King

Astrid wasn't particularly thrilled about waking up to the rising sun. Especially not since Elena had strategically situated her leg so that it would be the first part of her that caught on fire. The screams had woken the neighborhood, but Astrid had disappeared down a sewer drain before the cops arrived at the scene. At least, that's how Mercy had relayed it to Elena the next morning over breakfast.

Hushed, excited tones gossiping about Astrid's ineptitude. The rumor was that she'd indulged too much in a tourist high on some recreational drug. Or had consumed an entire bar's worth of hard liquor. Each re-telling had enough of a variance, though the essence of the story was the same.

She'd fucked up.

Not Elena.

She'd successfully cleaned up her own mess and cleverly laid one at her enemy's feet. Taken care of the men she'd fed on and left no account for Astrid to use as proof. She was certain that she'd tried to find them when, in passing, Astrid whispered 'sneaky bitch' under her breathe. It was satisfying, getting the upper hand.

But true satisfaction was not one of her gifts.

Far too often, after she'd settled into some form of a routine, the curious urge to discover would find her. Wrangle her out of the warmth and comfort she'd precariously established. Drag her out to whatever problem was currently running around in her brain and not let up until she'd solved it.

Besting Astrid had awakened a deep hunger in Elena.

When she was only six years old, she had wandered into a basement, either their house or her father's practice. She can never quite remember where only that she was definitely not meant to be in that particular basement.

Grayson had stopped her from walking closer to the door with bright lights and strange, muffled noises. It was the only time she can ever recall her father's touch hurting. He'd been so frantic. Grabbed her roughly until she cried out and through his apology, she could see his relief. He'd hugged her, stroked her hair, and told her how much he loved her. But more than that, it was the first time she'd ever kept a secret for him.

The closest she'd ever felt to anyone was when she was keeping secrets for them.

It had become addictive. Made her feel important and special in ways nothing else could ever compare. Not only keeping confidences but creating secrets of her own. Find hidden treasures of information and build a home, brick by brick, out of the confidences she had cultivated.

It had been one of her favorite parts of navigating from girlhood to womanhood – all the secrets.

Then came the vampires. And the witches. And the werewolves.

And certainly, she had fallen in love with Stefan but more than that, she'd fallen in love with this conspiratorial world that came with his love. Feasted on the silence and secrets required of her in order to be with him. Fed on it the way a succubus feeds on pleasure and lay gorged in its abundance. Had grown starved in recent months, too new and alone for anyone to trust. And it is as much this unsated appetite as her concern for the wolves that propels her into the streets of New Orleans.

On the next full moon as Sophie suggested, Elena slips out of her room like she had so many nights as kid. Tyler's infamous parties calling to her as much as the moonlight did; now as strongly as it did then. She walks calmly through the city with her wolf skin neatly folded in her bag.

The more she looks on it, the more it seems to shine. Gives her a strength that even the fairy cross pressed firm in her palm doesn't. The blonde hair sways in the night air and a stranger passes in her place through shop windows. She likes her just fine. This woman, at least, doesn't have to wear the face of a dead girl. This woman, Elena can pretend, is alive and on her way to meet her friends at a bar. Dance with them until the morning sun calls her home to bed.

But she isn't that woman.

She's Elena Gilbert.

A girl with fire in her veins and an ocean for a heart. She's the one navigating through the city, cutting her toes on the razor wire that demarcates the witches and vampires. She's the one who slips beyond the limits into the swamps that lie just outside the music's edge, to find an enemy that nature dictated for her. She's the one who has never been satisfied with sleeping dogs.

Sultry jazz notes slip off her skin as she trades them for the thrumming of crickets and the frogs' croaking bass. Like trading the silk robe for her favorite sweater, soft and comforting. She walks far past the bright lights and into the dark of the night. Moon high overhead, illuminating an unknown path to the wolves. She can't help but feel hopeful enough to intently watch the water's edge, hoping for those lights that drew her to this city in the first place. Hoping to see Jeremy's ghost if she could be so lucky.

