Hello, my lovely readers. This is the final part of this mini-fic published today to celebrate El Dio de los Muertos! I hope you enjoyed it. On with the show…

Chapter 10: Oh, Bite Me: Part III

Sometimes you just find yourself in the middle of situations where you just want to back up and run from. However, when you've ingested parts of someone else's brain, you're not always in control of what you're doing, or what you would think would be the best thing to do in a situation.

"Dieu, Elijah, they need you," I cried into the phone. My hand was over my heart and tears ran down my cheeks. "Come. Please."

"Slow down, Hayley. What's happened?" Elijah seemed to have calmed down since he found out that I had been chowing down on his ex. That made things simpler. Explaining why I called him felt less simple.

"It is Davina. She is…unwell. Please, come," I cried into the phone. Somehow an accent was creeping into the voice and it felt natural. I needed to feast on someone else's brain, soon.

"Alright. I'll be there soon," Elijah said.

Exiting the bathroom of the mortuary, I came back to join the drama in progress.

"Kol, you cannot go around turning all the girls you find pretty," Klaus reprimanded his little brother with a scowl.

"Like you didn't with Caroline?" Kol demanded.

As if she heard him, Caroline entered the room with a plastic container. "Here," she said to Davina. "Eat this."

"What is it?" Davina asked, eying the container and then looking to me. I figured she wanted my opinion because we knew each other.

"It is food, chere. Go ahead. Have a bite," I told her with a sweet smile.

Popping the lid, Davina's lips pursed. "You want me to eat a brain… Now?"

"Now, or never, darling," Kol said, plopping down beside her and placing an arm around her shoulders. "If you don't, you'll simply die."

"Is that true?" Davina now looked to Klaus.

"We don't know yet," Marcel interjected and Klaus gave his friend a hard look. "No one's waited that long," Marcel added. "Eventually, the hunger takes hold and you can't stop yourself. So, it's better to eat, now, before you go home and snack on your family."

"I don't have a family," Davina said, taking a tiny bit of brain and lifting it to her mouth, she forced herself to take a bite. Her face screwed up and she gagged. "Ugh. That's horrible."

Kol took the container. "Caroline, be a dear and fry it up with some hot sauce and peppers."

Davina shook her head. "I can't do that every day."

The doorbell rang and Rebekah's head snapped upward. "Are we expecting company?"

Klaus frowned. "Not that I know of." He walked out of the room and then he came back with Elijah.

"Davina?" Elijah said, coming to kneel before his assistant. "What have you done to her?" he snapped at Klaus over his shoulder.

Klaus let out a mocking laugh. "Me? Oh, no, brother dear. This one was all Kol."

Elijah's attention moved to Kol. "So, you've made Davina into one of you." His disapproval made me move closer to him. I placed my hands on his shoulders and began to rub the tension out of his muscles.

"It is alright, Elijah," I whispered into his ear, pressing my body into his and I brushed his ear with my lips.

Elijah jerked away from me. "What are you doing?" His words came out coldly and I froze as a vision took me.

"What are you doing?" Rebekah demanded, standing on the other side of the room from me.

"I have a flash drive. What Kol confessed to me. I have it. I am willing to go to Elijah with it," I told her, only I was Celeste and I could feel her fear as well as the thrill of thinking she had one over Rebekah Mikaelson.

"Give it to me and I will not harm you," Rebekah hissed. She crossed the room, her face distorting to take on the full-zombie effect. "Or my face will be the last thing you ever see."

"If you kill me, there are more copies. They will go to Elijah, and the press. What do you think humans will do to you? Klaus? Kol?" Celeste laughed and Rebekah returned to her human features.

"You will regret this, Celeste DuBois," Rebekah snarled before she left the room.

"Hayley, what is it?" Elijah demanded, his hand went around my wrist and I turned to Rebekah.

"Did you find the copies, before or after you killed her?" I demanded, feeling in control again. "You killed her. Because she was blackmailing you? She would have exposed you for being zombies. The humans would have freaked and hunted you to the ends of the earth. You couldn't allow Celeste to tell Elijah, or to end your family. So, you killed her."

Shaking, Rebekah shook her head. "Celeste was evil. Elijah never could see that she was a duplicitous liar, a fraud and a manipulator. I suppose he spent too much time with Nik, thought that's how everyone is."

"Hey," Klaus snapped. "I am not nearly as horrible as that woman was."

"Did you kill her?" Elijah turned to look at his little sister.

"No," Rebekah shook her head. "I did not get the pleasure. But I was there," she confessed.

Elijah shook his head. "How could you?"

