Katherine knew she had to do something to save herself. If she stayed with Klaus, it was clear she would endure hell.
"Klaus, I-" she adjusted herself, "I have the cure," she started. It wasn't completely false, she would have the cure in no time if he hadn't captured her. Klaus merely looked back at her with amusement. It was clear he enjoyed her desperate attempt at negotiation. "You can have it, if I get to have my freedom," she grimaced before wincing in pain again.
Klaus's amused expression didn't fade. "Now here's the downside to that, Katerina. I know your lies. You don't have the cure, since I have been keeping tabs on the search for it." Klaus smirked before continuing. "Besides, the pleasure I'll get from watching you suffer for a short eternity will be greater than any potential cure I could get in my possession."
Katherine snorted. "How about letting me go anyways", she asked sarcastically. "Think about it, I can get the cure for you in return for you leaving me alone."
Klaus sat down next to her on the bed, making Katherine retract back slightly. "Do you take me for a fool, Katerina? The second you get your hands on that cure you will shove it down my throat."
"I won't! I promise," she blurted out. "You don't understand. I've been planning to give you the cure for weeks now. I got the tombstone, you got the sword, and Bonnie is easy to snatch up on the way."
"Why would you want to give me the cure," he asked skeptically. "Your freedom?" she guessed and she nodded, thinking he would maybe accept her terms. "You couldn't have found the cure without the sword. Which is in my possession."
Katherine could tell he doubted her. "Well, about that..." she hesitated, thinking if it was a smart move to say this, "I sent someone to steal it, but they failed."
Klaus's face went from curious to strict that second. He grabbed her throat and attempted to compel her. "Why? Do you know what necessity it has in finding the cure?"
"Yes. And I will tell you, willingly," she said, indicating for him to release his grip. He let her go and she rubbed her neck before continuing. "The sword is the solution to translating the map. You see, the handle, as you surely have noticed, is a cryptex. The cryptex is the code to translating the map little Gilbert just expanded by killing your brother. It'll translate the map into an ancient language called Aramaic. And something tells me a certain hybrid knows how to translate it."
Klaus knotted his brows. "How did you know?"
Katherine pressed her lips together nervously. "Wild guess. So, do you accept the deal?"
Klaus smiled and folded his hands as a friendly gesture. "Thank you for telling me all this, sweetheart. I'll definitely put it to use. However, I don't trust you."
Katherine's hopeful expression sunk as she asked herself why she had been so stupid to give him free information. He would have forced it out of her either way, but she didn't like how desperate she sounded. She should have known better. "But... Please! Give me a chance."
Klaus lowered his voice, "I have made a decision and my choice is final. Now let us not speak more of the subject. It's time to rest," he said, patting his hand on the pillow so she would lay down. She refused as she tried to stand up again, but the horrible, pulsating pain made her cry out in front of her sworn enemy. "Rest Katerina, you'll need it for later," he advised, before getting up from the bed.
She sighed, reluctant to follow his orders despite wanting to lay down herself to ease the pain. She pulled off her boots and denim jacket before laying down again. Klaus bent down and kissed her forehead, which made her shift away from him uncomfortably. He smirked at the response.
"I'll be in the living room. If you need me, just walk there," he mocked, leaving the bedroom. Katherine rolled her eyes before finding her eyelids getting heavier by the second until they eventually closed.
Katerina ran through the dark and dismal forest, past the overgrown trees and long branches that reached after her as she sped past them, her heart sinking deeper with each step. She could see her house in the shadows of the night and she knew that she had to get there. She didn't know why she was in such a hurry, or why she had this terrible dreadful feeling, but she knew that if she stopped everything would be lost.
The young girl barged in the grating door and fell to the ground before she realized the sight before her. She could smell them, the corpses, she could even taste their blood in her mouth. The dead silence was hurting her ears as she covered them and started screaming. She screamed as nothing else mattered, nothing did. She couldn't stop screaming from the pain that hit her before she could even figure out where it hurt. Buckets of tears had already hit the ground without her noticing. Her vision was blurred and her head buzzing with so many thoughts and voices telling her the ghastliest of things. She had never known what true pain was until now. Her biggest fear, the greatest pain of all laid in front of her. And it was all her fault.
Katerina grabbed her hair so hard that she pulled out some strands as endless screams left her lips. She eventually got on her feet and stumbled over to her mother as she clenched onto her corpse and stared into her lifeless, now grey eyes. She cried over her body until she was dry of tears, which seemed like hours. Then a new emotion hit her; Anger. Fury.
She ran outside to see if she could catch a sense of Klaus, but of course he was long gone by now. He had been there only to thwart whatever happiness she had left then he had gone away with a trace way too big. She sat there on her knees and screamed his name until she lost her voice.
Only when the rain started falling and the wind started howling had she finally thought everything through. Her family was all dead, and it was her fault. She was a monster. She deserved to die.
