It was so unexpected that Caroline was taken aback. The blonde stood, unable to utter a word and looked at the unexpected guest. And he... he just stood in the doorway and looked quizzically at the shocked lady of the house from under the brow. Only his arrogant, self-satisfied smirk finally brought the girl from her stupor. Caroline furiously slammed the door in the man's face.
Leaning her back against the wooden surface, she closed her eyes. Blood pounded in her temples, and Caroline felt as if she was drained. Her legs just gave way from sudden wave of fatigue. She just got the proof that she was the subject of Klaus's harassment. She felt that she was about to snap – the tears were already rolling down her cheeks. And only awareness of the pleasure she would give the hybrid doing it stopped her.
"You'll have to talk to me at some point." Suddenly she heard a mocking drawling voice coming from behind the closed door. "And you'd better not make me beg for it, love."
At first Caroline thought that she must have misheard him, but quickly realized that unfortunately she hasn't. The frightening Original was still at the door, and it was a truly dreadful discovery. The girl's nerves snapped and she covered her face with her hands, slowly sliding down the door to the floor, crying.
...
Now Caroline alone went to her car, parked a little way from the main entrance of the Lockwood mansion. The girl felt like a prematurely released paranoiac – every rustle made her look around frightened, internally preparing for the worst. Once again, she almost screamed when an owl hooted somewhere in the dark. The blonde finally groped happily at the door handle of the car. Caroline has already pulled it when suddenly saw something lying on the hood.
The girl's insides turned cold when she took a step forward to take a closer look on the part of her vehicle which wasn't lit by the lanterns covering the driveway to the mayor's house. The girl somehow already knew what she would see, but still continued moving slowly forward. Only when the dead swan carefully displayed in front of her on the hood, Caroline finally stopped. Frozen in shock for a moment, she looked at the once beautiful and majestic creature. Someone broke its neck, and the vampire knew for sure who. She knew only one person who was able to turn the neck of the beautiful bird so cruelly, but still be occupied with the victim, as to more effectively arrange it out on the hood. "A true artist." She thought with dark humour, and unexpectedly remembered the words of Tyler about his creator enjoying painting.
Caroline stood, unable to move. She just couldn't bring herself to remove the bird. Couldn't decide what to do with its remains.
Suddenly she heard a rustling and turned anxiously at the quiet sound. The blonde immediately saw him. Klaus was standing under a street lamp and looked at her, as if waiting for the girl's reaction upon his appearance. Or... Waiting for the reaction to the new "gift." Caroline felt nauseous. The Original reminded her of a spoiled child boasting of his antics in front of peers. Except that the "tricks" were too cruel, and the "child" was a real maniac.
"What do you want from me?!" She cried in despair, feeling that she's no longer able to play his game. "You think this is funny?"
Klaus just looked at her mockingly. Caroline so wanted at least to seem brave, but his eyes were so full of confidence in his own impunity that she already regretted talking to the hybrid. The girl hesitantly looked back at the swan. "The same beauty... and fragility." She seemed to hear again the words of the Original spoken at Thanksgiving. A terrible suspicion flashed in Caroline's head and she spun around to face Klaus. Horror gripped her heart as the man's face began to take his vampire guise. None of the vampires she had seen had such frightening face.
"I really find it quite amusing." Answered her hybrid and smiled, exposing his strong fangs.
Only when she saw them, the blonde turned and ran with all haste to the house. Caroline instinctively felt the Original behind her, but didn't look back once. Reaching the wide double doors, the girl banged on them with her fists, almost splitting them in pieces.
"Tyler! Tyler!" She cried in despair, and when the guy finally opened the door, she literally collapsed into his arms.
Lockwood looked puzzled at his girlfriend clinging to him in fright. Caroline squeezed him so that Tyler became really concerned about his ribs staying intact.
"What happened?" He asked surprised and worried, looking warily around the yard and not finding the slightest reason for this strange behaviour of his girl.
The blonde lifted her tear-stained face.
"Klaus." With anguish in her voice she said. "He was there... He... He killed a swan and left it on the hood..."
The guy looked at her in bewilderment. His eyes flashed doubt and it made Caroline grab Lockwood by the hand and literally drag him to the side of the car. Tyler had no choice but to follow her.
