Fairytale Ending
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: Klaus takes his girl and his hybrid and gets out of that one pony town.
Spoilers: Through 3x05, The Reckoning
Rating: R
Warnings: Discussion/Implication of Non-Con/Hostage situation/explicit violence/gratuitous angst/extremely dubious consent/potential character death
No sooner does Celeste make her dire pronouncement than Klaus launches himself at her, his arm poised to strike in a heart-rending motion Elena has seen from him too many times to count. His fingers, bent into lethal claws, graze the witch's chest just as Celeste holds the bloodstone aloft. Magic swarms from the stone into her hands—Elena can feel it, the sensation like needles crawling over her skin— and erupts through the room with a rolling boom like a mountain collapsing in on itself.
The might of Celeste's spellwork hurls Klaus clear across the room, where the force of his impact cracks the wall.
Time distends.
Elena stares at Klaus, her entire being riveted to his too still body, twisted and discarded on the floor. His eyes are open, but blank, empty.
For a frenzied, unthinking moment, she thinks he might be dead—except, her mind refuses to accept what her eyes are telling her.
Everything about this is wrong. Impossible. This is Klaus. Her gravest nightmare—the beginning and the end of all of her inmost secret fears—the wellspring of her terrible desires. Immortal and everlasting. A dread fact. An inevitability.
Her fated one.
He cannot be lying crumpled on the floor.
(He is.)
A cavern opens inside her body, deep and yawning. Terrifying in how long and steep the drop promises to be. She balances on the knife's edge of falling in.
"Klaus!" His name tears from her throat, ragged, almost unrecognizable in its raw anguish. She feels like a stranger in her own body, distilled down to pure feeling.
She's throwing herself towards him before she can process what she's doing.
Marcel snaps her up before she makes it five steps. He whisks her to the other side of the room before she even has a chance to comprehend what's happened, let alone to put up a struggle. They hurtle right past Celeste, still hunched and breathing harshly over the stone, only for them to be rebounded back by a barrier at the door, invisible and yet implacable. They're blown back in a percussive blast, landing on the opposite end of the room from where Klaus had gone down.
Improbably, Elena recovers first, using the momentum of their fall to twist out of Marcel's stunned hold. Her legs feel like jelly and her vision pulses black to white with every breath she takes. Her breath saws in her ears. Marcel reaches feebly for her, but he's too slow. It's only once she's regained her feet that she realizes that there's something wrong with him—that, in addition to pushing him back, Celeste's spell has done something awful to him. Blood beads through the pores on his face, and, when he opens his mouth, his teeth are stained red with it. It's like he's been ripped apart inside, probably unable to heal without human blood to kickstart his system. No doubt made even worse by the werewolf venom slowly poisoning him.
She stumbles away without helping him.
She has to get to Klaus. She can't think past that need.
Klaus had gone down, just like Marcel, when Celeste had thrown him back. What would it take, to keep an Original down?
Everything inside of her is roiling as she picks her way over to him.
Mere seconds have passed since Klaus charged the witch.
Her head swims from processing the pace of the action, her human brain incapable of keeping up much longer with what her senses are feeding it.
No matter how she tries, she can't hold tonight's events clearly in her mind—it's too much, too fast, and her heart tears her in two different directions. She wants to escape, to forge her path to freedom, but she doesn't want to do it for any price. Not anymore.
That head-tumbling lag in comprehension must be how it happens. How she doesn't notice until it's too late—
Between one instant and the next, Klaus shakes himself out of his stupor and leaps back onto his feet, a deeply menacing snarl exposing his razored fangs.
Relief slices through her.
It's only when she feels the biting grip around her elbow that she realizes what Klaus is snarling at.
Elena turns to find Celeste firmly clamped down on her arm, her spine straight and shoulders thrown back, lightly fingering a spot on her breast brightened by slick red droplets of blood.
Elena thrashes against her hold, but Celeste freezes her in place with a flick of her fingers. The only thing she can move are her eyes. She hates when witches do this to her. (Which, lately, seems to be all the time.)
Instantly, Klaus makes another run at Celeste, his hand outstretched—whether to break Celeste's neck or tear her out of the witch's hold, Elena cannot say.
