"I saw what happened between you and Klaus today." Marcel told me that very same night, while wiping off the blood trail on his throat, from having killed the human representatives. I brought the glass of bourbon to my mouth nevertheless, ignoring the alarm in my heart.
"You make it sound like something more than him saving my life." I spoke calmly, doing everything in my power to push the image of the little boy away from my mind. I hated children. I always had, so why had that boy found his way into my heart?
"Don't you think I notice the way he looks at you, Julie?" My fiancé repeated, tiredness in his voice. This time, I lowered the glass and met his brown gaze. Not again. I really didn't dig that primitive 'you are mine so no one can look at you' thing, because honestly, I knew I was hot and therefore people looked at me. Besides, why did he have the right to call me his? That ring of his didn't give him the right to my body.
"Marcel." I warned, letting the heavy glass down on the glass table.
"He's got his mind set on you."
"So what?" I exclaimed, rolling my eyes. Marcel stopped and rubbed his chin, granting me an annoyed glance. "I can't speak for Klaus. Maybe he's got some morbid fascination with my power, but why the hell does it matter to you?"
"It's not like that." He sighed, slumping down in the leather armchair in front of me with a large thud. "I know Klaus, Julie. He doesn't look at anyone like that. Not even Cami."
I had to stop the mass of words that were about to erupt from my mouth to repeat that name to myself again. Did he mean Cami? Cami, as in my boss, Cami?
"What's Klaus got to do with Cami?" I frowned, forgetting my anger towards Marcel. His eyes filled with earnest surprise, he too seeming to forget our little fight.
"Didn't you know? He's been using her as his little psychiatrist for some time now. Compelling her to forget everything he's told her afterwards. He seems to have a thing for her."
"That freaking bastard, I swear I will–" I stopped in mid-sentence and drew a deep breath. "Marcel, can't you see? Whatever Klaus is up to, I'm not interested. All I want is for you to trust me, like you used to."
Marcel sighed once more and looked up at me.
"But how am I supposed to do that? You're forgetting that I know you too, Juliette." The usually smiling eyes turned into a somber glare, laced with jealousy. "It's obvious that you care about him too. I just can't figure out why-how-you could care for a monster like him."
The deceit in his scrutinizing gaze was almost too much for me too bear.
"Whatever you think it is, you're wrong. I don't have those kinds of feelings for Klaus." I stared him down straight in the eyes, telling the truth for once. I didn't love Klaus. Not in the way I loved Marcel. "If you must know, I feel some kind of responsibility for him."
The silence was an invite for me to elaborate.
"He's broken, Marcel." I shook my head, the intensity of my fiancés eyes too much. My eyes fastened on a pillar on the opposite side of the courtyard, unaware of the fact that a man was standing behind it, listening to the conversation. "It doesn't excuse what he's done to our friends. I will always hate some part of him for that. But I'm beginning to think that the reason he's doing all of these things is because he's lonely."
I found myself remembering the boy, carving the chess piece in silence, alone. No one had come looking for him, his wounds unmended and bared to the open air. Perhaps the reason that he was so messed up was because the wounds had gotten an infection and healed irregularly, creating scars that would never vanish.
"So no, I don't have feelings for Klaus. There's no reason for you to be jealous." I mumbled, snapping out of my thoughts. "I just pity him."
As Marcel nodded and we started talking about what to do about the human faction, a shadow moved from behind the pillar and Klaus Mikaelson vanished into the night, his mind a storm of emotions that he was not yet ready to face.
The bar was particularly empty that night; I didn't know why. Maybe it was the rainy weather, or maybe people had better things to do than to hang around at a bar at 2 am on a Monday morning. I of course, didn't. Especially since Cami was absent for some unknown reason, and my shift was supposed to end within the next half hour. It was so strange of her to not even leave me a note; Cami was probably the most responsible and organized person I knew.
"Guess I'll be closing, then." I muttered to myself, wiping the already shiny surface of the bar clean for the tenth time during the last few minutes. Sighing, I turned around to grab a glass that had just the slightest of a smudge on it, before occupying myself with rubbing it squeaky clean.
