AUTHOR'S NOTE: Lots of action. And Mikaelson drama. And Kai and Freya.
Have at it, lovelies...
Friday, April 26th 9:42 P.M.:
Teeth glimmered in the darkness, impeccable and white. A laugh tainted the shadows, cold and severe. A hand that wielded an assassin's wooden blade threatened to annihilate with a single plunge of the wrist. Just one.
Caroline gulped—not from fear, but from resolve. Tonight, it seemed that fate demanded a noble sacrifice from her. And her alone.
"I'm sorry," a voice purred nearby, "But I'm afraid we have to say goodbye now. Forever this time."
Caroline's trembling hands positioned the instrument above her hammering heart while her eyelashes blinked away any ounce of hesitation.
In order to conquer, she must yield. There was no other way.
"Go ahead," Caroline challenged, her elated smile defying expectation, "I dare you."
5 days ago, Rousseau's:
Tail lights, windshield wipers, a cracked window, flecks of fluffy snow. Her dad's retreating hand waving, waving, waving. Why was he always waving goodbye, but never hello?
Popping kettle corn and balloon animals. Bonnie and Elena ahead of her in the carnival crowds. Whispering. Always whispering. Sharing secrets and pink cotton candy that tastes like a pink cloud.
Wait for me! Caroline yells, losing them in a sea of snickering faces. Wait for me! They never do.
Those moonless nights with a bottle of cheap wine. Grass beneath her butt and a flashlight searching her zombie eyes, a mountain of anonymous bodies behind her making a blood-stained goodnight pillow. A head that won't stop aching, a heart that won't stop thirsting for more. Blood satiated and blood sustained; it was how blood soiled her once-human heart.
You are not my daughter anymore, Liz says. I'm disappointed—she sighs, shaking her head—much too disappointed in you.
Disowned.
Caroline reaches out to a mother no longer there. There's nothing there but turned backs, sunken heads, and vacant space. Alone, alone, alone. Must it remain so dark and damp in this place of alone? This wasn't where she wanted to be, was it?
Let me out, let me out, let me out!
She bangs against the blackness with her fists, but no one hears. No one. She becomes a lost echo in the night.
9:55 A.M:
Caroline's mind flooded with visions of long-buried fears, with images of her deepest, most secret sorrows. Death. Defeat. Doubt. They were all there, festering. Attacking her closed eyelids like a relentless montage of awful. Impossible to escape.
No one needed such forceful reminders, but what could she do besides writhe against them? What could she do whenever someone else's finger pressed the button of control? Nothing. Caroline could do nothing. Was there anything worse in this life than helplessness?
With the snap of someone's fingers, the horror receded. It disappeared back into its private abode in the recesses of her subconscious, chirping like an invisible cricket. Perhaps Caroline could no longer see it, but she could still hear its summer song—a haunting melody permanently on play.
"I told you to detain them, not to immobilize them," a female voice said. Her tone betrayed minute irritation.
The smell of peanuts wafted across Caroline's nostrils, forcing her heavy eyes open.
"Potate-o, potat-o," Kai answered with a yawn.
He waved his hands in no-big-deal measure as he swiveled, unbothered, on a bar stool ten paces away.
"It's easier this way, Freya baby," he cooed, reaching for her hand. "They're contained."
The woman, the elusive Freya Mikaelson, a wispy thing with long, sandy hair, approached to cup Kai's chin in her hand, rocking his head side-to-side.
"Look at that face;" she purred affectionately, "I can never stay mad at you—" sternness raked her hazel eyes as she cocked his head up to look at her "—not even when you bicker with that Bennett nuisance you insist on keeping around," she groaned.
A pout clouded her features here, making Caroline want to slap her. Why? Because: 1) Whining grated on her nerves. 2) The witch-bitch's boyfriend, lover, secret sex slave—whatever—kidnapped Bonnie! Where the hell was she? Where, where, where?
Specifics devil woman, speak specifics!
"Just think of her as a collector's item—" Kai replied "—vintage magic wrapped in a tempestuous package."
Hiding a fond smile, he swished a loose strand of hair from Freya's face and tucked it behind her ear.
"In the end, it's just you—" Kai kissed her temple "—and me," he breathed.
He fixed her with a penetrating look; eyes locked and steady, and tickled her cheek with his thumb.
"It's just you and me, baby," he reiterated, "always."
Caroline wanted to vomit in disgust, but she remained still. Quiet. With two vengeful, powerful witches in the room, the element of surprise would never be a bad thing. But could they stop with the eternal devotion already and say something useful? Yuck. Just yuck!
Freya sighed contentedly and leaned in to rest her forehead against his, closing her eyes.
"What did you do to them, anyway?" she asked, motioning behind her casually.
Incapacitated. That's the first word that sprung to mind as Caroline looked around. Sprawled bodies coated the floor of Rousseau's in a collective mass of astonishment. Terror painted faces; trembling afflicted limbs. Judging by everyone's what-the-hell-happened expressions, Caroline gathered that she hadn't been alone in that mental prison of horror.
