Caroline groaned, her head was pounding, she clutched soft silk sheets.. her sheets weren't silk. Her eyes remained shut, trying to remember, all she remembers was husky words spoken into her ear and then.. nothing, blank. Suddenly her eyes pop open, sitting up right in bed, she realizes that she's in Klaus's mansion.

Damn it, this again? Caroline notes her ring is no longer on her finger, she's fortunate that the blinds are shut, keeping the sunlight from killing her.

She stretched, but her eyes were wide and panicked when staring at her hand, her undead heart felt like it was doing somersaults in her chest.

"Morning, love." Klaus says casually from the door, a coffee cup held between his hands as he sips it, a smirk on his lips.

Caroline glares at him, jumping out of the bed and making a move to attack him, but as if triggered, she falls back from the door, the curtains falling open, her skin beginning to hiss at her. She feels the pain in her back, arching and screaming in pain before the curtain is shut again.

Her eyes are closed as she lays on the floor, feeling her new wounds knitting themselves back together.

"You're not usually so feisty in the morning." Klaus's eyes light up in amusement, casually licking his lips.

"I thought we were done with the whole kidnapping thing." Caroline whines, pulling herself up from the floor and rubbing her now-healed back, fingering for wounds that are no longer there.

Klaus speeds across the room, holding her up by her throat, "I thought we were done with the whole trying to kill my family thing!" Klaus snarls into her face.

Caroline struggles underneath his strong hold, "I don't know - what you're - talking - about!" She rasps.

Klaus's eyes are rimmed with veins, his vampire teeth popping out of his canines, "My brother is dead because of your stupid group! I thought you were on myside Caroline!"

She chokes on her words, Klaus mercilessly drops her to the ground, she looks up at him, hatred lining her usually cheerful blue eyes.

"I'm on no one's side. I'm on my side." Caroline manages to choke out, before the world goes black for her once more.

She's not sure if she'll wake up this time.

Caroline wakes up in a different bed, the sheets are no longer silk, but instead fabric, just typical fabric. She opens her eyes and assesses her surroundings, she learns she's in the Salvatore's boarding house, her ring is securely on her finger.

A bad dream. She assures herself, but the words fall out just as quickly as they came.

"Morning Barbie. You've been sleeping like the undead." Damon says, walking into the room with a mug of blood, handing it to her.

"What's going on?" Caroline grumbles, pulling herself up out of bed, "I can't remember anything."

"Being knocked out might have something to do with that." Damon grins, "Don't I get a kiss for being your savior?"

Caroline glares at him and shoves him with her free arm, taking a sip from the mug, "Hardly."

Damon smirks, "Do you want to see something?"

"Explanations first." She demands,

"Blondie, you know I don't do explanations." He says, taking the mug from her and setting it on the bedside table, "Let's go."

Caroline grudgingly follows him, tired and worn out, she drags herself down the hallway to the basement. She almost trips on a step and Damon grips her around the waist.

"Are you drunk or something Barbie? You're not usually so clumsy." Damon says, his breath hot in her ear.

Caroline's eyes feel a tad heavy, "I don't know, I feel funny." She claims, shadowing her eyes a bit to rest them, then popping them back open, "Whatever, let's do this."

Damon helps her down the rest of the stairs, when they reach the bottom his arm is gone from her hip and instead resting on the middle of her back as he leads her towards a locked room. Caroline feels a sudden stab in her gut, she buckles over, resisting the urge to scream.

She's clenching her teeth together as she sees stars.

"What the hell?" Damon questions, kneeling down next to her, coaxing her, "Come on Barbie.."

The pain is gone then, she can breathe again, taking a deep breath.

"Ow." She mutters, standing back up.

"Are you sure you're okay Barbie? You seem a bit roughed up." He says, brushing a piece of hair that had fallen from her face away.

"That's exactly what every girl wants to hear." Caroline snaps, "Let's get whatever this is done so I can go lay back down."