The air shifted. It didn't get cold, and there was no rush of warm wind or a strong perfume. The energy just shifted, as if the particles floating in the air had fell out of their pattern. So I turned around.
"Hi there." The british accent said. The pink-haired woman smiled and settled down on one of the high barstools right in front of me. While I weighed my escape options, her strawberry blonde friend followed her lead and sat down at her right. "Long time no see."
Rachel must have noticed my gaze flickering over to the door behind them, because she let out a low chuckle and clapped her hands together.
"If you're planning on escaping, you should know that we're about 400 years older than you, and a hell of a lot faster."
"What do you want with me?"
"Relax. We're just here to make a deal." Sofia replied with a roll of her eyes. As if I was crazy for being on edge after they practically kidnapped me. I took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the counter, debating the only plan that was left; Text someone for help. But I was afraid that they would notice me fiddling with my phone in my pocket. Thus, I came to the conclusion that I simply had to stay calm and listen to them.
"Yes?" I demanded. Rachel motioned to the shelves with various bottles of different colored liquors in it, and I glared in response.
"Listen up psychic psycho. We could make this easy for you, or we could make this hard. It's your choice." Sofia leaned forward and smiled, a hunger for inflicting pain in her blue eyes. I shoved down my pride and slowly turned around to pick up a bottle of Bourbon and two glasses. The two vampires smiled triumphantly at each other while I poured the golden liquid into the heavy bottomed glasses.
"So?" I raised my eyebrows at the two women and placed the drinks in front of them on the counter.
"Well, we've been watching you…"
"No shit." I muttered under my breath. The glare I got from the two vampires in return made a chill run down my spine.
"-and we've been under the impression that you are friends with Klaus Mikaelson." Rachel continued, sipping from the strong alcohol. "However, a little bird told us that he's gone on a killing rampage and killed one of your dear friends."
I swallowed and refused to meet their intimidating gazes, resting my eyes on the counter of the bar. I was not in the mood to be reminded of Roxy's fate. Still, they didn't seem to take the hint.
"Roxy, was it?" Sofia cocked her head to the side, her voice as careless as if she was talking about a bug.
I finally met her gaze and stared her down.
"Anyway, Sofia and I have altered our plan. We no longer plan to kidnap you." Rachel spoke twinning a strand of her pastel pink hair between her fingers. She was wearing a matching eyeshadow color which brought out the brown in her cold eyes. She grew quiet as she watched me expectantly.
"Am I supposed to thank you, or-?"
"We want to kill Klaus Mikaelson."
Well… That took a surprising turn of events.
"Let me get this straight… You want Klaus dead, and you want me to kill him for you?" Twenty minutes had gone, and I still didn't understand their complicated plan. "I'm like… Three years old. Vampire age, at least."
"Oh for God's sake, you're not mentally three years old, right? Just listen-" Sofia exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air for the third time. "-We need you to find out his weak spot. He clearly has a thing for you. Just swoon him and find out if there's some way to kill him. Then, when you know-"
"We kill him." Rachel filled in.
"Well, you could have just said that instead of rambling on about your sad lives." I rolled my eyes. Crap. They were still a couple of hundred years older than me. Maybe tone down the sassiness a bit?
"Ha-ha. You know, I usually appreciate sarcasm." Rachel pondered, her eyes travelling across the empty bar before landing on me again. "But something about you just makes me want to rip your head off."
I gulped.
"Or, we could make this even easier." Sofia suggested, her blue eyes sinking down to my hands. "Aren't you supposed to be psychic? Just read our future and see how we'll kill Klaus."
"It doesn't work that way." I sighed. Even though they were being polite and remotely nice to me, I yearned to close up the bar and get home to bed. I wanted to get as far away from these two vampires as I could. "It's completely random."
"Try." Sofia urged, reaching out her hand for me to take. Something in her eyes were so challenging that I took her hand without a second thought. My vision blurred.
