Klaus pulled Hope from the wreck. The car was totaled; it smoked precariously and fuel was forming in opalescent pools in the grass.
The black SUV was parked halfway off the road several feet up ahead, all doors flung open in their haste to reach the girls.
The police cruisers were gone, but there was a dead wolf lying in the road.
Roadkill, they guessed. They must have hit it and run off the road.
Hope was coming to in her father's trembling arms. Her mother was equally as distressed, running her hands up and down her daughter, searching for open wounds, broken bones, anything wrong.
Her supernatural healing would kick in any second, but to Hayley, she was still just her defenseless baby girl in her arms.
The car had hit the tree on its left side, buckling inward like a hammer to the side of a tin can. It was partially rolled over; the driver's side was inaccessible. Elijah punched the car in frustration, leaving a dent the size of a crater.
If Hope had been in the passenger's seat that meant Leah had been driving.
Elijah wrenched the passenger's side door from its hinges; it crashed into the middle of the empty road with a cacophonous clash.
Leah was inside, her limp body huddled against the broken glass of the driver's side window.
He was afraid to listen for a heartbeat.
Please, please, please, please, please.
He would have to maneuver her out from this side. If she was hurt, he would definitely only exacerbate her injuries by pulling her out across the front seats.
He hated himself sometimes.
He stopped thinking and just acted.
She was still warm, she was still breathing, she was still alive.
She was in his arms.
It looked like she was sleeping.
It was so spectacularly peculiar; not even ten minutes before they had been arguing over what she looked like, whom she looked like, why she didn't look like she should. He couldn't see what they saw; no matter whom Leah was related to, it didn't matter to her, it didn't matter to him.
Nothing mattered but the beat, beat, beat, beat of her heart.
She murmured something, trying to speak.
She's incoherent, he thought, but she's alive.
Her grey wool coat was red with blood.
"Niklaus!"
His brother ignored him completely.
He walked a safe distance from the wreck before kneeling, laying her down by the side of the road. He took off his coat and used it to support her head; he took off his jacket and used it to keep her warm.
"Niklaus!"
His brother ignored him completely, still bent over Hope. Hayley, however, came running over.
The sire bond must be working overtime tonight.
"Elijah...is she-?"
"She's alive."
Hayley lowered herself beside Leah, pushing the girls' disheveled hair from her face in a tender gesture that was completely incongruous with her sentiments not half an hour earlier.
Definitely the sire bond.
There appeared to be a long, angry gash down her temple and across her cheek. Hayley touched it slightly, wiping away the blood with her thumb.
The wound underneath all the blood was healed.
No, it was healing.
Leah stirred again, eyes fluttering open.
"Elijah?"
"You're okay, it's okay, I've got you."
Her clear eyes begged him; she just wanted to go home.
She doubled over in pain before he could promise her they would.
Elijah retreated slightly, looking desperately at Hayley.
"What's happening, what's wrong with her?"
Leah's eyes shot open, glowing amber and gold in the moonlight.
Not those eyes, those clear eyes he knew so well.
Wolf's eyes.
"Holy shit," Hayley breathed, standing suddenly and backing up as if it were a bomb and not a human before her.
Well, not a human either.
"Holy shit, Elijah, she's a werewolf."
"That's not possible."
Hayley gave him an angry look in return for his incredulity.
Nothing was impossible, not tonight.
"Klaus! There's something you should know!"
Klaus was just resting Hope in the back seat of the SUV when he heard Hayley call for him. He had wanted answers—now—from Hope, but clearly she needed to rest and let her hybrid healing work its magic.
There would be time for answers.
Right now, Hayley needed him; his brother was probably losing his shit over the other one.
He was by Hayley's side in seconds.
He stared down at Leah; She had slipped back into unconsciousness, yet Elijah was holding her hand like she would leap up and run away at any second.
My predictable brother.
Looking at Leah now, Klaus could not fathom how he had not seen it before.
An echo of an echo of an echo of Genevieve: her strawberry hair, her almond eyes, her long fingers, her slim wrists-
What was that on her wrist?
The more answers he received, the less happy he became.
"Well that is most certainly unexpected," Klaus remarked, half-amused, half-enraged.
"That she's a werewolf?" Hayley tried.
"Well, yes but—"
"That she's triggered the curse?" She tried again.
"Well, yes but—"
"Then what is it?"
"Hayley, dear, look up."
The moon was the only thing lighting this scene.
The full moon.
Hayley was looking up but Niklaus was looking at him.
Why did his brother think he had anything to do with this?
Oh.
He knew.
"Care to explain why the unconscious werewolf girl is not transforming, Elijah?"
He needed to get out ahead of this; he needed to direct his brother's wrath away from Leah.
Act first, ask forgiveness second.
He knew there would be no forgiveness.
Not anytime soon, at least.
