A/N: Okay, wooow, the reaction to this story has been extraordinary. Thank you all so, so much. Now, I don't want to distract too much from the story, but Klaus gets mildly physical with Grace at the end of the chapter, using brief corporal punishment. No, I don't agree with those methods nor condone them, and I think it's fairly obvious by now for TVD/TO fans that whatever Klaus does out of anger, one should most likely do the opposite.

Disclaimer: I own nothing and nobody but Grace, and it hurts my heart.

Chapter 3: The Mystic Falls Gang

Stefan's dead girlfriend was alive, and Klaus didn't like that. Turns out, Rebekah didn't like that either. I slept through a lot of drama, apparently. All I knew was that Klaus kept killing Stefan and we were heading to some town called Mystic Falls in Virginia. I was beginning to hate road trips.

After I woke up, Klaus handed me my Wolverine figurine, telling me offhandedly that I dropped it in the store when I tried to "murder a clothing rack." The stupid toy brought me more comfort than I realized when I got it back.

As soon as Klaus drove into the tiny little town, I decided that I hated it. It was so . . . small, and small towns usually meant boring. He pulled up to what looked like a high school, based on the sign. "Stay here, you two, until Stefan wakes up," Klaus warned, leaving the truck without another word. I pouted, and Rebekah chuckled at the look on my face.

"This will be over soon," she reminded me, and I pulled another face to show how disgruntled I really was. "And then he'll get you a nice dinner, and you can try on your new clothes, little love." That was better, then. My stomach was starting to growl. She'd taken to calling me "little love" as often as Klaus called me "sweetheart." They were both fond of me, somehow, in their weird British way and despite everything that happened, I liked them too. Sure, I liked Rebekah a lot more, but Klaus still wormed his way onto my short list of people I may or may not have cared about.

I did need to wear a different clothing item, since I was still in my yellow summer dress. On the ride to Mystic Falls, Rebekah had pulled my braids apart and brushed my hair for over a half hour until the sunflower blonde waves shone. She promised me that once she learned the most popular modern hairstyles that she'd try them on me. Basically, I was her own personal doll, but I didn't mind it too much.

Klaus told me I was "receiving excellent treatment for a kidnapped, feral, werewolf orphan" and Rebekah made sure to hit him really hard on my behalf.

The color returned to Stefan's ashy skin and he jerked awake, startling me. I pulled my knees into my chest as he shot upward, gasping. "Oh, he lives," Rebekah remarked.

"About time," I mumbled, and she laughed softly.

"What happened?" Stefan asked, flitting his wary green gaze between the two of us.

"You died a lot," I said at the same time as Rebekah informed him, "You took a beating. The little love is right. My brother's been breaking your neck all afternoon. Quite the temper."

"Why did he bring us back to Mystic Falls?"

I rolled my eyes at his half-hearted avoidance. Even I knew what the problem was, once Klaus explained to me the details of the sacrifice. It wasn't fair that the girl was killed, but still, according to Klaus, she was meant to be dead. "Your dead girlfriend's not dead," I sang, and Rebekah nodded along with me.

Stefan was officially in panic-mode. "Where is Klaus now?"

Haughty, Rebekah flipped her blonde hair behind her. "With any luck, ripping that cow's bloody head off." Ouch. Stefan jumped straight at her without any warning and the two of them tumbled out of the truck, him landing on top of her. I blinked once in surprise.

"Where is she?" he shouted.

"You really do love her, don't you?"

A protective instinct flared up inside of me and I leaped after them, my wolf features coming out to play. I landed gracefully on his back, and positioned my teeth right next to his throat, ready to bite at any time should he hurt Rebekah. He stiffened beneath me, and I snarled at him. "Get off Bekah," I growled. To prove myself, I grazed my teeth against the soft, vulnerable skin of his neck, flicking out my tongue for good measure.

There was a flurry of movement, then, where Stefan pried himself off Rebekah and then me off him only for Rebekah to pin him against the truck with a speed far superior to his. She punched him - hard - and hooked his neck with a crowbar. "Thanks for the backup, little love," she hummed to me before turning back to Stefan. "Consider me jealous."

