I stuffed a few more bags of chips in the nook of my arm, which were already primed to topple, and surveyed the glorious assortment of dips before me. Jeremy had invited some of his friends over for a gaming tournament. I was beyond stoked at the idea. It was so…normal. We were gonna be playing Mario Kart. You can't get mad and burn a house down over Mario Kart. Maybe Monopoly. Not Mario Kart. I'd offered to grab supplies for tonight and swung by the gas station on the corner of the street.
"Mild for me. Jalapeno for Jer…" I muttered under my breath.
My voice tailed off at the sight of a fancy black sports car pulling into the lot.
"Nyaaaa!" I blabbered out and ducked down out of view, "Oh. GOD. Why is it so sticky down here?!"
The bags of chips were sent scattering across the floor. I scrambled about desperately, dragging them all over to the cash desk. I tossed the chips up on to the desk and tentatively pulled myself up off the floor, peering out the window in a meerkat fashion. I hissed under my breath, "Pay at the pump. Pay at the pump."
He was gone. The car was there, but the forecourt was empty. I gripped on to the counter and allowed myself to exhale.
"Hey, sorry Rosie! That was a doozy." Tony scoffed, fanning his face as he emerged from the bathroom.
I suppressed the gag and uttered, "It's fine, Tony."
"Whatcha doing on the floor, kiddo? I don't wipe those all the time." Tony uttered.
"Dying of old age, Tony. Ring up the chips!" I scorned and pulled myself up, scouring the lot for any sign of him.
"I dunno what they put in that Gilberino water over there, ya bunch of kooks." Tony chuckled and finally began ringing up the chips.
I told Tony that I was going out the back, plucked up my paper bag and made my way down the little corridor, past the humming bathroom. I froze instantly and let out something of a yelp as I turned the corner. My grip crumpled on to the paper bag as I almost dropped it.
"Oh, god." I huffed out in disdain.
He was standing square in front of the back door to the rear parking lot, blocking my exit.
"Rosie. Darling." Kol grinned, and gestured wildly, "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"
"You followed me here?" I rasped.
"No." Kol sang, "This is all down to serendipity."
"Why are you here?" I asked him.
"Well. My brother, Klaus, is working on un-linking us." Kol explained, "It is an awfully precarious way to live, the missteps of others constantly hanging over your head, hoping Rebekah doesn't piss off the wrong harlot, Elijah doesn't get his own heart ripped out in glorious irony, Finn doesn't…drown in his own tears."
"Why are you here?" I seethed again.
"Your friend Bonnie? She needed some incentive to hurry the process along a bit." He explained, "Time is of the essence."
He flipped his phone out and showed a video of Jeremy and I playing with his new dog; a video that in any other situation would have been quite charming.
"You even think about-" I groaned.
"Oh, I've thought about it, love." Kol whispered, and sauntered up closer, "I've thought about having you watch me do it, beginning to end. But then, the witch came through for us, and I slowly got over the fact that you seduced me, so your mate could stab me in the heart. Bygones and all that."
"What's going on here?" Tony asked, sticking his head around the corner.
"Nothing. Go away." Kol compelled him, "Forget we were ever here. Forget everything you're about to hear."
"You don't have to do this." I said.
"Quite the contrary." He said, as he slipped his hand into my back pocket, and retrieved my phone, "I can't have you sounding off to your mates, and warning our leverage to do a runner."
My heart skipped several beats as he stood before me. I panicked and chose potentially the worst option: I threw my not-at-all heavy bag of potato chips at him and tried to run. Kol flashed before me.
"I don't have to hurt your gas station friend. I don't have to hurt you." He uttered.
"What a gent." I scorned.
He blocked every furious strike with relative ease and pushed me back again. Okay. He was a little tougher than Alaric. He flashed into me and threw me back into the shelves, sending everything skyward. I groaned and pushed myself up. He snickered that it didn't have to go down like this, I could always come quietly.
I slipped and slid out of his reach, much to his growing frustration. He whispered something of a sarcastic compliment to my fighting style into my ear and I slammed around but my wrist was grabbed well before it made contact, the other one followed suit. He held me in a vice like grip. I was clearly outmatched in strength; I thought back to taking down Damon, it all centred on surprise...well, actually both parties were surprised in that instance.
I conjured flames into my bound hands and he was forced to let me go. I hurled the fire his way. He dodged it, and widened his eyes, a tickled expression consumed him as he watched the stack of newspapers crumple and ignite. I cursed. NOT AGAIN. This is a gas station! He flashed before me, taking advantage of my crippling guilt. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt with one hand and slammed me against a wall, the plaster crumbling behind us. He pressed his arm into my neck. I felt my consciousness fade; my heart rate fell as the lack of air was plunging me into the darkness. He offered me an out one final time, and as I continued to claw at him, he snapped my neck.
