"Can't fall, can't die.

Tonight we're so alive.

Singing, we own the night!"

Sometimes, I didn't really think life could get any better than it was at the moment. Sure, not having a raging Original hybrid watching us almost all the time, sending his hybrid goons to spy on us, would've been nice, and it was entirely Stefan's fault that he was, in fact, still in town.

Had Stefan just left the coffins alone . . . .

If being stalked by Klaus was the price I had to pay to have the wonderful man, wearing nothing but jeans as I continued to loosely braid part of my hair into a side ponytail while his arms began snaking around my waist, then I would gladly go the rest of my life being stalked by him.

There was only so long we could keep Kol hidden from him, of course, but over time, it wouldn't really matter. Once Rebekah and Kol had possession of the last dagger, which Klaus had removed from Rebekah's body, it didn't matter what Klaus wanted or thought.

Then I had to figure out how to explain to my family that I knew Kol was an Original the entire time . . . and we had to figure out something to do about Stefan. In all honesty, getting that last coffin open was the best thing we could do because once we knew what was inside, once we knew a way to put down Klaus, the rest didn't matter. He would've helped us all reach our goal, and getting them to see my side of things would be a lot easier.

I didn't expect them to just be completely on board with what I had done. They had every right to be mad at me when it was all over, and I knew they would never really see my side of it all. They didn't have to, as long as they eventually forgave me.

I had lied to all of them. I had done something stupid and opened up the coffins, and more than that, I had pulled the dagger out of Kol's chest. I had hid who he was from them.

I wasn't going to try and play off what I had done. I was going to accept the responsibility of my actions and deal with the consequences of them, but I wasn't going to dare pretend that I wouldn't have done it all over again.

If everything I had done led me to Kol, why would I change that?

His soft lips began leaving a trail down my neck, sending a shiver through my body that made it hard to finish getting ready. "You sure I can't convince you to be selfish some more and stay in with me? We can do more than just have sex all day, though I'd be down for that, too."

I let out a breath of a laugh and wrapped the band around the end of my hair, freeing up my hand so that I could place it against the side of his face, ripping his lips away from my neck so that he could stare at me through the mirror.

The softness on his face, in those beautifully warm eyes, was something that would probably be burned into my memories for the rest of my life. He was just so spectacular, and the more I explored this side of Kol, the more I fell in love.

Every good thing comes to an end, unfortunately. My phone buzzing on the other side of the bathroom counter, buzzing more than just once, abruptly put an end to the tender moment.

He sighed and let go of my waist, stepping away from me so that he could head into the bedroom. "I suppose I'll get ready then."

"Thank you." I reached over and grabbed my phone off the counter, and seeing the lovely face of Bonnie flashed across my screen, I slid my finger across the green button instantly. "Hey there."

"Hey!" she exclaimed, the excitement in her making the word seem brighter than it actually was. "So you remember those dreams I've been having about the coffins? The recurring one of the four coffins?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah. You mentioned that you felt like it was probably some sort of clue that you could open the sealed one but still hadn't learned how."

She took a moment to clear her throat. "I did last night. Is Elena around you?

"Nope." I put the finishing touches on my makeup, a touch of pink matte lipstick, and rubbed my lips together. "Haven't seen her this morning."

"You live with her." She let out a breath. "You two share a bathroom. You mean you're not getting ready for school right now?"

"I stayed somewhere else last night," I said.

"Ooh. That sounds fun."

My eyes shifted towards the door, at least through the mirror, and to see that Kol still wasn't standing there, I was able to allow my rather devious smirk to come out, without worrying he might insist we stay in some more. "It definitely was."

"It's a school night, young lady," she scolded, though she was laughing too hard to make it believable.

I snorted. "Yeah, well, I had to get away from Elena's bad choices for a night, make some selfish choices of my own."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What's Elena doing?"

"Trying to do," I corrected, and I took a deep breath of my own. "She wanted Damon to compel Jeremy to leave town for a while, until the whole Klaus thing blows over. I told her that wasn't right, that she shouldn't have the power to take his choices away like that, but she didn't care. She had Damon do it anyways, and you know he'll do whatever she tells him to."

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, her voice rising a whole volume level as the anger built up inside of her. "Why would she even do that? There is no safe place for any of us right now! The safest place he can be is here, where I can protect him!"

