Songbird
Summary: She asked for his protection. He gave it to her. But with Klaus Mikaelson everything came with a price and into his web Caroline Forbes went. However that was only the beginning. Mafia!Klaroline AU/AH.
Chapter VIII: Requiem for Hearts
Warnings for this chapter:
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Graphic scenes of violence and abuse. Gore and death. Grief. Some strong language/profanity.
If you cannot manage such themes please do not read.
...
But it's too late to go back
And I can see the darkness through the cracks
Daylight fading, I curse the breaking
The day is gone
...
Elijah Mikaelson pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. Leaves were falling from the trees of their estate as the last soil covered Kol Mikaelson's grave in the gardens of their estate.
There was no other there but him and one of Kol's men that dug the unmarked for now grave. There was no time for giving his brother a memorial service or even a dignified funeral.
Kol' distress signal had come too late. When he arrived at the scene Kol's broken body was hacked to pieces and whatever remained was thrown in a ditch amidst the countless other corpses that belonged to the members of their security. The grotesque sight would forever be burned in his memory.
By the time the police got there Klaus and he had retrieved the bodies and all the evidence they could. Klaus had gone ballistic searching for Caroline and destroying everything he could at the sight of Kol's lifeless eyes but he was the one who picked up the remains of their brother and carried him home.
They had been too late.
Elijah Mikaelson was never naïve enough to believe there would be any other end to the kind of life they had all chosen but that didn't lessen the pain. Or the all-consuming need for vengeance.
Kol's casket was lowered to the ground and despite the gun wound on his shoulder Elijah gripped the shovel and started filling the earth. The sound of the first dirt over the coffin rang like a gunshot.
The grey clouds on the sky were lit with lightning and drops of rain started falling.
When the earth swallowed the dead Kol's man gave him a small bow and left. Elijah stood still and his hands turned to fists.
They had taken a hit at them all. This was war and Kol was the first casualty but was not the only victim. Caroline Forbes was missing. Stefan Salvatore was dead. Rebekah was in a clinic under a different name and with heavy security guarding her and Klaus was lost in madness. The gangs were rising and opposing families were uniting against them. This was organized. Methodically planned. And like a puppeteer someone was hiding in the shadows pulling the strings leading their family to destruction.
Drops of water glistened on the wool of his coat and on his hair as Elijah Mikaelson kneeled and placed his open palm on the wet soil.
Elijah closed his eyes. Kol had been a wild spirit and should their places have been reversed he knew Kol would drown their enemies in blood, throw a party and dance on their graves.
He wouldn't do anything less for him.
"I give you my word brother. In my honor, I will bury those that put you here," Elijah promised and got up not caring for the first time for the mud that had soiled his clothes as the soft rain built up into a storm.
Elijah did not mind the downpour but he knew it was not time to dwell on the things lost. Rebekah and Klaus needed him and he had to avenge his fallen brother.
He threw one last glance at the fresh grave of his young brother before he turned around and walked back to the house whispering the only thing that burned in his heart.
"No one hurts my family and lives."
The diamonds weighted a ton as Klaus Mikaelson held them tightly in his palm. Next to him on the floor, along with the empty bottles of whiskey, was the notebook Caroline had given him as a birthday gift. The only things that were left from her now that she was gone. That and the memory of her smile and her love.
Love.
Love was weakness. Misery and death.
Love blinded him. He got lost in the yearning of it that he had missed the bigger picture.
Now it was too late to go back. To go back and see clearly. To see how allowing Caroline Forbes to enter his heart had weakened him. Had distracted him. Had made him lose focus.
He should have seen the signs. He knew something was in the air but he had ignored it.
He had missed the part where he should have kept his family united by his side and not divide them into weak links.
Everything that followed next was on him. He was the Boss. It was his responsibility. To protect them, to save them, to avenge them.
He failed.
In the moments of the shooting, he had been so terrified of losing Caroline that nothing else than keeping her safe had mattered.
It had been his most constant mistake. Loving her. Wanting her. She had been such a blinding light invading his darkness through the cracks he opened for her. And she blinded him. It had not been the first time the stakes were high and he and his family had been in a life and death situation. He foolishly had believed they were only after him because it would be unthinkable to think otherwise. To think that those he cared for would pay the price for choosing this life. He didn't want Caroline to become a casualty to the life he was leading so for once in his life he had chosen to be selfless. He had stayed behind to draw his enemies to him to ensure she would have the time and the chance to get to safety. In deciding to sacrifice his life for her he fell straight into the trap of his enemies. He gave to his enemies what he cherished the most into a silver platter. He made it easy for them.
And now Caroline was gone. One more nameless victim as many others.
Klaus was now counting the minutes knowing that since he had missed the chance of finding her in the first hours and the days that followed the trail had gone cold. The first 24 hours had been the worst and then time turned to an unending eternity. He still had his people scouring Chicago to find her but it was hopeless. He was already expecting packages with pieces of her body to start arriving at his doorstep.
He had royally failed her. She had asked for his protection and he failed her.
By the time he managed to get out of Loup Noir that night, bathed in blood and smoke, he knew something had gone terribly wrong. He felt it in every instinct he possessed. The bullet lodged in his arm screamed while it should only tingle and he couldn't shake the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong. He didn't feel even an ounce of relief of making it out in one piece.
He shouldn't have made it out alive and he got out barely with scratches. The odds had not been staked to his favor. And at that moment he understood what that truly meant.
Klaus cursed and threw the bottle he held in rage. Shards rained in every direction and the alcohol dripped down the wall and stained the carpet.
He still replayed in his mind Kol's distress signal. He still went back to when he called Caroline. He still remembered the relief he had felt when she had picked up and the dread before the call was abruptly cut off. The screeching noises, the fear in Caroline's voice, the deafening sounds accompanied by screams and then… the dead line. For the first time in his life time had frozen. He knew he wouldn't make it there in time. He knew he would lose both of them. By the time he and Elijah went to save them, it was too late.
Klaus had stepped into a battlefield of dead bodies and blood. Kol was dead and Caroline had been gone. He had scoured the grounds but she was nowhere to be found. His men couldn't find her either. No one could.
But they did find what was left from Kol Mikaelson.
Kol's broken body was amidst the countless others of their men. All of them dead. The relief that Caroline's body was not among them was immediately replaced by terror. The diamond bracelet he had given her was thrown over Kol's mangled pieces stained with blood. Glittering on his brother's dead body. A mockery. A message for him.
Caroline was missing and his brother was dead.
At that moment his terror had turned to rage but his grief never truly burst out. Elijah tried to hold him back but he had lost control emptying his gun on the pit of bodies; the pain didn't lessen. It only became stronger and didn't stop building up in his mind and soul. Not when he retrieved the bracelet. Not when he picked up with his bare hands what was left from his brother before the police arrived. Not when they found out what happened to Rebekah. Not when he searched for Caroline when Elijah washed Kol's remains and ordered a coffin to be delivered to their doorstep.
For Klaus, only one thing mattered now. For Rebekah to live and for Caroline to return to him safe and sound but as the hours became days he knew he would lose them both. It became futile. It became a struggle with sanity. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He beat the streets. He painted Chicago red. It was a full blown war. Several of the gangs that rose against them were brutally obliterated from the map but Caroline was still missing. Rebekah was as good as dead. Kol was dead. Stefan hadn't made it either. Along with many more of their allies and men.
By the end of the week, Klaus had murdered more than he had in the past years alone until he found refuge in his study locking himself away from the world. Knowing that he had to play the waiting game now.
Elijah dealt with the police and searched to find the unknown source that targeted them. It was Elijah that secured Rebekah in a safe location and he that had put Kol's body on ice in their basement until they would find the time to bury him.
As for him?
Despite Elijah's protests about how they should keep it together, he chose the next best thing to dull everything that hurt.
The one bottle of scotch followed the next and then the next. Through muttering curses and orders Klaus Mikaelson lost the battle before it began. He withdrew into the darkness and drank himself into oblivion. He hadn't slept for days. He only soothed the pain with poison. The only thing he kept close was Caroline's bracelet and the birthday gift she had given him which he had gone back to the ruins of Loup Noir just to get it back. Some of the pages were burned in the edges and blood and smudges of soot were smeared all over it but it was hers and it belonged with him just as she did.
And now Klaus waited. He waited for her body to be delivered to him just like Kol's coffin.
Klaus gripped the bracelet harder in his palm and laughed. Elijah buried Kol in their garden and had dared to ask him to attend that lovely funeral. To dig a shallow grave and memorialize their dead. To pray for Kol's soul when they all knew he was going straight to hell.
Klaus couldn't stop laughing. Such an absurd idea to stand above the soil in honor of their gangster brother that died because his gangster brothers couldn't save him from other gangsters. What would be the point? Their brother was dead and gone. Buried. And those that killed him and brought them to their knees roamed free.
Klaus held on to Caroline's bracelet and shuffled the pages of the notebook.
Caroline's handwriting was breaking through the discolored white of the pages. The ink was dancing in Klaus' glossy eyes.
"…dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before…" [1]
Klaus closed his eyes remembering how much Caroline loved to read Poe's Raven and how she was giving him pointed stares whenever she would get to lines that reminded her of him.
He closed her haunting voice deep into the scribbling of the pages and hugged the notebook she had given him tighter.
He had been happy. He had foolishly allowed himself to dream what he should have never dared to.
He had let his guard down. He shouldn't have. This was his fault. It shouldn't have happened. He had allowed Caroline to become his blind spot. This wouldn't have happened a few years ago. And now his little brother was dead, his sister was dying in a hospital bed and Caroline was missing. If she wasn't dead already.
The door creaked open but Klaus didn't move from the corner of the wall. His chest tightened as if he was confined in a small space that was becoming smaller and smaller still. Just like Kol's coffin. It was a dark space that turned him to rot. His heart refused to pump blood to his veins. His body refused to allow his lungs to work. He was suffocating. He was cracking at every seam and the dread that cracked into that broken heart for the first time in his life had no rival. Mikael's abuse, Esther's betrayal. Nothing compared. He had turned into an open bleeding wound and now they were going to throw salt on it.
There was only one reason for anyone to find the courage to get into this room, with silent steps and cautious stalling, and Klaus had been expecting this moment to come for days now.
The dream had become a nightmare and now it would end.
Marcel Gerard had survived the attack. That's why Klaus Mikaelson had chosen him and that's how he rose into the Mikaelson ranks, to begin with. He was a survivor. He was as brutal as them and just as arrogant. He was unforgiving with his enemies and loyal with those that earned his loyalty but most of all he was fearless.
Only that night, after a long time in his life, he felt fear. The kind of fear he used to feel when he was a homeless child on the streets trying to survive and getting messed up with the gangs despite the young of his age. He didn't have anything to lose back then. He learned not to feel fear. Not to have mercy.
The night of the attack he would have begged for mercy. He felt fear.
He had lost a lot of men and earned a few more scars but he almost lost what mattered to him the most. Rebekah Mikaelson, despite her condition, was still alive because of him but he would never forget the moments when he held her broken body and shielded her from those that kept coming after her. He would never forget how he raced against time to get her to safety and away from gunfire. How she was losing blood and he couldn't wake her up.
How he still could not wake her up.
Rebekah was in a coma and he was still afraid. The fear was there. She was vulnerable and hurt and he was terrified of losing her. He still couldn't help her.
And tonight, once more, he wouldn't be able to help her brother either.
No matter the blood he had shed the past days, the torture he had inflicted and the agony and worry he felt for Rebekah getting into Klaus Mikaelson's study was another kind of tribulation.
The box he was holding didn't weight much really but in his hands, it was as heavy as a ton. Their security had picked the box apart first and now Marcel's hands were itching to tremble and throw that offending thing away but it was a message and he had to deliver it.
The first thing that assaulted Marcel when he entered into Klaus' office was the smell.
Klaus study stunk with the overwhelming frowsty odor of booze. It was like Klaus hadn't let even air in for days and had drenched the whole place in strong liquor. The walls, the floors, the upturned furniture. All it would take was for him to light a match and it would all go down in flames and Marcel knew Klaus would stay in here to burn. He would welcome the smoke and the fire and the only thing that stopped him from lighting that match was his savage desire to burn his enemies first.
Klaus had taken out his rage in this room. There were broken furniture, vases, shards of glass, torn books and papers on the floor. Guns and knives. Even blood. The whole place was a mess that had succumbed in dark shadows.
Klaus' study used to be filled with light, both natural and artificial because as his mentor used to say it was all better to highlight the art in the walls. Now the curtains kept the sun out and the paintings were destroyed.
"Why aren't you at the hospital?" Klaus asked, his tone empty, his gruff voice almost unrecognizable.
Marcel had never seen Klaus Mikaelson so broken. More than the things he had destroyed and now littered the space all around him. The man that had taken him off the streets and given him a chance to be more than one more gang member. The man that had seen the potential in him and gave him a chance to prove himself. Klaus Mikaelson had taken the underground by the storm. He conquered and ravaged and under his reign, Marcel was taught how to rule and how to bathe the underbelly of the cities they owned in blood till it would rain from the skies.
Now drunk and defeated as he was Klaus was all but a shade of himself. A pitiful creature that would never inspire fear or any kind of fealty. Had he met him like that he would have had him for lunch…or at least that is what he would think he would easily be able to do only Marcel knew that this was an illusion. This calmness. This eerie quietness.
Klaus in the last days tore off the heads of anyone that would dare get in here without a good reason but truth was that Marcel would have felt a lot more comfortable if Klaus was in rage or was sarcastic and angry about his obvious attention towards his sister. He would have felt as if he was in a more safe ground if his Boss lashed out. Klaus was like a beast in its cage and he was about to set it free and no one would be able to tame it now.
"They left this outside at one of your clubs. No one saw who," Marcel simply said. He had been the one that had personally punished the men they had left in the club for their incompetence but it seemed as if Klaus didn't care for any of that.
Yet in his dizzy haze, Klaus tensed. He reached for the half-empty bottle and downed its contents in greedy gulps at once as Marcel went and placed the box on the empty surface of the wooden desk. The box was white. The ribbon had been black.
Marcel took the table lamp from the floor. Thankfully the bulb was still intact.
He put the lamp next to the box and turned its light on. It flickered but it still cast a dim glow on the box putting it into focus.
A weak orange tint filled the room and Klaus closed his eyes as if even that soft luminance hurt his eyes.
Marcel held his breath when he saw Klaus placing almost reverently the colorful notepad he was holding on the floor and placed Caroline's diamond bracelet on it. Marcel couldn't believe his eyes when Klaus had returned back to Loup Noir only to get that childish diary. He had turned the wreckage upside down till he found it and then kept it on him as if it was his most precious treasure.
Klaus picked up himself with difficulty. He swayed on his feet but stumbled to the desk. Marcel knew better than trying to help him stand or walk.
Klaus placed his hands at the right and left side of the box and Marcel barely noticed the infinitesimal shake of the man's head. It was as if Klaus Mikaelson refused to accept what was in front of him.
The moment of cowardliness didn't last long. Klaus threw away the lid of the box to the side and the lamp now cast what seemed like a harsh glare into what was in the box.
The air thickened around them. Marcel went rigid as he observed silently Klaus' expression as he took in what was into the box.
