2-05

"That went far better than I thought," I said as I got into the car and cloaked all sound. For good measure I focused and built an abstract barrier in the car, it would take conscious effort to keep in a moving car but it was worth it.

I warped light so that we couldn't be seen by those beyond.

"You going to tell us much of that?" said Bonnie. "Or are we going to have to guess what we're working towards."

I let out a sigh and sat back, closing my eyes and pushing down the anger. The moment I did, the fear reared back, making my world shaky and turning my breaths into short pants. My heart immediately beat faster and I was lost in it, the memories came to fore but I pushed, working to bring back the anger.

"I'm not sure what you're feeling right now, Bonnie," I said and there was an edge of irritation in my voice. "But don't, alright. Right now I'm using anger to deal and I'm liable to lash out."

"Which is the reason you need to be called into question," she said and I felt more irritation at her. A response threatened to spill out but I pushed it back, my teeth clenching together to stop myself from irrecoverably muddying our relationship.

"I get that these are desperate times and that desperate measures are needed," she said. "But…I've been stewing over everything you've done for the past hour and it isn't you. The things you said to Andrew, that you're considering working with them and that you won't tell the Allied Council about blowing up the town's bridge?"

"Above and beyond the fact that he's about to do something stupid," Enzo said. I turned to look at him, feeling an amazing amount of betrayal. "Don't give me that. All of this is about me not dying," he said. "You not dying. The others not dying. What you're planning to do now, 'break' very powerful witches. It's…stupid frankly."

"You're burning bridges," Bonnie continued on the point. "You're not just burning them but blowing them up and I don't think that's needed. Now, I don't know the future," she said. "But I've seen the general thread, how you've been working for the longest time and it involves gathering allies."

"But I am doing that," I said, more irritation in my voice. "The wolves—"

"Are not to be trusted," Jared interrupted. "They've got a clairsentient. One that apparently knows more than you. Yet you think you've got the other hand. Consider, even for a second, that she's smarter than you."

I opened myself to speak but I stopped. Had I even once ever considered that fact? That she might be smarter than me? That, like Katherine or Anna, she would have countermeasures already in place to despatch me? That I would be forced to be reactive especially when I was so clouded?

"What do you suggest we do?" I asked.

"Think things through," said Bonnie. "See all of that we have to work with, try and be objective. You work through the panic attack and then we work with you when you're not so jaded."

"Enzo? Jared? You're a part of this too."

"What she said," said Enzo.

"Ditto," said Jared. "I like this you from an academic standpoint, but when I consider my mortality?" He shook his head. "I have this feeling that you missed a lot in that trade off. I have a feeling that she played you with bringing up the pills. I feel that the entire deal could have been better."

I let out another sigh. "Fine," I said and I let go of the anger only to have fear double back.

888

Pulling back was extremely hard. I had to let the fear run its course, I had to be back in a place where I felt unsafe and I had to work on the wards. Outside looking in it must have been as though I was possessed: I had Enzo search through the house to make sure that there wasn't anything new that wasn't supposed to be there, looking over the wards and seeing if anyone had tried to breach them and then I called Lucy.

"Sorry, kiddo," she said. "But I should be there in a few hours with a little help. I'm bringing over some people from Salem."

"I don't like that," I said. "But then I also like it. More people, more power. But it means Elijah sees us as a threat, thinks we're up to something."

"Wouldn't he already be thinking that?" she asked. "Better that he thinks that and we act than act slower. I don't like these guys and from the info you've given me on them even if they don't have raw power on their side they've still got accumulated knowledge. It's good that you didn't try to talk to them."

"More Bonnie's idea than mine," I said. I looked at my sister, reading her, and I could see there was a part of her that regretted that I had to do this, to feel this raw again.

"Your sister's smart and worth listening to," said Lucy. "I've got to go. Stay safe?"

"Yeah," said Bonnie. "We'll be expecting you."

I ended the call. "Elijah's no doubt watching," I said. "If we call the others…"

"We don't have to congregate," said Bonnie. "Conference call after school. We'll discuss this. But in the meantime it might be worth talking to Dad about all this. See how things went with the Allied Council."

