All Bethany chapters will be in first person, but anything with the Mikaelsons will be in third. Mostly because there's no way I can accurately describe the thoughts in the heads of 1000 year old beings as intimately as the first person requires. They're twisty as hell.
Here's a little of the 'why/how' I left out of chapter one! We'll be swapping between past and present for a bit until the past catches up and we have a full understanding of what's going on. I'll go back and define what 'present' is in chapter one, but just so you know so you don't have to go back and look; in Beth's time it is 2012. She is twenty years old.
-2-
Norway, 957AD.
"Come, Dahlia," Esther, nine-almost-ten summers old, danced around her older sister, twirling the basket of herbs they'd gathered from the treeline near their village. It was the best place to pick mushrooms and moss, the two ingredients they'd been tasked to harvest. The elder Völva's needed such things for tonight's spell for prosperity and safety over their coven. The ritual was to be added in addition to the equinox celebration, for additional strength to be woven into the spell. All this was made necessary as the clan from further north continued to go viking down the coast, steadily making their way towards where Esther's own clan resided. "Dance with me, tonight is a night for celebration!"
Dahlia, thirteen-almost-fourteen summers old and more understanding than her sister of the precarious situation that had befallen their village, grabbed her little sister's arm harshly and gripped until the younger girl cried out.
"Stop this nonsense, you fool. Tonight is not about celebration. Do you not realize how easily we could all be dead come the next full moon?"
Esther, with tears in her eyes, wrenched her arm away from her cruel sister's grasp and took several steps away. "You don't have to be so mean." The younger girl said in a small voice, rubbing at her arm where Dahlia had gripped her.
"You don't have to be so naive." Dahlia hissed, picking up the basket that Esther had dropped and shoving the mushrooms that had fallen out of it back into the cloth inside. "We've made a pact with our neighboring clan - we've never been pushed to that before. Seiðr has been proven to be weak if we can't use it to protect ourselves."
Esther gasped with wide eyes and closed the distance between her and her sister. "You can't say that, Dahlia, what if Odin hears you? He could take your magic!"
Dahlia just scoffed and shoved the basket back to her sister. "Mind your tongue. The workings of the gods are far beyond you or I."
"... but Dahlia," Esther began but was cut off when a dark figure emerged from the forest not far from them.
The man was covered in the colorful furs and markings of a Völva, striding toward them both with purpose, hobbling with a slight limp as he persisted. Each step he took was as though a rock sunk into Esther's gut and she took a step back and around, gripping her sister's cloak and pressing herself against Dahlia, hoping to be protected. Her sister's magic had always been stronger - her studies were going well while Esther's were abysmal at best.
The man stopped before them, his ritual staff smacking the ground when he dropped it - the sharp crystalline blue of his eyes faded away until his eyes were completely white as he stared past Dahlia to Esther.
Dahlia smacked an arm to her chest in respect toward the elder Völva, as was required of all when they met someone practiced in the ways of Seiðr, no matter her own personal feelings of the ancient magics. "You are not of our clan, have you traveled here for the solstice ritual?" The elder sister asked caustically, one hand coming behind her to grip her sister's dress, just in case she had to pull Esther along so they could flee.
"I follow the will of the gods. I seek not to harm you, young ones." The Völva's scratchy voice whispered as he crouched to the ground, pale eyes never leaving Esther. His head tilted, brows furrowed. Finally, he released a hiss of air between his teeth and tutted. "The fates are decided. In years so distant you can scarcely recall this day - your bloodline will merge with mine." The Völva spoke, and Esther's eyes widened, her heart a steady and fast beat in her chest as the man continued. "Your sons and your daughters will be healed by the song of the Völva, long after they've ceased to live - and they will know peace and prosperity after many lifetimes of chaos and hardship."
"I do not understand." Esther whispered from behind her sister's dress.
The Völva smiled, his teeth were shockingly pristine and both girls marveled at how straight and white they were. "You do not have to."
Freya
New Orleans, April 20th, 1992. 6:35am
Restfully sleeping as she had for seventy eight years, Freya Mikaelson's index finger twitched. Then the pinky of her opposite hand twitched. She didn't move again for exactly two minutes and twenty seven seconds.
And then the casket door flew open and the blonde witch awakened with a sharp gasp. She clutched her hand to her chest as though she could grasp the connection that had snapped around her heart and spread warmth though her like the summer sun.
"The spell," she breathed blue eyes wide with wonder and excitement, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Her hand clutched at her chest as great, wracking sobs shook her entire body where she sat in the coffin that had held her while she slumbered, "-it's broken. I'm no longer connected to Dahlia."