Klaus Mikaelson seemed to be frozen in limbo. He only watched the contents of the box with a detached expression that betrayed no emotion and yet everything seemed to get colder and colder all around him.
What broke through the stillness was Klaus' hand. He reached into the box and caressed every item that was in it.
Fire was licking Klaus' insides liquefying every part of him turning him into a raw nerve ending. The world became small. Smaller and smaller until it could only fit into that box.
That bloody box that had in it Caroline's dress cut in pieces. Sodden with blood. A lock of her hair was tied with a black ribbon on top of the torn silk undergarments that were also coated in blood.
Klaus almost reverently touched the lock of hair. His jaw clenched, his body stiffened and a tear dropped on his cheek. He took in every detail. He let the horror and the finality wash over him. He let the message that was in the box crash him.
Klaus gripped Caroline's hair in his hand remembering all the times he used to caress her blonde strands when she was sleeping next to him and now she was at the hands of his enemies. Suffering. As good as dead. Dead like Kol. Half dead like Rebekah. Maybe even wishing to be dead; suffering a fate worse than death and he couldn't help her. He couldn't protect her. He could only wait helplessly for his enemies to deliver pieces of his Caroline in boxes.
The sight of her ripped underwear soaked in her blood was what set him off.
He roared and destroyed everything at sight letting out all his rage, panic and despair at once. He kicked and punched the desk. He threw the box away and screamed till his throat was so coarse no voice was coming out.
When he took out his gun ready to kill anyone and everyone, himself included, Marcel Gerard held him back. Klaus saw only red. He tried to shoot him but Marcel was pushing the gun in another direction. The bullet ricocheted on the wall and Klaus tried to take down Marcel but in his drunken state and in his fury, he was staggering back.
The gun went off again and pieces from the chandelier on the ceiling fell down.
"I will kill them all! Let me go!"
"She is alive," Marcel yelled at him trying to disarm him, "it's psychological war," he tried to reason with him without managing to do so.
"Let go!"
"They want you to lose it! To lose your mind and do a mistake! You need to think!"
Marcel's urgency and his arguments would have made sense if he was a man of reason. After all, he was the one that had taught Marcel strategy but there was nothing left in his soul than murder and the need to kill. Marcellus was trying to hold him back. To stop him from going out there and killing even innocents on sight. But all that was left in Klaus' head was a scream. Caroline's scream. She was out there. Dying if not already dead. And he couldn't help her. He couldn't save her. The scream drove him mad.
Klaus struggled but then a sharp pain bloomed at the back of his skull and the last thing he felt was falling down on the floor before he succumbed to blessed darkness.
Elijah Mikaelson stood over the unconscious body of his brother for a moment before he kicked the gun out of Klaus' reach.
Marcel had an expression of gratefulness on his face but Elijah only inclined his head towards the spilled contents of the box that Klaus had thrown down.
"Marcel take this and get it to our connections in the police department," Elijah ordered him with a stern tone, "see if they can get any trace but make sure it stays covered. Leave us."
The harsh daylight blinded him. Klaus opened his eyes to the unforgiving sunlight that streamed into the room now that Elijah had opened the curtains and let the day burst into what was left from the study.
Klaus gulped down, grunted groggily and tried to sit up. His head was pounding. He was left on the floor while Elijah had picked up a chair and was sitting on it with a look of displeasure.
"This won't do Niklaus," Elijah simply said taking in with sharp eyes the sickly and disheveled appearance of his younger brother.
The cadence of Elijah's voice was carrying the despondent color that made grown men cower in shame in front of the austere figure of authority his brother presented. The one he had perfected down the years and the one Klaus, in particular, hated the most. It still made him feel like a child and Elijah always relished in that air of maturity and superiority which was grating.
This time however the disappointment in his brother's features didn't only annoy him. It hurt. Deeply. Because this time it was not a pretentious attitude. This time it was honest. Real. And Klaus and earned every shred of it.
His shoulders slumped and Klaus didn't bother getting up from the floor. He pushed the scattered pieces of broken furniture away and he admitted defeat.
He had lost. He was so tired. Mikael had been right after all. He was worthless.
"I lost Elijah."
Elijah Mikaelson pressed his lips into a tight line and gritted his teeth with so much force that he almost broke his jaw. The way Klaus had thrown in the towel and abandoned hope into the face of adversity was so outlandish and alien. This wasn't his brother.
"We don't have time to break now. Pull yourself together," Elijah calmly responded feeling for the first time in his life the need to beat his brother to a bloody pulp just as Mikael used to do. The only difference was that when Mikael was abusing his little brother he stood back and watched. He watched as Klaus was bending but not breaking. He watched as Klaus was counting his scars but never quit.
Elijah needed the unyielding stubbornness and the lethal will of his brother back now more than ever. Their family, what was left of it, was on the line and they had to fight now more than ever. But they wouldn't be able to do so if their King had surrendered and lost the war just after one battle.
Klaus started laughing as he got up. He rubbed the back of his head and watched the blood on his fingers but simply shrugged it off as he went straight towards to what was left from his alcohol stash.
Elijah gripped the arms of the chair so hard that the already abused wood cracked under the pressure.
Before Klaus could get his hands on one more bottle Elijah with two strides was in front of him and punched him so hard that Klaus stumbled and fell to the ground again.
"Get up Niklaus," Elijah ordered his brother, his voice filled with contempt.
"Get out," Klaus growled without bothering to get up from the floor or even wipe the blood from his nose, lips, and chin.
"You may as well be killing her yourself," Elijah spat disgusted but blinked frustrated when Klaus said nothing.
His brother only hung his head down. He had truly given up. Elijah had expected this insult to at least bring some guilt, some anger, some energy back into his brother but Klaus seemed beaten and defeated. He had quit.
He already knew how important Caroline was to Klaus but she was meant to be his strength not his downfall.
The moment his brother had found love Elijah had sworn that he would build a church and pray to any God known to man for that miracle but as always Klaus had the unique ability to turn the greatest of gifts into curses and their enemies would always be here to take advantage of this but he would be damned if he would lose Klaus too after losing Kol.
He would personally crucify all their enemies if he had too but Rebekah and Niklaus had to stand up and rise from the ashes. He would ensure it even if it would be the last thing he would do. Kol was the last loss their family would face and he needed Klaus back into warrior mode to make sure they would come out of this alive and victorious otherwise all their sacrifices and Kol's death would have been for nothing.
Klaus remained unresponsive. Elijah cursed under his gritted teeth and leaned down, grabbed his brother's blouse and pulled him up violently.
Klaus was like a rag doll against his hold.
"I stood by your side when you waged war against Mikael," Elijah snarled in outrage, "I stood by your side when you killed our mother," he seethed appalled and when Klaus finally glanced up he fixed him an unforgiving glare. Not because of the guilt of what they had both done to their blood but because of what they were doing now. Both of them had failed Kol and Rebekah. Failing again was not an option. He had believed in his brother just as they all had and should he turn time back he would follow him and support him again. But the meek excuse of a man he had in front of him now was not the brother he had followed to battle against Mikael. He was not the King that brought glory to their family again and reigned over the Mikaelson Empire.
"We all supported you because we knew what they had done to you. Because we have vowed to stay by your side and help you rule. Always and Forever. Me, Rebekah…Kol," Elijah reminded him, pleading him to remember, "This is not just about you. This is about our family. About those we love. To protect them... To avenge them," he breathed out somberly and Klaus cast his gaze down again.
Elijah shook his head offended and forlorn by his brother's continuous breakdown.
Elijah let him go half expecting him to fall again but this time Klaus Mikaelson stayed up. Looking out of balance. Looking defeated.
"I won't stand by your side if you are here wasting away when both Rebekah and Caroline need you. They both need you," Elijah whispered and saw how Klaus' eyes gleamed with unshed tears that threatened to spill, "they depend on you."
"I can't do this Elijah," Klaus confessed in a broken voice. Sounding more like the boy that followed him when they were kids rather than the man and the killer he had grown to be.
Elijah carefully approached him and faced him. This time not with anger or revulsion but with understanding. They shared the same grief. The same pain. They had to carry each other. To stand by each other's side.
"You can," Elijah assured him gravely and held him by his arms trying to make him see reason and help him hold on from something.
And finally, for the first time after all these endless days, Elijah saw a spark of hope and maybe even the ghost of some determination rush life into Klaus again. Just a fragment.
Elijah only hoped it would be enough to bring his brother back with a vengeance. They would have time to mourn. Right now what they needed was the King of Chicago, the Hybrid everyone feared to make a comeback and fight back.
"They are trying to break you. Don't let them," Elijah urged him, squeezing his shoulders before he let him go, "our lives depend on it…Caroline's life depends on it." Elijah added before he left him alone.
...
Mystic Falls
January 2010
Those voices. That buzzing sound they were making. It made Caroline even more disoriented.
The voices had been loud when she had struggled in her half-conscious state before she felt the prickle of needle on her skin as Logan held her down and mumbled apologies and sweet nothings in her ear. She had struggled. She remembered that. But then the voices became distant.
Caroline tried to move but she couldn't. The sheets underneath were not soft. She could still smell the disinfectant and the pain on her face was excruciating.
Someone was cleaning her up. Setting up a bone that should not have been out of place in the first place. Why was it out of place again?
Right…Logan had hit her. Again. But she could barely think. The only thing she wanted to do now was sleep. She was so dizzy. She couldn't even move.
God, she had to stay awake. To get out of here.
"Pray she doesn't have a concussion!" the female voice hissed.
Caroline tried to open her eyes. She knew that voice. It had to be Meredith. Logan's sister.
'Not again,' Caroline thought and a soft moan left her lips. Meredith Fell always helped Logan. Always pumping her blood with drugs. Always covered for him. Why was she doing this to her?
"The sedative I gave her will keep her down for a few hours at least. What happened again, Logan?" Meredith questioned him with an exasperated voice that somehow managed to battle what was burning in Caroline's blood that made her so weak and sleepy.
The last thing she remembered was the crunching noise the bone of her nose made when Logan punched her. She tasted blood in her mouth as she fell on his hands and when she blinked her eyes open again she was at the backseat of his car that was swerving in the road. She had been barely able to keep her eyes open. Her head had been burning so bad. And then she remembered Logan carrying her into the clinic his sister was occasionally working with. He had taken her miles out of Mystic Falls. She had tried to fight but she had lost a lot of blood and the pain was messing with her mind.
"I lost it! She was flirting with that moron her mother had under her protection," Logan's angry rant brought goosebumps all over Caroline's body.
"They are friends Logan!" Logan's sister almost shouted but Caroline could barely make out what she was saying, "Matt Donovan is looking out for her and this is not something he won't notice. You almost broke her nose! Those bruises will be really ugly and won't go away for days. No make-up will cover them. How are you going to hide it now?" Meredith demanded.
"Can't we get her to your clinic for a few days?" Logan asked worried, "I can cover it up. It's not as if she is stable anyway."
"I can't keep covering for you Logan. This has to stop. You know I am planning to run for Mayor eventually. I can't have such a scandal related to our name. People will start noticing and talking. What if they found out I have been helping you out with this. My career will be ruined!"
"Once my contract with the newspaper is done I will take her and get out of Mystic Falls," Logan told his sister with a reassuring voice, "start a family. A new life away from here."
Caroline's blood froze. She had to find a way to get out. She had to do something. But the only thing she could do now was sleep.
She was so tired.
Kol's eyes followed her into the darkness. They were lifeless. Staring into the void. A haunting thing to remember, to never forget, to follow you into the abyss.
Everything was turning and turning. Her stomach was churning. Blood was not washing away. It was stuck on her hair, her skin, beneath her nails. Blood and dirt. Turning, turning all was turning. Time was turning. All around her swallowing her whole. She didn't know how long it has been.
She remembered dancing. Safe in loving hands. She was happy. And then the bomb went off.
Bomb?
No, that wasn't right. It couldn't be right.
Screaming. There were so many people screaming and so many guns. Bodies were dropping down.
Had she imagined that? Did it really happen?
She didn't remember.
Bang!
The sound of the bullet into the night, the splatter of blood, the silence that followed, the suffocating hint of chloroform. All blended together.
Kol's eyes followed her. Everywhere she went into her mind to hide from the pain those eyes, dead eyes, chased her.
There was a car and it had crashed. And the pain. Was she in the car? No, she couldn't be because she remembered running. Yes, she had run. But she hadn't made it. Kol hadn't made it either.
Kol? Where was Kol?
Where was she now?
She wanted to scream. To moan. To open her mouth to utter any word but she couldn't.
All Caroline Forbes felt was pain. Unholy pain.
It was if she couldn't open her eyelids no matter how much she tried. They were heavy. Every sound was coming to her ears muddled. It was if she was floating on air, weightless and light and at the same time she weighed a ton and something was dragging her down with so much force that was leaving her breathless.
Between alertness and unconsciousness there was a fine line and there was where she was trapped.
Trapped. She was trapped!
She wanted to break free but she couldn't. She had tried. But she was weak. So weak.
Hands had taken her away leaving Kol's eyes behind staring into the starless night.
Blood was everywhere and those hands had ripped her away. They had ripped her clothes away. They had kept her under.
Flashes of memory surged underneath Caroline's eyes. She remembered waking up and fainting. Over and over again. Hard faces stared her from above. There were needles and sterile bandages. There was blood and rough hands on her head that felt as if it had cracked in two.
God her head hurt! Was that rope around her wrists? What was going on?
She tried to move but couldn't. She had lived this before. In another time. In another life. When Meredith Fell was sedating her and healing the wounds Logan had inflicted on her but this couldn't be. Logan was not here. He couldn't be. Klaus would protect her. He had promised he would.
Klaus!
It was his memory, his face in her mind that breathed new life in her. She anchored herself to it. To his memory, his voice, his strength. She followed that voice with every ounce of strength she had left inside her and let it guide her back into the light.
His voice. She held on to it until it was the only thing that existed.
"The brightest light can shine only inside darkness sweetheart."
Caroline's fingers moved. Just barely. Enough for the pain to bloom on her bruised skin. Good. Pain meant she was alive.
"No second thoughts. Just instinct."
They were drugging her. There was something acidic in her veins. It left a metallic taste in her dry mouth. Caroline shook that feeling away. She had to fight.
Klaus had taught her better than that. She had to wake up. To hold on. To break free. She wasn't in the past anymore. She wasn't the weak little girl Logan and his sister could break and lock away. She was stronger but she still had to survive. In the now. Right now.
"Handle your balance like I taught you. Ground yourself."
Klaus' voice became her pillar of strength and Caroline opened her eyes. She was barely conscious but here she was. Back into the bleak harsh unforgiving reality. Strapped into a rusty bed, over a dirty mattress, hooked to an IV line.
Reality crashed on her. She remembered everything all at once. The explosion at the club. The shooting. The gangs. Stefan was torn in pieces right in front of her eyes along with countless more people and in the chaos, Klaus had sent her away and stayed back. The Mikaelsons had split and she had gone with Kol.
Kol!
She remembered the car chase, the accident. She remembered the way they had hit her and grabbed her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. They had killed Kol!
Caroline bit her lip drawing blood. She swallowed her moan making sure not to alert anyone she had waken up. Her chest was wrapped so tightly with bandages and it hurt but it was her head that was on fire. Vomit rose in her mouth. She wanted to throw up. All her body ached and she couldn't see straight. Blurry figures danced in her eyes immersed in shadows. Her eyes drooped close again. She had to pretend she was still unconscious but the more she kept her eyes shut the harder it was becoming to actually remain away.
