"Give it to me. I can hold my own.
I know what it's like to be alone.
No need to keep me in the dark.
Already been, I felt that spark.
You don't know how it is
For someone else to own you,
Someone else to throw your heart around.
You need them anyway, I got it.
Don't make your own delay, you got it."
The last thing I really remembered was climbing into Klaus' SUV, finding a couple of his hybrids waiting for me in the back. They hadn't really looked thrilled to see me, as I imagined the two hybrids Kol had killed were probably their friends.
It all went black after I said, "Go ahead. Do your worst."
Then I was here, wherever that was. My eyes hadn't opened yet, but I remembered the one-sided conversation Klaus had had with Kol, telling him to come to his house to face him.
My head was pounding, and every part of my body felt weak, limp. It was as if I didn't have the physical strength to even exist in the chair Klaus had me in, with what I could only assume was an IV stuck into my arm.
He was draining me of my blood—of course. That lightheaded feeling was definitely familiar now, as I gave blood every chance I got once I turned sixteen. Greyson was a doctor, so I knew firsthand what giving blood could do, how many people it could save.
Even though vampires now raided the Mystic Falls blood bank pretty regularly, it still saved lives to donate. If they didn't have to feed from a person, they didn't run the risk of killing that person.
Somehow, I found the strength to force my eyelids open, though the light shining through the massive window to the left of me closed them right back. They had opened long enough to see Klaus sitting in a chair across from me, not even five feet away. How long had he been sitting there staring at me like that? If I didn't know he had found a sort of fascination with Caroline, I probably would've been a bit creeped out.
"Let me . . . go."
Klaus let out a breath of a laugh. "Why would I do that, love? We're just getting started."
"I . . . already told you I would give you a bag every week," I mumbled, and I attempted to open my eyes again, this time preparing myself for the blinding light waiting for me. It helped a little, though my eyes burned. Still, I wanted to look at him as he drained me dry.
There was a soft smile on his lips, one that almost looked kind, but I knew Klaus well enough to know it wasn't real. So far, I hadn't seen any semblance of kindness in him.
"Unfortunately, your boyfriend has killed two of my hybrids, and werewolves are harder to come by than doppelgänger blood these days," he said. "Until I get a name, or until I see him and speak with him face-to-face, we will continue draining your blood until you are within an inch of your life. I'll feed you my blood, restore your body back to full strength, and we'll start all over again. Unless you give me a name and tell me where I can find him."
My head was getting harder to hold up, so I stopped working so hard. I let it fall down a bit, but the necklace Kol had given me yesterday, the vessel to hold any magic that I didn't use, caught my attention, enough that I began using what little strength I had left to hold up my head again.
It was hard to mask whatever emotions I might be feeling, if my body even had the strength to show them.
If Klaus was going to take my blood, might as well make it useless, right?
All my focus began pouring into the magic within my blood, the magic that had already been pulled from me and put into the bag attached to this IV Klaus had me hooked up to. With enough focus, I was able to pull the magic away from the blood within the bag, only because I could touch the IV that connected to the blood bag itself. The only way to siphon was to have direct contact with the magic I was taking from.
"What are you doing?"
"Draining my blood of the doppelgänger magic." With my attention focused on pulling it from the bag, I didn't have the energy to come up with a lie right now, so what was the point in hiding it?
"Put it back!" he exclaimed, and he stood up now to grab onto my wrists. He was just a moment too late, as I could no longer feel the magic within the bag he was currently draining from me.
With the magic in my system, it was a bit easier to focus, though I was definitely still lightheaded. The magic seemed to work as a restorative power, just like vampire blood, so I was able to smirk at Klaus at the same time I was moving the magic from my system to the vessel.
"It . . . doesn't work that way," I said.
"Stop it!" he demanded, a low growl erupting out of his throat as he slammed my wrists back down, almost pulling the IV out of my arm entirely. The pain was probably amplified by the fact that I was already weak and drained, or maybe it was his strength that did me in; if I didn't know any better, I would've worried that he had just snapped my wrists.
"Fine." I attempted to shift myself in my chair, a poor attempt at getting more comfortable. This chair wasn't made for comfort, unfortunately, and whoever tied me down didn't care about placing me comfortably either. "That bag's a dud. Might as well start over."
His jaw locked so tight that I saw the muscles twitch, his eyes darkening exponentially. "Don't make this any harder on yourself. I might have to kill someone."
"Well, according to you, I'm gonna be dead by midnight, so . . . pretty sure I won't care anymore. Dead people can't care."
"As a witch, you'll be on the Other Side, watching as I slaughter everyone you love, except your sister, who will be put to a similar fate as you right now." He smirked, noticing the way my throat tightened at the reminder of what would happen to me if I died—I wouldn't die and go to heaven like most people. I was supernatural, so I'd end up on the Other Side. "I'd act carefully from now on."
"Maybe I'll find peace," I said. "I haven't killed anyone, so what do I have to atone for?"
"You're probably right," he agreed. "So instead, I'll keep you alive long enough to watch me kill your boyfriend. If you tell me who he is and where I can find him, I'll make it quick and painless."
