Like Fire
by AlexisKeller
Chapter 08
They'd done it.
Whatever Kol had done had worked, and now Ester had apparently raised her white flag and declared a truce.
It was a while after I'd gotten home from the boarding house and was getting ready to go to bed that I'd gotten Damon's message about it, saying it was finally done, and that there was a ceasefire between Esther and the rest of us.
And now, as I walked towards the Salvatore's place the next morning, I wondered what exactly the Original vampire had done with a piece of useless paper that Bonnie's locator spell wasn't even working on.
Nevertheless, it was great news so I was definitely more at peace.
A harried looking Bonnie opened the door as she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside before shutting it closed behind me.
"Whoa, what's happening?" I managed to ask as she tugged on my arm and I followed.
"Trouble," she declared as we came to a stop in the living room.
"Um, we all just came to a truce," I told her. "I think trouble's gone for now, Bon."
That was when she turned to me and my eyes widened as I took in her disheveled state. There were dark hollows under her eyes and her expression was a picture of perturbed exhaustion.
"What even...?" I stepped closer in concern. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
She bit her lip, like she was debating whether to say something or not.
"Bonnie, are you okay?" I asked earnestly and she let out a big breath.
"I had a dream."
At that statement, I felt the threads of unease immediately. "Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good. What kind of dream?"
She looked reluctant as she went on, "...I was scared. And everyone was hurt."
Before I could begin to process that, she went on, "Eve, I don't believe it. Not for a minute. This truce by Esther? No. What does she get out of it?"
"You think she didn't agree to the truce?"
"She agreed to it, but I think that was just for show," she clarified. "And I also think that's because she's setting us up. No, scratch that. I know she is. I... I can't explain it, Eve. It's my gut instinct, and Grams always told me to never ignore things like that..."
"Then don't," I told her. "If you're having a bad feeling, then we need to address it. Of course you shouldn't ignore it."
At that, she gave me such a heartfelt look of gratitude that I was glad I could be there for her. I ushered her towards the couch and once we were both seated, I asked the main question. "Okay, what can we do? What can I do?"
"We need to find the witch," her reply was instant. "We need to get her way from Esther's reach because if we don't, it's bad, bad news for us, Eve. We have to."
"Okay," I nodded readily, definitely feeling a new sense of fear at her warning. "We'll do that. Where's Damon?"
"I didn't tell him-or well, anyone-about the dream. I just gave him some crap about there being a time window to finding the witch so he wouldn't waste time and just hurry. He left a few minutes ago with a new set of coordinates. I can't reach Caroline right now, but I texted Stefan the same thing with new coordinates too."
"Got it," I nodded once to myself, making a mental list of things I had to do: grab the keys of the car I had forgotten to return to Damon, make a quick call to mom and let her know I was going to be out (the Whitmore excuse would have to do), pick up a hot coffee on the way and then get going. "Okay, give me a set of coordinates so we don't waste any more time."
The gratitude on her face was back full force. "Thanks for not making me feel crazy. I don't know if the others would have taken a dream seriously."
"Hey," I focused on her. "We trust you, okay? I trust you. And even if this turns out to be nothing to worry about, better safe than sorry, right?"
"Right," she murmured, before leaning forward and and giving me a tight hug.
I let out a surprised laugh, hugging her back. She wasn't much of the touchy-feely type like Caroline was, so I knew my response had meant a lot to her.
She pulled back, reaching for a sticky note on the table at the side that had a few numbers on it, some crossed out and some underlined. "The seventh one."
"Right. You're cool here, right?"
"I'll be fine." She bit her lip before adding, "Be safe, alright?"
I smiled at her. "Definitely."
Thankfully, reaching Warrenton wasn't too much of a long trip.
I stepped outside of the car, making a face when I realized the only thing open around the location Bonnie gave me was a bar. It was barely past five and the music coming from the place could be heard from where I stood outside.
It was an understatement that I wasn't really dying to do this.
But it was a necessity, so I steeled myself.
"Wait up," I heard from behind me and I had a mini-meltdown because it didn't event take a second for me to guess who that was.
Why? Honestly, why?
I'd surely be thrown off my game with him around again.
Damn it.
"So you're officially stalking me now?" I looked to Kol, who had come up to stand next to me as we faced the bar, and he simply scoffed to himself.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but Damon informed Niklaus of the updated plan and we're all simply assuming duty once again."
I hid my surprise at the fact that Damon had let Klaus know. Considering we were all on the same side, that made sense and was admittedly a smart move.
On another note, it was interesting to know that Kol had Eve-duty once again.
I allowed a very small part of myself to wonder if he'd opted for it, considering we'd already interacted a few times.
Debatable.
"You should be glad to have me," continued Kol. "Do you even know what you're looking for?"
"You told me. Beatrice Miller." My in-depth discussion with Bonnie and Damon yesterday had involved me relaying this important piece of information. Though it turned out that Klaus had informed Damon while he'd been on his trip and Stefan and Caroline's texts said they'd been told too, which was good.
"Yes, my darling, but do you know what she looks like? You're not going to go asking around for her by name in there, are you? And do you even know what to do should you find her? Surely you're not going to try singing in that noisy place?"
I was realizing that I disliked it when he was right.
