I felt my phone vibrate and I immediately fished it out of my pocket.

"It's from C!"

As I read the message, I realized it wasn't from C, but it had been sent from her phone:

Your cousin is safe. For now. You can come see her anytime you wish. You know where.
But come alone.
See you soon, sweetheart.
Lewis

Nik obviously noticed how my expression changed from one of relief to one of anxiety. "What's wrong, love?"

I handed my phone to him. "It's not from C."

He read the message. "Lewis has her. 'You know where.' "

"I don't know where; how would I know."

"It must be some place he thought you'd think of." He handed my phone back to me and I read the message one more time before pocketing my phone. "Someplace that's common between the two of you."

"Common?" I shrugged, shaking my head. I was still panicking. I could feel myself panicking, but I couldn't stop it. It was as if C's life depended on me figuring out Lewis's riddle.

No pressure.

Nik reached for my hands; he held the one in his, while his other hand brought mine up to his chest. As I splayed my hand out, I could feel the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. I tried to slow my breathing, to match his, and eventually I could. I felt a bit calmer. It still seems weird that I could be so comfortable with another person. I always thought I was too much of a loner to willingly seek the company of others. But I actually felt more comfortable when I was with Nik than when I was at home. How odd.

Oh my gosh! Home!

I gasped in realization. "The uptown apartment building."

"Why there?"

"That's where Lewis is staying. We were there when he told me that he caused the accident. He's staying on the third floor, but he talked about the basement. It used to be—"

"The slave holding quarters. That would be an ideal place to hold hostages." I gave him a questioning look, wondering how he knew this. "I know more than ample Mystic Falls history."

"That's where he has C; it has to be. I don't know where else. When I was at his apartment, he made sure to mention that he had put a silencing spell around his apartment. He could probably do that to the entire basement, right?"

He nodded. "Probably."

"Let's go!"

I tried to turn and take a step towards the door, but he pulled me back to him. "Hang on, love; we need a plan."

"What? No, Nik, we don't have time for a plan; who knows what he's doing to C."

"We cannot afford to go in without a plan, love."

"C may not be able to afford for us to wait," I argued.

"She's a family member; do you really think he'd kill her?"

I shook my head. "C is my mother's sister's daughter — she's only related to Lewis through marriage. That might not be enough of a relation to save her."

"Riley, we will save Caroline. But we need a plan."

I didn't say anything.

He sighed, "Sweetheart."

"Do not 'sweetheart' me. You can't convince me to wait by sweethearting me," I snapped.

He smiled at me; the look on his face seemed like 'awh, how adorable,' which only made me even angrier.

"Those endearing terms — they won't work on me, Nik."

"You should stay home tonight, Riley." His voice was nearly pleading.

"No way."

"It'll be safer for you."

"That is my cousin in there who needs rescuing. Rescuing from my father, no less. I don't care about my own safety at the moment."

"I do!" He paused to regain some of his composure. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a sigh. "I will be there and I will have all of my hybrids with me. That's strength enough. It will be safer for you to stay away."

I shook my head. "No, I can't."

"And I won't be able to think about strategy if I'm constantly worried about your safety."

"Then don't worry about me."

"I can't do that."

"You won't be able to be fully in your hybrid soldier mode because you'll be concerned about me?" I asked, incredulously.

"You infiltrate all my thoughts, Riley."

I didn't know what to say to that. Being flattered seemed inappropriate at the given time — it seemed inappropriate to be flattered when I was concerned about C's life.

I shook my head as I spoke. "I can't stay back, Nik. I won't."

"At least listen to my plan, love." I crossed my arms, but I didn't respond, so he continued. "We'll go tonight — 10pm. I'll round up my hybrids. We have an advantage over Lewis in the dark."

He put his hands on either side of my face, holding my gaze. "We will save Caroline," he reassured me.

I nodded. "I should go home — figure out something to tell Aunt Liz, or to at least placate her." I put on the biggest fake smile I could muster, given the circumstances. I hoped he couldn't too easily tell how fake it was. "I'll come back this evening."

And without another word or action, I left the Mikaelson mansion. But instead of heading home, or going to speak with Aunt Liz, I ran to the uptown apartment building.

I ran until I reached the uptown apartment building. I stopped just in front of the building and I thought back to when Lewis had brought me here. What had he said? "The building dates back to the slavery days; the basement, which is now storage, used to be where the slaves were chained up."

I ran inside. At the bottom of the staircase were two doors: one was storage and the other was the electrical room.

I opened the door marked storage and walked into a large, darkened room, lit by one faint light in the middle. The light bulb was probably covered in dust. The entire room was covered in dust; I felt as if I could taste it as I breathed.

There were storage shelves against the walls and a few more sticking out from the wall, reaching towards the middle of the room; but other than that, this room was fairly empty for a storage area. But maybe that was Lewis's doing.

I walked around one of the shelving units and found C crumpled on the floor across the room. I ran to her side, realizing too late that I had walked across a white semi-circle made of a crystalline substance, most likely salt. I had crossed a boundary line.

I ran to C's side. "C?!"

"Ri," she whispered. She was groggy and barely conscious.

She's been vervained!

"I'm so glad you're all right, C. Where's Lewis?"

Before C could respond, I heard "Hello, Riley," from behind me. I turned around and saw Lewis standing in the middle of this section of the storage area. "I knew you'd figure out my location."

"Nice digs," I said as I stood to face him with my arms crossed. It was then that I noticed the boundary line.

Lewis noticed my line of sight. "Yes, sweetheart. Now that you've entered, you can't leave. And we can speak freely down here because I've used the silencing spell on the entire basement level."

I rolled my eyes. "I figured that much. You're lured me here just to trap me?"