But what had the others seen? she wondered.
A tender yet possessive arm suddenly draped around her waist. Klaus tugged Caroline into his chest soundlessly and buried his face in her silky curls, breathing her in—blonde, vanilla, and goodness—his lips nearly pressed against the back of her neck. His strong, calloused hands roamed through her hair, across the soft skin of her cheeks, down the length of her body. They tangled, at long last, in the fabric loops of her jeans.
Klaus touched her like he didn't believe she was real. He traced every outline with the precision of an artist who'd found the perfect combination of colors. He fondled her like an illusion about to vanish—nimble yet grasping—and it left her breathless. Absolutely breathless.
"Are you all right, Caroline?" he breathed, barely audible.
Though she knew it shouldn't, it felt so good, so safe, to be this close to him. Wrapped in Klaus' arms. Before she knew what she was doing, she snuggled into him further and sighed, allowing the hybrid's strong arms to absorb her frightened quivers.
"Yes," she murmured in reply, "I'm okay."
Kai and Freya remained ignorant to the slow stirrings around the room. Council members began to awaken from their nightmarish daze.
"I siphoned power from Mr. Lateness outside," Kai explained to the witch. "I compelled them nightmares—" he cracked his knuckles and grinned "—Horrible ones," he elaborated, "the worst their imaginations could conjure."
As he spoke, Freya straddled his lap and clutched his neck with both hands.
"You're such a naughty boy, aren't you?" she crooned, wrapping her legs around his waist. Red, pointy fingernails scratched through his short, dark hair. "Now, kiss me," she commanded, "one—" she leaned in "—last—" her eyes were fierce and demanding "—time—" her tongue ran over her bottom lip seductively "—then we make them suffer," she added with an evil smile.
Slapping tongues, vulgar thrusting, appalled screaming, and blood. Fresh, dripping blood. It had all happened so fast: one minute Klaus was holding Caroline close against his body, the next he was puncturing his hybrid fangs into Kai's neck while Freya lay discarded and contorted against smashed liquor bottles. Across the room.
"The only person who will suffer, long lost sister—" he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand "—is you," he growled.
With fangs still bared, he sauntered over to Freya's staggering form in the nook across the room. Glass from broken bottles had sliced a sizeable gash into the cheek beneath her right eye. It gave the impression that she was crying blood.
"Leave this bar. Leave these people. Leave this city. My city," Klaus demanded, "Or I promise you—" his irises gleamed yellow, the color of the big, bad beast "—on the dead bodies of our parents, whose lives I took—" he juggled a piece of shattered glass "—I'll make you wish you were never born."
At this, without flinching, Klaus launched the shard of glass he held in his hand like a dart. The target? Freya's left palm—which quickly found itself stabbed into the Klimt painting behind her head. Bloodied and with a gaping wound.
Freya screeched in pain on impact, then yanked the glass from her hand and flung it to the floor. An air of defiance surrounded her as she stomped the shard into pieces beneath her black-toed boots, her dark gaze never faltering for a moment.
Everyone regained their feet slowly, braced and prepared for attack. Kai, bitten and bleeding, looked peeved as he leaned back against the bar counter, nursing his throbbing, wounded neck with his hand.
"Did you—" he laughed "—did you just—am I tasting werewolf venom on my tongue?"
Half repulsed, half amused, Kai attempted to eject it from his mouth by spitting. Rebekah removed chipped pink nail polish from her fingernails, not deigning to look up.
"That won't help, moron," she huffed, "You'll still die regardless."
"There's only cure for that kind of thing, mate—" Kol added.
"—Klaus' blood," Caroline finished, quirking a smile. She approached Kai in swaggering steps, bending in his face as his legs collapsed onto a stool in shock. "Which you're so not getting," she mocked, patting his head.
He swatted her hand away.
"It's too bad you wasted your siphoned magic on nightmares..." she sighed, shrugging and snapping her fingers in shucks.
"Hallucinating agony must be a most dreadful demise," Klaus remarked over his shoulder, "I'll look forward to observing yours—" he paused, fixing Kai with a contemptuous glare "—first-hand."
Caroline grabbed Kai's shirtfront, her fangs descending as her hand curled into a fist around the fabric. She peered hard into his overconfident black eyes.
"Not as much as I will," she snarled.
Kai grinned back at her, all teeth and delight. The man would be arrogant and defiant until his last breath, wouldn't he?
A crack of thunder sounded through the bar, so loud, that everyone cowered and covered their ears. There was nothing like a sonic boom to make Caroline wonder if vampires could go deaf. Holy hell! What was that?
Looking around, Caroline noticed that Cami and Davina huddled close together by the stage while Hayley clenched and unclenched her fists. Enzo, using his pinky in an effort to un-staunch his hearing, mumbled bloody temperamental bitch under his breath.
"And here I thought our family reunion could be civil!" Freya exclaimed as she lowered her hands, her boots clickity-clacking against the floor.