If she still deserved it. If she ever did.

The water ripples toward the bank and she freezes in her tracks. The surface breaks for this ancient predator. An alligator that lifts its snout in the air to regard her. She takes a step forward, admiring the thick neck and protective layer of scales. Deep puncture wounds that have long healed over decorate the right side of the neck. Scarred victories. The throat expands as the creature tilts its head more and Elena nods her own to the side. The swamp is made more alive with the sound of its deep bellows. Guttural noises that do not fit with the sophisticated concrete structures of her world.

She would never dare inch this close unless she was too a dangerous predator. She might be weaker than most of the other vampires, but she could hold her own here with this beautiful monster. A time traveler, like she is now, immune to the changes of the world.

Black eyes reflect her own and she almost forgets what she's doing out here. They are only a few feet apart now and it's easy to forget how dangerous it is. Until an angry hiss distracts them both.

A charging competitor.

The speed at which it moves surprises her. Elena back up too quickly, forgetting all the calm boldness she had rested on just moments ago. Stumbling to the ground has her feeling too much like prey, the panic and fear rising to the surface. At some point, the fairy cross slips from her grip, but she's too focused on the newcomer to bother with her trinket.

Before it can make it to her, prone on the ground, the marked alligator propels itself out of the water. Their bodies slam in a crescendo of the night and the rest of the swamp symphony ceases its chorus to watch the gladiators. Twisting power wrestles with each other and it doesn't take long before she can smell the blood. It worries her, how much bigger the other alligator is. It hadn't taken long before she'd deemed the smaller of the two as hers. Even as she stands to her feet and backs away, unsuccessfully scanning the mud for her cross, she hopes that her alligator will be successful.

It's nasty and bloody. There's a second when she moves forward – to what intervene she supposes – when the bigger of the two has hers by the arm. Flailing and hissing. But hers is clever. Thrashes, heaves his body into the motion and rolls over the bigger creatures. Gains his freedom in the scuffle and uses his tail to slam into the other. His jaw is bloody and a tooth falls to the ground, but he chases off the bigger foe. Together, they watch it flee back into the waters.

Hers is smaller, but he's smarter.

Sometimes that matters more.

Eventually, he crawls back into the water, sliding gracefully beneath the depths. She watches the water rippling away. Part of her hoping that he'll look back at her as if he were a puppy and not killing perfection wrapped in armor.

"Do you have a death wish or somethin'?"

It's the first human voice she's heard in the swamp tonight. She's quick to turn, finding a man, broad and bending. Picking up something from the mud. Hoping that it's her fairy cross, but more annoyed to find that its her alligator's tooth. The man regards it, impressed, before pocketing it.

"Excuse me?"

"This is the second time I've seen you out here." His voice is impossibly deep. A gravel road personified. "Taunting the wolves and now gators."

"I wasn't taunting the alligator." She struggles to find the word for what she was doing that doesn't make her sound deranged. "I was – admiring him."

"Fine. Admiring them. Either way, doesn't seem to make much common sense."

"I'm still alive." He's moving in a wide circle around her. As if she's the danger in the bayou. "Nothing bad happened."

"Just because the end result isn't a disaster, doesn't mean the action before ain't stupid."

His mouth is set against her. Lips still full even as he purses them. "What's your problem?"

"What's yours? Wandering into the bayou outside of a full moon like you're courting danger."

She gets it now. Behind the aggression is a question. One that she can't possibly answer because even she doesn't understand her lack of regard for her own safety. The why of her actions or how she can look at a creature with rows of gnashing teeth and think – Mine.

"You're the wolf that protected me." His shoulders relax and there's enough warmth in his eyes now that it puts her at ease.

"And you're the vampire that smells more like a wolf than the dead."

"I am." It's interesting, hearing from him how she smells. She wonders if that's also how Marcel perceives her or if it's only this man. Asking either feels like a bad idea.

"You ought to be careful out here unless you want to die an awful death. Only an alpha can control their wolf state. If you'd run across anyone else, you would have been dead months ago."

