Author's Note: New chapter finally! So when I first started uploading this story I had a few chapters written and thanks to the global pandemic plenty of time to write... then I got called back to work the next day. So my writing time has been cut down severely. Still I'm trying to get these done as quickly as I can. Well I was before falling down She-Ra rabbit hole that's kept me distracted for the last week. Anyways here's another chapter and hopefully I'll have some more up before too long.
Hanging On By A Thread
"Hope, you out here?" Marcel asked, knowing damn well that she was. He could smell her here after all. Stepping into abandoned mill he looked around for her, able to tell she was close but not sure where. "Hope, come on."
"Give me a minute." He heard Hope call from the second floor. Sighing he leaned against one of the support beams, waiting on his niece to come down and greet him. Finally she appeared, coming running down the stairs and throwing her arms around him.
"Bout time, I was starting to get a contact high from all the fumes in here." Marcel joked, Hope laughing at that.
"It's not that bad." She retorted out of habit before taking a whiff for herself. Ok, maybe he had a point, that was pretty strong. Her wolf form must be better at filtering out unpleasant odors than she was. "And I had to get my clothes back on."
"Out for a run then?" Marcel asked, getting a nod in return. He'd heard from Caroline that it was something she'd been doing a lot of over the last month or so.
"It helps to clear my head." Hope admitted, as they walked back towards the school.
"So, being back at school not been as easy as you thought it'd be?" Marcel asked, a teasing lilt to his voice.
"Oh god, did you agree to do this just you could come say I told you so?" Hope asked, shoving the man away when he nodded.
"Hey, why else would I agree to deal with a bunch of horny vamps?" Marcel said, glad to see that whatever was bothering her didn't have her so down that she couldn't joke around with him.
"Because your secretly a giant sap and felt bad for all the teens turned into vampires?" Hope said, smirking when she saw him blink. Right on the mark with that one.
"Ok, so that might be part of it." Marcel admitted, having been a little shocked at just how many teen vamps they had here. Fortunately the youngest was at least fourteen when they were turned so he didn't feel quite the same need to hunt down their sire as if they'd been say six or eight. Still he'd asked for a list and intended to track down and find the ones responsible and see if they had decent excuse turning some of the younger ones when he had time.
"So you going to attend my big speech? You'll be a vampire one day after all." Marcel said, that having been the expert's, aka Freya and Kol, best guess. If Hope's blood could turn other's into vampires and even hybrid's then it only mad sense that once she died she'd come back as a vampire. What kind of vampire exactly was up for debate but personally he'd be disappointed if she wasn't at least as strong as he was.
"I don't plan on dying any time soon so I think I'll pass. Having the sex-ed talk twice already was more than enough." Hope said, not wanting to go through that for a third time.
"Twice? Wait let me guess, Hayley wanted to make sure the school hadn't left anything out and gave it to you herself?" Marcel asked, Hope nodding in confirmation and getting him to laugh. Of course she had.
"So yeah, you can see why I don't want to be around for a third one." Hope said, glad to have someone to just talk too. It had been nearly a month since Lizzie had gone at her in the common area, and school had sucked since then. There were all sorts of stupid rumors floating around now as apparently some people were dumb enough to believe she had really tried to summon her dad. Her relationship with Lizzie and by extension Josie was downright hostile now, on a good day the girls pretended she didn't exist and on bad ones people ran for cover.
"Fine I won't make you come then. I might decide to just compel them all into never having sex anyways, that'd be faster." Marcel joked, Hope shaking her head at that.
"I'm pretty sure you can't do that." Hope said, Marcel giving her a look as if asking if that was a challenge. "Ok, correction, you can do that but you definitely shouldn't."
"Why so concerned, got your eye on one of them?" Marcel teased, while being genuinely curious as to what the answer was.
"Hah, after my last attempt at romance with a vampire? No, I think I'll stick to flying solo for a while." Hope said, not really wanting to think about it. Not like anyone in the school would even want to date the dreaded daughter of Klaus Mikaelson anyways.
"Not too sure I believe that." Marcel said as they reached the school, vamping ahead and opening the door for Hope who just rolled her eyes at him. "I'm from the south, same as you, you know we open doors for everyone. And you're telling me there's not even someone your interested in?"
"Nope, no one. What, were you expecting me to say that some wolf had swept me off my feet? Or that I bonded with a cute witch in Charms class?" Hope taunted, glancing around the common area to make sure no one was in it. Well Wade was there but that didn't really count.
