2-12

"This is a bad idea," said Lucy.

I was still tired. After talking with Elena, it felt as though there was some drive behind me, that, even if I couldn't reach for the anger and ride it, I could still use the promise to keep on moving. But even with that there was the monumental task still ahead of me.

Elijah and then Klaus; bringing Jeremy back from the Other Side; and then curing the world of death. The last seemed the most important in the shorter term but it would take the most amount of forethought, positioning things right and learning to do something I'd never really been good at: Playing chess.

We were in Grams' place with Lucy and her coven sitting around enjoying a cup of tea, though the term was used relatively. At my side were Bonnie and Dad, and sitting parallel to the two groups was Elijah, sitting stiffly and watching all of us. It made me wonder the plans he had in motion, because being so close to us, it would be the easiest thing to capture him in a Boundary spell.

But that he was here at all spoke that he was sure that his plan would work.

"I think it is," I said, my voice sounding hoarse. I'd been screaming not a day ago and yet there was still damage to my throat. Enzo had recommended that I drink his blood to heal the damage, but I liked the pain. It helped in reinforcing the emotional pain I felt, made it more tangible.

"But do we really have another option?" I said, interrupting what she'd been about to say. "By staying here, you might get ideas." I shook my head. "I don't want that. Against him, we can't win."

Lucy quickly shot a glance at Elijah before looking at me. She wanted to say something, but that Elijah was here meant she couldn't. That's what I was worried about, that she'd do something I couldn't predict and whatever plans I had in the works would be ruined.

I didn't have a plan on moving forward yet, but before that, I knew that I had to have a measure of control over the situation. I was working against people that were more powerful than me and smarter than me in many ways, but I still knew the future, and that had to count for something. But knowing the future only counted for something so long as there were the same variables here than had been in the future, which meant this, pushing people away.

"You're still doing it," I said, voice calm. "That you're hiding something is sign that you're trying to work through a plan. Figure out the correct combination of spells that could take him down."

Lucy's expression flickered. I'd hit the mark.

Again, I slowly shook my head. "Elijah knows," I said, commenting on the slightly incredulous expression from the others. The badness in my stomach rolled, becoming more as I said, "Jeremy said something while at the church. Or at least he did something which he explained through YouTube. I didn't get it then but my mind's been in this loop—" I sighed, cutting of the thread of thought.

"All of it cut short. Elijah's probably using his senses to his best advantage. Hearing the changing of your heart rate, watching the minute shifts in your expression to read you. It's what Jeremy did and he was relatively on the young side, it's the smart thing for one of the oldest vampires in the world to be able to do."

"If that's the case," said Jasper, leaning forward. All at once the incredulity became anger. "You've given up, haven't you. You're cowing down to the likes of him?"

"Yes," I said. "Like I said. We can't win. All we can do at this point is mitigate the amount of people that are killed. That's what I'll be aiming for. That's what I'm doing now."

"Fuck," he said and he shot to his feet. "I thought you actually would be something. Hearing how they talked about you, I thought you'd be a prodigy of magic. I thought you'd change the world and yet…I thought the Bennett men were actually supposed to commend respect."

I shrugged. "You have an image of your head. Passed down through stories you've heard. You want me to measure up to that. But I don't need or want to. I don't have that image, but I have an image and me politely requesting you leave my town is part and parcel of that."

He looked like he wanted to say something too before Amber took his wrist. He calmed down at that, his anger dissipating.

"Fine," said Lucy, a sigh behind the words. "But…we're family. If you need help, just ask." I gave her a nod. Lucy got up with a huff. "If this is deciding, then, we'll be leaving. Mom should be happy to have the coven at full strength at any rate. Hug before I go?"

"No," said Elijah. We looked in his direction at that. "You're planning something. Don't do it or I might be forced to kill a person in this room."

"As I said," I put in, letting out a tired sigh.

Lucy, looking deflated, left at that point, taking her coven with her. Bonnie, Dad, Elijah and I watched as she got into her car and started driving off. Elijah disappeared soon after and if I were to guess he wanted to make sure that they were really leaving town.

"I don't think I like this," said Dad. "I'm with Lucy on this. Working with him."

"We're still being watched, Dad," said Bonnie. "The Martins took clumps of hair from us. Even now I can feel the energy moving through their connection to us."

Dad let out something close to a snarl. "So what, we can't ever talk about anything anymore?"

"Not something that might cause Elijah to act against us, no," I said. I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "When we were working on the blessing we didn't entirely work on it to break, did we?"

"That was the point, wasn't it?" said Bonnie. "That it doesn't break. That's why it's configured the way it is." She looked at me, still that sympathy in her eyes which immediately sparked memories of Elijah ripping out Jeremy's heart.

