CHAPTER FORTY THREE
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"PROWLING AROUND A HIGH School baseball field late at night? Really? Could he be more of a creep?" Lizzie popped her head in from the backseat right as Mila parked her car at the side of the street. Once the key was turned in the ignition and the vehicle's headlights shut off, the only thing counteracting the pitch black color of night was the floodlights of the Mystic Falls High School baseball field.
Mila scoffed. "He played when he was in high school."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised he knows his way around a baseball bat."
Mila lets Lizzie's jab go in one ear and out the other. Her body fully collapses in the driver's seat after spending the entire ride rigid; fingers flex away the soreness that came from a tense grip on the steering wheel.
Her gaze goes to the distant figure out on the field, throwing baseballs up into the air and swiftly getting into position to swing at them. A cracking noise could faintly be heard from the distance when he managed to hit it perfectly. Mila couldn't tell how far the ball was sent flying, but she predicted it went an impressive distance.
"Okay... so I'll approach him. You girls stay hidden until I give the signal," she recited the simple plan she wished was more foolproof. Scheming was definitely more of Kai's thing.
"What signal?"
"I don't know. I'll call him a dickhead or something," Mila resorts, throwing her hands up in the air. "Something not suspicious."
"So wait until you insult him?" Josie frowns from the passenger seat.
"Are we talking like 'idiot' or are we going full on explicit like dropping the F bomb? Because if we're doing this, I think you should go all the way. Spare no feelings," Lizzie suggested. Mila could see her blow a few loose tendrils that unraveled from her pigtails out of her face.
Josie twisted in her seat. "Upsetting him isn't going to do any good, Lizzie."
"Uh, neither is letting him walk around like a psychopathic Babe Ruth. He needs to be put in his place, especially after how he's been treating Mila."
"Okay, that's enough!" Mila interrupts before the argument could escalate any further. "I can't even believe I agreed to this, but we're here now. I need you both to be careful."
"Relax. We're professionals. We know how to kick supernatural ass," Lizzie states, not a tremble of worry in her voice.
"And we really do want to help," Josie adds.
Mila takes a much needed breath before uttering, "Alright. Let's do this."
The three of them emerge from the car, Mila heading straight across the lawn towards the surrounding fence of the field while the twins went another way around the school. The temperature was surprisingly low with it being so close to summer, and the chill to the air made Mila wind her arms around herself. A long-sleeved henley and dark-washed jeans braced against the cold, but the weather was the last thing she needed protection from.
Reaching the gate, surprisingly unnoticed, she pauses. A hand weaves into the chain link fence, watching him through it with an unreadable expression. The repetition of his movements, the ease to them, paints him in a liberating shimmer. He's unburdened. Completely set free from the world — no thanks to her.
Mila shakes off the unsettling, forlorn feeling and steps onto the field. The clanking of the gate closing is what gains Kai's attention. His bat is placed behind his neck, held by both hands, as he studies her hesitant strides towards him.
"I take it you're not here to be my cheerleader? A shame. You would look hot in the outfit," Kai teases, his version of a proper greeting; it's the only thing that gets her to relax despite the anxiety latched to her plan and the many ways it could go wrong.
"Cheerleaders go for the hot quarterback. Not the T-Ball player," Mila corrects with a smile that's somewhat genuine.
"Aw, you must know that I never enrolled in T-Ball as a kid. Good thing, too. I'm pretty sure my family wouldn't have even came to my games. They didn't go to my high school ones."
"That's probably because you aimed for people more than the ball."
"It's not my fault everyone else plays defense while I play offense."
A laugh is expelled from his reply, a shocking reaction to the both of them. "That's a nice way to sugarcoat that you like to maim others with sporting equipment."
Kai's mouth twitches like he's about to smile, too. He doesn't, though, settling his conflicted stare down at the ground where his foot mindlessly drew lines in the dirt. Mila looks away as well, feeling like they were dipping into lighthearted territory they absolutely couldn't cross over into. Not after everything that's happened, not after all the rips to their painting when intending to repair it. There was no clear picture for them, anymore.
Mila suddenly remembers that she's supposed to give Lizzie and Josie a signal when Kai's thoroughly distracted. She dares to glance back over at him, leaning his bat against the half empty cart of baseballs. He moves like every limb weighs heavy on his body. Even when he removes the baseball cap that was settled backwards on his head to toss it in the cart and combs his fingers through his hair, it's done with this exhaustion. She knows that he's dealing with the repercussions of the bursted dam of his emotions. It's as distracted as he was going to get, but right when she was beginning to think of possible ways to formulate a sentence, he speaks up.