"See now I know you're teasing, Charms isn't even a real class." Marcel said, at least fifty percent sure of that. It was too bad, he'd have felt better knowing that there was someone she at least liked, that was what normal teens should be concerned about at her age.
"Yep, now come on. You got a bunch of vampires to scare into behaving." Hope said, gesturing for him to follow her. Despite what she had said she was going to stop by and watch the first few minutes of his speech at least, if only to mock him about later.
"Is this everyone?" Marcel asked, Caroline nodding that it was. Ok, show time then. "Now any of you know why you're here today?"
"Uh, you're going to tell us to say no to drugs and stay in school?" One of the vamps quipped, a few of his buddies laughing at the rather weak joke.
"See if we were outside of this school I'd be snapping your neck right now for being stupid." Marcel said, Caroline looking over at him in concern. At the back of the room he could see Hope standing by Alaric, the teen smiling at that. "In fact, I might do it anyway if you don't shut up and pay attention."
That seemed to get them to settle down and focus, "A free piece of advice for you all, never antagonize another supernatural until you know what they're capable of. I happen to be married to a woman who's made a habit of ripping the throats out of vamps who thought she'd make a pretty snack for about a thousand years. And it's always the same thing, young, dumb vampires who think they're invincible right up until their heart is being pulled out through their rib-cage."
Now he had their attention, which was what he had really wanted. Every vampire in the room had their eyes locked onto him, which meant he could do this. "Now, I want everyone here to pay attention and answer any questions I have with one hundred percent honesty for the next two hours." At the back of the room he could see Hope mouthing the word 'cheater' at him as he compelled every teen in sight to be cooperative.
It was sort of cheating, he could admit that, but it was also the easiest way to cut through the bullshit. "So as to why I'm here, that's so I can do a special vampire sex education course for you guys." Marcel said, chuckling as the expected groans swept the room. "I know, I know. Not the funnest thing in the world, but it's important if you'd like your partner to not be bled dry because you couldn't control yourself."
"To begin with you need to understand that we vampires feel everything at a heightened level. Anger, sadness, joy, and yes lust. All of it is turned up to ten times what it was when you were human. And it can be overwhelming... Marcel said, actually going into the lecture he'd wish he had gotten when he was turned. Klaus had taught him a lot of things, but restraining from killing had not even been on the list. A century plus later and a whole lot of pain, heartache, and drama he'd ended becoming a pretty decent person. Hopefully he could help these kids not have to take so long.
Smiling as she saw Marcel really hitting his stride Hope turned to leave. She would never tell the man but she was pretty sure that he'd have been able to keep their attention even without the compulsion, he was just that charismatic. The complete opposite of herself really, as she seemed to be able to force everyone away without even trying.
"Not going to stay?" Alaric said, stopping Hope as she turned to leave.
"I'd rather not. I think I'll get a shower and change, Marcel wants to go eat in town before he leaves." A shower in her own room at that, something she had happily been abusing ever since the repairs had been finished. "Tell him just to text me when he's done and I'll meet him at the common area. As I know you don't want him wondering around by himself."
Hope had finished up her classes and almost made it back to her room without incident when she had the misfortune of running into Josie. Literally, as the girl had been running down the hall and rounded the corner at the same time she had. "Ow," Hope whined as she was knocked to the floor, more out of reflex than any real pain.
"Sorry," Josie said, before looking up from where she had fallen and realizing who it was she had run into. "Hope, oh. Umm..."
Hope rolled her eyes at that, "Seriously? What you're sorry about running into someone until you see it's just me?" That wasn't fair and she knew it but she was tired of the girl avoiding her. Ever since Lizzie had decided to be extra bitchy Josie had barely said a word to her, and now it seemed like even saying something as simple as sorry was to much.
"That wasn't what I..." Josie started before trailing off, not even sure what to say. She wanted to tell Hope that it was all her fault, that she'd set the fire, drove the wedge between her sister and Hope. But she just couldn't get the words out.
"Whatever," Hope said, rolling her eyes as she got back to her feet. She started to turn to walk away before seeing Lizzie at the far end of the hallway. The sight of the blonde caused her temper to flare, spurred by the hurt of Josie not even being willing to talk with her, and she lashed out at the closest target. "Oh and next time your bitch of twin decides to throw you out to throw herself at her fling of the month, find somewhere else to stay."
