"C'mon love, have a seat" she said eerily lightly, crossing her legs in order to make space for him on the window sill. Her arms were secured in a magically-enhanced white straightjacket. Her Hair was tied up in a messy bun, she seemed unexpectedly radiant.
He strode to sit across from her, gazing at her face, wondering why she wasn´t dead yet. "Sweetheart, you look stunning, considering that you should have died decades ago, I am ... impressed."
"Yeah... the place really did wonders for me." As if on cue, one of the guards came in, delivering a couple of compelled humans.
"Thank you, Ray" Caroline chimed from her seat, looking like royalty. The pale guard choked awkwardly, barely daring to look at her, preferring to look at Klaus instead. It struck him as odd, how people chose to fear this girl instead of him.
"How sweet, you brought us food. " Klaus eyes returned to her at that, wondering exactly how long ago she had started drinking from the vein, and more explicitly, how she could get hooked on the vein in a place that was supposed to keep her starved. "Though, to be honest, I doubt they can measure up to you."
At that, the guard choked again, nearly flashing out of the room.
"I´m impressed, seems like I´ll need to replace your keepers."
"Oh, please do, I mean, the guards are sweet, literally sweeeeeeeet, but they´re so easy."
"How did you get Thomas to alter your living arrangements?" he asked, scrutinizing her.
"Well... he insisted on having his boys hurt me. And you know, I kept on wondering, why ... after all all this long long time ... they did not simply kill me. Then it hit me... they still needed something from me. Something YOU need badly, so badly in fact that even though all kinds of torture were authorized, killing me was apparently on hold until I had fessed up. Seriously, did you honestly think that any kind of torture would get me to spit out the tiny piece of information that kept me alive all this time. " she laughed. Her relaxed way of laughing at him, getting on his nerves.
"Well... I figured the torture would have made death seem a grateful way out by now, like I said, maybe some new people can fix that." He explained calmly.
"I actually did have that thought ,but then I realized, I can make their lives living hell as well."
She was leaning against the wall of her cell. The footsteps were loud and clear, damning her to another session of whatever torture was in the program today. She had oddly enough kept count of the years and days, it was easier than counting tears. Tears she had cried for a fate she decidedly had not deserved. Slowly she sank down to the floor, wondering what would happen next.
"Hey, sunshine." the guard named Ray, sang " Did you miss me?".
He gently crouched down to her level. "Ssh... lovely, your next session isn´t in another hour, I just came because I wanted you to keep me company."
Her mind raced at that. NOT AGAIN. She struggled against the older vampire, as he pressed her up on the floor, roughly grabbing at her whenever he could.
"Ssh... just lay still... love." Later on she could only remember that memory-ridden endearment, before she ceased to struggle. "That´s the spirit." he had said, sounding like a hyena.
His hands had wandered from her breasts to in-between her legs, as he readied himself for the assault. As he was preparing for her whatever-manieth rape she had experienced in this hell hole, she saw it, through all of her tears, she saw it. An opening.
Her teeth were in his neck faster than he could have fathomed, and she drank from him with the greed of a starved predator, clawing at him, digging holes into his skin, twisting his hands, taking more and more blood. Not letting-up, not letting go. She took. He was lying on the ground barely able to breath, when she lunged for his stun-gun. She got up and slowly aimed at his head, than at his heart, slowly lowering the gun. When she finally made her shot, it hit him right between the legs. She used all of his ammunition on that one spot.
Then, she had lowered himself onto him, and whispered into his ear. "Don´t worry, darling, you´re a vampire, it´ll heal...eventually. Now, don´t be a bore, get me Thomas or someone more superior and tell them, I´d like a new guard appointed to me. " She got up, and in long-forgotten confidence, she leaned back against the wall. "Run along, she chimed, or my hunger comes back."
At that, the poor vampire had gotten up clumsily, and flashed out of the cell, as fast as his injuries had permitted him to.
After that, they had permanently placed her in a straight-jacket, causing her to laugh. She quickly taught guards that attempted to assault her like Ray had tried, that it only took a determined swaying of her hip, to break certain body parts. Those kinds of assaults ceased soon.
Then they had attempted blood withdrawal - alongside her daily torture sessions. Thomas had soon faced another issue though, her threat of self-desiccation. Instead of begging for her life, she kept on talking and talking and talking, commenting on his clothes, asking for things he knew he wouldn´t give her, just talking... until she had been almost gone, without having revealed what he needed to find out for Klaus. So he gave her blood. And when he did, she smiled at him like a child of darkness. After the third almost-desiccation she finally told him. "You know, we both know the game, I am uncomfortably hungry, but at the end of the day you are forced to keep me alive. I know that if I wait long enough like a good little girl, you´ll feed me. Think of something better, sweetie." She said it to him in an almost friendly manner. Like discussing the weather.
She started assaulting the other guards and torturers at any chance she got. One would have assumed, since they old had centuries on her that it would have been futile, but then again, her point of view was advantageous. They can´t kill her. At the end of the day, her death was not an option, so she only had to launch herself at any opening she saw, create them if need be. At one point, she nearly chewed the ear of an 200 year old Irish vampire. Several of them had been close to death, with her tiny, porcelain hand wrapped around their hearts, then they brought in a newbie. He was 500 years old, strong and mean, and she had struggled with finding an opening, but just as he was about to give her a taste of her own medicine, she had broken through his defense, breaking his lungs before dragging her hand to his heart. His, she had just pulled out. She took the blood and painted butterflies onto her cell wall.
After that, Thomas had threatened to cut off some of her limbs, and she only looked at him and his saw. "Seriously, I would have come up with that one ages ago... Now you CAN do that, but just to be clear, if I lose any part of my body, I´ll find a way to die on you. Without anything you can tell our mutual frenemy. Now, you probably don´t believe me, but then again, neither did you think I could get your hounds to stop molesting me. ... so I guess, the ball is in your court." She only smiled at him after that.
