IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EMPTY BALLROOM, a raven-haired guy was being held captive. Both hands were chained up with animal traps on each side of his body. His blue shirt opened, revealing his body covered in blood. His head hung languidly with his blue eyes almost completely closed.

Slowly, his eyes opened again, and he lifted his head when someone entered the room. "This was much different in my head," he muttered, squinting his eyes at the person who had just came, a younger guy with light brown hair and a duffel bag in his hand.

The person ignored him and instead he yelled out, "Klaus, I'm here!" And he turned his body towards the door, expecting to see someone else coming. "Let's do this."

Two other people entered the room. One of them was a woman with long blonde hair, while the other one was an older guy with dark blonde hair. The two of them walked in matching steps, and they also stopped in unison, standing not far from them.

"Oh good, a hero," the male one, the one who had been called by Klaus, exclaimed. "What do you want?"

The brown-haired guy tossed the bag in his hand to their feet. "I'm here to make a deal."

"Stefan, what are you doing?" the raven-haired guy asked weakly in the background, closing his eyes tiredly.

"Eight stakes made of white oak," the brown-haired guy, Stefan, continued, ignoring the raven-haired guy again. "The part of Wickery Bridge that you forgot to burn."

Klaus looked over at the girl next to him with a blaming look, while the girl shook her head in disbelief and muttered, "That's impossible."

"Actually it's not," Stefan responded, with a poker face. "Finn is dead."

Both of their eyes flew up in shock at the news, and the hurt look was plain on the blonde girl's face as she hissed through her gritted teeth, "You killed my brother?"

Stefan didn't answer the question and instead he took a step closer to Klaus. "Damon in exchange for the last eight weapons that can kill you."

"And how do I know there aren't any more left?"

"Because there aren't."

Even though Stefan said those words in the most convincing way, without the slightest hesitation on his face, it seemed that it was still not enough to convince Klaus as the hybrid replied, "Let's be certain, shall we?" Then, he walked over to the raven-haired guy's side and ordered to him, "Leave."

"No," the raven-haired guy, Damon, answered stubbornly.

"Go on. Leave."

"Nik, he's my plaything not yours," the blonde girl whined, sounding like a typical spoiled child who had been told to share one of their belongings.

But Klaus ignored her and instead he took Damon's jaw roughly and forced the oldest Salvatore to look at him. "I said, go home."

And as Klaus let go of his jaw, Damon began to pull one of his hand out from the animal trap, peeling the flesh off of it in the process. His painful groan echoed throughout the room, making Stefan close his eyes for a moment because he couldn't bear to see it.

"Alright, stop, stop, stop," Klaus finally ordered, "before you hurt yourself." A chuckle escaped his lips when Damon really stopped trying to pull his hand out of the traps. "Well, seeing that he can finally be compelled." He stepped closer carefully between the pools of Damon's blood that was below them, not wanting to dirty his shoes. "Now," he grabbed Damon by his jaw again, "minus the stake that's in my brother, how many more stakes are out there that can kill me?"

Damon weakly answered, "Eleven."

"Eleven! Really?" Klaus turned to the other Salvatore with a sardonic smile. "So, not eight then."

"You really shouldn't have lied," the blonde girl chimed in, looking over at Stefan as well.

It made Stefan forcefully promise, "I'll get you the other three."

"Yeah, that would be nice," the hybrid remarked, and he smirked. "Or since you lied, maybe I'll just compel your brother to chew out his own tongue."

A frown appeared on Stefan's face as he spat, "What is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with you?!" Klaus spat back, raising his tone drastically. His jaw tightened and his eyes glistened with anger. "Do you really have no appreciation for me? I've given you someone to hate, to loathe, a target," he pointed at himself, "for all of your anger, so you don't have to turn it on yourself. I've given you life purpose," he stepped closer to the younger guy, "as your friend." Walking past him, he let out a sardonic laugh. "I really think you should be thanking me."

Within a flash, Stefan had pinned the hybrid to the wall, a white oak stake in his hand. But before he could stick it into the original's heart, Klaus was already holding back his wrist.

"Step down," Klaus warned, his tone laced with danger, "or you both die."

Between his shallow and fast breaths, Stefan slowly let go of the stake and let Klaus take it. "There," the hybrid exclaimed flatly, "Now you only have to get me the other two."

"This is ridiculous," the blonde girl remarked, and scoffed. She walked over to Damon and unchained him, making him fall to his knees.

