Instinctively, Elena opened her eyes, but they were so crusted together that the action tore at her eyelashes, sending shooting pain to her nerves.
The situation felt oddly familiar, and Elena realized that this had already happened to her once, when the witches first brought them to their house. The room she was in was the same dark dirty basement or cellar with an exit in the corner that partially concealed a flight of stone steps, only this time she didn't think it would turn out the same way. This time wouldn't have a happy ending.
She remembered seeing Klaus just before she had blacked out, so he must be the one holding them captive, but this realization made her shudder. If Klaus had kidnapped them, then he had to know about their plans to channel him, take his hybrids, dagger him, or even daggering Kol. There were so many things they had against him, and if he even knew a single one, then he would kill them all.
Elena felt something smooth and plastic press against her lips, and she looked up to see Damon sitting over her feeding her blood from a blood bag.
"Here, drink this," he murmured, soothingly, to her. "It was left for us. It has no vervain in it; I checked."
She shook her head. "I don't need it."
"Yes you do." Damon combed her hair with his fingers as gently as possible as she sat up straight, gulping down the warm red blood. But he was constantly checking around them, making sure they were still alone. Elena could feel his whole body was on edge, and so was she.
"Why would Klaus capture us and then give us blood?" she wondered, curiously. "It doesn't add up."
"I don't know, but my guess is that we're about to find out."
"That you are," said Klaus' voice, echoing in the damp basement as he appeared at the bottom of the stone steps that led upstairs. "Long time no see."
Damon's eyes locked with Klaus' in a fierce glare as he slowly lifted both of them to their feet. "Wasn't long enough," he snarled. "What the hell do you want with us? We didn't take the stake, and we have no idea who did. So just let us go."
Klaus approached them. "Unfortunately, you are not telling me the truth. I know about the community of witches you have been running with, and how you have transformed the only remaining White Oak stake into a dagger that can affect me. And I also know about your little adventures channeling me, Elena. How you have been siring my hybrids to you. You think I didn't feel it when you channeled me? Your hypocrisy is about as thick as your deception. When the hybrids were sired to me, it was evil but now it's different for you?"
Elena couldn't speak. Klaus knew about her ability to channel him. This decided it. She wasn't going to live to see tomorrow. She was as good as dead to Klaus.
Luckily, Damon spoke for her. "I don't give a damn about the hybrids. All we cared about was getting rid of you, and as it turned out, the hybrids hate you just as much as we do. So, yeah, we used them, and they'll get their stupid freedom in the end just like we promised."
Something about Damon's words amused Klaus, because he chuckled. "Obviously, that day hasn't come yet." Then he turned toward the exit. "You can come out now."
As Elena and Damon watched with wide eyes, about four or five of the hybrids from their training sessions filed into the basement with blank expressions and stood spaced evenly around the perimeter of the room.
"You stole our hybrids," Elena muttered under her breath.
"You stole them first," he retorted, happily. "And even though they have obeyed me thus far, they are still broken beyond repair. They will never be as loyal to me as they were before. I have no use for them, just as I have no use for you."
Elena sucked in a breath. She knew where this was going.
"I gave you the blood so that you were strong enough to witness that you stood no chance against me until your painful end," he continued, his hands behind his back.
"You see, you are not the only ones with witches on your side. Don't underestimate my ability to persuade."
"What are you talking about?" Elena wondered.
"Witches are so much more evolved these days," he mused to himself. "They've come to manufacturing explosives, even. Specially small kinds of explosives." He lifted up a small glass vial and shook it. Little tiny pieces of metal clinked together at the bottom. "Ones that only detonate fifteen minutes after being ingested."
Elena's stomach dropped. She could only guess where this was leading. "You put those things in the blood you gave us."
Klaus laughed loudly. "That would be a brilliant idea, Elena, wouldn't it? Channeling me has taken its toll, I see. No, I have better plans for you." His eyes landed briefly on each hybrid. "Everyone of these hybrids has drank wine laced with these explosives a few moments prior. They should be ready to blow soon."
Damon went rigid at her side. If there was anyone that she could rely on to be angry instead of terrified in moments like these, it was him. She figured that somehow, it helped him focus his fear into stone-cold rage. In fact, she wished she had that ability right about now.
"So what," Damon growled, his eyes flat. "You're going to kill us and never find out where we've been hiding all this time?"
Elena wasn't sure where to stand on this. It was collateral that might keep them alive, but would Damon sell out the witches? No, she answered herself. He wouldn't ever. So this would keep them alive, and that was perfectly acceptable.
"Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for what's more important, mate," Klaus murmured, and then his voice began to rise in intensity. "And what's important right now is making sure that the one person in the world who has the power to mimic my mind is dead. Which is why I will also do this…"
Quicker than a bolt of lightening, Klaus appeared at Elena's side with sickeningly yellow eyes and sank his fangs into her right arm, just above her wrist. What was left after he went away was an angry, red and purple, pulsating bite mark.
A noise somewhat in between a scream and a cry left her throat.
"So," Klaus panted, blood dripping at the corners of his mouth. "For your sake, you better hope that the hybrids kill you before that nasty thing on your arm does."
And then he was gone, an iron wrought gate slamming behind him, blocking the only way out.
Jeremy woke up and the first thought that came to his mind was that he had spent the night in a jail cell.
He'd always joked about something like this with his parents. As a child, he was actually exceptionally obedient. He turned in all his papers in school and never got detention or even a warning. Teachers, parents—you name it—they loved him. And so his parents would tease him about how they knew he was going to end up dressed all in orange. It was silly because it was just so far fetched.
And now here he was, his neck aching from the hard bench he had slept on, reeking of a sour smell you find in public restrooms, and enclosed behind metal bars.
Yet the actual idea was pretty much disturbingly ridiculous. The purpose of the bars was so that they could contain him. They thought he was a danger. The idea was almost funny, if he hadn't spent the night in a jail cell.
Then he remembered Kol, and a chill ran down his spine. With Kol relying on him to find out where the stake was, this was probably the worst time for him to be locked up in a cell. What would he do when he finds out where Jeremy is?
On the bright side, Kol might break him out of here. Then he would be free from the council's ridiculous new rules and regulations. He would leave town until the whole situation had blown over, find Bonnie and Elena and the others in Memphis. Then, after Kol had been daggered and Klaus killed with his own special dagger, the council would lay off and they would all come back. But, as he reminded himself, nothing ever went that smoothly when it came to them.
However, Kol might break him out of here. It was like a double-edged sword, or so he'd heard. He'd rather sit in this sour-smelling jail cell for twenty years than face the repercussions of Kol helping him escape, starting with every member of the council having their hearts ripped from their chests.
Footsteps echoed in the room, and Officer Johnson entered the room and sat down at his desk, beginning to fill out paperwork. Jeremy went right up to the bars and noticed the large ring of keys dangling from a hook in the officer's belt.
He caught Jeremy eying his keys and chuckled darkly. "You wish, Gilbert. You just sit your ass back down."
"Don't I get a phone call?"
"This isn't a courtroom drama, Jeremy. Just do what I and said and sit down," he said, gruffly. "Besides, who do you have to call? Everyone you've been blindly help ruin the city has abandoned you."
Jeremy grinded his teeth together, but then he realized that Officer Johnson was right. Not about the abandoning part, of course, but when he implied that Jeremy didn't have anyone to call to come get him. There really was no one left, besides Matt, who really couldn't leave his house now with the new rules, and the thought left a weight in his stomach.
He sat back down on the bench.
Elena wiped the back of her hand against her forehead.
Of course, she'd been sick before. She remembered catching the flu for a whole two weeks, and it was probably the sickest she had ever bee. She had also plunged a knife into her own stomach, sliced her own throat, been cut for blood time and time again, and let's not forget the two different times she had died.
But none of those compared to this.
Her skin was soaked with three layers of sweat, yet she was shaking with fever. Her bones ached so that she could hardly moved, and her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
She was stuck between dreaming and reality, just like one of the many sleepless nights she had had in the course of her lifetime. The hybrids standing around them were still and emotionless, but every once in a while, one of them would do something like speak or move. It was to the point that she couldn't really decide what was real and what was in her head.
Damon was sitting beside her, holding her hand, but there wasn't much he could do. He pulled back the bit of cloth he had torn from his shirt to inspect the wolf bite. It had swollen to twice its size and spread higher up her arm. It didn't look good at all.
Elena had to face the harsh truth: she was going to die.
"You look worried," she teased Damon's lined face in a weak voice.
"Do I?" he tried to smile for her, but it was an effort for him. He sighed. "Don't be stupid. There's nothing to be worried about. We're going to get you out of here."
She didn't answer. There was no way they were going to get her out of here. It was so inevitable that they were going to die here that it wasn't even worth avoiding the matter.
"Face it, Damon. Even if we manage to get out of here, this bite is going to kill me. The only way to cure it is drink Klaus' blood and that's not happening. Besides, the hybrids are going to go off in a few minutes."
Damon's face fell. "Isn't there some way that you could channel Klaus and cure yourself?"
"No, I don't think so," she shook her head. "I have to concentrate a lot to channel him and I can't do that now. Not like this, anyway."