And a new awareness prickled at the back of her mind that sang like the birds in spring and the laughter of children. This was power. Power and connection, unlike anything she'd ever felt in her tedious, abysmal, hopeless existence - tied to Dahlia for all time.
Freya pushed herself out of her resting place with haste. If a witch with such ancient power was now alive, she needed to be protected. Dahlia would come for her, for her power and for this connection to Freya. Freya and her family, she knew. Because she knew about soul bonds and a witch with this level of power would have many soul mates, not just she. And while Freya had no proof that the child was connected to them all, she had an intuitive feeling that the little girl was indeed meant for her family.
Their soulmate.
And Dahlia would be a threat.
Freya sneered. Dahlia's punishment would be profound. For now, Freya needed to find out how long she had until the evil bitch woke. How long she had to pull her family together, convince them of her identity, and protect their mate. Her instincts were running wild and she hastened to leave the place she'd chosen to rest.
As she left the Fauline cottage, blowing the confinement spell around it to bits in her haste to get to the child, to this new bond, Freya briefly wondered how she knew the child was female.
It was the first of many unanswered questions to come.
Finn
Location Unknown, April 20th, 1992. 6:35am
The bright light burned his eyes as the black horizon he stared into for who knew how long blasted away. His eyes closed - an attempt to shield him from the radiance and he winced at the pain. Winced, but welcomed it all the same. Anything to break up the monotony of his half-existence.
Even thoughts were rare, now. In fact he hadn't thought about anything at all in a very long time.
Warmth surrounded him like the thickest of wool blankets. He shuddered as the coldness, his only friend in this pitiless existence, was banished. His eyes began to adjust and he felt a pleasant burn in his chest where he knew the dagger to be. The dagger itself was burning hot, and hotter by the minute but it didn't hurt, if anything he felt safer than ever.
It could've been minutes, hours, days, or years that he burned. All he knew was that it was a pleasure to feel something new after however long he'd been stuck with only the cool stretch of infinite nothingness all around him.
Eventually a noise - music. The sound of nature's quiet song. Like spring rain, and birds, wind through the trees and everything he'd missed about being alive. He could feel the hot tears that fell down his face listening to that beautiful song. Mournfully wishing he could reach out and find the one who sang it. She was far, too far from him.
He'd give anything to meet this newcomer. This new connection - the first connection he'd made since longer than he could recall.
Then, finally, the burning stopped. The heat cooled. And he wiggled his fingers. He thought it was some kind of trickery. His siblings wouldn't release him from his captivity - they hadn't yet and he'd been conscious of the time slipping by him for far too long.
Slowly, tentatively, he lifted his arm. It was stopped by something solid. Frowning, Finn opened his eyes. All was dark but a thin strip of light that seeped through the seal of the box in which he lay. He pursed his lips and laid his hand flat on the top of his prison and pushed with more strength than he recalled having possessed.
The lid jolted off and smacked against the far wall. A moment later, Finn sat up. He looked out across the room made of what looked like well designed rectangular stone and frowned. Two more coffins, like the one he was in, sat beside his own.
So Niklaus had daggered two other siblings. He wasn't surprised.
Finn swung his legs out of the coffin, intent on releasing whichever siblings of his were prone in boxes and paused as the two coffin's lids both went soaring over his head and smashed to pieces besides his own.
Kol and Rebekah both leaned up, rage, sorrow, and curiosity at war in their faces as they looked at each other and then to Finn with wide eyed shock.
Finn was the first to speak as he pushed himself to his feet, eager to get away from the coffin. The new connection he felt began to tug at him, he wanted to follow that instinct and find her. Preferably before Niklaus could.
"It would seem, my brother and sister, that we have a mate who has finally been born. Her mere existence has released us from our brother's cruelty. We should feed and follow her pull. We must ensure that he does not turn his vile machinations to her."
Elijah
Kyoto, Japan, April 20th, 1992. 7:35pm
Elijah groaned in delight as he sunk his teeth into a Geisha's carotid artery. Japan was currently undergoing a dark economic time, a recession that was poised to last for another decade at least, and Elijah was profiting from it. Where there was desperation there was opportunity and Elijah was one of the best at exploiting opportunities, especially in business. His newest associates were particularly accommodating of his needs.
Against their will, of course, but accommodating nonetheless.
He was poised to gain over seventeen million from his dealings in Japan over the next few years - with a potential growth of over ten billion in the next several decades as Japan's economy recovered.