"Now you'll see everything yourself!" The vampire exclaimed angrily, but when they got to the car near enough stopped dead, staring at it with surprise.
There was not a trace of the dead bird on the hood. Tyler meanwhile put his hands around her shoulders, obviously trying to comfort her.
"Caroline, it's not even funny." He said with a touch of irony in his voice. "Like Klaus hasn't anything better to do than to abandon swans carcasses on your car."
Surprisingly, his words didn't hurt Caroline. The girl had ceased to understand anything at all. Everything that happened to her in the last few days seemed as some nightmarish, bizarre dream. She just couldn't wake up.
Suddenly the light of powerful headlights of a jeep drove up to the house, illuminating them. Tyler instinctively lifted his hand to block the light, so that he was not completely blinded. Caroline chose to bury her face in his chest.
"Who the hell would roll up at this time?" Lockwood muttered irritably, hugging her tighter.
"Tyler my boy, long after midnight, and you still cannot let Caroline go home." Came Klaus' drawling voice, and the blonde squeezed Tyler's thin sweater with such force that she left holes from her nails. "What will Sheriff Forbes think of her beautiful daughter?"
Caroline felt rage filling her. This conceited prick could chase her all he wanted, but mentioning her mother was too much. These words seemed to her as a threat suggesting it was not only Caroline who may suffer. The vampire turned to the Original, still hugging Tyler's waist. It was the first time she wanted to kill someone so badly. But, unfortunately, Caroline's stare full of rage couldn't cause him any real harm. He just stood there, surrounded by three hybrids and looked mockingly at the couple.
"Klaus, I think, Caroline is a big girl and she has the right to decide what time to go home." Tyler said with irritation, clearly uncomfortable and confused at the tense atmosphere literally hanging in the air. "I can ask you the same thing. What are you doing coming here in the middle of the night?"
The Original smiled lazily, leaning against the hood of a jeep and thrusting his hands into the pockets of the coat.
"Quite a big girl," He said slowly, as if tasting each word. "We were coming back from the city and decided to visit you, my friend. Do you have a problem with that?"
Caroline looked expectantly at her boyfriend, feeling his internal hesitation. She wanted to send Tyler, Klaus and his whole gang to hell, but she knew this dream of hers most likely wasn't going to come true. While Klaus's first hybrid had an idea about the nature of the Original, due to their connection he was still drawn to him nevertheless. And the man was brazenly using it. When Tyler reluctantly invited the company to the house, Klaus's eyes flashed such superiority that the blonde wanted to immediately pierce him with a stake.
Men went to the house and Tyler was about to follow them but Caroline, disengaging from his arms shook her head.
"I think I'd better leave." She said irritably.
"Care, please." The guy grabbed her arm, trying to hold it.
She smiled grimly and shook her head again.
"You amaze me, Tyler," she whispered. "After everything that happened here today, you invite him to the house. Him!"
Tyler looked a little lost. He looked around and seeing that the men disappeared in the mansion, said:
"But you saw, they've just arrived. Klaus couldn't..."
Caroline shrugged his hand and took a step back. Then another and another. She just spread her arms, as if wondering what else she could talk to him about.
"Klaus. Klaus. Klaus." She mimicked his voice annoyed. "Don't you realize how much you're admiring that heartless bastard?"
Surprisingly, Caroline wasn't worried that the Original could hear her. A strange apathy has gripped the girl. A slight disappointment in Tyler's behaviour, the shock from the dead bird and experienced panic definitely affected her state of mind. She literally collapsed into the driver's seat, slammed the car door and starting the engine, pressed the gas pedal into the floor. She was driving at a crazy speed, as if it could help her escape from Klaus and all the problems associated with him.
Caroline was too busy with her grim thoughts to see a man coming out from the darkness on the rain-stained road at the last moment. Frantically twisting the steering wheel, she tried to avoid collision, and she almost got it but the car flew into a pothole, started to roll to the side. A moment later breaking through the fence, the car turned over on the roof and flew into a deep ditch. Even though Caroline was fastened, had she still been a human it was unlikely she could have been able to survive the crash. Judging by the awful pain in her chest, the ribs were broken and at the last turn she could have sworn she heard the crunch of her cervical vertebrae.