I was in the library scanning the shelves for something to read. Hayley was in her bedroom pouring herself over Davina's drawings of Celeste. So not what an expecting mother should be looking at. She was on lockdown due to several vampires being found with an unusual voodoo symbol carved into their foreheads. Each victim was desiccated but they were never staked. I was in the library looking for something for Hayley to read to get her mind off the drawings. Their collection was amazing. I mean, I guess it was understandable. Collecting books for over a thousand years. Some of the books were first edition. I had always been fond of reading. I loved how it was an escape from reality. The ability to get lost in the words and feel carefree and worry-free for just a little bit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elijah walk into the library. He was wearing a pale blue dress shirt, dress pants and shoes with a dark suit jacket that was buttoned in the middle and a matching tie.

"There you are." He breathed. I didn't look in his direction. He had either been ignoring me or avoiding me for the past few days and I wondered if he was still upset with me about the whole Celeste thing. I kept my eyes fixated at the books in front of me as I scanned the titles on the bindings.

"Here I am." I muttered, tapping a finger against my chin.

"Something I could help you find?"

"Nope. Just looking for books for Hayley. She's in her room on lockdown looking over Davina's drawings of Celeste. Morbid, I know. She's trying to figure out why Davina drew those pictures of Celeste. Anyway, I'm just trying to give her something else to look at while she's on this vampire lockdown."

"Whoever did this, we will deal with them. It won't be long."

"I'm not worried." I glanced over at him. "Just think it's kind of funny that it took some big, supernatural threat for you to even come into the same room as me." I stood on my tiptoes and reached as far I could to try to grab Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

"I do apologize if you feel neglected." He stepped beside me, his body barely brushing against me as he reached above my head to grab the book for me and slowly handed it to me. "I have been occupied. My siblings are in some quarrel. Niklaus remains agitated. You'll recall that even our slightest interactions seem to… infuriate him." I reached for The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

"So, Klaus is a dick, and you want to be a good big brother so we can't hang out. That sum it up?" Elijah didn't say anything in response as he grabbed the book, I was reaching for off the shelf and handed it to me. "I get it, Elijah. It just seems like a really crappy deal." Taking my books, I left the room to go back to Hayley.

TO

Finally, convincing Hayley to take a break from Davina's drawings, we walked out into the courtyard to see Elijah getting off his phone. He turned to us, his eyes full of worry.

"Rebekah is not answering her calls." Elijah informed us.

"You worried about whoever killed those daywalkers still being out there?" Hayley inquired.

"Frankly, I'm worried that she had something to do with this." I looked at him in confusion. "She's very displeased with Niklaus, perhaps even conspiring with others." Elijah slowly turned to look across the courtyard at Thierry who was sitting at a table drinking and began to walk over to him. "Thierry, is it?" Thierry looked up from his drink and eyed Elijah worriedly as we approached him.

"That's right." He confirmed, swallowing hard.

"My sister is rather fond of you. Strange, she's not typically drawn to unremarkable men. Would you care to explain your sudden magnetism?"

"I don't know what you're—" Thierry didn't have time to finish that sentence before Elijah used his vampirism speed and grabbed Thierry by the throat to pull him out of his seat and slam him up against the wall, toes barely touching the ground. It took Elijah little effort to subdue Thierry. Benefit of being an original vampire I suppose.

"You can either tell me what you know, or I can distribute tiny pieces of you throughout the quarter. There was something about Elijah displaying his strength and power that made me amused and drawn to him. So much power and control that he always kept on a tight leash.

"She asked me to keep an eye out on witch stuff. I found something, and when I showed her, we were jumped by some guy." Thierry was panting for air as Elijah's grip tightened. "He desiccated her with his touch." His grip tightened even more.

"Like a coward, you left her."

"What was I supposed to do, fight some warlock that took out an Original?"

"Where was this, exactly?" Hayley inquired.

"The docks, warehouse fifty-seven. I was just doing what she asked. You cannot tell Klaus about this." Elijah tossed Thierry aside and he slammed into a wall and fell to the ground.

"I shall take that into consideration." Elijah smirked as he turned to leave, and I looked at Hayley.

"Stay here." I ordered her. "I'll be back soon."

"I'm coming with you." Hayley insisted.

"Over my dead body. Stay here. You're safe here."

"Rebekah is in trouble. I'm going." Hayley began to walk past me, but I grabbed her arm and whipped her around to face me again.

"You do not leave my sight. Understand? Or so help me God, Hayley Marshall, I will put a leash on you." She nodded her understanding.