"Don't talk about Lizzie like that," Josie said angrily, getting back to her feet and glaring at Hope. Crush or not she wasn't going to let Hope go after Lizzie like that, especially not in her sister's current state. She couldn't let her twin hear anything that might set her off again.
Hope almost went back at Josie, challenged her to see just what she would do, to see if she would actually fight back. It wasn't like she lacked ammunition against Lizzie either, whether it be the conspicuous absences during evenings recently, her habit of going after Josie's crushes, or just the fact that Lizzie nearly become vampire food because she'd wanted to be the first in her year to have sex.
Instead she forced her hand into a fist, digging her nails into her palm to give herself something else to focus on. She wasn't going to fight Josie out here in the middle of the hallway, especially not over something as stupid as Lizzie. Why did she care what the twins thought of her anyways, wasn't like they ever had or ever would be friends. Giving one last glare she pushed past Josie and walked off, ignoring her as she headed down the hall to her room.
"I must admit, that went better than I thought it would." Alaric said, sitting behind his desk with Marcel on the other side. Caroline had left halfway through his lecture to take Lizzie to her therapy, leaving him to wrap things up with the man.
"Be honest, how bad did you think it would be?" Marcel said, taking the drink Alaric poured for him and giving a nod in thanks.
"Honestly? I thought you might just compel them to never have sex." Alaric said, that having been the first thing that crossed his mind. Marcel wasn't an Original Vampire like the Mikaelson's were, but rather an Enhanced Original of a different variety than he had been. Compelling a bunch of teenage vampires would have been quite easy for him.
"That's funny. See, I actually suggested doing that to Hope, she said I shouldn't." Marcel said, chuckling at the thought that they'd both had the same idea.
"Don't tell me that's because she fancies one of them?" Alaric asked, not really believing that would be likely. The vampires currently enrolled in the school weren't bad, just a bit... nondescript.
"Hehe, I like you." Marcel said, taking another sip from his drink as he laughed. "I asked her the same thing, she insists there's no one."
That wasn't really surprising Alaric supposed, given that you usually needed to talk to someone to have a crush on them and Hope barely talked to anyone. Then again she'd had a thing for Roman and as far as he knew they had never spoken to one another at school so who knows. Of course Roman was part of the reason such a thing seemed so unlikely now, as most the vamps seemed to think Hope's family had killed him and were thus terrified of getting close to her.
"So, while you're being honest, how's she doing, really?" Marcel asked, setting his drink and turning to Alaric as he waited for an answer. He could ask Hope of course but he knew that all he'd get was that she was doing fine, regardless of how far from the truth that might be.
"That depends on what you're asking about. She gets excellent marks in all her classes and has recently taken up a new extracurricular activity, learning how to fight from me." Alaric said, laying out the positives first. "She also seems to be magnet for trouble, through no fault of her own, and has a grand total of zero friends."
"Yeah, that's kind of what I expected," Marcel admitted, having imagined as much.
"How come?" Alaric asked, wondering why the man had been expecting that.
"Hope wasn't exactly sociable even before and she damn sure isn't going to be now." Marcel said, knowing Hope wouldn't be happy if she heard them discussing her like this but hoping that he could find some way to help. "Knowing her she's decided that if she just keeps to herself it'll be safer for everyone."
"How do you mean?" Alaric asked, curious as to how the man saw it.
"Hayley, Klaus, Elijah, Josh, Henry... Hope blames herself for all of their deaths, thinks that if it wasn't for her than they'd still be alive." In some ways she might even be right. Henry likely would be alive if she had refused to sell him her blood, Hayley might be alive if she hadn't staged her kidnapping, Klaus might be if she hadn't taken all that dark magic back into herself. It was hard to convince her that she wasn't the reason for their deaths when she could make a pretty compelling case that she was.
"She shouldn't blame herself for all of that." Alaric said, that was just too much for any person to bear, especially a teenager.
"Oh I agree. As I'm sure would Hayley, Josh, and Elijah. Hell, Klaus pretty much told her not to blame herself before he died. Doesn't change the fact that she does." Marcel lamented, knowing Hope well enough to understand the guilt she felt. She had a self-destructive desire to live up to an impossible standard even before her family had been killed, now it seemed like she wanted to do that while completely isolating herself.
"Fact is that she does though, and I don't know what to do about that. I'd feel a lot better if she at least had some friends her own age. Someone to talk to at least." Marcel said, pouring himself another drink from the bottle on Alaric's desk.
