14: There's a Price You Gotta Pay.

It had been hours since anyone saw Zina or Nova. After Silas finished feeding the cure out of Katherine's blood, an ominous storm had rolled in. Thunder boomed so loudly it shook the boarding house when Katherine hit the floor. The thunder became so loud you almost couldn't speak over it. Lightning loomed in the violently dark clouds without ever touching down. At one point the power in the entire town went black for six solid minutes. Damon and Elena searched the entire boarding house and the grounds around it but were unable to find either of the twins.

Somewhere deep in the woods, even farther than the old Salvatore property, Nova and Zina laid unconsciousness in the dirt. It was clear that they both had been thrown back violently and skidded through the dirt for a few feet. Lucifer's talisman laid between the both of them. Some of the trees and patches of grass had started to decay in the surrounding area. There wasn't even a single coo of a bird for at least a couple of miles.

Nova came to first, her head lolling around a couple of times before her eyes pried open against the overbearing sunlight. Her head was pounding and body freezing. As she tried to sit up everything spun violently around her. She could only roll onto her side and try reaching for her sister. When her weakened and strained taps on Zina's arm proved useless, Nova mustered what she could for a full fledged slap on her sister's chest. Zina gasped and began to cough, but found herself unable to sit up just as much as Nova. They both quickly realized they were all alone.

"It didn't work," Nova's raspy voice broke to her sister solemnly. "We fucked up." She rolled back onto her back and stared up at the sky. "I'll bet that Bulgarian curva managed not to die. Again."

Tears welled in Zina's eyes as she also stared up at the mocking sky. Her chest ached deeply and a rage was growing within. She could hear Katia when the rift opened. She recognized her daughter's voice immediately. She reached out and swore she touched the dhampir's hand if at least for a moment. "What are we supposed to do now?" She whispered through grit teeth.

"We've only got one other option right now, soră mai mică." Nova turned her head and looked to her sorrowful sister. "Instead of Bonnie coming through that veil when Silas dies, Katia does."

"Yeah? And how are we to accomplish that?"

"We offer Silas a payment he cannot refuse since his current bargain doesn't include anything of the sort." Her lips pulled into a smirk. "Saskia."

Zina rolled her eyes and turned back to the sky. She heaved a sigh, knowing there was actually another option. "You and I stand no chance of not only finding Saskia, but capturing or even killing her as much as I wish we could. That's just not something we can accomplish right yet. But I think there is something we can do."

"Oh yeah?" Finally Nova had the strength to sit up and look down at her sister. "What's your bright idea then?"

"We go through our trials." She looked up with determination at Nova. "We touch upon Oblivion."

Nova's brows both raised with an amused curiosity. "There is no guarantee that we can accomplish that, and even if we do what it could do to us. Are you willing to risk everything on just another chance?"

Zina shrugged. "Who knows what we risked with this attempt? Clearly it didn't take Katerina, so it had to take something. What's it matter when there's a war going on anyways?"

Nova's manicured but slightly dirty hand stuck out in front of Zina. Her dark eyes looked up to find her sister on her feet holding her hand out for Zina. Without a thought she reached up and took her sister's hand, allowing Nova to help her to her feet. They stood toe to toe with their hands still together for a moment.

"Let's show these fuckers what the Romanian Vasile twins are made of then. Familie înseamnă că nimeni nu este lăsat în urmă sau uitat." (Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.)

Zina smiled softly at their native tongue and nodded determinedly. "Când ai probleme, familia ta e cea care te sprijină." (When trouble comes, it's your family that supports you.)

"Where the holy Hell-" Damon started when the twins stumbled in the door. "What the fuck happened to you two?!"

Elena's eyes widened as well at the sight of the two; Zina had an arm around Nova's shoulders as Nova had one around Zina's waist. They both supported each other walking. Their hair was disastrous and they were covered in dirt. Silas was smirking at the sight with his arms crossed; he could see the remnants of very powerful magic lingering over both sisters. "Are you guys alright?" Elena asked.

The twins both shrugged and continued to hobble their way into the room where they crashed together onto a couch. "Oh yeah, we're great," Nova grinned toothily up at her progeny.

"Just a little… sisterly bonding, I guess," Zina mimicked her sister's grin. What surprised both Damon and Elena was when the two then knuckle bumped one another.

"So help me if one of you is Remiel and the other is Lucifer," Damon started, "I have no issue snapping your necks."

"Well first off, iubițel, that wouldn't do you a whole lot of good against a couple of freakin' archangels, yeah?" Nova quipped.