Damon nods, he puts a hand in the middle of her back then, his eyes wide as he watches her go over to the steel door and barely hoist it open. He reaches out a hand to help her and they pull the door open together, Caroline can't help the gasp that escapes her lips.

It's Klaus, he's tied to a chair, his breathing is shallow and his brow is framed with sweat. There is blood coming from his stomach, Stefan is standing over him, a wooden stake twirling in between his fingers as he walks around Klaus. His eyes light up when they meet Caroline, but darken when they assess her.

"Hello love." Klaus barely rasps, his eyes jaded and nearly closed.

Caroline looks between the two brothers, "What'd you do to him?" Caroline asks, her voice rising in accusation.

"Nothing that he didn't deserve." Stefan says, grinning, then he plunges the stake into Klaus's shoulder. There's a sickening rip of flesh that comes from Klaus, but the scream isn't his.

It's hers.

Caroline buckles over, arching in pain, she can feel the stake passing through her shoulder, despite the fact that it's sticking through Klaus's shoulder. She's keeling over, trying to force her breathing to come out, but it's slow and shallow.

Damon knocks Stefan over, ripping the stake out of Klaus with a hiss. Caroline lays on her back, cooing and moaning at the disappearance of the pain, carefully pulling herself up.

"What the hell?" Damon mutters, more to himself than to anyone else.

Stefan, on the other hand, kicks the wall, swearing loudly, "He got Bonnie to un-link him and his siblings, so he could link him and Caroline!" He runs a hand through his hair, growling and swearing profusely.

"I told you you'd regret this." Klaus rasps, a smile coming across his bloodied lips.

Caroline stands up, staggering, Damon puts a arm around her.

She feels it blast through her, anger, hate, jealousy, all of these angry emotions course through her like a fast paced stream. She can barely stay upright with the onslaught of these multiple emotions, Damon's grip grows tighter.

"We need to get Bonnie." Stefan says, whipping out his cellphone and beginning to dial.

"She won't be able to help you." Klaus sing-songs, "Part of my condition to give her back her Mother, was not to help any of you after our.. trade."

Caroline looks at him, not sure how to process any of this, she's not sure whether she should hate him or let him go.

Stefan walks over to Caroline, making the decision for her, "He used you Caroline, this entire thing, none of it was real." He places his hands on either side of her face, "Look at yourself Caroline."

So she did, she looked at herself. Caroline's usually bubbly eyes were wiped of all light, her usually smiling lips were instead hung in a desperate frown, her hair was a mess and she was having trouble keeping upright.

She allows herself to be engulfed in Stefan's familiar arms, closing her eyes against his shoulder.

"You'll be okay." He soothes, stroking her hair, kissing her temple.

Caroline doesn't even notice she's crying until a sob escapes her.

She felt so betrayed.

"Hey Caroline." Elena's soft voice says from the door, her hand raised to knock but instead deciding against it, "Are you okay?"

Caroline turns her head to face the door, "How can I be okay?" She asks softly, "I'm linked to a Hybrid that everyone wants to kill, if he goes down, I go down."

Elena grimaces, walking over to Caroline's bed at a dreadfully slow pace, but perfectly human all the same. She sits on the edge of her bed, stroking her hair.

"I won't let you die, Caroline, not for me, not for anyone." Elena soothes, her voice is so small and calm while talking to Caroline, it soothes her immediately.

"If it comes down to it, I won't let you or anyone else be at risk because of me." Caroline's voice cracks, she swallows back the tears that seem to be building.

"I can't ask you to do that." Elena says, "But I need to tell you something."

Caroline looks up at her with curious eyes, but the light is gone, "What?"

"Alaric killed your Dad." Elena speaks softly, afraid that the words themselves will break her.

Anger courses through her, she knows Klaus can feel it too, "What?" Caroline bolts out of bed, she's facing the wall now - her hands balled into fists against the wall, she can't look at Elena.

Her eyes are clenched shut, red is flashing for her. She imagines killing Alaric, ripping out his pathetic heart repeatedly until she feels satisfied with all of the red splattering the walls.. she see's Elena horrified face, but she doesn't care, she's too overcome with the idea of revenge that it doesn't faze her.

