A/N: Hii, thanks for the lovely reviews! :D

Enjoy!

xoxo Ascha

Chapter 20:

The days and weeks passed by like a blur to Callie and so did the number of how many people she tortured and killed in order to help Klaus with his goals. She hadn't heard or seen anything from Marcus and definitely nothing from Damon, but the more time she spent with Klaus the more she stopped caring about being rescued and so did Stefan.

It was when they decided to go to the Smokey Mountains, where Ray Sutton had told them that his pack was hiding, that she finally wondered when or even if anyone was going to save her. She quickly shook the thought out of her head and decided to focus on finding the pack instead.

"How long are we going to walk in this damn forest? My sneakers are soaked and muddy and–"

Klaus suddenly clamped a hand over his niece's mouth and sighed for them to be quiet. Stefan couldn't hear it, but Callie and Klaus could since they were both over 1000 years old, so they were able to hear the sound of voices almost half a mile from where they were.

"Looks like we don't have to walk that much anymore," he said and patted Callie on her head. She rolled her eyes and ran towards the werewolves without him with Klaus following soon behind her. "Hello my little werewolves! For those of you who don't know me, then I'm Klaus."

The pack of werewolves stared in disbelief at him and some of them tried running away, but Stefan and Callie were quick to push them back towards the others.

"We know why you're here, but you might as well forget about it. We're not going to let you turn us into your minions, you–"

Callie swiftly ran towards the werewolf and knocked him unconscious with one hard blow to his head, too tired and dirty to have the patience to listen to him.

"Thank you, Callie. You can take a break now. I'll call if I need you." Klaus said.

She gladly left and decided crawl up in one of the tall trees, so she could relax and still make sure that no uninvited guests came. She could see the campsite from where she sat and watched as her uncle began transforming all the werewolves into hybrids. She heard the screams, the begging and then… there was silence for a while.

The hybrids woke up after some time, but even this distance Callie could tell that something had gone wrong. Her uncle's lab rats were crying blood and dying before him, making Callie wonder why on earth he couldn't turn a werewolf properly.

Ray Sutton, who was the first to become a hybrid, fled the campsite in hope of finding someone he could feed off and some of the other hybrids were about to jump on Klaus, so Callie jumped down from the tree and hurried to help him. She swiftly pulled their heart out and decapitated them with thick and heavy branches, stopping them from as much as touching their creator.

"Go help Stefan find Sutton," Klaus ordered. "And try not to get yourself bitten too. I need your help figuring out why my hybrids are dying."

Callie nodded understandingly and left the campsite just before Klaus attacked all of his creations and ended their life. She followed Stefan's scent and tried to find him, so she could help him get Ray Sutton back, but as she was searching for him and the lost hybrid she suddenly felt someone jumping on her from almost out of nowhere.

It was Ray and he was hungry.

"You bite me and I'll rip your head off, hybrid!" she snarled, pushing him off her as he tried to bite her neck.

Ray's eyes flashed dark yellow and his fangs came out, so she flashed her own fangs warningly at him, hoping to scare him off. It didn't work and the hybrid soon began walking slowly towards her like a predator trying to corner its prey.

"Get down!" someone suddenly yelled.

Callie quickly let herself fall to the ground and covered herself as a wolfsbane grenade was tossed on Ray, burning his face like acid and giving her the opportunity to knock him unconscious. She turned to look at whoever had yelled and froze up when she saw not just Alaric, but also a very much alive Elena and… Damon.

"Callie? What are you doing here?" Elena asked worriedly.

"I could ask you the same thing, but we don't have time. Leave before he wakes up." Callie answered, avoiding meeting Damon's worried eyes.

"But–"

"Go!" she snapped.

Elena and Alaric reluctantly left, but Damon stayed behind and watched her as she checked on Ray, who was about to wake up soon.

"Marcus is dead." Damon said.

Callie snapped out of her thoughts and looked at him. He was serious about this, which meant that her best friend through more than 300 years truly was dead. She wanted to cry or at least ask how it happened, but she knew that it was of no use.

"You should go." she said coldly.

"I'm not leaving you alone with that freak!" Damon snapped.

She sighed. "Fine, then stay. I don't care."

