Consumed » Kai Parker

Thirteen

The Salvatore boarding house towers above us, looking more inviting than it ever has in my life. The early morning sun is shining now, rays of light reflecting off the windows of the house. The heavenly light is rather appropriate considering our ticket home lies within the house.

Kai and I don't waste any time in bursting through the front doors, our anticipation thick in the air.

"Split up," He says, already venturing off toward the hall on the left. "We'll cover more ground that way."

"You know, this is how people die in horror movies," I call after him. He snorts.

"Charlie, we're the only two people in this prison world and my dad is out to kill you in a pathetic attempt to keep me trapped here forever," Kai replies, turning his head back to look at me. "I'm pretty sure Chucky popping out from under Damon's bed is the least of our worries." I frown and he chuckles, disappearing down a corridor.

I walk further into the main room, sighing when I realize just how large the Salvatore home is and how long it will take to search every nook and cranny. But I'm willing to do anything if it'll return me to my family.

Letting a psychopath out in the process.

I swallow hard at the unwelcome reminder of exactly who Kai is and the harm I'll be causing by helping him escape. But Mystic Falls isn't exactly a stranger to supernatural evil infiltrating its borders. Elena, Jeremy, and my friends are more than capable of handling it by now. They've dealt with so much in the past few years and it's changed them in ways that aren't visible to the naked eye.

I'm not denying that it's changed me either. I'm definitely not the same girl I once was before I discovered who Stefan was, my sister's seemingly innocent boyfriend. That one discovery seemed to have a domino effect on all of our lives. I was in denial at first, not wanting to believe the dark things I once thought could only be possible in books and movies were coming to life.

Eventually, though, I began to trust Stefan and Damon. Admittedly, it took a little longer to warm up to Damon, but nonetheless he and Stefan became apart of the people I deeply care about.

Still, despite my friends, family and I all enduring much of the same supernatural-induced hardships these past few years, I don't feel capable of handling it as well as they do. I don't feel capable of fighting back. I hate that feeling. Being one of the few humans among a supernaturally dominated team takes a real toll on my sense of strength. Compared to them, I feel useless.

Useless and weak isn't something you want to feel in the presence of an sociopathic witch who will do whatever it takes and kill whoever he has to to escape this prison.

I know that Kai and I have established multiple times that he won't, he can't kill me if he truly wants to assure this merge goes as planned. I'm sure he could find another way, but the most convenient method is what he's looking for as our time dwindles away. Still, he remains unpredictable and I wish I felt better prepared to take him on if necessary. But you can't bring fists to a magical battle.

Lost in my thoughts, I soon finish rummaging through the Salvatore main room with no significant discoveries and stand in the middle, pondering my next move.

I decide that the study is a promising option and exit the main room, making my way down a different corridor than the one Kai had recently gone through. When I reach the study, I immediately begin with the vast bookshelves. If Grams wanted Bonnie to find it, it's likely that the Ascendant is somewhere among the various grimoires.

But if that were the case, wouldn't Bonnie have found it already? I'm sure she spent much of her time here trying to find a spell to escape. Nonetheless, it's worth a try, so I begin pulling grimoires off the shelves and opening and closing them, soon growing irritated when nothing relating to the Ascendant was discovered.