Zina snickered. "Yeah, they kind of have this neat ability where they just snap their fingers and poof, no more you."

"Then what have you two been doing dabbling in very dark magic?" Silas questioned both playfully and genuinely curiously. "And how, if you don't mind. Considering both of you are vampires."

"Ah, come on," came Nova. "You should know how fucked up of an individual Saskia Vasile is. She kind of screwed our whole family. We're pretty big freaks."

"Magic?!" Damon exclaimed. "Dark magic? That's what you two were doing? How… what… why…" He grabbed his head with unimaginable confusion all over his face. Elena actually had to sit in a chair because she was almost unable to process.

"Well, if you can't tell," Zina answered, "whatever we had attempted mildly backfired on us." Nova snickered beside her, earning a punch on her upper arm. "Just a little sisterly bonding doing things we really shouldn't be."

"If you don't want us trying supernatural things then we could always go rob a liquor store or something basic like that." Nova offered with a shrug. "Maybe just stealing from your wallet." She smirked.

Damon pinched the bridge of his nose. "You already do that one."

"You're right. I guess we could steal from Elena's college fund instead. Or maybe just the college. Some Robin Hood shit."

While Damon and Elena were oblivious and easily thrown off by the twins' sudden collaboration, Silas was not. He could see something around both of the Romanians; something dark and freezing. There was a clear difference between the two as well; while Nova's darkness emitted off of her, Zina's was clung on like a parasite. He then noticed the talisman hanging from the younger twin's neck with Lucifer's sigil staring back at him. They were definitely up to something, and apparently something involving Lucifer himself. Silas cared less since it wasn't at the whim of Remiel as Saskia's life was. He wanted to see what a pair of supposed Cursed Twins could actually accomplish when they were both on the same level rather than one beneath Remiel and the other Lucifer. Both Zina and Nova were aligned with Lucifer. Who knew what they could accomplish?

"Alright, genius," Nova started when she emerged from her bathroom towel drying her damp, short hair, "how are we supposed to accomplish these trials or whatever being on house arrest? I was already being overly babysat but Silas had to go and throw us under the bus about dark magic."

"We need to get to Sofia," Zina replied from where she sat cross legged on the end of Nova's bed. Her hair was also damp from a shower. Both sisters donned clean clothes. "She's got the most magic of all of us to put us into the trials because she's done this the longest. Quite frankly I'm surprised she hasn't been swallowed by Oblivion yet."

Nova rolled her eyes. "Still doesn't explain how we'll get to her being stuck here. Untimely convenience for us that Bon-Bon isn't back yet or we would be spelled in here so try to think a little harder before they get Silas to do it. Why can't the little hermit come visit us for once? Mystic Falls would probably be a better place for her."

Zina made a face of pity, her dark eyes wandering out the window. "Sofia is the way she is because of the awful things she's seen in her lifetime. I gather that you feel nothing towards that, but from what I understand she probably deserves the most respect of all of us."

"What makes her so special then? She's clearly a vampire but she can do high level magic. Where's she get it then?"

"She's always had it. Sofia… she isn't… she's not a full blood Moroi. Her mother was Mireia - Cursed Twin of Claudia and both of which-"

"Dhampirs," the elder sister realized. "So who knocked Mireia up to make whatever Sofia is?"

"A Moroi. After she left her weaker sister essentially for the wolves she schmoozed her way into the Russian courts where some decently high ranking Moroi man married her and had a kid with her. She presented well enough to be Moroi, so to that community… that's exactly what Sofia was. She was groomed to be a Moroi, but there was always something lacking. In that missing piece sat very tamable, very powerful magic. She's not a dhampir, but she's not a full blood either."

Something actually almost touched Nova inside. It was as if a connection tried to be made, but it was having difficulty through the dark. There was still so much about the Vasiles that Nova didn't know. "Then she should come here." Her tone was soft but adamant. Zina arched a brow. "This is Mystic freakin' Falls - home of the supernatural. Vampires, werewolves, witches, hybrids, dhampirs, you fucking name it and it's passed through or resided here at some point. She should feel right at home."

"You're quite right," came a new voice in the doorway. The twins' heads snapped over to find Sofia herself. "I suppose as a child I had always hoped for a real place to call home."

"How the fuck…?" Nova muttered with disbelief.

Sofia smirked, her arms crossed. "What? You didn't think with all my magic I wouldn't know what you two idioty (idiots) were up to?"

"I don't understand," came Zina's soft voice. "What made you change your mind so easily? Why come here?"