"I'm glad you're here, actually. I was waiting for you to track me down."
Her eyebrows stretch inward. "Why?"
"Well, when someone forces your humanity switch back on and then tricks you into drinking their vampire-repellent blood to get you mortal again, let's just say you have a bone to pick with them." His stare settles back on her, now dark and unforgiving. His nose twitches, almost threatening to trigger a grimace.
"Okay, I figured that your switch was back on, but I have no idea what else you're talking about," Mila voices her confusion.
"Your witchy, defected blood cured my vampirism, Mila." His harsh clarification caused her face to drop, arms uncrossing to fall at her sides. "No, don't do that. Don't act surprised. I know you did this on purpose."
"Kai, I would never take that choice away from you on purpose. You have to believe me," she murmurs with a gentle sway of her head.
The recollection of his fangs plunged deep into her neck, his tongue lavishing any dripping blood, burned in her mind. She hadn't been afraid that he wouldn't stop even though she should have been concerned by his tightening grasps and hungry growls. She was too engulfed by the heat of their bodies pressed close together and the enthralling way his searing touch danced to the melody of her hypnotized heartbeat. The moment was so beautiful, and yet now she knew that he was the one facing the consequences of it.
"I don't. I really don't. You had every benefit to gain from me returning to just a siphoner. You think you can just take away my power and then swoop in like I need to be taken care of?"
"No! Of course not! I didn't intend for any of that to happen. I didn't even know my blood could do that."
"Right," he said dejectedly. "You know, I'm not one to care for other people's opinions, but Ted was right. You're the manipulator. You're my downfall. You'd do anything to whisk me away into your fantasy of a happily ever after. No matter what it costs me."
His words strangle her stomach, steal away the breath in her lungs, and causes her to brutally flinch. She's terrified that he's speaking the truth. She's starting believe that she may have unintentionally ruined everything between them, but anger clashes with her fears, creating a swelling storm inside her inflamed eyes.
"Oh, so you're taking advice from the Necromancer now? I thought with you being a skilled liar and everything, you could tell when someone's lying straight to your face but apparently not. He's the one trying to control you, Kai. And it looks like it's working," she expresses heatedly but with wobbly syllables.
"And what are you trying to do, then?" Kai throws back without any delay, that same mixture of despair and fury behind his tight voice and even tighter fists. "With all of the seducing and teary-eyed love confessions and blatant traps to get me to do things I don't want to do?! Are you any different from him?"
"I'm trying to make you happy!" Mila declares in utter frustration.
"Well, you aren't!" This thundering response makes the fiery rage in Mila die out. She looks like she had just been snapped out of a dream, a cruel, horrible nightmare that clung to her in reality. Kai chest heaves, his eyes flickering over her in a manner that further hints at his unpredictability. "You're tearing me apart. I don't know who I am anymore. The only thing I do know is that... we can't do this anymore. No more back and forth. Whatever we had is over, and I mean over."
She would have sworn that his confession was the most traumatizing thing of the night, but then he reached behind him, a knife previously made invisible now violently apparent and snug in his hold. Her eyes switch back and forth from the weapon to the hardened features of his handsome face.
"Kai, what are you doing?" Mila backs away, trembling.
"Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce," he tells her all while stalking after her. "Looks like we didn't make the cut."
Her head swipes back and forth, searching for evidence of the twins at the sidelines, who must have noticed that she's in danger. She swallows hard, blinking away the blurriness to her vision, when she can't see their silhouettes anywhere.
"Looking for Thing 1 and Thing 2? Yeah, I saw them over by the treeline. They're a bit... tied up," Kai mocks, and her alarmed gaze is reverted back to him.
"If you hurt them, I'll-"
"You'll what? Glare at me and say something mean? You're just a human now, Mila. Mortal. Like me. Truth is, I should have sucked you dry when I had the chance. At least then I'd get something worthwhile out of this downgrade."
Her backwards steps pick up speed before she turns to run. His hand finds her arm too quick, yanking her back to him until she crashes against his chest. She doesn't linger on his bruising grip or icy gaze; her leg raises and propels to kick his knee in the perfect spot to make him lose his balance.
Kai falls to ground, grunting and nearly losing his hold on the knife. His free hand catches her ankle when she tries to stumble away, bringing her down with him. Dirt loosens and clouds over them from the commotion, both of them resisting to cough just as much as they resisted each other.
Mila tries to land more harmful kicks, but his throbbing kneecap motivated him to reduce her freedom of movement. He was on top of her in a blur of rattling chests and ruffled clothing and flailing arms. Her legs were pinned under his weight and he managed to capture her hands and pin them above her head. Granted, it had gotten him a sore jaw from a hard-landing punch and a slash on his bicep where her nails sliced deep before he managed to contain her.