I recognized the setting immediately. It was the same warehouse where I'd been held just weeks earlier, tied up along the wall. Only now, there was a chair in the middle of the spacy room. And in the chair, a man was tied up. His dark brown hair hung in stripes against his sweaty forehead, blocking my view of his face. There were burns along his wrists, where his ropes were tied. Vervain. Meaning that he was a vampire.
"We just need one thing from you." Rachel came into view, recognizable by her high heels and gracious, waltzing steps. Her skin glowed pale in the light of the moon, seeping in through one of the windows. "Tell us what we want to know, and we'll set you free."
Sofia now sauntered in behind her, her face coming into the light. She didn't bear the same emotionless expression as her friend; She was peering at the tied-up man curiously. He still hadn't lifted his head to look up at them, and instead breathed deeply, as if he was in great pain.
"You're one of Marcel Gerard's vampire lackeys, aren't you?" The pink-haired vampire continued, waltzing around the wooden chair, while dragging her finger along the man's shoulders. One of Marcel's vampires? But-
The man lifted his head, and I recognized him. It was Ben, one of the members of Marcel's inner circle. I'd thought that he was killed during Klaus's attack, but some of the victims were so mangled that we hadn't been able to identify them.
"I won't betray Marcel." Ben huffed under his breath, pulling at the ropes. He then sneered as the vervain burned his skin further.
"Oh, we don't care about Marcel." Rachel let out a ringing laugh, a sound that would have sounded lovely had it not been laced with bitterness. Sofia was standing next to her, suspiciously quiet, her blue eyes still set on Ben's green ones. "Tell us about Juliette Walters."
My heart beat with anticipation as a thousand question flashed by Ben's eyes. A prickle of sweat ran down his high cheekbones to the cut of his jaw.
"I don't even know if she's alive." He whispered. I hadn't expected him to be loyal to me; I'd barely spoken to him during the years I'd been Marcel's girlfriend. Still, it hurt slightly. I concentrated on the surprise in Rachel's eyes instead.
"Why wouldn't she be alive?"
"There was an attack on the compound." Ben answered. "Klaus Mikaelson killed almost thirty of us. Last I checked, she was about to attack Klaus for killing one of her friends, Roxy."
I remembered then, Ben standing in the background when I'd lashed out on Klaus after crying over Roxy's dead body.
"Sofia?" Rachel turned to her friend, who snapped out of her daze. "Change of plans." She then whispered something to Sofia, so quiet that I doubted even Ben could hear it with his vampire hearing. A few seconds later, she pulled away and nodded one last time at Sofia before exiting the warehouse, her loud steps echoing against the stone floor.
Sofia slowly moved toward the man in the chair. Ben watched her in silence as she crouched down in front of him.
"She told me to kill you." She spoke quietly, as if she was afraid that Rachel was listening outside. Something intimate seemed to happen before me them, as neither Sofia or Ben looked away from each other's eyes. Something must have been soft in the blue orbs, since Ben didn't even look scared. "But I'm not going to."
She reached behind him and gently loosened the ropes drenched in vervain, and Ben's gaze never once left her.
"You're free to go back to Marcel." Sofia said, leaning back again so she could look into Ben's eyes. He slowly shook his head in response, nothing more.
I'd never believed in love at first sight, but that looked damn near it.
I snapped back to reality just to be met with Rachel doing quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
"It's completely random." She chuckled, while Sofia's blue eyes were filled with uneasiness. Did she know what I'd seen? Could she feel it? I never knew with these powers…
"What did you see?" The vampire in question commanded, her hand still clasped in mine with a firm grip. I swallowed and rummaged my mind for a lie.
"Nothing." I croaked out, before smoothing over my voice. I was usually a good liar. I just had to ignore the fact that I was trapped in a bar with two ancient vampires, who could decide to kill me any second. "It didn't work. I just blacked out."
I must have been convincing, because Sofia slowly let me go and turned to Rachel, throwing her hands up in the air.