"That was the point," I said, giving a mental shove to the thought process. "We'll have to go and talk to Jared. Figure out how we'll move forward. Probably we'll need Andrew's help too because he's the better of us to work with connections."

"The Martins could mean we do this faster," said Bonnie and then she shook her head. "But then, this is derivative of a spell. Us working with them would mean they can steal the spell from us."

I gave her a nod. "Dad. You should meet with the Allied Council, make sure that no one gets any stupid ideas. Elijah's smart and I feel like the thing that…" I took a breath. "The thing that happened at the chest was just him proving a point. That we can't win against him. Which means that there are a lot more people under his thrall."

"You think we might get attacked?" Dad asked.

I nodded. "Human nature. It's hard sometimes to see beyond what's in front of us. People might be thinking that if they take away Elijah's people then he's easier to take. But beyond them is that fact that Elijah's a powerhouse. He's old enough that he's might have the strongest healing rate save his brothers and sister and father."

"I get it," said Dad. "Even though you feel the need to keep reinforcing it. We can't win."

"We can't," I said. At least not yet. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, but if I was fighting against Originals, then I would need the daggers that had been forged to put them to sleep and a lot of White Oak ash.

Nodded. "You two will be safe alone?" he said.

Bonnie nodded. "Klaus won't be here for a while. We're being watched by the Martins and the large fact that we can protect ourselves. We'll be safe."

Dad nodded, though the worried expression didn't abate. He moved disappeared. Not getting into a car but running the way there. I could image the act was more therapeutic than driving a car, while running he had to focus on something else while driving a car he'd be forced to deal.

"It'll be better if we wait for Elijah to get back before we head over to Jared's," I said as we walked into the house, Bonnie closing the door behind us. "It's best if he doesn't think we're plotting."

"I'm sure he's thinking that," she said. "I'm sure everyone is thinking that with your track record."

"I keep thinking that," I said. "That maybe if I knew the right things, I might leverage them the right way. But…" I shook my head. "I don't know what I could do in this situation. This is worse than when Anna compelled people. We were lucky that she hadn't spread her net wider. The sum luck is probably not here now."

Bonnie gave me a hug. "Everything will work out," she said. "This will be over and then we'll have our lives back."

I gave her a nod. "It'll be a spat at worst," I said. "We just have to ride it out. Hopefully, whoever wins, they'll leave."

Bonnie frowned before she said. "You really think Elijah will forgive Klaus?"

"He will," I said. "That I'm certain about. No matter what Klaus does, his siblings find it within themselves to forgive each other."

"But, this is something else," said Bonnie. She started putting on another cup of tea as I sat, watching everything and taking it in. Distracting myself in taking in the dimensions of the kitchen. "Dropping the other siblings in the middle of the ocean."

"I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective," I said. "Elijah's given up on finding them, which means Klaus has put on a Cloaking spell so good that Elijah hasn't been able to find them in the period since they've disappeared. The only sibling Elijah's had in that time, the only person from his period, is Klaus. Imagine how much strength it would take to kill him?"

I shook my head. "I don't think he'll be able to go through with it. My prediction on this is that Elijah will put on a show. It will be convincing and, if Klaus buys it and is on the losing side, he'll leverage the details of the Cloaking spell to continue living. But stretched further, knowing Klaus, he'll work so that Elijah's weapon is done away with."

"The Martins," said Bonnie.

I nodded. "The Martins. They'll die at the end of all this, that I'm sure about."

"Bleak," said Bonnie. "I don't like them. But I can understand where they're coming from and what they're working towards and that they'll—"

I felt a flicker in the connection, as though it was interrupted before my phone buzzed. Luka's name on the display. I answered it, putting it on speaker.

"You have my attention," he said, his voice shaky. "I'll assume that that was what that entire spiel."

"Yes," I said. "The game's still on. Help me and I'll make sure you're better off in the long term."

"You say that, but you lost," said Luka. "Dad tells me that you held my life as leverage even with how I gave you the opportunity to come out of this ahead."

"It's not that easy," I said. "You know this. You're a witch and if it were that easy, you would have taken care of him yourself, especially when he hurt your Dad. But you haven't. This is…We're wasting too much time. I'm going to throw your father under the bus."

I dropped the line before he could continue.

"This is dangerous," Bonnie said as I flipped through my phone, finding Lucy's number and calling. I gave her an errant nod.

"Tell me what you need?" she said.

"To be put on speaker," I said. "Elijah's probably still following you and I need you to send him a message."

"You're on," she said.

"Elijah. You might not need to know this but I do this so you know that I'm working for you," I said. "Mr Martin just interrupted the connection to the spell and I think he might have been up for making a deal. Do with that what you will. Thanks, Lucy."