Katerina silently got up, her head completely empty as she walked back to the bloody scene. She held her mother's cold hand as she prayed for forgiveness. Forgiveness for everything. For being a disgrace, for ruining their family, and most of all for dragging them into her mess. She begged for peace, for a merciful end. She looked over at her father, impaled to the wall with a bloody sword. She looked at one of their servants who was lying dead on the opposite side of the bed. Her beautiful, long hair was flowing everywhere and her cheeks were rosy red even though her eyes were closed and her face was pale. Her poor soul did not deserve any of this. She was so pure, so innocent with her entire life ahead of her.
The remaining member of the Petrova family walked to the door and turned around to look at her family one last time, she knew what she had to do.
Katherine awoke from her place in the bed. Her breathing was hitched and her heart was hammering against her ribcage, her hair stuck to her sweaty face as she sat up abruptly. Her worst memory had decided to come back to haunt her, after all these years.
She sat there for some time, shaking and shivering at the thought of the nightmare. Apparently seeing the devil in the flesh again brought back memories she tried desperately to forget.
"You look a little glum, love. Bad sleep?" Klaus stood in the doorframe with his arms crossed and a smirk plastered on his lips. Of course he always saw her in her weakest moments.
She closed her eyes and tried to shut out Klaus's voice. She couldn't look at his face without getting the urge to strangle him and then rip his heart out. The man who killed her family, who made her life a hell-show full of pain and misery, was walking around as the most powerful being in the universe, unharmed. The thought angered her to no end.
"Leave me alone Klaus," she muttered out between gritted teeth.
"You are in no position to make demands, love. I just came to tell you that I brought you some stuff since you'll be staying here for some time." His lips formed into a slight grin when seeing Katherine frown at his words. "I put the toiletry under the bathroom sink, and the clothes are in the wardrobe over there," he said and pointed to a closet in the corner of the bedroom.
Katherine mumbled something under her breath, but she was still in a little better mood now that she got to change out of her bloody clothes. She got up and started limping towards the closet, not moving the place of the bite too much.
"I didn't hear a thank you, Katerina", Klaus said with a warning tone.
Usually, she would've thanked him out of fear, but she had enough of his stupid authority over her. She had to face her demon. 500 years overdue so it was about time.
She flinched at the sound of her Bulgarian name rolling off his tongue. "Oh thank you, Lord Niklaus, for your generosity to provide me with clothing after you kidnapped me!" she snapped, finally losing her good-girl act, which she soon realized was a bad idea.
Klaus's face darkened, wasting no time grabbing a hold around her neck and slamming her up against the wall. She grabbed both of her hands around his trying to loosen the grip, but he wouldn't budge. No surprise, he was twice her age after all.
She struggled to breathe while kicking her legs, trying to reach the floor. Klaus leaned in closer and lowered his voice, making her eyes shift to his lips by instinct, focusing only on the words that came out of them.
"You will do well to respect me, Katerina," he whispered in a dangerous tone. His face was full of anger, but also a twisted satisfaction at seeing her suffer.
"Go to hell you sick bastard," she managed to whisper, her voice strained due to his chokehold.
She stared back at him with rage in her eyes as everything slowly faded to black due to a lack of oxygen. It was then Klaus let go of her, letting her slide down the wall to the floor as she tried to catch her breath. When she put her hand to the back of her head, she noticed she was bleeding by the red, sticky fingers she brought back to the front of her face.
Although the wound on her head quickly healed, her dizziness did not. She tried to stand up but without much success, as her legs felt like jelly due to the werewolf poison.
Klaus smiled satisfied when he saw how much Katherine was struggling. She only got more angry by this, growling to herself as she pulled herself up with more determination to beat the bastard than ever. He was so infuriating. If she ever got the chance to kill him, she would be sure to give him a long, sufferable death.
The pent up frustration from the recent nightmare of how this man had slaughtered her family made it hard for Katherine to contain her anger as she launched herself at him, swinging a punch to his face only for Klaus to quickly catch her fist with ease. She tried with the other but was only met with the same situation, Klaus now having both her fists locked in his grip. He still grinned at her attempt to harm him, knowing she could never inflict any real damage. Katherine didn't care however, she just wanted to hurt him.
She responded fast and kicked his knee hard with her foot, and at the moment he flinched she pulled her hands out of his grip. She prepared to launch herself at him again, but he caught on before she could act. Klaus slammed her into the wall yet again in superhuman speed and dug his hand through her ribcage, wrapping his hand around her heart while holding her in place with his other. He glared at her with a smirk as he expected her to beg for mercy, but to his surprise, Katherine only returned his smirk. With both of Klaus's hands busy, she managed to quickly grab a hold of the arm around her heart and twist it until she heard bones crack. She ignored the tormenting pain in the area where the werewolf venom was ruining her body, and used the opportunity to run away as fast as a vampire possibly could. However, something stopped her right as she was about to flee out the front door.