"It's as much for you as it is for me. Neither of us gets screwed over if we get this done right. How's that not the best scenario?"
I sighed because he was right again.
Hearing his fairly logical argument, I decided I actually was kind of glad he was here.
I looked up at the sign saying Mel's in red neon. "Let's get going then."
"Through the back," he instructed, gesturing towards the alley on the side and I said nothing as I changed my direction and headed towards where he'd pointed. I didn't question it because he clearly knew what he was doing, not to mention the fact that it was probably the right time to put better amount of trust in our ally. Leading the way there, I paused in front of the door to the side that clearly led to the bar.
That's when something monumentally strange happened.
Just as my hand was about to close around the doorknob, Kol's hand came up to wrap around the back of mine to stop me. It was then that a bizarre, almost charged sensation stole over me, right from where his hand rested on mine.
It felt like I could almost feel the nerves firing under the skin he was touching, like a flow of current slowly spreading out. It only seemed to build up, getting bad enough to feel like a burn just within a few seconds. The intensity was so strong for a moment, so consuming, it almost felt like fire. I wanted to pull my hand back but I stood stock-still, unable to think any fathomable thought, just shocked at what I felt right then.
Could he feel it too?
He stilled so completely for a moment that it felt like he had.
Then wholly silent, he gently lowered my burning hand, reached for the doorknob himself and turned it sharply.
I just blinked to myself, trying to form coherent thought as the sensation faded.
Had it been some sort of static current, the kind that gave off a small shock when you touch another person or object?
But no static current had ever felt quite like this, and it hadn't been a small shock.
No, that has to be it, I thought to myself. It was something I'd never experienced before, so I couldn't make sense of it with what I already knew. I had to write it off for the moment in order to pay attention to what was happening in front of me, and right now I definitely needed to do that.
I wondered for a brief second if that was the first time we'd had skin contact before.
It was, wasn't it? I realized. Even when he'd plucked the piece of paper out of my hands, he'd only touched the paper.
First time or not, what the hell had just happened?
I heard the lock breaking, just like he did back at Jessica Moore's house. I distractedly thought it was almost funny—it was the second trip and the second time we were technically breaking and entering. If I had felt bad about lying to my mother, this definitely did not feel great.
He entered first, scanning the narrow hallway where the music was already much louder now. He nodded at me to step inside and when I did—somewhat belatedly, I was sure I wasn't completely all there yet—he closed the door behind me without a word. Then he proceeded to take the lead down the hall.
Seeing the way he was operating efficiently and unaffected right then, I had come to the logical conclusion that he probably hadn't felt what I did at the door. But then again, he'd still paused back then like he had.
Focus, Eve! I scolded myself. Right then wasn't the time to be debating this. Right then I had to be as alert as I could be.
So I did what I had to for that moment. I took the incident, put in a box and shoved it in the deepest corner of my mind only to fish out when I was done with this, was alone and was actually able think about it.
We made quick work of looking through all the rooms without any success—only one of them had the door closed and looked like an office when we peeked inside, but there was just one man working on his computer there and nothing else.
Another let-down.
Which was more than disheartening, considering Bonnie had no more locations left to give out. Unless Damon or Stefan found something useful with their second set of coordinates, we had no chance of finding Esther witch.
"She better be here," clipped Kol, when we had cleared the narrow hall and were standing in the middle of the bar, smack-dab in the middle of the noise and crowd of people. "Because mother is hardly worth any of this."
I didn't disagree with that.
He gestured towards a bar stool to his right as he seated himself on one, and after a moment's pause where I wondered if this was needed, I found myself settling down there next to him.
"I'll have a gin," he said to the bartender before motioning to me. "A drink for the lady as well."
"Um..." I was definitely not drinking on the mission, especially not here and especially not with him. I clearly needed my wits about me where he was concerned. The bartender was looking at me in question and I said, "Just a coke, thanks."
"Now that's no fun," grinned Kol and I immediately looked away after catching sight of that, because it only reminded me of how insanely handsome he was.
As well as of the weird incident outside.
"I didn't think we were here to have fun," I mumbled to myself, but of course he heard it, even over the loud music.
"But my darling, there's always time for fun." Yeah, I wasn't too sure about that. "One day, I might even show you what that's like." I turned to face him at that but suddenly, I was mesmerized by the way he smiled, by the way he spoke, by the way he looked, everything. What the hell? If I didn't have the vervain bracelet Stefan got me on all the time, I'd have high suspicions he was turning on the compulsion.
But he wasn't.
It was just him.
He was magnetic and I was finding it was downright difficult not to get caught up in his force field.
"I have fun," I said almost defensively, coming back to the present. What, did he think all this was my life?
"I'm sure you do, but that's not what I meant," he said, eyes locked on mine, the mischievous twinkle in them back. "I meant that perhaps one day, I'll show you what fun with me is like."
I suddenly felt hot. I pulled my gaze away from him, turning away to the right as if I was turning away from the conversation, but in truth, I was trying to pull a break against a million different racing thoughts in my head. Seriously, how did I keep ending up confused, wary, and so aware of every single thing he did?
I couldn't help but feel like this was a lot more than I had signed up for.
Hello, hope everyone is doing well :) Let me know what you think of the chapter!