Klaus frowned and started walking up to her, showing his back to Stefan as the younger Salvatore turned around. Seeing another opportunity coming, Stefan didn't waste any time. He took out another stake from his sleeve and thrust it to Klaus' back who was right in front of him, suprising everyone in the room.

But until a few second later, nothing happened. Klaus' anger immediately turned to confusion as he yanked the stake off his back and realized that it was a white oak stake, but he swore he didn't feel anything.

"Ooh, the stake didn't work." Another blonde girl suddenly appeared on the doorway, catching everyone's attention in an instant. She was leaning her shoulder against the door frame with arms folded across her chest. "I wonder what's wrong with it." She pretended to think it over, then let out a dramatic gasp. "Could it be that it's running out of battery?"

Klaus shifted his gaze from the other blonde girl to the stake in his hand as he concluded, "This isn't a white oak stake."

Stefan's eyes widened in horror at the other blonde girl. "Bella, what have you done?" he asked incredulously.

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Earlier that day

Realizing that no one could be trusted, Bella started paying more attention to every little thing around her. And her suspicion were correct. Everyone was up to something.

She learned that there was a sapling of the original white oak tree that was planted back in the same place and was cut down and used to make the Wickery Bridge. It was her family's company that chopped down the tree, which was why Rebekah had showed more interest about her family. Damon found about it as well, with the help of his former teacher. But before he could get his hands on the tree, Rebekah had beat him to it.

Bur their strange behaviour didn't stop there. Even though he wasn't in town, Kol always tried to keep in touch with her. He sent her text massages in an hourly basis. He also called her really often. But every time she asked where he was, he didn't want to answer. She had tried to ask Rebekah about it, but the youngest Mikaelson always tried to dodge that question. And then, there were her brothers. Apparently, both of them would rather have spent time in Alaric's apartment these days. They said they wanted to help the history teacher with his multiple personality disorder, but of course she didn't just buy it.

If this was another chapter of her brothers versus the originals and none of them wanted her to take part on it, she had guessed that both sides would send someone to distract her. From the originals' side, it was either Rebekah or Kol. While from her brothers' side, she was quite sure it was Caroline. It seemed that her guess was right when Caroline asked her to hangout out of the blue, and ever since they met up at the Grill, Caroline had been babbling about how much she missed Tyler but her babbling was something that was repeated, like she actually had nothing to talk about anymore but she needed to keep talking in order to make Bella stay.

After a while pretending to play along, Bella decided to take action. She lured Caroline to the girl's house where she knew that no one else was there.

"Care, can I trust you with a secret?" Bella asked as Caroline returned to the living room with two drinks in hand.

"Yeah, of course," Caroline answered, putting down the drinks on the table and sitting next to her. "You can trust me with anything."

Bella's lips twisted into a smile as she saw Caroline looked like she was ready to lend her an ear. But then her smiled quickly replaced by a fake guilty look. "I put cyanide in Elena's coffee this morning."

Caroline's eyes widened in an instant. "Youㅡwhat?!"

"Also, I think I accidentally removed Bonnie's heart from her body."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Am I? Then why hasn't Bonnie return any of your texts or calls?"

Bella knew that Bonnie was at the Mikaelsons' Mansion at the moment. She saw Rebekah took the young witch this morning when she tried to follow her. But Caroline didn't know that. And Bella would use it for her advantage.

For a while, Caroline just stared at her in shock, her eyes still widened and her mouth opened. It was obvious that she was trying to decide whether Bella was telling the truth or not. They had been friends for quite a while now, but Bella was someone who was hard to guess.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Bella spoke again, her face became more serious. "Even just the thought of losing your friends forever hurts. Imagine if that really happened."

A frown appeared on Caroline's face and she blinked in confusion. "Okay now I'm really confused."

The Salvatore girl tilted her head to the side. "How long do you think you can distract me?"

"Distract you?" Caroline forced a dry chuckle and shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"You really have to do better than that if you want to lie to a liar," Bella stated mockingly. "I know my brothers are up to something. And the fact that you've been distracting me just confirmed my suspicions that you were in on it."

The Forbes girl fell silent once again. She looked like she really didn't know what to say about that matter.

"Based on experience, their main goal has always been to destroy Klaus. But all the Originals are linked right now. If one dies, they all dies." Bella sucked in a breath and confessed, "Let's just say I don't really want them to die."

