He does not want to ask, but doubts are gnawing at him, and in the end, he allows this small victory to the original for the sake of his mind.
"What are you saying? That Elena would actually be willing to…" The sentence dies on his lips.
He does not do it often, but the words somehow seem too wrong to come out, and so he throws a begging glance at Klaus. Graciously, the original fills in:
"Kill for your brother?"
Standing close to the immense windows, gazing at the darkness outside, he suddenly looks old. Ancient. Stefan is abruptly reminded that he is older than the civilization that saw him come into this world.
"You didn't think that Damon could keep killing people for her, and her forgiving him, without this changing things… altering the balance. Did you?"
The words are lacking the underlying irony that usually is the original's trade mark. They are just words, but for some reason Stefan's breath stills.
Ignoring his reaction, Klaus goes on:
"She would die for you, for her brother, for any of her friend really," he explains while shrugging as if to say "don't ask me why", "but put her in a situation where she has to kill someone to save any of you, and she won't pull the figurative trigger."
Mesmerized, Stefan does not even think about interrupting him, or attempt to deny it. His perceptions are suddenly limited to the original and the truth that he is brutally delivering. Absently, Klaus plays with his glass, seemingly lost in his thoughts now. Stefan just wishes and dreads at the same time that he will keep thinking out loud.
"But put the life of Damon at stake, and the same gun in her hands…"
He does not finish his sentence, bus instead has a go at his bourbon.
"And what?"
Stefan's almost aggressive voice seems to surprise the original, like he really was lost in his world of memories and philosophic contemplations. He looses his dreamy expression and turns to face the younger vampire.
"And she will do it. And it would be funny in a way," he says, in a voice that does carry amusement, or what passes for amusement in the wicked mind of the old vampire.
Stefan is struggling with a surge of anger and bitterness, a surge like he has not felt for a long time. Since he was a human. Since the time Katherine was playing with the love of two brothers. Shit.
He knows Elena and him were not that close anymore before she left (hell, she had told him so herself before she left), and he has known, in a part of his brain that he preferred to ignore, that her and Damon had somewhat gotten closer. But the topic has conscientiously been avoided between Damon and him after she ran away, as if they both knew that the fragile balance that had finally found, after centuries of hatred, would not resist it.
But right now, having someone opening this pandora box and rubbing his face in it, he can feel his body starting to tremble, as if it needed to crush or kill something. The force of his emotions scare him a little, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows it is the hunger accentuating the worse feelings in him. He grits his teeth and try to focus on something useful, like making Klaus talk.
"So the plan is... what? You're going to keep Damon on a leash to keep Elena in line?"
He knows that this cannot be the original's big plan, but sometimes preaching the wrong to get the truth does work, and people with an ego as big as Klaus generally like to prove how superior they are. If you know how to be patient, he admonishes himself.
"Not quite," the original promptly replies with a short laugh. "I don't really want to bother myself with your brother. No, Im' sorry to disappoint, but the plan is much simpler, I'm afaid. All I need is her blood, which means, I need her alive and with me. The rest is irrelevant."
.
She has untangled herself from Damon, has wiggled her way out of under him, and is now watching his very still form peacefully lying on the bed. She has been looking at him for a few minutes now, simply standing by the bed, her eyes lingering on Damon's face, the curve of his lips, from which a weak stream of air still comes in and goes out. She knows he is still breathing because she checked, scared for a moment after he went limp in her arms. But he is just sleeping.
Deep in thoughts and quiet, she is absently caressing the white bandage now covering her right wrist, fully aware of the fact she has no time to waste, but making the moment stretch nonetheless. She feels a calm spread in her, similar to a soothing cloak, helping her keeping the cold at bay. A calm that she did not know until tonight she had been missing. It is a weight taken off her chest, a breath released in relief, a warmth coming from inside. She is just standing there, contemplating the panel of emotions that her soul is currently harboring, silent and serene like a bystander, in awe in front of so many of them she has not felt for years. She sees him and beyond. Her silence is like a little prayer, an ode to what used to be, an ode to what could be. In another life.
But she needs to remember the bigger picture here. She has to remember who she needs to be to do what needs to be done. She needs to keep in mind that she ran away to protect them, all of them, although she is painfully aware that her running away is the reason that Damon's life was put in danger in the first place. She thinks that if hell exists, there must be one level where tortured souls are forever facing this kind of predicament, vicious circles that never end.
