one." Bonnie frowned, "Let's hope Kai hasn't got there first."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Kai slouched in the back of a taxi, fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie, and wiped the remainder of lipstick from his lower lip with a signature smirk. Cherry. Not bad.

"You ever worn skinny jeans? Agh..." he paused. "It seems wrong. I'm all bunched up." He ranted idly to his driver. "Also, why are jeans so tight when phones are so big?

Giving the occasional annoyed glance through the rearview mirror, the driver shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, pal."

"Oh, God. I'm that guy, right? That guy that won't shut up. Oh, I hate that guy." He huffed. "I just sat next to that guy on the plane. He was the worst... Hey. Speaking of planes, have you flown recently? Because what's with the whole liquid situation and the stripping before you go through the security thing? It's weird."

"They're worried about terrorists."

"Ok, well, I'm sorry, but the real terrorists are some of those people taking off their shoes." Kai paused as the man wore an exhausted look. "I know I'm chatty. Sorry. I've just been in prison for a while. Not like a regular prison, you know, more like a-"

"All right. We're here."

The driver pulled over swiftly. Swift enough for Kai to slide from one edge of the leather seats to the other. It riled up something in him. His ability to appreciate politeness, for one. Two, it'd be nice to kill someone and it to actually have an effect.

"Uh, a special kind of-"

The man held his hand out impatiently. "That'll be 30."

Kai simmered down, his hand struggling to wiggle the wallet from his pocket and his breathing growing sharper by the second.

"All right. Jeans. Uh, will you take this?" The Parker witch dropped a few quarters into his hand. "Hang on. Hang on. I got it..." He placed a wrapper between his teeth. "Oh. Hey. Gum. Nice."

"Come on, buddy. I don't have all day. Let's go."

Kai froze for a second. Narrowing his eyes and glancing up with a sadistic smile, he nodded eagerly. "Huh. Well... I guess this will have to do."

A pair of white wired earbuds tangled around his bony fingers. Pulling at the man from behind, he tightened them around his neck and waited patiently -- unlike some people could -- and heard the panicked breaths grow quicker and more hollow with each tightening of his muscles.

"You know, I was just as breathless." He split a smile. "I kissed a girl today, for the first time in like, 18 years." Kai felt the struggle underneath his wrists slowly cease. "You just had to ruin my good mood, didn't you?"

Kai reached around the front of the driver's seat and untangled the earbuds. Instead of tossing them, though, he placed a singular one in the man's ears as he lay lifeless against the headrest.

He then kicked the passenger seat door open and tapped against the driver's window. "Thanks, man. Keep the change."

A daunting sign stared back into his mischievous eyes.

WHITMORE CAMPUS.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Liv Parker dusted her wet rag across the bar, humming silently to the radio as her blonde hair was pinned up out of her face with a rusty clip and half a box of hope. Usually, sleazy men didn't make it so obvious they were staring, but this one did.. and he had a certain likeness to her, too.

"Can I help you?" she mutters, quirking a singular brow.

He continued to shamelessly stare

"One Zima, please."

She rolled her eyes at him, tossing the rag over her shoulder. "Hilarious. Are you gonna order something or just stare?"

"Fine," Kai's eyes fell down to her nametag. "Got any cherry soda.. Liv?"

He longed for the taste of cherries. Not because it was the fruit Freya had in her lipgloss.. or because it was the first thing of hers she shared with him. He just liked the bitter sourness combined with the sweet exterior. That seemed to match his taste in women, too.

He furrowed his eyebrows at her nametag, dragging his attention away from the annoying little angel with the even more annoyingly impressionable lips.

Heh, Liv. Ironic.

"You on Twitter? Ah. I just signed up. You should follow me." He ignored how she served other customers and showed her his phone. "Cobrakai1972."

He rolled his eyes at her quick eyebrow raise and huffed. "Come on. Like "Karate Kid"? Did you know you can follow celebrities? Heh. They all Twitter the stupidest things. It's--it's hilarious."

Liv glanced around uneasily at the empty bar, other than her and Kai, before putting away the glasses and avoiding his piercing stare. "It's kind of dead, I think I'm gonna close up."

"Okay, hang on, hang on-" He sat up. "I'll get a real drink.. No bourbon, I'm secure enough in my masculinity. Vodka's boring, rum's too tropical. " he perked up. "Ooh. Tequila. You do not want to see me on Tequila. What about gin? Is that weird?

"Not if you're a 50-year-old, but seeing as you look 19, I'm gonna need to see some I.D."

"Oh. Of course. Of course." he whispered sarcastically, leaning back and pulling out his passport before handing it to her with ease.

She chuckled dryly. "1972? Nice try."

"No. True story, but that's not the most interesting thing on that I.D.." he spoke gruffly, leaning over the bar to tap on the plastic card. "Here. Look again. Name, address..."

Her eyes faltered for a minute, not truly believing what they were seeing.

"... Malachai Parker.." she widened them, swallowing thickly before pulling away from the bar -- only for Kai to grab her wrist and dig his nails into it as he siphoned her Gemini magic.