She centered all her senses to the hissing voices just a few steps away from her bed.
"You promised me!"
A thousand spiders moved over her body! That angry voice! Caroline knew the voice that reached her ringing ears all too well. It still existed in her nightmares only this time it was real. Too real.
Logan!
Caroline would have recognized his voice among thousands and it chilled her blood turning to jagged ice in her veins.
Logan Fell was there. Along with a woman.
Only Caroline could swear that whoever she was wasn't Meredith. Caroline tried to blink the confusion and the pain away. She tried to sneak one more peek and fastly blink away the blurriness from her eyes.
Was that red?
Red hair?
Caroline brow creased and tried to focus but she couldn't. Everything started turning again so fast. She wanted to take away the needle that was stuck in her arm and was feeding her blood with sedatives but her hands were bound as were her legs too.
"You will get what my husband promised you and more. When we get what we want you can have her and a new identity to begin again," the woman reassured Logan.
Another wave of nausea hit Caroline and no matter how much she struggled to not faint away again into that dark haunting place of darkness the slow drip of that burning drug into the IV that was connected with her arm broke through her defenses.
She lost consciousness and Logan and that woman faded away again.
Marcel Gerard was never a gentle man but all the gentleness he had he reserved for the woman lying on the hospital bed, hooked up on the life support. He was afraid to touch her but he held on her bruised hand as tenderly as he could fearing that he could hurt her more even if she couldn't feel it.
The needles that pierced her skin, the beeping sound of the machine, her ashen face. This didn't seem real. Rebekah Mikaelson was more than just a broken weak body. She was stronger than this. She had to be.
Marcel kept remembering all their moments. And no moment matched this reality. Rebekah Mikaelson as every Mikaelson was a force to be reckoned with. Her imperious attitude. Her vitriolic sass. Her independence and her need to be loved and to love. Her heart. Her soul. Her savage thirst for power and control. Her loyalty and her devotion to her family. Her desire and her passion. Everything that made her…her…was all he could think of now and he wanted to have more from her to remember. He wanted her to wake up. To make new memories with him. This couldn't be how it would all end.
He still remembered how she had behaved when they had first met. She acted as if he was nothing but a weak minion of her brother that would either bend and break under her heel or end up giving in to Klaus' whims and threats as her old flames had done.
He still remembered the way she had pretended not to be interested in him as if he was beneath her. And he was but that had never stopped him before. He always wanted what he couldn't have and always got what he wanted. But Rebekah was not a possession to own. She was a Queen and she had conquered him.
He still remembered the first time they had worked together and how they had teamed up. He remembered the first time they had sex and how he had driven Stefan Salvatore out of her heart. Piece by piece he had claimed every piece of hers. And despite how foolish it had been and it still was he still dreamed of a future with her.
When Klaus Mikaelson fell for his singer girl he had hoped that maybe he would be more willing to allow Rebekah to find the same happiness. But now Rebekah Mikaelson was in critical condition hidden from the world because those that put her in here were still on the hunt, out to get every Mikaelson and Marcel knew that even though he would give his life to protect her he had already failed her. If he hadn't she wouldn't be in this damn bed fighting for her life.
And Klaus had lost it! He had lost it! He had given up and everything was falling apart. Elijah was the only one standing but he wouldn't be enough. Not without Klaus. Not with Kol dead.
He had to take Rebekah out. If the Mikaelsons were to fall he would not allow this to happen to Rebekah too. He had to get her out of Chicago but he couldn't move her in this condition.
"Fuck!" he cursed between clenched teeth but gently brought Rebekah's hand to his lips and kissed it, "come back baby," he pled but then froze when he felt a heavy shadow at his back.
"Don't bother," Klaus said when he reached for his gun. That man was like a damn shadow when he wanted. Stealthy, lethal and undetectable.
The last days he had been weak but even so he was still moving like a ghost.
"If I can sneak up on you like this you are not much of use when it comes to my sister's protection are you Marcellus?" Klaus dismissively threw at him and Marcel's lips twisted in anger.
"While you are?" Marcel provoked Klaus knowing that he was about to lose his head but he didn't care. The audacity of that asshole to face him like this when he had been useless drowning in alcohol while Rebekah was hooked in this fucking machine dying, "I didn't see you giving a damn for Rebekah when you've been cowering in your hole!"
Klaus glare turned to ice but Marcel only stood up and faced him.
"I took her out of the wreckage!" Marcel yelled, "I killed to get to her and I would kill thousands more! She is alive because of me! And she shouldn't be here now! She should be-"
"With you," Klaus finished for him.
Marcel exhaled harshly but did not back down. He knew it was against the rules. He glanced at Rebekah and he knew that if Klaus put a bullet in his head right now it would still all be worth it.
"Me and her," he started, "we-"
"You," Klaus accentuated with a grim tone, "are not as good as you may think when it comes to hiding your affairs, Marcel. More so when they include my sister."
Marcel narrowed his eyes realizing that this was old news for Klaus. Fuck.
"If you want to take my head for being with your sister you will have to wait. I need to be here to protect her. Once all is said and done you can do what you will," Marcel shrugged and sat back to his chair at the side of Rebekah's bed and covered her hand with his again.
Klaus said nothing and Marcel closed his eyes. No point in hiding anymore.
"You messed her up Klaus," he accused his Boss not caring for the way the man tensed as if he was ready to pounce at him, "after what happened with Stefan Salvatore Rebekah has been afraid to let go," Marcel continued with a pained voice, "to love me, to be with me and instead of fighting for her I chose the power you gave me just as he had," he cursed before he paused and felt his eyes burning. He hadn't had tears in his eyes for years. He didn't think he was still capable of such emotion but seeing Rebekah like this… "and now I am losing her," he whispered, his voice breaking.
"You saved her," Klaus acknowledged with a quiet tone and stepped up to actually place his hand on his shoulder but Marcel shook his head.
"If I had she wouldn't be like this."
"Rebekah is the strongest of us. She won't let go," Elijah Mikaelson said as he entered the room too.
"I don't care for anything but her," Marcel declared facing Klaus and Elijah, "I don't care about what you think or what you'll do. When the dust settles I won't leave Rebekah again. Never again," he promised and stared at the two Mikaelson brothers defiantly.
Klaus and Elijah exchanged a silent look before Elijah went at the foot of Rebekah's bed and placed a gentle touch on the blanket that covered her.
"It might cost you your life," Elijah warned. The message was clear. Klaus had already threatened him in the past. He had already vowed to kill him if he ever went near Rebekah.
"It already has," Marcel accepted, "Rebekah makes me whole."
Weirdly enough Klaus only smiled. A sad smile.
"And half a life was never enough for you was it, Marcellus?" Klaus let out a low huff and sighed.
Marcel and Rebekah had believed they could hide their dalliance from him but even if they were able to do so, which they weren't, the only thing he would have to do would be to cast a glance at Marcel only to realize how broken he was now that his sister's life was hanging from a thread. He loved her, as much as a man like him could love. Marcel loved Rebekah and wanted to avenge her and he could relate to this now more than ever. Now that he was losing his sister. Now that he had lost Kol. Now that…Caroline was gone.
Half a life indeed. He knew that all too well now.
What Marcel hadn't realized was that his protectiveness when it came to his sister didn't come out of obsession and cruelty. Love was a weakness and he would not allow his little sister to be weak. In there world that meant death.
Even more so when Stefan Salvatore had never been able to truly love Rebekah and his sister deserved to be loved unconditionally and to be put first. Lesser men would never be right for her. Despite her tendency to fall in love so easily for everyone that would even smile at her.
Klaus stared at Rebekah. She would have to wake up. He had already lost Kol. He couldn't lose her too. He wouldn't.
The turmoil inside him was becoming erratic again.
"Niklaus-" Elijah started carefully ready to defend Marcel but Klaus shook his head and gave him a curt nod.
Elijah's eyes momentarily widened. His eldest brother saw right through him. Should Rebekah live it would be her choice.
Marcel, however, had only eyes for Rebekah.
"Enough with this," Klaus clicked his tongue, "let's survive first and I'll deal with you later Marcel Gerard," he decreed and Elijah actually smirked.
Marcel turned his attention to Klaus and Klaus smiled for the first time in days. He liked what he saw. Marcel was ready too. To fight. For Rebekah. For this family. Their family.
And so was he.
Elijah saw it too because he let out a breath of relief. Something that was quite out of the ordinary for the always certain Mikaelson sibling.
"You know what to do. Before the sun sets brother," Klaus ordered.
Elijah inclined his head, glanced at his sister with a soft gaze before it turned to one of coldness and seething anger and then he went back to soldier mode. He took out his phone and walked out of the room.
"I need your head back in the game Marcel. Can you do that?" Klaus asked him without sugarcoating the acid in his tone.
"You are one to talk," Marcel snorted and got up ready to receive his orders.
Klaus approached him until he was in his personal space.
"Never forget who you are talking to Gerard," Klaus reminded him and Marcel bowed this time.
"Increase the security," he gave his command and then he turned his attention to his sister, "when she is more stable we will move her in New Orleans. Until then gather all your men. I need them all here. Elijah will contact New York. We will handle Kol's and Stefan's domains but since you and my sister have been so close handle Detroit," Klaus pointedly added, "I am sure she's shown you the keys of her Kingdom," he mocked before he went serious again, "It is time to regroup. Let everyone know that as of now Chicago is in lockdown. Anyone that dares to get in or out without my permission loses their head. And not just theirs. They disobey and everyone they've ever met pays the price."
No one would get out. He would make sure of that. Those that dared to enter his city and go up against him would lose their heads. He would put them in spikes in his garden. All around Kol's grave.
Marcel took out his phone ready to make the calls he needed to make as Klaus turned around and went to the door but his voice stopped him when Klaus' hand reached for the knob.
"About me and Rebekah," Marcel persisted but Klaus didn't turn around to face him.
"Now is not the time," he dismissed his sister's lover and his brother in arms. Because that was what Marcel was. That was what he has been ever since he rose in the chain of command. Marcel had been abused by his parents all his life and he rose above his misfortune. Just like he had. He was ambitious but he was also loyal and contrary to what people thought of him he recognized and respected the value of those that were loyal to him.
"My loyalty is yours," Marcel vowed, "but I love her. I won't let her go."
Klaus looked over his shoulder and leveled his gaze to Marcel; the man, to his credit, did not back down.
"It doesn't matter," Klaus finally said, his eyes softening when they fell over Rebekah's pale face, "nothing will ever matter again if she does not wake up."
Waking up hurt. Everything hurt.
Caroline felt as if she was swimming in mud. Her head rolled to the side. It was weighing a thousand pounds. She tried to straighten her body but she bit her cheek harshly to stop the moan that almost escaped her throat and to force the tears in. She wanted to cry but it wouldn't do her any good. If anything it would make things worse and there was no room left for worse.
She was trembling from the cold. Her throat was dry. She wanted water. But most of all she wanted to get out of this place but she couldn't even get out of this bed. She had tried to yank her hands free but the only thing she had earned was the burning sensation to dig in more in her wrists and for her body to paralyze from the pain. Even that attempt had been enough to drain her. Completely.
She could barely move but even if she tried to do so, even an inch, she felt as if she would drown in muddy quicksand. All seemed to move slowly. It was the most painful sensation. It was curling her stomach. Worse than that it was as if an elephant was sitting on her chest compressing her bones till their breaking point. The slightest movement or intake of breath was leaving behind a trail of fiery pain. She could feel the bandages they had wrapped around her breasts. All around her sternum. It was so tight. Agonizing really. Her head hurt. He ribs hurt. Every muscle hurt. She was sore, bruised and the worst feeling of all was that she was immobilized.
Her arms were tied above her head. Harsh ropes were wrapped around her wrists that were pulled up secured to the bedpost of what seemed to be a rusty bed with a filthy mattress. The room was dark. There were no windows. Only cement and mold.
Days and hours had passed by slowly. She had lost the sense of time and for the most part, she was out of it.
There were other times though when she was fighting back and was somewhat lucid. Those times were when terror was settling in. When the memories returned. When reality was becoming a nightmare she couldn't escape from.
She had been hearing people approaching her. She had heard whispering sounds and voices. They had kidnapped her, almost killing her in the process, but they had made sure she would survive. They had put her back together, piece by piece. They had stripped her, touched her, healed her. She hated every moment of it mostly because they were drugging her all the time until everything was becoming a blur and she couldn't make out shapes or sounds.
And then finally they had stopped sedating her. That was when the pain broke through. Full force.
The first thing she had heard when she woke up was the dripping water from old groaning pipes. Then it was the smell that had attacked her. Putrid. It was as if she was inhaling dust and she had tried not to cough or throw up. They had taken away the IV drip. That meant no sedation and no painkillers either.
They had put her in different clothes. Loose pants and a dirty button shirt. She remembered that they had bandaged her head the first days too but they had taken those gauges away now. Her hair was sticking on her head. There were cuts all over her face and head that still stung with every grimace and every slightest change of her features but her mind was clear now.
So clear that she wanted to scream but she was forcing herself to pretend as if she was still unconscious. She was stalling. Stalling any confrontation. Hoping that she would be able to find a way out or to at least get an epiphany with a great idea about escaping like people did in movies. And she came up empty.
She felt tired, weak. Disgusting. She knew she was filthy. With blood and sweat and even vomit as she remembered throwing up a couple of times too. Her body was covered in bruises and cuts. Her ankle hurt badly. Her chest was on fire. Her head more so. She felt dizzy and nauseous. But what made all that seem like a walk in the park was that the shivers that attacked her body did not come from the fever but from the absolute dread.
From all the voices she had heard there had been one that had stood out.
Logan's.
Logan Fell was here.
All the terror from the past had returned. All the memories of the abuse. And now she was helpless. Tied on a bed. Unable to fight.
No one was here to help her. Kol was dead. Klaus was far away. And she was in Logan's hands. Time had turned back. Back to the days when she had been Logan's punching bag. When he had been taking her to the clinics of his friends and to his sister's private hospital and was admitting her under different names and locked her in for weeks at a time so she would heal from all the bruises and the marks he left on her body with every kick and punch and push. And just like back then she had nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. She was alone. And scared. And in pain and she knew that only more pain would follow and this time she also knew she could very well end up in a ditch.
They would let Logan hurt her. Break her. Kill her. Or even…worse.
She tried not to let the panic take over but that absolute mind-blowing fear was gripping her heart.
She tensed and felt as if even her heart stopped breathing when she heard the door creaking open. The hinges were rusty and a bit stuck. They served as a warning for what was to come. She didn't even need to open her eyes to know. She felt it. She knew it deep in her soul.
The heavy steps that entered the room belonged to Logan.
He was here and she was restrained in the bed unable to get away.
The door closed and her fright went to the roof. She forced herself not to react. Not to open her eyes. Not to breathe wrong. She was once more that girl in Mystic Falls trembling in terror for what would follow.
She heard the lighter. The sound of the flint striking against the metal turned her blood to ice. It was a new feeling. Logan didn't smoke but she knew the man in the room was him. She knew it and it terrified her.
"I know you're awake Caroline."