Damon looked startled, but she didn't care. She'd turned her emotions off after she yelled at Marcus and didn't want to feel anything, because she knew that all the guilt and remorse would only distract her and she couldn't have that.

"So you switched your emotions off, huh? Hmm… maybe it's for the best. Now I don't have to feel so bad about kissing Elena and–"

Callie jumped on Damon before he could say more and flashed her fangs at him right in his face. He stayed calm, though, and looked almost relieved.

"You kissed Elena?" she hissed angrily, feeling rage boiling inside her.

"I did and you know why? I thought you'd left me to die alone and had gone to save yourself."

"No! I left you so I could make a deal with Klaus. I made him give you the cure in exchange for my services, but I see now that it was a mistake to save you Damon. If you'd understood, then you wouldn't have kissed Elena and spent your time drinking instead of looking for me! Do you know how long I've waited for you to come save me?"

Callie didn't know why she reacted this way, but it hurt and she didn't want to feel more of it, so she got off Damon and turned her attention back to Ray, who was now gone. She groaned and took off, trying hard to forget the image of Damon being unfaithful to her.

When Callie couldn't find Ray she decided to head back to the campsite and found Klaus looking frustrated about the fact that his project failed. All the hybrids were lying dead on the ground along with one dead Ray Sutton, who was missing his heart.

"Freya! There you are. Take your things. We're leaving." Klaus said, starting to walk away.

Callie said nothing and just followed the two men back towards civilization. She couldn't stop thinking about what Damon had said. He'd thought she didn't care about him and that she'd left him to die alone.

How could he think such things about her after everything they'd been through?

And why exactly would he kiss Elena?

"What's bothering you?" Klaus asked as they were driving towards Chicago.

"Have you heard anything from Marcus? Or… Damon?" Callie asked tentatively.

The hybrid shook his head, but then suddenly remembered something. "Marcus tried to kill me two days ago and… well, that obviously didn't work so well." he answered.

Callie instinctively clenched her hands and wanted to hurt Klaus for killing him. If he wasn't there to help her back to her old self and Damon was busy kissing Elena, then who did she have to help her? Her father was still neutralized and lying "dead" in a coffin in the back of the truck, so she couldn't ask him for help.

"He would have died anyway," Klaus continued. "A vampire's greatest weakness is love."

"Is that why you cannot love?" she blurted.

Klaus looked taken aback by that question, but she noticed how he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

"I can love, but I choose not to. You should too. Love never does anything good for you."

Maybe he was right. Callie leaned back in her seat and felt like crying. She wished that she hadn't met Damon in the forest, that he hadn't told her the truth to make her feel something and that she didn't say yes to get the cure too.

Stefan had said yes to work for him, because Klaus hadn't told him that Callie already had traded herself for the cure, making not only Stefan but also Callie feel stupid for even going to him in the first place. She even wondered if she should just have died in peace next to Damon, but then she wouldn't have been able to save her father and taken her revenge on Klaus.

"Stop the truck." she said quietly.

Klaus frowned, but stopped the car and watched as Callie got out of it and went in to the back with Stefan. He sighed heavily, but just began driving again, while Callie went to sit beside Stefan in the coffin filled little room.

"You okay?" Stefan asked worriedly.

Callie shook her head. "Everything is a mess and it's all because I thought that I could be with Damon again if I made sure that we both got the cure." she said.

Stefan groaned. "Callie, we've talked about this. None of us could have known that Klaus was going to trick us into trading ourselves to save him. He knew that we both love him, so he took advantage of that. We can't do anything about it now."

"You're right, but Klaus is right too. Love is a vampire's greatest weakness and I'm tired of feeling weak. I don't want to feel anything anymore."

Stefan said nothing and just wrapped an arm around her. They only had each other now, while their loved ones were getting cosy with each other. Callie didn't want to get even with Damon by kissing his brother, because it wouldn't matter.

Until Klaus was dead they couldn't be together…

"Why are there five coffins in here? Last I checked Klaus didn't have more than four neutralized siblings now." Callie said, frowning.

Stefan frowned too, but even if he knew who Klaus' other siblings were then he still wouldn't know who was in the fifth coffin. Callie groaned and shook her head, too exhausted to care about the coffins right now. She closed her eyes and just tried to enjoy the ride.

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