She shakes her head in the dark, closes her eyes, inhales deeply. And when she is done exhaling, and she opens her eyes once again to the room, she is more in control of herself, her mind is clear and her heartbeat stable and strong.
She steps foot in the majestic living room at the same time that Stefan crashes against one of the bookshelves placed right at the bottom of the stairs. It takes Klaus the twentieth of a second to follow, lean down to pick up the younger vampire by the neck and throw him across the room, like a child would with a doll.
"What the hell is going on?" She does not scream, but is not far from it.
She passes by Klaus to go check on Stefan, who is trying to get, if not up, at least on his knees.
"Your little boyfriend still thinks he can dictate me what to do. It is getting tiring. And I've never been very patient to begin with."
"You are not taking her!" is the weak but determined reply from her boyfriend.
She slows down before she reaches Stefan, reassured to hear him speak, and turns around to look at the original. Who stares right back at her.
Come on, try and defy me too, his eyes seem to dare her.
"I am not going with you…" she starts firmly.
It's only preparation, hours, weeks, months of preparation, of training, that enables her to do what she does next. Fully giving into her instincts, trusting with her life – for real – the shiver that runs down the base of her neck, she reacts before any of her senses can pick up on his movement.
"What is this?"
Standing at arm length from her now, his voice washes over her, reflecting the surprise in his eyes. His hand, that was only a second ago aiming for her, is stopped a few centimeters away from her skin.
She guesses by the way his jaw tightens on the side of his face that he is using his supernatural force to try and reach her, to try and break the invisible barrier that seems to surround her.
She has to give him some credit though, as he then just lets his hand fall by his side, understanding in a second that no brutal force will affect her physically. He even takes two steps back, removing himself from her personal space.
But she does not have time to enjoy her small victory as his eyes come back up to meet hers. Rage does not start to describe what is swimming in these gray orbs. Cold hatred. Promises of pain to come.
"You have witches protecting you?"
His voice is in shocking contrast with his eyes. His statement is articulated in a very detached voice, as if it did not belong to the being radiating violence standing only a few steps away from her.
She withstands the weight of his glare the best she can while she makes a step forward in his direction.
"No, but I am a creature of magic. Turns out it comes with some benefits after all," she makes a good job of suppressing any trace of victory in her voice. Not the time to brag. So not.
He lifts up his chin a bit, eyes shining with calculating thoughts.
"So you practice witchcraft now?"
She breaks eye contact at last, lowering her head a bit as she pulls up the left sleeve of her leather jacket to reveal a black mark on the interior of her wrist.
"I am not a witch, and I will never be. But I am the doppelgänger. This is a black magic tattoo. I'm sure you have seen one of these before. They do not create magic. But this one can help me tap into the magic that my blood carries. To protect myself."
He does not react at all at her tour de force for a few seconds, lapse of time during which all that echoes in the room is the sound of Stefan getting back on his feet. She does not look to see how he is doing, because the fact that he can still moan from pain is a good sign. Considering.
Instead, she keeps her eyes on the original, who stands very still, the way only vampires seem to be able to, and that makes you feel that if you were to blink, they might just disappear.
Which is exactly what happens. Except she did not blink. One second he was here, the tenth of second later, he is not.
She turns around – so slowly, she feels like – to find Klaus with his hand around Stefan's neck again, pinning the younger vampire against the wall next to the fireplace with a force so brutal that she can hear something crack in the back of Stefan's neck. Klaus' other hand is pushing a stake, a stake she had not even realized was in his hand before, to the younger vampire's chest.
She remembers to breathe, drowns under million of panicked thoughts for a full second before she also remembers to keep her calm.
"I do not need to touch you to hurt you. That is what you friends are for," he snickers, his voice as steady as his arm, as if he could stand like this for eternity and not care – and maybe he could.
"Let him go!"
She tries to keep her voice firm and strong, but knows she is failing. The sight of Stefan struggling to breathe does not help, neither does the look of victory in the Original's eyes.
Anger suddenly washes over her, and she gladly gives to it. Anger is always better than fear, or panic. Her hands clench into fists, she takes a step in their direction, and tries again.
"Let him go, or you can kiss the idea of ever making new hybrids goodbye."