"She would have caused our deaths, Elijah," Klaus said, moving to stand in front of Elijah, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "She had to be stopped, brother. I am sorry for your lose. But it had to be done."

"This has to be done," Klaus' voice echoed in the dark and I rolled onto my back. Light came in from the window and I blinked. Opening my mouth to scream, I found a pair of fangs deep within my neck and then Klaus' face appeared in front of my own. "This is the last time you will hurt anyone in my family."

"Klaus killed her," I said.

Klaus' eyes snapped over to me and Caroline came into the room. "Dinner is ready," she announced. When no one reacted, she came further into the room. "Did something happen?"

"Klaus killed Celeste," Kol told Caroline.

"Thank God. She was such a bitch," Caroline said and then she strolled back out of the room.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then all hell broke loose. "You killed her!" Elijah shouted. Wrapping his hands around Klaus' neck, he began to squeeze.

"That is not how you kill a zombie, brother," Kol said. "Let me go get a saw." He moved to stand up when Marcel shoved him back onto the couch.

Davina got up and headed in the direction that Caroline had disappeared to and Rebekah went on full-zombie mode.

"Stop this. This instant!" Rebekah shouted. Grabbing Elijah, she tossed him on the couch, beside Kol who shrugged at Elijah who looked like he really would kill someone. Rebekah held Klaus by his neck, keeping him from Elijah while he was in zombie land, looking like his big brother might be on the menu. "Let's go have some dinner. And talk about this like normal people?"

"None of this is normal!" Elijah yelled at his baby sister. "You! Nik! Kol! Even Hayley and Davina! You are not normal! You eat brains!"

"You know what they say 'lijah, if you can't beat them, join them." Kol moved to bite Elijah when I ran over and picked Kol up, and threw him across the room.

"You bloody bitch!" Kol shouted at me, zombie-ing out. "I'm going to rip your head off!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Now I sounded like old me. Yay!

"Hayley. Enough," Elijah groaned. "Let's go to dinner." He forced himself to his feet, straightening his tie and we headed for the dinner.

~0~

"Who else have you turned lately?" Klaus asked, taking a bite of the recipe that Caroline found on the internet. It was hot and made the brains taste so good. I meant to ask Caroline for the recipe before we left.

"No one special. Just a few random men. I thought if the humans ever discovered us, we'd need a few good men to use as shields, like the government does," Kol said, waving his fork around.

Davina looked at him. "Am I a shield?"

"No, darling. You're my girlfriend," Kol reassured, patting her hand.

Davina frowned. "Um. No. We haven't even been on a date. And I'm too busy to date. I've got school. And work."

"You do not have school anymore, darling. Too easy to be discovered," Kol told her.

I felt a pang. It had taken a lot to adjust to my life, so I understood how much Davina would have to give up soon. "Elijah's going to find a cure," I reminded her.

"Elijah might find a cure," Elijah added, giving me a stern look. "False hope is a horrible thing to offer people."

"Good thing we're not people," Marcel said with a smile directed at Rebekah.

Rebekah rolled her eyes. "Do not remind me."

"I miss parties," Caroline said, lifting a glass of wine. "If we ever become human again, I am hosting a huge party."

"We could still have one," Klaus said.

"And risk killing everyone there?" Caroline shook her head. "No thank you."

A thought occurred to me. "Um. Kol. Do you remember turning a young man last night? He's a blonde, about five-seven. Broad shoulders. Bad attitude. He was with some male friends."

Kol stopped cutting into his food. Cocking his head to the side, he smiled. "Oh, yes. His friend tried to stop me and I tossed him off. Idiot. Why do you ask?"

"Because, Oliver, the guy you turned, was out with my ex-Jackson, the guy you hit. Jack came by my place last night, worried about Ollie. Where is Oliver?" I hoped that we would not have to do this the hard way.

Oh, the new recruits are back at my warehouse," Kol told us. "Did you want to stop by, have a chat with your ex's mate?" His smile made me want to run him through with a pitchfork.

"Yes." I nodded, maintaining my composure by a fraction of an inch.

"Right then," Kol nodded. "After dinner, I'll take you lot."

Sitting back in my seat, I decided that I would help Oliver out of Kol's little recruitment program and anyone else who wanted to be freed.

~0~

"Oliver?" I called as we entered an older building. Most of the lights were toward the back of the large main room and I tried not to have flashes of the night that I was turned.

"Hayley?" Oliver called back.

I hurried forward. Oliver came out in what looked like an old army uniform. "What are you doing here? I was told this was a 'boy's only' thing." Oliver offered me a grin that would make me want to punch him if I weren't so relieved to have found him.