"Brother—"
The hybrid rammed him into side of the car, his hand fisted into the front of his coat.
"You dared to steal from me, brother?"
"You knew?" Elijah struggled to speak. He moved to loosen his brother's grip on him, but Niklaus shoved him violently back into to car, denting it further.
"…that one of the kyanite stones…one of this family's most prized possessions, was missing? You underestimate me, brother, if you think I would be so oblivious to everything that even moves under my roof. Now I have been extremely forgiving in the last couple months, because I was sure you had lost your mind when you began tripping over yourself whenever that girl was in the room. And then she was attacked, in our house, at the Faction party, and do you know what? I actually felt sorry for you, for my big brother, who is just…so…desperate…for just a little bit of happiness and yet the entire world seems to be tragically against him."
"Niklaus—"
"You listen to me, Elijah. You begged me to let that girl go, to let her leave our house…just to hide her away in another: the Compound, Elijah. Oh, I don't know how that one got past my radar, but I…even...let...that...go."
He loosened his hold on his brother, but this philippic was far from over.
He spared Hayley a brief, glance; she was still mollycoddling that damn girl. It only incensed him further.
He took it out on his brother.
"Tonight, oh, this is good, this is good, you see, Elijah, tonight Hayley here let us all in on Leah's little secret identity. Now I let that slide because, well clearly we were all played for fools: the daughter of the witch who tried to kill Hope…is now Hope's best friend. Now if that is not the definition of ironic, then perhaps it's time for a new dictionary."
"Klaus, let's not do this now."
"Oh, no Hayley love, this is the perfect time to do it. Because, this, this, I cannot let this go, Hayley, because no matter how many times I tell my brother, I show my brother, what happens to those who side against us, he will always find some more…nobler cause…for which to sacrifice everything he has built for himself. You stole from me, from your family…for her."
"Niklaus if I had asked you, you would have refused."
"Well, that's precisely it, I would have refused your…traitorous scheme to give one of the few remaining stones which cement our family's power in this city away…away to the daughter of the witch who tried to bring this all down around us.
You see, brother, you may run the Faction as its leader, but I am the King of this city, and I know the ways of ruling. You are no better than the riffraff you pretend to preside over every month at those ridiculous Faction meetings. Stoop to the level of the common people and they will drag you down with them, Elijah. Unrest and revolution has been brewing for years, among the witches, among the wolves, among the vampires across the River. And now my own big brother is sleeping with, what, some witch-werewolf love child?- I'll tell you what she is: the perfect leader for all our enemies to rally behind."
He paused just long enough to laugh at the outrageousness of it all.
"And," he pointed a threatening finger at Elijah, "to top it all off, then you stole a moonlight stone for your werewolf girlfriend. What…a…surprise. Well, at least that explains why she was such a shitty witch."
Elijah's jaw twitched.
Elijah was done.
So done.
Klaus was almost done.
He bent down next to Leah. Elijah tensed, ready to fight his brother if he meant to harm her. Instead, reaching over Leah, Klaus pulled the car keys from Elijah's jacket pocket. He tucked them in his hand, leaving his brother with one final warning:
"Careful brother, or I might start to think you're on the wrong side of this war."
Now he was done.
Hayley thought it safe to finally step in.
"Klaus, we need to get them home."
Hayley gently lifted Leah into her arms and started to head toward the SUV.
"Let's put her in the car and go home, then we can talk."
She looked very pointedly at Elijah.
Klaus looked very pointedly at her.
"Oh no, stay where you are Hayley, you will keep that girl away from our daughter. Let Elijah take her," he proposed harshly. "After all, he is rather fond of collecting orphans - his own little island of broken misfit toys, spending all his time trying so desperately to put them back together."
Hayley could not believe how childish Klaus could get at the worst of times. She held onto Leah until she could ease her over into Elijah's outstretched arms. All she dared to give him was an apologetic look before turning back toward the car and Hope.
Enough would be said in the days to come.
Arranging Leah in his arms, Elijah approached his brother and the car.
"You may keep her, Elijah. Far be it for me to stand in the way of your happiness, however disastrous it will prove. So you and her can have the Compound... but this is mine."
He ripped the bracelet from Leah's limp arm.
"Niklaus, she'll-"
"Don't worry, dear brother, the moon is past its apex. She'll stay human tonight."
He slid into the driver's seat.
"I know you'll like her better that way," he added before pulling the door closed and leaving his brother standing in the middle of the road.
Hayley had turned around in her seat to check on Hope, now fast asleep in the back seat.
Turning back around, she tried to get Klaus to reconsider.
"You're being spiteful, Klaus; don't punish the girl if you are mad at Elijah. Do you really expect him to carry her all the way back to the Quarter?"
He answered her, jamming the key into the ignition.
"Let him drive her home in that car he bought her for all I care."
Klaus turned the key and hit the gas.
Elijah narrowly missed being run down by his brother.