She stabbed him with the crowbar, and he slumped over. At this point, such violence didn't bother me at all. I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Rebekah happily linked her hand with mine, and began tugging me along to the school. "Come, Gracie. Let's have some fun."

Better than staying in the truck for the rest of the night, I thought with a smile. All schools were creepy at night, I realized when we broke in. I'd never been in a high school before. It was a lot bigger than my stupid grade school. In the dark, empty halls, stood two teenagers - a dark-haired boy and a blonde-haired girl. They were both very pretty, and he had her pushed against the lockers as he kissed her. I wrinkled my nose. Ugh, gross.

"You two are adorable," Rebekah interrupted them, but I didn't think so.

I smirked as they broke apart, looking at her first, then me. "Uh, do we know you?" the blonde girl directed towards Rebekah.

I tried to figure out who she was based off Klaus's endless descriptions. She was blonde, and the same age as Stefan's not-dead girlfriend, I remembered. So . . . she had to be Caroline, I discovered when I sniffed the vampire in her. The boy was a werewolf, so he had to be Tyler, since he was the only one in Mystic Falls, according to Klaus. "You're Caroline, and you're Tyler," I said, pointing at each in turn, and Rebekah nodded in approval.

"Aren't you a smart little love!" she cooed as the two teenagers frowned at me. "So refreshing. Most children are obnoxious little idiots, I find." I found that too. "Yes, you're correct. She's the vampire friend of Elena's and he's the werewolf."

Caroline stood between Tyler and us, as if that would stop Rebekah from hurting them if she wanted to. "And who are you two?"

"We're the new girls," Rebekah replied before black veins stretched beneath her eyes, and fangs shot out of her mouth. She charged over to Caroline as Tyler shouted her name in fear, snapping the pretty blonde girl's neck. Like Stefan, she would come back to life. I didn't think it made much of a difference to Rebekah, though.

Then, Rebekah lunged for Tyler, and dragged him along. I followed closely as she busted open into what looked like the school gym. A basketball court - I liked basketball. Sometimes, when it was dark out, a few members of Paige's pack would play some pickup basketball and they occasionally let me play when they had one player short. I wasn't too good at it, but it was fun. A pang rattled through my chest. They were all dead now.

"Get off me!" the boy bellowed, struggling as hard as he could, without any success.

"Hush now," Rebekah shut him down.

Klaus was in the gym, along with a gaggle of teenagers. "I'd like you all to meet my sister Rebekah. Word of warning . . . She can be quite mean."

"Coming from you?" I commented as I skipped over to him, and he ruffled my hair, smirking.

Klaus glanced up from me to Rebekah. "Did you help my sister find the werewolf like a good little girl?"

"Yes, she did," Rebekah answered, throwing said werewolf into Klaus's waiting arms. "She recognized the two of them almost before I did. She's a smart little thing, Nik, you have your hands full." Klaus's eyes lit up like blue stars, and he grinned down at me.

"Leave him alone!" a brown-haired girl yelled, drawing Klaus's attention away from me. She was human, one quick whiff told me. She might've been Stefan's not-dead girlfriend. The others were human too, though.

Sighing, Klaus turned to the rest of them. "I'm going to make this very simple. Every time I attempt to turn a werewolf into a vampire hybrid, they die during the transition. It's quite horrible, actually." He pressed a hand down on my temple for a quick moment. "In fact, this one's father died of it - er, almost a week ago? Yes, that sounds about right. It was quite traumatic for everyone involved." I scowled up at him, and the brown-haired girl's doe eyes widened in horror. Klaus sunk his teeth into his wrist, and dribbled blood into the werewolf's mouth. "I need you to find a way to save my hybrids, Bonnie, so they don't end up like Gracie's poor dead southern father. And for Tyler's sake . . . you better hurry."

Klaus twisted Tyler's head around, and the sound of his neck breaking echoed all around the gym. The teenagers gaped at him.