"I'd like to assume my primary reason is about the same as the majority of us has become - one still human Zarya Vasile. There is something about the girl's determination and fire that's awakened us all she has seen."

Realization crossed Nova's countenance. "She's leading the rebellion."

"What?" Her sister questioned.

"Prior to Zarya we were all solitary creatures wherever the hell we were. One way or another we each had our own endgames and what we hoped to accomplish before someone managed to take us out. Saskia wants us to kill Remiel before watching the world burn and honestly probably then killing us because why not? Remiel wants her army of what she apparently presumes to be 'night creatures' to bloody the Earth and Heaven alike."

"And Zarya is storming through against them for the sake of free will," Zina put together. "All this time, each one of us that she has found, she has no reason to manipulate anyone. I don't believe she could even if she wanted to." She shrugged. "She's wanted us to wake up and realize what's really happening around us."

"Then I guess you both had better start doing the young one some good," Sofia told them sternly. "Are we doing this or not? The three men have ventured off to New Jersey in search of the anchor to the Other Side and your progeny, Nova, has fallen into a minor trap of Qetsiyah's because of her jealousy."

Nova shrugged. "Good, it means we shouldn't be disturbed for a while. Where do you want to set up shop?"

"This is fucked up," Nova complained from one of the cells in the back of the basement.

Zina laughed in the cell beside her. "Getting sick of being locked up places? I find it humorous."

Sofia had needed somewhere to be able to draw sigils across the walls and floors without being too conspicuous. That, unfortunately for Nova, meant the cells. Between both sisters' cells Sofia set up a table with candles and two blank, silver talismans. "The whole point of this is for the both of you to acknowledge your darkest truth," she told them. "If you cannot do that, then you cannot reach Oblivion. Are you both ready?"

The pair laid on the floors of their cells in the center of the sigils drawn down. Once they both consented, the Russian gave way to a soft sigh before chanting the incantation to put Nova and Zina under.

Zina opened her eyes to see the last cottage she shared with Katerina before Klaus found them. She stood in front of the front door with a boat ticket under the name Katherine Pierce, but why wasn't she running inside like she had? Zina just stood there fixated on the ticket until she realized what it was: she always had doubts. She could have easily taken the ticket and even the name for herself. Klaus would have gotten to the cottage and found Katerina. Zina could have had a chance to be free at least for a little while.

"You really should have taken it and ran, luv." She whirled around to find Klaus smirking behind her. "It would have given you, what? At least a century before you would have ran into me indefinitely. I would have been searching for a Vasile."

"Katerina was my friend," Zina defended. "She raised me when my own family didn't want me."

"But you know that's not true anymore, now don't you? Your daughter told you where to find her journal that told you everything. Your poor mother had been compelled for years. If anything, she tried to protect you instead of Nova."

"I don't regret sending Katerina to America. I don't."

"Keep telling yourself that, luv. It's comforted you this long, has it not?"

Nova let out a loud groan when she opened her eyes to see her basement cell without all of the sigils. She jumped to her feet and stormed to the steel door, banging on it loudly. "Very funny, assholes. You got me now let me the fuck out." Through the small, barred window she found that neither Sofia nor the table were outside. There wasn't even light coming in from the hallway because the door was open; it was pitch black. Her heart started to race a little faster.

"Bit of anxiety being in a confined space?"

She jumped and slammed her back against the door, eyes widening with a hint of anger when she saw Lucifer sitting on the cot in the corner. "Fucking angels, I swear. What the hell do you want?"

"Oh I want a long list of things," he smirked. "But what you don't want is to be stuck in this little awful box ever again or anything of the sort. I can't blame you, Nova." He shrugged. "Going from this box, to a ditch in the woods, to a cell at Whitmore, and now back in your original jail. Your own personal Hell."

"Thanks for the psych eval. You ever considered giving yourself one?"

"I did once, actually. Read a book. Narcissistic personality disorder seems to fit well. Strangely enough though," he stood suddenly, "this isn't about me. It's about you. And the awful, bloody things that run rampant in your noodle."

"Well I sincerely doubt confronting my acquired claustrophobia has anything to do with that."

"Sure it does. It's actually the reason why you turned to me. Finally, by the way. You know what it's like to be locked in a cage by someone you love, and someone you loathe. You're tired of being controlled and confined. I get it, Nova. I do. You made the right choice coming to me."

She blinked a couple of times and tried checking her surroundings. She could feel the coolness of the metal door, though it was a strange feeling. "Is this… is this real? Or is it in my head?"

