AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I cracked 100! Yay! In this chapter, we find out exactly how deep the blood oath goes, and Damon makes an appearance. Oh, and Caroline gets to cut a bitch. I always love writing when she does that.
Two. Failure
The wolves are gathered in the clearing in the forest, just as Ray promised. When they see Caroline pushing Ray in front of her, the werewolf tied up and mussed, Caroline can see the tensions rise in the group.
Ray is their Alpha, and they don't like seeing their leader in the hands of two vampires and Caroline, who they likely assume is a vampire as well.
Ah well, Caroline remembers what her grandmother always said about assuming.
"What is this?" one of the wolves, a pretty brunette who looks no older than twenty with big green eyes, asks. She looks ready to pounce at Caroline, so Caroline angles her wrist so that her delicate claws, which are held at Ray's throat, are visible to the whole pack.
An uneasy murmur passes through the group. Vampires they can handle; hell, the packs live to kill vampires. But they have never seen anyone like Caroline before.
"Hello, all," Klaus says, stepping between Caroline and Ray and those uneasy, angry stares. "I'm Klaus. And I'm here to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity."
"Oh?" asks a male wolf who looks about forty. "What's that?"
"Immortality, of course," Klaus replies jovially. "You lot are going to become my very first hybrid pack."
"Hybrid," the outspoken brunette murmurs. "You mean, as in vampires? Thanks, but I'd rather die."
"That can be arranged," Klaus replies, the friendliness dropping from his voice, replaced by ice. "As you can see, Caroline here has a good hold on your dear Alpha. Disobey me, and she will kill him,"
"Just like a good trained puppy?" the brunette sneers. "Airheads don't frighten me."
Caroline growls low in her throat, and Ray's eyes dart towards her fearfully. Her claws are mere centimeters from his neck, and he obviously fears that she'll lose her temper and take it out on him. She won't, of course, but the brunette is a different story. Caroline doesn't like to be underestimated.
"Airheads… hmmm. That isn't very polite of her, is it Caroline? Stefan, take Ray from our dear Ms. Forbes, won't you?"
Stefan steps up next to Caroline and takes Ray from her. He positions his hands for an easy neck snap, while Klaus holds his hand out to Caroline. She considers for a brief moment ignoring the appendage. She has so few opportunities for rebellion, and this seems like one, but the look in Klaus' eyes says that crossing him right now is dangerous, so Caroline places her palm in his and lets him pull her to his side. He wraps an arm around her waist and holds her flush against him.
"Perhaps I should let you show this lot what an airhead can do, my pet," Klaus muses, smirking down at the top of Caroline's head. Caroline bristles at the term my pet, and she knows that Klaus is riling her on purpose. He knows how much she hates to be underestimated and condescended too, and so he's purposely riling her temper. It's working, and she can feel the violence building beneath her skin.
It doesn't help that the pack is angry as well. She can feel the dark emotions in the air, and the power they hold calls out to her. She can remember using that power to kick Mason Lockwood's ass, and she knows she could do it again with the belligerent brunette.
Caroline meets the girl's eyes, and whatever she sees there makes her take a step away from Caroline.
"What the hell are you?" the brunette asks.
Caroline doesn't answer, but she can imagine what the brunette sees. Glowing silver eyes and hair that snaps in the invisible currents around them. She looks at Klaus, who releases his grip on her and inclines her head.
"Keep her alive, Caroline."
It's the first time Klaus has given such an order, and it almost amuses Caroline to hear it. As if she needed someone to tell her not to commit murder. She hates the mess, remember?
Still, the feel of the werewolf's nose snapping beneath her fist is gratifying. This violence has been building for two months, and it feels wonderful to release it on someone who isn't so very fragile and breakable.
Next, she takes her anger out on the werewolf's arm, snapping the bone in two separate places. The other pack members had apparently gone into shock at Caroline's first rapid movements, but the sound of the snapping bone seems to bring them out of their shock, and they attack en masse.
