Sorry this took so long to get out! Been revising for my final exams - can't wait till they are over so I can fully get back to writing!
Hope you enjoy :)
Rebekah Mikaelson had almost felt safe again, had almost gotten her life back into some sort of a routine. It was normal, it was freeing and the only things she had to worry about were the trivial day to day dilemmas which faced the students of Mystic Falls High.
In the back of her mind, she still thought of Esther, the woman she had once called her mother. She still mourned for the person she had once been; the woman who had loved her, who didn't think of her as being a monster of the night. She still thought of Elijah, whose search for his mate was still without progress.
Without hope and without reward.
She supposed that she should be worried for her big brother but he wasn't the type to simply surrender and comply with the desperate whims of Sophia Gilbert. Not when danger surrounded her every corner. He would find that girl of his soon enough.
And when he did... well... Rebekah smirked at the thought.
By issuing that challenge within the dreamscape, Sophie had initiated quite the game. It would be interesting to discover who exactly would win. The two counterbalanced each other well when it came to power.
And yet, despite all the calm and the peace which Rebekah had almost felt acclimatised to, there was still a small slither of fear lurking behind the curtains of her happiness. An intense paranoia reminded her that there would always be something out there which could bring her sense of normality crashing down.
And then like clockwork, it came. That earth shattering, gut wrenching realisation which could send a person crumbling to their knees.
That very feeling hurtled through the blonde original like a cold and icy surge. It washed all colour from her skin as the fear froze her blood and stimulated pure and unadulterated fear.
Her hand tightened over the door handle until the metal bent under the pressure of her quivering fingertips.
"Nik!" she yelled and her legs buckled. Her knees smacked hard against the surface of the mansion porch steps but she didn't even register the impact. She didn't register the pain. It was overwhelmed by a feeling of numb, undisguised horror.
He lay there on the porch steps. His hands crossed over his chest, each palm resting against the opposite shoulder. His clothes were singed, his eyes were closed. Almost as if he was sleeping. But Rebekah knew better as she took in the desiccated grey flesh, the smoking stench of rot.
Lying before her was the body of her dead brother.
Finn was dead.
She reached out a shaking hand and her eyes burned as she plucked the pin out of her brother's flesh. She slid the folded and bloodied note off the thin piece of metal and opened it with sickening revolution.
"One down, four to go.
Eenie. Meenie. Miney. Mo."
"Well I have to applaud this masquerading killer's undoubtable flair for the dramatics."
Rebekah blinked back her tears and clenched her hand tight over the note, crumpling it into dust. "How dare you," she whispered to him, her voice quiet and deadly.
"Don't get sentimental Rebekah, Finn finally got what was coming to him."
Rebekah swallowed before withdrawing her hand from the remnants of her oldest brother's distorted face before finally facing Klaus with an expression of disgust. "He was still our brother," she hissed.
He was still family. Still her blood.
"His status was revoked the moment he saw fit to betray our family," Klaus snarled back. "Or has his treacherous ways already slipped your mind, dear sister?"
Rebekah had nothing to say to that. She did not have the power within her to curb Klaus' already short tempered mind.
"Now if you are done with your grievances, I need your assistance in finding out who is plotting against me."
He turned on his heel and flashed back inside the house without one more backwards glance.
"Paranoid wanker," Rebekah muttered. She looked back to her oldest brother and an aching pang stabbed through her chest. The pain was tearing out a piece of her heart, leaving the remnants discarded and bloody.
The wind whistled through her hair and she shivered. Deep down, she knew that her tremble wasn't caused by the cold. Her fear was stimulating the rising goose pimples on her flesh. This wasn't over. Someone out there had the potential to end her family.
That very someone had presented their brother on the foot of their doorsteps like some bloody spectacle. That someone also knew what her family was capable of and was not at all afraid.
The Mikaelson's had no idea of this mysterious killer's identity or how he had managed to murder Finn.
This person, whoever he was, had successfully managed to catch them all completely off-guard. He could place their necks on the chopping block so easily and that alone made him dangerous.
Rebekah shuddered once more and the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. Turning round slowly, the blonde original instantly caught sight of her eavesdropping observer.
He stood still with his leather arms crossed, his stance too tense to be casual flair as icy orbs surveyed Finn's rotting corpse without a trace of emotion.
She made her way towards him and they stood there side by side. One of them looked the perfect picture of trepidation, whilst the other captured the expression of wary resolution.
Passing between the two immortals, there was a rising sense of calm before the storm.
"Sage and her boyfriend went poof just last night," Damon quietly muttered to her, his attention still fixed on Finn's body. Rebekah inclined her head towards him as her eyebrows furrowed.
