xiii.
"Damon, who are you fucking in my house?" Alex asked, her head turning towards Damon who looked at her with a scheming grin on his face. Although he hadn't brought anyone into the Mikaelson home recently, it didn't mean that Alex's question was unjust.
"That's for me to know and you to dot, dot, dot," Alex scowled at the older Salvatore using Katherine's words against her in that moment. She quickly scanned the room, noticing that the dust that should have collected along the porcelain was almost nonexistent. Her eyes widened, knowing that if the broody Salvatore had brought over another conquest it meant that whatever ditzy or drunk girl he brought home likely did some exploring. Alex looked in the direction of the walk-in closet she had built for Katherine in hopes that she could eventually open the tomb and bring the Petrova girl home.
"Whatever you're on, I want some," Damon laughed, draping one arm over the other as he pointed at Alex. As quickly as she had let the anger bubble up, Alex pushed past Damon. He stumbled backwards at the force as she blasted through him, charging into her bedroom once more before redirecting herself to her walk-in closet.
"Damon, I swear to the gods," She mumbled under her breath, her eyes darting across the fully furnished closet. She found exactly what she had been looking for within moments; Katherine's dresses— or at least the collection that Alex had left— from the 1400s to the 1800s. She ran her hand against them taking inventory, noticing that they were out of place compared to the way that the blonde had left them the summer prior.
"And I'm the one with the obsession," Damon scoffed, his grin taking up a majority of his face when he came to the realization that the Mikaelson wasn't over the doppelgänger after all. It was exactly what he had expected, but it pleased him to have his suspicions confirmed. Ignoring him, Alex turned and took a quick inventory of her surroundings. She pulled open drawers and lifted cushions, moving clothing around and ultimately leaving the room more of a mess than it had been when she had entered in the first place. Taking the commotion as his only window to make an exit, Damon slowly backed out of the room. He kept an eye on the blonde who zipped around in the moderately sized walk-in, throwing clothes and shoes as she searched her belongings. As quietly as he had entered the home, he made his way down to the library.
"Now, if I was a priceless motif, where would I be hiding," He mumbled to himself as he entered the room, his eyes scanning the wall to wall shelves. He could hear Alex rummaging through her closet above him and shook his head, tsking as he took a step forward. He was in search of something, anything really, to keep the Mikaelson sister off of his back while he made an attempt to open the tomb— after he harassed his brother, that is. His boots echoed against the old wooden floors as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. As Damon's eyes locked on the shelf of books written by the Mikaelson family and their close companions an idea popped into his head. Something on this shelf was exactly what he was looking for.
"No, no, no, no, no," Alex called out from upstairs. Damon heard the sound of furniture hitting the walls above him, causing him to flinch slightly. "This isn't right, it should be right here!" The ceiling above him rattled as Alex slammed a hidden safe shut, stomping around the room directly above him. Damon ignored the noise, lifting up an index finger as he scanned the spines of the books on the shelves. One in particular stood out to him. The worn forest green leather popped against the reds and maroons of the other books in its row, leading the Salvatore to slide it from its hiding place and hold it in his hands. He gently ran his hand against the cover of the book. трептене-миши sat in the center of the leather, the letters hand painted in a decorative silver. Damon waited a beat, his brow furrowing at the crudely etched Bulgarian in the otherwise perfectly manufactured leather. He took the black silk bookmark at the base and flipped the small collection of short stories open.
"Would you look at that," he chuckled to himself, his lips turning upward in a smug smirk. This was it, his key to distracting the witch from his only real mission in Mystic Falls: setting Katherine Pierce free. He watched a leather armchair tumble down the stairs from the corner of his eye, taking that as his cue to leave the Mikaelson estate. He tucked the small leather book into the breast pocket of his jacket, replacing the book with another that sat on the table nearest him, filling its empty void on the shelf. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone, and Alex was standing in his place. She zipped around the library, breathing heavily once she finally stopped to stand still.
The vein in her temple throbbed as she stood where Damon had previously, the blacks around her ice blue irises that seeped into the veins of her face only made her look paler and her eyes a much more vibrant blue. She scrunched her nose causing her lips to pull up slightly, her dual sets of fangs peeking out as she inhaled through her mouth sharply. Alex's hunger was taking over, causing her to think erratically. There was no way someone could have taken her tracking map, the only way she knew where her family was at all times. The only people who knew where it was hidden were Damon and Stefan. If the Salvatore brothers knew what was good for them, they would have left it right where Alex had stored it 145 years prior. Her nose twitched involuntarily at the idea that Klaus could have the map in his possession. It was the only thing that had kept Alex and Tori safe for centuries, and now it was missing, taken right from under the witch's nose.