Not that money was everything to Elijah. It was simply his favorite pastime of late, something that made him utilize his vast experience in a way that brought him gain, in whatever form.
Without his family, Elijah had nothing to focus on, nothing to do. Eradicating enemies of his family and hunting his only remaining brother had occupied him for a few decades after Klaus had admitted to dumping their family into the ocean.
Now he was taking a reprieve.
Well, not precisely a reprieve.
His net worth had risen from three billion to forty-seven billion in less than four decades, and climbing. He dipped his hands into the upper society, learned the trade of the 1% of the world - the way that they were running things in the modern era. He understood how they hid their identities from the media. Learned how to utilize emerging technology to his advantage. Mimicked the richest, most depraved people he'd met in his thousand years on this earth until he was one of them at the top.
Eventually, he'd have to disappear and name a successor. Compel someone to do his bidding and grow his wealth for several decades until he could take over again. Eventually. For now, he was enjoying his time. Enjoying the distraction from the cloying loneliness and defeat. The tumultuous feelings of failure, the faces of his family, now lost to him, fading from his remembrances with each passing decade.
He missed them terribly. All the work he was doing, all the monetary gain. He wouldn't stop until he had enough.
Deep sea exploration cost money - no amount of compulsion could take care of it for him. This was an expedition that he'd have to pay to see done if he ever truly wanted to find and reunite his family. He needed as much money as he could get if he were to spend the next several centuries - perhaps even the next millenia - scraping the ocean for his family's coffins.
Elijah was in the process of starting the company that would one day, under his plan, be comparable to NASA - for deep ocean discovery instead of space.
He had to find them. He wouldn't rest until they were all safely returned to him.
And then they would handle Niklaus - together.
He discarded the body of the Geisha he'd drained and pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, dabbing at the corners of his mouth before he left the teahouse, the compelled staff racing forward to take care of the woman's corpse. Elijah had just stepped out onto the street when he felt it.
Something snapped inside his body, like a fisher's line that had been wound too tight. His hand pressed to his chest and he gasped, gripping a nearby tree to catch himself from falling over. As he righted himself he could feel it. Music, like the lightest of scores, more beautiful than Bach, more agonzing than Mozart. A new connection gripped his heart, caressing the dark and lonely place within him where his sadness remained.
The monster behind the red door quieted for the first time in decades and Elijah looked up at the light of the moon with glassy eyes.
"Finally."
Hope, fragile and new, spurred him into action. The pull came from very far - east, back in the States, if he could guess. Plans upon plans springing into his mind. He needed to fly to Los Angeles. He would get the first flight in the morning, nothing would stop him.
Where was she, he wondered, and could he find her before Niklaus?
Niklaus
Brasília, Brazil, April 20th, 1992. 6:35am
Klaus last gifted Brazil with his presence for a brief few decades between the fifteenth and sixteenth century. If memory served him, he and Elijah's mischief had been a large part of the reason the Treaty of Tordesillas (a treaty that had divided the new territory of the Americas between Portugal and Spain) had failed.
He'd brought the English with him, after all. And Elijah brought the French. They laughed together at the ensuing territorial war whilst he roamed and admired this brave new continent.
There were many stories that ended the same, he mused. His family had run wherever they could to keep away from their father. Every time there was a new and exciting discovery they tended to be behind it, if only to prolong the inevitable reunion with Mikael as long as they could.
Mikael. Even his name made Klaus quiver with rage… and fear. The injustices of a thousand years, the paranoia, the anger - all of it lead to how he was today. He knew he was behaving irrationally. He knew that he'd pushed Elijah away, to the point that his favorite brother had actually, finally, attempted to kill him.
Just as Klaus always knew he would.
That Elijah had thought Klaus capable of dropping their siblings into the ocean proved how Elijah felt about him, Klaus rationalized. That Elijah, the noble brother, the one who never broke his word, had walked away from 'always and forever' with a bit of clever manipulation on Klaus' part.
It proved to Klaus the fragility of his familial bonds. Their weakness. The way they made him weak and foolish as well.
He was better off on his own, he thought.
Or was he? A small part he tried not to listen to whispered to him as he sat at a gambling table with humans he'd be draining by the end of the night. Well, he glanced up at the basement window to see the light of dawn, it already was day. He'd be draining them soon, then. Was he truly better off without them?
It was not the first time his traitorous mind had supplied such fantasy. The thought of his family reunited was a hope that clawed at his chest and ripped through his internal fallacy - that he was indeed better off without them.