The sharp edge of his voice send her heart plummeting into the darkest abuse.
She tried not to move. Not to clench her eyes. Not to cry or cower in fear. Most of all she tried to prove him wrong and pretend she was indeed asleep.
She smelled the smoke. It was coming closer. Logan was dragging his feet closer to the bed as he loudly inhaled in and drew the smoke straight into his lungs and blew it straight towards her. She felt the swirls of it tease her skin and shuddered.
"You've been trying to fool me like that in the past too remember?" he reminded her with a chuckle.
Caroline wanted to scream but instead, she gathered all her courage. There was no point in pretending.
Time had run out.
She opened her eyes knowing it was futile to postpone this any longer.
Just as she did Logan turned his back on her. The room was dark. She could only see his silhouette that was wrapped in wisps of smoke.
She tried to blink the darkness away and to adjust her eyes to the lack of light. Moments passed and she could see his figure and the shape of his back more clearly but she could not lift her head at all and she couldn't get out of the bed to get a closer look to him which only reminded her how helpless she truly was.
She jolted up and winced from the pain when Logan threw his smoke to the floor and crashed it under his shoe. She instinctively pulled her hands and felt the ligaments of her shoulders cry in agony.
She felt as if she was trapped in one of those old cliché movies where the mustache-twirling villain was postponing the inevitable to add to the dramatic effect. Only she knew very well what Logan was capable of. He was the monster in her closet and now that closet was wide open and the bogeyman was out to get her. Like before. This was why she couldn't joke with the predictable villain shenanigans. Because she had lived them before and she knew there was nothing to joke about.
When Logan finally turned around she stiffened and instinctively tried to free herself again but the ropes had an unforgiving hold and she couldn't break them no matter how much she yanked. Every movement came to an abrupt halt when Logan stepped closer. Close enough for his body to loom above her and for her to finally see him after all this time. Clearly.
Only what she saw was-
She gasped.
The gasp that left her lips was deep and sharp. Caroline could not believe what she was seeing. This wasn't Logan. This couldn't be Logan Fell.
It was as if her brain could not cooperate with what her eyes were seeing. Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe the drugs still had an effect on her or maybe she was hallucinating.
All she knew what that the evil inside Logan had escaped the confines of his black soul and had turned into a physical manifestation that brought bile in her throat.
"Like what you're seeing?" he asked her with a voice soft. So soft that didn't suit what Caroline was seeing. She was actually left speechless and the former terror faded away into a different kind of fear born from surprise, shock, and revulsion.
She squinted her eyes to get a better look at Logan ignoring the slamming in her head that turned her headache into a maddening migraine. But she had to focus. She shook her head to make sure that what she was seeing was real.
That grotesque image seemed surreal.
There were so many scars across Logan's face but none worse than the long one on his right side. Someone had carved him from his forehead right down to his jaw. His eye was deformed and Caroline didn't know if he was blind from that side or not. His face seemed to be gruesomely split in half.
His nose was also crooked. As if it had been broken one too many times. She saw how he trying to adjust his weight from one leg to the other. There was a slight limp there and if that was how he could stand then she could only guess how hard it would be for him to actually walk.
Logan pulled out a gun from the back of his belt and she froze.
He set the gun on the small table that was next to her bed. So close and yet out of reach. Caroline took her eyes away from it and looked at Logan.
He grunted and sat by her side and she breathed in her panic as he ran his hand all over her bound arms.
God, he was missing fingers from both hands. Those that were left were missing edges and were mutilated. And the skin in his palms and wrists was churned and deformed. The burns seemed to go further up under his sleeves and the skin of his neck was also gnarled. Pieces of his hair was also missing and so did his one ear. He was morbidly disfigured.
What had happened to him? Who had done this to him?
"I imagine I am a far cry from how you remember me to me," he noted in an aloof tone that did nothing to ease her nerves, "but then again so are you."
Caroline wanted to roll away from his touch but couldn't. The terror returned in full force building up into something stronger and bigger and mind-numbing.
"You have been in and out of it for days. I thought they broke you," Logan told her in a hushing sound before his good eye lost all that detachment and grew hard and cold.
Rage burned inside Logan's gaze and it was the only thing that seemed white hot and bright in the dark room.
"I wanted to do that!" he spat and slapped her.
The force of his slap threw her head to the side. It was as if she was hit with a sledgehammer. Her body was already suffering and in pain.
The real pain seemed to register slowly and she let out a pathetic moan.
Blood. She swallowed down blood.
Logan grabbed her hair and pulled her head towards him. The ropes kept her tied down and he was hauling her up. Her body couldn't take it. The whimper that left her lips was almost muted. She could hardly breathe but this time when she looked at him she didn't feel fear. She felt hate. And yet her hate was confronted with something inhuman. Whatever was brewing inside Logan was demented because the way he looked at her was what she could only describe with one word. Deranged.
He howled and punched the bedpost her hands were tied on. The old metal groaned and snapped under his assault. Rust-covered pieces flew from it.
"Do you know what they did to me?" he hollered with so much psychotic rage that shook her body in worse ways than his punishing grip, "what that asshole you spread your legs for made them do to me?"
...
July 2013.
Red Onion State Prison.
He was in a bad shape. He could barely breathe. Everything hurt. In times like these, he missed solitary.
He had lost count of how many times he had ended up in the medical wing of this prison. Every scar his body now had was put on him only in the last months. Scars, like that one on his face, that would never heal.
He was losing his mind.
No one would tell him why. They had all ganged up against him. If not all then certainly the worst in here.
They had marked him for death. No. Not death. Torture.
They had marked him for torture and it would not end. One day, out of the blue, his misery began and it never stopped. Life in prison had never been a walk in the park. Not when they managed to put him in this supermax with the worst of the worst. He had found himself with more charges. Added charges. Not just on domestic abuse and attempted murder. They had dug up everything on him. Not all of them true but he hadn't been able to prove his innocence.
And all that because the cops in Virginia made it personal because he had dared to touch the dead Sheriff's precious little girl. As if they had cared for her. He was the only one that had cared. For her. For his Caroline. He still dreamed of her. He loved and hated her. She was the reason why he had ended up here in the first place. He had given her everything and that ungrateful bitch turned on him.
Caroline Forbes put him in here. His sister cut him off. His reputation was gone. His life was destroyed. He ended up in this hell.
He didn't know what strings Matt Donovan had pulled to send him in this particular prison but this is where he ended. The guards took 'special care' of him when he first arrived and he believed it to be hell. He believed those punishments to have been cruel. Inhuman.
At first.
He didn't know any better back then. He had believed the first months to be hard but nothing compared to what he was living now.
There was no respite. No mercy.
Only this time it had been worse.
This time has truly been bad. They had almost castrated him. The guard had saved him the last time but not before they had ripped out one of his balls.
He could not wait for his time to be done. He knew he wouldn't make it anyway. He heard the whispers from the other inmates that had set their eyes on him. They would kill him before his sentence was done. Hours even before he would get out. There would be no end to this.
Only he would end it. He couldn't take it anymore. He had already tried. That was why they had strapped him to this bed now. He couldn't take it any longer. He would find a way to end his life sooner or later. If not now then in the first chance he would get. He could not take the pain any longer.
Tears fell. He couldn't stop them. There was no more dignity. No more strength. He only wanted to die. He had begged, he had fought, he had struggled, he had lost. He only wanted this to end.
He froze and trembled when he heard the door creaking open. He didn't try to pull on the restraints. Fighting made no difference.
Only this time he wasn't visited in the after-hours by one of the sadistic guards or one of the even more so sadistic inmates that always found a way to break through the security and find him even in here, even in recovery and in isolation.
"Five minutes," he heard the gruff voice of the guard that opened the door and then the soft reply came.
"More than enough. Thank you."
He opened his eyes to only see the silhouette of a woman. She came in as the guard turned on the lights and then left closing the door behind them.
He was practically blind from the one eye but his good one, if you could call it that in the state it was currently in, caught the glimmer of bright red.
He barely saw how the woman puckered her eyebrows and scrunched up her nose as if the smell of the disinfectant in the room was more than just unpleasant to her. Or maybe it was him and the sight he presented.
He couldn't keep his swollen eyes open. The lights burned them and he rolled his head to the side trying to hide his head from the brightness. It hurt him. It felt as if his skull would split open.
The woman dragged the chair from the other side of the room and brought it close to his bed. Then she sat and waited.
"Logan Fell," she said and he inhaled sharply. It was good to finally hear his name again. Not just the number code with which he was registered in the prison and not any of the degrading names these assholes in here gave him.
"We don't have much time. Let us not waste it," the woman advised him and he forced his eyes to open.
Everything seemed to be turning but it was her bright red hair that brought everything back to focus.
She looked at him curiously. She was beautiful. He hadn't seen a woman for so long. He missed a woman's touch. He missed Caroline's touch. He wanted to get out of here and have her back. He wanted to make her pay and hurt her and have her beg.
Only this woman wasn't Caroline. Whoever she was had a hard glint in her eyes.
Logan tried to speak but he could barely swallow down. His throat was so dry it felt like the flesh was cracking open.
"Who are you?" he croaked.
The woman said nothing. She kept staring at him for some long moments making him feel uncomfortable. She was very well dressed. As if she had jumped out of the pages of a fashion magazine like those Caroline used to read.
"My question is who are you? Why did he take such interest in you?" the redhead asked him and he flinched when his face contorted in an expression of befuddlement. He didn't know what she meant but even blinking hurt.
"What?"
"Klaus Mikaelson never bothers with the small fish," she stated, "more so those in small ponds outside his turf. What is it so special about you?"
"I don't understand what you mean," Logan groaned. Damn it even talking hurt, "who is Klaus Mikaelson?" he moaned.
The woman looked at him as if he was crazy and then she shook her head.
"You don't know who is behind your hell do you?"
Logan stared at her completely lost. What the hell? Who was this crazy chick? As if he didn't have enough problems as it was.
"You have the wrong person lady. Go waste someone else's time," he spat and let out a whimper of pain. He needed pain medication but there would not be any.
"You really don't know do you?" the woman let out an incredulous laugh," Of course you don't. The King of Chicago excels in mind games as he does in carnage and bloody torture. Why do you think this happened to you?"
Logan glared at her but she gave him a knowing look and the pieces starting coming together. She had the answers he wanted. As crazy as it was she knew why this was happening to him. She knew who was responsible and why.
Klaus Mikaelson she had said.
He hadn't heard that name before. He had only heard rumors about a Wolf King that put a target on his back but no one dared to speak of his name or tell him who he was and why he was doing this to him. This woman called him the King of Chicago. What did this have to do with him? He had never been in Chicago before. He had never met, wronged or even heard of…Klaus Mikaelson.
Till now.
"Okay then," the woman with the red hair said, "how about you tell me your story and I will figure it out of you. And just maybe this could be your ticket out of this hellhole."
"Who are you?" he asked her, this time, despite the pain, more lucid than ever before.
The woman smiled and slowly played with the wedding ring on her finger.
"After you sent me in that prison," Logan raged on, "after you ruined my life…You don't know what that asshole did to me!"
Klaus. Klaus did this to him and feelings of deep satisfaction, of perverse pleasure warmed her insides and gave her back the courage she was missing.
She knew she shouldn't provoke Logan. Not in the state he was but no matter how unhinged he seemed to be and no matter how he had the upper hand with her helpless underneath him she couldn't stop herself from responding. She couldn't stop her lips from pulling to a gloating smile.
"Nothing you didn't deserve," she snorted and Logan's already gruesome face turned to a mask of undiluted ugliness as maniacal frenzy and hate took over.
He hit her again and this time she spat blood. The pain was unholy. She felt as if nails were piercing her skull. Her whole body screamed in agony and she wondered how much a human body could take before dying. It didn't matter. If she was to go out she would do it in her terms. She would never become Logan's victim again. If he wanted to kill her and beat her to death then so be it. She would not give him the satisfaction of surrendering or showing any weakness. Screw him. Screw him to kingdom come in worse ways that Klaus ever did.
Klaus.
That was the only regret she had. That she would never see Klaus again. That she wouldn't feel his arms close around her. She wouldn't feel his touch, his body, his caress. But living with him had given her more things than she could ever hope for and she wished she could have told him that. He had given her more strength. The kind of strength she didn't know she possessed. And he had given her perspective. Logan in comparison paled with true evil. Being in Klaus' world made her see who the real monsters were. She had lived them, dined with them, joined them and bedded them. Klaus' proof of love came with mutilating pieces of shit like Logan and eating assholes like her ex for lunch.
He hadn't even told her he had done that and given that she had asked for his protection only when Logan escaped prison he must have done this to him before they got together. She had his protection and his vengeance in her name long before they started their relationship and he had never asked anything in return.
Too bad that she couldn't high five him for that but at least she could die happy knowing that no matter what Klaus wouldn't stop until he would send Logan in hell. This was the way Klaus cared and if he couldn't save her now she knew he would avenge her.
Logan hit her again. No matter how much he had changed on the outside he still remained the same monster because this was familiar territory.
He glowered at her with a smug expression expecting from her to beg him to stop but she scoffed.
"Screw you!"
His eyes widened and next came his fist against her already broken ribs. The pain exploded and she tugged on the ropes trying to desperately wiggle away from the pain and Logan.
And then she felt it. The ropes!
Everything in her seized.
She moaned and glanced up. This wasn't her imagination. The ropes had gotten loose a bit and blood was dripping down her bound hands as she had scratched them on a jagged piece of metal.
She tried to breathe through the pain.
The headboard was broken. Logan had punched the bedpost that had been so rusty it broke.
There were pieces of metal sharp as knives extending in different directions. If she could reach them and find the right angle. It was a long shot but if she could rub the rope against one rough edge maybe she could cut it or loosen it enough to set herself free. Maybe was better than no way.
She just needed time.
Which meant…change of course. Shit! She swallowed down all her pain, her anger, and her hate. She ate her pride down and gathered her courage as Logan's hand reached her neck and squeezed.
He was choking her and she knew that she would either black out or suffocate.
Giving in to Logan was the worst part but she had to survive. If there was even the slightest chance or hope she had to do whatever it was needed.
"I dreamed of this for so long!" Logan hissed, "to make you pay!"
Caroline tried to breathe, to utter anything but his hands had wrapped like a vice around her neck depriving her of oxygen and speech. She was starting to see stars. She spluttered and when Logan straddled her she weakly yanked her body. Not against him as he would like to believe. No. Up.
Closer for her hands to reach the notched spring piece.
"I loved you and you sent me to hell!"
Caroline groaned trying to get some air through her open mouth and her nose. Damn him he was nuts! A certified basket case. She closed her eyes, tried to calm down and keep her fear at bay. All that Stefan and Klaus had taught her came alive in her mind. She had to win this. No matter what she had to do. By force or strategy, she had to get out.
"And even there. Even like that," Logan cried, "and still I missed you. I still…do."
The grip around her neck eased up a bit.
Caroline's eyes flew open. She inhaled gasps of air over and over again as much as Logan permitted.
His hands on her skin felt like shards of glass tearing her apart. She could tell that he had bruised her neck badly. She felt as if he had fractured something and she dreamed of breaking his fucking neck but tried to stop moving. This was the opening she needed.
Logan Fell was nothing like the Logan she remembered. He was unhinged. But maybe that was a good thing. He was not in control. That meant that she could gain the upper hand and gain control.