A woman who I hadn't even noticed before approached me, wearing a pair of baby pink scrubs. She wasn't paying attention to anything, only the IV, so I imagined that Klaus found a nurse he could compel to take the blood for me.
At least he was doing it safely and not poking around inside of my arm until he found the right vein. I had to give him some semblance of thanks for that.
It was harder to stay awake now, when she swapped the bag out into a new one. There was more room for blood to go in, so it was coming out a lot faster now, draining me past words. Keeping my eyes open became too much of a struggle, so I didn't bother. What did I need to see? Klaus' smug face?
Yeah, if I was gonna die right now, that wasn't the last thing I wanted to see before I died. Someone else needed to show up for me to get a glimpse of.
Instead, I tried to focus on Kol inside of my mind, remembering each detail of his attractive face. He wasn't here right now, and I didn't really expect him to be. If this was my time, it was my time, and there wasn't much we could do about that. He didn't have to out himself to his brother for nothing.
All I could see was the smile on his face from the night before, after we had gone back to his room and were getting ready to actually go to sleep. I couldn't remember exactly what I said, but it made him feel so good that he smiled brighter than I had seen yet.
Somehow, I made him happy, and that was the last thing I wanted to see when I died—the happiness that I helped him feel. He would probably spiral if something happened to me, but eventually, he would move on and realize that there were more people in the world who could make him feel the way I did, especially over the years of eternity.
That was what I wanted for him; a happy eternity, where he didn't have to hurt anymore. I wanted him to have someone by his side who loved him, who cared about his thoughts and feelings and would never do anything to hurt him. If that got to be me, that was amazing, but if not, as long as that was what he got, I would be okay. I could find peace with that thought in mind.
The taste of blood on my tongue snapped me out of my bliss. Vampire blood was usually pretty instant, depending on the severity of the injury, and this was no different. One second, I felt as if I was slowly slipping away into oblivion, and the next, it was as if I wasn't being drained at all.
When my eyes snapped back open, Klaus smirked and set himself back down in his seat, which looked a lot more comfortable than mine. Whereas mine was one you might find in a classroom, the hard plastic that kids were forced to sit through an hour long class on, his was a soft leather chair, wide enough for him to stretch his shoulders out and make himself at home.
The room around us was shaping up to be quite the home. When I confronted him the other night, we had met up in this room exactly, but it wasn't as far along as it was even now.
Then again, when you have an army of sired hybrids doing your dirty work for you, things can probably move along pretty quickly.
"I could just kill myself now, you know," I said. "Go ahead and get it over with. That'd be fun. I'd come back as a vampire."
He shrugged. "You're too much of a fighter for that, although I would love to see you come back as a vampire. I could compel you to do anything I wanted and tell me everything I want to know, so you know what? That's not a bad idea."
Shit.
The arrogance plastered on his stupid smug face made it hard to tell if he meant it or not. He would probably never do that, not since he knew it wouldn't hurt people as bad as actually killing me.
"Now, where were we?" he asked while I struggled to read someone who had spent a thousand years making himself impossible to really read. "Oh yes. We were at the part where you tell me who has been killing my hybrids."
"What makes you so sure it isn't Stefan?" I asked, a weak attempt at deflection.
"He hasn't shown his face in this town yet," he said, his eyebrows rising while he leaned back into his comfy chair. "It's been a month now, and my hybrids have found no trace of him. All I've gotten are phone calls. He's hiding in the shadows. My hybrids have been watching you, and they said the man isn't Stefan. I should ask why no one thought to use a bloody camera."
"That's a good question," I agreed. "They should be a bit smarter about it all."
The corners of his eyes tightened, his gaze focusing in on my face specifically. "Who is it?"
"A vampire." I rubbed my still painted lips together and sighed. "A hot vampire at that."
He rolled his eyes. "I assumed I was dealing with a vampire. An older one, as he's able to overpower my hybrids easily."
I allowed my lips to curl into a smirk. "Look at you. Putting pieces together."
There was a sudden shift in the mood of the room, at least for me, at the sight of someone blurring by behind Klaus. With my gaze on him, I had still seen the person moving back behind him, and there were only a handful of people who would be sneaking around the way this blur was.
Surely it wasn't Kol, though.
With Klaus watching me the way that he was, there wasn't much I could do except close my eyes, to attempt to hide the excitement rushing through me. Normally, my heart probably would've fluttered, but it was being drained beyond the normal limits of the human heart. Most people would probably be dead in my situation, but I liked to think that the dormant werewolf in me kept me somewhat safe through all of this.
"Already drained again?" he asked, and maybe the weak and unsteady beats of my heart helped sell the lie. I probably could've given a bit more blood before I needed some of his, but whoever was here to help me needed Klaus to be distracted.
The taste of his blood barely touched my tongue before the loud, unmistakable sound of bones cracking sounded, and Klaus' body fell limp onto mine. It was a sound I hadn't gotten used to, after all of this time, and my body actually cringed back into the seat behind me.
When I opened my eyes, there was no one in front of me, but there was movement behind me, as someone was untying the ropes that bound me. There was a searing sound as well, as if the ropes had been dipped in vervain, but it didn't stop the person helping me.