It couldn't just be some mere coincidence and the answer was there in her mind. It was the only logical explanation and it was knocking her off balance. It was impossible and yet the truth was undeniable.
"Sirelines," she whispered ignoring the raven-haired vampire's shocked groan. "But how?"
"Ahh yeah about that. There's something else which might have a tiny bit of significance. Might have forgotten to mention it before," Damon chipped in with a languid shrug and he rolled his eyes at the original Barbie's low and aggravated snarl. "Somebody is running around playing 'Original vampire pincushion' with white oak stakes."
Rebekah disappeared in a flash of air and for once, Damon didn't smirk at the sight of her fear.
It was no secret that he wanted the originals dead. His actions in aiding and abetting Esther's plan had been for Elena.
Always for Elena.
But now his thoughts were in another place entirely as he focused on protecting the one most important thing to him.
He needed to discover who exactly was the creator of his Sireline and he wasn't up to playing bodyguard for the entire original clan. Just one key individual. The original who held his life... held Stefan's life in the balance. He would do his damnedest to try to protect that one original. The rest of the Mikaelson clan could be slaughtered for all he cared.
Even Elijah.
A part of him had once believed that the noble original brother would be able to save Sophie but now the stakes had changed. Damon supposed it was selfish of him to ignore the Gilbert girl's suffering which would only intensify with Elijah's eventual death.
But now it came down to his and Stefan's survival and he was putting his family first.
And his dedication to his brother. Well...
Damon straightened up. That was something that not even the Mikaelson siblings nor Sophia Gilbert could ever begin to fault.
15th November, 2003
Not one person could ignore the beauty of my current surroundings. Even after a year of calling this place home, it still managed to stun me into a blissful silence.
We lived in a village. Nothing too big, nothing too small. Simply quaint. And yet, it was like something out of a dream. Almost like an illusion.
To the north of our village there were forests, to the south, there were endless seas. Black molten rock covered the western ground. The sky was the colour of the clearest blue.
Here we were free to practise our gifts without the fear of subjugation.
The Earth wielders controlled the land. The Air wielders controlled the breeze. The Fire wielders kept the days warm and the nights cold, they erupted geysers from the molten rocks for night spectacles. The water wielders controlled the tides and conjured rain to fall and provide nourishment to the land.
A cloaking spell protected our small piece of paradise. To keep our kind safe and to keep nature undestroyed. It was a safe haven. It was our only safe haven.
We were the last of our kind still standing and we had to keep it so.
Because we would always be hunted. Mikael had always been the most successful at eradicating our kind but that didn't mean that there weren't others out there who shared his values. Who feared that our powers would threaten their place in the world which they had built for themselves.
They would kill us in a blink, all because our mutation threatened their place on the food chain.
So here was the only scrap of the world left which we had completely to ourselves.
And as I stood there with my hands outstretched towards the land of molten rock, he stood behind me. His hands slid over my arms. I barely noticed. Nothing resided within me except utter concentration.
"Focus," he whispered, his breath wafting lazily over my neck. "You can do this."
I could almost feel his confidence in me. His attempts to ignite my inexistent belief. But it had been just over year since I had been abandoned here by John Gilbert, the man I had learned to loathe with every fibre of my being and even now, I still felt utterly afraid. Nothing could quell it. I doubted that anything ever would.
My hands shook vigorously and I locked my arms, locked my legs. I clenched my jaw, trying to focus. To hone in on my target.
I could feel it inside me; this raw, hot energy. I could release it at any time, I knew that. But the magnitude of that release would forever remain uncertain because this energy inside of me was the very same energy which had seared bones to dust. Crumbled the bodies of fallen children into ashes. Leaving behind no traces of the people they once were for their grieving parents to bury.
My heart lurched and my stomach turned sickeningly.
"You know that I can't," I whispered back helplessly, craning my head back to look up at him. To convey to him my internal struggle which glistened through the unshed tears in my eyes. My fingers flexed at the small spark of power which was trying to barge past the barrier I had put up to protect myself from any further suffering. I flinched before inhaling in a deep breath to calm myself. "I have to stay in control."
"For who?" he soothed back. "There is no one out there who you need to impress more than yourself."
I bit my lip hard. He was right. He was always right. Who did I need to impress? John was gone. Mom, Dad, my siblings... none of them had come to see me. None of them found it within them to care. They had left me alone to fend myself without a shoulder of support. Why did I still try to do better for them? I cautiously leant back against him and let his breath waft across my cheek.
"Try it, Soph," he encouraged softly in my ear as my eyes drifted closed. "You'll be surprised at how liberating it feels. Just let it all go."
