CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:
KLAUS' P.O.V
The map of the city sat on the studio floor in front of me. I was trying to get something…anything to click in my brain to make me realise where Caroline and Hayley were, but my mind wouldn't let me focus. No matter how hard I tried to pull away from the thought that Hayley and Caroline could be getting hurt by Andre right now, the thought just kept bouncing back into focus.
The photo Andre had somehow gotten in kept dancing around in my head along with those thoughts, but I tried to keep them out of the forefront of my mind. Elijah had taken the photo and the bag of hair and left me to clean up the mess I had made, which I had. I had then gone and gotten one of the maps from the front room, wanting to be alone while I tried to think of new ideas.
Taking a deep breath I rubbed my eyes with my hands. Now was not the time for me to lose focus. Now was not the time for me to go blank on things to do. I needed to be alert. I needed to bring them home.
A knock echoed at the door and a growl bit out. I didn't want to be around anyone right now. Let alone half the people who were here helping. Without waiting for an answer the door opened and in walked Katherine. I especially didn't want to be around Katherine.
"Katherine, I'm not in the mood." I choked out, looking uselessly back down at the map.
"We need to talk, Klaus. I don't care if you want to or not, but this is important." She came and sat down beside me on the floor, crossing her legs over one another and placing her hands on the knees of her jeans.
"Katherine, I just want to do this on my own. I can't handle having you here nagging me, or whatever it is you're here to do."
She scowled across at me, elbowing me gently on the arm. "I understand the pressure you're under Klaus, I'm not here to piss you off. I mean, I may not understand the ramifications of what it's like to be a werewolf and the territorial feelings that come along with that. However, I do have something I would like to say to you that may put things into perspective."
Shifting, I pulled myself up from the ground and walked over to the table where I had put a bottle of bourbon after I had collected the map. I took a swig straight from the bottle and turned to face where she sat on the floor. "What story are you going to spin now?"
Reaching forward she started to fiddle with the map, holding it up as if to look at something on it closer, hiding her face from my view. "I was close to Elena's biological mother, you know. She came to me when she was young, sixteen. She discovered her heritage and she wanted to know more about her ancestors."
"And this applies to this, how?"
"We were close enough so that I was the first person she told when she found out that she was pregnant with Elena. It was strange. Here was someone, family, who was a would-be mother around the same age I was when I had had Nadia. I didn't know how to feel. I hadn't dealt with my own issues over Nadia at that point, still haven't." She paused, placing the map down and moving to play with her hair. "But we were close, and when she wasn't in school or at home, she was with me. Then she had the baby, and I knew instantly. I don't know how, but I just knew that she was the next doppelgänger. My ticket to freedom. And do you know what I did?"
I rolled my eyes. "You tried to trade her for your freedom. I was there for that part of the story, remember?"
She shook her head, smiling. "No. I held baby Elena. Helped Isabelle give her to the Gilbert family. Compelled the nurses and doctors to sway them into believing that the baby was biologically a Gilbert. And then I left Isabelle and Elena behind. And I didn't look back until Damon started really looking for me. Isabelle was a close friend and I cared for her. For the first time in a long time, I actually cared for something other than personal gain. And because I knew that it would hurt her if I traded her daughter, I left. Giving Elena a fighting chance when I inevitably came back to screw everything up for her."
"Yet you still came back."
"Not the moral of the story that I was going for Klaus." She sighed and stood up. "I cared about Isabelle. I let myself care, and that wasn't a weakness. And when I did come back for Elena, I called Isabelle and told her what I had intended to do. And that was a massive advantage. You got what you wanted. I got what I wanted. And Isabelle got what she wanted. Time with the daughter she had given up."
"I still don't understand what this has to do with Caroline and Hayley getting kidnapped."
Walking forward she grabbed my arm. "You always have underestimated the power of love, and the relationships between people. What people would do for those they love, how you can use that to your advantage.
Raising my eyebrow, I still wondered where she was going with this.
She groaned and crossed her arms over her chest. "Who does Caroline love?"
"Everyone."
"More specifically. Who is someone that Caroline loves that can help up with finding her?"
"I am not asking Elena for help."
Katherine rolled her eyes and then got her phone from her pocket, pressing several buttons before holding it up to her ear. "Marcel. We need Davina here as soon as possible…yes, we'll be discreet." She rolled her eyes, placing her hand on her hip. "No one has to know that she's here."
Then she hung up and shot me her tell-tale smirk.
"What do we need Davina for?"
"We're going to raise the dead."