It was the menacing touch of the blade coming to her throat that got her to completely still. She could no longer frantically squirm because of the threat of the knife digging into her skin. Instead, Mila is forced to resort to meeting his magnetic gaze, finding him absolutely electrified from all of the rough fighting.
"Is it just me or are you a little turned on right now?" Kai murmurs from above her. His threatening demeanor eases slightly, a twinkle lighting up his hooded eyes.
Despite the worrisome situation she was currently in, her muscles uncoil and her nose crinkles as she sighs out, "It's not just you. This is totally like foreplay to us. We both definitely need therapy."
Kai chuckles lowly at her ashamed reply, that repressed smile now unveiled and brightening up the whole world. She squints up at him with the same adoration, their mistakes and detrimental words forgotten for the briefest of moments.
"I do like you," he admits, and then his boisterous tone turns saddened. "I just can't have you."
"You already do. You have me," Mila reassures. Her voice stays at a quiet, solemn octave. "Even if I don't have you."
"We both know that you have a hold on me. Of course you do. You're you." His whispered reply that began with a gentle timbre of his voice ended up having such conviction near the end, his words landing like meteors against the surface of her attentive ears.
His head tilted down so his forehead leaned against hers. It coaxes her into letting her eyelids close, forgetting all about the knife pressed against her throat. She relished the gesture that picked up all of the shattered pieces of her heart, no matter how sharp or plentiful, and put them back together. All of the backlash, the terror, and the pain couldn't exist when they breathed the same breaths, felt the same warmth.
Being the bad guy was so much harder when she was on the receiving end of it, a lesson Kai had unknowingly learned and was determined to again. He doesn't know better. He doesn't know anything except that he's a liar. He's a liar that deludes the truth so much he's ended up afraid of it.
"But... this is for the best. You've left me no other choice," he continues, shaking his head a bit while they stayed pressed together.
"Did I? Because you've been wearing your choice on your finger every single day same as me."
"A false promise, if anything. I can't give you what you want."
Mila opens up her eyes, more close to tears than she had been the entire evening. "And what do you think that is?"
"Someone who doesn't hurt you like this. Someone who doesn't lie and ruin and takes you down with them." The soft exhales of his response swirl around her lips that tighten together.
"Kai, that's not who you are. Not anymore."
"Why? Because I fell in love with you?"
"Because of yourself. Because you decided you wanted to be better. For you, not just for me."
"For us. Right. Us. Well, there's no better way to make this clearer, then." He pulls away. The blade disappears against her neck but only because it's raised above her, aimed right for her heart. "There is no us."
Heartbreak returns and fractures the delicate features of her face. The heated flush vanishes from her cheeks. Her jaw hangs open in a way that magnifies the devastation twisting her eyebrows to furrow. Then there were the leaking tears that somehow stained his rescued soul more than the collar of her shirt.
Kai had never let sympathy stop him from doing something merciless, but this wasn't sympathy reducing him to a statued figure above her. It was something that made his eyes strain and his mouth quiver in search of words he didn't know the meaning to. It was something more powerful than anything he ever experienced. It had him questioning if he even knew what power truly was.
"What are you waiting for?" Mila whimpered.
The sound of her wounded voice, sounding so much unlike herself, made his chest clench all the way up to his throat. He struggled to answer her. "I... I don't know. I can't. I can't do it."
He peers away from her trembling lips to eyes that truly anchored every muscle in his body. He's confused but there's no mistaking the emotional gleam to his eyes, speaking more than the quiet whisper of, "Why can't I do it?"
Before Mila could gather any part of herself, there's a quick motion in her peripheral vision followed by the thump of a baseball bat slamming into Kai's ribcage. He rolls off of her, clutching his side and gasping in pain. Lizzie stands above them, covered in red welts.
"That's for the entrapment spell and nearly suffocating me and my sister to death."
a/n: to cheer y'all up let me tell you about this idea for a 90s high school kaimila au with baseball player kai and sports announcer mila. he'd be the best hitter on the team and one of the star players and yet mila, who announces the games for extra credit, always heckles him wayyyy more than the other players. she'd say something like "oh, what do you know another miss from number 26. looks like he'll never get to any of the bases both on and off the field" or "number 26 kai parker not only struck out in the game but with me last night in the parking lot." and he'd be bothered by it way more than he would let on so he'd seek her out and try to win her over <3
also btw big surprise next chapter. be prepared!!