He didn't answer. I took a couple of steps forward, walking right up to the boundary line. I reached my hand out, palm first, as far as I could. It was as if I were pressing my hand against a glass wall.

I took inventory of the room, though there wasn't much to see. On the other side of the room was a human. In between C and the human was a small collection of what appeared to be grimoires.

"What are you doing?"

He smiled before he spoke. "Attempting the impossible."

Lewis walked towards C with a knife and a vial. I ran at him, trying to stop him, but with a wave of his hand, I was thrown back against the wall by an invisible but powerful force and held in place, unable to move.

Lewis took the knife and sliced C's arm. She faintly winced. Lewis let C's blood drip into the vial until the wound eventually heals itself.

He was taking C's blood.

I struggled against the force holding me in place. "What do you want with vampire blood?"

Lewis didn't answer. When the blood stopped dripping, he went back to the grimoires and the force holding me in place vanished. I ran over to C.

"Are you okay?"

C was weak; she couldn't speak, but she managed to nod yes.

I turned my head to find Lewis. He was chanting; the index finger from his left hand was running along the page from one of the grimoires and he was holding the vial of blood delicately in his right hand. As he chanted, I saw the veins in his face momentarily become more prominent and turn black. Once he had finished chanting, he walked over to the human and knelt down in front of him. He put the vial down onto the ground and pulled a switchblade out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?!"

Again, I received no answer; I wasn't expecting one. I watched in horror as Lewis grabbed the human's arm and made a quick slice across the width of his forearm. He then put the knife down and picked up the vial. He forced the human to drink the blood. Lewis then held onto the human's arm, as if watching the cut. It took a few moments, but eventually the cut started to heal.

"Dammit!" Lewis was enraged and extremely frustrated. He threw the vial against the wall. It shattered. "Dammit!"

He made angry noises for a few minutes before storming back to the piles of grimoires and flipping through the one he had just been using.

"What are you trying to do, prevent the healing properties of vampire blood?"

"No." When I didn't say anything, he continued. "That will just be a side-effect."

"A side-effect of what?"

"A vampire's blood is dead. I'm attempting to change that." He was still slipping through the grimoire; he didn't look up from the book as he spoke.

"You're attempting to make vampire blood undead?"

"I'm attempting to make vampire blood alive again."

"Reanimation? Whatever for?"

"For Klaus."

That took me off guard. "You're working with Klaus?"

He scoffed. "Of course not. But what I'm doing will benefit him more than anyone else. I'm doing this for him; it's something he will greatly appreciate."

"Why?"

Lewis didn't answer.

"You don't expect me to believe that you are doing something for Klaus without expecting something for yourself in return, do you?" I crossed my arms against my chest. It felt odd, referring to him as Klaus, but I didn't need or want Lewis to know just how close we were.

"Clever girl. Of course I expect something in return.

"I'm attempting to turn dead blood back into living blood. When I am successful, Klaus will be able to create hybrids again, even though the doppelganger is a vampire. If Klaus wants to create his own species, I will gladly give him the option." I noticed he spoke of when he was successful, not if.

"At what cost to him?"

Lewis turned away from the grimoire to face me. "It's quite simple: in exchange for my help, Klaus will leave you alone. Forever."

What?!

"Why do you care who I spend time with?"

"You're my daughter."

"You haven't cared about that for most of my life, why now? Why do you wait to play father after I'm dead?" I saw his face turn from cunning to angry and I knew I had pushed too far. I couldn't afford to aggravate him, not when he still held onto C's life.

I decided to change the subject, slightly. "Is it even possible to reanimate dead blood? That," I pointed to the human on the other side of the room, "looked to be unsuccessful."

"Only so far. But I've barely begun experimenting."

"I thought witches were supposed to maintain the balance in nature; this sounds like you're creating a huge imbalance."

He nodded, almost proudly so. "Oh, I am. But the doppelganger bloodline should never have ended. Her transition into a vampire created an even larger imbalance. I'm merely attempting to restore some of that balance."

"If you're successful, will this harm Elena?"

"The doppelganger? No. She'll remain a vampire; any blood she donates — either willingly or unwilling — will become alive again, but the blood in her body won't change."

Elena won't be harmed.
Nik will be able to create his hybrids again.
I just needed to make sure C was okay and free from here.

"Okay. I want you to do it."

"What?!" Lewis and C spoke at the same time. I looked over at C and found that she was regaining some of her ability to move. The vervain must have begun to wear off.

"I want you to exhaust all possibilities in your attempts to reanimate vampire blood."

"And what are your terms of the agreement, Riley? I know you must have some."

"Of course. Use my blood. Let C go."

"Ri, no," C protested.

I ignored her and spoke to Lewis. "She's weak. You're obviously used vervain or a spell to subdue her. You won't have to do that with me. I'll stay. Willingly."

Lewis stared at me, trying to figure out my underlying motive.

"I fail to see the advantage of this for you, sweetheart."

"Stop calling me that," I said through gritted teeth. "Not all of us do things for personal gain."

"You obviously don't want to stay here to have some father-daughter time."

"Well, obviously."

"So what gives? You don't actually think you'll still be important to him once he's able to create hybrids again, do you?" I tried not to let him see that his words stung me. "You won't even matter to him."

"You don't actually think I think that way, do you?" I spit his phrasing back at him. "I am well aware of how Klaus will react. He spent a thousand years trying to break the hybrid curse. And once he finally did, he only had a few months when he was able to successfully create hybrids before Elena died. I haven't known him for very long but I know exactly where I stand on the scale of important things in Klaus's life. Of course he'll choose the ability to make hybrids over me. You really must believe me to still be the naïve ten-year-old girl you walked away from."