Caroline carefully asked, "Because you still have feelings for your crazy ex?"

"And Rebekah." She knew that denying it would only waste more time, which was why she didn't even try. "She's my friend too, Care. Do you really want to hurt me like that by letting her die?"

There were two ways to get Caroline to help her. The first one was through intimidation, and the second one was through manipulation. She had used intimidation when she first met her, now she chose to use manipulation.

"You know what I like the most about you?" Bella went on, knowing that she was almost get her as she spotted the hesitant look on Caroline's face. "Your ability to see the good in people. If I could easily see the good in Rebekah, that she's just like the rest of us, I'm sure you can too. And I know you want nothing more than to free Tyler from his sire bond with Klaus, but do you really think it'd be worth it? Because even with the sire bond, Tyler would still be alive. But they wouldn't."

The art of manipulation was not about making people do what you want them to do, but rather getting them to want to do what you want them to do. Bella understood that very well.

After fighting with her inner self for a while, Caroline finally gave up. "What do you need me to do?"

"First, tell me about everything," Bella demanded, suppressing her smirk so that Caroline wouldn't realize that she was just manipulating her.

"Your brothers found some more white oak," Caroline explained shortly, "And they're planning to use it on Rebekah."

Bella wasn't even surprise to hear the last sentence since there were only two originals left in town. It was clear that they knew they wouldn't stand a chance against Klaus, which was why they chose Rebekah as their target. But she wouldn't just let that happen.

"And where is this white oak?" Bella asked again.

Caroline shrugged as she answered, "Every where. There are 12 of it. And they distributed it among us."

"Us?"

"Me, Elena, Matt, and Ric."

Bella winced as she heard the names. "Where's yours?"

Caroline got up and went to her room. And a few minutes later, she returned with a pale wooden stake in her hand, and she handed it to Bella.

And as her eyes landed on the stake, an idea suddenly poppep into Bella's mind. "You don't mind me borrowing it, do you?" she inquired pleasantly, taking the stake from Caroline's hand and getting up from the couch.

Caroline shook her head, and gulped. Her eyes followed the white oak stake Bella had just put in her bag. "So how are we gonna stop them?"

"You're gonna pretend that everything is okay, that you did a really good job of distracting me, that I didn't suspect a thing." The Salvatore girl looked up to Caroline and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "And I'm going to take care the rest."

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"Here's the thing," the newly arrived blonde, Bella, began. "Team Brothers have set their goal of destroying Team Originals long ago, and that still hasn't changed no matter how many failures they've gotten. While Team Originals, by their very nature too powerful and short tempered, wouldn't be that easy to destroy and also would most likely take revenge on Team Brothers." She straightened herself up and walked closer to them. A self-satisfied smile was on her face as she went on, "And Team Bella, surprisingly in the mood to be a peacekeeper, has decided to do something about it."

Realizing the confusion still lingered on the other's faces (except for Damon who was only half-conscious and was closing his eyes at the moment), Bella pulled out her phone from her jacket pocket. After playing one of the newly recorded videos, she handed it over to Klaus. "Here, have a look."

Meanwhile Stefan just stood still and gave his little sister a question look, the other blonde girl, Rebekah, leaned over to Klaus' side so she could watch the video too. It was hard to not to be curious with all the confusing things.

It was a video of her making the fake white oak stakes. And the video went on with her swapping each of the real white oak stakes that were hidden in several different places with the fake ones.

Bella knew she could just save all the troubles of making the fake white oak stakes and just stole the real ones. But because the location of each stake was different, it would take some time to find all of the stakes. She couldn't risk them noticing her plan because one of them realized that their hidden stake was missing, at least not before she finished finding all of it.

"So, those are the fake ones?" Rebekah concluded after finishing watching it, her eyes glanced over at the duffel bag on the floor.

"Yep."

"And the real ones are still in your possesion?"

"Uh-huh."

Klaus looked up to the Salvatore girl as he guessed, "You want something from this."

"Just a regular deal," Bella confirmed, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal. "I'm not gonna use it against any of you, as long as none of you try to do anything to harm my brothers." Her eyes glanced at the two originals in front of her in turn. "But I'm gonna keeping it... as an insurance that you will keep your part of the deal."

Klaus quirked a brow, and his eyes twinkled with the very devil. "And what's our insurance that you will keep your part of the deal?"

"Nothing," the youngest Salvatore replied casually. "You just have to trust me. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't bother to do all of this."

