Chapter 21

"Josie, what's wrong?" Jade gently took hold of Josie's am when she tried to slip out of the bathroom and past the vampire, but soon found herself being tugged back inside again.

"Nothing, really. I don't…" Josie sighed and tried to hide her nervousness as she quickly glanced towards the one closed stall door, realizing that Hope would not be able to leave until Jade does. "I don't really want to talk about it, if that's cool?" She muttered and wiped at her face and her eyes, trying both to make it seem convincing that she was crying, and to also bring herself and her burning body back to reality.

"Jo, listen. I know this past week we haven't actually spent time together, but…" Jade spoke with care in her voice, while Hope bristled behind the closed door. She hated it when anyone besides her or Lizzie called Josie 'Jo'. "I've been thinking about you… A lot…" Jade softened her eyes at Josie and let her hand slide down from her arm to the witch's hand, folding it within her own.

"Y…You have?" Josie frowned. She thought she had definitely scared Jade off after her outburst the last time they spoke.

"I owe you an apology, Josie. I was talking about you to Wendy, and you had every right to be irked about it. But I swear, I wasn't being insensitive and I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I was basically just admitting how crazy I was… and still am… about you. I really hope that maybe… even with some time… that you could forgive me." Jade was pulling out all the stops to show that she was as sincere as she truly felt. After all, her intentions towards Josie were never anything less than sincere.

Inside the stall, Hope's eyes were glowing, and Josie could feel the tension radiating from her direction. She knew she had to diffuse the situation immediately. "Jade, it's okay, I'm sorry for snapping at you. I've just been on edge lately. I promise we can talk about this again soon, maybe when I've just… figured some stuff out. About myself, I mean. Not you."

"I won't put pressure on you, I promise." Jade smiled softly at Josie and squeezed her hand. "But I'd love to make it up to you as soon as you'll let me, okay?"

Josie smiled and nodded her head, starting to pull away from the vampire. She knew the situation wasn't far from escalating. Inside the stall, Hope was already bracing herself against the door and fighting to keep her wolf in check.

"And uh…" Jade smirked as her fingertips still grasped at Josie's hand as she started pulling away and moving towards the door. "Maybe this time we can finish an evening without your guard dog?"

Essentially, Jade was joking. However, to Hope, it was a very, very bad joke.

Josie's eyes widened at Jade's comment and she set her jaw the moment she could feel Hope losing her control. A second later Hope burst out of the stall, eyes ablaze as she walked up to Jade, her entire demeanor threatening and aggressive. Jade was not expecting the tribrid to make an appearance, and especially did not expect her to have heard the comment she had made in jest. She backed up as Hope stepped toward her, but steeled herself for a confrontation none the less.

"Hope, don't." Josie warned sternly. She desperately tried to keep her eyes from glowing, but she knew she was failing miserably at it. The copper shone through soon enough as she stared Hope down.

"She called me a dog!" Hope snapped; her frustration now clearly directed at Josie.

"So did I the other day." Josie spoke calmly, yet authoritatively. Hope hated it.

"And I'm supposed to just take it? Like a good dog?" Hope flashed those hurting golden orbs at Josie, her attention now drawn away from Jade.

"We'll talk about this later." Josie uttered, her voice dropping even lower as she kept her eyes locked with Hope's.

"I think you'd better leave." Jade muttered under her breath, her muscles tense and ready to react should Hope make a move.

Hope glanced from the vampire back to Josie again, a whine sounding from her throat. "Josie…"

Josie continued to stare down at the tribrid, trying her best to force her to back off and listen. She could feel how it bothered Hope and Josie couldn't quite figure out whether it drove her desire to have Hope submit even further, or whether it was making her feel guilty. The power-play between the pair was palpable.

"Josie Saltzman, Hope Mikaelson – Principal's office please." Alaric's voice sounded over the intercom system just outside the bathroom, interrupting whatever was about to come from the stand-off inside of it. Josie gave one last glance to Jade, but waited for Hope to exit before she followed her down the hall to her father's office.

Hope didn't look back at her once. And it ached inside because of it. She could feel Hope's emotions as if they were her own, and above all the frustration and anger she could feel how hurt Hope was. Hope had expected her to stand up for her against Jade and she didn't. It's not that she did not want to, but she knew that if she had the situation could have blown up to the point that saw both Jade and Hope suspended or expelled. Josie had to stop the growing tension, and the only way to do that was to insert herself in the middle of it. She had to challenge Hope. She had to keep her in check.

"Sit down." Alaric motioned to the girls as they entered his office, trying to read his expression. He seemed both lost and deeply unsettled, and it caused Josie's stomach to churn as she could read him like an open book. Hope noticed the tension in his jaw and quickly started to feel very weary about what was coming.

"Did you find something? Do you know what's happening to me? Dad?" Josie rambled worriedly while Hope simply followed his movements from one side of the room to the other as he paced up and down before finally coming to lean against his desk. She could tell that he was trying to find the best way to word what was to come out of his mouth next.