She could do it.
"Wait please," she croaked and almost puked when Logan told her to shut up and kissed her. Every inch of her body shuddered but she moaned in his mouth and blindly brought her hands higher. A little bit more. Come on!
His hands started roaming her body. He was stripping her.
She jerked her head to the side enough to detach her lips from his mouth.
"Wait wait not like this!" she begged. Her voice coming out breathless and weak. She had to sound weak.
"Shut up!" Logan yelled and punched the pillow next to her face. She closed her eyes making sure to let her fear show this time, "this is all your fault!"
Adrenaline spiked inside her when she felt the ropes getting stuck against something sharp. Finally. Energy hummed inside her and she forced herself to open her eyes. She was running on adrenaline now.
Cry, she begged her mind internally and all the pain manifested again and tears slipped down from the rim of her eyes. She saw Logan watching them almost mesmerized. This was what he wanted. Her old self back. The old weak woman he could break over and over again. He wanted to have power over her like that. So she had to give him that.
"Please…I ..yes…I know," she muttered trying to pacify him in her most soothing and broken voice.
Logan stopped moving and she stared at him with her most pleading expression.
He looked down at her, unsure and suspicious. She forced her body to relax against him.
"I know," she whispered, her eyes filled with fat tears now.
Logan had stopped squeezing her neck but his cut and uneven fingers, all those that were left in his hand anyway, tightened their hold around her throat in a clear threat.
"Don't lie to me," he warned her icily and Caroline swallowed down. She brought back all the memories from the time when Logan truly had control over her and as she remembered that the tears became real. Angry tears. She cowered back, replicating what her memory brought to life. She had to make him believe. She had to convince him.
"You," she breathed out trying to appease him, "I was scared Logan. You scared me," she admitted trying to mix the lies with the truths. This would be the only way to make this believable.
"I loved you!" Logan screamed, "I was the only one that loved you!"
Caroline nodded frantically as she kept working on the ropes as subtly as she could.
"Yes," she accepted in defeat, "You did. I-"
She stopped and looked away ashamed before she leveled her gaze back with Logan's.
"I was too young and I didn't know how to-"
She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She could do this. She pretended endless nights to be Klaus' mistress in public. She pretended to be weak and naïve and stupid. It was a façade and she excelled in it. She had pretended with Logan before too. That's how she had escaped him the first time.
"Klaus," she trailed off feeling her breath getting caught in her throat as she said his name. God, she missed him, "is a monster," she told Logan believing it to be true. Klaus was a monster yes. But he was her monster and she needed him now more than ever and yet as she played the games he had taught her she somehow felt him near and drew strength from that, "I got too deep and despite everything… I missed you too."
Logan let out a snarl of disbelief.
"You lie!" he bit out and Caroline let out a pathetic moan.
"Why do you think he got so mad with you and wanted to hurt you?" she cried out desperately and Logan blinked startled, "because he knew that I could never love him. Not as long as you were alive," she sighed and then sniffled, "and I know," she paused and whimpered as if this was hard for her to say, "it is sick but you were my first love," she confessed with a whisper and felt repulsed but masked all emotion with love that now dripped from her every word. She stared Logan with pain, "I still dream of you. But in my dreams you are gentle," she mumbled sounding bashful and making herself look small, "Like our first time. Remember how that was? You were so good with me. I have missed that," she said and saw that even though Logan didn't seem to trust her her words did have an affect on him.
More tears fell from her eyes.
"It's been so long," she wept.
She screwed her eyes shut unable to look at Logan and say the next words. But she had to get them out.
"Klaus…he…he is a monster," he uttered terrified, "he never…he always hurt me Logan. In ways you would never imagine," she confessed and knew that after what happened to Logan, what Klaus had done to him, a part of him would believe her. He knew what Klaus was capable of.
"You expect me to buy this?"
"He never leaves marks. Not lasting ones," she carried on as she reversed the picture for Logan. This was what he had been doing her to her in the past but in this tale, she would have to make him feel like the hero and the savior. And even though she was tied on the bed, beaten and half dead already something told her that Logan was mad enough to want to believe that shit. He was unable to see that the monster she was describing was in reality…him.
"Klaus would never let his mistress look…unkempt. He made sure of that. But…he always hurt those he knew I cared for," she pointedly said before she lowered her voice, "he has never been gentle," she trembled, "I am sorry…God…I am so sorry," she let her grief burst out, "if I knew it would be like this I would have never left…I would have never done this to you I am so sorry!" she whined, heaving and shaking her head back and forth.
Logan pulled back. Watching her with intrigue and… superiority mixed with pity.
Bingo.
She kept working on the ropes. It wouldn't be long now. She had to keep him distracted long enough.
"I am so sorry. For what he had done to you. I'd take it all back if I could..in a heartbeat! I am sorry! You had been right. I am such an idiot. I didn't know," she hiccupped and cried, sobs shaking her body.
"He will come for me and I can't…I can't do this again…I can't be with him…not again… Don't let him," she cried almost hysterically now, "Please Logan. Kill me. Make it stop! Please," she begged him and Logan watched her shocked.
He hugged her. He actually hugged her.
She swallowed down trying to not curse out loud and she kept crying.
"Don't say that," Logan whispered and Caroline shook her head.
"Please Logan. I only want the pain to stop. Please, I want to go back. I want my mom and you. I want things to go back to the way they were but I can't! I ruined it! I am so sorry," she panted and Logan pushed his head against her chest and she flinched in pain and horror. She looked up. Blood was starting to drip down her hands. Logan couldn't see it. The threads of the ropes were giving away. She was mangling her skin too but she was cutting through the binds.
"Caroline," Logan muttered her name and she breathed in hoping she could go all the way through with this. She had to and yet she felt as if her body would convulse and give out by the revulsion she felt.
Logan raised his head up and gently wiped the blood from her lips. The blood that was pouring out from his abuse.
She tried not to flinch.
"I have missed you too. So much," he admitted and her lower lip trembled and she tried to smile.
"I want to take you away. I will. Once all is over. I promise you Klaus will pay," he swore furiously and she gulped down. He caressed her hair, "I have not forgiven you but maybe we can start again. You were so young. You didn't know any better."
"I didn't," she agreed meekly and Logan hummed.
She pushed her head up. Closer to his mouth. A breath away from a kiss. She was appalled but she acted timid and prepared herself. She had to keep Logan's attention on her and not on what she was doing with her hands. She had to free herself without him noticing and before anyone else could come in the room.
When Logan lowered his face and his lips touched hers she felt as if someone was pouring acid in her mouth. She wanted to bite his tongue off but instead, her mouth became pliant and she parted her lips enough to give him entrance as she hurriedly worked on the ropes.
Logan moaned and his hands traveled all over her body. He kneaded and squeezed not caring for her injuries at all as he dominated her mouth. She let out some muffled moans wanting to throw up but she spread her legs open and wrapped them around him. She pushed past the pain and the loathing. It was abhorrent but she rubbed her body against him. She needed him distracted so seducing him would have to do.
She opened her eyes and saw how Logan had closed his as he devoured her mouth like a starved man. It was nauseauting.
His scars creeped her out and she hated how they felt against her face. His hands on her body felt a thousand times worse. When all this would be over she would have to bathe in bleach.
She glanced at the gun at her side.
She felt the ropes finally slacken enough. Enough for her to push her thumbs inside her wet bloodied palms to give room for the ropes to unlatch.
Thank God!
She moaned against Logan's mouth encouraging him as she slowly pivoted their bodies closer to the gun.
She kept making out with him, getting his mind off the fact that her hands were no longer strung up. She finally unlaced the ropes enough to pull her one hand completely free. She kept it up. She was so close. And so was Logan that was hard against her thigh and reached between their bodies to push down the baggy pants they had put on her.
No way in hell. She unwrapped her legs from his waist.
She heard him pulling down his zipper. She would rather die.
One second left.
She grabbed the gun.
One second too late.
For him.
She finally pulled her head away and before Logan could realize what was going on she had pushed the muzzle of the gun against his head.
"Make a sound and you are dead!" she hissed at him ready to pull the trigger.
Time stopped. The man above her froze.
Logan watched her shocked with his one eye that almost fell out of its socket. Caroline watched him with determination and decisiveness. She could hardly breathe. The pain in her body was magnifying as was her hate and repugnance. She would be sick. She was becoming more nauseous by the second. Logan was caught with his pants down literally, just a second before raping her. She pulled back trying to ignore the pain that shot right through her body like electricity. She felt as if she would faint but her hold on the gun was firm.
Her primary goal was to escape but if it came down to it she didn't care. She didn't care if she would alert the men that brought her here. She would kill Logan first.
She saw the pure hate in his eyes and she could tell what would come next.
He followed her command. He didn't make a sound. He lunged at her believing he could take her. Believing she was the Caroline he knew.
Instinct took over.
Her elbow jammed his throat effectively cutting out his voice as her knee hit his hard erection at the same time. Stefan had taught her that move. Logan wouldn't speak for hours from the damage she had done to the muscles of his throat and kneeing any man like this could literally bring him down.
She didn't waste any time. She reached for his balls. No wait. Only one was left. Damn, Klaus had done quite a number on him. Good!
She pushed her nails in, squeezed and twisted brutally.
Logan mutely fell to the side with a grunt puking all over the bed from the shock and the pain. He clutched his throat and tried to breathe when she charged at him. All the pain and the weakness left her body. She grabbed his head with both of her hands and banged it against the headboard of the bed with all the strength she had left. Blood rushed out as his head made impact with the rugged metal of the bedpost and she hit his head again on it.
She heard the crack first and then felt Logan's body going limp.
Logan fell down to the dirty pillows, half-naked and completely unconscious.
Caroline fell back and tried to catch her breath. The whole room started spinning.
No time for fainting no.
She had to breathe. She had to get up.
And she had to find a way to contact Klaus.
She stumbled to the side away from Logan's heavy body and fixed her clothes quickly. Her body shuddering as she realized what had almost happened. Her stomach coiled, leaping up to her throat reading to empty all its contents. She breathed and tried to calm down.
She looked down at Logan. He was still breathing. There was movement in his body.
She couldn't take any chances.
She took one of the pillows and put it over his head. All she had to do was end this. She tried to press the pillow down.
Her hands gave out. She wasn't strong enough. It was as if all the strength that had come from all the adrenaline rush had dissolved.
She reached for the gun and pointed it at him. She pushed the barrel in the pillow. With the gun, Logan carried it would be enough to reduce the sound and turn the pillow into a silencer.
Her finger was steady in the trigger. All she had to do was pull it.
Maybe this wouldn't work. Maybe the pillow would not be enough and the sound the shot would make would alert everyone but Caroline knew this was not the reason she was hesitating.
She called on all her hate. All her pain. All the abuse and the memories. This would be the end. One bullet and it would be over.
Her grip faltered.
She had dreamed of killing Logan for so long. This was why she had reached out to Klaus for protection because she knew that Klaus would not hesitate. He would pull the trigger.
This was what she should do. End it all.
Caroline's hand trembled. Her body shook. She closed her eyes and gripped the gun with both hands.
"Come on," she whispered, her voice frail and empty.
It would be murder. In cold blood.
The memory of her mother came into her mind. This was not how she had raised her.
Caroline shook her head.
She pushed the gun more into the pillow.
It would be worth it. It would be justice. Logan would finally pay and she would be free.
She remembered ever hit, every pain, every agony. All the despair. And still, she couldn't pull the trigger.
"Shit" she swore and her hands fell down.
She tried to breathe.
She opened her eyes and looked down at Logan. His chest was moving up and down rhythmically. His bloodied face was hidden under the pillow. If she couldn't kill him she would have to get out. Fast. It wouldn't be long before Logan would wake up.
She tried to get out of the bed. When her legs touched the ground she swayed and almost fell back to the mattress.
No.
She could do this. She would have to do this.
She took the gun and held on to it like a shield. Murder or not anything coming through that door and she would shoot it down. Logan waking up and she would shoot him down. If things got to it she would kill herself if she had to.
No. She would survive this.
She wouldn't die. She owed it to herself and to Kol. She would get out of here.
She looked around in a frenzy.
She had to find a phone. She had to call Klaus. Even if she couldn't get out of here in time maybe he could come here to get her.
She looked around and searched Logan from head to toe.
No phone.
Something didn't add up. He could feel it in his bones.
Matt Donovan had stayed in Chicago.
All for nothing it would seem since he had once more failed to help Caroline Forbes. Caroline was more than just his ex-girlfriend. She was his guilty conscience for years. His childhood friend was now missing. For days. Lost in the club shooting. Not one of the dead but one of the missing. Her face was on the precinct's missing people's board among countless photos. It didn't make any sense. Her relationship with Klaus Mikaelson should have been enough of a reason to search for her even for setting a trap for the Mikaelsons or at least put them to a tight spot but no one was bothering.
And he had been once more useless. The feelings of hopelessness and helplessness would not leave him be. He had promised Liz Forbes to look after her daughter and the only thing he had managed to do was stand idle as Caroline fell for one monster after the other and got caught in the middle of the crossfire.
Galen Vaughn had called the Loup Noir attack a gang uprising and the Underworld settling scores and called it a day. No one would bother dealing with mobsters killing each other. Most said good riddance and called it a day.
But something…something just didn't add up. And the more he thought of it the more Caroline's warnings felt plausible.
He had ignored her a long time ago when she had come to him and asked his help when it came to Logan Fell. He carried that guilt with him every day. He hadn't helped her. He wouldn't do the same mistake twice. He couldn't.
And yet he had. Weeks ago when she had reached out to him he had turned a deaf ear to her warnings believing her judgment to be compromised given the people she was interacting with and the life she was now leading.
He chose once more to trust the system. But as Galen Vaughn kept him around like a 'guest' thinking of him nothing but a harmless nuisance Matt realized that the man wasn't as trustworthy as he had initially seemed to be. At first, he had believed that the reason he felt that way was because of his whole prestigious attitude that probably was a trademark fed behavior but weeks kept passing and nothing happened. Vaughn had called him specifically for Caroline. He had given the FBI agent everything he wanted. Caroline's story. Details that were not even in her folder. And they were meant to bargain with her. To put some sense into Caroline and coax her into giving the police what they wanted and to finally get her out of the danger she was in. To give her a new life. New identity. A clean slate. And he was still around so to entice Caroline. To convince her this was the right thing. To nudge her back into her morals.
Only they never contacted her again. Vaughn hadn't bothered as if it wasn't part of his plans…as Caroline had predicted.
...
Three weeks ago.
The sun was dropping behind the buildings in hues of orange and grey.
Caroline wrapped herself tighter in her coat as she peered at the gloomy sky. It would rain soon. She sighed and glanced back at the car where Stefan Salvatore was waiting for her. A shadow in the distance. She knew the chances she was taking by coming here. Especially doing it behind Klaus' back. But she was here now and she swallowed back her qualms and despite the uneasiness she felt she walked confidently towards Matt Donovan that waited for her in his parked car in the secluded area she had told him to meet.
Just as soon as she got in the car and closed the passenger's seat Matt pointed with his head at Stefan that stood a few meters away from where the car they were in was parked.
"Is he your bodyguard or your jailor?"
