Like Fire

by AlexisKeller

Chapter 06

I closed the door of the car I'd borrowed from the Salvatores, sending out a grateful prayer that I'd finally reached the place. The drive from Mystic Falls to Charlottesville had been a long two hours, and finally reaching the address Bonnie had provided me felt like a win already.

Though now the real test began: finding the witch.

"Took you long enough," I heard from somewhere behind me and my blood froze.

Oh God, no.

I turned around with wide eyes, seeing handsome Kol Mikaelson leaning on the hood of a car a little way down with his arms crossed across his chest, emanating the grace of a predator lounging right before it pounced.

"Is this a joke?"

Within a blink, he was right in front of me. "Why, is it funny?" He wondered and I immediately looked around to check if anyone had seen him vampire-speed it to me. There were only a handful of people milling about in the parking lot of the college but anyone seeing that couldn't have been good.

So far it seemed like no one had noticed.

I turned back to him. "Do you want to get noticed?"

He just downright grinned down at me.

I tried to ignore how good he looked and stuffed the car keys in my pocket. "Why are you here?"

"To keep my eye on you, of course," he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

There was something wrong with my brain. There had to be. I was reading way too much into that, as if he'd intended a double meaning.

I decided to fault him for that. With the few run-ins I'd had, I was beginning to see he had a way about him—an energy almost palpable cloaked him, something dark and sensual present in whatever he did, whether it was casually leaning against his car or just smiling.

And it was screwing with my brain.

At once, I turned away from him and began walking towards the campus. That didn't faze him one bit considering he was walking beside me within a second, again not really caring to be subtle about his vampire abilities.

"We have an alliance," I reminded him in answer.

"That we do, but we still have to make sure none of do anything to fuck us over," he answered nonchalantly. At my dirty look, he laughed.

It sounded so good.

I was clearly insane.

"Don't take it personally, darling," he said.

Darling again, my insane self noted.

He continued, "Call it paranoia but this is how we ensure things are done in our favor. So while I'm with you, Nik is with Damon and Elijah is with Stefan right now. Rebekah… well, I'm not completely sure who she chose to follow around but my guess is that she went off to annoy your blonde friend."

Okay.

"Maybe it's not smart that nobody's keeping an eye on Mystic Falls." I muttered, already knowing it would've been pointless to guard the town when there was nothing going on there.

He must have known what I was thinking too because he then snorted.

"You should thank me, you know."

"Oh?" I raised my eyebrows. "Why's that?"

"Because you're on a fool's errand and with me here you actually know what to look for."

I stopped in my tracks, turning to him. "What do you mean?"

He faced me as well, a smug sort of smile on his lips that looked almost as good as the grin earlier. Maybe even better? "Beatrice Miller. That's the witch working for Mother. She's who we need to find."

I could feel my eyes widen at him as his smile got bigger.

A name.

We finally had a name, thank God. This made things so much more easier.

Which brought me to the realization... "You're here to help."

"Eh." He shrugged, smile still in place. "Help is maybe a strong word."

He was clearly helping.

The Mikaelsons weren't joining our road trips only to keep an eye on us. They were also going to help.

Which, of course, would help them too considering we were on the same side now, but still.

I shifted my attention away from the vampire in front of me—which was a feat in itself. Ignoring the need to keep staring at him, I focused on the task at hand. I had to to see if Beatrice Miller was at the location I was sent to.

Which, interestingly, was a college

It reminded me of my own, along with the excuse I gave mom when I was about to set off towards the Salvatores at an early seven o'clock. She had been getting ready for a morning shift at the hospital and I'd told her I needed to swing by the college to pick up a few books I'd left there.

She'd kissed my cheek as she grabbed a bagel, told me to be back soon and say hi to Elena for her as she rushed out the door.

I felt bad lying to her like that, but I didn't have a choice.

The first building on the left was the one for administration, so that was my first move. Hearing Kol's footsteps behind me as I jogged up the steps, I made my way over to the front desk.

"Hello," I greeted the receptionist. "Is there a Beatrice Miller here?"