Nothing interesting happened afterward. I left Wolverine in the car, so I ended up breaking open the storage room with my werewolf strength and dribbling around a basketball. Klaus was busy terrorizing everyone and went to go sit on the bleachers, the teenagers moaned and complained about their dead friend before a couple of them left, so I didn't bother asking them to play with me, and I had a feeling Rebekah would rather die than shoot a basketball.

As I missed shot after shot, only occasionally sinking one, Rebekah ended up dragging the dead boy out, leaving me alone with Klaus, a couple of scared teenagers, and the brown-haired girl who I was pretty sure was Stefan's not-dead girlfriend. And that's when Stefan strolled in.

"Stefan," the brunette girl murmured, the only sound in the gym the bouncing of my basketball. As Klaus sent me a menacing warning look, I sat on the ball instead.

"Klaus," said Stefan.

"Grace," I whispered to myself.

"Come to save your damsel, mate?" Klaus sat still on the bleachers, tense, like he was ready to spring up at anytime.

"I came to ask for your forgiveness. And pledge my loyalty." He stood tall and proud, but I didn't believe him. And if I didn't believe him, then neither did Klaus. In my opinion, he wasn't a very good liar.

"Well, you broke that pledge once already," Klaus pointed out, which is what I was thinking. His not-dead girlfriend was alive the entire time Klaus was with him, which I found out was three months. There was no going back from that.

"Elena means nothing to me anymore." Oh, so that was her name. "And whatever you ask of me . . . I will do." He was such a bad liar. Any idiot could see how much he cared about Elena, and I was no idiot. My daddy used to tell me I was the most perceptive person he'd ever had the misfortune of meeting, whenever I called him out on his bullshit.

I scoffed.

It must've been a lot louder than I'd meant it to be, because everyone and their dog turned around to look at me. "Something to share with the class, sweetheart?" Klaus asked lightly, but I knew he was annoyed that I interrupted their heavy conversation.

"He's lying," I said, shrugging my skinny shoulders. Stefan stiffened like a board. "It's obvious. He loves her. Anyone can see it." Klaus pulled a thoughtful expression as he listened.

Stefan's lips twitched into a grimace. "She doesn't know what she's talking about, Klaus. She doesn't know me like you do."

Anger coursed through me. "That only means I'm willing to see through your bullshit a lot easier," I snapped, slightly offended. "Klaus, you're giving him the bn - benf - bene -"

"Benefit of the doubt?" Klaus supplied, the ghost of a smile on his handsome face.

"Yeah, that. He's lying." Elena watched me with an open mouth, clearly confused by my role in this whole thing. She wouldn't be the only one. Klaus still never truly explained why he was keeping me.

"Hmmm." Klaus stood up, his hands clasped behind his back. "I don't know about you, mate, but I think I believe her. She's a smart one. Why don't we test it?" He blurred over to Elena, and slapped her so hard across the face that she was knocked right off her feet, sailing through the air.

Well, I didn't mean for that to happen. Stefan went straight for Klaus, all vamped out, and Klaus grabbed him by the throat. Meanwhile, I hesitantly moved to Elena, offering her a hand up. She eyed me weirdly, but then took the hand, and sat up, rubbing her cheek. "I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"She means nothing to you?" Klaus shouted at Stefan, choking him. "Your lies just keep piling up. Little Gracie was right, it appears!"

"Let her go!" Stefan bellowed back, struggling beneath Klaus' iron hold. "I'll do whatever you want, you have my word!" Somehow, that didn't assure me. What was the point of having a word if you lied all the time?

"Your word doesn't mean much. I lived by your word all summer, during which time I never had to resort to this . . ." He held him closer, and I knew what he was doing. He was compelling him. "Stop fighting."

"Don't do this," Stefan begged. "Don't do this!"

"I didn't want to, all I wanted was your allegiance. Now I'm going to have to take it!" Elena drew in a harsh breath besides me, her hand rising to her chest. I thought about offering some words of comfort, but decided against it. I didn't like Stefan much anyway.

"Don't . . . don't . . ."