Liv cried out in pain but Kai spent more time taunting her than worrying for her, as a big brother would've. "Last time I saw you.. I was trying to kill you." he grinned wolfishly. "Why don't we pick up where we left off?"

"I don't think so." Olivia managed to wince out as she gnawed at his shoulder with a fork, digging the metal deep into the crevices of his skin. She made a beeline for the door, however, with a grunt and the raise of his hand, Kai had it slam right in her face.

"Women are so annoying when they run away."

Kai followed her as she fled around the bar and locked every exit she approached. "I'm sad you didn't recognize me. That means Dad erased all traces of my existence-- " Another door slammed. "Family pictures, movies, little handprint turkey I made. What a dick."

Liv clawed her way up the stairs with her brother not far behind.

"You stay the hell away from me!" she threw a stack of chairs down the steps, only for Kai to easily dodge them with his tall form.

"You were always so bad at hide-and-seek... I mean, you were 4, but still, find a better hiding spot."

He kicked the chairs harshly out of the way and scrunched up his face in primal anger, ready to lunge, but somebody else bit the bullet first. Pushing Kai over the railings with a deep grunt, Tyler Lockwood watched him fall into the bar with a seething spit.

"I think she did just fine." The werewolf spat, glancing at his girlfriend pitifully. "Who the hell was that?"

Liv stared down at his unconscious body.

"My psychotic brother."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Freya didn't want to be bundled up in the havoc of witches, vampires, and.. whatever else lurked in Mystic Falls. Although, she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't go home, she couldn't leave town and seek refuge somewhere else, she couldn't do anything except her job. And her job, right now, was Kai.

"So, you can't cross the border.. because you're a vampire?"

They stood in a graveyard, ironic since Freya's brother would seem more comfortable there than her, while Elena leaned against her parent's gravestone with her boyfriend at her side.

"It's magic. A whole 'lotta witchy woo stuff that I'd rather not rant on about for fifteen minutes just for the sake of explaining."

Freya gave Damon a deadpan look. "Yes, no, very helpful. And I'm assuming, just on the premise of everything going wrong today, Kai can absolutely cross that border -- and has."

Elena pressed her lips together in a wince.

"No, that's great. That's wonderful. A sociopathic witch in a town full of fragile, weak humans that he can maim and torture as much as his heart desires with pretty much no higher predator there to stop him." Freya paced back and forth on the grass, kicking away pine needles with her boots. "Can you sense my sarcasm yet?"

"I can feel it in my bones, birdie." Damon hissed. "Technically, you and Bonnie can cross the line. There's no witch and pain-in-the-ass-angel sign on the spell. Who knows, maybe you'll find Kai and give him another precious peck on the lips-"

"That is not what happened-"

"Okay, guys? Can we stop yelling? Freya, I understand you feel responsible for Kai but taking it out on Damon isn't going to make the situation any better." Elena interrupted the two. "And Damon, be nice."

"Bonnie's looking for Jo, she's gonna warn her."

"Let me know when she finds her then, eh?" Kai appeared out of the shadows, leaning against a tree. He stood behind the border with a devious glint as all eyes turned to him. Even the ones he swore looked prettier when they weren't narrowed. He glanced at her momentarily, a smirk etching the side of his pursed lips. "Hiya, Rey."

She gave him a glare and tried to step forward yet Damon caught her wrist and pulled her behind him.

"Don't be stupid, Cupid." he spoke coldly, staring right at Kai as his crystalline blue eyes settled on Freya, the other two practically invisible to him.

Kai laughed. It was a soft and melodic one at first, like chimes in summertime wind. Then it grew into sinister laughter. He turned to look at Damon as his eyes gleamed in menace beneath the shadows of his brows. "Can Freya speak for herself or do you speak for all women, Damon?"

Damon spat back. "Just the ones I gotta protect from you, psycho."

"Psycho?" he laughed, his voice low and husky, his lips curling into a smile that only Freya could see. "Come on, darlin', don't you think I need my little angel on my shoulder to stop me from maiming, killing, and torturing a town of weak, fragile humans?" he mirrored her words with an outstretched hand.

"You stay away from Josette." she warned lowly.

Kai's smirk softened as her words hit him like an arrow to the heart. The anger was immediate and he turned to her, his jaw clenching hard enough to split teeth. Suddenly, like a wave of cold water, it dropped.

"That's cute," he said, almost sweetly. Yet, his facetious tone never wavered. "She's no safer from me than you are."

He took a step forward but still stood on border soil. "What if I don't? You gonna kill me with all that love?"

"You're free. Why is revenge the only thing you seek after almost twenty years of.. nothing?"

"Revenge? I don't just want revenge, Rey. I'm simply exercising my right to be young and powerful. Experiencing the little things: killing, kissing, drinking.. girls." he murmured, almost as if he were teasing. "Especially the pretty ones."

Damon spoke with strife. "I'm gonna enjoy killing you."

"You can't kill me. You kill me, Freya's stuck here for eternity. You can't make a dead man fall in love, now can you?"

Silence settled on the quartet as Freya burned holes into Kai's face as she felt the others burn holes into hers. "You think I wouldn't figure that out, Freya?" Kai mocked.