"What about your brothers?" Rebekah spoke up, eyes glancing sharply at the other Salvatores. "How do we know they won't use it against us again? They already killed one of us."

"They don't know the location of the stakes." Bella gave the female original a reassuring look. "Only I do." Seeing the change of Klaus' expression after hearing it, she quickly went on, "Now before you try to think of a way to get rid of me so that no one could get the stakes, I'm gonna tell you the best part of it." She flashed out a lopsided smile to the hybrid. "If anything happens to me, I have made sure that the stakes will fall into Katherine's hands. And I think we can all agree that Katherine has always known how to make good use of things."

Klaus tensed up for a moment, while Rebekah winced at the name. Stefan looked like he was trying to figure out if she was serious or was just bluffing.

But Bella wasn't bluffing. It was easy to get in contact with Katherine. She might have only spent around a year with Katherine but she had learned a lot of things from the doppelganger, including about Katherine herself. Katherine was probably a thousand miles away from here, but Bella knew she would always keeping tabs on her enemy in order to be one step ahead. And since her biggest enemy Klaus was here in Mystic Falls, Bella had expected her to have someone in town to be on the lookout for her.

Long short story, Bella had found that someone and got Katherine's contact. And she also had compelled a random human to contact Katherine and take all the stakes to her if she didn't come and check up on the stakes tomorrow. With Klaus, she knew she needed to be extra careful.

"You're bluffing," Klaus accused, after a while just narrowing his eyes at her.

"Then try me," Bella challenged, with a smug smirk. "Let's find out for sure."

Klaus looked back at her phone screen and replayed the video, watching that again for the second time. He watched it intently, like he was hoping to find a loophole or something.

Bella tried hard not to roll her eyes at the hybrid. "So, do we have a deal?"

Klaus didn't answer and just kept on watching. A small frown rolled over his face when the video finally ended. "That's only ten stakes," he observed, "There should be eleven more."

"No, it's actually eleven," Bella quickly corrected, snatching the phone from him. "I just didn't record the last one."

"Or you actually forgot to steal it from your brothers, just like you forgot to steal the one that killed my brother."

Shit. It really wasn't easy to fool Klaus.

There were two stakes that she hadn't had time to replace; Matt's and Ric's. Since Bella had never been invited to Matt's house, she needed to compel a human to search for the stake in the house. But the human worked like a snail, really slow. Even worse, in the end he couldn't find it anyway.

It had occurred to her to just kill Matt so she could go inside his house and find the stake on her own. But then another thought crossed Bella's mind, what if the stake wasn't in his house? What if he brought it with him to the Grill?

But by the time Bella went to the Grill to find out, she knew she was already late. Matt's stake was already used on Finn. Panic swept over her as she saw the oldest Mikaelson brust into flame. She knew Rebekah took Bonnie this morning to unlink them, but what if Bonnie hadn't succeeded yet?

But her panic quickly disappeared as she dialed Rebekah's number and the call was immediately picked up. But since she couldn't bear to be the one to tell about her brother's death, she quickly hung up. And without wasting any more time, she went to Alaric's apartment to find the last stake. But before she could find it, she got a text from Caroline informing about Stefan wanted to go against Klaus alone.

She had no choice but to postpone the search. She knew Rebekah kidnapped Damon earlier that day, but she could believe Rebekah wouldn't just kill him because he was her brother and they were friends. But Klaus? She wouldn't be so sure. That was why after securing the ten stakes she had found, she quickly left to the Mikaelson Mansion.

She had thought that Klaus would not pay attention to such detail, but guess she was wrong.

"You get the last stake from them and bring it to me," Klaus spoke again, his face was dead serious, "then we have a deal."

She might be a blonde and a liar, but she wasn't stupid. It wasn't the right time to continue the lie, especially not in front of someone like Klaus. "Fine," she agreed, turning on her heels and starting to leave, feeling that Stefan could take care of their big brother alone.

"Bella, wait."

Bella didn't stop when she heard that voice, knowing that the person could easily catch up with her. "If you want to persuade me to give you the stakes so you can destroy it," she glanced at Rebekah who was now walking next to her, "I'm sorry, Bex, but I'm afraid you're just gonna waste your breath."

"So you will never hand it over?" the female original responded, refusing to just give up. "Not even for the sake of friendship?"

"Manipulation no longer works on me."

"Manipulation that doesn't work on you or our friendship that doesn't mean anything to you?"