CAROLINE'S P.O.V.
The longer I sat on the floor of the dilapidated shack the more my body ached. All of the muscles throughout my body were screaming at me for release, sending shock waves through my whole body.
But I was doing a lot better than Hayley who was sitting hunched against the wall, holding her stomach while she groaned in pain. I had moved closer to her not long after Andre and Tyler had left so that she could at least have the comfort of my presence, even though I couldn't actually wrap my arms around her the way I wanted to. We had spent the first few minutes after Andre's visit pulling at the chains, begging them to come loose, but they stayed strong.
"Fuck." Hayley groaned, breaking the eerie silence that surrounded us. I jumped into high alert.
"What's wrong?"
"Something isn't right." She cried, trying to muffle her own cries as to not notify anyone who might be outside. She pulled at the chains again, setting off the spell that was placed on them. She hissed and stopped struggling, placing her hands on her battered stomach.
"With the baby?" I moved closer.
"The full moon is getting closer and closer. My muscles are screaming at me to turn, and with each minute I can feel whatever is happening to the baby getting worse." She cursed again, shifting and sucking in a deep breath.
Watching her closely, I tried to figure out how to help her. I had helped Tyler change, but he wasn't heavily pregnant. I didn't know how to help her. A growl rumbled in her chest and her eyes flashed gold, her back arching, a deafening crack filling the room.
"I can't turn, Caroline." She choked out, her swollen eyes closed shut. "If I turn it'll kill the baby. I need to get out of here. I need to stop it."
"Everything will be okay. We'll get out of here."
She looked at me her eyes flashing back and forth between their natural colour and the supernatural gold that came with being a wolf. "How are you so fucking optimistic all the time?"
"I'm not. I mean, sometimes it's really hard for me to put on this happy face and act like everything is going to be okay. But, if I don't have that hope, then I'd never have made it out of half the situations I've been put through. Hope. That's what we need Hayley."
She went quiet, and I used the silence to try and figure out what to do. My neurotic, organiser mind kicked into gear and I tried to make a list of things that were going to happy, and what we could do to fix them. We were handcuffed to the wall. But our feet were free. Hayley was in danger of turning and killing the baby, but it was a full moon which means that there was a high probability of a tracker spell working.
"SHHHHHITTTTT!" Hayley half-screamed, half-howeled.
Something inside me turned on, my brain turned off and instinct kicked in. Pulling as hard as I could on the handcuffs, I tried to imagine an impossible strength coming in and making the metal tear away. Then the sound of bending metal filled the room as the handcuffs bent and snapped away from my wrists.
Hayley looked at me with wide eyes. We were both in shock. How the hell had I been able to do that? I didn't pause long enough to question it, but jumped into gear and starting pulling on the ones that covered her wrists until they too fell away.
Pulling her up to her feet I tried to steady her, but she keeled over, gripping her stomach with white knuckles. My eyes were drawn to a small patch of blood that covered the floor where she had been sitting. Not good.
The door creaked behind us and I turned around to see Andre and Tyler walking in, followed closely by a someone who I guessed was the witch. Andre's eyes widened as he saw us both free from our restrains. The witch immediately jumped forward to grab us, but as he reached for Hayley's arm, I shot my own out and punched him in the face, knocking him out instantly.
I had heard of people growing stronger because of adrenaline, but this was something else entirely. Andre and Tyler stared at me in shock.
"What do you think you're doing?" Andre said, a blood-chilling smile making its way onto his face. I didn't reply, just placed myself between him and Hayley. She needed to get out here and fast. "I don't know what you did, Love. But neither of you are getting out of here that easily."
"You wanna bet." Reaching behind my back I gripped Hayley's hand in mine.
Andre stepped forward, grabbing for me, but I tried to channel as much strength as I could and pushed against his chest, sending him flying through the air and crashing through the wall of the shack. Tyler looked at me in shock, before holding his hands up in defeat.
The energy I had seemed to gain started to fade and I knew that we didn't have long to run for it. Not letting that show, I moved towards him in a fighting stance, as if ready to push him out the same wall Andre had flown through. "Hayley, run."
"I can't leave you here. Klaus would want you back more than me."
I shook my head, stepping further in between him and Hayley. "I couldn't live with myself if you died Hayley. You need to go. Now."
Without so much as a look back at me she ran as fast as she could out of the shack and into the trees, disappearing from sight. Standing up straight I crossed my arms over my chest as Andre pulled himself out of the rubble and climbed his way back into the shack.