"Yeah, I agree," I assured her. "I made sure he keeps vervain in his system, at least until I can get his bracelet back from Klaus." I noticed Kol coming into the bathroom now, leaning against the doorway with a half smirk hanging on his lips. He was fully dressed now, looking rather dapper in the slim fitted jeans and hunter green button-up he wore. Everything he wore clung to parts of him so well that it was hard not to think about what was underneath. "I'm gonna put some vervain in the whiskey underneath his bed when I get home today."

"I can't believe she would do that again, after what happened the first time," she said, and she scoffed. "Why does she get to make that decision?"

"She's trying to protect him," I admitted. "I know it's not right, and I know he's better off here, but in the end, all she wants to do is protect him."

"I guess so," she allowed. "You know, I always forget that when I'm in a bad mood and just want to rant about something, you're the worst person to talk to."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"You're too understanding!" she exclaimed, and she began to laugh, despite the anger I'm sure she still felt. "Sometimes, I just wanna be mad for a bit and then get over it, but you always see both sides."

"Oh." I turned away from the mirror just in time to have Kol's arms snake around my waist, his lips moving down to my neck again. I struggled to not make a sound while he crushed my body into his. "So how are you gonna get it open?"

"I need to find my mom," she said. "I saw this picture in my dream, and it took me a bit of thinking this morning to realize what that picture was—it was a picture of my mom and me before she left town."

"Your . . . oh my gosh." I pushed Kol back away from me a bit, which was easier to do since he had been listening to our conversation. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But I was gonna ask Elena to come with me, if that didn't upset you too much."

"No, I get that completely." The fact that Bonnie wanted to ask Elena over me was actually touching, as she knew that I didn't do well for these kinds of encounters. When Elena and I went to go meet Trudie, to try and learn more about Isobel, I was uncomfortable the entire time. Elena had to actually force me to come because I didn't want to go. I just wanted to call it a dead end and leave it alone. "I appreciate it."

The sound of knocking on the door of the hotel room got us both on high alert, pulling me so far away from the conversation I was having with Bonnie that I didn't even hear what she said back to me.

It wouldn't have been so concerning if Kol didn't look troubled, holding one hand back towards me to keep me in the bathroom while he disappeared off to the door, presumably to open it.

"I gotta go," I whispered, but I didn't wait for her to ask what was going on. She would, would probably find a way to come over and make sure I was okay even, but she didn't know Kol was a vampire. All she knew was that he was my boyfriend, so if she found him living in a hotel room, alone, she was sure to have questions.

Maybe she could know, right? Bonnie wouldn't tell anyone, and it wasn't like she could be compelled by Klaus either.

Then again, Klaus doesn't have to be able to compel someone to find out what he wants to know. He'll use violence if necessary.

There was no way I could've known what I would be stepping out of the bathroom to, but I stepped out just in time to see Kol's hand go through a man's chest that I didn't recognize, ripping his heart out before there was any chance for the man to get away.

His body fell to the ground beside Kol, who didn't stop to check on me. With the hand not holding the heart, he pulled the body into the hotel room, making a longer trail of blood than there already was, and closing the door the second the man's booted feet cleared the range of the door.

The expression on his face was hard to read, very stiff with his jaw locked tight, but it didn't look pleasant, not like the face I had seen all morning. Usually, when we were here, there was nothing but smiles and euphoric bliss, but this wasn't that at all.

"Kol—"

"One of Nik's bloody hybrids," he snapped, but he was across the room before I could blink, dropping the heart into a trash bag on the other end of the room. "I've got a lot to clean up here, darling. You may have to go without me."

My eyebrows rose. "Go without you? You mean drive your car?"

He sighed. "That won't work. You have the sheriff's number, right? Call her for me, explain to her what happened."

The idea of calling Caroline's mom and telling her that my vampire boyfriend had just killed a hybrid, when her daughter didn't actually know he was a vampire, was horrifying, but I didn't see another way around this.

Though I pulled my phone out and began searching through my contacts for Liz's number, my eyebrows furrowed. "Can't you just compel the cleaning lady to ignore the blood?"

"Mystic Falls is full of people on vervain," he said. "Even if they don't know it. I believe your friend Matt is putting it in people's drinks at the Grill. Anyone could be on vervain, and that's not a risk I can take right now."