Because he wasn't.
But he'd made a mess of things with them, and he worried that the moment he was finally weak enough to release them they would turn on him. They would leave him.
So no, he couldn't release them. Not until he had an army to support him. Not until he found a way to break his curse and unleash his wolf side. Not until he was the first hybrid, stronger than everyone else. That way, his family couldn't hurt him.
That way, Mikael couldn't hurt him. Never again.
He looked at the royal flush in his hand and smirked at the large, wealthy man that had been arrogantly posturing before him. They'd been at it all night. Drinks, women, and gambling. Hedonism at its finest and Klaus was merely enjoying his time in Brazil - biding his time now that the lead he'd been chasing that could have led to breaking his curse had turned out to be unfortunately untrue.
People paid for his waste of time with their lives, he'd ensured.
Klaus laid his cards down upon the pile. "Eu ganho, senhores." He taunted, laughing when the men around the table threw their cards down in outrage.
'Poker is easy when one compels the table,' Klaus mused as he collected his winnings.
One of the men let out an enraged slew of curses, rising from his seat as he pulled a gun out of his inner pocket and pointed it at Klaus. The immortal raised his brows and both of his hands with a cocky grin and a laugh.
"Eu não faria isso se fosse você, amigo." Klaus warned as he watched the gangster's finger begin to squeeze the trigger. Truly, the man should've had better self-preservation instincts than to attack Klaus.
'Ah, to be a foolish mortal. How exhausting.' Klaus thought as the man committed to the action. The bullet splintered the chair that Klaus had previously inhabited. The vampire now at the man's back, Klaus tore his hand through the man's chest, barking a threat to the rest of the room as the humans became a frenzy of movement.
To the mortals, he laughed. The sound was perverse, even to his own ears. But he didn't quite care what these people thought. "Eu te avisei. Agora, você vai morrer para me manter satisfeito. Tais são os perigos de sua existência impiedosa." The threat lingered in the air, along with the stench of urine - the man in his clutches released his bowls as he died.
Completely unbidden, a clenching in his chest caused him to rip his hand out of the gangster's chest and let him fall to the floor. Klaus' bloody hand clutched at his tunic. A song, like the sounds of his brushes sliding across a canvas. Like the screams of his enemies and the gargle of blood as it choked those who would dare threaten him and those he loved. A soothing balm to his frayed nerves - a brief moment of calm in his thousand years of anxiety and anguish.
Wide eyed wonder warred with consternation.
No. He couldn't have a bloody soul mate. Not him. Not him and especially not now, not when he was so vulnerable. She would be a tremendous weakness, exploited by his enemies. Utilized to bring about his end. No.
Enraged at the pull of this new false claim on him, Klaus ripped through the room of men. He tore limbs and removed organs, all the while screaming and growling. And when he was done, he collapsed in a heap on the floor of death he created and clutched his head.
The same small part of him that wondered if he was truly better off without his family whispered what if she was the only one who could understand you? What if, finally, someone lived who could fill that gaping hole of loneliness…?
No matter, he dismissed the idea (no matter how much it grated that those thoughts had disrupted him in the first place.) He rose up from the floor, covered in blood and growling menacingly, limbs shifting away from him as he stood, staring at the carnage and standing among the wreckage like an angel of death.
If she was just born then she was human. And if she was human he could simply kill her and be done with it.
Kol
Location Unknown, April 20th, 1992. 6:35am
It had been a good long while, he knew. He just wasn't quite sure how long it had been. Marcel - that bloody bottom feeder - would die, painfully, the next time Kol was out of the gods forsaken box. If the young man wasn't already dead from his affiliation to Nik, of course.
Elijah and Klaus were both culpable for the downfall of their family. Where once they had all been happy, now every one of them was miserable. Klaus more than them all, and he ensured that every last one of them felt that misery until they themselves were as close to his pain as they could be.
The bastard forced them all to feel as morose as he did in some perverse, backhanded coping mechanism that Kol would have no more of, when he finally was released from this prison.
He hated Nik. He hated Elijah. He hated Rebekah and how the three of them had left him out of everything in the last thousand years. Kol was wielded as a sword when he was around and discarded like excrement as soon as his usefulness was dried up.
They hated him, too, he knew. It was in the way they treated him. Especially the moment Kol had an opinion that dared to go against whatever the three siblings who'd been encompassed in their ridiculous 'Always and Forever' vow had decided. As soon as he annoyed them, or killed too many humans, or bothered someone they were fond of, even if it was a shallow connection. Whatever excuse his siblings could use to get rid of him when he became inconvenient.