Bella's steps stopped at the accusation, causing Rebekah to stop as well. She had always hated when people made false accusations at her, but when she turned to Rebekah, she didn't feel that she could be angry with her at all. Not after what Rebekah had been through today, since she knew for a fact that it was her own brothers' doing.

"Look, I'm sorry for what happened to your brother," she began, eyes staring sympathetically at the female original, "I know you two didn't have a good relationship, but I also know he was still your brother. And I understand if you feel like avenging his death to my brothers, but for the same reason why you want to do it, please understand why I can't just let that happen."

They were friends but she knew what she asked was too much. But she also knew that if anyone could understand the sacred bond of family better than her, it was Rebekah. But of course she would never ask Rebekah to forgive her brothers. Because if the situation was reversed, she wouldn't be willing to forgive her brother's killer.

"I know it was my brothers who tried to pick a fight first, but your family is too powerful. It's really easy for you to kill us, I bet you can even do it in your sleep. That's why I have do this, that's why I have to do everything I could to protect myself and my own family."

There was a thoughful silence before Rebekah finally said, "I understand."

A faint smile slowly worked its way across Bella's face and into her eyes. "Thank you."

WHEN SHE GOT HOME later on that night, Stefan filled her and Damon in about what he found out when killed Finn. It turned out, when an Original died, every vampire turned from their bloodline would die along with them. They were really lucky Finn wasn't the one who created their bloodline. Otherwise they were tantamount to committing suicide.

In all honesty, Bella didn't know how to feel about it. Kol was the one who turned her. If he died, she would die along with him. But it still wasn't her own life that she was worried about from the thought of if he died.

Stefan had asked her again about who turned her. She could answer it with the truth and inderectly helped spare Kol's life, but what about Rebekah? It was clear that they hadn't given up on their plan to kill the Originals. And if it turned out that Rebekah wasn't the one who created their bloodline, she knew they would likely planning to use their last stake, the one that was still in Alaric's possesion, against her. And of course she wouldn't just let it happen, which was why she refused to tell them who turned her.

All the work she put in today to make her plan work had worn her out. She needed a good night sleep more than anything. Climbing onto the bed, she adjusted her pillow. But before she could rest her head there, her phone buzzed from the bedside table. Kol's name was on the screen as she took a glance at it.

Sighing, Bella picked up the phone. "Hey."

"Woah," was the first thing that was heard from him, "a proper greeting instead of 'you again'."

Bella couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Don't push it, Mikaelson."

"I assume it has something to do with my brother who just died?"

A lump formed in her throat, and she gulped. She had been wondering how he would react about it, and she really didn't expect to hear him sounding as casual as that. "Are you okay?"

"I will," Bella tried to supress a sigh of relief as she heard the answer, but his next words made her jaw fall and her face wrinkle, "when you give me a hug. Maybe also a kiss. Then maybe we can have a long session of make up seㅡ"

She quickly cut him off, "What part of 'I'm with someone else' is hard for you to understand?"

"Every part of it. Because someone told me that you still have feelings for me."

Bella didn't even need to be told who that someone he was talking about.
"Okay, I think I'm just gonna hang up now," she muttered, not serious at all.

"Are you really going to hang up on a guy who just lost his brother?" he said, his voice was made to sound as sad as possible.

"Are you really just trying to guilt-trip me with your brother's death?"

"Does it work?"

She couldn't help but scoff and shake her blonde head in disbelief. But then there was more important thing that caught her attention. "Does this mean you're really okay right now?"

"Why wouldn't I? Finn was a lovesick loon. He had tried to kill me, so I guess that was a good riddance for him."

"Do you really think that or you just pretending to think that because it's easier that way?"

Silence.

Unlike usual, Kol didn't answer right away. And that was enough for Bella to know that her guess was right.

Everyone had a different coping mechanism. Pretending everything was fine was the coping mechanism Bella used the most, which was why it was easy for her to tell when someone else was using that. Kol's relationship with Finn might not be great but Finn was still his brother. They had been a family for over a thousand years, and Finn might have spent most of his life in a coffin, but still, it must be difficult to know he had lost a brother forever.

"I'm really sorry for what happened, Kol," she uttered sincerely, slightly wishing she could be there for him.

Kol cleared the lump in his throat. "I heard about the deal you were trying to make with my brother."

It was her cue to not press the subject any further. If he wanted to talk about it, he would have started already. But he didn't want to. And she didn't want to force him to.