The ache radiating from my neck was building, that's what I'd awakened to first; and then the thumping in my head. I couldn't muster the strength to open my eyes; the scraps of memories were smacking against one another before I simply settled on the fact that I was going to be greeted with something quite terrible.
"Good morning, Sunshine." The voice cackled from somewhere beside me.
My eyes accepted their fate and blurred into a hazy excuse for focus. I felt hideous. I tried to move to caress my aching stiff neck and couldn't. My wrists were bound tightly together behind my head to the frame of a rusty iron bed. Nothing in the dingy motel room gave any clues as to where I was; I could see a window at the far end of the room, but with the blinds closed I had no hope of seeing out of it.
Kol rose from his seat and parked himself down beside me, resting casually on his back. I flinched as he leant over and showed me my own phone. He informed me, "You have a message from Elena, darling: Don't kill Kol! If you kill an Original, then the entire vampire bloodline dies along with them! Exclamation point. Colon. Open bracket. And she reminds you that Stefan, Damon, and Caroline could all die along with me."
Kol sighed theatrically and tucked my phone away into his pocket once more. He whispered closely, "I suggest you take heed. Also, Nik broke the link. So, that original 'take them all out' plan is officially down the loo."
I struggled against my bindings and groaned from beneath my gag.
"Oh, forgive me, promise you won't bite?" Kol scoffed, and yanked the gag down, "I didn't quite catch that?"
"You got what you wanted. We lost. So, leave us the hell alone." I scorned at him.
"No one's taught you how to fight, have they?" He asked me, "I mean two re-generations in, you should be giving me a run for my money. It's all there, but you're too unfocused. You let your anger get the better of you."
"Okay. Great talk. You won." I scorned at him, "Now, let me go."
"Well if I let you go and I promise to not go back to stalking Jeremy full time." Kol informed me simply, "You have to promise not to go all postal and burn this seedy motel to the ground?"
"I'd be doing the world a favour." I groaned, "This place is disgusting."
I froze and suddenly realised what he meant by that. He wasn't talking about the first house I burned down. I looked back at him and uttered, "Wait."
Kol shook his head, and said, "You didn't. Chill out."
He leant over me, and I shrunk back beneath him, instinctively. He declared it was an act of good faith and snapped the binding between my wrists. I slid out from under him and staggered back away from him. I turned away, groaning as I rubbed my sore wrists and neck.
"Are you alright?" He asked solemnly.
"Yeah. No. You killed me." I scorned and went for him.
I didn't have any energy to draw from, given that I'd only risen from the dead a few minutes ago. My body felt battered, but all I saw was red.
"You're still weak." Kol sang as I staggered up from the broken shards of the table he'd just thrown me into, like rag doll.
He dodged the chair I threw at him, and the lamp, and the phone.
"Look, I couldn't have you spoiling our plan, love. If it makes you feel better, I apologise. It wasn't personal." Kol said with a smirk, and then gestured to the trashed motel room, "This feels a little personal."
Kol grabbed my wrists with a familiar vice-like ferocity and slammed me into the wall. I was completely caught off guard by his proximity to my face. He rasped, "You done?"
I don't know why…maybe it was the only valid option. I stared into Kol's fierce steely eyes in that dangerous moment and I chose surprise; I closed mine. I kissed him, gently at first, uncertainly. He kissed me back; a kiss laced with just as much uncertainty. I pulled against his tight grip and he released my hands around his neck; his kiss intensified. My hands found their way up and into his hair, and his explored their way further down my back, and lifted me up into his arms with one swell action. I curled my legs around his body out of fear from the sudden lift and felt a smile break beneath his kiss in response. He dropped us down onto the janky bed and he came down on top of me.
I needed the other side of the bed for any hope of this working. I rolled us over so that I was perched on top of him, and I caught sight of the shard. He rose up to meet my lips once more, and his hands disappeared into my hair. The shard disappeared from my mind once more as he kissed me passionately. I worked against the buttons of his shirt, stopping every time he kissed and touched me somewhere new. Impatiently, he pulled his shirt off. He ripped my t-shirt down, and kissed and nibbled his way along my neck, and…I let him do it; I let the Original Vampire beneath me kiss my neck, and it frightened me beyond belief. His slow sensual bite broke skin. He tasted it.
I had him. He…he was open. I snatched up the shard and impaled the sharp wood directly into his heart. His face twisted and contorted as I held my grip over him, and he desiccated over…for now. Satisfied he was down for the count, I staggered my way backwards off of him, and held my arms around my waist for a moment more. I looked down at my torn shirt, literally holding on by a few threads, and begrudgingly snatched up his shirt from the ground to cover myself.