He still keeps his distance from her. Somehow braver as a wolf than now as a man. "It's nice of you to care, but –."

"I don't." He's too quick to protest. It wrings a smile from the edges of her mouth. Barely a hint that she's pleased. "Just a fair warning." He explains, trying to recover, but Elena has already seen through him. In the quiet, she can hear his heart beating. Racing while his face remains composed. The way mud squelches under his boot as he shifts uncomfortably. And then voices. Men tramping through the bayou. Excited and bloodthirsty celebrations. And she knows one of them. "What? You're hearing something, aren't ya?"

"Diego and the others." Her hand clenches, digging through her pockets and remembering why they are empty. Fear over being caught spiking. "I don't know why they're here, but they're getting closer."

"You're with Marcel's people?" Distrust fights the compassion in his dark eyes.

"No! Yes. It's complicated." She settles on something closest to the truth. She should run. Leave before Diego spots her here, but they don't sound friendly and she can't leave this man alone to deal with them. "I'm not here with them tonight. They – they can't find me here. I'm not supposed to be here."

She wants him to run with her, but he surprises her. "Hide." He's authoritative and commanding. In a way even Marcel isn't. "Under the skin. It should hide your scent from them."

"Are you going to be okay?" She backs away, towards the edge of the water. Eyeing the groove of a tupelo tree, thick enough at its base to hide behind. She'd chosen a poor spot to stop. A clearing that now left her feeling too exposed.

"They're just here to rough us up a bit." He assures her with one final glance back before she slips behind the tree and underneath the pelt. Curling her body into a ball and letting the skin envelop her completely. The moment the other vampires emerge through the clearing, they settle into a quiet that is more eerie than their yelling. "Is it already that time of the month, boys?"

"You're confident for someone who has no real power." It's Diego that responds and it's hard to marry the menace in his voice with the man who passionately advocates for his people amongst the other leaders of the city.

"Yeah, I suppose I am. Easy to be bold when you've waited the danger out. Tell me. What's it like going to sleep as a coward?" He's taunting them. Inviting the violence. Assured that it won't go far beyond that.

But the grunts are so loud, she shoulders the pelt further up her shoulders. Pressing her ears tight, letting the fur muffle out some of the sounds and feeling ashamed for it. She can't let Diego see her out here. There'd be too many questions. But she can't bear the sounds of this man in pain. Not a man, but a wolf.

Her wolf.

Diego and the others have no right to hurt her wolf so brazenly like this. Calculated. Storming the swamp on the one night he is the most defenseless. As anger builds in her chest, warming her from the inside, the pelt comes alive and warms her from the outside.

Clinging to her skin, strong enough that even she can't pull it off. Rage leaks into panic as she tries to unwrap the skin from her wrist. The more she yanks at it, the stronger it grips. Until her arm no longer feels like her own. Once it has a small claim, it takes the rest of her easily.

Swarming her body until it is unrecognizable. Her feet feel like her own but elongated somehow. Fingers, sharpened into claws. Her heaving chest has broadened, taking in more air that she's used to. Dizzying, she waits for it to dissipate before she stands. Uses the tree to balance out this new height. She takes an awkward step forward, a clawed paw plunging into the water where her own should have been. Fire licks her skin but doesn't singe. Her jaw feels strange. Her entire body feels –

Wrong.

Elena rises from her hiding place behind the tree, not as a girl or a wolf, but a monster. Standing on hind legs, leaving massive prints in the mud. A size that can't be ignored. It's awkward though, navigating this body and her steps forward are halting. A great hulking werewolf, truly half-man and half-wolf. Black as midnight with two piercing golden eyes.

When she tries to speak, the only sound that comes out is a low snarl. Her lip lifts, bearing an impressive set of teeth.

"Shit! Diego!" One of the vampires stumbles back, narrowly avoiding falling to the ground but grabbing another of the Nightwalkers to stabilize himself. "What the fuck is that?"

"Diego!" His friend yells out, clinging to the first man. "The wolves are supposed to be human!"

