Kai was a better doctor than Vivianna cared to admit.

The end of the week came, and she was well enough to move without pain. Whatever medications he had given her had done wonders. She had a very light scar that had healed as nicely as possible, considering how deep her wounds had been.

"Great," said Kai, once he changed her bandages for the last time. "Tomorrow morning, you can take those off, and we can be on our way to Portland."

"Why Portland?" she asked.

"Because that's where my family lived."

"But you didn't find all the pieces there. What if—"

"Shut up," he said, rubbing his temples. "I'm planning a route in my head. We should go back to where it all started."

"Are you implying that you may have missed something the first time you were there?"

"Of course not. Only idiots miss something when they're looking for the thing that can get them out of prison."

Vivianna rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say. What's this route?"

"I have to mark hospitals and places to eat and sleep first. We won't get there in a day. We need to plan four, max, because you still need plenty of sleep. You may be able to move, but I won't risk you randomly collapsing. If your condition takes a turn, we need to account for that. The last thing I need is you dying before you tell me where to find the Bennett blood."

"That's cute," she said, crossing her arms. "You just don't want to admit that you care about me."

He scoffed. "I don't give a shit about you. I just need something from you. This excessive planning wouldn't be necessary if you were just healthy."

"I would be healthy if you hadn't attacked me."

"I wouldn't have attacked you if you'd just been useful and fessed up to what you had to offer in the first place."

"Keep talking like that and I'll just passenger myself right into you. I'm strong enough to do it, now."

"Are you, though? This entire world is made with Spirit Magic. At least in the real world, there are parts that magic has never touched. Your shitty off-brand magic may be limited here. There isn't even much you can do. You're about as useless as they come."

"There are loopholes," she said. "Traditional magic uses herbs and spirits. So maybe I can't really use that, but I can use other things." (A/N: Bear with me, there's not much about what Travelers can and can't do so I'm coming up with it as I go).

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"Ancestral Magic, for one. The ashes of my parents soaked in their blood, and stored in a talisman, gives me something to channel, because I can then connect with my own people even after death. Traditional Magic witches will usually consecrate their Ancestors, and can only use their power in a certain area. Since we can't stay in one place for too long, we have to adapt."

"I don't see how that's better in any way. You weak bitches have to do spells in groups every time. The kind of major spells a single witch can do alone... if you even tried, you'd just sputter out and die."

"I didn't say it was better, I'm just explaining it all to you, for fuck's sake. If you don't want to hear it—"

"Go on," he said, not wanting her to stop. "I like to know my enemies. I need to know what you are and aren't capable of. And don't lie, because even though you're healed, I can fuck you back up really easily."

She rolled her eyes. "I can do dark magic, and you can't. You could try it, but dark magic draws on evil powers for evil purposes. It's against what the Spirits want, and if you attempted it, they'd fight against you until it hurt you. It's against the balance of nature even if you don't commune with the Spirits. We upset the balance of nature— according to you witches— two thousand years ago. If we're already out of the balance of nature and if we don't rely on or communicate with any Spirits, then what are we really doing wrong? We've already been messed up for so long. We can use dark objects that are portable without it affecting us. Darker spells weaken us, but ultimately won't cause the sort of damage that Traditional witches would get. Not to mention there's a darker form of magic called Kemiya... it's Arabian and deals with chemistry. Because of the Travelers' connections with one another and our ability to use dark objects, Kemiya comes naturally to us."

"The fuck is that?" asked Kai, never having hear of Kemiya. "What does magic have to do with chameleons?"

"Kemiya, you idiot," she snapped. "Pay attention. Like I said— chemistry. Magic that destroys one element to create another. With Kemiya, you can turn real gold into real silver and real bronze. The very foundations of any piece of matter are altered. It doesn't even violate the Laws of Conservation of Matter. It's the most scientific that magic can get. The thing about Kemiya is that you can't do it alone. But even just one other witch will suffice. What matters most there is the chemistry between them. If two witches have good chemistry... if they mesh really well together... they can accomplish anything. This is mostly— if not always— used to make dark objects. To reiterate, dark objects don't hurt us. We can use them easily. Do you get it now, or do you need me to run through it again so it gets through your thick skull?"

Kai glared at her. "No need, Vivi, I understood the first time. Continue."

"We can do Sacrificial magic as well. We can only sacrifice humans or other Travelers or animals, though, because they're unaffected by Spirit Magic. Still, that's a lot like what other witches do. We take the life of sacrificed creatures and turn it into energy that we can then use as fuel for our magic. Killing may be against the balance of nature, but again, if we're already against it, it doesn't quite matter much. Besides, we have to kill for a living. We're all unphased by it."