"So much for amazing powers that have never been seen before." Oh, if she only knew.
"Okay, believe it or not, we don't have all night." Rachel sighed, swigged the last of her drink, and sat up. "We'll be in touch about our deal."
"Hold up, I never agreed to your deal." I splurted out, just before the two vampires were about to exit the bar. They both stopped, turned to each other, and then broke out into laughter.
"Did you think you had a choice?" Sofia said, still laughing. "Oh honey, we thought you understood."
"You help us kill Klaus… Or we kill you." Rachel filled in, flashing me one last brilliant smile before the pair vanished, and I was alone.
I crashed into another body as I entered the compound, and the impact made my vampire fangs snap down out of instinct. I hadn't fed in days, and that in combination with the awful night I'd had left me in a not-so stable mood.
"D? What are you doing?" I exclaimed as soon as I identified who I had crashed into. Davina looked just as dizzy as I, but I instantly noticed that her eyes were rimmed with red, and that a duffelbag was slung across her shoulder.
"Get away from me." She sneered, tears starting to form in her green orbs. She tried to push past me, but being a vampire, I pulled her back. She retorted with flinging her magic at me, sending me flying into a wall. It hurt like crap and I could hear the crack of the back of my skull, but with the vampire healing, I was up in a second.
"Not so fast, Davina." I seethed, speeding up to her again. She was now standing right below the archway at the exit of the compound, looking at me with so much betrayal that my blood ran cold. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" She yelled, tears running freely down her cheeks. My heart was thumping fast in my chest; What the hell was happening? When I'd left her earlier in the day, everything had been normal. "How about the fact that you knew that Agnes was dead. That I'm safe, that I've been safe for a while now. And you used me–"
"Hold the fuck up." I raised my hand, and Davina stopped her yelling to breathe. "Agnes is dead?"
A silence settled between us as confusion washed across my friend's face.
"You didn't know either?"
"Of course I didn't!" I exclaimed, before looking across my shoulder to see if anyone was watching us. "I was there when Elijah promised not to let Klaus kill the bitch."
"Well, he didn't promise that she would live either. Apparently, Elijah went on a little killing spree himself." Davina had stopped crying and resorted to drying her eyes with the sleeve of her denim jacket. "Marcel knew. And he didn't tell me."
Realization dawned upon me. Marcel had known that Agnes was dead; meaning that Davina was free, and safe. She had no reason to stay locked up in her attic anymore. Yet Marcel had kept her there, and I knew why.
"I'm gonna–" I snarled, feeling the veins under my eyes start to appear. Marcel had kept Davina as a weapon against Klaus; And now that Klaus had taken over, he'd gladly handed her over to the evil hybrid. "I swear I didn't know, D. If I'd known, I would've taken you far away from here. You don't deserve this kind of life."
I leaned down and pressed my palms to Davina's pale cheeks, my heart calming down as I breathed in deeply. I meant every word; Davina was more than just a friend to me. She was like my sister, and even a daughter in some ways.
"Then do it. Take me away from here." She whispered, like the vulnerable sixteen year-old she should have been.
"I can't, Davina. You know I can't." I let her go and shook my head, glancing at the balcony towards the master bedroom. The compound had been my home for the past three years; Yet now it seemed distant and cold.
"Please, Julie. I can't live under the same roof as them. I can't stay here as Marcel's prisoner, not anymore." The word prisoner vibrated in my heart, making it twist with guilt. What a horrible life Davina must have had. She'd missed out on everything that a teen was supposed to do. Drink, party, hang out with friends past curfew, go to prom…
"Here's what we'll do. Tonight, we check in at a hotel, and then we take this discussion tomorrow, okay?" My gaze traveled back to the courtyard again. I didn't want to spend another night there either; Sleeping next to a man that I hardly knew anymore, and a hybrid that had turned my life upside down. And not in a good way.
Besides, some time away might be a good idea. I had a difficult decision to make. Kill Klaus, or die.