One manages to get a good shot in, and Caroline can feel her jaw break. She snarls in pain and smashes two skulls together before leaping away from the wolves for a moment to snap her jaw bones back in place. They will heal properly, so Caroline throws herself back into the fury. She is full of power, and these wolves doubt her superiority. Not even Caroline's ingrained Type-A dislike of mess can save them now.
Soon, the ground is littered with wounded but living werewolves, and Caroline turns her eyes on the one that started it all. Caroline's shoulder is dislocated, and she thinks a rib might be broken, but she is too focused on the she-wolf to care. She stands over the brunette and looks down coldly. The brunette's leg had been snapped sometime in the fight, and so she is helpless at Caroline's feet. Caroline reaches up almost casually, and snaps her shoulder back into place. Then she looks at the brunette, pulls back her claws, and aims them straight at the werewolf's heart.
The kill-shot is intercepted by Klaus, who takes the claws to his arm. He hisses angrily, his eyes turning to black gold at the pain, and Caroline reels back as she feels a sharp pain in her own bicep. She pulls her claws back, but the damage is done.
To both of them.
On Klaus' arm, there are four deep, angry red scratches. And in Caroline's arm there is the same.
"I told you not to kill her!" Klaus growls.
Caroline wants to growl right back, but the matching slashes on their arms bring Caroline back to herself with a crashing thud. The anger and violence and thirst for blood drain from her as the implications of what this means hits her.
I told you that failing to fulfill your oath sucks.
Caroline wants to curse at the voice, and she wants to curse at Klaus, who is looking at her arm with clear interest. Stefan has stepped up to her side and pulls her hand away from the cuts. He looks between Caroline and Klaus and really does curse.
"Well, Love," Klaus says with a wicked smirk. "You always keep things interesting."
(CWM)
In the end, the brunette dies anyway.
It all begins when Klaus feeds the wolves his blood and kills them. And then the transition to vampire goes all wrong. There is blood and puking, and it's just plain gross.
Then Ray manages to get one over on Stefan, who ends up with a werewolf bite and an insane, transitioning hybrid on the loose.
"He'll need your blood to live," Caroline tells Klaus, looking at Stefan's wound. It's deep and looks painful.
"He won't get any until he finds my hybrid," Klaus replies, surveying the mess around them in anger. It looks sort of like a high school kegger, with all of the puke. Only Caroline is pretty sure the wolves would have preferred the party to having their necks snapped.
"He can't find your hybrid if he's hallucinating that he's in freaking wonderland!"
Klaus looks unimpressed with Caroline's outburst and shrugs a shoulder.
"Then go with him, keep him in the real world, away from any blue caterpillars. I don't care, just bring Ray back."
So, that's how Caroline and Stefan end up walking through the woods at night searching for a hybrid-gone-wrong.
"Are you okay?" Caroline asks as she picks her way over a fallen log.
"I'm fine," Stefan replies, reaching over to offer his hand. Caroline takes it and lets him assist her over the dead tree. It's nice, to have that brief moment of camaraderie. It's been missing from their relationship since Stefan returned to his Ripper ways. "I'm old enough that the hallucinations will take a while to set in."
Caroline shivers at the thought of being victim to such a vicious poison.
"Klaus is an ass," she informs Stefan pertly. "It would be way easier if he just gave you his blood."
"Easier, yes, but Klaus gets off on the suffering of others. All we can do is find Ray and hope Klaus figures out what went wrong so he feels like being merciful and giving me his blood."
"Fair enough. Can you smell Ray? That's one sense of mine that didn't seem to get any better. I can see right now like it's daylight and I can hear every damn cricket within five miles, but smell? Not a—did you hear that?"
"What?" Stefan asks. Caroline holds up her hand and whirls around listening closely. She hears it again, a faint bellow.
"That," Caroline replies, and she shoots off after the bellow like a bat out of hell. Stefan is on her heels, and they barrel into a clearing together.
They have found Ray. He's snarling and foaming at the mouth like a rabid wolf, and he has Damon Salvatore struggling beneath him on the forest floor.