She came to stand opposite Klaus and flicked a piece of fuzz off his green Henley, a gesture that seemed to suggest that they were the oldest, most comfortable of friends, not estranged siblings. Appraising him, she asked, "Didn't you miss me at all?"
Her voice sounded hollow and a bit…vulnerable? Or was it hopeful?
Strangely, right now, Freya reminded Caroline of Klaus. There was something about the witch's paranoid, yearning expression and how she nibbled her bottom lip in preparation for the coming answer. Freya's face said it all—she wanted love, but expected rejection. And for a moment, brief though it was, Caroline felt bad for the girl. Sorry.
"Miss you? Ha!" Kol said with a cackle. A toothpick hung out of his mouth as he strolled around Davina and Cami. "Are you fucking insane?"
Freya lifted her nose at his incredulous tone. That fleeting wonder, that momentary softness that brushed across her cheeks in pale hope just a few seconds before, was gone. Vanished.
"Why should we be happy to see you?" Rebekah sneered, tapping her foot.
"Because I'm your sister," Freya countered.
Kol raised his finger and stepped to Klaus' left.
"Sorry, darling," he said, "but plotting to suck away all our supernatural ability for yourself means that you can't play the family obligation card."
"Treachery isn't something this lot forgets, love," Enzo commented from behind.
Diverted, Klaus tapped his chin and smirked while Rebekah shoved them both aside to affront her sister.
"Sister?" She threw her head back and laughed, hot and salty, right in the Original witch's face. "All you've ever cared about is power and supremacy, not love! Not me. Not—" she swooped her arms outwards wildly, indicating her two brothers "—not them!" Tears sprang into her eyes and her voice became thick with emotion. "1,000 years locked away in a prison realm and you haven't bloody changed at all! I still have no sister!"
A twinge shot across Caroline's heart as she listened to Rebekah's angry and imploring speech, but she didn't say a word. In fact, no one dared to intervene. This screamed family matter from a million miles away. And all anyone without the last name Mikaelson could do was watch…
"I never did," Rebekah continued.
"You want a sister?" Freya replied, stepping closer. "You want me to love you?" she bellowed with a scoff. She squeezed Rebekah by the shoulders, digging in with fingernails. "Then give me what I want!" Freya shook her hard. "Give me the ascendant!"
She extended her hand in deranged demand.
Klaus pushed between his two sisters, shoving Rebekah behind him in a protective, possessive way. With his hands clasped behind his back, he leaned into Freya's face, eyes narrowed, "You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you…long lost sister?"
He scratched the stubble on his chin and dimpled at her.
"You didn't expect me to just hand it over?" he goaded.
He juggled the ascendant carelessly between his fingertips and glowered down at Freya. A hint of the devil settled across his features as he cocked his head to the side, flapping the desired object in her face, under her nose. Freya followed it with her eyes like a hypnotized dog until Klaus stowed it away again in his back pocket with an arrogant pat.
"Not without a fight," he stressed, his jaw tight.
Rage caused Freya to levitate from the ground in one magical swoop. Wild. Savage. Ferocious. There weren't enough words to describe the fire of hell blazing in her eyes.
Two mirrors. Two siblings. Klaus and Freya reflected the same indomitable skill, the same obstinate resolve, the same uncontainable wrath. Dangerous. Destructive. Deadly. Who would win; who would lose?
Caroline marveled at their undeniable similarities and how the same tenacious blood coursed through their veins—they were Mikaelsons, through and through. And yet, despite this terrifying epiphany, she was reminded that Klaus possessed something that Freya appeared to lack right now: a salvageable heart.
Kai rustled on his bar stool, using one hand to grab Caroline by the wrist and the other to gain Freya's attention.
"Ahem," he cleared his throat. "I hate to break up family reunion hour, but—" he motioned at his blistering, infected neck wound "—I'm kind of, you know…dying. Could you maybe, oh, I don't know—" his voice became louder, dropping the sarcastic pretense "—fucking fix me already?"
Landing next to him, Freya gave him an apologetic look and encircled his free hand with a forceful squeeze.
Caroline freed herself and watched in horror as their joined hands vibrated—literally vibrated—with thunderous energy. Not only did it charge Kai like a magical-fueled battery, but it healed his death-sentence-hybrid bite in seconds…which was impossible. At least it should be…
Davina gasped.
"You always were combative, Nik." Wickedness washed over Freya's features as she said this, a pleased smile painting her lips. "But the unstoppable power resides within me," she said, gesturing at her bones, "not you." She flung hair over her shoulder and laughed. "Why do you think Mother sent me to a prison world and left you here to roam freely, cursed only with the caged werewolf inside of you?"
In this moment, it was as if no one but Klaus and Freya existed. The same sinister look reflected in both of their eyes, neither one breaking eye contact. Neither one sacrificing resolve.
"I'm sure being an unbearable bitch had something to do with it, too," Hayley spat.
Signaling to her assembled pack members, she crouched in defense.
Freya deflected the insult with apathy, continuing instead to assault her siblings with words.