A band snapped inside me. My eyes shot open. I could feel my irises burn an orange blaze as the power surged through me. I shot my hand out and the land exploded. Cracks in the ground ripped the earth apart. Magma erupted from the tears in a powerful blast.
And inside that cloud of liquid, molten fire, caused by the turbulence of my grief, my rage and my loneliness, I saw them. I heard their screams. The ghosts of the children I had slaughtered.
I gasped and I stumbled back, letting his arms support me. The screams of the children vanished but the screams emanating from the village still continued. I turned in his arms to face my home, seeing their chalk white faces illuminated in the wrathful blaze. I saw some extend their arms, clenching their hands into fists to protect the buildings from the burning spray.
I glanced in horror from my still outstretched hand to the mixture of smoke and orange flares and over the shrill screams, he let out a jubilant laugh. "Extraordinary."
I swallowed heavily and brought my hands into my chest, my nails digging hard into my flesh as I pulled my coat closer to hide my trembles once more.
"Bit overdramatic, aren't they?" he mused to me before shooting out his hand. With one confident flick, the land of fire was still and peaceful once more.
"They have a good reason to be, I'm dangerous Ade," I retorted, not bothering to hide my revolution which I had aimed so spitefully at myself.
"Sophie, hey," He turned me to him and I tensed, curling more and more into myself. I could almost hear the hateful mutters from the village and my paranoia rose. These were the only people who would ever accept me and I had made them all afraid.
His hand slid to my chin, tilting it up to meet his irises which blazed a hole through my fear.
"Ignore them," he said softly, his thumb tapping my chin once. "They are small minded people, destined to lead small minded lives. Enforcers of control." He let his hand fall and I stared, completely unprepared for his awe. "You are beyond powerful... don't hold back."
I blushed and nodded quickly. How could I not trust this boy? He was my first friend. The only person who had given a damn about helping me control myself from day one.
With a parting lopsided grin, he strode back to the village.
I watched his retreat in a daze, tucking a stray lock of hair nervously behind my ear. "I won't," I murmured, too quiet for him to hear and my face burned red as I felt my heart do a small tumble in my chest.
It was silent for a few moments. Nothing existed except the peaceful beauty once more and I continued to stare after him until he fully disappeared from my view.
"Adrian Schade and Sophia Gilbert...it's never gonna happen."
The voice was low and familiar. A wry drawl which grated at me and my blush turned furious as I spun around to face him.
He was leaning ever so arrogantly against a forest tree observing me with amusement as I strode towards him, my anger from before still bubbling beneath the surface. "I have a better chance of that happening than you have of being accepted," I snarled.
"Well I suppose you are quite right there," Darren agreed with a mocking grimace. He twirled his hand in an intricate pattern, his stormy grey eyes glowed a bright sapphire and I crossed my arms, watching unimpressed as a slither of water broke away from the sea.
It steadily floated towards us and Darren flicked his wrist up. It rose above his head. I tilted my head up to watch. The tendril of liquid slithered around the small branch connecting stalk to tree before there was a small snap and the apple fell down. Darren caught it in one hand and the water splashed to the ground.
"Your words do hurt, really they do," he continued with a sarcastic ounce of boredom. "Just enough contempt and yet not enough spite. I see you've been taking notes from my dear little sister. Brooklyn always was a gossiping little shit."
He took a large bite of his apple and watched me shrewdly.
A shiver erupted through my veins at his calculating stare.
The echoes of Brooke's voice were suddenly floating through my mind. Her words of caution which had pertained to her brother.
'We were forced to abandon our parents because of what we are. It took a dangerous toll on Darren. He was never the same. It was like he had been filled with this menacing and poisonous hate. So take my word of advice and stay away from him.'
It put me on instant edge. My emotions began to slowly bubble as I tensed, bracing myself for an attack. His dark eyes continued to pierce me and I hissed through gritted teeth, "What are you doing?"
What the hell are you waiting for?
He was either completely oblivious to my fear or simply couldn't care less as he bit into his apple again and chewed thoughtfully. "Just weighing up exactly how naive you are. I would say it's a cross between clinical stupidity and borderline insanity."
My fingers flexed once. I could feel something rising inside me. Like an itch in the back of my mind, an ire which was gathering strength but this energy was something different. Something unexpected.
"You think Adrian cares about you?" Darren continued with a derisive snort. "You think that being here allows you to start over? That you can bond with people like you and bare your tortured soul? You finally think that here you are protected? Media alert kid, not everything around here is your safety net - thought you already got that reality check when you burned those kids alive."
It was like a match striking within my mind, igniting a blast of raw energy. It was filling me up, like a balloon fit to burst. And I couldn't contain it. I screamed and my arms flung out. The sound of my voice was lost within the sudden torrent of wind. Darren's body was suddenly airborne. As if some invisible string was yanking him back through the air.
