Author's note: Congrats to one of my fave reviewers, ilovetvd for the great guesswork! Lots of great guesses on the last chapter! This is the chapter where you learn how I came up with the title of this work...
Also, I sent my muse on a vacation to write Halloween drabbles for the Klaroween Bingo Event, which I posted as seven separate chapters in my short story series, A Beautiful Symmetry. Please send me a review if you happen to read them! Life has been unusually stressful for me lately and it was a nice break to explore some story ideas I've had for a while that I wasn't sure how to develop. This is why my multi-chaps have been on a brief hiatus.
Defeat could be read in every line of his body. Caroline recoiled from the desolation she saw in Klaus' gaze. He'd told her, Because you never would've forgiven yourself. "What the fuck does that mean," she asked, glaring at him as her thoughts raced. Klaus had stopped her from killing the werewolf — and then killed it himself. What the hell was going on?
Klaus heaved a great sigh, his gaze reluctantly sliding to the werewolf's corpse. "One of our military contracts expected us to build a better soldier. Our lab was told the werewolves were cryptids that our recon teams captured in Greece. The theory was that it would be easier to start with DNA that already possessed superior strength and endurance. At least, that's what we were told."
"I don't understand — so the werewolves weren't captured in Greece? What does that matter," Caroline asked in confusion.
Shaking his head, he explained, "The werewolves weren't captured anywhere, Caroline. They were created in this lab by experimenting on two human subjects."
"What?!" She felt sick at Klaus' words as unwelcome memories of a mission long ago suddenly flooded her thoughts.
The wind whipped the red sand across Caroline's cheeks, stinging her sweat-soaked flesh as she signaled Bonnie and Enzo across the jagged rock formation. See the blue mist on the mountain peak. She repeated her training mantra until she felt focused, carefully positioning her sniper rifle on the charismatic cult leader, Markos. As she squeezed the trigger, she felt a particular sense of satisfaction when her bullet took off the top of his head.
At Caroline's signaling shot, Katherine took out the remaining council members, ending the dangerous cult known as the Travelers. Caroline's elite task force had been charged with completely destroying them, a directive in which she took considerable satisfaction once she learned the truth about the cult's true mission.
The Travelers had recruited a substantial number of twins, triplets and even quadruplets as their followers, pretending that they believed multiple births to be a sign of divinity. However, Caroline's team received intelligence that horrific human experimentation was taking place at the Travelers' compound, hidden in a desolate cavern within the Southwestern U.S.
Markos had the insane idea that people who originated from multiple births held the key to immortality in their DNA and convinced several scientists to perform experiments that were nothing more than sadistic torture.
It was difficult to keep up her masklike detachment when she and Kol breached the filthy exam room where the cult's scientists had several people strapped to folding tables. Kol held the scientist they'd discovered at gunpoint while Caroline freed the terrified victims. It was clear they'd been confined in this small room for weeks, and the stench of unwashed bodies was so strong she had to breathe through her mouth to keep her eyes from watering.
The rough fibers from the rope had crudely cut into their wrists and ankles, and their painful moans as she sliced through their bindings with her serrated combat knife made her hands tremble. She set her jaw, determined to remain in control despite the rage she felt as she saw the numerous bruises and infected incisions from the vile scientists' 'experiments'.
As Bonnie led the victims out of the room, the scientist became enraged, shouting, "They're experiments — my experiments!"
"Those are people," Caroline snarled, "and you took away their freedom."
His eyes were wild as he screeched, "They aren't people! They were useless until my science gave them purpose!"
The angry rush of blood in her ears blocked out everything except the whisper of her bullet as it zipped through the barrel, piercing the monster through the eye before exiting the back of the skull, putting an end to the untold atrocities committed there.
Klaus broke through her disturbing memories as he explained, "When I looked through Stefan's files, I realized why he'd tried to block my access — he engineered these creatures. He used complex gene therapy to alter the human test subjects' DNA. Stefan turned them into werewolves."
Blue eyes widening in shock, Caroline's thoughts raced as she tried to understand. Her baby brother was responsible for all of this? Why would he lie to her about where the werewolves came from? Her voice was harsh as she barked, "And he found two people to just volunteer for this shit? Who the fuck would agree to this?"