"So you've killed before," said Kai, looking more interested. "What's your body count? You could answer that in terms of murders or sexual partners, you know, since you never answered the medical question I asked."

She rolled her eyes. "None of your business."

"Tell me. You already know my body count. Four. So far, that is. That could change. Let me guess. One for each category. You can hardly call yourself a mercenary."

She looked away from him, and he moved closer. "How many, Vivi?"

"Twenty-nine," she whispered.

"Damn, you've had sex with twenty-nine—?"

"I've killed twenty-nine people!" she hissed. "I started working as a mercenary when I was seventeen. I needed a way to pay for my tuition and a way to survive and I just accepted jobs. It didn't bother me so much, after the third one. It was just taking the life away from strangers. It didn't mean anything."

"You seem to regret it."

"Of course I do. Some of them were bad, but not all. Some I agreed to kill because the paycheck was too big to resist. I'm not proud of it. I didn't know any better. And I worry that even if I did, I still would have done it."

Kai pursed his lips, as if trying not to laugh. "So you've killed twenty-five more people than I have, and you're acting like I'm the bad guy."

"I have never killed a child," she said sharply. "And never someone I knew or cared about. You killed your own damn siblings. You can be mad at Jo for what she did, you can be mad at your parents, hell, maybe even that younger brother Joey who seems to have been old enough to know that neglecting you was wrong. But don't tell me the others deserved it. They were kids, Kai, they didn't know that what they were doing was wrong, they just saw your dad mistreating you and they went along with it because that's what children do. They imitate their parents until they learn otherwise."

"Don't kid yourself, Vivi," he said, leaning over her. "Maybe you didn't kill any kids. Maybe you didn't kill anyone you knew. But you're just as bad as me. Probably worse... if you think about it."

She gulped, knowing he was close enough to hurt her again. But he didn't, and she was able to relax when he got up. "So," he said, as if nothing had happened, "there has to be more magic you can do."

"Connective Magic is the last of it," she said, swallowing hard. "Centuries ago, some Travelers picked up a technique from a witch in the Kingdom of Norway, so that we could channel each other and augment our own power. According to the history archives, the spell we use for it is nowhere near as strong as the original spell created by that witch they learned it from, but that's because she used Traditional Magic, and we can't. It's how we managed to do such powerful work together. We heightened each other's power when channeling."

"But now you're the last Traveler," he said. "So that won't work anymore."

"Right," she admitted quietly. "None of it will work. My magic is going to be gone soon enough. It's only a matter of time. Unless I find a jar of Traveler ashes waiting for me in the real world, I'm pretty much gonna turn back into a regular human."

"And if someone broke the curse? Someone from the Gemini Coven?"

"That's impossible, that curse was cast two thousand years ago."

"But if they could, would you be able to do Traditional Magic again?"

"I guess I might be able to, but it would be pointless, because I'd have to learn a completely new style of magic and I'd still be mortal, not to mention I have no family to enjoy it with. There's no benefit to me being a witch. The best I can do when I get out is to try to lead a normal life 'til I die. Besides, why do you even care about breaking the curse? I'd be stronger than you if I had Traditional Magic."

His lip twitched. "If I break the curse on you, will you tell me where the Bennett blood is?"

"Nice try," she said with a scoff. "No."

"You're a bitch, you know that, right?"

"So are you, don't flatter yourself."

"You're actually a stupid bitch, because you don't realize the golden opportunity I'm offering you."

"What, the opportunity to do magic I've never learned? Sounds wonderful. First of all, you don't have your own magic, you can't break that curse even if you tried. Second of all, you only say you'll do it but as soon as you find out where the Bennett blood is, you're gonna kill me and leave my body here to rot while you prance around in the real world bragging about how you killed the Last Traveler."

"What's one more body to the count? You're the one who made a career of killing people."

"It's not like that was the ideal career for me."

"Then what was?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I was in college, but I just kinda took whatever classes felt interesting to me. I knew it wasn't going to last anyway. To have a career you need to have at least a bit of stability, and Travelers never do. I wanted to be a writer. Then an actress. A dancer, which my host body for the last three years definitely had the build for. I liked science, I could have been a teacher or a nurse or something. I don't know. I never decided, because I knew I'd never get what I wanted anyway. Travelers don't live to be very old. They're constantly hunted and it's rare for them to make it past their late twenties."

"I was good at physics and math," said Kai, reminiscing a bit. (A/N: Again, using the background I already created for him in Pernicious, bear with me). "I was majoring in engineering. If my asshole of a dad hadn't kept me from leaving the state, I could have gone to MIT and CalTech. I got in. Instead, I was at Portland State University. Fuck those stupid vikings."