TO

Elijah and I walked side by side into the warehouse with Hayley behind us. It was cold and musty, the scent of water clouding every senses. Underneath the cool scent was a vanilla smell. Something powerful and enlightening belonging to a certain female original vampire that I knew. I inhaled deeply, picking up the scent pushing down the smell of the water. I kept my ears open as I listened to the dripping water in the warehouse and the waves along the docks splashing up against the warehouse walls. I kept one eye scanning my surroundings for any sign of trouble and one eye on Hayley to make sure she didn't wander off as she liked to do. We rounded the corner and peered past a stack of wooden crates to see two ritual sites. The first site was empty, just a large white voodoo symbol painted on the ground with a large circle of salt encompassing it and lit candles bordering it. The other ritual symbol was laid out the same way except this one had a desiccated Rebekah in the middle of it with a smaller sacrificial symbol carved into her forehead.

"Rebekah." Elijah breathed as he rushed over to the circle but bounced back off an invisible barrier. I walked over to the site and held me hand up but something that I could not see prevented me from entering.

"Oh…" Hayley gasped. "What's happening?"

"Some kind of boundary spell. Someone is channeling her. Typically, it's a lethal process, but she's an Original, she cannot die. Instead, she's an endless source of power."

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Elijah spun around and looked at me.

"You have to get her out of there." I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Excuse me?" I looked questioningly at Hayley as Elijah pulled out his phone and called Sophie, putting her on speaker phone and explaining the situation to her as he started to pace on front of the circle, uneasily.

"You're not listening. We cannot enter the circle. There's some kind of confinement spell or—if I can't remove her, we can't break the link."

"It's a convoluted spell." Sophie explained over the phone. "It's like a witch's recipe. You can spoil the balance by adding a more potent ingredient, a mystical bind agent—I don't know—volcanic ash, rock salt, anything up to and including eye of newt."

"What about the blood of a hybrid?" My blood ran cold.

"Do you have the blood of a hybrid?" Elijah's phone beeped as he hung up on Sophie without answering her and he stood up, never taking his eyes off me.

"I need a favor."

"You need my blood." He nodded. "Wonderful. I'm an abomination. A freak of nature. Can't get more potent than that." I walked up to the circle and held out my arms to Elijah.

"You're going to keep healing, so we have to keep the wounds open. I'm not sure how much blood we're gonna need." I nodded my understanding. Elijah gingerly wrapped his hand around my right arm and brought my inner wrist up to his mouth. I watched him with fascination, lips parted slightly. He never broke eye contact as he bit down onto my wrist with his fangs. I gasped slightly at the sharp pain, but it quickly subsided as it was replaced with something else. He took a hold of my other wrist and bit over the vein once more before holding both of my wrists over the salt circle. Blood poured out and as soon as it made contact, the salt began to hiss and bubble, slowly making its way around the circle. Elijah squeezed the sides of my wrists to keep the wounds open and the blood flowing to prevent to the wounds from healings. The bubbling of the salt traveled all the way around the circle as I began to get lightheaded from the blood loss, my legs quivering with weakness.

"Elijah…"

"Just a little more. You're doing great." My vision blurred as Elijah slowly placed his foot over the salt line and when there was nothing stopping him, he stepped fully into the circle and rushed over to Rebekah's side as I gripped my wrists to stop the bleeding and they slowly began to heal. Elijah picked Rebekah up and took her out of the circle, breaking the link.

TO

I stood on the balcony and leaned against the railing that overlooked the courtyard. The compound was crowded with vampires as they awaited Klaus to make a speech. Hayley came out of her room and stood next to me with her hand on her stomach.

"How are you feeling?" Hayley asked me softly.

"Better after a few gallons of blood." I muttered, surveying the vampires below us. "How are you?"

"Tired. Baby will not stop kicking." I let out an amused laugh.

"Must be stubborn and resilient like her mother." Hayley smiled at me; her brown eyes bright as Klaus began to speak from the balcony on the opposite side of the courtyard.

"Not long ago, you all united against me." Klaus' voice rang out through the air, cutting through the silence like a hunter's dagger. "You failed. Since then, in my benevolence, I have wiped the slate clean, yet it seems clear you think that I am the one who needs to earn your respect, your loyalty. You're mistaken. It is you who must prove yourselves to me. Our community is under attack. I require soldiers. I need warriors, not cowards. Each of you has a decision to make. You either fight alongside me or you leave… now." Murmuring spread across the crowd of vampires like wildfire before Thierry stepped forward and looked up at Klaus.

"We don't owe you anything." Thierry said with confidence. "If staying in the quarter means living under your rule, I'd just as soon get the hell out." Thierry turned and walked back through the crowd to the exit with at least few dozen vampires following behind him.