"Well unfortunately Hope and my daughters have decided to fight with each other for no real reason that I can tell." Alaric said, letting out a sigh of disappointment. They were really the only people in the school who might be able to bond with Hope in some way, everyone else was too scared of her to even try.
"Yeah, she's mentioned that. Called them the queens of mean I believe." Marcel said with a chuckle, Hope's insults could use some work. "Maybe if she had something else to focus on outside of school that would help, a chance to do something that makes a difference."
"What, you want me to volunteer her at the soup kitchen?" Alaric said, smirking slightly at the image it conjured.
Marcel laughed a bit at that, seeing the humor in it. "No, not quite. I was thinking more that maybe there was a way she could help at the school. Teach the younger students or give tours, something along those lines."
"Huh," Alaric said as he thought it over. Giving tours was out, Caroline was still handling those and honestly Hope didn't have the personality for it. And while he thought she'd be willing to try, little kids have a way of just blurting stuff out and hitting sensitive topics, which Hope had plenty of. But there was one idea he had that might work, provided Caroline didn't kill him for suggesting it. "You know, I might actually have something that could work."
Walking around the town square of Mystic Falls with Hope Marcel couldn't help but laugh slightly. "What's so funny?" Hope asked, wondering what had amused him.
"Ah nothing, it's just hard to believe that the vampire race all originated from this small town." Marcel said, the idea just really funny to him. A thousand years of vampire history had begun here, with a single Viking family that had somehow ended up crossing the ocean hundreds of years before the Europeans would.
"So I've heard how they came here from Norway but how did they all get back to Europe?" Hope asked, having never heard that part of the story. Every story she'd heard from her family after they had fled from Mikael took place in Europe or Asia until they had arrived in New Orleans, but they had never told her how they got back.
"I asked Klaus the same thing once." Marcel said, a fond look on his face as he recalled the memory. He had still been a kid at the time, maybe Hope's age, and had been curious about the exact same thing. "He told me that they swam."
Hope stared at Marcel for a moment before bursting out in laughter, "That can't be true." There was just no way, it was thousands of miles and they would have had no way of knowing which way they were going.
"That's pretty much what I said. But I never heard any different from them." Marcel said, smiling at the incredulous look Hope was giving him.
"Next you're going to tell me that they were using sharks for food while they did so." Hope said, not sure she could believe what he was saying.
"I don't know about that. Like I also don't know how Mikael was able to follow them. Honestly I think they might have just forgotten some of this." Marcel said, understanding how it could happen. He hadn't even been around for two centuries and there were already things he had forgotten.
"I wouldn't think you could forget something like that." Hope said, looking up as she saw they were nearing their destination. They'd already had dinner, at a small Italian place that was far better than she would have thought the town would have.
"You would be surprised, Elijah told me once that he thought part of the reason they came here was because their village in Norway had burned down. But he couldn't remember how." Marcel said, following up as she led the way to where she wanted to get dessert from. "I like to think maybe a dragon was responsible."
"Dragons aren't real," Hope said, rolling her eyes as she did.
"Yeah that's what they all say. But if you look through some of the oldest grimoires there are spells in there that use stuff like dragon scales and unicorn horns. Maybe they used to exist." Marcel said, Hope stopping and turning to look at him at that.
Narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously she turned on her heel and went to the door of the Mystic Grill instead. "Nope, not commenting on that. You're just trying to trick me into admitting I've read something that Aunt Freya has locked away."
"Uh huh, are you going to pretend you haven't?" Marcel asked as he followed her into the restaurant, not having really intended for the conversation to go this way but curious to see if Hope would be honest.
"See, this is the problem with English. No matter what I say you'll still think I have." Hope said, deflecting the question. And technically speaking she hadn't read Freya's collection of locked away grimoires. She had simply used magic to copy them into books of her own in case she needed them sometime.
"Nice deflection," Marcel said, smiling at that. Letting it go he looked up at the chalkboard menu of the diner and wondered why Hope had insisted on coming here. "What was it you were insisting they had the best of? Sundaes?
"Shakes." Hope said, looking around the diner for a minute before sighing and going to the counter to place their order.
"Wait a minute, I saw that. Who were you looking for?" Marcel said, not having missed what the girl was doing.
"No one." Hope said, trying to ignore Marcel's gaze as they went to sit outside. It was nice night, spring having arrived at Mystic Falls and the perfect temperature to just be outside. Noticing the disbelieving look Marcel was giving her she relented, "Ok, fine. There's a boy that worked here, I wanted to see if he still did."
