Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or The Originals.
"Do you remember anything?" Cami asked out of the blue. There wasn't much to do in the crypt other than talk.
Davina looked over at her. "From when?"
The two of them sat opposite one another on the floor of the crypt. The stone floor felt freezing cold, but neither cared much in that moment.
"From…you know, the afterlife." Cami spun her hand in the air in a mocking gesture at the word. "The place after death; the other side; whatever you want to call it."
Davina turned her eyes to the ceiling in thought and scrunched up her nose. "I remember dying and I remember the ancestors." She shivered at whatever memory had come to mind. "They did something to me, but I think I did something to them too. It's all so fuzzy. I can't remember anything else. Do you?"
Cami had been wracking her brain, trying to dredge up the memories, but the harder she tried, the more her mind resisted. "Not really. The only thing I remember is darkness."
"The memory loss is probably because of the spell that Inadu used to bring us back," Davina speculated.
"I wish that I could remember what it was like," Cami said, absent mindedly drawing invisible patterns on the floor with her fingertips.
Davina made a face. "Why would you ever want to? I don't want to remember being dead and stuck in the afterlife."
"I'm just curious. Very few people can say that they've come back from the dead." Cami shot a pointed glance at Davina. "Your boyfriend being one of them."
With her head down, she said, "I don't know if Kol and I went to the same place."
Cami could tell that Davina was disappointed about not being able to reunite with Kol. She wanted to tell her that it was only a matter of time until they saw the Mikaelsons again, whether it be by their own actions or when Inadu inevitably used them in whatever plan she had in mind. She kept her mouth shut though, aware that anything she tried to say would sound meaningless and placating.
The back of her head gently pressed against the wall as Cami leaned back and turned her gaze to the cracks in the ceiling in thought. Inadu had left them hours ago, her face set in a harsh scowl the whole time. Learning that she was linked to them as much as both of them were linked to her was clearly not a pleasant discovery for her.
Cami on the other hand was delighted by the news. This gave them a level of protection that they didn't have before. They were no longer disposable to Inadu. She couldn't hurt them without injuring herself, and Cami had the feeling that Inadu cared too much about her own life to risk it by punishing them in any way. At least they were safe until Inadu figured out how to unlink herself from them.
Blowing air out through her mouth and puffing up her cheeks as she did so, Cami forced herself to stand back up and moved towards the exit of the crypt.
"Where are you going?" Davina asked from behind her.
Cami spun around on her heel. "I'm going back out to the French Quarter. I'm sick of sitting in this cold, dark crypt."
"What about Inadu?"
"What about her?" Cami countered. "She can't do anything to us, Davina. We don't even know if she's going to come back, but I have the feeling that whenever she does, she's going to have figured out a way to break the linking spell. If this is our chance to get away from her, I'm not going to waste it."
Davina looked up at her from where she still sat on the floor. "She found us easily enough before. She might be able to track us. It's not worth it."
"She can't hurt us without hurting herself," Cami reminded her, not quite understanding why Davina was being hesitant.
"She may not be able to hurt us physically right now, but she can still get into our minds and make us experience horrible things. I'm not going through that again."
Cami paused. Davina had been quiet since Inadu had left them. It was easy to conclude that when Inadu had dragged Davina back to the crypt, she'd put her through an upsetting illusion, much the way she did with Cami when she recaptured her afterwards.
"What did she make you see?" Cami asked as gently as she could. She hadn't been too open with Davina about her own illusion, so she couldn't blame Davina for not wanting to chit chat about hers.
Davina's stare became vacant, as if she became too wrapped up in her thoughts to see the real world around her. "I don't want to talk about it. I'm not going with you. I'm not giving her another excuse to do that to me."
Cami didn't want to leave Davina behind, especially since she seemed so defeated, but she had to do something. She couldn't sit there and wait for Inadu like a lamb to the slaughter.
She hurried over, her shoes clacking against the ground, and crouched down to give Davina a quick hug. It was so quick, Davina didn't have any time to reciprocate, but the hug wasn't really for Cami's benefit anyway.
Forcing herself not to look back, Cami pulled her jacket tighter around herself and hurried out of the crypt.
She felt lucky that Inadu hadn't casted another boundary spell around the cemetery to keep them contained there, but she doubted that Inadu had had the time to even think about doing that; not that it would have done much as Davina and her had broken the first boundary spell easily enough.
Cami hurried out of the cemetery. It was only when she'd made it down the street that she realised that she couldn't go back to the Abattoir. Inadu had found her so quickly before. She must of expected Cami and Davina to go to the Mikaelsons' compound. If she tried to go to the Abattoir, Cami felt like Inadu would find her instantly and it would just be a repeat of what happened last time.
Slowing her pace, Cami chewed on her bottom lip while she thought about what to do. She didn't know who to go to, or even who was still around. She couldn't forget that she'd been dead for years now and people had probably moved on and moved away from New Orleans.
She wandered the streets blindly, trying to formulate some sort of plan, when she realised that she wasn't far from her old apartment.
It was stupid; and nostalgic; and completely unreasonable. She knew all of that, but she couldn't fight the urge to go back there. It was the only place that she'd truly considered home and with everything that she was dealing with, she felt desperately drawn to the place that had once brought her comfort.
Trying to not put too much thought into how terrible of an idea this could be, she followed the familiar route back to her apartment building and, once there, travelled up the stairs to get to the correct floor.
The chances of her old apartment being unoccupied were slim. Her old landlord had no doubt found new renters right after she'd died. Her body was probably not even cold before he found someone new to take over paying the rent.
Her breath caught when she stopped in front of the familiar apartment door. If anyone was home, she would simply pretend that she'd knocked on the wrong door and leave. She was not going to disturb someone's life with her supernatural drama. She didn't want to intrude; she just wanted one last look at the place.
Raising her fist, Cami hesitated for a moment. Deciding that she really didn't have much else to lose, she knocked on the front door.
She waited and listened carefully. It took a moment before she heard someone moving around on the other side of the door.
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as the noises came closer. She swallowed down her nerves and steeled herself to face whoever was on the other side; whoever now lived in her apartment.
The front door swung open. The polite smile that Cami had forced on her face fell in shock when she saw who stood there.
"This isn't possible," Vincent said, his expression almost unreadable.
Cami didn't really think. She just rushed forward and pulled her best friend into a tight hug.
Author's note: This chapter took a lot longer than expected, but I hope people are happy to see Vincent appear. Thank you for the follows and favourites and reviews!