Anger climbed its way into her throat and settled there, blocking her airways from saying much else.

"I think I have fallen in love, Freya." He took a step closer. "Her name's power -- and she's all over me."

With that, he lifted his hand and tossed Damon into a gravestone, the stone cracking beneath his weight as he heaved. Elena sped to him, tending to the wounds that started to heal almost immediately as Freya's eyes never left Kai's.

It was the perfect mixture of a man looking at the last woman on earth, and a wolf preparing to eat its prey.

"Don't worry, angel." He taunted, leaning over the border to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as she coiled at his touch.

"That doesn't mean you're going anywhere just yet." he gave her an innocent grin with the most devilish intent.

Freya remained silent as he petted her chin before backing away. "Huh. I guess this is that, uh, antimagic border... which means now there's a psycho loose in Mystic Falls and no vampires around to stop him." he teased. "Whoops!"

She was going to kill him one day. Or die trying.

Kai began stepping away, disappearing away from the border as he muttered. "I love it when you glare at me, angel. It makes my heart race."

For once, she wished it would stop.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Freya was unsure of how to comfort Damon. Or if comfort was even in his realm of perception. Instead, she silently helped him clean up the Gilbert gravesite while Elena left to pursue Bonnie. The sky had darkened overhead, although, that didn't mean she didn't see the intense glares he gave her.

"Is what he said true?"

"Kai says alotta things." She deflected the question as she picked up a chunk of stone.

"About us killing him, Freya," Damon spoke sternly. "Will you be trapped here if we do?"

Freya liked to keep her cards close to her chest. Though, right now, they were spilled across the floor for everybody to see. "I can't leave Kai until he falls in love. Physically. I'm bound to him as his Cupid and if some stronger force interrupts that by killing him, I'll never be free of him."

"Surely you've been assigned to someone and they've died before."

"Damon, my brother is the Angel of Death, remember? That means every death is planned and written down. Just like every lie ever told, every war ever started, every love ever shared. It keeps the mortal plane balanced. Things only appear to happen naturally. But nothing about the world is natural, Damon. You're a vampire, you should know that."

"And what if I kill him anyway? What happens then?"

"Then I'm just an angel anchored to earth with our red string tying me down to his grave."

Damon opened his mouth to speak but was sharply cut off by Alaric Saltzman -- a human friend of his, it seemed. Except, the way Alaric yelled made it seem the friendship was one sided.

"So Jo drove me across the border." He spat, his shoulders swinging as he stormed over to the two. "I told her she was crazy, that you'd never compel me."

"Look, Ric-"

Alaric swung back his fist and slammed it into the side of his jaw, watching as his words spluttered out into winces. He fell to the floor, back on another pile of stone Kai had swung him back into hours before, only to readjust his jaw and glare up at Freya. He didn't need helping up.

"I had to get Freya out, it wasn't fair-"

"No, you know what wasn't fair? Compelling me to steal from my girlfriend when we had promised her we'd keep her brother locked away."

Freya wanted to jump in. She wanted to defend Damon, in a fucked up self-righteous way, but his further glares only warned her to stay quiet. It was her fault this happened. It was her fault Kai was free.

"Yeah, I know." he groaned, standing back up to meet Ric's eyes.

"Where is he-- Where's Kai?"

Damon didn't want to speak again, yet, he knew he had to. "He's out, but it's not our fa--"

Another punch came shortly after, this one stronger than the last.

Freya couldn't sit and watch anymore as she chimed in. "Pull another punch and you'll never use your hand again," she warned, despite how much she held a bitter friendship with the vampire. "You want somebody to blame? Blame me. He got out because of me. Damon stole the ascendant for me. He and Bonnie went in there for me."

"So you're the Angel of Love, hm?" Freya heard his words echo as she turned to Damon who avoided her look. It was nice to know she was already a known figure to his friends. What else did he decide to spill while she was trapped? "Getting you out wasn't worth it." Alaric grumbled.

"And neither was putting Kai in." she retorted back. "Twenty years of unbridled rage and plots of revenge isn't my fault. I didn't put him there-"

"But you let him out, didn't you? All to make a psychopath fall in love."

"Sociopath." she corrected.

"And trust me, I'll do far more than that."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Tyler huffed as he entered the Lockwood Mansion, anger in his step as he imagined the world shaking underneath his stomping boots. Bonnie spent her time looking after Liv for him. His girlfriend insisted that he needed rest, as he could be a tad bit overbearing. A Tad meaning a lot in gentle terms.

"I think gin gets a bad rap." Kai leaned out of the shadows, taking a long loud sip from his glass.

Tyler dropped his bag and tried to grab Kai, however, the witch reacted quickly and smashed the empty bottle against the wall, holding the jagged edge against Tyler's throat.

"I'd rather not kill you, but I will," Kai warned.

Tyler shook with rage but kept a level head. Now wasn't the time to be biting when he could barely bark. "What the hell do you want?"

"This is gonna sound crazy, but I want to save Liv's life." his grin slanted upwards as he felt a sense of pride overtake him.

"Feel like making a deal with the devil?"

✧ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3,323. ✧

a/n: freya: i hate you. kai: my angel <333