"And you told me there was no one you were interested in," Marcel said, a big grin spreading across his face. Having a thing for a human was probably a bad idea but if it meant Hope got to be a normal teenager for once he'd take it.
"It's not like that," Hope said, a small blush on her face as she did. "He's nice. And he was there on a pretty awful day. So I wanted to... I don't know, apologize for being weird?" She really didn't know what she wanted, but she had been a little disappointed that he hadn't been here.
"Ah, well why don't I found out if he's around." Marcel said, seeing a waitress bringing their shakes over. Smiling up at the teen he looked eyes with her, "Hi, would you happen to know where-?
"Landon," Hope chimed in, deciding to just go with it.
"Right, Landon. Does he still work here?" Marcel said, compelling the teenage waitress into answering.
"No. He moved a few weeks ago. No idea where." The waitress said, her eyes glassy as she responded.
"Thank you," Marcel said, before sliding her a hundred dollar bill. "And thanks for the shakes too."
As the waitress moved off her turned his attention back to Hope, the young teen trying to become the first person ever to sadly drink a milkshake. "Sorry kid," he said, before taking a sip of his own. Hope was right these were pretty good, although it needed to be mixed a little to get the whip cream off the bottom.
"It's fine. Probably for the best he doesn't get close." Hope said, pouting as she continued to sip on her shake. Landon hadn't even been the reason she had wanted to come here, she had honestly just wanted a shake. But learning that he was gone and she'd likely never see him again had put a damper on her mood.
"Don't say that." Marcel said, shaking his head at Hope. "Don't say it's for the best, like being around you is something to avoid."
"Isn't it?" Hope said, deciding that if Marcel wanted to bring this up that she wasn't going to avoid it. "How many hundreds of people are dead because of me? Or is it in the thousands already?"
"Hope, you can't blame yourself for all of that." Marcel tried, Hope just shaking her head at him.
"Oh yes I can," Hope retorted, glaring back at Marcel. "You know, I thought that if I was good enough it would be okay. If I tried my best and helped people out and didn't cause trouble then maybe I could be worth it. And then I was a stupid, selfish brat and got my mom killed."
Marcel didn't say anything to counter that, deciding to let Hope get this out. Maybe it was what she needed. But damn, watching the tears welling up in her eyes it was hard to keep from just grabbing hold of her and telling her it'd be alright. "I was almost okay with dying. I would die and take the dark magic with me, and the rest of you would be free of me. No more having to look after poor Hope or fighting whatever evil monster decided they wanted to use me next."
"I mean sure, I was scared, but at least I would have been able to be with my mom again." Hope said, her voice breaking and the tears starting to flow. At that Marcel finally gave in, moving to wrap his arms around the much smaller girl and let her cry into him. Fortunately they were the only ones outside and a hard glare was enough to send the waitress scurrying back inside as she came out to take their empty cups.
"Maybe that's why I wanted to see Landon, I wanted to see if he had missed me. Would've been sad if I had actually died." Hope said, her voice slightly muffled as she kept her face buried into Marcel's shirt. It was stupid but part of her felt that it met something that he would've missed her, that someone not from her family would have cared if she had died, even for a moment.
"Hope, you can't do this to yourself." Marcel said, moving his hand gently across her back. "Your parents wanted you to live, not spend all your time trying to live up to their sacrifice, but to have a normal life simply because they love you. Because you deserve the same chance at a normal life as everyone else."
"We're pretty far from normal." Hope said, a slight smile on her face at that. Marcel and herself were arguably the most powerful supernaturals on the planet, and certainly the most unique, normal wasn't a word that could ever be used to describe them.
"Ok, fair point," Marcel conceded, giving a slight chuckle. "But you know what I mean. You can't live your life trying to meet some impossible standard and you can't blame yourself for everything that happened around you." True, Hope had been surrounded by death since before she was ever born but it wasn't her fault, those people had made their own choices and in many cases died because of them. That wasn't on her.
"Even if you tell me that it's not like I can just stop how I feel." Hope said, wishing that it was that easy. Vampires had a way to shut off their emotions right? It was too bad there wasn't a way to shut off the guilt she felt, even thought she knew she'd never do so. "I just... I thought I was doing better but I miss them so much that it hurts. How do I move forward with that?"