He began pushing her matted hair out of her eyes. Her head was resting on his balled up jacket, and the sweat was building up in the areas that were rubbing against the leather, but at least it wasn't the cold hard ground.
"We're going to get you out of this," he repeated.
"Shh." Elena reached up and took his hand in her feeble grip. "I now know how it must have felt when you were dying from that wolf bite."
"That was one of my more weaker moments."
"I don't know," she murmured. "I liked it.
He gave her a confused look.
"Not the dying part, of course," she explained, quickly, smiling. "But the part where you said you loved me, and that you didn't mind whatever happened to you because of the bad things you did to deserve it, because otherwise you wouldn't have met me. I couldn't say any of it back then, but I can now. I love you."
"I'm not going to say I love you yet, Elena, because we're not dying, okay? You are not dying."
Instead of arguing with him in their final moments, Elena just said "okay" and pressed her cheek to his arm. She wished that the hybrids weren't standing there, listening to everything they were saying. Besides the fact that they were literally ticking time bombs, Elena would rather they were gone so she could have some privacy with Damon.
She caught herself just as she was about to drift to sleep. It was good she didn't let herself fall asleep because she only had so much time left with Damon and she wanted to spend it completely awake.
The, all of a sudden, an idea came to her mind, and she jolted upright, ignoring her protesting body.
"What is it?" Damon wondered.
She whipped her head around, and her face was completely lit up. "Do you have a knife?"
"You have a visitor," Officer Johnson mumbled, sullenly, the keys jingling as he unlocked Jeremy's cell and held it open so Sheriff Forbes could walk in.
"Sheriff Forbes?" He jumped up from his seat. He'd never considered that Caroline's mother was someone who would visit him or someone that he could call for help. But maybe, with her authority, she could get him out of here.
She nodded. "I'm sorry about this, Jeremy. I rushed over here as soon as I heard. They are completely out of their minds for tossing you in jail."
"But you can get me out, right?"
"Uh…" Sheriff Forbes hesitated, eyes flickering to the ground. "In this situation, the council's decision overrides mine. They suspended my badge. I'm afraid you're stuck in here until your sister gets back to prove you and them are innocent."
"How are we going to do that?"
"I'm working on it," she told him. "But for now, there's something I need to ask you. Are you completely sure that Klaus started your sister's bloodline?"
He shrugged. "I think so. His sibling even confirmed it. Why?"
"Because the council has the only white ash dagger there is left, and they are going to find Kol and kill him with it."
Elena held the glinting blade over her arm. Her hand was frozen, her previous enthusiasm gone. She couldn't force herself to move.
"It's alright," Damon coaxed her, placing a hand over hers. "This is the only chance you have of surviving this, Elena. You can do it. Just grit your teeth, and focus on something else. Think about the best day of your life. You can do this…"
He helped her bring the knife down on the edges of the throbbing bite mark, and it stung a little. They made an incision all the way around it, completely removing every festered square inch of skin. Beads of blood emerged from the deep red oval, plopping to the floor and on her leg. Damon guided her deeper into her skin, which was something she wouldn't be able to do on her own, just underneath the purple oozing wound. That was when the pain really started to kick in.
A piercing scream burst through her lips, rising in volume. She couldn't stop it or control it. The feeling of her flesh being hacked off made her lungs want to burst. Finally, Damon clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her cries.
"Elena, be quiet," he moaned. "Klaus could hear you and come down here."
For his sake, she tried to quiet down, but it wasn't a pleasant process. The screaming somehow took the edge off of the pain, and when she didn't have some sort of outlet for her turmoil, it bottled up inside of her like fizzy soda. Her eyes swelled up with tears, and she held her breath until her face turned blue.
With all of her focus on trying not to scream, Elena didn't realize Damon had finished cutting until she heard the clang of the knife hitting the floor and looked down to see her blood and skin in piles at her feet. At this point, she decided it was best that she not look at her arm, because the sight of it would probably take her over the edge and she really didn't want to throw up right now.
"Did it work?" she panted furiously.
He examined her arm gingerly with his fingertips, his nose wrinkled. "I think so. We caught it early enough, and pretty much cut out all of the infected area. Somehow, I think we just invented another cure for a wolf bite."
"I'd settle for a little vial of Klaus' blood, but I guess this will do."
"How do you feel?"
He set her arm down on her lap, and she looked up, avoiding it with her eyes. "Not dead, which is good. But, Damon, this isn't going to heal."
"I got that covered." He sank his fangs into his wrist just like you would an apple and held it out for her, waving it in front of her mouth. "Come on. Don't be shy."
