"Can I come in?" I heard Niklaus's voice at the front door.
"Uh, I- I don't know you," the man stammered.
"He can come in!" I called.
"Please, come inside," the man echoed.
Niklaus entered and found me in the living room. "Artemis, sweetheart," he kissed my cheek. "Can we talk?"
I sat down on the sofa and pulled him down next to me. I reclined across the entirty of the couch, placing my legs over Niklaus so his hands had to rest on my bent knees. "If you tell me how you found us."
"Kol is avoiding us, not hiding," he grinned. "But why are you helping Kol undermine me?"
"I'm not helping him," I shrugged. "I'm just not helping you."
"You're betraying me!" He yelled, closing the space between us.
I held his face in my hands. "He's my mate!" I growled back. "You are my best friend. Elijah; he is more than a brother, but Kol is my mate. If he is willing to risk everything to prevent Silas from waking, I have a duty to see him through it."
Nik kissed the top of my knee. "I wouldn't wish such a fate on my worst enemies." He picked up my legs and moved them so he could stand. "Be warned, Kol must pay for his betrayal and I would hate it if you got in the way."
"Consider me warned, but you're not getting the daggers."
"Well," he smiled. "it was worth a shot."
After he left, I left too, headed towards The Grille for a drink. I saddled up to the bar and the pretty Matt Donovan poured me a drink.
"Where have you been?" Kol joined me a couple drinks later.
"Calm down. I just wanted some fresh air. How'd it go with Bonnie?" I whispered.
He ordered a bottle of bourbon from Matt. "Well, she didn't kill me," he grimaced. "That was her mistake."
I sighed. "You don't listen to me." I signaled Matt to pour me another drink. I was angry, but I couldn't figure out how to start of fight with Kol. As I watched him drink, I saw him struggle with the same problem. We were going to be here for a while and hopefully we'd end up drunk and naked.
We ended up almost fully clothed in an alley only a block from The Grille. That wasn't supposed to sound bitter. He was just as good as ever.
"You need to figure this out, don't you?" I ask.
Kol nodded. "I'm going for a walk."
I let him go with only a kiss; I know now this was a mistake. I should not have returned to the bar for another drink. After sun set, my phone buzzed. "Gilberts want to call a truce- keep you posted," Kol texted. But when he didn't make good on his word, I walked to the Gilberts' house on my own; I should have ran.
"Nooooo! NOOOOO!" I cried, my throat burned as I yelled as loud as I could. Kol was in flames. My skin felt like it was on fire. I sank to my knees. "Kol!" I cried in anguish that I could not help. I only needed to be invited in, but I couldn't get to my Kol. I heaved and cried, tearing apart the door jamb, but to no avail. I couldn't get in and I could do nothing as my mate burned in front of me. I felt as though my heart had been ripped from my chest. The emotional and physical pain were one. I had a gaping hole that made me cry out and I could not stop, it ached so much. I began heaving. As a vampire, there was nothing for me to throw up, but I couldn't control the convulsions.
I don't know when Niklaus showed up, but first I was in a ball at his feet, crying. Then, he was holding me, keeping me from falling as I sobbed into his chest.
"What did you do?" He growled with an arm still wrapped around my waist.
"We had no choice!" Elena protested. "He was trying to cut off Jeremy's arm"
"Lies! My friend hissed. "He would never have gotten inside if you hadn't set a trap for him."
At seeing the hybrid, Elena began to panic. "You said you were gonna put him down too!"
Niklaus yelled back at her, but I was beginning to only catch parts of the conversation. "…burn this hous to the ground and then when you try to flee for your lives; I'll kill you both without blinking!" That was my kind of threat.
"You'll never get the cure," Jeremy chimed in.
"You really think for an instant I care about my bloody hybrids," Niklaus responded and set me down on. He had me sit on the stoop, leaning against the outside of the house. I had lost my hysteria, but I could still feel the pain where my heart should be. It was unlike anything I had ever felt. "I want the cure so I can destroy it. I would have killed you all the second we dug it up, but now I'm just gonna watch you burn instead," he continued.
I think it was then that Bonnie showed up, she crippled Niklaus, but then told Jeremy to invite us inside, because we were able to get inside. Nik chased them through the house, ending up in the living room. I slowly followed, not quite realizing what was going on. Then, I couldn't get out. Niklaus punched the doorway, but was met with opposition each time. Kol's body lay in front of us; burnt to a crisp. I choked back some tears, but it was useless. As Niklaus fought to get out, I began dry heaving again. The dark wooden floor rose up to meet me, cold against my elbows and my knees.
"You can't do this to me!" Nik hissed.
"You have no idea what I can do now," the fledgling hunter retorted.
"I will hunt all of you to your end!" Niklaus threatened with all his might. "Do you hear me? Do you?!"
I rocked myself back to a sitting position, pulled my knees to my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs. I backed up until I felt my back against the side of the sofa. I couldn't take my eyes off of what was supposed to be Kol.
A boy entered the house and I looked up to recognize Tyler Lockwood. "Morning, sunshine," he greeted Niklaus. "You look pathetic."
"Only until Bonnie's spell locking me in here wears off, then I'll look different; angrier, perhaps. Of I won't look like anything because I'll have gouged your eyeballs from their sockets," Nik threatened.
They sounded so far away; their voices were muffled. Bits and pieces of the conversation were able to break through the fog, but nothing to hold my interest. Tyler only wanted to kill Niklaus, and Niklaus pulled out the drowning mother card.
