Tempted | Kai Parker

one: sacrifice

A/N: to all re-readers - no spoilers in the comments please, and no hints either. Please don't comment anything that could give away something later in the book as it's not fair for first time readers. Any comments like this will be deleted :)

I closed my eyes softly, letting my vision be immersed in inky blackness. I began repeating facts to myself. The things I was sure of in life. This was a tactic I used to ground myself whenever I felt my body begin to panic. Slowly exhaling a raspy breath, I started with the basics.

My name is Andie Walker.

I'm nineteen years old.

I live in Mystic Falls, Virginia.

I saved my friends Damon and Bonnie from the alternate world we were trapped in.

I got stuck here.

I'm stuck here. Alone. With a psychopath.

The latter thoughts made my ragged breaths begin to feel almost impossible as I shot my eyes open, my clammy palms beginning to tremble. In an attempt to control the frenzied and disjointed thoughts which raced through my head I tried to shift my mind to something happier, wishing I could push the negativity from my brain. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, the frightening and frankly unwelcome thoughts rattled around inside my skull, seeming to scream at me from inside my brain.

Unable to banish the darkness which plagued my mind, I recalled the events of yesterday for what felt like the thousandth time since they had happened.

Bonnie, Damon, and I huddled together in the gloomy cave, its dark stony walls wound into several diverging pathways from the junction which we stood. The damp smell quickly invaded my nostrils, and every so often a large droplet of water would tumble from the dewy walls, sounding like a dripping tap as it crashed to the floor. Above our heads was a gaping hole that Damon had dug from the outside, the gap showcased the sky in which an eclipse was just beginning to form.

On the floor of the cavern beside us lay a dead Kai Parker. He was sprawled on the floor, crimson blood gushing down his front from the knife which protruded from his chest. To be honest, I was normally completely opposed to unnecessary blood shed. But in this case? Totally necessary.

To give some context, Kai was an unhinged psychopath who killed his own family and so, was sent to this world to be imprisoned. He had stayed here for eighteen years until we all came along. "We" included: me, a fairly new vampire, Damon, a fairly old one, and then there was Bonnie, the Bennett witch. Luckily for Kai, a Bennett witch was exactly what he needed to get out of this hell hole.

You see, this world was created in collaboration with the Gemini Coven, who Kai belongs to, and the Bennett's, who Bonnie belongs to. They created this place, a repeating loop of May 10th, 1994 that lasted an eternity, to isolate Kai after his Gemini murder spree. The only way to get out was with the ascendant, a small metal contraption which I honestly didn't quite understand, and with Bennett blood.

This all came to light when Kai tried to persuade Bonnie to free us all, which at first didn't seem too bad. We were happy in fact, to have found a way home. That was until we noticed one of the headlines on the paper from May 10th, 1994.

'Family Massacred in Portland' the title read. Photos of children who had been killed stared at us from beneath the large print of the headline. Their innocent smiles sent a chill through my spine, each of them beaming, blissfully unaware of what their fate would hold. As we read further into the article, we noticed something peculiar. 'The only child missing is the oldest boy, 22-year-old Malachai Parker'.