10: Every Day is Getting Worse.

Elena stared at the scene with wide eyes. She put her phone to her ear and Damon answered with a groan. They had decided that he would go after Katherine and Stefan and she would at least scope out Whitmore. "We have another problem, Damon…"

"Well go on," he groaned in response. "Because that Euro-bitch snapped my neck and got Katherine."

"I'm staring at Zarya's Coup de Ville, but the campus is loaded with emergency personnel. Bodies are being taken out one after another… they're trying to say a water main burst and flooded the entire basement level because half of the bodies look like they've drowned."

"And the other half?"

"'Animal attack'. One guard closest to the rear exit I overheard was frozen to death so they're trying to say it was freezing waters."

Damon sighed. Nova had to have escaped. He couldn't begin to put the pieces together, but Nova was out there somewhere enraged, weak, and hungry. He didn't know if she was with Zarya, where the water came in, or how any of it happened. "Get away from Whitmore, Elena. We don't know what happened and until we do we can't trust whatever might be in the surrounding area. I'll check this lead on Stefan, you get the wonderful job of calling the Winchesters," she groaned a little, "and then we'll have to search the woods I guess."

After they hung up, his blue eyes turned to the night sky. Where are you, dolcezza…?

"So you really learned how to drive," Zina muttered as Daciana skillfully swerved the shining, navy 1969 Ford Mustang through traffic on the highway. Her dark eyes remained fixated on the road ahead with only one goal in mind.

Daciana's face was stoic and focused. One hand gripped the wheel, the other on the gear shift. Both of them were still in their gowns from the party. "I've learned to adjust and adapt quickly in each situation I am put into. Besides, I actually have a lot more free time than people think. And learning to drive was possibly the easiest thing I've done."

"I don't understand why you're so willing to help me though."

"I know where to make my allies, child. And aside from that, I suppose I can relate to you rather well. The less favored child taken off the board for centuries just to be conveniently spat back out and tossed around with barely and clue as to what has gone on since your banishment."

Zina scoffed and turned her eyes out the passenger window. "Can't exactly argue with that. There is one key difference though - no matter how they betrayed me, how they left me to burn," she hissed with malice, "I will never turn my back on the Vasile name. I will be better and stronger than those who wronged me, but I will always be a Vasile. It is who I am. It is who you are."

Daciana was silent for what felt like a long while, just zooming through traffic. Her expression was unreadable and not once changed. "I realize that," she finally spoke at last, causing Zina to turn her head. "And for what they have each done to me, both the Vasiles and Mikaelsons will earn a reckoning."

Zina's brow raised. "What do you mean? I thought the Mikaelsons were your everything. What did they do to piss you off?"

Again the Original hesitated in silence before replying. "I love my siblings dearly, do not mistake that ever. Niklaus and I swore fealty to one another. But Elijah…"

"What about Elijah…?" Wasn't he supposed to be the good brother?

She took a breath and whipped off the exit into Virginia. "Elijah compelled Zarya to forget her life before the accident. At first I thought it was perhaps a courtesy to Katerina, but recently… recently I discovered it was he who set up my being put under the same Moore spell I was born into to keep me in a casket just as Niklaus had done with the daggers."

"You… you're a dhampir?" Zarya spoke first with a shakiness in her breathy tone. "A dhampir born just carrying the gene until you died?"

Clara stared at her with uncertainty in her onyx eyes, but the longer she took in the girl's features the more she began to realize. Zarya was seeming to recuperate faster than Nova was, though Clara figured Zarya may have endured less as well. "You bear the curse as well, is that why you ask?"

"Yeah," Nova answered with a slight groan. "One of our latest plot twists. This whole family has got to be the biggest secret filled with lies." She rolled her eyes. "We can play catch up and Two Truths One Lie later if you ladies would really like, but how about we try and get the hell out of the forest that's probably about to be swarming with Augustine creeps just itching to drag us back?"

"Point taken," Zarya muttered. "What are we supposed to do then? We're in the middle of who the fuck knows where with no means of communication and no idea who we can trust with Silas running around."

"Who is Silas…?" Clara asked quietly.