Hope flutters in her chest. No one is faster than Klaus—
Whatever barrier Celeste threw up when Klaus charged her the first time must have held, because he slams full force into something and, once again, gets battered back. Again, the sound of thunder cracks through the room on impact. This time, though, Klaus seems ready for it. He rolls back onto his feet an instant later. Smoke rises from his arm where he came into direct contact with the spell, but he doesn't pay it any mind.
"You're touching something that doesn't belong to you," Klaus warns. "Drop her now and I'll let you keep the arm."
Despite the circumstances, annoyance flashes through Elena at his possessive tone, clashing against her fervent desire for Celeste to listen to him and let her go.
"I'm afraid you have no bargaining power here," Celeste replies, voice thick with satisfaction, the first emotion she's shown other than cool unconcern.
"You know," Klaus says, as though he's just thought of it, "I think I do recall something of you—you were that insufferably haughty witch my brother took up with, oh, nearly two centuries ago, were you not?" Here, his voice drips into a familiar, falsely light register. It is, frankly, as infuriating to hear him use it on her enemy as it is to hear him use it on her. Another effect of that tone is the same: It still sends a menaced chill up her spine. "He was quite peevish with me for some little time after your death," Klaus continues, "but he got over it quickly enough. Tell me, now—is that what this is about? Revenge for shuffling you off the mortal coil?"
A detail snags her attention. Two centuries ago. Not just a body swapping spell, then, like the one Klaus had used on Alaric last year, but more of an actual spiritual possession. Because of course.
"Do you think I've spent all these long and lonely centuries harboring some secret vendetta against you and your family?" Celeste shoots back. She laughs, the sound of it in Sophie's mouth warped like an old record. "Well. I must admit, the opportunity to take from you an ounce of what you took from me has its appeal." She brushes her fingers over Elena's face, and Elena cannot help but try to pull away from her.
Klaus seethes. "The girl has nothing to do with this. Let her go."
Celeste palpably relishes the opportunity to railroad over Klaus's protests. "But you're wrong. I have my sights set on returning this coven to its former glory, and with the doppelganger in my possession, I have the power to do just that."
Elena's heart stumbles in her chest. The sacrifice.
Her hand skims down Elena's abdomen. "I've been warned about your claws," she tells her as she draws aside the edge of her jacket to search inside of it. She pulls out the knife Marcel had given her, its blade a gleaming silver sickle in the room's erratically flickering light. Celeste holds the blade up to examine it more closely. "Just as I'd hoped," Celeste murmurs. She smiles at Elena. "How simple you've made this for me, bringing me a blade, and delivering yourself into my hands."
Celeste is going to spill her blood for whatever temporary power boost it'll give the coven right here, right now.
Elena tries to buck her grip, but the invisible shackles keep her effortlessly locked in place. Her eyes burn with frustration. When Celeste holds the blade to her throat, a scream builds inside of her and, unable to escape her lungs, nearly smothers her. All she can feel is the sharp edge of cold metal biting into her. Her pulse pounds in her throat, beating against the blade so hard that she expects the metal to tear into her with each strike.
She locks eyes with Klaus across the room. For a moment, she can see a glimmer in him of what she might call fear were it on anyone else's face.
He looks away first. Whatever she thinks she saw, it's gone by the time he speaks, subsumed under the icy layers of indifference in which Klaus so carefully drapes himself. "Do you truly plan to slit her throat right here? Lovely bluff. Afraid I'll have to call it. I know a proper sacrifice requires a touch more preparation than this." With every word, he edges closer to the invisible divide between them. "You'll have to drop the barrier eventually. Hand me the girl now, and I may let you leave the room alive."
Celeste smiles, and wraps her hands around the delicate bones hanging around her neck—what Elena realizes are probably her own bones. The bones of the witch Klaus had sent the hybrids after to such disastrous effect. "You've always underestimated me," Celeste says. "I already have everything I need to bless and bind this blade to spill this girl's blood in the name of my coven."
"Actually, I've not thought of you at all," Klaus cannot help but correct her.
"Your mistake, Vampire."
The building shudders, then, reminding them all that there are still witches battling elsewhere in the house.
In the corner of the room, Marcel groans and makes an abortive attempt to sit up.
And Celeste raises the bloodstone to her lips and whispers her magic into it.
The bloodstone gathers the light, like a dim red star collapsing in on itself. Looking at it makes Elena feel strange, like there are ants marching under her skin. (Had the moonstone behaved like this? She can't recall. She had been distracted at the time.) Her breaths come in shallow pants. The veins in her arms and along the sides of her neck burn, until she's frantic to scratch at them. The more she stares into the stone, the more offputting that faint red glow becomes, insistently twisting and coiling in on itself, as though it were alive.