"It's always going to hurt Hope, that's part of being alive. But you get through it, one day at a time. And eventually you start to remember the good times more than the bad. You hold on to those, because those are key to getting through it." Marcel said, having his own fair share of experience when it came to dealing with grief. You didn't live as long as he had without it.
"How long does it take?" Hope asked, praying that Marcel knew what he was talking about. Right now it didn't even seem possible, anytime she tried to remember her mom all she could see was her being tortured in front of her, because of her. And with her dad it wasn't like there had been an abundance of happy memories to begin with, even years later her most vivid memory was of finding him in the middle of a slaughter.
"I'll let you know when I get there," Marcel said, feeling Hope shift against him at that. He had grown to admire Hayley over the years, and loved Hope like a sister. And while his relationship with Klaus was complicated to say the least there had been a time where he had loved him like a father. Now that he was gone those memories and feelings had come back, helped in warped way by knowing that Klaus wouldn't be able to betray them anymore.
"Is it okay if we just stay here awhile?" Hope asked softly, not wanting to move yet. She had missed this more than she had imagined, just having someone to hold onto and say that it was going to be alright, the way her mom always had.
"Sure thing kid," Marcel said, adjusting in his seat to be able to wrap both arms around Hope. "I told you, anything you need and I'll be there. Whether it's to get something of the top shelf or a shoulder to cry on, all you ever need to do is ask."
"So, exactly how much trouble are you going to be in when Caroline finds out about this?" Hope asked, her feet placed on the dash of the his SUV as they drove to the middle of nowhere. Well the eastern edge of Kentucky anyways which might as well be nowhere.
"That depends on how this goes." Alaric said, keeping his eyes on the road and ignoring Hope's taunts. For someone that had been rather quick to agree to his idea she sure was enjoying pointing out the flaws in it. "She doesn't like me doing these recruitment trips solo anyways, and this way I'm not."
"Right." Hope said, drawing it out mockingly. He was so screwed when Caroline found out. Still she was going to enjoy it, any excuse to get out of the school was one she was willing to take these days. And helping recruit a newly turned werewolf might be interesting. "So how are you even sure that this isn't a wild goose chase anyways?"
"Easy, I watched the news." Alaric replied, Hope rolling her eyes at that. "A few weeks ago a hunter died up in the mountains, official reports say it was an accident when his own rifle accidentally discharged. A week later there's a story on a teenager beating two men twice his size to a pulp."
"So we're looking for a newly awakened werewolf with anger issues?" Hope asked, questioning the logic of that. Marcel had asked her to try to stay out of trouble not even a week ago when he'd been at the school and this definitely sounded like it'd be trouble.
"Well most new wolves have anger issues. But I watched the video of the fight and he didn't start it, actually looked like he tried to avoid it but couldn't." Alaric said, knowing what to look for in cases like this. He wasn't about to bring Hope with him if he thought it was a cold blooded murderer but in the video he'd seen the kid looked scared, afraid of what he had done.
"And the whole likely murdered someone bit?" Hope asked, wondering what Dr. Saltzman thought of that. It wasn't likely that he had shot the man with his own gun by accident. But well, it wasn't like she was in a place to judge either, not with her family's history.
"Well I have some ideas on that but we'll see. Main thing is to be cautious and see how it plays out, if it looks dangerous then we'll leave and I'll try again later with Caroline." Alaric said, having been through this more than once. Witches were the easiest to recruit and vampires the riskiest, with werewolves falling somewhere in between depending on whether they were part of a pack or not. Of course there weren't a lot of packs left out there nowadays.
Part of why he had decided to go ahead and do this was because it was only another two days until the full moon. If this kid was out there alone and transformed then the damage could be severe. And if he was part of pack, particularly the kind of pack that'd make him murder someone, then he'd rather get him out of there before he turned and imprinted on their alpha. It was possible to break that but it wasn't easy and made adjusting to life at the school even harder than it normally was.
"This is where they live?" Hope said, looking at the small group of RVs with disgust. She knew that werewolves tended to prefer living out in the wild, thus the reason it was a good three miles from the closest town and up in the foothills of the mountains but this was pretty bad. The RVs looked a lot more likely to be meth labs than have people actually living in them.
"Well to be precise it's where I was told that they were likely to live." Alaric clarified, taking a cautious look around the area himself. It had been a combination of things that led them to start here, the hunter's body being found within a mile of here, the waitress at the diner that said to avoid this area, the hacked police reports that mentioned problems here, and of course an abundance of wolf sightings in the last year.