The expression she gave me was far too dry to mean anything good. "We don't give out information unless it's warranted."

"Oh, it's warranted," I tried again, smiling big at her.

She was not impressed.

I ground my teeth. This happened sometimes, when there'd be people who weren't totally a hundred percent starry eyed the moment they saw my face. They usually didn't respond well to singing either, and I could hardly try it here, where there were at least thirty people around our immediate vicinity.

Then I only went for the best possible option. I turned my urgent eyes to Kol, who stood at my right with an almost expectant expression.

Seeing my look, he murmured, "I thought you'd never ask, darling."

He leaned over the desk to come face to face with the receptionist without putting any distance between where we were. That meant he came close enough that my lips were only a couple of inches away from his cheek. I almost stumbled back to put appropriate distance between us, a little annoyed at how casually he invaded my space. I decided to not quite snap at him right then considering he was focused on compelling the woman behind the desk.

"Is there a Beatrice Miller in the system?"

"No," she answered him right away, eyes almost glazed over.

No matter how many times I'd seen Damon, Stefan and Caroline compel someone necessarily, I didn't think it would ever stop being intriguing.

Contrary to my argument with Kol in the Grill, admittedly, it was different from what I did.

Quite different.

Kol narrowed his eyes. "Now why didn't you need to look at the computer for that?"

"A professor here came asking about her a couple of days ago." She answered. "I checked then and we don't have anyone by the name of Beatrice Miller. Not an enrolled student, or staff. There's no one by that name here."

Okay, so this location wasn't it, but someone else had been here asking for Beatrice Miller?

I got closer to the desk to get a look at the woman and tried to understand what that meant. Was there someone who knew what we were doing and wanted to hijack our plan, or was this unrelated to us visiting today?

"Tell me more about this person who came searching for her," Kol demanded and she started clicking away at her computer.

"Jessica Moore. She lives in the community just across campus. 401, Lionwell. It's a ten-minute walk from here."

Well, that had been easy.

"Thank you for your cooperation." He'd barely said the words before he nodded at me and began walking out.

I quickened my steps to catch up to him, not noticing the student walking by me in a hurry and ended up colliding into him.

"Hey," a hand of his steadied me as he grabbed my arm. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. You?" I asked, glancing up at him. "I'm sorry I wasn't looking."

"Wow." His wide eyes blinked at me. "Uh… yeah. I'm good. Um, are you new here?"

Smiling politely, I shook my head as I pulled my arm back. "No."

"It's a small college. I'm sure I would've remembered if I ever saw you." He remarked and distractedly I looked over his shoulder to see that Kol wasn't there by the door.

I groaned to myself at the thought that he had a headstart on what was supposed to be my job.

Seeing movement in my peripheral vision, I turned to find I was wrong. Kol stood beside me with an expression that mirrored boredom as he gazed at the guy in front of me.

"Alright, mate, get going," said Kol. "We're busy."

"Oh," his eyes went from Kol to me, widening in a visible shit, am I holding you up and swung back again as he fumbled with his words. I felt somewhat bad, but then again, we did have an important errand. "Uh… yeah, okay. Um… sorry."

Forcing a polite smile at the guy, I threw a, "Have a nice day," over my shoulder before starting towards the door.

"Does that happen often?" Kol sounded curious as he fell into step easily beside me. Even without the vampire speed, his long legs allowed for a faster pace.

Then I started to push myself to keep up with him.

"Sometimes." I answered honestly.

He hummed noncommittally and I had a feeling he had much more going on his head than he wanted it to be known.

Well.

I didn't know what made me do it, but suddenly I found myself asking him, "So what's your story?"

"What's my story?" He echoed, humor in his voice.

"Yeah." I glanced at him before turning back to the path. "Tell me about yourself."

"You want to know about me?"

I shrugged.

When he didn't respond, I glanced at him again, giving him an almost expectant look. That prompted him to start.

Though he went somewhere a little unexpected.

"What do you want to know?"

That surprised me a little. "Um… anything? Okay, what are you like?"

I heard him scoff. "Wouldn't someone else tell you that better?"