"Mercy was right." A third man speaks as the first two run from the clearing. "We're stupid for coming out here."

Diego regards her, astounded if not a little afraid. He watches his men run away, affords Elena one last look before he follows suit. Not once recognizing her through the disguise.

She falls to her hands, squatting with her arms between her legs. The only way this body can get close enough to her wolf. He turns to her, nursing his side with what she's sure is a broken rib. The bruise circling his left eye already beginning to form. She tries to ask for help, but all that comes out is a low whine.

"What the hell? That's not an ordinary wolf skin, is it?" He groans while sitting up, moving his head carefully like he has a concussion. "Shit, you need help don't you? Here." He looks her over. Her shoulders, elbows, focusing on her joints. Finding a line of her skin showing through from her wrist to her elbow. He starts to separate it from her arm until her clawed paw becomes her hand again and the wolf skin slips off, falling off her shoulders to the ground. "What are you?"

He looks up at her, their faces much closer now that she was back in her own body. "I'm not – I'm nothing. I'm just a vampire."

"No, you're not." He says it with such certainty that she knows she won't be able to convince him otherwise.

"It was the wolf skin." The gift from the crone. She should have ditched it in Texas the second she left that creepy, yellow house. Even now though, knowing how it felt to have her body transformed against her will, the idea of ditching the skin makes her sick.

"Did you know it could do that?"

"No. It was a gift." She gathers the skin in her lap, still crouched next to him. Uses the edge of her shirt to clean off the bits of dirt from the skin while she recalls the crone's words. "All they said about it was that it was for hiding."

"Seems like it does a hell of a lot more than that."

He leans in to get a closer look at the skin and instinctively she holds it tighter to her body. "I'm sorry. I didn't bring Diego or the Nightwalkers here. I promise. I don't know how they followed me."

"They didn't." He presses a hand in the ground, moving to stand and bringing her with him. "They make it a point every now and then to come out here. Get some of their aggression out on us. Whatever goes on in the city, whatever has been going on lately, seems to have riled them up more than normal."

"What, they just come out here when you're weak to beat you up." He nods solemnly. "I didn't know."

"How could you? The only time I've ever seen you out in the swamps was when I was a wolf. None of them would dare risk that. You either don't know much about what's been happening here or you're too reckless to care."

He tries to brush off some of the mud and dirt from his pants though they looked worse for wear even before the attack.

"I wanted to say thank you for that" The wolf skin lays over her arms, crossed at her chest. "For staying with me. In the fog. With the witches."

"You came all the way out here to thank me?" A hint of surprise in his raised eyebrow. He looks at her like she's a puzzle that he already knows he'll never figure out.

"And I was curious," she admits. She's been out here longer than she'd planned and without the magic of the fairy cross, she will have to return to the Abattoir as herself. "I've been in New Orleans for a few months now. I've heard whispers about the wolves. People skirting the edge of saying what they want to say. But no one will tell me what happened. It was time to go to the source."

"I was only a kid when it happened," he sighs, working his mouth in a funny way like he's reluctant to tell her. "I don't remember much. Just what I was told. The vampires and witches wanted to cut us out. We weren't as easy to control as the humans and I guess that didn't sit well with the ruling powers. So, Marcel –."

"Wait. Marcel?"

"Yeah. The one that likes to be called king." He continues without being prompted. "He had a witch, one of those Deveraux women, curse us. Pervert the nature they claim to love and trap us as wolves for the better part of a month."

"Which of the Devereaux witches did it?" She's not sure which answer she wants, Sophie or Jane-Anne.

"Not sure of her name. Just that she died shortly afterwards. Shit luck. We need the witch who crafted the curse to lift it." As he tells her the news, her heart lifts knowing that it can't possibly have been either woman. Still very much alive. The man's attention wanders to the waters before shooting back to her. "You shouldn't be here."

"I'm fine. Diego and the others don't know that was me and – ."