"They really won't help us though," I said. "Too many head will mean this entire thing is spoilt. We might have a leak for all we know. Elijah will be covering all his basis even with the Vervain in the water supply there are obvious routes to go against that."

Jared gave me a long look. "I'll make it a point to point out whenever you're working towards manipulation," he said. "Because, like I said, I'm always watching out for it where you're concerned. Right there, what you just said, it's all just pointing us towards what you wanted in the first place: Us, making decision, and because there are less people you have to manipulate, you're more likely to get your way."

"Or maybe what I'm saying is really true," I said. "For Nature's sake you just have to look at our government to see that in action."

"Again, manipulation," said Jared. "You're not factoring in the complexities of politics. It's less about the greater whole and about the groups each politician is looking to have on their side. You're distilling that argument to further your own ends."

"It looks like you're going to dismiss everything I say at this point," I muttered.

"Not information," he said. "Unbiased information. We need to at least figure out the broad strokes of the path we're going to take. You can put your word in, but ultimately we're the planner until you…deal with yourself."

My panic attacks. I felt a little hurt that he was using them against me but it's what I deserved. I'd caused a chip to his and his brother's relationship. I wasn't sure that he could do the same with me or the fact that he wanted, but he was reaching to hurt me.

"Fine," I said with a shrug. Bonnie and Enzo weren't defending me, which added more hurt in all of this. More than anything I wanted Jeremy to be close, he got how my mind worked, he even thought like that. But he had his own sister to protect.

"Let's start with Elijah," said Bonnie. "How does he operation."

"That much you know, of course," Jared added.

My teeth grit together and this time I didn't even had to pull the anger forward before it was at the fore. I took a long breath before pushing it down but Jared had stopped at the look I'd shot in his direction, as I closed my eyes I had the image that he swallowed.

"Elijah likes working in the darkness," I said. "Where Klaus is a hammer, he's a scalpel. He'll act with precision. When he came here, when he showed himself, he did it because he had a plan in mind and we were a step towards that."

"So another chess master?" said Enzo.

"It's not as simple as that," said Bonnie. "How they play the game is still of importance. Anna was a chess master, but she was vastly different in her approach to Katherine. If the Originals are old then it's likely that all of them are chess masters in their own right."

"Any weakness we might use against him?" asked Jared.

"He's old and powerful," I said. "Even if he's taking this seriously, even if he's taking me seriously, there'll still be a point where he underestimates us."

"Not if he's been paying attention," said Bonnie. "We've faced two vampires, both formidable in their own right and both times we've won. He'll be underestimating us less than he would an unknown, more so because Micah's a clairsentient and they know the power a clairsentient can bring to bear."

"Fuck me, what if they have their own clairsentient?" I said and horror dawned. Why hadn't I thought about it like that before? Josephine was a player and the Martins had been the ones to mention the existence of other clairsentients in the first place.

"They can't have," said Bonnie. "Can they?" she said, looking at me.

"I don't know. Other clairsentients are blind spots for me," I said. "But if that's the case then…" I shook my head. "I don't like this thought process because it brings more problems with it, it means I can't effectively predict and we can't effectively plan."

"It's better in the long term that we do," said Enzo. "We can't just put our hopes in the fact that they wouldn't have hunted for clairsentients in the first place."

"I'm afraid of saying this," said Jared. "But doesn't that mean Klaus could very well have one?"

I shook my head. "The timeline doesn't make sense for that," I said. "If he had a person like me then Klaus would have known from a long time past that another doppelganger was alive and here in Mystic Falls."

"Thank the gods for that," said Jared. "But it still doesn't discount that Elijah might have one. Isn't there a handy way of figuring it out? Without actually meeting them before hand?"

"It requires us waiting," I said. "How long it is until he finds the manor. If he ends up asking me about it, then it means he doesn't have one."

"Better that we factor that…" Enzo stopped. "Someone's coming," he said and he disappeared, appearing at the window. He let out a breath of relief as he said, "It's your dad. He's got his frown lines."

"Fuck," said Jared. We turned to look at him at that. "My brother's a lot like me. Vindictive."

The door opened at that moment and Dad rushed in. "You're going to blow up the bridge?" he said. "Not even talking to me? I thought we decided that you'd communicate more."