"Just because something happens in your head doesn't necessarily mean it's not real, Nova."

"Are you seriously about to be the tour guide through my subconscious?" Zina complained as she stumbled through a Romanian forest. Being claimed as a peasant woman she had been buried in a small cemetery that became an overgrown forest.

Klaus followed behind her with an amused grin on his face. Her white dress the mortician had put her in was getting stuck to almost every single branch possible. "You're the one leading the way, luv. I'm just here for the ride which means your subconscious invited me along. Some unresolved trauma I could imagine."

"No wonder Nova shut it off the first time," she muttered. She tripped over a branch just as she had when she was resurrected and fell to the ground. Her ankle throbbed with a fair sprain that wasn't healing. She layed back on the ground with defeat in her eyes.

Klaus scoffed as he stood over her. "Well it's no wonder you barely got anywhere when Lucifer dragged your sorry arse back; this is a pathetic sight to behold."

She scowled up at him. "I got resurrected without anything, dick. No speed, no healing, no magic. I've barely got fangs."

"So you lay here and sulk about it? In case you hadn't noticed, you were also resurrected without a beating heart in your bloody chest. I ripped that out, remember?" She hadn't actually thought about it or noticed for that matter. Was her chest really void of a heart…? "You had the guts to stand before me. If you can't stand up now then your bravery to me must have been a fluke. No wonder you died so easily."

With a fire that erupted from nowhere, Zina launched up with speed and strength, uppercutting Klaus with all her might. She stood tall on both feet with the sprain having healed itself. Klaus laughed as he picked himself up and brushed himself off. "Ah, there it is! That same, wrathful darkness that buried itself within my sister."

Zina blinked a couple of times and took a step back, surprised by his words. "What are you talking about?"

"That drive - that desire - to keep fighting and surviving. Daciana was always the same. Always such a special thing. But there was, and still is, something dark and horrendous latched onto her. It's the same thing that's latched onto you; onto all of you. You're all abominations when you think about it. At least my mother's spell was balanced by nature. There wasn't anything even nature could do about you Vasiles. You're all monsters worse than the rest of us."

Zina's mouth opened then closed before she finally managed a slightly shaking, "That is untrue."

"But it's not, now is it, luv?"

"What the hell is this?" Nova sneered at a sign that read, Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. It was stuck in the front lawn of the boarding house.

"This is exactly what's going to happen if you can't manage to have your humanity off and be a proper sociopath with some kind of social connection." Lucifer explained beside her. "Damon doesn't bother stick around to keep the boarding house a boarding house."

"Why the hell not?"

"You're already pushing him away every time he brings up anything to do with the wedding you've been wanting for a century and a half. He wanted someone who would actually do something for him."

Nova's jaw set tightly with rage burning bright in her emerald eyes. "Katherine," she sneered.

Lucifer smirked and shook his head. With a snap of his fingers they were in the town square. He pointed behind her to a window of an office that read Elena Salvatore, M.D. Nova's right eye twitched noticeably. She took a step back, unable to look away from the window. "So she finally married Stefan… big deal."

"Don't you wish that was it." He chuckled before snapping his fingers again. That time they appeared in the cemetery, specifically at the Salvatore crypt.

In front of her face read a little memorial for Stefan Salvatore. "No. Hell no. This is all in my head and you're trying to freak me out."

"Am I though? After about 130 years of being side by side with Damon, becoming his progeny even, you found out he had been searching for Katherine the entire time. Is it really so much of a stretch that you could push him away to little human Elena?" When Nova made a face he added, "You think she wouldn't get cured eventually? She's the only one who never, ever wanted to be a vampire. I think I can almost guarantee what happened is that they lived so happily ever after that Damon became human too and once they lived out their dreams they turned over the boarding house to become a school for offspring monsters."

Nova's mind was reeling trying to get a grasp on what she was seeing and hearing. Part of her wanted to run home into Damon's arms, but another wanted nothing more than to bash in both Katherine and Elena's skulls. At least if she would push Damon away it wouldn't be into the arms of that same, stupid face.

"Ah! There it is!" Lucifer taunted as he pointed between Nova's eyes obnoxiously. "That look of vengeance. The thought of ridding yourself of even possible threats. There's always two ways around things for you - the diplomatic way which can more often than not put you in a lesser situation, and the beast's way where you so skillfully shred though everyone who opposes you. The first one had crossed your mind first, but the second seems so much better without your humanity. At least if you lose the love of your life you don't have to know he's happy with the doppelganger's face, right?"