"I don't mean the swamp. I mean the city," he warns. A serious man with a serious expression. Any mirth in his face is only ever a hint. "Hell, the state even. You're tangling yourself up in issues that go back farther than you were even conceived."

"I'm older than I look."

"That may be true, but still. You shouldn't get caught up in business that isn't yours."

"I have a feeling I'm too involved now to look away." She hesitates at the end, only now realizing that they never exchanged names. Feeling awkward to have gotten this far, going against Diego for some man who doesn't even have a name.

Not some man. A voice in the back of her head whispers. Her wolf. He's one in the same.

"I'm Jackson," he introduces with a handshake, sensing her discomfort. "Leader of the cursed Crescent pack who are all currently, well likely partying. Enjoying their one night as humans while I chat with a strange, nameless vampire who saved me from a beating tonight."

He smiles, fully, and she likes it. Prefers it a bit more to the stoic version he has been presenting her with all night. She reasons that the risk of him knowing her true name is low considering he spends a majority of his time unable to speak. And when he's not, he's not likely to run to Marcel to reveal her secret. There's a part of her, bigger than she wants to admit, that has also been yearning to hear anyone say her own name to her.

"Elena," she tells him. Giving him more power over her than he knows. "You can call me Elena. And you're welcome."

"I should probably get back to my people."

She nods, folding the skin and returning it safely to her bag. Wanting to stay longer here with Jackson but knowing she would need to return to the city. Wondering how she would confront Marcel about his lie. By omission or not, a lie was still a lie. It feels ridiculous to say even before it comes out of her mouth, but she commits. "Maybe I can meet them sometime."

"You're weird. Especially for a vampire." Jackson laughs and she enjoys the sound, deep and rumbling the way a wolf sounds. He digs his hand in his pockets and at first she assumes it's a shy gesture until he pulls out her cross, handing it to her in his open palm "You – ah dropped this."

"Thank you." Streaks of red fade from his hair the moment she takes it back. Relieved. He has no idea the kind of gift he's returned to her.

They part at the water's edge, him moving deeper into the swamp towards his people and she into the city towards hers. It's difficult to feel as though she belongs to anyone though. Being with Jackson tonight, however brief, tasted so much like the truth that can't keep denying how bland the half-truths she's been served now for months taste. Both Jane-Anne and Marcel have been hiding secrets from her. She's malnourished.

Crossing back into the city limits sees her mentally checking her armor, repairing the cracks before she returns to the slaughterhouse to get answers. To confront Marcel, pin him down with the truth so he can't continue to avoid the issue. Needs the truth like she's addicted to it. Needs Marcel to say it so she can love him. Needs to love him because if she can't, then everything she's been telling herself for the last few months is a lie.

And more than anything, she hates a lie.

When she arrives back to her side of town, the trepidation of the imagined confrontation has left her weighed down. Pacing outside the doors, willing time to freeze because she's not ready to find out if she picked the wrong guy again. If she's so screwed up that her only healthy relationship was with her childhood friend.

Stefan, who stalked her for months and premeditated their meeting in ways she still can't comprehend.

Damon, who had seen her as a game. Toyed with her as much to mess with his brother's feelings as her own.

Lucy, who she wanted so desperately to love but she could only see Bonnie. And for her, Elena was only a replacement for –

"Katherine?"

"Marcel?" He looks exhausted, walking toward her with his shoulders sagging. She didn't think vampires could have bags under their eyes, but he was proof that she was wrong. They shine, deep pools that refuse to relent and his jaw set so tight that she can practically hear the muscles straining. "Are you okay?" She can't help the questions, even if they aren't the right ones. "What's wrong?"

"I've just come from St. Anne's." He sounds so lost. Hurt and helpless. Her own siren song. "It's – There's been – I can't explain it."

Her arms are around him without thinking, their heads glued together as she guides them through the crowds in the Abattoir's lower level. Mercy cranes her neck past Thierry to watch them and Elena shakes her head in a warning.

Keep cool. Keep the party going. Keep watch.

