2-07

"This isn't a means of escape, right?" Tyler's voice sounded on the other side of the line. "I've talked to Bonnie about it and she thinks Micah could use the spell to break the warding around the house."

"Um…you're on speaker," said Jeremy. "And I don't think it is?" he said to me.

"Nope," I said. "That would be crass of me."

"Give me a sec," he said. "You're on speaker. Bonnie, Micah wants me to give him the spell Luka used to find Uncle Mason. If I read it right, it can fortify threads to pass through Cloaking spells. It might be useable to break through with the twin thing."

"Which he would do," said Jared. "What's the context?"

"Context is me trying to help a friend," I said with a tired sigh. "And I hate the fact that all of a sudden I have to answer to people to do something."

"Let's not rehash this," said Bonnie. "Jer, what's going on?"

"We're helping out Enzo," Jeremy answered. "And no, it wasn't manipulation. At least not manipulation that I could see."

"I think we're going to need more to go on here," said Jared. Jeremy and I gave Enzo a look at that and the man had closed in, a restrained look in his eyes. He didn't want to share this and I gave a slight shake of the head.

Jeremy sighed. "It's… Can you just do this?" he said with an amount of irritation in his voice. "Make things less complicated?"

There was silence on the other side before Bonnie sighed. "Fine," she said. "Give it to them."

Tyler did, giving us a long spell which Jeremy wrote down. I took a few minutes to get accustomed to the spell before I began. Luka hadn't needed to channel anything beyond me, with made me think that it was okay that I didn't, but the it was likely he was channelling the wind around him and I hadn't even noticed.

We redrew the circle for the Tracking spell, but this time instead of mounds of salt, we put feathers in the circles.

"Wait, you can get out?" I said, aghast as Enzo just walked out of the house.

"Of course I can," he said. "What makes you think I couldn't?"

I shrugged, aware of the fact that if I really did want to get out of this place I might be able to. Bonnie and Jared were smart enough that they would have thought about messing with my connections with them. But even with a lot of work, short of breaking the connections, they could still be used to get me out of here.

All of that, with Enzo's blood in my system.

"I'm not going to leave, but I'm going to try something," I told them. I walked forward with my hand out held; I felt it as I touched the boundary, how the wall of air bent against my hand. Raw strength alone, even if it was meagre, and I could break through.

I pulled back, though. Enzo would think that everything since we'd started had been a ploy and I didn't need that.

"It's good to note that I'm very good at figuring this out," I said as I stepped back. "Can you try to make it an exotic bird? I don't think a sparrow will do."

Enzo gave me a nod before he walked over to his car. Jeremy and I moved back to the couch.

Silence stretched between the both of us before he said, "I have this image of you tearing down the foundation of this house."

I shook my head. "It's grating, that's for sure," I told him, letting out a tired sigh. "But this is my home. It wouldn't do to tear it down."

"That's not very reassuring," he said. "You do get what you did wrong, right? Why we felt the need to put you in here?"

"Everyone's been telling me over and over," I said. "It's hard not for it to sink it."

"But do you get it?" he said. "Beyond just hearing everyone being on you. Do you get what you did wrong?"

"Burning bridges, yeah," I said. "It's not smart. Not to mention that I've been lashing out. Part and parcel of using the anger. That has all been coming together in a loss of trust in how I deal with everything."

"We don't need you like that," said Jeremy. "I get it, you feel a sense of pressure from everything, the fear from the opponents and that you might be thinking about what happened with Bree." I shifted at the mention of her name. "It's...dangerous if you're not on your game and I don't think you are right now."

"I don't think I'll ever be, again," I said. I sighed running a hand through my hair. "Bree took something from me. She showed me how weak I really was, desecrating the only true safe space I thought I had." I let out another sigh. "The anger is my compensation measure," I said. "I don't have much power but I have words and I can use them to show a measure of strength."

"But you have strength," said Jeremy. "You have us. I don't know if you've noticed this, but you're the closest thing we have to a leader. I don't know about the others, but I trust you to the point that you saying you would bring me back from the Other Side isn't something I doubt in the slightest. I'm sure the others, even if it's in a small part, feel the same way."

"But how I've been acting hasn't been helping that, has it?" I said.

Jeremy shook his head. "You've been off our game," he said. "You need to find the balance from before. Just enough excitement from all this that you're not eerily calm, but also that bite directed at our enemies."

"I have been on and off lately, haven't I?" Jeremy gave a long look. For the nth time I sighed that had. "I'll try my best to stop that. Are you in the loop? With what the others are trying to do?"

"Broad strokes," said Jeremy. "They're making preparations on how to handle the Martins."

"They'll be expecting that," I said.

Jeremy shook his head. "Stefan thinks that it'll be the opposite. They'll expect us to be pissed, sure, but with Elijah as a looming threat they won't expect us to do much."

"But we will," I said. "Even with Elijah?"

"It's a risk worth taking," said Jeremy. "If we despatch of the Martins, or at least contain them, then hopefully you can work to getting them on our side. But if we have to kill them, then we will," he said. "Elijah will be angry, for sure, but for his plans to move forward he'll need a witch. That either means working with us or having to go out and find another witch willing to work with a vampire. He might miss his window."

"Good plan," I said. "Pity I'm going to miss it."