"I will get what I want from you—" her lips curled in threat "—you will comply," she said. "Because I—" she licked her lips "—I have the power to destroy you. All of you."
With his siblings and Caroline flanking him on all sides, Klaus juggled a table leg in his right hand and stepped forward all bravado.
"We'd like to see you try," he challenged with a hiss.
Freya shook out her fingers and sighed. Disappointment marred her expression, but so did something else…obstinacy.
"If you insist…" she shrugged.
"Come on in, boys!" Kai exclaimed. Grinning, he rubbed his hands together and blew on his fingers in readiness. "Let the games begin!"
Friday, 9:25 P.M, St. Matthews' Catholic Church
Perhaps it hadn't been smart to let Kol fetch Davina from upstairs. Be right back from a man easily distracted seemed likely to result in impatient waiting on Caroline's end—not that he seemed like the type to abide by the conventions of punctuality, anyway—but twenty minutes? Come on! This was so not the time to dawdle!
Not only had they snuck out of the compound and blatantly disobeyed Klaus' don't-leave-without-informing-me decree (an offense likely to end in dagger-like wrath), but Kai and Freya had unleashed supernatural hell. Worse, they were holding Bonnie…somewhere. And that unknown somewhere was the precise reason she was here—to unearth it. To freaking find—and if necessary—rescue, her best friend.
If all that wasn't bad enough, Caroline now found herself abandoned and alone in an empty, echoing place of once-worship. An eerie silence permeated the church that clung to the stone walls and spider-webbed the deteriorating altar in a mirage of godliness. Tattered white cloths draped to the floor in thick folds, their bottoms dirtied with dirt, dust, and debris while gold-encrusted communion dishes waited for the end of a sermon that would never begin. The solitude provided here wasn't comforting either…it was freaking creepy!
Damn Kol for straying from the buddy system! Caroline cursed silently.
(Vampire or not, she still believed a church was a holy place that deserved respect, okay?)
Jumping up from the front pew, she disregarded the silent seclusion by humming a tranquil tune her mom loved and moving into a vestibule to the left of the altar. A five-tier rack of candles populated the space—Vigil Lights. Caroline smiled. Tonight, at least, this forgotten church would burn bright with the warmth of her prayers.
"Someday I'll wish upon a star—" Caroline sang as she sparked a second match, lowering the flame inside the golden candleholder to light the wick "—wake up where the clouds are far behind me—"
Growing up, Liz used to cast away her middle-of-the-night monster nightmares by serenading her tenderly with this song. Her mother's voice streamed rainbows into the dark shadows of the night. Before long, the tune became their mother-daughter lullaby of soft breathing, snuggling, and consoling lips that kissed away the scary.
"—Where trouble melts like lemon drops—" Caroline's voice rang through the exposed rafters like a choir of chapel bells. "—high above the chimney tops—"
Tears—some grateful, others sad, pooled in her eyes as she remembered her parents. Perhaps death took their bodies away too soon, but that love lived on in each sung word, in each cherished memory, in each tear that dripped from her eyes. And as long as she loved them, as long as she remembered, would they ever truly be gone?
"—that's where you'll find me…"
At the termination of this verse, all of the unlit candles in the vestibule suddenly flickered aflame, basking Caroline's tear-stained face in a dim golden light. Footsteps echoed along the steps of the altar as she wiped her eyes. Kol had excellent timing, didn't he?
"Your mom deserves more than one candle."
Caroline jerked to attention at the sound of the voice behind her.
"This place should glow in her memory—" sympathy and kindness filled the familiar voice "—don't you think?"
Turning, Caroline stared at the petite brunette—who wasn't Davina—that beamed at her from the pulpit. One arm rested on the slanted ledge for support, the other dangled casually behind her back.
"Bonnie?" Caroline gaped, "You're here?"
"I'm here," she replied, still smiling.
At this, as Bonnie descended the pulpit stairs to approach her startled friend, Caroline flashed at her, engulfing her in a hug so tight that it radiated with emotion. Relief. Disbelief. Joy. Just absolute, uncontainable joy.
"You're here! You're here! You're here!" she squealed as she rocked them side-to-side. "I don't know if I should be more livid or ecstatic that you're—" Caroline paused, pulling away. "Wait," she blinked questioningly at her best friend, gripping her by the shoulders, "how in the hell are you here? How did you escape Kai?"
A grin spread across Bonnie's face. It was wide…it was eager…it was wrong. She leaned in, eyes hard, lips gnarled.
"Easy," she whispered, "I didn't."
Removing the hand hidden behind her back, she clasped a wooden blade in her sturdy fist, pointing it at Caroline's thumping, undead heart.
"And neither will you," she grimaced, lurching forward.
A slithering thud emanated from the balcony above them. Invisible hands—some kind of magical rope—clutched Caroline around the waist and launched her backwards into rows of vacant pews. Away from Bonnie, away from the poised stake.