Klaus began compelling him again. "You will do exactly as I say when I say it. You will not run, you will not hide, you will simply just obey."

"No, Stefan!" Elena shrieked, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Like that would make any difference whatsoever.

Klaus swiveled his head around slightly toward me. "Sweetheart, go find Rebekah, won't you?" Nodding, I hustled out of the gym just as he said, "Now kill them, ripper." The unmistakable sound of murder flooded my ears before I entered the hallway, slamming the door shut behind me.

This was my time to run away, I realized. Klaus was busy, Bekah was busy. All I had to do was leave, and get far enough away that they couldn't find me.

But where would I go? I had no family left - well, none that wanted me. An eight-year-old wandering the streets would gain some attention. At best, I'd end up in a foster home. At worst . . .

I found Rebekah in an empty hallway, leaning against a locker. She beamed at me, and patted the spot next to her. The blonde girl, Caroline, was waking up from her temporary death. "We didn't have mobile telephones in my day," Bekah announced. "Would have made life a lot easier, I suppose."

Yanking me into a sideways hug, she snapped a picture of the two of us, then redid it since I barely had a chance to smile the first time. "Where's Tyler?" Caroline asked, unamused. His dead body was thrown lazily next to her, I noticed.

I spoke up for the first time. "Klaus killed him, but he'll wake up. He might even live too, if he's not like my daddy." Gasping, Caroline hovered over his unmoving figure. "A whole pack of werewolves died 'cause he did it wrong, but now that he knows Stefan's not-dead girlfriend is alive, it may work."

"Think of it as he's having a nap," Rebekah added when Caroline stayed silent. "When he wakes up, he'll be a hybrid." Caroline lowered her ear to his chest, searching for a nonexistent heartbeat. Rebekah scrolled through the pictures on the cellphone and found one of Stefan and his not-dead girlfriend. They looked so happy. I wrinkled my nose again, like earlier - gross. "Ugh," Bekah agreed, "vomit." Then she zoomed in around Elena's neck, and lo and behold, it was a necklace - her necklace, I assumed, by her fearsome scowl.

"Stefan had it," I said instantly, remembering his face when Rebekah was first out of her coffin and she couldn't find it. "I forgot to tell you. I guess he gave it to her."

Her pretty blue eyes narrowed to slits. "Stay here." She sped off, leaving me alone with Caroline.

Hesitantly, Caroline rolled back onto her haunches. "Who are you?" she whispered, keeping a hand on Tyler's upper arm, rubbing it anxiously.

"Grace. Klaus killed my daddy a few days ago, then kidnapped me." Her look of pure, absolute shock almost made me laugh.

"We can get you out," she promised, completely earnest. "Me and Tyler and . . . um, Alaric, probably, and -"

"What's an Alaric?" She blinked once, then twice, and burst out laughing. Soon enough, tears flooded her eyes and her laughter turned to sobs.

"I-I'm sorry," she forced out. "T-This is just so overwhelming. V-Vampire emotions, you know."

I shook my head. "No, I don't know. I'm a werewolf. I don't get sad easy, I get mad easy."

"Easily," she corrected, then wrung her hands together nervously. "And, um, aren't you a little young? Tyler only activated the curse a few months ago, and he's seventeen. How old are you?"

"Eight. I killed my uncle a year ago," I chirped, and her jaw dropped open.

"I-I . . . oh. I'm . . . sorry?"

It did sound weird to most people. "Thanks."

Just then, a loud, obnoxious noise sounded all the way from the gym - a buzzer, maybe. Klaus and Rebekah appeared in the hallway, and Klaus hauled me to my feet by an elbow, ushering me along with Rebekah to an abandoned classroom. Then, like the jerk he was, he left us there.

As the minutes rolled by, I continued the quiet conversation with Caroline, and found myself liking her. She hadn't wanted to be a vampire, but it kind of made her a better person. Some woman named Katherine murdered her with a pillow. Even Rebekah seemed a little sympathetic when she heard that, although she didn't speak.