"Caroline, Freya and Keelin did some deep digging in New Orleans, spoke to some wolf elders and even scratched around in the covens in the area. They think they may have found an explanation." He started and pushed himself off his desk, walking around it to pull a bottle of bourbon from his drawer and poor himself a tot. He was clearly at the point where he needed it and did not care what his underaged cohorts had to say about it.

"Hope, you're familiar with the werewolf unification ritual and ceremony, yes?" Hope frowned but nodded in answer. "How could that have anything…"

"Well…" Alaric cut her off. "There are stories of werewolves having performed these rituals with non-werewolves before, and lo and behold – their werewolf curse would transfer to their non-wolf partner."

"But we never!" Hope's tone of voice was a higher pitch than usual, her guilt mixing with her natural defense mechanism.

"Are there variations of this unification ceremony?" Josie asked softly, drawing both Hope and Alaric's attention, while her eyes settled on Hope – and within a second they were glowing once more. Hope's eyes responded immediately by lighting up as well.

Ric took a sip of his drink.

A very large sip.

"Thank you, Jo, for the question, because as a matter of a fact there are variations. A few, apparently. But there is one very sacred one. It is a type of unison that has only ever occurred a hand full of times in werewolf lore." He sighed and watched the pair closely as they watched each other with their wolf-eyes. "And from what I'm seeing right now, I think it may be our winner."

"For a very long time, unification ceremonies were completed as political moves – to consolidate power within packs and make them stronger. These matches were usually arranged and had very little to do with love. But once in a while, a werewolf's spirit would break free from the norm and seek out a mate. The one that they knew was meant for them. The wolf would mark this mate as a sort of proposal. The mate would have to return the mark somehow as a show of acceptance. It leads to an engagement – a promise of a life to be spent together."

Both Hope and Josie were essentially frozen and felt paralyzed from the waist down as they listened to the story and the explanation offered by Ric. Josie felt like there was ice running through her veins, while Hope felt like her insides were on fire and raging to come out. What made it even worse was that the two girls could sense each other's emotions on top of their own as well.

"The thing is, first of all…" Ric drawled on, swishing his alcohol around in his glass as he stared down into it thoughtfully. "Wolves don't just do this – seeking out a mate that is not a wolf. It's not a natural occurrence. It has only happened three times before in all of history – four, if you want to include the pair of you – and we are not yet sure why or what exactly leads to it. Hope's wolf sought out Josie specifically and we don't know why that is."

He swallowed the last big gulp that was left in his glass and slammed it down on the table before redirecting his unreadable gaze back to the girls. "Second of all – Josie is showing signs of evolving into a wolf, but she has not yet wolfed out. Now I don't yet know if this will happen at her first full moon, or if it means…" He paused, ramping up the suspense in the room. Hope could hear Josie's heart thundering in her chest, and Josie could hear how Hope and just stopped breathing all together. "Or if it means the unification ceremony is not complete yet – that you are only engaged, so to speak."

He grabbed the bottle of bourbon from behind the desk and poured himself another good shot. He sniffed at it idly as he watched the girls before him, making it seem like he was waiting for an explanation. "I bit Josie, in wolf form, in her subconscious. I don't even remember doing it, but she bears the mark of it." Hope tried to explain, her voice small and unsure, especially since Ric looked like he might attack her at any second.

"And then I marked Hope, in some sort of shared dreamscape. When I dreamt I was a wolf? She has the mark as well from it." Josie interrupted the murderous glare Ric was edging over at Hope. "They only seem to become visible when we're close together."

"Much like your eyes." Ric noted, gruffly.

"Yeah, we can't seem to switch those off." Hope shrugged timidly.

"Wait… so if we're only, technically, engaged…" Josie uttered and then trailed off, her eyes on Hope.

"How do we complete the unification ritual?" Hope finished her question for her, as they tended to do such things these days, How they managed to ride the same wavelength most of the time was truly astounding.

"We don't have an answer for that one yet either." Ric shrugged and finished off his drink. "So, to sum it all up: Hope got engaged to my daughter without my permission. My daughter is changing into a hybrid. We don't know why Hope's wolf wanted Josie specifically. And we don't know how to complete the ritual. – Did I leave anything out?" Ric grinned facetiously at the girls, but his icy eyes seemed to linger on Hope longer. Josie knew he was just being a protective father, which was kind of sweet.

"Now I hope you've got some hats to hold onto kids, because this is not all. And what you're about to be shown next will surely lead to a lot of screaming, crying, and possible fainting." It became clear that Ric had had more than just the two shots of alcohol that the girls saw him take.

Ric ushered them out of his office and down the hall to the stairs that lead to the lower floor, that housed the werewolf transition cells, the vampire dry-out cells, and the general cells for monsters and the like. He looked back at the confused girls one last time before stepping dwn the final set of stone steps and out of the way so that they could catch a glimpse of who was waiting for them in one of the jail cells for safety.

"Hope?!" He called out and the tribrid's whole world shattered.

Josie could feel the tears stream down her cheeks.

It was Landon.

Alive.