Kol's labored words rebounded through the church as he shoved his bloody face through wooden spokes. He had saved her! Kol had saved Caroline from imminent death at the hands of her best friend.
"It's a trap!" he roared in warning. "She's not free! Get it off, Caroline!" he choked, his voice hoarse, "Get it off her!"
Get what off her? The stake? The bitterness? The murderous look in her eyes? Caroline took a millisecond to re-adjust her spinning head. Kol bloody and bellowing; Bonnie brutal and beastly—what the actual fuck was happening?
"I knew I should have killed you first, you sniveling worm," Bonnie spat at him with venom, "I've hated you since the beginning!"
Kol grappled to his feet, hanging his tattered and limp self across the balcony railing for support.
"Careful, darling," he replied, cheeky as ever, "there's a thin line between love and hate," he winked.
As if silently challenging this, Bonnie pushed her arms forward with sinister force and uttered Latin incantations under her breath. At first, nothing happened. Then, Caroline watched as Kol suddenly suspended into the air—high—writhing with a bruising struggle to breathe—his arms extended perpendicular to his body, his head oscillating back and forth as blood poured from his nostrils. Vigil Light flames darted at him like mosquitoes, licking his exposed skin into charred fossils. Electricity, the color of purple lightning, shuddered through him, flipping him and siphoning his energies like an incubus forever unsatiated. Ravaged slowly, excruciatingly, he couldn't fight back. Not like this.
"There's also a thin line between life and death," Bonnie replied. Her lips pursed in intense concentration as she continued her spell. "Why don't we find out how thin it is?" she asked, her words dripping with disdain.
Appalled, Caroline watched as Bonnie deconstructed Kol piece-by-piece. Body, magic, and soul. She was a demon primed to pillage, not a witch infused with the magical grace of nature. Who was this monster? What had Kai and Freya done to her best friend? What in the hell had they done?
5 days ago, Rousseau's:
Bright sunshine streamed into the dim bar as Elijah paraded through the street exit door dragging an unconscious black man behind him. He deposited him like luggage, on his back, behind a brown leather couch to the left of the bar.
"Marcel!" Cami threw a hand over her mouth and lurched forward onto her knees next to a gaping Davina. The young witch began mumbling healing spells under her breath immediately.
"What the bloody hell happened to him, Elijah?" Rebekah cried.
She moved to dart across the room, but Kol held her firmly by the wrist. Caution flashed at her from his brown eyes. He perceived something no one else did.
"Nothing," he said. Elijah adjusted his red skinny tie and nudged the man's arm lightly with his foot. "He's just weary."
Caroline didn't know much about Marcel. The only things she'd learned about him, besides his tardiness, were that he was Klaus' most esteemed sire and that he helped govern the vampire faction. That being said, the guy didn't look too good right now.
And neither did Klaus. Rigid, the hybrid's arms shook with increasing lividness.
"Don't worry, Barbie," Kai said, "Loverboy will wake soon."
He reached for a bag of unopened tortilla chips on a nearby shelf.
"Or is he yours?" Smiling, he crunched on a chip and motioned at Cami. "His love life is little gray."
Freya tsk-tsked.
"You never were good at eliminating competition, Rebekah—"
Marcel stirred on the floor, his senses still drenched in fogginess. Cami screeched and pointed at the movement; Davina released a relieved sigh. He wasn't dead.
"—let me see if I can help you with that," Freya finished.
Looking at his eldest sister, Elijah unbuttoned his suit jacket and reached under the right lapel.
"I take it negotiations fell through?" he asked.
Freya vaulted to a nearby table and nodded in affirmation. This caused Elijah to drop his head and shake it back-and-forth, dissatisfaction apparent.
"You give me no choice, Niklaus—" he sighed.
"—no choice to what?" the hybrid interrupted "—to scheme and collaborate with that fiend—" he pointed at Freya with weighty accusation "—behind my back?"
Affronted, Klaus laughed. It sounded harsh and unforgiving, tainted only by the betrayal burning hot in his throat.
"Why?" he asked.
Vulnerability seeped into this last question, polluting his voice with emotion too potent to disguise. A spasm seized Caroline's heart at the sound; and as she looked at his face, she watched as anger and pain tightened the muscles along his jaw bone, around his lips. The sight of Klaus' blue eyes, wide and paranoid—she couldn't stand it! And so, before the dark shadow of rejection enveloped him completely, she extended the only comfort in her possession—her hand.
Flashing to his right, she intertwined their fingers and gripped tight to him. She pressed the message You're not alone hard into his hand, praying beyond all hope that he'd understand. And that he wouldn't shove her concern away, shutting it down...like he almost always did.
"She made me a better deal," Elijah said as he adjusted his cuff links.
Caroline studied the refined man across from her.
Dependable, moral to a fault, distant Elijah—the Original who hid underneath sophisticated business suits and etiquette as he worked for centuries to preserve his dysfunctional family and to temper a vengeful Klaus. He now wanted to band with the witchy psychos, Kai and Freya? Seriously? Was this the same man who refused to sacrifice his brother in the sun-and-moon ritual, who once loved Katherine Pierce? Was this the same man, who only days ago, obtained Caroline a new phone so she could contact her friends in Mystic Falls? Would the real Elijah Mikaelson please stand up?