Then Caroline entered the house as well. "You're still here. What are you doing?" she asked Tyler.
"Gloating," Tyler answered.
Niklaus approached the boundary. "Hello, Caroline."
"He destroyed my life. I plan on being present for every second of his misery until I can kill him myself," Tyler hissed.
"Fine," acquiesced Caroline. "You can gloat and multitask. This place is a disaster; starting with the horrific burnt corpse." She pulled out a table cloth from a cabinet and gave one end of it to Tyler. They went to cover Kol's body and I made an instinctive, protective move. I tried to keep them from taking him from me, but was stopped by the barrier. Running at it full speed hurt, but I needed to get out. I kept hitting and clawing at the air.
"Why's she so upset?" Tyler asked.
"Yeah, all you guys did was argue?" Caroline chimed in.
Niklaus tried to calm me down to keep me from hurting myself, but I shook him off. "He was my mate!" I screamed and receiving shocked silence as a response. I was sure the two of them didn't understand the significance of the bond between mates, but they had enough respect not to retaliate.
"Tyler's mother is dead. So is my brother. We're even," Nik said softly. "Call Bonnie, get her to let us out of here."
"I will never, ever help you," Caroline hissed.
"How quickly you forget the part where I saved Tyler from the misery of being a werewolf. Or the night your mother invited me into her home to save the life of her precious daughter," Niklaus pleaded his case.
"How delusional are you?" Caroline laughed harshly. "You killed his mother and let's not forget we're standing in a house were Elena's Aunt Jenna used to live or did you think your charm would get us to forget how you killed her too? You- you know what? No. I am not going to engage in this. I- You are not even worth the calories I burn talking to you.
She had gone too far, pushed Niklaus too much. He grabbed the floor lamp that was next to him and impaled her, using it to pull her across the barrier where he bit her and let her body drop.
"No!" Tyler yelled.
"Now that was defenitly worth the calories," Nik grinned with his blood stained lips.
After Tyler had taken Caroline away, Niklaus sat down on the floor next to me and gathered me into his arms. I rested my head on his chest and he stroked my hair.
Newly healed Caroline and Tyler showed up the next day carrying a laptop and something large wrapped in cloth. Nik was sitting on the coffee table like a zen master and I had finally found the strength to move to sit on the couch.
"Well if it isn't little orphan Lockwood. Come to show how laughably impotent you are against me?" Niklaus said.
"I'm just trying to help my friends find the cure," Tyler replied. "Found this in your attic." He pulled the hunter's sword from the cloth.
When they realized that it was not in English, Nik tried not to laugh. "If only you spoke Aramaic," he spoke in Aramaic.
Of course, I spoke Aramaic as well, but I didn't want to help. "Niklaus," I whispered. "If they wake Silas, then Kol would have died for nothing."
"I will not let that happen," he said to me. "But my dear sister is also desperate to be human."
"Hey, it's Caroline," she called Rebekah. "We have the translation for that tattoo. We're emailing you pictures of the map and instructions right now."
"Got it, thanks," Bekah's voice came through the speaker phone.
"Actually it was me," said Nik.
"Nik, you helped."
Niklaus chuckled. "You sound surprised, little sister."
"Shouldn't I be? You don't want me to be human. You don't want any of us to be human. Why would you help us find the cure?" she said.
"Well, I'm not," I growled. "Kol died to prevent this."
Niklaus ignored me and responded to his sister. "Maybe I finally realized the longer I stand in the way of what you want the longer you'll continue to hate me. Perhaps I want my sister to finally know happiness."
"Fool me once, shame on me," she said. "Fool me a hundred times…"
"No more fooling. No more games. I hope you get to live and dies as you wish."
"So do I," she said.
"There is one more thing, Rebekah. There is only one dose of the cure. You need to find it first and take it. It's the only way you'll-" Nik was cut off when Tyler ended the phone call. Nik had given Rebekah an advantage while simultaneously causing mischief thousands of miles away.
Caroline came back later that night to beg for Tyler's life. Niklaus spoke to her across the room, but I could have sworn he was sitting on the couch, still holding me. He gave Tyler a head start, but not his life. She left again and Niklaus, growled, punching the barrier, but his fist continued past the doorway. His eyes widened and he took my hands in his.
"Listen to me, sweetheart. I want you to go home; to my house. Call Elijah and I will be there soon," he kissed me.
He exited the front door and I went to wear Kol's body remained under a tablecloth. Disgraceful. I picked up the charred body bridal style. There were no tears this time, just an aching emptiness inside of me. I carried him out the back door and walked all the way to Niklaus's mansion. There, in the wine cellar remained the ornate, family coffins. I placed Kol in his and kissed the seared flesh on his forehead. With one last look, I closed the lid.
But then he was standing next to the coffin. I yelled and jumped back. "How-how are you here?"
"I'm not," he answered. "I'm on the Other Side."
"Then how can I still see you?" I asked, walking around the coffin to be near him.
Kol shrugged. "It could be our bond as mates. Or the amount of each other's blood that we've ingested." He reached out to touch me, but couldn't. While I could see and hear him, he had no corporeal form. "I need you to leave and find love. You're as old as the earth, but you're alone. I want you to fall in love with someone who is always kind to you."
"Kol? Are we still mates?"
"Don't ask questions you know the answers to." He disappeared.
-CG 2015