"Not a problem, kid," she said and I dropped the line.

As if to punctuate the play, the connection chose that moment to reform. I put my phone and stared at it for a long moment, spending the time letting the vague ideas I had roll around in my head, hoping that they would come together into something concrete.

I wanted to hurt Elijah. But the only true way of doing that would be to go against Klaus and that was a nasty game to play.

Everything, it seemed, was going to be complicated.

I took a breath and got up, going into the motions of preparing coffee and tea for Bonnie and me. When I sat back down the two of us just stared at each other, Bonnie focused more on her tea than anything I could see.

"We'll have to set up an official story about Jeremy's disappearance," she finally said. "Jenner's thinking about a funeral."

I shook my head. "Once all of this is over I'll work at bringing him back," I said. All at once it was though I could feel a dozen voices screaming in unison, NO. "And I'm not going to listen to that."

"The ancestors?" said Bonnie.

I gave her a nod. "They're refusing me bringing Jeremy back. But I won't listen. This is me making enemies, but, to whomever is listen, you stand at a crossroad. On one hand, you lose access to the loophole I provide, that is, the father to all future male Bennett who'll be able to perform magic, or you can give me what I want."

NO.

"Then so be it," I said. I closed my eyes and focused, feeling out the connection and then pulling. The Bennett family grimoires flew into the room, three grimoires in total though the third was on the thin side. There were in four, two belonging to dead witches while the other two belonged to me and Bonnie, but I didn't have need for Bonnie's grimoire.

"By day's end I'll have a spell set up that will bind my sperm to my body—"

"Eww," said Bonnie. "Filter yourself, please. Somethings I don't need to know."

"Sorry," I said with a grin. I picked up the three books and moved into the living room, picking up a pencil and starting to look over boundary spells. There was the risk that the Martins were looking over the spells and recording them, but there really wasn't much I could do and until Elijah arrived we couldn't get to Jared and start finding ways to undo the Blessing.

Hours passed with me focusing on drawing how the boundary spell would work, letting my mind roam when there was a knock on our door. Bonnie was the one who went to open it. I held my breath, waiting for Elijah to have arrived but it wasn't, instead it was Elena, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, Jared and Luka, and they'd bought food.

"What's he doing here?" I asked.

"I told him that we were having a small memorial," said Bonnie. "Elijah's still out of town which means we need to be watched by someone. As much as you, I don't want to get on Elijah's bad side."

"Here, here," said Matt.

I gave an errant nod. "Smart thinking." Luka shifted, a scowl directed in my direction as he moved past the others, who were also shooting scowls in his direction, and moved to the kitchen.

"I don't know about the rest of you," said Tyler. An image hit me, Tyler drinking and drinking and drinking in a continuous loop. "But I'm looking to get drunk. Mike?"

I nodded and he threw. I caught it with my powers, taking a sip of the awfully sour liquid. It was a messy affair, filled with a lot of drinking from my end, a lot of reminiscing about Jeremy and getting lost in all of this. For a moment I forgot to watch, to think about the future, instead listening to all the sides of Jeremy that I had missed.

Then, all at once, I felt the drunken haze lift while Matt shook. I remembered for the first time that he hadn't been drinking. Slowly and carefully he got to his feet, though his still stumbled a little at the small motion.

"I think I should retire for the night," he slurred, stumbling a little forward.

"I'll help you up," said Bonnie who was considerably better.

The moment she had gone upstairs Luka walked in from the kitchen. "The spell should last for fifteen minutes at the most," he said. "I've transplanted the spell Dad and I cast on you, so too with your inebriated state."

"What about Elijah?" I asked.

Luka held out his hand a rolled-up map flew in from the kitchen. He opened it to its full length and it showed a small marble slowly rolled through it. When I looked closer, he was still moving away from Mystic Falls.

"Elijah's got it in his head that the greatest threat right now is Lucy and the Salem coven," said Luka. "He's right, of course, even with Dad's resources and the work Elijah's put in play, this could be a troublesome to say the least. He wants to make sure that they don't cloak themselves the first chance they get and start working in the shadows."

"Because that would be good for us," Tyler muttered. "Please tell me you have something up your sleeve."

"You're a connection specialist, right?" I said to Luka. He gave me a nod. "Do you think it's possible to track all the people Elijah's compelled in town?"

Luka shook his head. "Compulsion is weak in the general scheme," he said. "It's a periphery thread that can't sustain having magic running through it. I could fortify it, but I'm sure Elijah knows this and he's seeded false compulsions for this very purpose."