I gasped. My hands immediately dropped and the string was cut. His body fell, submerging into the sea.
The wind whipped against my face, through my hair, messing it into unruly, knotted tresses. I stood there, my mouth agape in horror until the water parted.
Darren walked back towards me, the fear on his face reflecting my own. Once he reached the land, the sea abridged the gap and stilled. Then he looked at me and taking a note of my terror, he rolled his inhuman sapphire eyes. With one flick of his wrist, the water dripped off his body, leaving his clothes completely dry.
"Couldn't have been a river. Just had to be the sea," he muttered to himself. "I can control water but not the fucking sea salt." He took a whiff of his shirt and his mouth turned down in disgust.
"What did I do?" I forced the words out in a splutter. My heart was racing through my chest, my breaths were escaping my lips in ragged pants. My mind was a million miles away, failing to comprehend what I had just done.
I hardly noticed the gust of air whipping around us. It was steadily gathering strength...
Darren sprung forwards. His hand closed tight over my wrist, meeting my scared eyes. "You need to calm down. Now," he commanded.
"Get the hell off me!" I demanded, attempting to fruitlessly tug my arm out of his constricting grip.
"What the hell are you going to do?" Darren demanded, feigning ignorance at my panic as his stormy eyes narrowed into slits. "Run off to boy wonder? Tell him that your eyes are having trouble in deciding whether to glow orange or grey these days?"
He shook his head vigorously, as if trying to rid himself of an internal battle of insanity.
"Not one of them will understand, do you hear me? No one is meant to wield more than one element. Nobody is supposed to be that powerful."
"Adrian's my best friend," I snarled.
"Oh for the love of god kid, get it through your thick skull. You're not his," Darren snapped back and I clenched my fists, letting my rage take over once more.
He immediately let go of my wrist with a strangled hiss. He clutched the palm of his hand and his face screwed up in agony. I gritted my teeth, refusing to show him any remorse. The burn would heal eventually.
I took a step back but he counteracted it with a shaking step of his own.
"Sophie, you have no idea what he is capable of," he urged a little more softly. "You're a fourteen year old child who is still adamant on living in an illusion. You need to grow up now and open your eyes. Look past this safety. Not everything is as it seems."
He glanced towards the village, his face blank.
"There are shadows. There is darkness here. Do not tell anybody what just happened here. Do you understand me?"
I scoffed and turned my back on him, not wanting to hear any more of his spite. I tossed my parting words over my shoulder. "Let's cut it with all the melodrama okay, not everybody around here has to be as paranoid as you."
He watched me stride away with a strong sense of fearful foreboding.
"If only you knew," he whispered shakily to himself, all sarcasm gone as he slowly pulled up his sleeve.
The flesh of his upper arm was black. Melted in the form of a handprint.
"Can't we should just catch a plane, go to Italy or Greece," Brooklyn was saying offhandedly as she pushed her foot down on the accelerator.
I pressed my forehead against the glass pane, sighing at the feeling of the cool condensation against my flesh.
"Maybe England... actually scrap that, we don't need any additional reminders of that gorgeous, panty-dropping accent." I closed my eyes, letting her words wash over me. "And you're not listening to a single word I'm saying are you?"
"He came to me a few nights back," I murmured, staring out the window. When Brooke sent me a confused once over, I reluctantly elaborated, "Elijah... he doesn't want to let me go."
"Oh, why can't I have nights like that?" Brooke moaned wistfully as she turned the wheel. "Oh mister Elijah, bring me a dream."
She sang out the last part and I blinked once, gazing unseeingly outside. Although her intention was to tease me as always, a strong pain slowly ached through my chest. The mere thought of him... being this far away from him... it was starting to hurt.
Terribly.
The emotion engulfed my body and a single tear trickled down my face.
I hardly heard the brakes screech the car to a halt as my body slowly twisted round and I stared unseeingly at the flames which had appeared behind us. They charred away the back seats. Black smoke began to rise from the scorched material.
I hardly heard Brooke's retching coughs or her failed attempts to quell the fire with water. The flames instantly flared back as soon as she had put it out.
I was too entranced by the fiery colour which danced inside my bright ember irises. I could feel the heat caressing my face. The energy was still sparking within me.
It was addictive. It was intoxicating.
"Soph, snap out of it!" Brooke bellowed.
My heart lurched at the sound and I blinked quickly, snapping back into focus. My mouth parted to let out a gasp at the scene and I immediately shot my hand out before slowly curling it into a fist. The fire slowly died down, leaving nothing behind except the stench of charred leather and black smoke.