Thomas returned to her cell later that night, after not having touched a single of her limbs. "It seems, we´ve reached an impasse."
"So it seems, you´re running out of new torture methods, I am almost immune to electric shocks, they tickle a bit, but I think they´re cute. As for vervaine, I´ve stopped responding to that five years ago. Your truth potions don´t work on me, your guards have grown boring. I´ve even grown accustomed to blood withdrawal... are you here to ask me how to torture me next?" she joked.
"No, but what am I supposed to do with you. I am supposed to torture you until you break."
"Then torture away." she shrugged.
"And you keep on disturbing my staff."
"You mean I keep on putting your collection of misfits and disgusting rapists into their place. What of it?"
"Can I offer you anything for the information Klaus needs?"
"Nope..." with that, she turned around to sleep.
After that Thomas, his red hair sweaty and his appearance untidy, resigned. As he was almost out of the door, he heard her amused voice though.
"I could do with a better room though, it might make me stop killing other guards."
After that, the arrangement had more or less set itself. She still got tortured several times a day, and ever since her victory, the torture had gotten more severe. But she had managed to obtain certain privileges. She got to spend time in the library, she even got to take books to her new room, which was nothing special but more comfortable than her cell. Also she got to spend time with the other inmates.
Thomas probably cursed himself, but she had left him with little to no choice. Everything he had been throwing at her, came back to haunt him. He tried to kill her, she volunteered to die, knowing that her death was not part of his plan. He tortured her, one of his guards wound up hurt or worse. Dead.
She quickly became the queen of the inmates. At first, since most to all of them were men, they tried a replay of the guards. And a replay they got, she was sure that those that tried to hurt her that way, never thought of sex again. At least for a few decades. She made friends as well, comforted others, listened to every story they were willing to tell her. Soon, they took care of her, when she came back from her sessions. They became part of her world.
Thomas saw that, and his first instinct was to take it away from her again, the books and the inmates. She retaliated twice within 24 hours. First, she raped one of his guards. One of those that had once done the same to her. To this day, the guy was broken. Then she jumped out of the magical windows, into the open sunlight, relishing in the burn. Conveniently, when most of the other inmates were in the common hall, and able to see her. She barely made it. Finding himself having the one prisoner he couldn´t let die almost burn to death, having an uproar that he barely managed to contain and a messed up guard, Thomas returned her books and her friends to her.
After that, they had developed a sinister routine. They´d torture, motivated by the chance of dethroning her, they roughed her up any chance they got, and in between, she´d read or talk or learn and in an odd way, created the resemblance of a home.
Caroline shot out of her memories and studied Klaus. She´d never tell him about any of this. "Well.. haven´t you heard, this hell is mine."
"I could always have you killed, love."
"Again with the killing threats`? Please do... " She moved her head, freeing her hair from her slender neck. "Have at it, bite me." She commented like she had no care in the world.
Klaus stared at her, his thoughtless bluff being called.
"Now, sweetheart, since I am running on little time here, how about you tell me what I need to know and I promise you a painless death." he spat.
"A painless death? ... Interesting offer, since your henchmen have been hesitant to provide me with exactly that for the past 80something years. You know, if I had any remote interest in being dead, I would have told them what you need to know already. Death does not interest me. And you can´t compel me, you can´t make me tell you... and as you said, you´re time budget is rather economic these days, so why don´t we speed this up by having you make me a ... better offer."
With this she flashed to the first human, compelling her to lower her neck. Then she slowly and sensually, her eyes never leaving Klaus' , she fed on her, until the girl dropped dead. Klaus gulped as he saw her doing the same to the next girl, and he swore he never saw anything more erotic than her feeding like that.
"How about you tell me what you want, love?"
"Alright." she beamed, strolling back to her window bench, sitting once more across from him.
"I want my freedom and my life back. And no... before you do this Stefanesque frowning thing, I will not take your word for it, it´s rather worthless from where I stand. I want you to swear a blood oath, conducted by a witch of my choosing on Elijah's and Rebekah' life, meaning that you will grant me my freedom as well as promise to not kill me directly or indirectly. And that is just my first condition."
"Not a chance, I am not involving my siblings in this."
"Because you already are planning on going back on your word, meaning that if you were to swear an oath onto their lives, they´d both be dead the second I tell you what you need to know. Which is exactly why this is what I want." She reasoned, her eyes never leaving his.
In a flash, had her pressed up against the wall. "Now you listen to me, LOVE. You´re dust compared to me, and I will not have my hand forced by you or anyone, you hear me?" he said, meeting her unimpressed eyes. "How about... I show you." The next thing she felt were his teeth piercing her neck... before the familiar feeling of venom spreading through her system took over.
She struggled to remain standing, impressing him with her ability to not completely falter. He heard her mutter something.
"What was that... Caroline?" he smiled confidently.
"So... Predictable." she laughed, slowly and tiredly walking towards the door, before jamming her head against it. Repeatedly.
"Visiting hours are over" she yelled, as blood marred her face and the door. Klaus grabbed her and held her as tightly as he could, wanting her to stop whatever craziness she was cooking up. The guards were with them in a minute. Caroline immediately calmed down and exhaustedly sauntered back to her window sill, leaning against it with the little power she had left. "Well Klaus... looks like your time is running out faster now," she said dreamily. "See you next time."
With resignation he walked out, thinking he could give her a few hours of pain before she´d ultimately beg for his blood. He was almost out of the door, when he heard her voice. "You know, you should have waited with the hybrid bite bluff until you had heard about condition number2..." he could hear her smirk, and a shudder went down his spine. Who is this girl? Where is Caroline?