My heart knew who it was before I even saw him, though, and it was attempting to race while his hands moved over my body, removing any other restraints that had kept me down. He removed the IV last.
When I turned back towards Kol, his teeth sank into his wrist before he held it out towards me, and I took it willingly. Blood didn't necessarily taste good, but I would rather have his blood in my system than Klaus'.
The wound from his teeth healed beneath my lips, and his hand moved to cradle my face, joined by the other as he tilted my head up, looking over every inch of me. Most times, I would've been turned on by this, but there wasn't anything good in his eyes right now. Just fear and anger, the kind of anger that could lead someone to make a bad decision.
"Sorry it took so long, darling," he murmured, and one of his hands fell by his side. "Rebekah wouldn't let me in until she found the last dagger."
I took a deep breath and nodded. "Good. You've got it."
"Are you alright?"
"Much better," I said, but if he wasn't a vampire, I don't know if he would've been able to hear the barely spoken words.
I attempted to smile, but the anger in his eyes was frightening. Any time he talked about how much he hated his brother, about all the horrible things his family had done to him, he would get angry. His eyes would darken, and finding light would be a challenge. This was different; his brother had done something new, uncharted territory as far as Kol was concerned: he had hurt the woman he cared about.
The world around me was a blur, without any kind of preparation, but I could feel Kol's arm holding onto my waist tightly. It made it a little less frightening to be suddenly ripped away from the room around me.
Really, I wouldn't complain about getting away from Klaus anyways. There was no telling what road we were about to head down.
The sun was beginning to set around me when things stopped being a blur around me, and we were standing next to a familiar car. It was hard to say exactly where we were, as there were no houses or buildings in sight—only trees with a single dirt road splitting them. It was probably some more Lockwood property, as they owned pretty much all of town.
Kol reached down and opened the passenger door for me. "Come on, darling. We don't have long. He'll only be down for a bit, and I compelled the hybrids to ignore my existence entirely."
My eyebrows furrowed. "You compelled them? Wouldn't killing them have been easier?"
"Probably, but right now, Nik doesn't need another reason to hunt me down." He let go of the door handle and grabbed onto my waist, and the corners of his eyes tightened, though the usual warmth of his eyes felt colder as pain seemed to take place of whatever was usually burning bright. "Did he hurt you?"
I shook my head. "I'm fine, Kol, but he's gonna be watching me himself. He doesn't trust his hybrids to do it."
"I assumed as much." His lips dropped down to grab onto mine, gently, before he pulled away, and suddenly, the pain made sense. The distinct brown of his eyes with the gold ring around his pupil, which were usually melted together to make a golden warmth that I sometimes dreamed about embracing me, was becoming clear.
His brother had done more than hurt me, threaten me. He was causing problems now.
"What are we gonna do?" I whispered.
His eyes closed while he took in a deep breath. "Lay low for a while."
I rubbed my hands over my face, an attempt to hold back the tears that suddenly burned the edge of my eyes. "Why does he have to ruin everything?"
"You read my mind, darling."
There wasn't much time for a real goodbye, so we didn't waste anymore of it. Kol got me into the car and drove off, getting me home much faster than he probably should've gone, especially through Mystic Falls.
A cop actually clocked him going at least seventy through a neighborhood, but when he flipped his lights on and started chasing us, all it took was a call to the sheriff to get him off our tail. The words "Klaus is coming after me," were more than enough for her.
He walked me all the way to the porch before grabbing onto my lips one last time, one of his hands holding along the side of my face like I might float away if he didn't hold me. His lips were desperate against mine, with a determination unlike any other. This was something we hadn't really prepared for, not for it to actually happen anyways. Of course life with Klaus around was always unpredictable, so we knew this was a possibility.
We just never really prepared for it to actually happen.
He had to physically tear himself away from me, and he was gone from beside me when my eyes opened again. The sound of his engine revving up behind me was all the explanation I needed; he was leaving before either of us tried to change our minds.
They had the daggers. All we had to do was hold out until we got that last coffin open, which Bonnie knew how to do now. It wouldn't be for long; everything was going to be fine.
Why is this so hard?
I opened the front door and was surprised enough by the people standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me that the tears that wanted to fall dried up, surprise freezing me in place after getting the door closed.
Elena's arms were the first to grab onto me, and I could feel the tears on her face as she buried her face into my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Darcy. You're right. Everyone should get the right to make their own choices, but you can't be so stupid anymore. Do you realize how horrifying it was to watch you get in Klaus' SUV?"
My arms wrapped around my sister's body, with a bit of strength I had recovered used to hold her against me. "I can imagine."
While I was here in body, my mind and heart were somewhere else entirely.
When could Kol and I be together again? Would this new idea Bonnie had to open the coffin actually even work? Could we even be sure there was something in there that could be used to kill Klaus?
How long could we keep up the charade that he wasn't an Original? Where did things go from here?
There were so many questions racing through my mind, questions that made it hard to even think straight, but there was only one thing I knew for certain.
Being separated from Kol like this wouldn't hurt so bad if he was just some guy I was dating, some guy whose soul connected with mine.
I was in love with him.
A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song U Don't Know by Allison Wonderland.