She grit her teeth, fangs extending partially. "You don't know shit about me." She snarled before storming away. No matter how far she got she could still hear Lucifer laughing.

Nova stopped at the end of a street that oddly reminded her of Daniel and Lena's. Her jaw set painfully tightly when the Camaro she knew all too well pulled into one of the cookie cutter houses. She stalked forward, her heeled boots making no sound against the street. The engine shut off and three doors opened on the car - the driver's, the passenger's, and the back passenger's. She really did want what she saw to make her sad, to break her heart, but all it did was make her painfully angry.

Damon stepped out from the driver's side, Elena beside him, and a young girl from the back. Her face was shaped like Elena's, but her eyes were all Damon's. Damon and Elena seemed as if they couldn't see Nova and proceeded to head to their house. The girl, who could have been no older than 13, stared Nova in the eye across the street. Even with the light blue in the child's irises somehow they still looked as doey as Elena's.

"Stefanie!" Elena called with a half smile. It was then that Nova noticed her chocolate hair had been snipped to her shoulders and straightened. Her eye visibly twitched. "Come on, homework and dinner. Let's go."

The girl gave a small shudder that only Nova's eyes noticed before finally breaking eye contact and going to the house. Lucifer chuckled behind her. "Stefanie. That's pretty rich, isn't it? I'm sure you would have gone with something way cooler. You know, if you could have kids anyway."

"I suppose it's a good thing I never wanted any then," Nova retorted coldly.

"Zina, help me!"

Her pitch dark eyes stared back at Katherine once again like a void. Dessicated Silas laid on the couch of the boarding house, practically waiting to suck the life out of Katherine. Instead of Damon manhandling the former vampire, however, it was a more than eager Klaus. "What's it going to be, luv? Still going to let the little wench burn? Can't say I'd blame you after protecting her for so long. You've got your own problems to worry about now; a real life to live!"

"She doesn't die anyways apparently!" Zina argued. "Our spell didn't work which means she managed to survive again."

"Oh right, that pitiful attempt at reviving your daughter. You do remember that botched up spell you morons attempted still required something in exchange, yes?" He smirked.

She stepped back and looked away from them all. She still had no idea what was taken. Would it have been something from Nova or herself? "Yes of course I remember."

"Good." Something about Klaus' tone became not his own, causing Zina to look back up at him slowly. "Payment is due now, Zina Arete Vasile." With one hand and without looking away from Zina's increasingly fearful eye he snapped Katherine's neck.

A gasp escaped the vampire's lips. It came out as a small cloud of fog, indicating how rapidly the temperature of the room dropped. She ran for the door but of course it didn't open. The knob didn't even jingle. It barely felt like a real door. The cold was unlike anything even Lucifer brought.

"I am tired, Zina," Klaus spoke. No, it couldn't be Klaus anymore; just his face. But it didn't sound like Lucifer either. "And I am bored. For millennia now so many of you whiny, unworthy Vasiles would take my tests and it would just shred you. It's alright, I blame Remiel. God's worst decision ever. And I've met the Leviathan."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I am more of a 'what', child. While the Darkness spent an eon thinking up a bland human name for herself, and her half-witted brother wound up a pathetic alcoholic, my brother and I find no bother. I believe you are currently aware of the anchor to the Other Side?"

"I know it exists… but I don't know what it is. Wasn't exactly my mission to go on."

"Well you've got time so why don't you use that quick witted, freshly resurrected brain and make it useful for once? Silas and Qetsiyah are 2,000 years old. That was when they formed the Other Side and therefore its anchor. What else do you know is 2,000 years old and missing from the equation?"

"Saskia took off with her own immortality elixir after telling Qetsiyah that Silas was betraying her… for Amara… She seriously turned Silas into a rock and Amara into an anchor? That's some deeply rooted jealousy."

"Yes, well, all four of them are certainly going to get exactly what they all deserve in a matter of time. What you are going to give me, however, is my own anchor; an anchor to Oblivion, if your simple mind has not yet understood. You are acquainted with the dead; your mother was right to give you the bracelet she had. You're going to want to become much closer with the dead. Quite quickly."

A dark amethyst purple smoke rose up from the cracks in the floorboards. It perforated the walls and consumed every detail of the boarding house until it was no more. Klaus' figure was sucked into the shadow, leaving Zina alone in the darkness. A tendril shot out from the abyss, wrapping around her ankle and sucking her in. Her scream rang into the nothing practically muted.