"That's for catch up, kid." Nova replied before trying to pull herself to her feet. "Silas screws with you using psychic power, right? We can trust anyone with a higher psychic power than him. High enough to keep him out of their mind. And since you don't know where Katia fucked off to…"

"Zina? Okay, I guess that's reasonable… but how do we find her or contact her? You aren't running anywhere anytime soon and if anyone so much as sees us we're open bait for Augustine or Silas."

"I just need to find someone who isn't full of vervain and I'll be good to go." Slowly, Zarya's hand began to raise. Nova rolled her eyes again. "First of all, not a chance. If I sent you back to those Winchesters with fang marks anywhere on your body and I'm getting a stake to the chest. Second, your blood is still full of-"

"Devil's trumpet," the hunter sighed. "I know. It put me in this dream-like state. Everything was fake and quiet until…" Oh, God, she didn't want to say it. A hand on her shoulder made her jump and look up to see Nova kneeling beside her.

"Try not to think about it or allow it to hinder you." She gave Zarya's shoulder a small squeeze before rising again.

"If there is a river nearby," came Clara's soft and melodic voice, "we can follow the current and it will take us to the next town."

Zarya looked up to Nova. "What about when the sun eventually rises…?"

Nova's eyes widened, hand flying to her neck and chest. Her daylight necklace was gone. That Maxfield bastard had taken it. "I guess we're just going to have to hope the nightshade didn't entirely ruin my adapted protection from burning."

Damon made it to the cabin and, with mild relief, found his brother bound to a chair by vines with a circle of herbs surrounding him on the floor. "Stefan," he called when he walked in. "You couldn't call a brother?"

Stefan looked up with a half smile. "Nice to see you, too, Damon. Where's Nova and Elena?"

"Don't worry about them right now. What the hell is going on here?"

"Well, Silas' ex-girlfriend decided to come back from the Other Side."

"Qetsi-whatever?" He was trying to remove the vines with no effect.

"It's Qetsiyah," came Tessa behind them with a flower in her hands. "Do you see why I want to change it? You won't be able to break those vines. The spell won't release him until I get what I want."

"Well, I guess the rumors are true." Damon commented. "You are a ray of sunshine. Question - why is my brother wearing your compost pile?"

"I'm going to link Stefan to Silas. Casting a spell on his doppelgänger will neutralize Silas' mental powers. Once he's weakened, I will force him to take the cure."

"Well, that's a great idea, force the cure down his throat. The cure is gone, done, it's ingested." He shrugged.

"Katherine, you mean? I'm aware of her condition. She was supposed to be with you."

Stefan's eyes widened. "Wait. Katherine took the cure? That's what happened?"

Damon waved him off. "We have a lot to catch up on, Stefan. Wait a minute. What do you mean supposed to be with me? Did you plant those dreams? What is it, some kind of, like, witch party trick?"

She shrugged. "So where is she?"

"...We ran into a little snag."

"Then I'll get started without her." She stood over a bowl and began chanting, "Adatu Khan Leala Ghan Breatvis Shemil."

"Okay, well… thanks for the hospitality, but we should really get going if we want to beat traffic."

Stefan nodded in agreement to his brother. "Yep, yep. He's right."

"Probably don't want to get on my bad side," Tessa commented.

"You realize you're not the only one with a bad side, right?" Damon's impatience was beginning to set in. He had to go find Nova before something happened.

"Aren't you brave. Without Silas' mental powers, he is an immortal nobody. We can defeat him. Isn't that what you want so you can keep Nova from further descending into darkness?"

Both brothers fell entirely silent. Judging by the look on Damon's face he was running out of time involving his progeny. A comment Nova once made to him rang through Stefan's head. "I've held a grudge against you since Monday June 18, 1860."

"Just do it, all right?" He spoke suddenly with Nova's emerald eyes haunting him. "Just get it over with. Do it."

"I told you my sister would be too high and mighty to eat a bunny even if it's to survive," Zina smirked.