"And this is the barracks," Kol said, leading the others past us. "Say 'Hello,' boys. Hey, they're not food!"

"Come on, Oliver. We've got to go. Now!" I hissed, taking Oliver's hand and leading him toward the door.

"Go? Go where?" Oliver asked me, looking puzzled.

"Out of here. Home," I told him.

Oliver stopped me, pulling his hand away. "Hayley. I am home now."

"Kol's brainwashed you," I said, trying to take his hand.

Oliver folded his arms over his chest. "I'm a grown man, Hayley. I want to be here. No one's forcing me. For once I feel like I belong somewhere. That I have something to do with my life."

Shaking my head, I could not believe him. "What about Jack?"

"He'll be better off without me," Oliver replied. "He's a good guy. He'll make a new friend. Find a new girl. Humans need to be with humans. No worries about being bitten that way."

With a sigh, I knew Oliver was not leaving. "You need to come with me to see the detective in charge of your case. And you need to say "Good-bye" to Jack."

"I think it would be better if you told him I'm gone. He'll just try to make me come back," Oliver said.

"Fine. But you're going to the police station in the morning," I retorted.

Elijah came out. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," I told him.

"Good," Elijah nodded.

"Tomorrow," I said to Oliver before I allowed Elijah to lead me out.

~0~

The next day Oliver and I went to the police station. "You scared your friends, Oliver," Vincent told him. I decided that I would try to help Vincent on more cases and that meant we could be on a first name basis. He would need my weird ability to solve his cases, and, like Oliver, I needed a purpose.

Speaking of needing a purpose…

~0~

I entered the morgue to find Davina looking bored and cutting into a new arrival. Her ear buds were in her ears and her head was bouncing. I walked past her and found Elijah in his chair, behind his desk. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yes. I believe that I know how you became a zombie," Elijah told me.

"How?" I was dying to find out.

"It has something to do with a species of fish that had been contaminated at a factory in south-west Ohio. When someone ate the contaminated product, their DNA began to change." Elijah looked at his report.

"Which means there could be a lot more of us out there than we know of?" I replied. This was not a good thing.

"Since I believe that the original batch of fish was recalled by the FDA, I believe that they might already know something is amiss." Elijah set his report down and stood up. "Feel like a trip to Ohio this weekend?"

"Not really. But I'll go if you insist." I offered Elijah a teasing grin.

Elijah smiled back, but then he frowned. "You're not still on Celeste brain, are you?"

"Not even a little bit," I replied.

"Good," Elijah smiled, again. "I was thinking of going out to lunch. Would you like join me?"

"Sure." I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Just give me a minute." I returned to the main room and dropped a file on top of Davina's notes.

"What's that?" Davina asked, pulling an ear bud out of one ear.

"An on-line college you might enjoy," I replied. "There are others. I thought maybe I could help you go through some. If you want to?"

Davina's mouth opened and then closed. After a moment, she grinned and threw her arms around me. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome, kid," I said, patting her on the back.

Slipping her ear bud back in, Davina went back to work and Elijah came out his office. We left the morgue and walked into the sunshine.

~0~

Later that day, I stopped by Jack's. "Hey," I said when he opened the door.

"Hey." Jack looked surprised to see me.

"I found Oliver," I told him. Jack looked shocked. Holding up a hand, I offered him an envelope. "He wanted you to know that he'd been selected by a Special Forces team and they did not mean to scare you. This is a new way for them to deal with recruits. I know, it's extreme. Anyway, he gave me this letter, to give to you."

"Oh." Jack looked at the letter. "Did you want to come in?"

"No." Shaking my head, I backed away. "I'm meeting some people, later." With a smile, I waved. "Good-bye, Jack."

"Bye, Hales," Jack said and he shut the door.

~0~

Back at my house, I settled onto the couch to watch some Halloween movies with Freya. The doorbell rang and Freya answered it. "Happy Halloween, brother," she greeted Elijah.

Elijah came in and smiled at me. "Am I interrupting?"

"No. You're just in time," I said, scooting over on the couch. I handed him the bowl of popcorn that had been living in my lap.

Elijah looked at the screen. "No zombies?"

"No zombies tonight," I told him. Freya sat beside her brother and stole the bowl of popcorn.

Even though I had no idea if I'd ever have a normal, human life again, I had good friends, and maybe something more, if we ever figured out how to work past the human-zombie compatibility issues. I looked at Elijah and he looked back at me, and for a moment, I thought my heart skipped a beat.

The End

Thank you for reading, faving, following and reviewing.

Peace,

J