Caroline is shocked, though she realizes she shouldn't be. Stefan is Damon's brother, and while the pair may not get along all the time, she has come to learn that nothing is as strong as that bond between siblings. It was in your blood and bone, as the voice had once said.
Stefan doesn't let surprise take hold of him as Caroline has. Perhaps he expected this. No matter the reason for his quick reaction, he flashes behind Ray and yanks the wolf's heart out of his chest. He drops the organ to the ground as Ray's dead body collapses on top of Damon.
"Impeccable timing, brother," Damon says, pushing the dead hybrid off him. He gets to his feet and nods at Caroline. "Good to see you, Blondie."
"What are you doing here?" Caroline asks, coming to stand at Stefan's side.
"Elena discovered I've been keeping tabs on the Ripper here and decided she wanted to pursue her own hunting party. It was either come or let her and Ric stumble around the forest alone. Jenna tried to stop them, but nothing and no one can stop Elena's crusade to find and save the pair of you. So, instead we help and hope she doesn't die."
"Take her home, Damon," Stefan replies. "Take her home and tell her to forget about me. I can't be saved."
"Don't you think I've tried to tell her that, Stefan?" Damon replies. "She won't believe me. But then, she's never seen you after you've gone full Ripper. Besides, it's not just you. She's searching for Caroline here, as well."
"I swore a blood oath, Damon. I can't break it. Hell, it turns out that if anything happens to Klaus, it happens to me as well. I'm well and truly trapped," Caroline replies. She turns her eyes on Stefan. "I'd tell you to go… but you need Klaus' blood."
"I'm beyond saving, Care," Stefan replies. "Even by Elena. I'm better off with Klaus anyways."
"That's bullshit," Caroline replies bluntly. "You've gone on blood binges before, haven't you? If you've come back then, you can come back now."
"I had Lexie then," Stefan replies, and Damon looks down with something approaching guilt. Caroline remembers then that Damon had killed Lexie, and blamed a spree of "animal attacks" on her. "Without her, I don't know how to stop."
"Coming back to Mystic Falls would be a good start," Damon says.
"I can't, Damon. I need Klaus' blood," Stefan motions at the bite. "Just… tell Elena you couldn't find us. That we obviously didn't want to be found. Whatever it takes for her to give this up."
"Come with me and tell her yourself. You can talk to her and be back to Klaus before the venom really sets in."
"No," Stefan replies firmly.
"Stefan…" Caroline begins, but Stefan cuts her off.
"No, Caroline. Elena needs to forget about me. You didn't give up your life so she could spend hers pining for someone that doesn't even exist anymore." Stefan turned back to Damon. "Deal with it."
Then he walks away from them, his hand still covered in Ray's blood.
"You've known him before and after one of these binges," Caroline says to Damon. "How do I get through to him? Because watching him destroy himself is horrible."
"I don't know, Freakshow Barbie," Damon replies. "I've never had problems drinking human blood. It's good, but nothing to lose your head over. Unless you're Stefan, of course."
"Even when I'm gone you can come up with new nicknames? Good to know I'm on your mind," Caroline drawls, rolling her eyes. She hesitates, then asks a question she's been desperate to have answered since she left Mystic Falls. "How is my mom?"
"Worried about you," Damon replies immediately. "She shot Jeremy, while you were off chasing puppy Klaus. She figured out that I was a vampire, and she tracked me down. But I was so gone with the werewolf venom that I fled and her bullet hit Jeremy instead. Bonnie managed to save him somehow, but Liz was pretty broken up over it."
"Wow," Caroline is shocked. "So she knows you're a vampire then. How have you managed to stay in Mystic Falls with that out in the open?"
"It's not," Damon admits. "After I was healed, Elena and I went to her. I removed her compulsion, Blondie. She remembers that day in the cellar. At first she was horrified, ready to kill me on the spot. Then Elena explained everything about Klaus, and what you did for us. Why you acted the way you did in the cellar. I think it freaks her out a bit, to know her daughter is supernatural, but… well, she seemed a little proud, too. But she's on our side now. She even helped me with tracking Stefan."