Klaus's eyes cut back to the stone. "What is that?" he asks, repeating his question from earlier. Like he cannot help but to ask, to be diverted by the eerie aura of hypnotic wrongness emanating from the stone.
Even through her mounting distress, Elena feels her stomach sink at Klaus's question. Of course even her impending doom is not enough to sidetrack him from picking up on the threads of her betrayal.
She really wishes that Klaus had succeeded in tearing Celeste's heart out before he'd had time to notice.
She doesn't want this to be Klaus's last memory of her.
Celeste holds the stone aloft, unfurling her fingers to roll it gently in her palm. It makes Elena feel ill, like she is the one rolling in that hand, like it's become impossible to parse what is herself and what is that dark artifact. They are both prisoners in Celeste's hands.
No.
She takes a deep breath.
No.
Celeste might hold that stone, but that stone has only one true master. And, once she takes another breath, and another, and steadies herself, she can think clearly enough to tell the difference between herself and the stone, enough to know that that stone is only an extension of herself. Of her will. Of what power she might have inside herself— latent and unusable by her own means alone, but hers nonetheless. She rules it, not the other way around.
While there is a part of herself that strains for a way out, that will take any opportunity for escape because she refuses to submit to this bloodletting under any circumstances, there is another part of herself that recognizes when death is at hand. And she won't do anything less than meet it with her head held high.
She squashes her physical unease down.
"It's a true bloodstone," Celeste says. "And powerful, despite its size. Rare was the blood used to bind this. Pretty little thing," she sighs, and the way she says it, gaze split between Elena and the stone in her hand, she could mean either or both of them. It's impossible to miss the connection.
She can feel the crushing weight of Klaus's full attention on her. Like he could peel back her skin and break past her bones to see what lies underneath it all, to the kernel of truth hidden beneath all the layers of her deceptions. Like he is remembering that the flesh she wears is a chimera's skin.
She sees the understanding written in every line of him. He knows it was her blood that made the stone.
The urge to defend herself right then and there rises up inside of her, but the words remain firmly sealed inside her locked body.
Whatever opportunity she might have had to justify her actions passes swiftly. He shifts his focus back to Celeste, turning away from her, before she can fully interpret the complicated expression on his face.
Klaus's eyes narrow thoughtfully as he regards Celeste. "A bloodstone," he repeats, the word on his lips heavy and ominous to Elena's ears. "And what, pray tell, does a bloodstone do?"
Under the fear and regret gripping her insides in an icy vice, she's still so furious and frustrated that this is what Klaus chooses to focus upon right now, when there is a knife against her throat and her ignominious death by this witch's hands is imminent. She knows Klaus and she knows that once he becomes convinced of some conspiracy afoot, he cannot let it go, ever, and even though she knows that he's right about this one, that there is a conspiracy afoot because it's her conspiracy, or at least one that she's played the vital role in executing, she wishes—she wishes—she wishes that he would put that aside, and try harder to save her. That he would come through for her. Instead, as always, he cannot help but pursue his own road. (It's one of the many, many reasons she is even here tonight at all, she reminds herself. To stop Klaus from getting what he wants at everyone else's expense.)
(She had hoped, that maybe just this once, she could get what she wanted, too.)
Unbelievably, Celeste actually takes the time to answer him. "Whatever its maker intended, I cannot imagine it would be possible with a stone so small as this." The light of the stone reflected in her eyes swallows her irises completely. "It takes a lot to disrupt the laws of the universe, one way or the other. But this stone still has power."
Something about Celeste's description of the stone pulls at her thoughts, but she can't say what. Elena knows that she should be paying more attention to what Celeste has to say, but she finds it very difficult to focus while half the instincts in her body blares at her to escape at any cost. While every other instinct pushes her to throw herself into Klaus's arms, to explain herself, to tell him everything like she almost did last night, and damn the consequences.
Klaus prowls around the room as Celeste talks, head cocked to the side while he listens, circling them like a predator. "And what," he scoffs, "you've been channeling whatever power this stone has to amplify your spells? Surely that's not a long term solution. Every source has its limit."