Brooke wound down the window so the smoke could escape. "Great, just great. Now we'll have to hijack another bloody car!" she spluttered, still reeling from my recent element lapse. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know what's happening to me," I responded quietly and a flare shot through my chest once more. I placed a trembling hand lightly over the area and whispered, "In Mystic Falls, I felt control. Complete and utter control."
My hand fell and I gazed at the last wisps of smoke dissolving into the air before leaning back against the seat.
My head turned back to the window as I reluctantly admitted, "And now I think I'm losing it again."
It had never been this bad before. Every time I lost control of myself, it had been caused by an anger influx. It had never been because I was hurting. How could I even begin to grasp a handle on my abilities if I had turned into some sort of ticking time bomb?
A surge in any type of emotion now had the potential to set me off.
"You know you can't afford to lose it Soph," Brooke reminded me softly and I swallowed, feeling her eyes rest briefly on the back of my head. "You need to stay in control. You know what happens to people like you if you let it lapse."
My throat dried and I swiped my tongue once over my chapped lips as I read past the surface of her words.
The powerful wielders. The ones which were so powerful that they needed the mythical protectors to harness themselves in order completely control themselves. If that control was lost... our sanity was lost. We would become immersed in the power. Become a danger which needed to be put down before it destroyed.
And although most of our kind revelled in destruction these days, most of them by choice, I wasn't about to unwillingly fall victim to it too.
"Why are we doing this again?" Brooke questioned and I could almost feel her annoyance through the revving of the car engine as we waited at the traffic light. "Why aren't we currently ditching the whole brother decision and catching a plane to Saint Tropez?"
"I used to play this little game in my head," I admitted. "What would I suffer through just to see him again... even if it was only for a second?" I could feel the familiar stinging and I blinked the tears back. "Pain. Torture. I'd endure all of it, just to spend one day with him." A loud silence filled the car. I swallowed and whispered, "I need to see him Brooke. I need to see my baby brother."
Brooke took her eyes off the road. Agonised grey irises looked at me and I looked back. I could see her grief as easily as I could feel my own guilt for making her think of Darren. Making her wonder what she wouldn't give just to spend one small second with him once more.
"One day," she reluctantly complied. "That's all you get then we get the fuck outta dodge, comprende?"
I didn't respond as my eyes roamed the road in front of us. I turned my head to the left and a small smile flickered across my face as the sign flashed by.
Welcome to Denver.
It had been years but I knew it was him. Just as I had known the identities of the rest of them. They had been ingrained in my mind for all those years. It still shook me when I realised how much they had changed, both mentally and physically.
In the hour that I had been observing him for, I had come to realise that Jeremy Gilbert was not my baby brother anymore. Rage and pain tore my insides as I once again realised how much I had missed out on. But staying away had kept him safe from me. Kept him alive, no matter the cost. In the end, that was all that really mattered.
The small vibration of a text message broke me from my internal cycle but my gaze never once strayed. My body never once released its tension.
"Everything alright?" I questioned vaguely, not paying any attention to her as I stared longingly at the figure inside the batting cages. Fear coated my stomach.
"Yeah," Brooke replied slowly. Vaguely. I missed the small quivering of her hands as she clutched her phone tight. "Look, I'll meet up with you later alright? Give you some time with your brother."
I turned to her and pulled her into a brief hug. "Thanks Brooke. I mean it," I murmured and a small sigh escaped her lips.
"Yeah... seems like I'm a sucker for sentimentality," she whispered and I frowned at the subtle hint of sadness in her voice as my arms loosened and we pulled back. "I'll meet you back here when the moon rises."
She left without any further explanation and I frowned at her subtle change in behaviour before brushing it off. Her emotions always jumped from once place to another, even when we were younger.
I would grill her about it later but for now... I had other things to focus on. Things which had been a long time coming. This reunion had been eight long years in the making.
I reluctantly turned back to the batting cages and lifted up a foot. One in front of the other. Step by step, I closed the distance until I was finally by the mesh fencing. I curled my fingers over the wires and winced as he swung his bat and missed yet another shot.
I could hear his subtle growl of anger and finally decided to pluck up the courage to make my presence known.
"You know little brother, if you adjust the angle of the bat, you'll get a better swing."
His back instantly stiffened and I smiled grimly. Although there was nothing on this Earth that seemed more important to me in this moment, I knew that this wouldn't be the same as reuniting with Elena and the rest of the Mystic Falls gang.
Jeremy would see through my facade in an instant. There was no point in faking a happy reunion. Behind my smile, I knew he could see my wariness and my reluctance as clear as day. Not that I was surprised. Even in his younger years, he had always been the more perceptive one in our family.