Mercy is, if anything, a master at observation. She laughs loudly, a sound that doesn't sound as forced as it should. Thierry doesn't have much in the way of humor. Far too stern to warrant such a laugh and he looks around confused. Catches not only Elena pushing her way to the stairs, but Astrid parting the crowd in a straight line towards her. Over her shoulder, she can make out Thierry cutting into Astrid's path with his firm, impassive face keeping her off the stairs.

It would be quicker to take him to her room, but even now she can't. They climb the second set of stairs together, loosening their grip on each other when the weight of the crowd is lifted. Though when he turns to shut the door, she still has her hand in his.

"Marcel, please tell me what's going on."

"Father Kiernan's nephew beheaded nine of his fellow seminary students. What he did – It shouldn't have been possible. He was a good kid. Quiet. Something like this, it wasn't in him."

"Sean did that?" Marcel's grip on her gets tighter. "Where is he now?"

"He didn't make it. Turned the knife on himself after what he did. Kiernan mentioned that Sean was acting different. Mean. But just assumed it was stress. Shit, I have to get downstairs. I told him that we would help after the cops did their thing. Clean up the mess so he didn't have to see it."

"Wait!" she calls after him, holding on to his arm. "I'm coming with you."

As they walk back down the stairs, Marcel glances at Thierry while Elena makes eye-contact with Mercy. Her bright red hair bobs through the crowd, followed quickly by Thierry's serious expression. The four of them meet outside the slaughterhouse doors and Marcel catches up the others.

He doesn't trust anyone else. Not for this work.

As they walk through the city to the church, no one mentions Diego though Elena catches Mercy frantically shooting off texts to him. Worried. Scolding. Marcel needs him. She needs him. Elena could tell her that he's safe. Likely scared somewhere. But then she'd have to explain herself and it was always her least favorite thing to do.

So, she let's Mercy worry.

Until they step through the doors of St. Anne's, then it's Elena's turn for concern. Blood pools on the floor, soaking into the wood. Overturned pews and the altar, broken in the middle. Where blood drips down the side of the cloth, Elena can guess that is where a body lay. The aftermath paints a more brutal picture than she had conjured when Marcel first described it to her.

She expects the blood to elicit a more inhuman reaction, but all she feels is disgust. Absently twisting the ring around her finger while Marcel breaks out cleaning supplies from the closet.

No one speaks much while they work. No one questions the task at hand. Bonded by either adoration or loyalty to Marcel. They work to setting the furniture right. Tossing what they can't fix. Marcel makes notes about items that will need to be replaced. They do their best to clean the floor, but the rugs are a lost cause. Another expense that Marcel will happily pay. Rugs big enough to cover the stains. Envelope sins that even they, in all their depravity, can't discuss openly.

Sean was a human. And humans were meant to be better.

"We aren't the only monsters in the city," she mutters to herself, exhausted on her knees. When she moves to stand, she catches Marcel staring at her like he isn't sure what to think of her. She doesn't wait for his appraisal before she moves to the next blood stain.

The following days afterwards are a blur, but those bloated, bloody wooden floors stick with her through it all.

Through the small ceremony she attends with Marcel as Father Kiernan lays to rest his nephew among those that Care chose to forget, unknown souls and criminals alike.

Through St. Anne's closing its doors and Marcel failing to persuade Kiernan to stay. The man leaves with a drink in his eyes and Elena holds Marcel that night while he whispers his concerns about the humans losing influence with Kiernan gone. What the witches might be emboldened enough to try.

Through the funerals held for the nine massacred students. He insists that she walk through the streets on his arm, fashioned in mourning black. When she asks why, he solemnly looks at her and tells her simply that every king needs a queen.

"I need mine today," his voice cracks. The stress of his position wearing him down. It's the lowest she's ever seen it and the sight pulls at her. New Orleans is devouring her compassion and she doesn't know where to draw the line.