Tyler woke up with a jolt, gasping and sputtering. "W-Where am I? What happened?" So far, he didn't have blood trickling down from his eye sockets, so that was a good sign.

"Tyler," Caroline breathed, not knowing what to say.

"Don't be shy about it," Rebekah sneered.

"What's going on?" the boy asked frantically.

"Klaus is turning you into a vampire," Caroline explained sadly. "A hybrid. You're in transition."

"Don't leave out the hard parts, sweets. You'll only survive if your witch is successful. If not . . . You're pretty much dead."

"She's right," I said, grabbing Caroline's attention. "All the others died. If Tyler survives . . . he'll be the first." A lance of pain shot through my chest. Why couldn't my daddy have been the first? Why did it have to be some teenager I never met and couldn't care less about? For Caroline's sake, though, I hoped he lived to tell the tale.

Caroline watched me for a long moment, her mouth opening and closing for lack of anything to say. "You'll be the first, then," she said down to him. "If she's right, and the others died, then you'll be the first. Bonnie will find a way. I know it."

"Speaking of the witch, I wonder how she's doing." Rebekah checked Caroline's phone, then tilted it around for all of us to see. There was only two minutes left. "Tick tock goes the gym clock."

After the clock went off, Klaus ended up coming in, tapping me on the head as he strolled by. "Well, the verdict's in. The Original Witch says the doppelgänger should be dead." Who the hell was the Original Witch, and what did she have to do with anything? Her name kept popping up everywhere.

Rebekah hopped up from her seat, as thrilled as a kid who got the shiny red bike on Christmas morning she'd been hoping for all year. "Does that mean we can kill her?" She sounded far too pleased about that.

"No," Klaus sighed, "I'm fairly certain it means the opposite." He turned to me as Rebekah squawked in the background. "No bleeding from the eyes, strange behavior? You would know better than anyone, I daresay."

"No, but he hasn't drank any human blood yet." Nodding decisively, he patted me once more before pulling out a test tube full of blood. Rebekah had to restrain Caroline as she began to panic at the sight of it.

"Call it a hunch," he muttered, then showed the test tube to Tyler. "Elena's blood. Drink it."

Caroline protested and struggled against Rebekah, so I walked over to her and grabbed one of her hands. "Caroline, he'll die if he doesn't have it." I sounded each syllable out slowly and carefully to calm her down.

"You told me the hybrids died after they drank blood!" she argued.

"That was before we knew Stefan's not-dead girlfriend was alive," I reminded her. "We used a random person's blood. His name was Derek, but he wasn't important." Except for the fact that he was Paige's boyfriend, and he sang to me sometimes . . . "Elena is the doppelgänger. She's special. That has to mean something." Why she was special, I had no idea, but the fight escaped her limbs and she nodded mutely, accepting that.

Meanwhile, Klaus managed to shove the blood down the poor boy's throat. "There we go. Good boy." He then nodded over to me. "Thanks for offering the explanation, sweetheart, you took the words straight from my mouth. Rebekah was right, you are a smart little thing." I wasn't sure if I should take that as a compliment when Klaus would probably milk that for his own advantage as much as it was worth.

Once the blood registered to Tyler, he coughed, and collapsed onto the ground, screaming and twitching, as if he were having a seizure. I only knew what a seizure was because my great-uncle on my mama's side had one in front of me. He died from it when he clipped his head on the edge of the table, streaking blood down the wooden surface. I was five. He was the first death I'd ever seen, but most certainly not the last.

Tyler's face changed, his eyes glimmering gold, fangs sticking out from his gums and black lines stretching out on his cheeks. I went over to tug on Klaus's hand. "Did it work?"

Klaus's eyes never left the boy. "Yes . . . I believe we have our very first working hybrid, sweetheart."


Klaus, Rebekah, and I all stood in front of the hospital where Elena was getting her blood drained from her body. I felt bad for her. She seemed nice enough, and not only was she getting sucked dry, but Stefan was a crazy ripper now without his humanity. Klaus finally explained to me what that meant.