Caroline didn't react at the backhanded insult. She was long past the point where men could bait her. She looked past the windshield and she knew that Stefan didn't like this but he had brought her here and he would get her back to Klaus safely once this was over.
She was taking a great risk but Caroline believed Stefan to be a friend and she'd like to think that her judgment when it came to people had improved despite what her relationship with Klaus may look like to those that didn't know her. Stefan had her back. She knew that. He was risking his head by bringing her here but Caroline couldn't let this go.
Not when it came to Matt. The only friend from her old life that she still kept somewhat in her heart.
She had to get him out. Or at least to give him the heads' up. War was about to break out. Klaus knew it. He was preparing for it. And she could feel it in her bones too.
"He is dirty Matt," she flatly got straight to the point and Matt looked confused.
"What are you talking about?"
"Vaughn."
Matt shook his head. He looked at her like he did a long time ago when she had reached out to him. When she had asked his help when Logan was abusing her. Back then he had looked at her with pity as if she didn't make any sense and he did the same now.
She forced herself to remain still and not even flinch.
"Don't be ridiculous Caroline," he shot her down looking at her as if she had disappointed him. And when she laughed, a cold laughter that was not meant for friends, Matt winced.
"Do you think this is how the feds make offers for witness protection programs?" she asked him, wondering how he could still be so naïve, "by alerting those their cases need protection from?"
Matt blinked and Caroline scoffed. The word idiot was at the end of her tongue but she swallowed it back.
"Think Matt," she urged him, "he made it a show to send a message to Klaus and get Elijah to step up as Klaus' second in command which he did by coming for me. He is clearing the sides and using me as bait."
"That's not-"
"There has been nothing official about Logan," Caroline cut him off, "you are a deputy. You know how the police treats such cases. You called me Matt when Logan escaped. And not officially. It does not add up."
Matt frowned and Caroline sighed.
"And now listen to me Matt very very carefully," she warned him and saw how he tensed at the way her tone changed from a warning to a threatening vibe, "Klaus has you on his radar now and I am what stands between you and him but if he feels danger he will strike. His family comes first and this is not a game you want to be a part of."
Matt's eyes widened.
"What about you? This is what you wanted Care? To be a pawn for a mobster?" he incredulously accused her and Caroline smiled. She actually smiled and Matt stared at her as if she was a stranger he didn't know how to handle. She could tell that his instincts were confused now. He didn't know if he should take flight or fight.
They were not in Mystic Falls. This was another territory and she was not the Caroline Matt knew. She was not afraid of blood anymore. She was not afraid to see it or shed it. She was not squeamish of it and she was not there to let others take hers ever again. And Matt Donovan obviously didn't know what to do with this version of hers.
"Get yourself clear," Caroline told him coldly, "consider this your last warning because there won't be another."
She reached for the handle of the door but Matt quickly grabbed her hand. Not in a harsh hold. In a pleading one.
"Caroline please...come with me. Let's go home."
"Home? Really?" she laughed bitterly, "how naive can you be...you know what...no...I am not doing this."
"Could you?" Matt pressed, "if you wanted to? Or is it that you can't?"
Caroline licked her lips tiredly and pinched her nose.
"I will say this for the last time," she sighed, "I am where I want to be and at least I know what's happening under my nose."
"Care-"
"Give it a rest Matt," she huffed and Matt wanted to shake some sense into her.
"You are here because you care. You still do. And if you do then there is still time to fix this!"
Caroline smiled at him. She gave him the kind of smile one would give to a child.
"I am only here for old times sake. Just to give you the head's up. I think that makes us even now," she emphasized and pulled her hand.
She was ready to leave and he knew that if he let her he would never see her again. She would be lost to him and he would have failed her mother again. He would have once more let her memory down as he would leave Caroline to another monster and God save them Klaus Mikaelson could eat bastards like Logan for lunch and Caroline had to go get herself involved with him. One of the worst known mobsters of modern history. One that paraded her like a trophy.
"So this is it?" he desperately cried, "your old numbers don't even work anymore."
"You should have taken the hint by now then," Caroline blurted out dismissively and he gritted his teeth so hard he felt as if his jaw would break.
He gave Caroline his most austere look but she didn't seem to be moved by it. Not in the slightest. Maybe she would be by this then.
"Your mother would never want this for you," he whispered and before she could shut him down again he turned on the cd player and saw Caroline's perfect aloof armor of coldness break. She froze when the music started playing and the first lyrics filled the silence in the car.
...
For you, there'll be no more crying [2]
…
Caroline gasped and she couldn't stop her outburst as she practically punched the device to turn it off.
Matt finally saw his friend in her again and let out a breath of relief. He looked at her with sympathy and as he expected she only had a glare to give him.
Good. That meant she cared. That meant he could still help her. There were still parts of the Caroline Forbes he remembered and loved.
"Cheap shot Matt," she grit out.
"Caroline-"
She yanked the car door open and got out before he could stop her.
"Go away," she ordered him but before she closed the door she reached into her pocket and got out a folded paper. She threw it at the seat and leaned over locking her eyes with his.
Her facial expression changed from one of anger and dismissal to one of seriousness and fleeting concern.
"But if you ever need me," she started, "and by that I mean only if it is a matter of life and death that won't require me to betray the Mikaelsons... then call this number," she told him and showed him the paper Matt carefully took from the seat as he watched her tentatively.
"It's Stefan Salvatore's private number," Caroline said and pointed at the man that waited for her at the other side of the road.
Caroline's eyes softened for a second before they turned hard again.
"Don't make me regret this Matt."
Caroline closed the door and Matt gripped the paper in his hand and could only watch her walk away. He stared as Stefan Salvatore opened the door for her and she got into that man's car without sparing him any glance.
Klaus' right hand man gave him a curt nod from the distance before he got into the driver's seat and started the car that took Caroline Forbes back to Klaus Mikaelson.
The constant ringing of his phone got Matt out of the memory but when he answered he tensed.
"Georgie," he bit out uncertain if the real name of the caller was even Georgie, to begin with. But if the late Sheriff Forbes had trusted him so could he.
Vaughn wasn't the only with connections. And maybe contacting a hacker of this sort was not legal per se but he was out of options and he was tired playing the game by the rules when his people paid the price. When Caroline once more fell victim of the system's inability to protect people like her.
"What did you find?" he cut to the chase hoping for Georgie to have found any lead that could get him to Caroline but instead-
"Are you sure?" he asked unsure if he had heard him right because this...this just couldn't be right. But as he heard the information Georgie had dug out Matt felt the need to smash his phone and reach for his gun.
Galen Vaughn had visited Logan Fell in the prison he was incarcerated just before he was transferred to a new facility with far fewer security measures. It was Vaughn himself that had arranged everything for Logan's transfer under a different name and according to Georgie Vaughn's involvement was then 'accidentally' erased from all data.
Three days later Logan Fell escaped.
They had taken her shoes.
Which actually kind of helped because now as she was stumbling forward, her feet pressing on the dirty floor, she wasn't making any sound. Tying Logan up had not been that easy. He was heavy and her body was in so much pain that every breath was fire and pain. Moving him on the bed and tying him with his belt and the ropes they had used on her, unfortunately, hurt her more than him. She was slogging through each move praying not to lose her consciousness too, heaving and panting, with sweat dripping on her forehead. Gagging him by stuffing his sock in his mouth and tying ribbons of the pillowcase she torn on the bedpost around his face, however, had been something she very much enjoyed doing. She may not have had the guts to shot him but she wouldn't bother feeling guilty if he suffocating or vomited and drowned in his own puke. Good riddance.
Caroline pushed herself against the wall, closed her eyes and tried to breathe. She had already gone down several stairs. She felt as if she would fall down. But she had to keep going. She had expected to find someone guarding the room she had been in but the corridor outside the door had been empty and there were no cameras. They must have believed her to be powerless. Heavily injured and tied up on the bed, with Logan there to keep her 'company' they, however they were, must have thought she had no chance of escaping and didn't bother with her. They had just stored her away for when they would need to use her against Klaus and let Logan have his way with her.
She kept moving. Forward. Hoping she wouldn't have to face anyone and thanking her luck for making it so far.
She was ready to kill anyone that would come in her way but she preferred to go unnoticed. If she was that lucky anyway. When she had walked down the corridor, steadying herself against the wall she had heard voices of guards talking down the right corner so she had taken the left turn and hoped she would find a way out before they would notice her gone. It was a matter of time.
She had to either get out or to find a way to contact Klaus. Any other option and she was screwed.
She felt everything turning over and she gripped the gun she had taken from Logan tighter. She grit her teeth. Fainting was not an option either.
Damn it, she was in pain. She didn't even know how much time it had passed from when they had taken her. They hadn't killed her but they had been drugging her for days. It had to be days. She felt her head so heavy and she knew she must have had a concussion. She knew the signs from when Logan had hit her in the past. She could also tell her ribs were broken. And her ankle hurt like hell. Her whole body was in pain and her mouth was so dry. Her ears hurt too and she felt that even the slightest noise was like dragging nails on a chalkboard. She could barely keep her eyes open. The light was hurting her but at least she knew it was day now.
God, her head hurt but she had to keep moving. Silently. Careful not to groan. Klaus and Stefan had taught her. They had taught her more than just some defensive moves. They had taught her patience, strategy, to push her limits and to work past the pain. She could do this. She had to do this.
She felt the same terror. The same terror she had felt when bombs exploded and bullets had rained in Loup Noir. When she had seen Stefan's broken body. The same terror when the bikes chased her and Kol. The same terror when the car crashed and when they chased her in the woods in the night. Beating her. Taken her away. She couldn't believe she had made it and she was still alive. She was but Kol had died and she couldn't stop the tears from falling from her eyes but she had to push herself forward. She was breaking down but she wasn't broken yet. She had to get out of this place. This dump. Whatever this place was it was abandoned. Dusty, with broken glass and rusty metal on the floor. Her feet were already bleeding even though she was trying not to step on the jagged shards. So did her hands from when she had cut the ropes and her flesh against the rusty edges of the bedpost. Crap! She had not survived a mob hit, her kidnappers and Logan to die from a freaking infection.
She was so hot, her hair was sticking on her head all damp from the sweat that was running all over her body. Her breathing was labored and she jolted when she heard voices coming towards her side. She pushed herself against the wall and stopped moving. She closed her eyes, her finger on the trigger of the gun but the steps that were coming closer seemed to change direction.
She pressed her lips and realized that maybe she should follow them. Maybe that was her way out. She wouldn't find the exit otherwise. She almost passed out at the thought of taking that risk and getting caught and even though the pain was unreal she went down the rabbit hole anyway.
One step, one more.
Halt.
She smiled.
There was a half-open door at her left. No one was in there.
Except for a window.
She fell hard on her knees.
Her wounds reopened but she didn't care. Jumping right out of the window had been a gamble. It wasn't that high but her body couldn't handle even that fall well but most of all breaking the glass made some noise but she hoped no one heard or at least she had time to get out of this place. The cool air that hit her face woke her up somewhat but everything was turning and spinning and she wanted to throw up.
No. She wouldn't. She would stand.
"Get up," she whispered and pushed her hand on the cement wall and pulled her body up. She reached for the gun she had secured in the back of her loose pants. Still there. Good.
She swayed and gritted her teeth.
It was as if she was fighting against gravity. She felt as if she was dying. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. All that mattered was to get out. To call Klaus. She could die afterward.
She pushed her nails into her palms embracing the pain and the anger. She had to get angry. To get mad. She needed the fury. She needed all she could get to keep her adrenaline pumping. She conjured Kol's memory. His death. She wouldn't be a victim. He had died to give her a chance, to save her, to get her out. This couldn't be for nothing.
She had made it this far. She looked around. She didn't know this place but from the looks of it it was a wasteland surrounded and overgrown with grass. Trees were on the distance and old cars with their paint all gone. The whole place was in ruins and she could see bars and gates a few meters away. If she really focused she could hear…traffic too!
She pushed herself to the wall and walked. Dragging her bleeding feet. She had to keep low. And to keep moving.
"What do we have here?"
She froze.
She had almost made it out. No.
Her shoulders slumped and she wanted to cry but she had to keep calm. She slowly turned around and saw a man. He was alone but he was monstrous. A buff man with tattoos creeping up his hands, neck, and face. His arms and legs were like tree trunks.
Panic rushed through her but she remained calm.
Shit. She couldn't outrun him. She couldn't take him on and win. Not in her condition and seeing his preposterous size probably not ever. Klaus would but Klaus wasn't here. He wasn't here to save her and she was all alone and she was caught and they would get her back. Back to Logan. Back to kill her.
No. She wouldn't freak out.
Her eyes scrutinized the leather-clad man. No gun in sight. Only knives. And more than five feet of distance between them.
Good.
"Don't even try to run bitch," he laughed when he saw her defiant glare.
"Do you have a phone?" she asked him casually and the man's eyebrows lifted in surprise before he snorted and reached for her.
She didn't hesitate this time.
She drew her gun and took the shot.
Caroline's hands were shaking. She had shot that asshole on the shoulder and calf and even so he had kept coming and threw her down like a rag doll. That had served her right. She was an excellent shot and she had chosen for the nonlethal damage.
He had cursed, straddled her and hit her knocking the breath out of her. Her ribs screamed in agony but she didn't stop struggling. Memories from her past and Logan's abuse filtered through and the fury returned hotter than ever.
Pushing the gun between their bodies the third shot was straight in his gut and his blood splattered all over her. His weight crushed her she had knocked him out with the grip of the gun. She had hit his head over and over again before he moaned and gave out. What was he? A bull?
He was bleeding all over her before she could move that dead weight off her. He was still alive but what was worse was that she knew the gunshots were definitely heard and running was no longer an option. She had turned off the receiver and praised every God in existence when she found in the back pocket of that freak's leather pants a cell phone.
It was not locked thank God. She could call Klaus. She knew she wouldn't make it out now but she could give Klaus her signal. He would come for her.
Time was running out.
"Pick up," she begged before she had even dialed all the numbers she knew by heart.
Last button.
"Please, Klaus!"
One ring almost toning out.
Caroline screamed when her hand was twisted back and the phone flew from her grip. The gun was kicked from her other hand. A knee dug against her spine forcing her down and knocking the wind out of her.
She struggled as much as she could despite the pain and was violently thrown to the side; more hands pulled her back and she yelled. At the top of her lungs knowing that if Klaus had picked up his phone he would definitely hear her. And if he didn't, if he didn't hear her, if he didn't pick up the call, if all this had been for nothing. Her scream was one of despair.
She was jerked to the side, her body thrown to the wall of the building. She fell down to the ground like a puppet with her strings broken.
A man stepped on the phone and smashed it.
Caroline heaved on her knees, trying to regain her bearings when a shadow loomed over her. When she raised her head she saw a woman with red hair looking down at her with a taunting smile.
"Going somewhere?" she tsked her and the next thing Caroline knew was a sharp pain at the back of her head and her body fell down.
Down into darkness.
…
Six hours later.
Matt waited outside Galen Vaughn's door looking casual as he made sure that no one would bother paying any attention to him.
One of the officers of the department walked past him. He coughed into his hand.
"You have 10 minutes. I shifted the cams. After that you are on your own," the man told him in a hushed tone and kept walking.