"Told by who?" Hope asked curiously, not having gotten that detail yet.
"A former student who has gone on to have a career at the NSA. She helps us out with a lot of these cases, hacking into local police files to search for details or modify reports. And she seemed to think this was where they were most likely to be." Alaric said, deciding to get out of the car as he didn't see anyone moving to greet them.
"Yep, we're definitely in the right place." Hope said as she excited the Jeep, able to smell the lingering scent of werewolves in the area.
"Able to tell how many?" Alaric asked, before hearing a click of to the side. Turning slightly he saw a balding man in his fifties pointing a shotgun at him, the click having been the hammer being cocked. "Easy there, we don't want trouble."
"I doubt you could cause any." The man said before whistling, two more men coming out to see them, one from one of the RVs and the other from what looked to be a barn out back.
"Shit, what we got here?" The youngest of the two said, a string-bean of a man in overalls and no shirt.
"They were just about to tell me." The man with the shotgun said, waving it as he gestured for them to speak.
"We're from the Salvatore School. We heard rumors of what sounded like a newly awakened werewolf and wanted to offer him a chance to join." Alaric said, deciding to go with honesty for now.
"A school? We don't need no school." The third of the three men said, being shockingly fat for a werewolf and with an appearance that suggested that he could have used a lot more school.
"Yeah, we our own pack. We don't need you," The skinny one said, eyes flashing in warning for a second.
"Understood," Alaric said, keeping his voice calm and steady. "I would like to hear that from the child himself though, since we took the effort to come all the way out here."
"No." The man with the gun said shortly, "You can get in your car and leave. Have a problem with that and we kill you and take the bitch for ourselves."
Hope glared at that, about to say something before the fat one chimed in. "Should do that anyways, always wanted a bitch of my own." The expression he had on his face was what did it for her, Hope deciding she'd had enough of playing nice and summoning magic to her hands.
"Ok, screw this, ad somnum."Hope said, casting the sleep spell in a wide circular area around her and Alaric. She couldn't help the smirk that came to her face they fell to the ground, the spell forcing anyone within thirty feet of her and Dr. Saltzman to sleep.
"That went well," Alaric said, Hope shaking her head at him. He had been the one to give her the contingency plan of simply putting everyone to sleep but as far as backup plans went it wasn't exactly complicated. "Why don't you see if you can find the kid and I'll take care of these idiots."
"Really? We're just going to grab the kid and run?" Hope asked, looking at the man incredulously. "Pretty sure that's the literal definition of kidnapping."
"Only if they report it." Alaric said, tossing the shotgun he took from the older man in the back of the Jeep before taking out the chains he kept in there. It wouldn't hold these morons forever but he just need to do so until they left. "And how often have you heard of a supernatural going to the police?"
"Fine, if you say so," Hope replied, moving off to do as he asked. Focusing she ignored the sound of Dr. Saltzman drilling a spike into a nearby tree to fasten the chains to and instead tried to see if she could hear anyone else nearby. A faint sound came to her ears, leading her to the shed out back where she'd seen the skinny werewolf come from.
"Hello?" Hope asked, stepping into the shed and cringing at what she saw. A scrawny kid, maybe the same height she was but looking like he might barely weigh what she did was chained to the far wall, his face bloody and scared as he looked up at her. "It's ok, we're going to get you out of here. They won't be able to hurt you again."
There was no way this kid was related to any of the idiots outside, he didn't look a thing like them. And it didn't look like he exactly believed what she was saying either. "Let's get those chains off," Hope said, raising her hand and twisting her wrist and snapping the manacles open with magic.
"What? What are you?" The kid asked slowly, looking at her with surprise and just a little bit of fear.
"I'm a witch... among other things." Hope said, giving what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'm from a school that exists to help people like you and me. Witches, werewolves, and vampires."
"Vampires are real too?" The kid asked, pushing his black hair out of his eyes and feeling at the wound that was still bleeding slightly. He shook his head for a moment as if clearing it before looking back over at his rescuer. "I'm Jed."
"Hope, now how about we get out of here before they wake up." Hope said, gesturing for Jed to follow her. The newly awakened werewolf hesitated for just a second, still struggling to believe this was really happening, before following her out of the shed. He still wasn't sure what was happening but anywhere had to be better than here.