Thierry is at Marcel's side, a man made of silent stone. Mercy and Diego follow the procession. Her eyes downcast while Diego's are wide, flitting from side to side. Anticipating the monster he still hasn't told anyone about yet. The level of loyalty he has with his Nightwalkers is inspiring, if not worrisome. Elena wonders when he will tell Marcel and what. But he must also sense that the city is sitting on a powder keg. And he doesn't want to be the one to set it on fire with tales of a wolfman.

When they pass by the remaining human members of the Council, Marcel and Elena both nod. The gesture is returned. But the witches only watch them pass with hard lines set into their face as if Marcel personally massacred those kids. Elena keeps her head high and her chin haughty. If not just to keep the fear of Bastianna's cold eyes from sending her running out of the room.

Jane-Anne Deveraux and Monique both keep a considerable distance from Sophie, who seems so shaken that Elena wants to step into her sister's place and keep the younger witch standing upright. But it would draw the wrong kind of attention, so she keeps walking to the front of the room to sit next to Marcel while Sophie struggles alone.

Later, after condolences are given and Marcel tirelessly works to strengthen his relationship with the humans he hadn't paid much attention to with Kiernan around, they return to the Abattoir together. Elena undresses in Marcel's room, letting the black dress hit the floor. Sliding into bed next to him and finding comfort in the skin-to-skin contact with a man she knows is lying to her. Her head swirls and he leans his against her chest, wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her in even closer.

"You're worried," she begins. These days, it's all he ever needs to launch into his growing list of troubles.

"Kiernan is with the humans, but he was also my friend. I'm worried about him. How he'll handle all this."

"It's not just that, is it," she prompts him to continue, her own voice sounding so far away that she wonders if Marcel notices. He must not because he continues without pause.

"No. The witches." He shifts next to her, leaving her side to sit up. His body can't contain the energy of the accusation. "I can't help but feel they had something to do with this. No way a shy boy like Sean does something as atrocious as – that." He can't bring himself to call it what it was. A massacre. "No way. And with Kiernan gone, the humans are aimless. They'll be too busy vying for influence among themselves to care about the issues between us and the witches."

"You're sure it was the witches?"

A piece, a very big part of her wants to pack her bags and move to the quiet of the bayou. There's a simple truth out there that she's been missing. The witches and vampires are too invested in their own futures. Their truths become muddled with desire and it's too difficult to make out what is real.

"It wasn't Sean." He says it with such emphasis, like he's already made up his mind without any proof. "You think a human is capable of something like that?"

"I'm not sure what to think sometimes."

Marcel doesn't stop to question her meaning which is just as well. It's the truth and she' s not yet prepared to explain how she's come to question him as well as the covens.

"Without Kiernan around, the witches will make a grab for power. They had a vested interest in distracting him. Thierry reports that the Nightwalkers are disappearing at an alarming rate."

"Thierry?" she asks, not bothering to hide her confusion. "Not Diego?"

"No. Diego's been a bit M.I.A. since we cleaned up the church. I think it's all getting to him."

He's too anxious even for the bed. She watches him pace around his room, making note of his nervous habit like the way he runs his thumb over his bottom lip. Between Astrid and now Diego, Elena is on edge too. In a sick way, she's grateful for the massacre. It's been a convenient excuse for her own anxiety. "It sounds like it's all getting to you too."

"No, I can see it all happening. Someone else is narrating and the story unfolds except there's nothing I can do to stop it." Marcel looks at her, but it feels like he's looking through her. Like she isn't even in the room anymore. "The moral center of the city is gone and without it, both sides will flex our power until only one is left standing. And I'm not so certain that the vampires will come out on the other side alive, much less in power. The witches are strong and if they unite then I'm not sure what could stop them."

"Marcel, what are you talking about?" He stops pacing. Looks at her and she's back in the room again. Elena clutches the blanket at her chest, inching closer to Marcel.

"War." He draws out the word with a kiss on the back of her hand and she shivers.

It all comes back to a bloody church floor.

A/N: As things start to ramp up, I get more and more excited for a certain hybrid to join the scene and discover his very much not dead doppelganger. At this point, which side are you rooting for Elena to take?