No one liked Vaughn in the precinct. It would seem that ordering people around as if they were his lackeys and commandeering their offices while suspending their cases in his whimsical and condescending manner had not earned Galen any points more so when it was common knowledge that officers here didn't really like feds.
This was his chance. No one knew where Vaughn went the last days but his office was empty and it was Matt's chance to snoop around. He had ten minutes and we hoped they would be enough.
He opened the unlocked door, courtesy of one of the deputies he had befriended here and he slipped into the office softly closing the door behind him.
He took his nitrile gloves from his back pocket and wore them as he went straight for the desk and started looking around.
He powered up the computer and put in the USB drive Georgie had sent him. It would copy and sent all the files to the hacker. He would consider it a risk to do this but Georgie was good. He could hack those files undetected. Even with the police's system.
In the mean time, Matt picked up the lock of the drawer and started going through the files.
"He is dirty Matt."
Caroline's warning echoed in his ears still. He had to know. He had to find out. Especially after what Georgie found.
He felt the nagging suspicion that Caroline was not that off the mark. And it was becoming more and more of certainty without proof rather than doubt.
It was all just too convenient. Logan's escape. Vaughn's involvement when he supposedly got assigned to Logan's case after his escape.
Matt pressed his lips. He looked at his clock. Seven minutes left before the camera at the ceiling would start working again. He breathed out in relief when he found Caroline's file. Vaughn was arrogant enough to keep it here not fearing of anyone doing this. Unless he was clean and had nothing to hide. His instincts raged against that possibility now.
Matt's eyes went through the notes and he cursed in a low voice. Vaughn told him he was searching for her. But he had filed her as a closed case. Which was illegal. Not caring for her case was one thing. Officially closing her case was another.
He read Vaughn's notes. That bastard had signed them. He had declared Caroline dead. She went from missing to presumed dead to dead. If he pushed the file to his superiors they would register Caroline as dead. How could he do this without a body? Unless…no. No!
Matt tried to breathe through the panic and think clearly.
Vaughn closed her case and no one cared or even noticed. If she was alive she was left to fend of herself. No one would bother for Klaus' mistress. But why would he close her case like this?
Matt almost crumbled the folder but he exhaled and took out his phone and took pictures of the notes. Five minutes left. He had to find more evidence.
The folder under Caroline's included details about prison releases and transfers. Shit! He knew one of those dates. It was Logan's transfer. He had transferred him under another name. He had even made it seem as he was still in the old prison for days while he was already transferred under a new name in another facility. She knew the name because Georgie had already found it.
And there were more. Much more. He knew more names. He had searched them after the shooting. Vaughn had signed the transfer and release of several gang members that were in the Mikaelson shooting.
"This can't be- shit!" he hissed.
He closed his eyes. Caroline's warnings a deafening memory on repeat in his mind that pounded with guilt and anger.
"There has been nothing official about Logan...it does not add up. He is clearing the sides and using me as bait."
Matt wanted to lash out. He wanted to go find Vaughn and kill him. He didn't need solid proof. What he saw now was more than enough.
Caroline's disappearance was not an accident. It was premeditated and Vaughn had arranged it. All to get to the Mikaelsons. He was using Caroline as bait. And he had assisted him. He was meant to look after Caroline and that son of a bitch had used him. He had given him information he shouldn't have.
The paper he was holding now had another entry. The code was the same as the signature in Caroline's folder.
What?
Matt didn't know what that meant though. It was a call from only six hours ago. The record wrote about gunshots at an abandoned warehouse in the area of an old factory. Why wouldn't Vaughn pass the information to anyone and bury it? And why had he coded it as part of Caroline's closed investigation?
Matt looked at his clock. Shit. Two minutes. He had to get out.
He put everything back as it was and closed the drawer. He quickly took out the drive praying it had sent all the files to Georgie and turned off the computer.
Matt watched the wall with the photographs Vaughn kept. Photos of the Mikaelsons. All part of his investigation against them. He touched Caroline's photo with them when a paper fell down from one of the photos.
Matt bent down and quickly looked over it.
He frowned. It was the address of the old factory. The same one where the gunshots were heard today. Only the date Vaughn had marked in this paper predated the gunshots… and the Loup Noir shooting.
"She was right," Matt uttered with dread.
Moving her to a new location in her condition had been risky but necessary.
Elijah Mikaelson went out of Rebekah's room first. Completely composed, his steps in tandem with the bleeping echo of the machine that was keeping his sister alive.
Klaus followed but didn't close the door behind him before glancing at his sister one more time. Marcel was holding her hand but all Klaus could see was his little sister's bruised face. Her cuts, her swollen wounds. Death held her in its clutches. His magnificent sister was broken and the people that put her in that bed were now roaming free. The people that had killed his brother. That had taken Caroline.
And she had called him! He knew it was her! He felt it in his gut! The call was from Caroline. Before the first ring had even ringed all the way through he had answered the call but the line had gone dead.
Only there had been a scream. For a split second. Like the last note of song fading away in static.
Caroline.
He saw red but reigned over his rage and went into action. Logic had prevailed. This wasn't like the box. The call wasn't staged or meant to taunt him. They had tried to stop it.
They feared he would track it down.
And he did. He had.
It was easy enough for him to trace the call…and the gunshots... but by the time he had gotten to that old factory warehouse they had moved her.
He had scoured the building.
There was blood inside and out of the factory. New blood. Fresh blood. He knew it had to be her blood too. There were signs of battle. And destruction.
They didn't have time to clean up. They were in a rush. To get her out. To move.
But she was alive. Caroline was alive and she was fighting to get to him and he knew it. They had hurt her but they kept her alive to use her as leverage against him; she had obviously messed with their plans so shit was about to hit the fan any minute now.
Thankfully the trail was no longer cold. He would find her. He was close he felt it. She just had to survive until he would get to her. She had to wait for him. He would find her.
He had already leads tied to that place. He had people scouring every inch of the city and of that place. All he had to do was crack some heads and get people talking. But time was running out. This was why he had to move Rebekah and this was why he was fighting against time now.
Klaus allowed his heart to fill with hate. He would need his hate now more than ever. For what he was about to do and what was about to come.
His rage was never-ending but he softly closed the door as he stepped out of Rebekah's room.
Elijah pulled the sleeves of his black shirt and straightened the gold cuffs with precise moves.
"Are you ready brother?" Elijah Mikaelson asked him and Klaus nodded. The time for weakness was over.
Elijah inclined his head, this time with understanding and grim anticipation and Klaus approached him.
They have been in this position before. A long time ago. Years ago. When they took up arms against Mikael.
The difference was that back then their blood was not shed. Back then they had the upper hand and the blood that rained was only that of their enemies and this time his enemies, enemies that had Kol's blood on their hands, had Caroline. His Caroline. And he had to find her. Even if he had to move heaven and hell to do it.
"I will tear Chicago off the map if I have to but I will avenge Kol even if it's the last thing I do,' Klaus swore, giving Elijah the reassurance he wanted with nothing but confidence and determination. He didn't care for the casualties and the losses anymore. Nothing would get in his way, "No matter what it takes. This I promise you, brother."
Elijah watched him with sharp eyes. Searching to see in him the leader he always looked up to. And whatever he saw seemed to restore his conviction and faith in him.
"To avenge our brother," Elijah said with his most solemn voice, "we may have to stand against family."
Klaus didn't need Elijah's warnings for his suspicions to be proven but even so when Elijah gave him a curt nod that spoke the truth none of them wanted to speak out loud the hate he felt detonated inside him and turned to something that could not be contained any longer.
And he wouldn't contain it. It was time for everyone to remember why no one descended against him and his family. His reputation was not just made up rumors. He had earned it and he would so again.
He would destroy not only those that dared to rise against him but those his enemies loved and ever met.
And he would do so even if he would have to stand against his own blood.
He had shown mercy only once in his life. It was time to correct that error.
Klaus turned his back to Elijah and stared at Rebekah's door. There was no point in delaying any longer.
He placed his hand over his chest. A scar. A reminder of how the bonds of family could betray you.
Underneath his blouse, the scar Mikael had once given him now burned. As if the wound was new, raw and bleeding. It burned and his demons raged. They raged and he let them out of their cage.
Caroline's voice echoed in the memory that flashed in his mind.
Flashback
"But you didn't kill the wounds they still bleed," Caroline muttered sadly and Klaus let go of her hand and she pulled back. He still felt the sensation of the scar still on his skin.
"Sometimes…and then there are those other times where I hold the knife. And the blood that runs is not mine and the voices in my head seize," he revealed to her and madness built inside him again. It was poison and venom and it had latched into every part of him. And it had made him strong and it had killed parts of him but not before it had killed those he hated, "you will get to hold the knife when the time comes but what you will do with it will be up to you sweetheart. Maybe your wounds will close one day," he murmured and Caroline looked at him sadly.
"Yours can too," she softly said and Klaus snorted.
"I don't want them too."
Caroline gaped and gave him an incredulous look and Klaus' lips curved into an unsettling grin.
"I don't want to forget. The more I remember the more powerful I get," he explained to her not hiding the edge in his voice. He was not battling his demons. He was letting the demons battle inside him and reign over him. He was using those demons for their wings and their horns and hooves and their power. He was feeding them with his anger and blood. The more blood he was giving them the more they grew inside him. It was more than just survival. It was a homage to murder and power. Caroline might have gambled with her life but he had gambled his soul. He had sold it. And he would do so again without hesitation because the price was worth it.
"Powerful enough to not let anyone hurt me or anyone I care for ever again," Klaus told her.
Klaus' fingers twitched against the scar on his chest now. He gripped the material of the blouse until the tips of his fingers felt the abrupt curve of his skin beneath. It was throbbing. It was eating away all life from inside him. All love. Everything that had turned him weak. And with them, it was destroying all hope he may have had for the future he had dreamed of when he shouldn't have.
Flashback.
"I want to come first. No second thoughts. No middle ground," Caroline declared.
She took a step forward and cupped Klaus' face with her hands demanding his undivided attention.
"This is what I want," she professed. Her eyes blazing with fire. "Can you tell me that there will be a day that you will be able to give me more than this? To give me yourself without holding back? Scar and wounds and all? Even healing? Can you tell me it is worth the wait? Should I even wait?" she asked shedding her armor down for the first time in years.
This was her. Bare and honest. No pretenses. No middle ground. She wanted everything. She wanted him. But she did not want to let go and turn to a shade because of love. That kind of love was not the kind she wanted. And if this was the only thing he could give she would not take it. And she would not allow him to pretend that he was giving her what she wanted either.
Caroline faced him and raised her chin up.
"Above your Kingdom and your crown. Above everything you hate. Can you care for me more than that?"
No.
He couldn't be the man Caroline wanted. He never could. But he could be the one she needed right now more than ever. The one he had to be to save her. The one she had turned to for protection. Even if it meant losing her forever. If this was the price he would have to pay then so be it. He would pay it. He would pay it in blood.
His hand fell back to his side and the scar now stopped burning as the blood inside him turned to ice. Calmness swept away every emotion. Even Caroline's love. And when he faced Elijah again everything in him hardened.
"Gather those we trust," Klaus gave the order. His tone emotionless, "every man we have. Chicago. Vegas. New England. Detroit. New Orleans. New York. Everyone that owes us. Every favor. Every deal."
Elijah stared him and for a split second, a glimpse of uneasiness broke through his dispassionate infamous control. They both knew what that command meant but his brother quickly recovered and bowed his head before he took out his cell phone.
This would be far more firepower than when they had brought down Mikael.
This was war.
Caroline tried to lift her head but it felt as if it weighed a ton.
They had hit her in the back of her head. They had knocked her out and then there was a smell that still stuck in her nose. More chloroform.
She could not shake the cloudiness away. She tried to push away the pain and to force her body to obey only she could not open her eyes and she could not move. She groaned and felt the prick of pins and needles darting up and down her numb limbs. She tried to move her hands. She couldn't. She tried to move her legs. She couldn't.
She was once more restrained and that was enough for her body to jolt as terror pushed through the haze she was in. They had drugged her again.
She blinked. Again and again. But everything was dark. Only the darkness was not absolute. Particles of dust danced in the dark shadows that were broken by glimpses of light that were coming from the cracks in the windows that were bolded shut with wooden planks nailed on them.
Caroline craned her head back. She was not laying down this time. No. As all her senses returned to her she realized she was strapped down to a chair.
She felt dizzy and nauseous. Her stomach curdled.
Her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. Logan. She had escaped Logan. She had almost made it out but then that woman stopped her from escaping…that woman with the red hair.
Caroline inhaled a sharp breath when she realized she was not alone. There was a silhouette standing right next to one of the windows. A feminine-shaped silhouette.
"Ah, you are awake. Finally," the woman said and Caroline blinked again. It was that woman again. With the red hair. She could barely see her in the darkness but she recognized her voice.
"You've been quite the inconvenience you know."
The woman came closer, with steady steps and Caroline tried to regain all her control despite how much her head was pounding and how fast her heart seemed to beat. She pulled at the ropes behind her back. Damn it. They had tied her on a chair. She tried to remember everything Klaus had taught her. To search for the exits. Only it was no use. It was too dark. And she was sure the shades she was seeing lurking in the dark belonged to guards. And she could not break free from the restrains that had turned her hands and legs numb. She also knew these people would not make the same mistake twice. They would not let her out of their sight.
The woman now came closer and started circling the chair.
Caroline saw that she was beautiful. Elegant. She wore high heels. And had an air of superiority surrounding her.
"Can we stop with the dramatics and at least turn on the lights?" Caroline spat, her voice croaky as she tried to master up all her courage knowing that maybe it was not a smart thing to do but she would not sit back and let these assholes intimate her.
Only these people had killed Stefan. They had killed Kol. And countless others in the club.
Those memories almost broke through her courage and turned it to dust but Caroline did not back down.
The woman now laughed.
"So the mistress of the King has quite a sharp tongue on her. Maybe we should have sent him that one instead," the redhead laughed softly and Caroline tensed.
She knew how that game was played. They would send her to Klaus in pieces. She had seen Klaus do that to his enemies countless times. Was this payback?
The hell with this.
"Screw you," Caroline fumed not caring for the consequences.
The woman took a threatening step at her and-
"Play nice my love," a voice came from behind Caroline and the hair at the back of her neck stood up. A foreboding feeling washed over her. The woman didn't take another step.
The man that had spoken now walked towards the redhead and kissed her on the forehead. Whoever that woman was leaned over the kiss.
Both of them now stood only a few steps away from her chair and Caroline's eyes had adjusted completely to the darkness. She watched the couple that now was sharing a loving embrace and her eyes narrowed as she looked at the tall man.
His features. His eyes. Were so familiar.
"Forgive my wife's manners. Sometimes her excitement gets the best of her but I assure you she means well. Usually anyway," the man said conversationally but Caroline did not say anything and it was not out of fear.
She was trying to remember from where she knew his face because she was sure she had seen him before. Somewhere. Only she couldn't remember where.
"I always mean well," the woman scoffed.
"Of course darling," the man appeased his wife and then turned his attention back to her, "fear not Caroline. Your tongue is quite safe for now I assure you. You have such a lovely voice. Depriving the world from it would be an atrocity, not even us should commit," he stated and Caroline bit her tongue and remained silent; she forced herself to tame her terror and her anger and she only focused on trying to remember if she had seen that man before. Maybe in Loup Noir or Loup Rouge. He was surely an enemy of Klaus and he seemed to know all about her. Had he heard her sing? Had she seen him before?