She sighed. "Thank you," she said, sincerely, and placed her mouth around the crescent mark he had left her. This time his blood tasted familiar because she had had it before. It still wasn't as satisfying as human blood, but she immediately felt her arm heal up. It took a long time, because she it was a large gaping hole in her flesh, but eventually, the blood grew more skin cells that replaced the old ones. She could finally stand to look at it now.
"Now what?" she asked him, rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth.
"Now," he held on to her shoulders and helped her up. "We get out of here."
Just then, one of the hybrids, who had been standing there silently, bent over and a seriously disgusting cough erupted from his throat. He grasped at his stomach and covered his mouth. When he held out his hands again, they were both painted deep red.
Then, without warning, he blew up into a thin pink mist.
The explosion was small, contained, but more were to come.
It was enough force to put Elena on her back. Bits of bone and crumbles of the basement's stone cement walls shot at her all over, leaving gashes and bruises where they hit. Her head collided with something hard, leaving a throbbing bump just above her neck.
Knowing there was no time to lie there, no time to think not even time to breathe, she instantly got up. As she stood, she realized that the hard thing she had fallen into was Damon's ribcage. He was left panting from the explosion as well, with minimal injuries it seemed. Elena sighed in relief.
He looked her up and down, grimacing as he popped his arm back into place. "You okay?"
"Yeah. You?"
He nodded. "We don't have time for this," he said through his teeth. "The rest are about to go off. We got lucky this time, but we won't make it through a whole handful of these explosions."
She knew he was right. Obviously, Klaus had intended for all of the hybrids to go off at the same time, and this one in particular had been an early bloomer. Remarkably, this actually worked to their advantage. Now they were prepared. They had a warning. All that was left to do was make an escape plan.
And there luck just kept going. As Elena whirled around, searching the basement for anything that could help them get out, she noticed what had happened as a result of the explosion. In the wall behind the remains of the hybrid's body was a hole, about three feet wide and two feet tall. And when she looked through this hole, Elena realized that they weren't in a basement at all.
Because outside there was clear and unobstructed sky. They were probably on the second floor or third floor of whatever this place was, which made Elena extremely happy.
"Damon, look." She nudged his elbow and pointed at the hole. "The explosion blew out a portion of the wall."
His eyes widened and he flashed with vampire speed through the puddle of blood and flesh and bone to stick his head into the opening. She understood that he was checking to make sure no one was around so they could leave. They were actually going to leave.
He turned around. "Let's make this quick. C'mon."
Before Klaus could figure out that they were escaping and kill them himself or another hybrid burst into miniscule chunks, Elena leapt through the hole and landed on her feet in the wild and unattended grass outside. Moments later and Damon was beside her. He kissed her fiercely on her lips, enjoying their instant of freedom while it lasted, and then they disappeared, leaving this place behind them.
Klaus laid his hand out flat on the desk, feeling the ground shaking and rumbling underneath his skin. Finally, the final explosion was over.
He smiled to himself, feeling no remorse in the fact that he would never have to put up with those two ever again, as he bounded down several flights of stairs until he reached the dark room that he had kept them in. He wanted to see their blown up bodies for himself.
The smell of rotting flesh greeted him when he arrived, along with the leftover sound of sizzling fires scattered along the floor. To ensure that Damon and Elena were actually dead, he began scouring through the bloody bones that were in piles at his feet. Without his servants, he had to do the work himself, but the gory scene didn't bother him. He'd seen much worse in his lifetime.
He used his knowledge of forensics to count up the bones and managed to stock all five hybrids' corpses, and dug through to find the other two's.
But they weren't there.
Angrily, he checked over the bones again and again. He got the same number every time. Five hybrids. That was it. That was all that was left. Damon and Elena were still alive. They had escaped.
Klaus slammed the bone in his hand to the ground and snarled.
He pulled out his phone and typed a message: time for Plan B.
The message was sent to Kol.
AN: So this was chapter fourteen, hopefully getting this story back into the game of suspense and startling surprises! It's all coming together! Every chapter plays a part in the epic ending! Duh duh duh!
And I know this is long overdue, but I would like to thank a million times over a few of my very loyal reviewers. Karolina94, xElinneax, missing-in-venice, JessJunkey, and if there are any others that I've missed please tell me and I will definitely give you a shout out next chapter! But these guys right here are what make up my story; it would be nothing without you! Its awesome when I publish a new chapter and get excited about what you guys will think!
Okay, I'll wrap this up now. The chapter 15 synopsis:
WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE—Elena, overwhelmed with the recent events, dreams of what her life could have been like had some things gone differently.