Something didn't make sense. Either Elijah just crowned himself king of duplicity or—Caroline looked at him.
Vacant. His brown eyes, ordinarily sharp and exacting, looked dull. His movements, usually characterized by their erect swiftness, now reached into his jacket pocket with robotic precision.
Elijah shook his head. "You leave me no choice, brother—"
Fear clenched Caroline's stomach as he removed his hand from his coat. Marcel, who slowly awakened, rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Where am I?" he croaked.
"—Something's wrong!" she exclaimed as her fangs descended. "Stop him! We have to stop him!" She bellowed and pointed wildly at Elijah. "He doesn't know what he's doing!"
The whole bar seemed to whir into slow motion while chaos erupted around her. Together, she and Klaus lurched forward, hissing, at the same moment that Elijah removed a wooden stake from his jacket and raised it high above his head, aiming to secure it in Marcel's chest.
"I've tried and tried to explain the importance of diplomacy—" Elijah continued, his arm still raised. His voice sounded hollow and alien. "—but now my lesson must be shown, not heard."
Wind chafed at Caroline's cheeks as a brutal storm of shattered glass bottles, scalding black coffee, and sharp utensils brewed above their heads. It descended at the precise moment that Kol and Rebekah charged at their sister, Freya, with fangs and fire. Hayley, Enzo, and the other werewolves sprang at Kai like ravenous hyenas while Davina spelled tortilla chips and furniture to impede his vision. Cami scampered to secure two humans away in a closet, returning afterwards desperate to find a way to drag Marcel, still too weak to move, to safety.
"Marcel!" Davina yelled from atop a chair. She'd just sent a waterfall of water toppling over Hayley's head, just missing the evasive, siphoning Kai. "Watch out!"
Right before Elijah ended Marcel with one forceful stab, Klaus launched at him, crashing them both into the pool table behind the couch. The left side cracked under the force of their weight and showered them in billiard balls. Thrashing fists-to-face, knees-to-stomach, Klaus knocked the stake from his brother's hand with his elbow, sending it tossing and tumbling across the middle of the floor.
"Get—" Elijah cuffed him across the jaw "—it—" he pummeled them into the wall "—Caroline!" Klaus roared.
Hurdling over fighting Council members and flying debris, Caroline snatched it, along with some stomped tortilla chips, from the floor. As she attempted to secure it in the sleeve of her jean jacket, something struck her hard from behind. It knocked her to the ground. Onto her knees.
"You won't need this," Kai said.
He plucked the stake from her hand and threw it back towards the embattled Mikaelson brothers. Klaus still couldn't get his hands around Elijah's neck long enough to snap it and incapacitate him.
"And neither will I," Kai added with scorn.
Grabbing Caroline by the neck, he chucked her into the wall to their left and banged her forehead into the bricks. Again and again. White spots popped across her eyes, blinding her momentarily, as he flipped her around to face him.
With his hand poised around her throat, he said, "You can't win."
His words felt oppressive and repulsive against her face. Though she still couldn't see, Caroline heard more moaning and shuffling than she did cracking and thumping. The only remaining smashing sounds came from the corner Klaus and Elijah frequented, wrestling. Quiet. Much too quiet for a productive fight.
Freya's distant laugh, light and carefree, polluted the bar air.
"Why don't you just give up?" Kai prodded.
Caroline, never the quitter, thrashed at the sound of his suggestion and hissed in refusal.
"Never!" she snarled. She kneed him twice in the ribs and scratched her fingernails along the side of his face, burying them in skin and blood. "Not until you rip my undead, throbbing heart from my chest."
Caroline broke free, but only for a second. An unseen force—Kai's siphoned magic from an unlucky Council member probably—slammed her back against the wall, binding her wrists and ankles to the bricks.
"I've always admired your spirit, sweet Caroline—" rolling up his sleeve, he waggled his right eyebrow at her "—but the days full of your sassy threats—" he plunged his hand into her chest and clutched her heart, squeezing, tugging it with deadly force "—are finished," he shouted.
Caroline yelped in pain, awakening not only her restored eyesight, but Klaus' awareness.
"Leave her alone, you wanker!" Enzo yelled, chucking an empty peanut bowl at Kai's head. He dragged himself across the floor in swimming strokes, still too magic-dwindled to fight harder.
Depleted, not dead, the assembled supernaturals of the Council littered the bar in various stages of muted battledom. Some bruised and bled; others deflected and charged. Kol and Davina, among others, slithered across the floor on their elbows and shot flames at Freya's yawning figure with their fingers. Rebekah and Hayley took turns snapping, fangs poised, at the closest threat—but to no avail. No one came close. Kai and Freya were too…protected.
"Any last words—" Kai asked with an amused smile.