"Let me guess, you called me this late to try to persuade me to give you the stakes?" she replied, trying to sound bitchy as usual.

"Actually, no. I'm not worry about you having the stakes. I know you never even dreamed of using it on me."

To her knowledge, Kol hadn't learned about the fact that when an Original vampire died every vampires turned from their bloodline would die along with them. And the fact that he still trusted her even without knowing it made her heart feel warmer.

"I called because I wanted to hear your voice. It's soothing."

Her heart was pounding hard and the warmth spilled onto her cheeks. "Are you ever gonna tell me where you are right now?"

"Only if you admit you miss me."

As expected from Kol.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I miss you." And before he could say anything, she hurriedly added, "But please note the sarcasm."

"I miss you too, darling," he answered, his voice sounded sincere, there was no teasing tone behind it like usual. "Till we meet again."

And, he hung up before she could say anything.

Bella looked at her phone screen, and scoffed. Of course Kol was just trying to trick her into saying that. He never intended to tell her where he was.

"You really still love him, don't you?" asked a voice from her doorway, and when she looked up, she found Stefan standing there.

Throwing her phone back to the table, she groaned in annoyance. "Ugh, what do you want?"

"I want to apologize."

"For what? Trying to go behind my back again? Or for almost killed the entire species of vampires including me?"

"For everything," he answered firmly, stepping inside. "I was blinded by my hatred for Klaus, by the thought of all that I had lost because of him, until I forgot that I still had you and Damon, and that was more than I deserved." He settled down on the side of the bed next to Bella. "But I'm here now, and I'm ready to do all I can to earn your forgiveness."

Bella narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "If this is one of your tricks to throw me off guard, I swear, Stef, I'm going to do worse than just shoved a hot poker to your chest."

"I promise it's not." Stefan chuckled, a kind of defensive, uncomfortable little sound. He shifted his gaze to the floor. "You know... after what I did to Father, Damon made me promise to never go anywhere near you. He even swore he would never forgive me if something happened to you because of me. I was a real mess back then, all I could think was blood and more blood. I had lost control of myself, of my humanity. It was Lexi who helped me find it again, but you want to know what she used to motivate me?" He turned back to his sister who seemed to be listening intently. "It was you," he confessed. "Damon didn't even allow me to see you from afar because he knew that I wouldn't be able to control myself. It was my wish to see my sister again that helped me regain my humanity, regain control over myself. But after you went missing, I lost that again."

The male Salvatore sighed, looking up to the ceiling. "I remember thinking about all the things I was willing to exchange just to see you again... or at least to know that you were okay." He looked over at his sister again. "Now that I've finally got my wish, that I've finally got to see you again, I've been nothing but a jerk to you." Guilt was all over his face as he went on, "And to think that all you've been doing since you got here is helping us, protecting us when we were the ones who were supposed to protect you, I have never been more embarrassed of myself. No words can describe how sorry I am."

"You know, sometimes I feel like you and Damon are just as bad as Klaus," Bella spoke after a moment of silence. "But no matter what you've done, I'm gonna forgive you anyway. You want to know why?" Her gaze softened and a genuine smile appeared on her face. "Because you're my brother, and I love you. And there's nothing you could do to ever change that."

Stefan returned the smile, his green eyes looking at Bella affectionately. "Same here." He held his arms out to her, waiting for her to hug him, and she did.

But their moment had to ruin as their eldest brother suddenly came, and he announced, "Bad news, everyone!"

Bella looked over at him after pulling herself from the hug. "What is it?"

"Evilaric hid the stake," he informed, pacing back and forth in front of them frantically.

Stefan frowned. "Wait, by Evilaric you mean...?" He trailed off at the thought.

"Ric's vampire hating alter ego."

With that, they knew they screwed.

A/n: Tbh, I never really saw Bella as a part of either team (the Scooby gang and the Originals). And I feel like it wouldn't make sense if either team wanted to take her, since Klaus and Damon were both too paranoid to trust her. Bella was a Salvatore, she had shown how much she loved her brothers, but at the same time she had a soft spot for the Mikaelsons. That's why she decided to make her own team, because she knew she had different goals from the other two teams.

By the way, what do you guys think of her character so far? Is she still likeable enough as a main character? And what do you think about how I portrayed Kol? I hope I didn't make him too out of character. Also, how do you like the interaction between them? Please comment down the answer, I really enjoy reading your comments xD