Her heart sank when she saw his pained expression. "It doesn't appear that they were given a choice, sweetheart. I came across the test subjects' files that Stefan had encrypted, and based on the lab notes, it appears he'd been monitoring them for a while before marking them as viable candidates."
Stefan was torturing people. She closed her eyes, needing a moment to let that sink in. Feeling her knees start to buckle, she collapsed to the concrete floor, only a few feet away from the fallen creature. Wrapping her arms protectively around herself, she asked bitterly, "Who were they? I want to know the names of the poor people whose lives my brother stole."
Klaus hesitated, glancing at the monster sadly. "Caroline, this was your father."
"No! You're wrong," she swore, shaking her head fiercely. "Stefan would never —"
His voice was soft but reflected that steel spine she'd come to admire as he interrupted her. "After what I've learned, it turns out there's a great many things that your brother is capable of. Things I wish you didn't have to know."
"Prove it," she responded, her voice hollow.
With a heavy sigh, he grasped a small device that looked like a metal detector, holding it over the creature's neck until the laptop behind him beeped. "They were injected with ID tags. Here's the corresponding subject profile from Stefan's notes."
She blinked back a sheen of tears that threatened her vision as her father's face appeared on the screen. Despite the fact that it had been decades since she'd seen him, Caroline recognized so much of herself in his face that it was painful. The same look in the eyes that had seen too much, the slight curve of the lips that indicated confidence bordering on cockiness — it was all there in excruciating detail. As much anger as she'd carried toward her father for most of her life, it ached to know there would never be a chance for them to reconcile. She glanced to the side of the screen where notes had been typed, mostly observational in nature, they tracked behavioral patterns, feeding schedules and biochemical readings.
What struck her most was the dispassionate, wooden nature of her brother's words. This was a human being — their father, for fuck's sake — and Stefan was treating this like it was a routine lab experiment. No wonder Stefan had discouraged her from wanting to seek out their father when this was over.
Jerking her head up as a thought suddenly struck her, she questioned, "Who's the other werewolf?"
Klaus sighed, unable to look her in the eye as he quietly told her, "It's Damon, love. Stefan committed this atrocity against him as well."
She was startled to realize she'd already been crying, her cheeks stinging from the tears she'd silently shed. She looked around the room, desperate to focus on anything other than Klaus as she fiercely tried to get her shit together. She couldn't have a breakdown in the field. That's not how things were done. Despite how many times she told herself that, she found herself shaking uncontrollably, a small whine escaping her throat. Damon. Stefan had done this to Damon.
Klaus immediately was on the floor beside her, wrapping her up in his arms as he gently rocked her. The harsh, copper scent of blood mingled with their sweat and it made her stomach turn as she realized her family had tried to kill them, and in turn, she'd shed their blood. The revelation that Damon was the remaining werewolf hurt her the most. Even with everything Damon had done, she'd stupidly thought there always was another chance for them to be a family again. And then Stefan had let her believe his cruel lies about their brother dying of a drug overdose a year ago. She'd suffered with the guilt that she hadn't been there for him, and it nearly broke her when she missed the funeral. But now she knew the truth.
Caroline wasn't sure how long she stayed in Klaus' arms, sinking into his reassuring warmth as she fought to understand how her world would never be the same. Taking a shuddering breath, she pulled away slightly, looking hopefully into his gray eyes filled with so much concern for her it nearly broke her heart all over again. "Can you fix this? Fix Damon, I mean," she shakily asked.
It was almost as though he'd anticipated her question from the moment he'd told her the truth. Clasping her hands in his, Klaus told her regretfully, "There's nothing of your brother's DNA left to cure. Everything he was has been stripped away and replaced by a monster."
He opened his mouth to say more, but she stopped him with a quick shake of her head. Standing up as she regained her bearings, she said firmly, "Then it's cruel to let him go on like this." Gesturing toward the SIG service pistol she'd loaned him along with the VX cartridges and tranquilizer guns, she added, "Grab your gear."
Not waiting for a response, she marched toward the mangled lab door, her voice resuming her commander's tone as she told him, "Let's finish this."