I was fidgeting too much, so Klaus made me go sit on a bench by myself so he could "speak with his sister in peace." At least I managed to snatch Wolverine out of the truck, so I wasn't all alone. Klaus threatened me if I dared listen into them, but Rebekah finally left, so I joined his side.

A remarkably handsome black-haired man came out of nowhere, and my heart skipped a beat. His eyes were like icy chips, and whoever he was, he seemed angry with Klaus. Klaus carefully placed a hand on my head, locking me into place. "Well, look who has finally decided to show up to the party!"

"Where is she?" the man demanded. Oh, he had to be searching for Elena. But who was he?

"Elena? Ah, she's making a donation for a greater cause." I snorted, and Klaus's grip tightened around my skull.

The man moved towards the hospital, but Klaus stopped him. "I'm afraid I can't let you interfere, mate."

"Why do you call everyone mate when you don't like most of them?" I piped up, confused, and he huffed. For the first time, the other man noticed me.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, sizing me up with his narrowed glaciers of eyes.

"I'm Grace. Who the hell are you?" I countered, crossing my arms.

His lips curled up into a sneer. "Damon. I'm a big bad vampire. I could kill you in a second."

Already, I didn't like him. "Yeah? I'm a tiny little werewolf, but if I bit you, I could kill you." His face dawned with realization, and he frowned.

"I'm faster, kid, and it isn't the full moon. Anyway, do you think you could bite me before I snapped your itsy bitsy neck?" Faster than the speed of light, Klaus slammed Damon against the hood of a car, and snarled in his face. Damon was faster than me, sure, but Klaus was a helluva lot faster than him.

"You threatened the wrong child, mate," he growled. I jumped in surprise. He seemed genuinely furious for me. "I do enjoy the prospects of killing you, but I promised your brother I wouldn't have you harmed." He then tilted his head to the side in mock confusion. "But, then again, he probably doesn't care anymore."

He promised his brother, but . . . ? Oh, Damon had to be Stefan's brother. I smiled to myself. I was finally connecting the dots. Man, I loved being smart. "Do you want to bite him, sweetheart?" Klaus called back to me. "I'll hold him down for you."

Well, I didn't get to kill Stefan - yet - so his brother would have to do. "Okay!" I chirped, and Damon groaned as Klaus shoved his forearm against his throat, suffocating him. I shimmied onto the hood of the car and positioned my teeth over his neck, ready to cheerfully chomp down.

"Get your werewolf cooties away from me!" Damon snapped, wriggling away from me before Klaus pinned him down once more. "Klaus, wait - don't you want to know about your friend Mikael?"

That got to Klaus. Whoever he was, even the mention of his name unsettled him deeply. He paused, and for a second, I swore his hand trembled around Damon's throat. "What do you know about Mikael?" Who the hell was Mikael anyway, if he scared Klaus so bad?

"Just that he knows you're here," Damon hissed.

"You're bluffing," Klaus spat, but I saw the reaction it brought in him. He was afraid. Actually afraid. If a murderous, terrifying thousand-year-old hybrid was afraid of this someone named Mikael, then I sure as hell didn't want to meet him. Shivering, I hopped off the car hood.

"Katherine and I found him. Consider it our leverage." I was so lost! Who the hell was Katherine? Wait, was it the same Katherine who killed Caroline? Again, connections! But if he was friends with Katherine, then that meant he probably wasn't friends with Caroline, which cemented my belief that I didn't like him.

Klaus swallowed hard, then threw him against another car, denting the poor innocent vehicle. He scooped me up, and sped away, motion sickness rooting deep inside of me. Just as bile rose up my throat and my stomach churned, we'd arrived to the truck. I squawked as Klaus pushed me into the back seat, buckling me up so quickly his hands were a blur of peach. "Klaus, stop!" I reached for the buckle, and he slapped away my hand, a red patch immediately forming on the back of it. I sulked, dropping Wolverine to the truck floor.

He zoomed into the driver's seat, and revved up the truck. "What are you doing? Who's Mikael?" I squeaked. "What about Rebekah?"

