CHAPTER 5

Josie had one of the strangest dreams. She, Lizzie, and Hope were on a subway train, and Hope was talking to an elderly black man in Japanese. Said man spoke it as fluently as any anime character, clearly no novice. But then they both stopped, and turned to the twins, with identical unreadable looks on their faces.

The weird dream rapidly faded as she heard Lizzie's unmistakable pissed off mood. "What the fuck! If this is some prank, I'll–,"

"You'll what, Lizzie? Wake up Josie? Actually though, she should be awake for this conversation. And it should be a conversation, not a shouting match. I already have a headache. Arguing with Dr. Saltzman for hours and running on espresso, no matter how high quality, is not good for me," Josie recognized Hope's voice? What was Hope doing here, in their room?

As Josie properly came to, she noticed two glasses filled with red on Lizzie's bedside table. Wait…what the fuck. "Are you going to turn us?" Josie managed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes in a way that made her miss Hope's averted gaze.

"That's not the goal," Hope sighed as she rose to her feet and replaced the graphic novel she borrowed from Josie's secret stash. Josie's breath hitched when she saw that, and her cheeks were immediately flushed in embarrassment. Mercifully, Lizzie was too preoccupied with watching Hope walk around freely in their room.

"Get out," Lizzie barked.

"Not until I say my piece, and you both drink those glasses," Hope replied without the heat of Lizzie's voice, but just as firm in her resolution.

Lizzie damn nearly crossed the room and throttled the auburn-haired tribrid, but Josie's hand held her back. Hope, for her part looked entirely unthreatened by the fuming blonde. Hope looked down at Josie, making eye contact for a moment.

The shortest girl in the room decided this was the opening she needed and took it, "Last night, I had a long-ass talk with your dad about how the two of you nearly got yourselves killed this week. And shut up," she snapped as both twins tried to intervene, "you got yourself slashed up by a slow-moving gargoyle," Hope gestured to Lizzie, now pointing at Josie as she said, "and you somehow managed to walk into a fucking spider web. Even though Alaric has been tampering with your magical education, you've got to be more careful. So, I came up with a contingency."

"You turning us into witch/vampire hybrids isn't a contingency, it's bullshit," Lizzie pounced on her chance to speak up.

"And hopefully you won't become hybrids!" Hope almost shouted at them. "But until you learn how to get your shit together and actually protect yourselves, without my help," she added as she could see Josie about to point out their co-op efforts in destroying their mythical adversaries, "I proposed that you have my blood in your system; so that if or most likely when you're killed, you don't truly die. And before you say something dumb about how your father would never blah blah blah, you should know he agreed with me really fucking quickly." Hope finished with a huff.

The twins were lost for words. A myriad of emotion crossed their faces as they processed Hope's little speech. Finally, Josie ventured, "Agreed with you?" Hope tensed as she realised her slip up. She thought the twins would be more amenable if the whole tribrid blood diet idea came from their father and not the school pariah.

"Yes," Hope sighed. "It might come as a surprise, but I don't want you two to die either. Even if you annoy me 80% of the time."

"Don't lie Hope," Lizzie retorted.

"97% of the time," Hope admitted before slumping down into the chair she spent the last hour in while she read. "Look. I lost almost half my family recently, and I'm sick of losing people. You two are the closest thing to friends that I've ever had, and I won't let either of you die when I have the power to stop that from happening. So drink my fucking blood already so I can talk about the cool stuff Alaric will let me teach you."

Josie swallowed Hope's blood so fast that the two other girls were genuinely shocked. Hope's cheeks tinged pink for reasons she wasn't ready to interrogate, but Lizzie was livid. "What the fuck Josie!"

Josie wiped away a little bit of red that got on her lips and chin in her haste and then said, "Look at her right now. Look into Hope's eyes." Lizzie did. Hope was a little confused, but visibly relieved.

"Okay. Now what?" Lizzie drawled.

"Do you really think that she'd let us leave this room if we don't drink her blood?" Josie deadpanned.

Hope's jawline tensed, recognizing that Josie saw through her speech. If Lizzie and Josie didn't drink willingly, she'd make them drink, for their own safety. Hope knew that the willingness to do something like violate the twins' bodily autonomy was a dark fucking thing. Hope hated herself for how ready was to do that, even now. The parallel to Kaleb sitting in the dungeon downstairs made her skin crawl.

"Besides," Josie continued, noticing the tension her words created, she noted the darkening look in Hope's eyes, "I want to learn how to be a boss-ass witch, and Hope will teach us. Right?" Hope nodded.

"Dad couldn't have signed off on that so quickly," Lizzie half-heartedly contended.

Hope shook her head; "It took a few hours to convince him about the teaching you magic bit. The whole blood thing was less than a five minute discussion. The man may be wary of vampires, but he's not willing to play around with your lives. I was only able to convince him to teach the pair of you magic privately, my starting bid was teaching the whole school. He did not go for that."

After sharing a meaningful look with her twin, Lizzie deflated and raised the tumbler to her lips, with some seriously unfortunate timing.

Josie ran her tongue around, finishing the small globules of red that spattered the inside of her cheek and lips then remarked almost to herself, "Hope really doesn't taste as bad as I thought she would."

There was a deadly moment of silence while Josie's confession hung in the air. Blood spewed onto the floor as Lizzie just could not with that line in her head. All three girls had flaming cheeks, Hope's blush extended down her neck. Josie buried her face in her pillow with embarrassment. Hope's jaw was somewhere on the floor, a fact she tried to cover by taking the knife out to hastily refill Lizzie's dose.

After Josie was coaxed into joining the world again after her bombshell of a faux pas, and Hope had ensured that Lizzie finally drank her fill, they had begun discussing offensive magic.

There was a knock on the door. Hope rose, since she was closest, but Lizzie waved her away and went to get the door herself. Lizzie swung open the door to be faced with a vaguely familiar blonde, accompanied by a darkly chiselled Adonis of a man.

"Hey there little Saltzman, is Hope around?" the taller blonde spoke with a smirk matching her compatriot, knowing the answer to her question. Lizzie stepped back, and Hope flew right past her, tackling the pair of newcomers.

"Freya! Marcel! You're here!" The normally stoic Hope gushed as she held her family members in a crushing embrace.

Momentarily shocked by the very off-brand wellspring of positive emotions from Hope, Josie stood up and gestured around awkwardly, "Welcome to the Salvatore School, Hope's family."