He is about to reply when she cuts him off:
"Kill him, and I swear, you won't have a doppelgänger to drain."
As she spits the word, she moves toward him again, and with something akin to contained rage, she slides her leather jacket off her shoulders in a shrug and leaves it behind her on the floor. In one swift movement, she lifts her right wrist and takes the bandage off. On her olive skin, just above the fresh bite, another shining black symbol.
"One tattoo to protect, one tattoo to kill. One thought is all it would take for it to stop my heart," she threatens in voice barely above a whisper.
The moment seems to hang still for a second, while he contemplates what she means by that, and his eyes go back and forth between her eyes and the magic tattoo, before his gaze hardens even more.
"You wouldn't dare," he spits.
"Push me, and find out. But remember that I am the last one of my bloodline. Your last chance for ever."
As if Stefan is a toy he was suddenly grew tired of, he throws him on the side, turning to her while the Salvatore brother slides to the floor, learning how to breathe again.
"I will kill all of your little friends. Your brother too. I will make their last moments in this life pure hell, and I will not stop until every last of them is dead."
She can feel herself regaining total control of herself, letting go of the anger she felt a minute before until all that is left is cold detachment and determination. And she lets all of this reach her eyes, filling them. She lets him see the hardness that fills her now most of the time.
"Then so be it," she answers in a voice that carries nothing more than a slight annoyance and resentment. "I am done trying to save one of my friend only to have you threaten another one."
So many cruel thoughts and diabolical plans are passing behind these charcoal gray eyes. None of them she can begin to fathom. But she knows one thing fore sure: Klaus can not accept to loose. Not to her, not to anyone. He is not wired like that. Put him his back against a wall and he will burn the proverbial wall to the ground, all together with the rest of the house it was supporting, the people living inside and every people they ever cared about.
She estimates at 50 percent the chances that his temper will get the best of him in the next minute and that he will crush them all.
"I am not leaving with you now," the words fall quickly off her lips, "because something is wrong with Damon. I gave him my blood, but I don't think it's working. The infection does not seem gone."
She keeps a straight face, but in reality she is so tense she can feel her fingertips tingle with nervousness. Every fibre in her body is expecting him to snap and lunge at Stefan, or her, whoever's death will satisfy him most.
Elijah has told her a lot about Klaus, and she thinks she has got a grasp on what triggers and motivates him, how he thinks and works. Or so she thought. Right now, she starts to question it.
"That's because it is not gone."
Relief that he has accepted the change of subject washes over her at the same time that his answer gets her to frown her brows.
"What do you mean?"
""Slow to spread, slow to go away. It will take your dear Damon more than one feeding to be cured. Three, I have been told. One daily."
Of course, she thinks. So, two more days during which he knows she won't be leaving. Explains why he didn't directly kill Stefan and try to snatch her upon learning about her newfound magic capabilities. But maybe she can turn it to her advantage, she thinks as a plan is already forming in her mind.
Throwing a quick glance to Stefan, who is still recovering, she steps up to Klaus, getting right into his personal space.
She is different. No doubt about that. And not only because of her new little witchy tricks. I barely can see the scared little girl she used to be in her anymore.
She always had bravado, I'll give her that, but never much to back it up, except the devotion of the Salvatore brothers. But the girl standing in front of me? Little bit scared on the edge, but hard to the core.
She reaches me in few rapid steps, almost silent, now standing closer to me than any human should dare to.
"I won't go anywhere until Damon is okay."
Her tone ins inflexible, but her eyes carry something else. As she says this, she puts one index finger in front of her mouth in a silencing motion, before pointing it in the general direction of Stefan behind me.
That gets my attention, I won't lie.
"You have me where you wanted, now let me save my friend," she says in that voice that does not match the expression on her face.
Surprisingly, her next move is to reach for my jacket pocket. I let her do, and keep my eyes on her face as she grabs my phone and retrieves it. In less than 5 seconds, she has it unlocked and her fingers are silently pushing buttons.
I play along with her curious game.
"You can have your two days with your brothers lovers, but fair warning: do not try to leave. I don't make the same mistake twice."
I do not have to pretend. I will not have her disappear again.
She gives me back my phone as I finish talking, and, although I am intrigued, I throw her a cold and unfazed look before glancing at the screen.
And what I see on the screen stretches my lips into a ferocious smile.