He slowly turned around to face me and I could see the cocktail of emotions flitting over his face. Recognition, shock, joy, betrayal... before they settled onto the final one.
Anger.
His bat clattered to the floor but neither of us paid it any attention.
My heart pounded painfully as he composed his features into blank rage. He ripped off his helmet and took one judgemental step forwards. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up here."
My feet shifted slightly, indicating my sight nervousness but yet I still held my head high. I refused to let it affect me even if on some level I felt like I deserved it. "I know," I replied.
"And yet I still can't hear a single word of explanation coming from your lips."
"It's complicated," I muttered as he came to a snide stop right in front of me. "A shitload of insanity wrapped into one neat little supernatural package."
"Seems like it always is with our family," Jeremy responded with a derisive snort but his anger was rapidly diminishing. "But Sophie, I'm not some kid anymore. I deserve just something from you. What happened?"
I hesitated then. Was I really about to bombard him with all this? It had taken me a near death experience to confess everything to Elena. But I only had a day with my brother. If the next few minutes went to hell, it wouldn't matter because this one day was my goodbye to him. And I wanted to put things right.
I rapidly scanned the area to check there was no one in sight before sighing and extending my arm, flipping it to face palm up. My fingers twitched inwards and Jeremy's mouth dropped, his eyes fully open in shock as my irises shimmered a vibrant sapphire.
He stared transfixed at the swirling ball of water hovering millimetres above my outstretched hand. The breeze slowly began to pick up and swept around us in a light current. Enough to tousle up our hair and gently caress our flesh.
"Do you understand now?" I whispered.
Jeremy slowly edged closer. He lifted his arm and gingerly reached out. I watched with bated breath as his fingers lightly skimmed over the hovering swirl of liquid. Then he brought his hand back, looked into my shining eyes and his features melted into an expression of complete and utter awe.
"Cool," he breathed but I didn't smile as I simply gazed at the water. I twitched one finger and it steadily began to expand in size.
"Most days I can't control them. Fire was always the hardest... and the most volatile," I explained darkly before ripping my eyes off the liquid mass to rest upon his astounded face. "I'm a killer Jer. Why do you think I left?"
He quickly caught on. "Who the fuck took you away?"
"John."
Jeremy snorted, unsurprised and unimpressed. "Figures," he spat out, aghast.
"I loathed the man but he thought he had my best intentions at heart," I continued with a sigh full of self-loathing. My arm fell limply to my side and the water splashed to the tarmac ground. "And he and I aren't the only ones who think I'm dangerous. I went back to Mystic Falls to see Elena..." I trailed off, a flash of pain passing over my face.
"And let me guess. When our sister demanded the truth from you, she said it was too much for her to handle on top of all the stuff she's been dealing with." Jeremy quickly cut over with an irritated groan. "Did I get it right?"
I closed my startled mouth which was slightly ajar before replying, "Got it in one."
"She's changed since we were kids," Jeremy muttered to himself. "That's our sister for you. She always used to be selfless but more recently, it seems as though she is always thinking about how it will affect her first."
We took a seat at a nearby table outside the batting cages and I frowned at his words. Although self-survival was a natural human instinct, I had begun to realise that Elena had the concept ingrained strongly within her but it was different compared to her other doppelgangers. Because I knew that she still felt the guilt when her survival came at the expense of others.
Deep down, I knew now that my sister longed for a normal life and she would do just about anything to get that back. But the sister I knew when I was young would never think about sentencing anybody to death. Justice had a warped sense in her mind.
"So... art school," I stated and Jeremy looked up with a questioning face. "I always thought you would end up there."
He readily approached the change in subject and rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "Yeah well I figured why not give it a shot?"
"And that's not a good thing?" I questioned. "It's what you've always wanted to do when you were younger."
"I suppose yeah but... it doesn't feel right somehow." I paled and straightened up when his warm eyes suddenly turned cold and blank. "I just know that being here is for the best," he said monotonously.
I glanced down. "Maybe it is."
He seemed to read past my surface thoughts and his strange, unemotional exterior was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Look Sophie, I know you think you're dangerous and that you leaving kept us safe. But John shouldn't have taken that choice away from us."
He extended his hand across the table.
"You're my sister," he murmured gently. "I would have taken the risk for you."
My eyes stung as I met his warm eyes as I reached out to place my hand on top of his. We smiled and I blinked back my tears, feeling lighter than I had done in weeks.
"Well, what do we have here? The prodigal Gilbert has finally made her theatrical reappearance to all mankind once more," a sarcastic voice suddenly announced and I slowly retracted my hand.