"Maybe," I replied. "But I'm asking you. What do you think you're like?"

There was silence for a bit.

"Evie, my darling, I am merciless, vindictive and downright cruel. I think about things in terms of benefits and gains. I do not settle—I always do what I want, and I always get what I want. I've ended people's lives for no reason other than they looked at me wrong, sometimes even less."

Okay, he clearly knew how to shut me up.

I gulped and decided to curb the small talk now.

Was I scared? A little bit. Logically, I knew the alliance meant he wouldn't harm me. But who said crap like that, damn it? He knew the things he'd said weren't conversation material at all and he'd still said them anyway.

I felt his eyes on me, seeming to almost assessing my reaction to that.

He wanted to throw me off, I realized. It was done deliberately.

What was going on in his head?

Whatever it was, I refused to play into it and remained quite the rest of the way to 401 on Lionwell.

"This is it," I announced when we got there.

He was already reaching for the doorknob and turning it. To anyone else who might've been passing by, I was sure it wouldn't have looked suspicious. However as I stood right there with him at the door, I heard the sudden click that indicated he'd busted the lock.

Something told me with the new in information we had—and how much more we needed if we had any chance of figuring this out—it was probably best not to say anything at him quite literally breaking in.

He walked in first, slow and deliberate as he carefully studied the place and I followed, stopping just inside the door at the sight.

It was trashed completely.

"What even...?" I was confused as I took in the broken lamps, the glasses and places shattered on the floor, the books scattered below.

There was nothing intact, I realized when I was looking around. I wondered if this meant this Jessica Moore was in trouble, or she was just a cover for something deeper.

It was as I was looking around in between the lobby and kitchen, that I realized that Kol had disappeared.

"Um...?"

"Living room," he called back.

I found him there, reaching for something on the couch I couldn't see. He brought it up to look at, and I saw a small piece of paper in his hands and an answering frown on his face as he read over whatever he'd found.

"What is that?" I walked over to where he stood and tried peering at it over his side.

And I understood why it was a cause for concern.

Because on the paper scribbled was a set of names we'd just started to become familiar with.

Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, Rebekah

"It's Mother," he murmured and I turned my gaze to him.

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

I hadn't realized how close I was standing to him until right then, and I took a couple of steps backwards. Mostly to mask that error, I asked, "Why would she write down your names to someone? Any idea what it means?"

He looked lost in thought. "I might. We'd have to get back to Mystic Falls first, though."

Oh.

"There's nothing here anyway."

Well, that was true. The place was completely trashed.

And I was stumped.

"What is going on?" I murmured mostly to myself as I followed Kol outside the door.

Except for even more unanswered questions, this trip had been a bust.

Fishing out my phone from my pocket, I typed quick text to Bonnie. Nothing here.

Her response was instant. Stefan too. I'll check in with Damon and Care.

I hoped they had better luck.

The walk back to the parking lot was uneventful. I was in my head for most of it, wondering about the state of Jessica Moore's house, and the other possibility that there was no Jessica Moore, and it was all Esther.

And what was the deal with the scribbled names of the Originals?

Still, I was distractedly aware of Kol walking beside me with his hands in his pockets, seeming as much lost in his thoughts as me. It was when I was opening the door of the car, assuming that Kol was probably heading towards his own car now, that he cleared his throat.

I turned around to see him holding up the piece of paper we'd found at the house in between two fingers.

I felt my brows knit in confusion. Was he giving that to me?

Turns out, Kol wasn't that simple.

I watched with puzzlement as lowered that hand and his other one reached towards me. Ever slowly, he hooked a finger in one of the loops of my jeans as he pulled me towards him, after which he deliberately put the piece of paper in the left front pocket of my jeans.

At first, no matter how much I willed it, my mouth wouldn't function.

I was sure he could see the incredulity on my face, and that was when he smiled with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Keep that safe that for me, yeah?"

At that point I managed a stunned, "Kol—"

"See you back in Mystic Falls," he cut in, still wearing that heart stuttering smile.

And then he was gone.

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