CHAPTER 5: a portal
THE RAGE THAT SHOOK Roma was so quiet that even Kai was unnerved. All the hateful words that Bonnie had spat at him were ignored as he stared and wondered where her sudden hatred had come from. She didn't even face him. She couldn't. Roma felt like the fool. After all, she should've known by his psychopathic traits- like father like son. She wondered if he knew or helped with what his father had done or even remembered her. It was a mistake to so carelessly tell him her name, in a world full of snakes.
"I'm sorry Damon, but we're going to have to find another way out. We are not letting him out!" Bonnie cried indignantly.
"Look Bon Bon, I don't care. I just want to get out of here,"
"How can you not care? Maybe because of all the horrible things you've done? Maybe because killing a bunch of kids isn't a big deal to someone who's murdered a pregnant woman?" Bonnie squared down to Damon who had a distant look of regret in his eyes as she waited for her answer. "Am I wrong?"
This prompted Damon to go into a spiel about how he killed some pregnant lady a couple years back which frankly, Roma could not care less about. Even Kai seemed interested, which wasn't much of a surprise seen as he just admitted that he carved up his siblings- this should be right up his alley. All Roma could do was stare at Kai and attempt to not hit him. Or do worse. It was a very anti-climatic story with people such as Zach and Stephen and Roma had no idea who they were.
"Okay, can we go back now?" Damon pleaded quietly.
"Oh come on, Bonnie. You want to go back home to your friends, I want to go back and give the rest of the Gemini Coven an excruciating death, win-win!"
Damon stepped closer to Bonnie and the desperation in his eyes were clear as he spoke, "I know this guy isn't a model citizen, Bonnie, but I gotta get back. Not just for Elena but for my brother."
"I'm sorry, Damon."
"Well, sorry doesn't work for me," Kai said before reaching for Bonnie's arm- but before he could, Roma grasped his wrist and shoved him back, surprising everyone in the room as they'd kind of forgotten she'd existed at that moment.
"Shut up," she growled quietly. She had a headache listening to them argue and come to no solid decision.
"Kai, if you ever lay a finger on me-" Bonnie began, but Roma cut her off too.
"I said, shut up." She said this with such a final tone that not even the serial killer, nor vampire, nor witch began to speak.
"Since I, I assume, am the only one who hasn't killed someone here," she paused for a moment to allow Bonnie to contradict her- she did not. "I believe I have the high moral ground. So, I will make the decision whether we stay or we go." Again, no-one disagreed with her and Roma thanked God that her voice didn't shake or else they wouldn't even be listening to her right now. "As much as I believe Kai is a filthy, psychotic little pig, I want to go home even more. So Bonnie Bennett, I promise if you take us out of here, I will make sure Kai doesn't harm another person in his life."
Everyone stood in silence for a minute or two, after which Bonnie nodded tersely then walked out. Damon let out a sigh of relief before walking to some other part of the house.
"'Filthy, psychotic little pig,' huh? I've never heard that one before," Kai said with a little grin.
"Go away," Roma muttered, irritated simply by his prescense.
"By the way, how do you plan to make sure I never gut anyone again? You going to keep me under lock and key? Chains? And handcuffs?" He shot her a wink alongside his clearly dirty words. Then he leaned in close and with a threat very clear on his tongue, he whispered, "Don't make promises you can't keep. I don't want to carve out those pretty little lips of yours."
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Last night Roma had watched whilst Kai drained some of Bonnie's magic and gave Damon an aneurysm and made cool fire happen. He went to inflict magical pain on her too but she just stood there, leaning against the doorway with an eyebrow raised and he decided against it. Kai and Roma had been listening in to Damon and Bonnie's conversation and it sounded a lot like 'we should get away and leave Kai behind.' She'd be okay with that, had she been included in the 'we' and Roma had a strong feeling that she wasn't.
It was the next morning whilst Damon and Bonnie were chatting away while the big bad vampire tangoed with a stick he'd found, that Roma felt truly lonely again. It's not like she was surrounded by a bundle of friends in the real world that she missed when stuck here- no, quite the opposite. This prison world just highlighted how alone she was, with no-one to rely on like Damon had Bonnie and Bonnie had Damon. They were the only two decent people here and she wouldn't wiggle her way into their friendship group like a clingy teenager when a) she wasn't wanted and b) they both had years of history together.
And then there was Kai. She could trust him as far as she could throw him. He was honestly the most snake-ish person that she knew. He had his moods, his flirty, cheery moods and his 'it-is-cold-and-I-want-your-entrails-to-warm-me-up,' moods. Fortunately, today he was the former, skipping around in his 90's man shorts which were a little ridiculous in Roma's eyes.
"I heard my name," the devil appeared at the sound of his name, mentioned by Bonnie when she noted that she still didn't know the spell to travel back to the world yet. "All good I hope?"
Roma, who had been walking behind Damon and Bonnie, thought this was odd too, and super cautious coming from Kai. For someone who's desperate to get home, why wouldn't he reveal the spell as soon as possible so Bonnie could practice?
"The eclipse will happen directly overhead, directly in alignment with the Gemini constellation. You'll need to dig a tunnel below us, we'll do the spell there," he explained, nodding his head towards Damon in reference to the digging part.
"Why?"