Caroline gasped as his fingers tore at the muscle tissues surrounding her heart. He plucked at them like guitar strings—in slow, taunting, rhythmic strokes.
"I ho—" she breathed, unable to get the words out.
Up until this point, Klaus had been too preoccupied with subduing Elijah and saving Marcel to pay heed to this current conflict. But at the sound of Caroline's distress, he halted immediately. Now tense and rigid, he unclenched his fists from around Elijah's collar and turned to her with eyes brimming with rage and fear.
"Caroline?" his voice cracked.
A deep, throaty growl escaped him then. Abandoning his brother and the coveted stake to the floor, he stormed across the room with menacing intent, his demeanor shrouded in loathing so profound that demons applauded with each subsequent step he took—only to find his progress impeded. Blocked, by an invisible wall.
"Oh, dear," Freya said, jumping down from the table on which she stood, "How will you save him now?"
A triumphant smile overtook her lips as she indicated to Elijah over by the jukebox.
"No! Please, Elijah!" Cami cried, pleading hysterically, "Please don't do this!"
The Original only hesitated for a second—to admire his prey—before thrusting the stake straight into Marcel's heart.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Rebekah wailed, collapsing to her knees and clutching to Klaus' shin.
Klaus stood motionless. Gawking. Incredulity crinkled his forehead.
Gray. Dessicated. Dead. It only took seconds for Elijah to complete the deed—Marcel was gone. They had lost one.
"Any last words, Caroline?" Kai repeated again.
His arm still stuck in her chest up to the elbow; his fingers still grasped her heart.
Hearing this, Klaus revived and flailed with mania—pushing, pounding, crashing, clawing, against the invisible wall erected between them. But he couldn't break through it—he couldn't reach her. He was powerless.
"Caroline!" he growled.
Desperation and woe clung to that word, to her name. The sound of those three syllables rolling off his tongue like that, full of worry and tenderness, filled her with warmth so strong and so vibrant, that it streamed through her veins like sunshine. She felt it thrumming, glowing, blossoming within her…
"CAROLINE!"
Klaus' voice sounded more agitated this time, more despairing. His eyes searched hers with frantic questions—all unanswered, all unspoken—and ravaged her with an insatiable need to preserve every last freckle, every rustled curl, every saucy remark. Stay with me, they pleaded, Stay with me.
Oh, how she wanted to stay!
That word on his lips, her name, said it all. Everything. It spoke the truth, finally: Klaus cared! He couldn't bear to lose her. Not here. Not now. Not ever. It was no wonder Caroline couldn't answer Kai! Who had time for oxygen, let alone words, during an epiphany like that?
"You wanted a war, Niklaus." Freya patted him on the shoulder. "And here it is," she said, motioning at the scene before them. Whispering in his ear, she gnashed her teeth and added, "Suffer the consequences..."
Kai grabbed Caroline by the chin and forced her to look at him.
"What should I tell Bonnie?" he asked maliciously.
Caroline seethed at the mention of her best friend whom he'd kidnapped and held hostage for almost two weeks now. How dare him! Dying in front of a raging, helpless audience—and Klaus—was bad enough, but what about Bonnie? What would happen to her? How would this lunatic torture her now?
Fuming and snarling with hatred, Caroline's fingers dug into the bricks behind her, burning.
"FUCK—" What she wouldn't do to fry that cocky smirk right off his face! "—YOU!" she snapped.
Before she knew what she was doing, Caroline ripped her scalding hands from the wall with as much strength as she could muster and lunged at Kai's throat. Somehow, the spell lifted. The invisible restraints disappeared—or incinerated—as light exploded from her hands with blinding intensity.
It blasted into Kai's face…against his skin, through his hair, in his eyes…with such torrid power that he stumbled backwards, releasing hold of her heart and crawling away.
"What's happening? Freya?" A hysterical edge overtook Kai's voice. "Freya!"
Collective awe reverberated through Rousseau's. Everyone stared. Why? Not only did Caroline's hands burst with some unknown, unanticipated power, but the rest of her radiated in various dazzling shades of gold and black.
"I don't fucking believe it," Kol laughed, cheering her on, "Shine, sunshine! Shine!"
"She's more than sunshine, mate," Enzo said. He wiped blood from his forearm and collapsed onto a chair near a tear-stained Rebekah. "She's the bloody solar eclipse!"
Kai continued to writhe on the floor and rub at his eyes. Every time he attempted to rush at her, however, he found himself tangled inside a dense blackness and knotted into place like a used garbage bag.
"The light, the dark—" he shouted at Freya"—I—I can't take them from her!" he scrambled onto his knees "—I can't use them…"
He couldn't siphon; he couldn't expel. Trapped, he became a warlock with no magical escape.
As he said this, Elijah pinned Hayley to the bar counter by the throat. The werewolf had tried to reawaken his moral sensibilities through discourse, but found him uncooperative…and aggressive.
"Then I will!" Freya said, the air thundering above her in warning.