"We're leaving," he snarled, pulling out of the parking lot. Panic charged through me. Klaus was bearable when Rebekah was around, because she was my friend, but without her . . . ?

"We can't leave her behind!" I shouted, and curling up his lips to reveal bared teeth, he slammed his fist down onto the dashboard, leaving a healthy crack spread through it. I recoiled at the motion, but didn't back down. "We have to go back for Bekah!" When he refused to stop driving, I kept on with it. "Bekah, Bekah, we haveta get Bekah, Bekah, Bekah, Bekah, BEKAH!"

"Shut the hell up!" he roared, ramming his foot onto the gas, jerking the truck forward. Angrily, I kicked the back of his seat, over and over and over again to prove my point. Twisting around in his seat, he reached backwards and smacked me on the side of the bare thigh, right below my hip since my dress had gotten caught on the stupid seat. The second he pulled away, a red handprint formed. I balked, then growled furiously, the feral sound rumbling inside my chest. "Keep it up," he hissed, "and I'll hike up your bloody dress and show you how irked I am!"

Heat formed behind my eyes, and I looked up at the rearview window, amber flashing. "I hate you!" I screeched, and he slammed on the breaks, the entire truck jolting forward. He glowered at me through the rearview mirror, his own eyes glinting gold, and I shrunk away from him. Pulling over the truck, he jumped out the driver's side. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I scooted as far away as I could, my southern nature warning me that I was inches away from being ass-beaten by a mean, angry hybrid.

Klaus pried open my door, and terrified, tears welled up in my eyes. He reached for me, yanking me forward, and landed several hearty blows on my backside that sent me reeling before I wiggled free and tumbled right out of the truck, landing on the asphalt of the street. I started to cry at the sudden pain of the impact, beginning to crawl away, the hard pebbles scraping up my palms and knees. "L-Leave me alone!" I shrieked, stumbling over a pothole and collapsing down next to it. Curling up into a ball, I bawled my southern eyes out. "I-I-I wanna g-go home!"

It took me a few minutes of sobbing to realize Klaus wasn't heading after me. Blinking away a sheet of tears, I saw that Klaus was still standing by the car door, where he'd been when he smacked me around, motionless, his eyes glued on me. Finally, after I realized I wasn't in more danger, I wiped my tears away and stood up, since all my war wounds had healed already. Tentatively, wiping my runny nose with the back of my hand, I shuffled over to him. "I don't hate you," I mumbled, staring at my very interesting shoes, understanding that's what set him off.

"I apologize for hitting you." Klaus's apology was so quiet that even with my werewolf hearing, I had to strain to hear him. I forced myself to look him in the eye, and noticed that he was truly sincere. "I will never hit you again. You have my word." Unable to help myself, I sniffled pathetically, and he sighed. He kneeled down to my level, and gently grasped both of my shoulders. "Mikael is my father. When I was a child, he beat me relentlessly, and I hated him for it."

He ducked his head, and for an instant, I could've sworn that I saw moisture glimmering in his eyes. It was possible I just imagined it, but . . . "I . . . I do not want you to be terrified of me like I was of him."

"I'm not afraid of you," I said quietly, trying to absorb all of the new information when it was so rare for him to mention anything personal whatsoever. Did that mean he was starting to view me as his . . . as his . . . I cleared my head of those thoughts, unable to handle them. "And I'm sorry for saying I hated you," I repeated for good measure. "I don't."

A minute later, we were back on the road. Things weren't fixed. My daddy was still dead, and he was leaving Rebekah behind, and I had no idea what was in store for my future. But somehow, it felt like the situation was improving, and for the first time since my daddy was killed, I didn't mind being dragged along with Klaus.

It made me feel wanted.

A/N: So, the relationship between Klaus and Grace is dysfunctional at best, but things will slowly progress for the better. Not to say Klaus won't slip up, because he will, but he's . . . on the right track, if you will. Next chapter will be entirely original, no Mystic Falls influence at all.

Now, tell me what you think in the comments, pretty please ;D.