Kol felt for Finn, really. Despite his being an ever simpering sycophant, Finn had never done to any of them what Nik had. Finn's boring and pragmatic suggestions for the rest of them to simply control themselves, as though it were so easy, were at least harmless in comparison to what Nik and Elijah had done over the long, long centuries.
They didn't love Kol. They didn't care about him. They used him, discarded him, treated him like a nuisance at best, a parasite at worst. Every moment spent in this box hardened him to the point where he was beginning to realize he wanted nothing to do with them.
Kol was over it. Done. He was done being a Mikaelson.
Connection broke through his wild, errant thoughts and his mind settled immediately. He felt as this new bond wound its way through him and it sang. Sang like the operas he'd enjoyed. Sang like the way people laughed when they understood a good joke. Sang like the way he felt when he opened a new tome to learn all the secrets buried within its pages. It was like a balm, soothing the cloying anger that ebbed in his very being.
'No.' He sneered in his mind as the connection took form. 'No I don't want my anger relieved. I want it to fester.'
His chest warmed. He could feel it, some kind of ancient magic heating where the dagger lay buried in his heart. She was destroying it, somehow. The dagger was melting, he could feel it as it bubbled and melted until finally it was gone and Kol could move. With a deep breath, he always missed breathing when he was daggered, he threw the coffin door away from him and sat up - the same time as Rebekah did.
Unsurprisingly, when he looked to the opposite side of him, Finn was pulling himself away from his coffin. It was the first time Kol had laid eyes upon his eldest brother in hundreds of years and Kol had to grit his teeth at the influx of grief and guilt that flooded through him at the sight.
He should've tried long ago to free Finn. He knew what it felt like to be daggered, after all. Kol had been daggered off and on enough that he should have tried to convince his siblings to release their eldest brother.
But Kol had never even tried.
In their native tongue, Finn was the first to speak.
"It would seem, my brother and sister, that we have a mate who has finally been born. Her mere existence has released us from our brother's cruelty. We should feed and follow her pull. We must ensure that he does not turn his vile machinations to her."
Right. The soul match. Yes, he agreed. They should get to her first, keep her away from Nik. Or protect her from him, at least. If only to return the favor for destroying those daggers.
Rebekah
Location Unknown, April 20th, 1992. 6:35am
Nik was a rotten bastard. Rotten to the core and Rebekah was sick of his infantile and tyrannical behavior.
She was so sick of his power hungry, war mongering, narcissistic ways. How he always made decisions for her life and blocked her from ever living it with unnecessary cruelty.
Rebekah wanted to live. She didn't want to spend her entire existence running from Mikael, she wanted someone to love her. She wanted to love them back. It didn't even need to be a grand affair, just a soft existence in the country, so long as they loved her it wouldn't matter.
And Nik had daggered her, once again, for having the audacity to pursue such love. Time and time again. It hurt. More than he could ever know, she imagined. More than he would ever care to know.
Their parents destroyed the gentle boy she once loved so very much with all her being. They'd taken Nik and ripped him apart until all that was left was this ball of rage and hurt that controlled every bit of the way he lived his life.
Rebekah knew this, she understood, but centuries of hoping for him to change had worn her down until she could no longer remain so empathetic to her brother's plight. Especially when he'd never show even a shred of the same empathy for her own.
Perhaps it was her own hubris that had caused this. She thought that Nik would leave her be after that scare with Mikael in New Orleans. They were both emotionally raw after losing Marcellus. She'd thought he would leave her to her grief, even as she moved on to Stefan Salvatore.
Rebekah had been quite wrong.
Because Nik always coveted what others might have. And he hurt people who stole his toys from him.
Rebekah wanted to cry, and she thought she might have. Still and motionless in her prison. How pathetic. Tears, rolling down the side of her face whilst she lay desiccated in what she knew would be a beautiful coffin. Klaus would spare no expense in dripping his family in finery - even if that meant a fashionable box. A comfortable prison. Unable to even wipe the wetness away when she grieved the life she wasn't allowed to live.
What she wouldn't give to be released.
These were the thoughts that had plagued her. For how long, she didn't know. Quite some time, she was certain. There wasn't anything else to do when daggered in a box for an indeterminate amount of time.