"I'm surprised you actually tried hard enough in school to get into those places," said Vivianna.

Kai scoffed. "School was basically the only thing I could focus on. Studying used to be my escape. Everyone in my house ignored me, and when I was a stupid, naive kid, I used to think that if I did well in school, they'd think I was nice and disciplined and they'd let me play with my siblings. Didn't go that way, but it was so easy for me, I just kept trying and at least it distracted me. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to be, but I was good with my hands. Good at building. I wanted to be an architect or an engineer. Instead, I've been stuck learning medicine, which hasn't helped me kill myself in the slightest. I'm still here instead of dead."

"You do know that medicine can't do anything if magic is what's keeping you alive, right?" she said a bit more gently. "You could mutilate your body in the worst ways, all textbook, but it wouldn't yield any results, because Traditional Magic is what keeps you from escaping this punishment."

"Don't have to remind me," he muttered. "Whatever. I'm gonna go plan the route. You go around and eat whatever. Prepare some supplies or some shit, make yourself useful. Tomorrow morning, we leave. I'll get a car of my choosing."

Vivianna had felt lonely throughout the day. He was avoiding her, that much was obvious. Even though they weren't with one another, their minds were making progress to bring them together. Kai couldn't help but revert to the dirtiest scenarios, still remembering her in that towel, which he could have very easily ripped off of her. Even Vivianna was wondering what lurked beneath the ridiculous clothes he wore. There had to be something there. Supernaturals tended to be rather attractive.

She'd gathered as much as she could. Bandages, syringes, medicine, bedsheets, pillows, clothes, practically anything they could ever need, all stuffed into the conveniently stored duffel bags with the hospital's name on them. A lot of the 'bedtime' clothes consisted of scrubs, but Vivianna figured it could be worse. The last thing she needed was for there to be a shortage in pajamas and for Kai to insist they sleep naked.

She'd gone to bed that night missing Julian and Maria more than usual. She'd cried a bit, muffling it into a pillow so that Kai wouldn't hear her. For some reason, he wasn't snoring this time. Maybe he was sleeping on his stomach and couldn't snore. Or maybe he wasn't asleep at all. As curious as she was, she didn't go and find the answer.

Kai woke up early to shower, and had gone to look through the supplies she prepared, finding himself impressed to see she'd made a list and put each thing into categories. She'd even added potential things they could get once they were on the road to make sure they were comfortable on their way to Portland.

"Vivi," he chirped. "Wakey wake—" he stopped, suddenly, seeing blood all over the sheets. "Damn it!" He figured the wound on her leg may have opened from her straining to get all the supplies. But when he tore up the sheets, he realized that the origin of the blood was not from either of her wounds.

"What the fuck?!" she screamed, waking up when she felt the movement, and shooting off to the other end of the bed, thinking he'd been trying to creep under her covers. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You're bleeding," he said simply, pointing down at the stain on the sheets. "A lot."

She looked down, and her hands immediately went to her stomach. "Oh, shit," she said, her face turning red. "Get out!"

"What the hell is your problem, it's nothing I haven't seen before," he said, truly unfazed. "It's just a period, jeez. Or are you embarrassed 'cause you made a fucking mess?"

"Of course I'm embarrassed!" she said, getting up, holding the sheets tight around her so she wouldn't stain anything else.

"Don't you females like... know when this is gonna happen to you?"

"I was in the body of another person for the last three years," she reminded him. "I've been back in my own body for less than two weeks. I don't know my cycle anymore." She groaned, feeling a painful sensation in her core. "Great. The girl I was in before didn't get cramps— the lucky bitch. Just— give me awhile, I need to clean up. Don't keep staring at the blood spot like that, it's weird!"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Don't get all moody on me."

"I'm always moody, don't go along with stereotypes," she muttered before heading to the bathroom.

She'd done her best to wash the sheets by hand, but the stains ran too deep, and there was still an orange-pink tint to them. She'd balled them up in frustration and thrown them away before peeling off her scrubs and going into the shower, doing her best to clean herself up thoroughly. She'd heard footsteps at one point, and had been about to snap at Kai when she heard them recede. When she exited the shower, she found a box. Peering inside it, she saw that he'd brought her pads and tampons of various sizes, as well as a jar of pills.

"Why did you get me all this stuff?" she asked, carrying the box back to her hospital bed.

"'Cause you were bleeding everywhere," he said, between bites of a ham sandwich. "Kinda self explanatory."

"You basically got me the hospital's entire supply of period products."