Nova scoffed with a smirk on her face as soon as they saw the Mustang roll up. The river had led them to civilization, but to a road that would take to them into a city. As they emerged from the trees with the sunrise on the horizon, the Mustang's headlights lit up the scene. "Terribly sorry I refuse to stoop to Stefan's level of pathetic but I'm a warrior, I can't eat rabbits." She rolled her eyes.

Zarya resisted the urge to laugh as she remembered Dean saying something similar when they were dealing with Leviathan. "What are you guys doing out here? How did you find us?"

When Zina's expression fell, Daciana jumped in. "Katia had called her…" She started delicately. "She was yelling for help about Whitmore when someone took her."

The hunter's hands flew to her mouth, green-blue eyes wide and glistening with tears threatening to fall. "Oh God, I'm so sorry…" She breathed, taking a step back. "She… she was here helping me… I told her to save herself…"

Zina finally looked back up with empathy in her dark eyes. "Well, we aren't going to figure anything out if you three don't get in this car."

Zarya didn't move at first, prompting Nova to gently shove her into the back of the Mustang. Clara took the driver's side and Nova sat behind her sister with Zarya in the middle to make sure she didn't try to tuck and roll. The car was silent for a while, until Daciana's eyes flicked to Clara's reflection in her rearview mirror. "You are Clara, aren't you?"

The young dhampir's attention jumped to the Original. "Yes, I am. How do you know of me? Augustine has had me in captivity since I turned."

"Your cousin has been searching for you. My brother Kol turned her in 1913. Besides, there are only a handful of dhampirs in this family and only one human left."

Zarya let out an exasperated sigh and slumped down in the middle seat. "What's that matter when I carry the gene too? I die and I'm next in line. Hardly human if you ask me."

"But you are," Clara assured her. "Natalia and I were born human. She always feared I was hiding that I was born a half blood already but I was not. I did human things - I studied, I played music, I danced in the rain with Carina," she smiled sadly. "None of us ever knew I carried the gene. Natalia and I got into a row one afternoon, so common and so pointless, and she pushed me into a river's rapids." Zarya's eyes widened. "My head hit a rock and I drowned from the rushing water. I believed that was my end just as my sister did before she fled to America, but I emerged from that water. It… it is like a defense mechanism to ensure the survival of our bloodline."

"Our bloodline is tainted," came Zina. "And if we don't do something soon then we're all about to be pawns in a really messed up game."

"So what do you propose we do, soră mai mică?" Nova questioned.

Daciana smirked and revved the engine of the Mustang before flying down a wide open road. "We are going to fight as one."

The three girls' eyes in the backseat widened. "How many Vasiles still live…?" Clara asked with astonishment.

"You're going to be surprised," Zina responded.

"She told me that we don't stand a chance," Damon sighed to Elena.

The brunette scoffed. "And what does she know about us?"

Just then the front door to the Boarding House burst open prompting both vampires to step in front of Stefan's unconscious form on the couch. "Not a damn thing," came the familiar Romanian accent before Nova stepped through.

Damon ran up and grabbed her, lifting her off the ground. "Thank gods you're okay," he breathed with relief. "What happened to you? Where have you been?"

"I am perfectly fine," she smiled up at him though he could see no humanity behind the gesture. "And I brought some… family." She smirked. Behind her came Zarya, then Zina, then Clara, and finally Daciana. Elena and Damon stared with wide eyes and slacked jaws.

"What… what the hell is going on?" came Damon's reply at last. He then turned to Zarya. "And why the hell are you here and not with the Winchesters?"

"Because when we went our separate ways," the young hunter answered calmly, "Dean… he was about to have his one on one with Cain." Her eyes wandered up to Daciana slowly.

"So what exactly is this about?" asked Elena.

"This is about us," Nova began, "taking out Silas, Qetsiyah, Saskia, and Remiel once and for all." Stefan began to stir at last with a slight groan before trying to sit up. "Welcome back, Steffie," she smirked at him.

"Stefan!" Elena exclaimed before throwing her arms around him. "We missed you."

He was silent for a moment, eyes scanning over each and every one of them. There was a clueless blankness to his expression. "Uh, I'm sorry… I-I have no idea who you people are."

Zina couldn't contain her snicker against the confusion and uncertainty. "Oh this is going to be fun then."