Sharp, quick, like a lightning bolt striking the ground, Rebekah felt a jolt against her heart. She'd heard of this feeling. It had been described in her mother's grimoire - she'd once snuck the book to find a love spell to use on a boy she'd met from one of the neighboring villages. She'd been human, no power in the mystical arts to speak of, but so very obsessed with the idea of love that she couldn't stop herself from trying. How disappointed she'd been at the time to learn the only page in her mother's book about love had been about soul connections.
But this, this was the feeling she'd been hoping for for nearly a millennium. A soul connection. The song that spoke to her heart, like all the romance sonnets she'd loved in the past, all melded together into the most beautiful harmony. She found herself wishing she could sing along to it.
But she couldn't, because she was stuck in a bloody box. Her mate, likely newborn, alone in the world.
Rebekah hoped the little girl was loved. So very loved. She hoped that the girl didn't have a brother. And if she did, that her brother wouldn't rob her of the opportunity to find love where she could. Rebekah hoped this as strongly as she hoped that she would get out of this box before her mate was long dead and buried.
That would be beyond tragic, and a part of Rebekah wanted to weep for the loss of the girl who'd just begun her life.
She was ready to mourn for the loss of her mate when the burning warmth in her chest began. It took some time, she could tell, until the heat was gone and she could feel herself coming back to life. The burning itch in her throat was testament to her reawakening and her hand raised to her throat.
Yes, she was awake.
Her eyes opened and Rebekah threw the lid of her coffin off and sat up, looking around and praying she wouldn't see Klaus anywhere around. She turned and saw Kol, unsurprised that he'd also been daggered, but surprised to see him awake. Just past Kol, to her utter astonishment, stood Finn. Tall and proud, wearing clothes from a time long past.
In their mother tongue, Finn spoke. "It would seem, my brother and sister, that we have a mate who has finally been born. Her mere existence has released us from our brother's cruelty. We should feed and follow her pull. We must ensure that he does not turn his vile machinations to her."
Trying not to grimace at the revelation that her soul bond was shared with Kol and Finn, so likely Elijah and Nik as well. She didn't want to bloody share with her brothers - the thought was outrageous.
But out loud, Rebekah mumbled. "We have to teach Finn English." The itch in her throat was grating and she knew Kol wasn't going to wait to find someone to feed off of for much longer. She jumped out of the coffin and stretched before she responded to her brother. "I agree. I'll not have Nik robbing us of our mate. Or me, at least. He won't take her from me." She gave Kol a look that said 'and neither will you.'
Kol ignored her, sighed, and rubbed his hands down his face before joining them both. "We'll plan along the way. If we felt her awaken, so did Klaus and Elijah. We have to get to her before they do and we have no idea where she is."
"That way." Finn said, pointing in a direction Rebekah couldn't discern inside of the building.
"Helpful." Kol snarked, leading them out of what seemed to be a concrete warehouse.
Rebekah rolled her eyes at Kol, following her youngest brother as he broke the locked door and sent it splintering across a dark hallway, Finn right behind them.
"I was the last one awake, unless Kol was undaggered recently. Nik and I were in Chicago, 1920s. Who knows how long it's been and where he's moved us."
"1920s?" Finn questioned quietly from behind her.
Rebekah bit her lip, tossing an apologetic look over her shoulder. There was nothing she could say to make up for how long he'd been left in that coffin. So she just nodded her head at him. Her heart sank when her eldest brother's face dropped and pinched with despair and anger.
She wanted to hug him, but she didn't think it would be welcomed after all these years.
"Ah, look what I've found!" Kol exclaimed, arm snapping out around a corner and pulling a badly dressed man with a star that proclaimed him law enforcement pinned to his chest to face them. The man was shaking and loudly asking Kol to let him go. Begging, more like. They were disinclined to release him. Even Finn, Rebekah theorized. "A snack!"
Rebekah brushed Kol's arm aside and used her compulsion on the security lackey that was meant to hold vigil over their coffins, she assumed. "What year is it and where are we?"
"It's 1992. You're in Chicago, please let me go. I have three kids." The man sobbed, clawing at Kol's arm as though that would actually do the trick and save his life.
"It's 1992. I've been under for about seventy years." Rebekah translated for Finn's benefit. Or his detriment, she thought when she saw his face.
Both Kol and Rebekah looked away, both wracked with guilt when Finn sank to his knees, hands buried in his hair and tears in his eyes as his throat ripped out a strangled, mournful cry unlike they'd ever heard before.
Don't worry, I'm not lying. Beth isn't anywhere near as powerful as they seem to think she is. Or is she? Just in a different way than any of them anticipate? Blackwood Hills isn't real, btw. I made it up. Consider it about 40 miles southwest of NOLA.