"Careful love."

He snaps her out of it, her eyes pop open and she looks over at Elena, the veins disappearing from her eyes.

"I'm sorry." Caroline quickly leaves the room, grabbing her jacket off the chair and going downstairs to the basement, he can feel her coming, something very inconvenient about their bond.

She's surprised the Salvatores aren't crowding around the room like body guards, instead they're upstairs happily drinking and laughing.

Caroline hoists open the door, and as expected, Klaus is staring at her with a expectant smirk on his lips.

"Hello love." He says, his lips baring the scent of blood, "Having fun?"

Caroline walks over to him cautiously, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm just having my bit of fun, love, nothing personal." Klaus grins, tilting his head to the side with a dazzling smile, "It's all part of the game."

"What game?" She swallows hard, pulling a chair from the side of the wall and sitting in front of him.

Klaus's grin grows bigger, "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"It's Kol, isn't it?"

He freezes, "My insolent brother has nothing to do with our private matters."

"You're lying." Caroline quickly says, then pointing to her and then him, "We're linked, remember?"

Klaus groans to himself, "Caroline, darling, I can't let you get hurt because of me."

"What did Kol threaten? I'll kill him." Caroline snarls.

"He'll kill you before you even blink, Caroline." Klaus says, "The one thing my brother isn't lacking is his efforts to kill someone."

Caroline glares at him, "So whose idea was it to link us?"

"Mine."

"Why would you do that to me? You know my friends are trying to kill you, so you think: oh, maybe I'll link us and they'll stop trying to kill me." Caroline growls, "But that's not how it works, they know that I'll die for them, no matter the cost."

Klaus eyes her, "Even if the cost was my life?"

Caroline's eyes flash away from his, feeling slightly guilty, "Yes." She answers.

"Did you forget how this works?" Klaus questions, a smile crossing his lips, "You were a terrible liar before, but you're even worse now."

Caroline pushes away from her chair now, making a move for the door, "If you or your stupid siblings come near Elena or Bonnie or anyone, I'll personally stake you myself, white oak or not."

Then she leaves from the room.

Klaus can't help but chuckle to himself.

He forgot how much he enjoyed the feisty side of Caroline Forbes.

Feisty Forbes was back in business.

First thing she does when she leaves the Salvatore house is go to Bonnie's.

She finds Bonnie outside with Abby, laughing as they sit on the patio porch swing. Bonnie is smiling, which is something very rare for Bonnie considering the last few days.

Caroline had forgotten what her smile even looked like.

"Caroline!" Abby's ears perk up, similar to a dog's, a smile crossing her lips, "Come and join us."

Caroline can smell the blood coming off of Abby's cup, "Actually I needed to speak to Bonnie for a moment."

Bonnie stands up and obediently shows Caroline into the house, "I'm sorry." She says immediately.

Caroline looks out the window towards Abby, "You had to do it."

"But I shouldn't have. I should have known that Damon and Stefan would torture Klaus, and that it would get transferred to you, and that it'd take them a while to figure it out.. but I was just.. he threatened Abby." Bonnie's eyes brim with tears, "He threatened to turn her into a monster.."

"Can you undo it?" Caroline questions.

Bonnie dryly laughs, "He's compelled Abby, Caroline. He specifically told her, if you two ever became un-linked that she was to turn into a monster and rip everyone's throats out. Specifically he said: paint the city in blood, love." She imitates his British accent poorly.

Caroline looks down, "It's fine, don't worry about it."

"I threw you to the wolves, Caroline." Bonnie says, "You've done so much for me - only to turn around and drive a stake through your heart.."

Caroline shakes her head, "No, Bonnie. You did what you needed to do to be happy. I'd much rather you be happy Bonnie instead of Boring depressed Bonnie."

Bonnie hugs Caroline, "I'm so sorry..."

Caroline's digs her face into her hair, "It's fine." She says.

She hopes that Bonnie can't hear her muffled sobs.

I never wanted this to happen, to either of us.