Just as she raised her fingers in impending threat, two things happened: 1) Rebekah stabbed her sister in the ribs with a stray fork while Klaus nestled his fangs into her shoulder. 2) Caroline blistered Elijah's hand away from Hayley's chest with vibrant golden light, causing him to topple to the floor. Not only did this action prevent the werewolf's impending death, but it saved the Original from additional killer's remorse when he became himself again. (Whenever that was.)
In the meantime, Davina and Cami smuggled the remaining Council members to safety thanks to Kol's super-healing spells and Enzo's vamp speed.
"Enough!"
Freya flicked her hands in a push-pull motion. The movement somersaulted her to the exit door and dragged Kai and Elijah next to her by magical tether. A shimmering red wall bubbled around them in protection.
"Bad blood exists between us now, doesn't it?" she asked with a snarl.
Strolling forward, she glared at her siblings and Caroline.
"Until you relinquish what's mine—" she motioned to the ascendant in Klaus' pocket "—I won't relinquish what's yours—" she tightened Elijah's tie and smiled "—any of it."
Though she never said Bonnie's name, Freya's meaning wasn't lost on Caroline. She blazed brighter and stronger at the implication behind those words. The Original bitch so didn't want to mess with her in this fiery state!
But as Caroline raised her glowing hands in attack, the sparkling wall between them doused their heads—Kai, Freya, and Elijah's—in thick, goopy red, obscuring them from view and from her blasting light. In a blink, it swallowed them whole. And they were gone.
Alive but wounded, Caroline stood next to the Originals. Amid the wreckage of war. All that remained were broken hearts, unshaken courage, and an ominous warning scrawled in dried blood at Caroline's feet:
YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS.
Friday, St. Matthews' Catholic Church:
Caroline wasn't going to let Kol die. And she sure as hell wasn't going to let Bonnie, a magically-possessed-Kai-and-Freya-puppet, do the killing. It wasn't him they wanted anyway—it was her, the human eclipse.
But try explaining that rationally to an offended Bennett witch currently keen on torturing her offender. Kol levitated in the air above the balcony, weak, immobile, and flayed like a scarecrow, as Bonnie punished him with spell after violent spell. Each shriek from his lips made the girl laugh that much harder, relishing in his agony.
No, Caroline realized, there was only one solution to this problem—and it wasn't words. And so, flashing behind her friend, Caroline did the one thing certain to recapture Bonnie's attention: she bit her. Hard.
Her fangs punctured the witch's neck with surprising force, knocking Bonnie off-balance and breaking the spell that assaulted Kol's body—magic and soul—apart. The Original plummeted down to the balcony floor out-of-view with a decided clunk. If unconscious, he was currently safe from further attack. If conscious, he could restore his strength and enlist the help of reinforcements they should've had in the first place.
"You bitch!" Bonnie screamed.
Caroline slurped and sucked her friend's blood in a controlled, premeditated frenzy. The aim was not to kill, but to weaken. Only a few more seconds and…Bonnie's heartbeat slowed to a dull thump, thump; her breaths weakened and wheezed with exertion; her head lulled, rolling with heaviness until her chin rested against her chest.
Retracting her fangs, Caroline wiped a hand across her mouth. It all had gone according to—
Spinning pews. Too much air. Cold marble. Caroline found herself pinned to the communion altar like a sacrificial lamb, straddled across the hips by a not-so-blood-depleted Bonnie. Looking up, appalled, she thrashed to free her wrists from the girl's tight grip and to move.
"You faker!" she exclaimed. Caroline still couldn't escape. "You totally faked me out!"
Bonnie beamed down at her, brown eyes radiating with triumphant malice. Raising her right hand over her head, she twiddled her wooden stake between her fingertips.
"I'm sorry," she taunted, prolonging the inevitable. "But I'm afraid we have to say goodbye now—" she bent into Caroline's face, her expression stern "—forever this time," she said.
Right at this moment, Caroline caught sight of a bracelet dangling low, loosely, from Bonnie's tiny wrist. Rubies and diamonds twinkled amid the muted church candlelight and danced along the tile floor in refracted rainbow colors. It eliminated her fear; she knew what had to be done.
After one, low sigh, she reached upwards. Her fingers climbed along the stake until they rested over top of Bonnie's hands. With a squeeze, she yanked them both down until they hovered a few inches above her chest—over her pounding heart.
"Go ahead," she smiled, "I dare you."
While Bonnie clutched tighter to the stake, her assassin's blade, Caroline held her breath. It was a good thing Klaus wasn't here to see this…
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Whew! A long one, right? I didn't want to kill Marcel, I really didn't-*shuffles remorsefully*-but I found it useful in demonstrating how serious and desperate Kai and Freya are to get what they want. Structure-wise, I modeled this chapter similarly to #6, though without quite as many time jumps. I'm still a little iffy about its execution...but alas. Voila!
Sending a big THANK YOU to all of you for your continuing support and feedback. You rock! Thanks for reading! :)
P.S. Reviews are always wonderful.
xx Ashlee Bree xx