"Not mentioning that the guy's old," I said. "He's probably got countless running compulsions as we speak." I let out a long sigh, running a hand over my face. "What does Elijah have on your father? I managed to convince him that I'd be able to help and he was about to attack Elijah when he showed your father something."

"Me and my sister dying," said Luka, swallowing. "He's got a network of people compelled so that if things don't go right, they'll work towards killing me and my sister."

"Okay," I said. I pulled Grams' grimoire and flipped through until I found a spell to Link one's life force to another. "You'll have to cast this when you get the opportunity, on a vampire or a series of vampires. I'll also ask that you do the same for me, Elena, Jared and Bonnie. It might be better if we established a network."

"That's too many people," said Luka. "I wouldn't be able to do that on my own. Dad isn't will to do anything that'll put him and me in danger. The only way I'm here is because it's something Elijah would agree with."

"Except if you join the coven," said Jared. "I'll talk my brother into seeding as well. He can use school as a cover."

"Can we trust your brother?" I asked.

Jared nodded. "They put me in a coma," he said. "Andrew's pissed about that. Because no matter what you've done, at least you wilfully put me in harm's way."

"Then that's an avenue," I said. "We need to quickly counter all of Elijah's leverage and the largest amongst them is that he could kill anyone of us."

"Torture's still something he could do," said Tyler.

I let out a huffed breath. "That I can't help with," I said. "But if we work fast enough it shouldn't matter. Elijah's working on a time limit, by throwing your father under the bus I've ensure that the number of people that Elijah can trust is diminishing. He's smart, he'll realise this too, so there'll most likely be another set of witches that'll arrive to take the power from the site.

"He'll say that he's thinking about you and your father. Citing that that much power would kill the both of you. But the true reason is that he doesn't want the power to be turned against him when you receive it. He knows you're both powerful and that's scary."

"More witches," muttered Tyler. "We couldn't deal with them. Can we deal with others?"

I shook my head. "Which is the reason things should move so quickly," I said. "Jared. You'll connect Luka to our source of power. Your brother too if he wants in. Then you'll get to work linking our lives. You'll find the stock of vampires in the Tomb."

Jared nodded.

"Me?" said Tyler.

"I need you to talk to Josephine. She had a conversation with Elijah, I'd like to know what they talked about. And I need you to move faster in marrying her. Klaus will be here soon. I want to use the wolves as a way of showing Klaus that she doesn't necessarily need Elena to break the spell."

"He doesn't?" said Elena.

"Not necessarily," I repeated. The wording was a stretch and I could see that they knew the same. I let out a breath. "But Klaus will likely not believe me if I don't have a working hybrid."

"Be more cold about it, why don't you?" Tyler muttered.

I shrugged. "I think we have two days," I said. "Whoever Elijah's calling in should take at least that long to get here. Elijah himself should be here by day's end and Lucy and the Salem coven should be here round about the same time."

"They're coming back?" said Luka. "I thought you sent them away."

"Throwing your Dad under the bus showed that I was still fighting," I told him. "Lucy knows that I can't fight this on my own and I'll need her back. She'll be working in the shadows when she gets back, scouring the compulsion network Elijah has."

"You can't be sure of that, though," said Luka. "If there's one thing I'm starting to get about your ability is that it doesn't give you clear-cut information. You have to make a lot of inferences. Inferences that you don't hide in the way you speak."

"I also make sure to make a lot of plans that make sure that those inferences are right," I said. "Like telling Enzo everything that I have planned and have him working in the shadows too. Unfortunately it means my dragon will be out of town for as long as it takes to get this sorted."

"That'll be suspicious," said Tyler.

"I know," I said. But I'd already won in that regard. A boundary spell had been set up in the house, abstract in quality and meaning I could control it within certain limits. Elijah could tell a lie by someone's heart and their facial ticks, which was the reason I'd put on a mask since the day had started.

Light bending awkwardly so that my face was always passive, and my heart beating in a lethargic drone that showed little in the way of panic. I couldn't use it to achieve the same effect with anyone else, especially without knowing what they were going to do beforehand, but I could use it on myself and that mattered.

Luka's watch beeped. "You should go to your room," he said. "The spell on you and Matt should disappear in two minutes."

"How are we going to do the switch?" I asked. "Isn't it going to be suspicious Matt walking into my room while I'm drunk?"

"It'll be okay," said Luka as he stood. "You'd better get up there."

I did as Luka said, lumbering upstairs, past Bonnie and into bed. Matt got out, stumbled towards the door and then, as he opened it, the state hit me all at once and it was all I could do not to upchuck. My body wanted to sleep and I didn't hold the impulse back. I'd have more time to think tomorrow, and hopefully things would have better fallen into place.