From the irritated gleam in Jeremy's eyes, I knew I had not hallucinated the annoyingly familiar tone. I slowly swivelled round in my seat to see crossed leather arms and a raised sarcastic brow.
"Taking a trip down memory lane are we?" he uttered incredulously. "This is what you call running?"
"This is what I call a pit stop," I calmly responded as I tapped my fingers idly against the table surface. "I didn't expect to run into a kind of Spanish Inquisition while I was at it."
Jeremy leaned back against his chair sporting a small grin as we surveyed an entertained Damon Salvatore standing close to our fuming sister.
"Elijah's gonna be so pissed when he finds out we got to you first," Damon mused and my heart instantly stopped.
From out of the corner of my eye, Jeremy's attention increased tenfold. "Wait Elijah?" he questioned and I sank back into my seat as I regarded his curiosity and shock. "As in Klaus' brother?"
"He's your big sister's current boy toy," Damon happily filled in the blanks much to my horror. "She ran from him." He then looked from Jeremy to me and smirked. "He is not happy."
"Elijah's not gonna find out because you're not gonna tell him," I demanded shakily, stifling down the pain which tried to make itself known. I couldn't lose control. Not again. Not with my siblings this close.
"Yeah, can't do that," Damon casually replied with a large smirk. "Last time I lied to him, the guy stabbed a blunt pencil through my neck. And it hurt. Really not up to reliving that again."
"Why are you even here?" Jeremy demanded and I leaned back, relieved that he had stepped in when he did to divert Damon's attention. My brother caught my eye and sent me a small smile. I returned it with a grateful one of my own.
"Finn's dead. Murdered actually. Don't happen to know anything about that, do you?" the raven-haired vampire queried and I raised one eyebrow, slightly surprised at the news before airily explaining,
"The two of us may have crossed paths, chatted over tea and biscuits before going along on our merry ways but I swear to you that no killing was involved." I trailed off, deliberating my confrontation with the eldest Mikaelson brother thoughtfully before adding, "Serious maiming, maybe."
My head suddenly shot up and my eyes narrowed in curiosity as I scrutinised Damon. "Wait, if Finn is really dead then why am I still breathing?" I queried. "Last I heard, the Mikaelson family and I were all bound together by their psychotic mother. Involuntarily destined to be slaughtered hand in hand."
"Bonnie unlinked you all. You're welcome," Damon stated.
"I'll make sure to send her flowers."
The raven haired vampire smirked.
Elena was all too quick to jump across our light-hearted conversation and I reluctantly turned my attention to her pleading face which was fixed on our brother. "If one original dies, then all the vampires they have ever turned will die along with them," she hurriedly explained.
I couldn't hold in the laugh which escaped me. I deliberately ignored my sister, instead surveying the older Salvatore brother with a hint of sardonic glee. "Well ain't that a bugger for you? Probably a good thing that they didn't die during Esther's ritual then, isn't it?"
"Ha ha, hilarious."
"What do you want from me Damon?" Jeremy interrupted and the raven-haired vampire's crooked smile instantly faded as the weight of the situation was forced upon him once more. The underlying reason behind their spontaneous visit to Denver.
"There's a mysterious killer on the loose who has a fetish for slaughtering originals so I need you to talk to a dead vampire..." he demanded before pausing for a moment to mull it over. "Well dead vampire's redundant but you get the picture. We need to find out who we're sired from so we can protect ourselves from total annihilation. Katherine sired us, Rose sired Katherine. All we need to do is find out who sired Rose."
"Well I can't," Jeremy stated. The chair legs scraped back as he got to his feet. "I can talk to Anna and Vicky because I knew them..."
I mirrored my brother's actions and was about to make a move to follow him and Damon when an arm suddenly snatched a hold of my wrist. I rolled my eyes as Elena pulled me back around to face her.
"You shouldn't be here," she hissed. Her angry doe eyes darted rapidly from me to Jeremy and back again, ensuring that our younger brother wasn't listening in.
"Momentary weakness on my part, like it had been with you. Won't happen again," I hissed back. I yanked my arm out of her grasp and turned away from her. My steps quickened as I hastened to catch up with Jeremy and Damon.
I could feel her following right at my heels. "Damon told me you were running from somebody," she pressed me urgently. "What if they got here and found out where Jer was?"
"Like I said to Damon before, I made a pit stop," I calmly retorted. "Don't worry, I'll be gone by sundown... although, before I do, I want the truth from you Elena. What did you do to our brother?" Elena froze and I continued on, pretending not to notice. "Because when I asked him about art school his eyes went blank. His voice monotone."
There was a small pause and I waited patiently. There was subtle reluctance in her tone as she finally mumbled, "I got Damon to compel him."