"That's… wow. That's great, I guess? Can you… can you tell her I love her, Damon? And that I'm sorry it ended up this way?"
"Yeah. But are you sure you can't come? One of you is better than none, and Elena might actually start to relax."
"No. Look… tell Elena she needs to stop. If Klaus finds out that she's tracking us. Well, I don't want to think about that. I'm fine. Stefan is… Stefan is not fine, but I'm doing what I can. Tell Elena to be happy. I have to get back to Klaus. If I'm too far behind Stefan, he'll start asking questions. I don't want that tonight."
Caroline grips Damon's wrist briefly in good-bye, then heads after Stefan. She stops and turns back for one last question.
"How is Jenna handling being a vampire? I've wondered for a while."
"She has me, and Ric and Elena," Damon replies. "We've kept a pretty close eye on her. She's only slipped up once. She'll be okay. Take care of yourself, Blondie. And my brother. I'll take care of everyone back home."
"Good-bye, Damon. Someday, we'll meet again, and this will all be just a blip in our timeline."
Caroline is gone before Damon can reply, running after his brother, returning to the man who is making them all miserable.
Caroline only hopes that this is the last time in Elena's life that Caroline sees Damon. Because Caroline can do simple math. One dead werewolf plus one dead vampire plus one living doppleganger divided by werewolves who die rather than be turned… well Caroline thinks she knows how this story ends.
It's back in Mystic Falls with Elena dead.
Only this time, Caroline will have nothing with which to bargain for her friend's life.
(CWM)
Caroline manages to catch up to Stefan not far from the clearing where they left Klaus. He is starting to look clammy, and Caroline thinks that they don't have long before the hallucinations begin. Together they enter the clearing and find the hybrid standing in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by the dead forms of the pack.
"It didn't work," Klaus says bleakly as they join him.
"We had to kill Ray," Stefan informs him. "He was too far gone."
Klaus picks up a water bottle that had belonged to the pack. He bites his wrist open and lets some of the blood pour into the bottle before tossing it to Stefan. Stefan catches it and looks at it blankly for a moment, before draining the contents. Immediately, the bite begins to heal.
"What do we do now?" Caroline asks. "Did you have a plan, for if the hybrid thing didn't work?"
"I haven't exhausted all my options yet, Sweetheart," Klaus replies, and Caroline feels a thrill of fear that Klaus can do basic math as well. His next words alleviate that fear, however. "We're off to Chicago, next. I need some information from the other side, and I know a witch who can get it for me. Have you ever been to Chicago, Caroline?"
"No," Caroline replies. "I haven't been anywhere but Mystic Falls. Until now… and honestly, nothing we've seen so far has really impressed me."
"It wouldn't," Klaus agrees, leading Caroline to the van and opening the passenger door for her, forcing Stefan to ride in the back this time around. The conversation seems to be cheering Klaus up, so Caroline is willing to continue it. "Chicago will, however. Wonderful city. Just ask the Ripper, he knows all about Chicago."
Klaus shuts the door and makes his way to the driver's seat while Caroline looks at Stefan in the rear view mirror in question.
"It's a time in my life I don't like to talk about," Stefan says to the unspoken question and Klaus climbs in.
"Oh, don't be so shy, Ripper," Klaus scoffs. He turns blue eyes to Caroline and smiles his disarmingly charming smile. "Back in the 20s, Chicago was Stefan's hunting grounds. It will be just like the old times."
Caroline thinks of what she's experienced so far this summer, Stefan's Ripper tendencies when he still had his humanity. She doesn't think she wants to know what he was like in the 20s, when he was a true Ripper in every way, and reveled in it.
Then she wonders how Klaus knows where Stefan's chosen hunting grounds were. And why the hybrid is so very desperate to bring Stefan back to the Ripper he once was.
AN: And there is chapter 2. Next chapter, we head to Chicago, where we meet Gloria who happens to know a thing or two about a certain sister of Caroline's. It is written, and it should be up pretty quickly. As always, please leave me a few words in the reviews.