"Tampons can help plug up wounds and stop bleeding from other injuries. Helps me, too, don't make it out to be something it isn't. I don't want you bleeding all over the car I got. We're still starting to head to Portland today. And the medicine works for both of us. I don't need you bitching the entire time we're driving. By the way, this changes the whole trip, cause now, all this extra medicine is gonna make you drowsy. You're not gonna be driving. Which means the trip might take five days, even though I planned for it to take only four."

"Five days?" she squeaked. "This is already my twelfth day in this stupid prison world. How much longer is it gonna take for us to get what we need to get out?"

"We would have already been in Portland if you'd just healed faster, you know. Think, idiot, it took you three days to get from Virginia to here. A trip that should have taken you less than a day. It takes long when you're the only one driving— you gotta stop and recharge. I may not be able to die but I get tired, and if I'm gonna be the only one pulling weight here, we're gonna stop and rest. If you want to speed up the process, tell me where the damn Bennett blood is."

"I'm not telling you anything," she said. "We're getting the last piece of the Ascendant first."

Kai gritted his teeth a bit. "Fine. Get a few bags. We're gonna start loading up the car."

He'd acquired an SUV, which fit all the bags, and left room for more supplies they could need. When they were buckled up, he looked at the map, making sure he knew where to go. Vivianna peeked over, seeing he'd color coded different routes to take, if, for example, when a fork in the road came, they weren't hungry yet, and were okay with not stopping to eat until later. It was as if he'd planned for anything and everything that could happen to them. If the urge to use the bathroom hit them at a random moment, there was already a prepared detour to get to a rest stop, and a way to get back on the main highway without delay. She would have complimented him, but she opted to keep her mouth shut.

"Today is day one of the trip to Portland," he muttered aloud. "A.K.A. Day twelve of you being in this place. Since we're just starting out today, we'll do two five-hour trips. First from here to East Orange, New Jersey. We'll stop, eat, go to the bathroom, that sort of thing. Rest a bit. If we need to do any of that earlier I have a detour ready. Then after we rest, we're going another five hours to DuBois, Pennsylvania. Same process, except this time, we go to sleep. Wake up early on day thirteen and repeat the process from DuBois to South Bend, Indiana, then Newton, Iowa, and finally, Kearney, Nebraska, where we'll sleep for the night. If we don't make it there, we'll find another place to sleep, 'cause that's around... seventeen hours total of driving. Day fourteen... from Kearney to Laramie, Wyoming, then Salt Lake City, then Boise, Idaho. Another approximate seventeen hours of driving. Day fifteen, we push from Boise to Portland, and should be there by afternoon. Accounting for any delays... we should still get to Portland by day fifteen, just in the evening."

She managed the courage for a compliment this time. "You're really good at planning ahead. This is... really well thought out."

He looked at her as if she'd suddenly sprouted two extra heads and tails, and didn't respond. "If you feel like ever taking a turn, let me know, and we just might make it to Portland by the end of day fourteen, if you're okay with starving a little bit. I don't care, I can't die of starvation, and I'm used to it."

"Used to it?" she asked. "I would think with the abundance of food in here, you wouldn't starve."

"The food doesn't replenish the way you think it does. If I lived in every single part of the world, eventually, I wouldn't have anything to eat. I'm guessing it replenishes after a few years but definitely not every day. Some days weren't good. I struggled to do a lot. To get up and continue living. Doing something— anything. So I'd sit alone, depressed, hurting myself and not eating. Thought it might kill me but it never did."

"No one should have to go through that," she said quietly as he started to drive. "This... everything you've endured... that's horrible. I get that you did something wrong but this is a thousand times worse than that. If they hadn't mistreated you... I don't think you would have killed your siblings, even if you are hard-wired to be a sociopath. I... I'm sorry. I don't really know what else to say."

Kai's eyes flickered over to her, and he felt almost uncomfortable. Why was this giving him a strange, warm feeling in his chest? Was he about to have a heart attack?

Or was she just the key to ridding him of the sociopathy that had plagued him his whole life? He didn't want to think about it, but he realized that if she were to figure out a spell, she could take away his sociopathy.

A/N: Hello all! Now that you have gotten to know Vivi and Kai's dynamic a bit, I want to ask (since I'd asked previously before I published this story)— how do you guys want this to proceed? It can be hero-to-villain (ish) like Pernicious was (where my fem OC Amelia essentially adapted to Kai's agenda and became evil, though through the reader's perspective, she remains the central character and hero, just with very different and more sinister motivations). BUT here, there is a perfect opportunity for a redemption arc for Kai because let's face it, he couldn't have one in Pernicious, not with all the issues he and Amelia had with the Gemini Coven. Here, a redemption arc is more possible, and it could be cool, maybe. So... let me know what you think! Comment for more :)