But there was something more to him. Something that was standing out in her mind.
He somehow reminded her of Elijah in a certain way but at the same time, there was also something meek about him too.
She couldn't pinpoint exactly from where she knew that man but she had seen his face before.
"Cat got your tongue all of the sudden?" the woman wondered with mirth but Caroline did not take her eyes away from the man that was looking at her as if he was sharing the same interest in her.
"Who are you?" she directly asked him and he smiled at her question. To anyone else that smile would seem polite but Caroline wasn't fooled by it. There was nothing kind in that unsettling curve of his lips.
Whoever he was, he had his attention on her now as he gently detached himself from the redhead's arms and stepped closer to the chair Caroline was tied up to.
He dragged another chair and placed it in front of the chair she was sitting on.
Caroline held her breath when he came and sat across from her and crossed his legs casually. He snapped his fingers and Caroline heard rustling before someone turned on the lights.
The abrupt brightness blinded her momentarily. Her head was still hurting. But as she opened her eyes and finally saw the man clearly her heart started beating wildly. She realized that he shared similarities with Elijah indeed. Not just with Elijah but with Kol too. They shared the same colors. The same bone structure. Their features. There was something in his aura too.
Only his eyes were a bit different. Something in them reminded her of…no… it couldn't be.
The man gave her a slight nod before he added.
"Let me introduce myself to you."
Only he didn't have to.
Caroline knew what he would say before he the truth would spill from his mouth. She knew because his eyes reminded her of Klaus. The color. A similar hue. And in its depths something familiar. Something in the way he looked at her. It was dangerous. She had felt it before in Klaus, Elijah, and Kol. Even in Rebekah.
"I am Klaus' exiled brother. Finn Mikaelson."
...
Hours before the Loup Noir shooting.
The air felt different here somehow.
He had carried the windy city with him for all this time. Never forgetting. Never forgiving. He remembered the cries and the gunshots. He remembered the blood that flowed the night he ran away. The night he had decided to become a coward just so to buy some time. Time to gain strength and allies. Time to let his hate thrive. Time to plan so to fight later. And he waited, carrying the memories of this city deep within.
Finn Mikaelson watched the view of Chicago that overstretched beyond the window of the penthouse he was secretly staying at. He had sneaked into his city as if he was a criminal on the hunt.
His exile had lasted far too long. It was time to take from his brothers what they had taken from him. He waited too long. Suffered so much. Knowing all too well that there would come a day when that vile creature that shared half his blood would have something to lose.
Niklaus Mikaelson had no soul but he seemed to have a heart at last. One that a blonde songbird managed to move.
That meant only one thing.
Whoever possessed a heart, even a heartless bastard like his brother, possessed one more thing.
A weakness.
One for him to exploit.
His jaw clenched when Sage's hands wrapped around his waist. His wife rested her chin on his shoulder and looked at the lights of the sunset. Night was coming. Along with it the last celebration the King of Chicago would get. After tonight Klaus would know only funerals until he himself would finally get to rot in a nameless shallow grave. Just like their parents.
It was time to avenge Mikael and Esther. He had lived in the shadows tormented by their memory for years. Their ghosts still screamed to him demanding justice. They demanded Klaus' blood and everyone that sided with that bastard would go down too.
"Are you sure about this?" Sage's voice held doubt underneath all the support she was giving him. She had given him the resources of her family and her love. He would return everything once he would get his crown.
And it would seem that this would happen sooner than later. Kol's presence had forced his hand. His brother had turned out to be quite the hunter and he was hot on his trail. It was only a matter of time before he connected the dots and uncovered the truth.
"It is time to get back what is mine. Starting tonight," he assured her. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Their shimmering visage mixed with the city's reflections in the window glass.
"All the Mikaelsons have gathered. You know what this means."
Sage's tone this time was forged in steel. A gun ready to shoot and kill. And he was the one behind the trigger.
Time to pull it.
"War."
Finn Mikaelson.
The name felt like a death sentence.
Caroline took a deep breath to calm herself.
Now she remembered where she had seen him. In a family photograph. A photograph Klaus had hidden in one of his books. One she had seen by accident when she had taken the book out of the shelf and the photograph spilled out from the pages and fell on the floor. It was a photograph that had given Klaus pause. A reaction she had never seen him before. And that was because the photograph had all the Mikaelsons in. Those that lived, those that had died.
Those that had been exiled.
"I take it you've heard of me," Finn mused, his eyes taking in her reaction. "but I doubt the stories you've been told were anywhere near the truth."
Finn Mikaelson folded his hands over his knee. But what he aimed to look like graceful in her eyes was nothing but a pathetic attempt to copy Elijah's mannerisms. It didn't work.
"You have met my family have you not? But you barely touched the surface of their depravity and treachery. I am their eldest brother and they shunned me for daring to want what was owed to me by birth. For being a good son and deciding to side with my parents," he said with so much hate that turned Caroline's stomach.
"Klaus broke me to pieces and left me for dead. But not before he killed my mother in front of my eyes," Finn narrated his story, his gaze glossing over as if he was trapped in memories that haunted him. His hands had turned to fists.
"I ended up alone with a target on my back," he revealed and Caroline believed that from his side of the story this was actually true. Klaus was capable of such cruelty. That much she knew. But she also knew that not every story had only one side.
And maybe she was a hypocrite given who she was siding with but she couldn't find it in her to care. Not with the people that treated her like that and had her now tied up in a chair. And if she was honest even if they hadn't abused her like this she would still side with Klaus because Klaus was part of her story. Selfish or not that put her on his side because her story with Klaus was never about morality. It was about devotion and loyalty and beating the odds. It was about love as much as for Finn was about hate and righteous vengeance.
"Klaus loves nothing. Cares for nothing. Feels nothing," Finn spat and then his eyes focused on her, "at least he didn't until you came along."
The soft way he said that turned her blood to ice.
"I have been waiting for a long time for an opportunity to arise. For a chance. But Klaus didn't seem to have a weakness. For years. He was becoming stronger and cared for nothing. And then rumors of a Songbird started whispering all around. How he chased her night after night all smitten like a schoolyard boy and how she…you rejected him. Brave girl," Finn praised her and his wife snorted.
"Stupid girl. He seduced her anyway," she observed and Finn gave Caroline a condescending smile that made Caroline pull at the ropes that held her hands together. She wanted to wipe that smile straight out of his face.
"Of course he did," Finn said with a dismissive gesture of his hand, "but the fact that she remained alive long enough for him to do so spoke volumes."
"You see Caroline you caught the eye of a monster. A monster you offended publically and didn't make you an example by eating your heart and throwing your carcass to his dogs. And if you think this is an exaggeration you haven't truly paying attention…you should really ask Logan Fell about it. I am sure he has some macabre stories to share."
"Good," Caroline gloated and Finn's eyes narrowed into slits.
"You sure about that?"
"I know who Klaus is," Caroline stated and Finn arched his brow at the way she glared at him.
She refused to be intimidated by him and she refused to let anyone twist Klaus in her eyes. She knew who he was. She knew how twisted he was and how twisted she was for falling for him but she never feared him and she would not start now. And she would not fear anyone else either. Not even that asshole in front of her.
"And you still care for him," Finn noticed with distaste and Caroline pressed her lips, "but what you feel is inconsequential," he taunted her, "what Klaus feels on the other hand-"
"Is his Achilles heel," Finn's wife finished his sentence and Caroline scowled at them.
"Who would have thought," the redhead said amused, "for Klaus Mikaelson to actually have a heart. One we can now so easily break in pieces."
Like hell they would Caroline thought.
"I waited for a long time Miss Forbes. I gave time for your romance to bloom. I waited for you two to come together," Finn divulged and his wife went and stood by his side. He reached for her hand and kissed it.
"I even provided your fairytale a dragon. To turn Klaus from the villain of the story into your hero," Finn cynically spelled it out for her and Caroline fought for breath.
Logan.
She had turned to Klaus when Logan had escaped. That had been the turning point of their relationship. And it was all orchestrated. Finn was waiting behind the scenes, pulling the strings. He had let Logan loose. A diversion for Klaus. And a way to bring them together.
And then he waited.
He waited for this.
"A soap opera really," Finn's wife mocked.
"Don't mind my Sage," Finn laughed, "she doesn't care much for romance."
"Unless it's my own," she smirked and Finn chuckled.
"I, on the other hand, am a romantic. A hopeless advocate of love. Waiting for love to conquer. For my bastard of a brother to win your heart as you won his," Finn drawled and Caroline knew that if she was not tied to the chair she would jump at him with fists and kicks.
"He tried to protect you. That was the best part of all," Klaus' estranged brother joked, "and not just from Fell. He paraded you around like a toy so to show to his enemies you were not important. He always loved to play with smoke and mirrors. He kept you close as his mistress and acted as if he didn't really care but for those of us that truly paid attention," Finn paused and gave her a knowing look, "the King of Chicago had finally dropped his guard down. He had gotten attached."
Finn smiled at her as if he was complimenting her for that.
"And now he has finally something to lose."
Caroline felt cold washing over her. Taking over her feverish body, turning her blood to ice that sent shards straight into her heart.
"Love," Sage smiled and squeezed Finn's shoulder, "love is the point."
"It is," Finn agreed, "it can tame even monsters like Klaus Mikaelson."
"You see Caroline," Finn remarked as he covered Sage's hand with his own, "I would do anything for my wife. I would jump into the fire for my love and if Klaus cares even half the way I care for Sage he will do nothing less for you. And for your sake, I hope he does."
"And what happens if he does?" Caroline asked, thankful her voice didn't come out weak.
"Very simple really," Sage stated with glee, "we will make an exchange. Your life for his."
Caroline felt all blood draining from her body and Finn nodded at her.
"When Klaus comes for you I will kill him," Finn confirmed.
"You would kill your own brother?" Caroline muttered unable to comprehend the magnitude of hate in Finn's eyes.
"He is not my brother!" Finn Mikaelson hissed, "he is nothing but a bastard!"
"What about Kol? Was he a bastard too?" Caroline spat with venom and Finn pushed away Sage's hand and pressed his elbows to his knees as he leaned closer and glowered at her.
"I avenged my parents' death. Kol paid for his betrayal. He sided with Klaus. They all did," he seethed with so much resentment that his features turned to an ugly mask and Caroline now saw the other side of the story.
Finn was not any better than the monsters he wanted to direct his revenge too. Only Klaus was far better than him. Klaus would fight for his brothers and his sister. He had even let Finn live. In his own twisted way Klaus clung to some shreds of honor. Even at a distorted sense of humanity. He had shown mercy. He could still love and that was why Rebekah, Elijah, and Kol stood by his side and would die for him. Kol already had. Kol had died protecting her because he had given his word to Klaus and he loved his brother enough to do so. Elijah and Rebekah would do the same. And Klaus would give his life for them too.
Caroline knew what was going to come next. Klaus would come. In all his rage and fury. Nothing would stop him from avenging his brother. And if anything had also happened to Elijah and Rebekah there would be no stone in this world Klaus would not turn and destroy in their memory.
Klaus was ride and die for those he loved. Always and forever.
Something that Finn would never understand as he was a sorry excuse of a man. Hiding in shadows. Biding his time. Knowing that he stood no chance against Klaus otherwise.
He still didn't. Only he didn't know it.
Caroline pressed her lips but then her eyes sized up the man she had in front of her and she scoffed. The man that compained because his family failed to declare him their leader and stand by his side.
"Maybe there is a reason for that," Caroline shrugged. Her knowing tone indignant and deliberately condescending.
Sage stepped up and slapped her hard breaking her lip. Caroline glared at her and without missing a beat she spat the blood that gathered in her mouth at her.
It would take far more than just that to deter her. They may had the power to hurt her but they still needed her. Alive. And she didn't care to play nice with them.
Sage's face twisted in anger. She tried to slap her again but Finn got up from his chair and held her back staring at Caroline with features dipped in solemn caution now.
Caroline scoffed at that, ignored the sting on her lip and glanced at the man that didn't resemble the Mikaelsons she had met at all.
"Klaus is not like you," she simply stated the fact not caring for the blood that dripped down her chin, "he does not hide in the shadows. He is not afraid to face anyone."
Caroline watched Sage and Finn Mikaelson with a calm demeanor. So serene that it obviously unnerved them.
There was no hate or menace in her voice because she didn't need to threaten anyone. She wasn't afraid or angry. She didn't have to plead. To bargain. To intimidate.
Everyone knew who Klaus Mikaelson was and that was enough to make a statement.
He was terror made flesh. A nightmare given form. The King everyone feared and hated. The mafia boss people either bowed to or wanted to overthrow. The monster they wanted to destroy by taking away his family, his crown and his…mistress.
But they had miscalculated because Caroline knew what they didn't. She knew more than just Klaus's darkness. She knew his light.
"The brightest light can shine only inside darkness sweetheart."
No matter what they thought they knew about her and her relationship with Klaus and no matter what they believed they knew about him for her Klaus Mikaelson was something else. He wasn't her keeper and she wasn't just the mistress of the King. She was not his weakness either as Finn perceived her to be.
Klaus' brother had no idea what he had just unleashed. He had made a mistake and he would pay it with everything he held dear.
A part of hers was secure in the knowledge that a part of Klaus cared for her. A human part that was stronger than all the blood he had shed and all the scars he carried. A human part that was now in pain for all that he had lost and would bring down heaven and hell to get back what belonged to him.
If Klaus Mikaelson was able to destroy and kill everything in his way driven by his hate, the hate Finn counted on, Caroline knew for a fact that he was capable for far more and far worse so to avenge, protect and defend those he cared for.
Klaus was unforgiving and unstoppable in his hate but in love, he could be more.
So much more.
Flashback
"You wait for me to come and get you," Klaus simply said and she nodded.
He wrapped his hands around her bringing her closer. Their bodies intertwined.
He then brushed her hair away from her face so tenderly that she could not believe that his hands could inflict unspeakable pain to others.
"I will always come for you Caroline," he promised and it was the first night she pressed her lips to his.
He would always come for her.
Caroline pushed her tangled hair back from her face and smiled for she could feel it in her bones. Klaus was a man of his word and he was coming for her. He would keep his promise even if it would be the last thing he would do and she would do what he asked of her. She would wait for him. Always.
Finn would get his wish and that brought such a bright smile on her lips. A lethal smile. One that screamed revanche and was a promise of death.
Reckoning was already in its way and its energy shrouded Caroline in its unbreakable shield.
"You will get your wish," Caroline promised Finn Mikaelson and relished in the way his smug façade crumbled, "he will come for me and when he does you'll wish he hadn't."
Caroline licked the blood from her lips and couldn't help the twisted feeling that rose inside her and transmuted to a slated smirk as she faced Finn Mikaelson square in the face with no inkling of fear or doubt. There was only defiance, certainty and danger coming out of her in waves and waves building up an ocean so dark and deep that every smile in the room except hers died.
"He is going to kill you. He will kill you all."
...
It's too late to go back,
I let the darkness seep through the cracks
Love is bleeding, I curse my breathing
The day is gone
...
Song: Noah Gundersen & The Forest Rangers - "Day is Gone"
References:
[1] : The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
[2] : Songbird by Fleetwood Mac