Hours later and nearly back to Mystic Falls Hope finally asked the question she had been wondering about for awhile now, "Is it always like this?"
Jed had been surprisingly forthcoming on the way back before falling asleep an hour or so ago. She had been wrong and he had in fact in been related to one of the idiots, being the grandson of the older man. After his parents had died in car crash somehow the man had been able to find him, likely being notified by the state as he was his only living relative. Jed hadn't even known werewolves existed, his mother having never activated her curse as she had run away at a young age. They had literally forced him to activate his, putting the gun in his hands and making him pull the trigger before taking to beating him for trying to run away afterwards. All in all it was about as shitty a situation as Hope could have imagined finding him in.
"It depends," Alaric said with a sigh. He had seen all sorts of situation in his time since founding the school. "Wolves typically stay in packs, and want to raise their children within those packs. So if it's a situation where we're even an option it's either because they aren't part of a pack, or like today where they shouldn't be."
That made sense she supposed, as even among the Crescent Moon pack the only children to attend the Salvatore school had been her and Henry. And it wasn't exactly hard to imagine that there were plenty out there that might have the werewolf gene lying dormant within them, it wasn't like it was common for ordinary people to have killed someone.
"What about with the other species?" Hope asked, glancing back at Jed to see that he was still asleep. He had done better as they were leaving than she probably would have in his shoes. If she had been chained to a wall and beaten then she likely would have killed her captors after being freed. Jed had ignored the men though, just climbing into the Jeep and never even giving them a second glance.
"Well vampires are the trickiest. We're almost never able to find them before they've turned, so we rely on recommendations from other vampires or their families." Alaric answered, thinking back to the last few they'd accepted. One had been shot in a robbery at a gas station and a vampire that had happened to be there had turned him to save his life, the injuries being too severe for their blood to heal. Another had the bad luck to get into a club that was a vampire feeding ground and one of the vamps had gone to far and nearly killed her. The leader of that group had ended up turning her before contacting the school and arranging for the teen to attend.
"Sometimes though we learn of a vampire and it ends up being one that is already too far gone, that's when it gets dangerous." Alaric continued, having had to deal with that a few times over the years. Rippers were very common with teen vampires, and if they started feeding without anyone around to guide them it tended to end in tragedy. Caroline and himself had been forced to put down more than he'd ever admit to over the years.
"Witches tend to be the easiest, as the ones that want to attend here are typically outside of the major covens. They like the idea of a place where their children can learn and be safe but not be bound by the laws a Coven has." Alaric explained, Hope nodding at that. She knew far more than he did about how covens worked in the major cities, and knew that they would never allow one of their own to attend a school outside of their control.
"Rarely though we do find a first generation witch," Alaric said, Hope giving him a curious look at that.
"Really? Is that even a thing?" Hope asked, having thought that all witches had to be descended from one of the original covens. Of course given that those had been established thousands of years ago it was possible that most of the population had at least some connection to them.
"Well first generation is probably the wrong term. More that they're the first in a long time to show any magical ability." Alaric clarified, thinking on it some more. There had only been two admitted to the school since it had been opened, Wade and Alyssa. And they couldn't been more different. "But to answer your original question, no they're not all like this. But they are all important."
Hope nodded at that thinking on it as the rest of their trip back passed in silence. It had felt good to do this, to be able to help. She knew that Alaric probably hadn't needed her there, that he would have been fine without her, but it felt good regardless for a reason she couldn't really place. It wasn't until they had returned to the school and she was about to head back to her own room that she realized why.
"Hope," Jed called out to her as she started to walk away, getting her to stop and turn back. "Thank you. For sav-... for coming to get me." The young werewolf got out awkwardly, not sure how to express himself but needing to say something.
"You're welcome," Hope replied, a genuine smile spreading across her face. That's what it was, that feeling she'd had. It was feeling like she had actually done something that had mattered, that she'd managed to make a difference in someone's life. Sure it was a small thing, and Dr. Saltzman would have got him out there regardless but she had been able to help. "One point for me," she said softly to herself, turning to head to the school, that smile still across her face.
Author's Note: Hey look Landon actually got mentioned! And thus concludes Landon's entire appearance in this story. I debated stretching out Hope's first recruitment trip but it wasn't like their trip to get Raphael took that long either, other than you know the 8 or so hours in a car there and back. Side note do the people writing this show think Virginia and Georgia are close? Cause it's like 500 miles from Atlanta to Richmond. Even for Americans that's a bit of drive