I immediately stopped in my tracks and whirled around to face her fully. My fingers flexed in an attempt to control the sparks of energy which almost caused my eyes to flash. "That wasn't your choice to make, sister," I seethed.
Elena was quick to defend herself. "I did what was best to protect him," she argued and my mouth thinned.
"You bloody hypocrite," I quietly accused, feeling the venom edge into my words and Elena's doe eyes widened. She took a small step back.
"What?" she whispered and I met her step with one of my own as I began to close the distance between us.
"All these years, I've protected the hell out of you," I spat, digging my nails hard into my palms to stop myself from lashing out the energy which revolted inside of me. I could feel my eyes alternating rapidly between a bright ember and my normal green and grey as I teetered on the edge of an emotional surge. "Protected you from me. I couldn't control what I was. I would have killed you and Jer in cold blood all those years ago. Just like I did to those kids at our school."
Elena stared at me, doe eyes wide, her skin paper white.
"So stay angry at me, hell you can hate me. I really don't give a damn," I ended curtly. "By staying away, I kept you alive."
I turned away from her, putting an abrupt end to our conversation. It left us in a tense silence as we watched Jeremy and Damon converse.
"You know, I thought with you gone the world would go back to normal but it didn't. It kept spinning out of control."
I slowly turned back to face her and my anger instantly vanished to be replaced with a surge of protectiveness at the sight of her paling skin.
"I feel afraid all the time," she admitted. "And I don't think it will ever stop. There is somebody out there with white oak stakes which can kill an original and the people I love who were turned by them."
Her watery gaze slowly flickered over to Damon and I followed her line of sight with a small frown.
"And Alaric... the man who took me in after Jenna died... the man who is like a father to me, has this psychotic alter ego which is hell bent on slaughtering anybody in his path." She fell back against the wire mesh of the batting cages, meeting my gaze helplessly.
"I don't know how to do this anymore," she whispered. "I just want to feel safe again."
I leaned back beside her, tilting my head up to face the sky. "You need to put it right, Elena. You have the Salvatore brothers along with Caroline and Tyler to think about now. You can't kill Klaus without killing Tyler so if I were you, the first step is putting an end to your revenge spree... otherwise more and more people are going to die."
I could feel my sister's eyes on me but I didn't look to her as I mulled over the thoughts in my mind. Maybe I needed to take my own advice. Put it all right. Stop running and finally fight the oncoming battle which had been steadily brewing for eight long years. Ever since the day I ignited my wielder side. But I wasn't ready to face it. Not yet.
"Fine, fine, look can we do this later, my friend just got here and yes Damon, I actually have some."
Elena and I straightened up, a new found sense of peace between us as Jeremy reached our sides. He placed a small kiss to Elena's temple before turning to me.
When he hugged me, I relaxed into his hold, basking in the small feeling of serenity. "Will you still be here when I get back," he pleaded, his arms tight around me and I sighed. I couldn't bring myself to lie to him.
"Just for today," I whispered.
He nodded and my heart panged, seeing him look hesitant to turn away, afraid that if he did turn his back on me, for even a moment, I would disappear right before his eyes. He reluctantly walked away and I looked to the ground, biting down on my bottom lip hard.
To my right I vaguely heard his faint greeting. "Hey man."
Elena's terrified gasp turned my blood icy cold. She grasped a hold of my shirt sleeve with a shaky hand. Her nails dug hard into my flesh as she stammered, "Sophie, Damon it's Kol."
I immediately whirled around, grabbing my sister and non-too gently forcing her behind me. I stood in front of her in a protective stance as Damon flashed towards Jeremy. Within seconds, my brother was behind me too and the raven-haired vampire lowered into a crouched position to my immediate right.
"He's an original, Damon. Don't do anything stupid," I warned him lowly but inside I was trembling as Kol's attention immediately flashed onto me. Startled at my presence for a momentary second, he surveyed me once before his lips slowly curved up into a triumphant smirk.
My hands quivered as I tried to find a way out of this without hurting the original. But if I didn't hurt him and he got a hold of me, I knew deep down that there would be nowhere left for me to run to.
And although the thought of facing Elijah once more made me quiver with anticipation, it also accelerated my fear. He was already in danger and my baggage would increase that tenfold.
That wasn't something I was prepared to do but my single and only priority right now was keeping my brother and sister out of Kol's way. If that meant surrendering myself over to him, then that was exactly what I was going to do.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Sophie Gilbert," Kol announced, twirling the baseball bat around in his hands like a musician's baton.
His chestnut eyes never once wavered away from my tense form. A predatory gleam passed over his face. I shuddered and his smirk widened.
"You're in a lot of trouble, darling."