I nodded and pulled her number up to dial. Kol, while I was on the phone, stepped past me and into the bathroom, where the water in the sink began running almost immediately.

"Darcy?" the normally soothing voice of Sheriff Forbes said on the other end of the line, voice clouded with concern. "Is everything alright?"

"Are you at home?" I asked.

"I just left," she said. "Why?"

I sighed. "Look, I don't know what Caroline has informed you of lately, but . . . I recently got a boyfriend."

"She mentioned him, yes," she said, and she let out a breath of a laugh. "Though I haven't been able to find much information on him. She asked me to do a background check."

My eyes widened. "Yeah . . . you're not gonna find much."

"Uh oh."

I took a deep breath. "I promise I'm gonna tell Caroline that he's a vampire, but please, Sheriff, let me tell her, okay? I don't want her to think that we can't trust him because we can. The only reason I'm telling you this is because we have a bit of an issue."

"An issue?" she asked. "Just tell me what's going on, Darcy. I promise I won't tell Caroline that your boyfriend is a vampire, but I would like to talk to him."

The muscles of my face twisted into a grimace. "I'll talk to him about that. Okay, so, long story short, I stayed with him at his hotel room. I know, Mom ears, don't wanna know, but we're at the Holiday Inn, one of the top floor suites, and one of Klaus' hybrids showed up looking for me. Kol had to kill him, so now there's a dead body and blood all over the floor. Matt has been putting vervain in people's drinks at the Grill, which is great . . . except for when someone needs to dispose of the body of a vampire."

She let out a long sigh. "I'll send some guys over. I'm on my way. You get to school. Have him go ahead and check out of the room. We'll figure out how to cover it up, but he won't be able to come back to that room in particular."

"Not a problem." My eyes drifted up to the bathroom door, where I saw Kol leaning against the doorframe, blood free. "Thank you, Sheriff."

"Just be careful, Darcy, please," she said. "I know that vampires aren't the monsters I once believed, but these days . . . please just make sure you know what you're doing."

"I do," I assured her, and seeing the corners of Kol's lips twitch, as if they might curl into a smirk, annoyed me for once. "I'll be fine, promise."

Getting everything gathered up was easy after that. When your boyfriend is a vampire, it takes him about fifteen seconds to do what might take a human five to ten minutes. The room was empty of all personal items, though the body and blood remained on the floor. The sheriff didn't live far from here, so by the time we got downstairs and checked out, she was there, asking to speak with the manager. Kol made sure to keep his head down, avoid her gaze, and she was confused about that. I, however, understood completely and mouthed, "Klaus knows him." That was all the explanation she needed, as she knew that this wasn't going to make Klaus happy. If he asked who was responsible, she didn't need to know.

But she knew his name.

We slipped out after that, making it to school just in time. I was kind of glad I had an entire class period with just Kol and me, none of my friends or sister, because it gave me a chance to calm down after the crazy morning I had had. I could take a deep breath and just enjoy the fact that everything was taken care of.

Between the first and second class of the day, I took my phone out and sent Damon a text, to let him know what had happened.

The good news is that Klaus is down another hybrid. The bad news is that he found me at Kol's place, which means they're following us everywhere.

Sounds like nothing but good news to me. Maybe now you'll stop going out and sleeping with him while there's a maniac out there threatening your sister's life.

Kol noticed how pissed off I was by what Damon had said, and he seemed ready to kill, but I reminded him that Damon was my friend. It would really upset me if he did anything to hurt him, so he left it at that.

Elena didn't even look at me during the classes we had together, though Caroline and Bonnie were extra obnoxious about Kol and me. It helped lighten the mood, as Kol definitely preferred thinking about our night last night over the morning we had this morning.

Well, he wasn't the only one.

After school, things took another turn for the worse, life's pesky reminder that nothing good could ever last in my life.

I barely managed to notice Klaus standing outside of the school building before Kol stepped out as well, and I pushed him back in so quickly that he stumbled back a bit, falling into the lockers behind him with his eyes wide.

"D—"

I put my fingers over his mouth and shook my head, allowing my own eyes to widen. "He's outside."

He grabbed onto my face and placed a soft kiss onto my lips, though it was over in a brief second. It made sense for him to hurry and get out of dodge, as far away from this situation as he could get, but that didn't mean I enjoyed the shortness of the kiss.

Still, it was necessary, and with a deep sigh, I turned and went outside to face the music of all that had happened.