"I haven't done it, in my defence," I said.

"You were going to do it though," he said, "and don't even think about trying to lie to me, Micah. We're facing something legendary, for Christ sake, but I have to remind you every time that you're not alone?"

"Dad, calm down and listen to what I have to say about this—"

"No," said Dad. "Because you're going to say something that will convince me. It's better that I don't and fixate on the fact you haven't changed." He shook his head, pacing. "You got your wish, Micah. You're no longer going to school. I have vacation days to spend. I'm no longer trusting you to be on your own."

"So what, you're going to make my decisions for me?" I said. At some point I'd found my feet and the anger was coming back. "You're going to coddle me like I'm a child?"

"You are a child!" he said. "My child! I know you. I know that even in whatever mental state you were, you were really considering destroying the bridge and that you would have eventually found a way to do so. I think that all of this has translated in you not being able to make decisions on your own."

Anger, but this time it was more fiercer. The house shook and even though I tried to regain my breath, to push the anger down but it wasn't working.

I opened my mouth to speak, already pulling memories, the stuff that made Dad tick when all at once darkness flooded around me. It lifted a second later but I was no longer at Grams', but instead in our home in my bed.

I searched the rooms upstairs and there was no one. Downstairs and the only people there were Enzo and Jeremy, they were watching a football match.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Bonnie put under," said Jeremy. "She said you were going to say something you were going to regret."

I took a seat on the couch, watching as men ran around on a field. A part of me really wished I could understand the spot, get why people could get so impassioned in it. From my point of view it was irrational, but then a sports fan could say the same for me and my love for Harry Potter fiction.

"I'll have to assume I'm that I've been locked in," I said.

"Everyone's agreed that you're not in the best mind to be making decisions right now," said Jeremy. "We volunteered to…"

"Guard you," said Enzo after a sip of his beer. "Make sure you don't do anything stupid."

I sat back, throwing my head back as I looked at the sky. "We'd better hope to Nature that this wasn't all a part of Elijah's plan."

"That would be a very scary thought," said Enzo. "But one we can't do anything about right now."

I sighed. "I need to do something," I said. "Do I have the grimoires." Jeremy shook his head. I sighed again. "Smart. I would have found a way to get out of here."

"We know," said Jeremy. "You could let me practice my mental thing on you. Enzo said it can work on a witch."

"Sure," I said. I pushed my mind back to the experience. "I think it doesn't work when it's implanted images, more memories, something which has a stronger footing in your mind. You might want to try traumatic first."

Jeremy nodded and I sat through twinges of memories. Pain in my neck at times, the general sense of hopelessness and worst of all an unadulterated dread.

Fifteen minutes passed with these feeling before it started getting boring. None of the clear images I'd seen from Enzo. With that an idea hit.

"Enzo," I said and his eyebrows quirked. "This will seem odd, but do you mind showing me your torture."

"Why?" he said and the twinges of impulses had stopped. Jeremy was giving me a look.

"Because I want to feel pain," I said. "I've thought a lot about the measures that could be used to get information are either threatening those I love or physically torturing me. The first I would give more thought, if they threatened to kill the both of you, I would hate myself, but I would let it be done and then bring you back from the Other Side. But torture, I feel like I'd be loose lipped."

"Good to hear that you'd let us die," said Jeremy.

"You wouldn't?" I asked.

"Not if I can help it, no," he said. "But then neither would you. Fuck, it would be a hard decision. You're sure there's a way to come back from the Other Side. You haven't exactly been trying where Grams is concerned."

"That's because she thinks there's beauty in death," I said. "I spoke to her and a few others." I remembered that I hadn't told him about that. "When I accepted their power, they were supposed to give me a massive amount of power to do with whatever I wanted. Grams knew I'd use it to pull back the Other Side in some capacity so the ancestors didn't tell me about it," I said ending with a shrug.

"I'm putting the whole thing on the backburner for now," I said. "I wouldn't if one of you guys were dead. The Other Side is lonely for non-witches. So can we get this started? And don't stop even if I beg."

Enzo gave me a long look before he shrugged. It started and I immediately regretted it.