"Have you never portal jumped through an eclipse before?" Kai asked in a very 'duh' tone, causing the witch to narrow her eyes. "Okay, look. The light of the eclipse will shine down and activate the ascendant, you spit a little witchy-woo and then poof! Anyone standing in the circle of light, holding the ascendant goes home."
"By 'witchy-woo' I assume you mean the spell. Let me see it," Bonnie demanded, causing Kai to raise his lips into a little shit-eating grin.
"When the time comes," he replied, darting past them down the path away from the woods.
"Where are you going?"
"Into town. I need to pick up some important supplies."
Damon and Bonnie said nothing for a minute before Damon sighed and picked up the pick-axe. Roma, seeing as she had nothing better to do, grabbed the shovel Kai had placed on the ground and went to dig.
"What are you doing?" Bonnie asked, confusing Roma. It was pretty clear what she was doing, she was digging.
"Helping?"
"You know what, we think you should probably follow Kai- check he's not buying knives to stab us repeatedly with."
Roma looked to Damon and he just shrugged his shoulders, continuing to make his tunnel. She knew when she wasn't wanted. All she could do was hesitantly put her shovel down and walk away, hearing Bonnie faintly whisper to Damon, "Do you trust her?"
It was a fair question, Roma didn't trust any of them and she certainly wouldn't trust herself had she been somebody else. However, the way Bonnie said it made her feel like she was being placed in the same category as Kai- a danger, a threat. She was, but not to them. She had no fouls with them.
She sped up her pace a little till she could hear Kai making his way through the woods in front of her. She was bored already and her phone was dead and there were absolutely no compatible chargers in this world, so it wasn't like she could listen to music. As she was lost in her thoughts, Kai suddenly had a hand to her neck, slamming her into the back of a tree.
"Why are you following me? Are you planning on killing me and going home without me? Because trust me, that won't work- I can be very persistent."
Roma put her hands up in a surrender, gasping out, "Relax, I'm your babysitter."
Kai thought for a second then let her go, leaving Roma to wonder if she should draw some magic, just to be on guard around him. He grinned at her like he hadn't just almost strangled her, then turned back to the path and started walking. "Why didn't you just say so?"
As Kai whistled all the way up to the shops, Roma glared daggers into the back of his head. She wished she could literally stick her dagger in the back of his head but she couldn't- her fight wasn't with him, no matter how much of a psycopath he was. She wondered what possible necessities he could need but then decided this trip could be very well worth her time because she could take whatever she wanted and it was completely fine.
"Hey," she called out to Kai, causing him to raise his eyebrow at the fact that she was willingly talking to him. "Are there any banks in this area?"
He stared at her for a moment, then chuckled. "That's a good plan. I like it. Got to say, I never imagined you to be a bank robber."
"You don't know me," she first snapped back, then realising this made her sound like robbing banks were her hobby, she followed up with, "Anyway, it's not stealing if there's no-one to steal from."
"Debatable, but sounds fun. I'm in."
As they reached the highstreets, Roma and Kai came to a stop, both having completely different things on their agenda. "Alright, you go get whatever it is you need, and meet me back here in half an hour. Then we can use the amazing bank-code breaking skills I'm assuming you've learnt over the years and steal me some money and then we'll go."
"Where will you be?" Roma shrugged cryptically in response, walking off towards the nearest department store.
She was taking every single penny from this place. She quickly grabbed a backpack (and a pair of overalls that she thought looked nice) and then took all the paper money in all the tills. Then she went to the next expensive looking store and did the same. And she kept on doing so till half an hour had passed and she walked out with roughly $20,000 and a few other items she had seen along the way (the jewellery store was nice to explore).
"Good, you're back, let's go- what is that?"
Kai had found a shopping cart and had loaded it with various different weaponry, such as a chainsaw, a blowtorch, a bow and arrow for some strange reason and other stuff.
"Where did you even find all this stuff? Why do you need all this stuff?" Roma took a step back, suddenly glad that she had forgot to return her magic after opening all the tills.
"Well, I was stalking Bonnie and Damon for 6 months, so it's safe to say I got bored. Also, funnily enough, I never needed money in this prison world so I don't know how to open a bank vault. Therefore, I have explosives."
Roma let that process for a minute then, nodded, walking in the direction of the bank. Roma had serious money troubles at home, as everything she had inherited from her parents she'd mostly used up to pay off the mortgage and then it'd slowly dwindled over the past three years. She constantly had to be on the road, staying in cheap motel rooms, using everything she had to track a man who came to her in the end. She had wasted everything on Joshua Parker.
As they entered, Roma looked on, pleased at the decent size of the bank. Maybe she'd walk out of here with a little less than a $100,000, which she would be extremely pleased with. "Do you have a hammer, Kai?"
As Kai set to work on the actual vaults, Roma took a hammer to the glass between the bankteller and the customer. The Parker turned his head to her, distracted, then made a loud whistle, nodding his head in approval.
"That's hot."
Roma ignored him and leaned over to look at the cash register which was surprisingly already open, picking out the $50's and $100's. She repeated her actions for every window, gladly pocketing her notes. After a minute or so, Kai came ambling from the back of the bank, and shortly after, the sound of an explosion followed. He turned to give her a quick smirk, pleased with his work.
"Isn't this fun?"