Klaus now had two hybrids dead, and he was sure to want some answers. From the darkness in his eyes, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly what it was that he wanted.

"Where were you last night?" he asked, wasting no time as I got close enough to him to reach out and touch him, though I kept him at arm's length.

My eyebrows furrowed. "Um, I may be your living, breathing blood bag, but you don't control my life. Didn't you say you were gonna let us live our lives however we may choose?"

"Yes, well, that was before you decided to share your midnight trysts with someone who killed not one but two of my hybrids," he snapped, and while his words were hostile, his lips were twisted up into a pleasant smile. "I'll need blood to make up for that, and someone's heart."

"That's not gonna happen," I said. "I'll give you blood if it shuts you up, but you're not gonna know who it was."

He shrugged. "Fine. I'll have my hybrids follow you everywhere you go."

"Don't worry," I smirked. "They'll just have their hearts ripped from their chests, and don't you have them following me anyways? How is that new?"

"Just because you're a witch doesn't mean my hybrids can't overpower you," he said, ignoring my questions for the moment as the smile fell off of his face, making room for his lips to curl into a snarl.

I nodded. "You're right, but seeing as how I have a guardian angel who has killed not one but two of your hybrids, pretty sure I'll win."

The corners of his dark eyes tightened, his smile starting to form again. "Fine. Seems I'll have to follow you everywhere you go. I'd like to see your friend rip my heart from my chest." He stood up from the table and gestured with nothing more than his hand for me to follow, and at this point, I had learned that there was only two options when it came to Klaus: do what he said, or someone died.

Even if he didn't kill everyone I loved, he was going to kill someone, and that was enough to get me following behind him obediently.

He's taking me with him.

That was all I got to get into a text to send to Kol before Klaus stopped abruptly and turned back towards me, holding his hand out in my direction while his eyes narrowed.

"The phone, please."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on. You've already broken two of these now. Can't you cut my phone a break?"

He didn't say anything, only raised his eyebrows, and with another roll of my eyes, I handed it over to him.

To my extreme dismay, he didn't just throw it on the ground or put it in his pocket. He actually began scrolling through it, probably looking for whatever he could find on the mystery person who had killed two of his hybrids.

At least I had changed Kol's name to something cheesy and generic, something that didn't give away who he was other than Boo 3. We had both laughed about the other night as he watched me change it, but with everything happening, there didn't need to be traces of who he was left anywhere, not until we had a way to put Klaus down.

A smirk formed on Klaus' lips as I'm sure he found Kol's contact, though he wouldn't recognize the number as Kol was still in a box as far as he knew. "Why don't we call this Boo and tell him to show himself, hmm?"

My heart stopped inside my chest, the very idea of Kol answering the phone and saying something, anything, terrifying me beyond words. Klaus would recognize his voice, even if it had been over a century and he thought he was in a coffin still. If Kol said anything, it was all over.

The smirk on Klaus' face fell, and my eyes closed. I didn't want to see the anger unfold, as hearing it would be more than enough. Whereas my heart had stopped beating before, it was absolutely pounding in my chest, beating against my ribcage with the force of a hundred vampires.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything? I have your girlfriend, after all."

That knocked the breath right out of me, the surprise and relief pushing out the fear so quickly that I couldn't swallow.

My eyes opened in time to see the darkness that had twisted over Klaus' face, see the way that his eyes narrowed, and I couldn't help the smile that spread onto my lips, though it felt more like a smirk in the face of this small victory.

He had gotten my text first. He knew that it was Klaus.

"Since you're too much of a coward to speak to me, let's see how you respond to this. You have until midnight tonight to come to my house and show yourself, or I will drain every last bit of blood from your beloved until her heart no longer has the strength to beat out another drop."

Klaus hung up after saying that, throwing the phone onto the sidewalk and shattering it into a lot of tiny pieces as he turned away from me and continued on, off towards a familiar looking black SUV sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

Uh oh.

A/N: Sorry guys! I've been super busy packing, and my son got the stomach bug! It's been a busy couple days, so I'm posting two more chapters before I leave for vacation in the morning. I was hoping to have more put up before I left, but life happens and all.

The lyrics at the beginning are from the song We Own the Night by Hollywood Undead.

Read, review, and enjoy. :) Have a good few days while I'm away!