Celeste responds, somehow, but Elena doesn't hear what she says, because she realizes two things at that exact moment. First, that she hasn't felt any new threads of magic scorching through her body for several moments now. Second, that Klaus has been edging infinitesimally closer to them with every word.
And it occurs to Elena that she has misjudged him in one thing. He hasn't been merely pursuing his own answers at her expense at all—no, he's been distracting Celeste, questioning her and challenging her methods while he marks the circumference of her barrier spell, and—just maybe—buys himself an opportunity to pull her out.
She had been a fool to ever doubt him. Klaus would never surrender her to death. Not by someone else's hands.
Celeste must have a similar thought, though, because it is just then that she murmurs to the stone again. Her arms coil around Elena's shoulders to the point of pain, and her eyes turn white and opaque as milk before rolling back in her head. She snaps the necklace of bone from around her neck and crushes it into powder, sprinkling it over the ground in strange patterns as she spools out her spellwork.
Elena can't make out what Celeste is saying, exactly, only the feel of it. Her words undulate through the air like a charged current, somehow heavy and rolling. Elena trembles, wishing she could move, duck, throw herself out of the way, anything, but she cannot. Trapped, she absorbs the devastating weight of the magic, feels it pound into her, searing through her flesh and bones, the worst of it focused where Celeste's knife slices a fine line along her throat. A bolt of incandescent heat spears through her, impossibly hot and bright, and stars burst in her field of vision. The feeling builds and builds, a violent boiling inside of her that she realizes might actually be her blood, on fire from within. She wants to fall to her knees, to curl up, to die, but Celeste's spell holds her upright. When her eyes clear enough to see again, everything oozes in and out of focus.
Her ears ring with the sound of someone screaming, a high, keening wail that she belatedly realizes is her own, ripped out from her frozen, burning throat, torn from her clamped jaw and sealed lips.
Celeste steadies the knife against her throat, angling the edge in the spot just under her ear. She can feel the edge of it, the pressure of the knife slicing into her like the blade is charmed to her skin. Like it wants to cut her open. A thin trail of blood spatters against the blade, causing the knife to shimmer briefly.
She passes a summit in her agony. The erupting nerve endings in her body spark and sputter, until she cannot feel anything at all, just a total numbness that feels like stepping out of time and sense.
A diving abyss yawns before her.
Klaus screams when the knife touches her, a primal, furious war cry that rebounds throughout the room as he throws himself at the barrier. The barrier shoves him back but Klaus fights it, bracing himself against the magic buffeting him, heedless of the way the spell crackles like raw lightning as he heaves his way forward. The exposed skin on his face and hands blisters and cracks, his hair singing in the turbulence of the magic stretched taut beneath his unnatural advance. Klaus ignores all of it. All of his attention, all of his focus, all of that otherwordly, heavy regard, pinpoints on her.
In her terror, she cannot look away from him.
Celeste continues chanting in her ear, the words archaic and oppressive. Dark magic. For all the attention she pays him, Klaus may as well not even be in the room, let alone howling at her door.
The strain of Celeste's spell, channeled through the bloodstone, must be tremendous. But Klaus is not an ordinary vampire. He's unnatural, unconstrained by the same laws as others. If he wills to reach her powerfully enough, he will.
Her blood is the key to the lock inside of him.
He is unlocked.
For the first time, witnessing him barrel through the tempest blast of Celeste's magic through sheer force of will, she understands what that truly means.
Klaus reaches for her.
Celeste angles the knife and sweeps it slowly down the side of her jaw. Blood pours out onto the floor. The ground up bone dust around their feet gushes up in flame when her blood spatters over it.
She stares at Klaus through the curtain of rising fire as her blood feeds Celeste's spell. It's like she's stepped through the looking glass, into an unnatural inversion of what he had put her through a year ago—unnatural, because while that last time had felt like fate, like completion, this feels like a failure. A cosmic misstep.
Something impacts with Celeste hard, rattling Elena. The blade slips, carving a jagged, excruciating line down her throat.
The flames licking at her feet gutter and die.
Feeling floods back into her limbs, followed immediately by a fierce trembling in her legs. Instinctively, she clamps her fingers over the throbbing wound on her neck. Hot, slippery blood seeps out between her fingers.
Klaus leaps for her. This time, he is not so much rebounded back as pitched by a hurricane gale. Immediately he tries to rise, but unseen hands shackle him to the floor. He fights it, teeth grit, eyes glimmering with unholy promise, but he cannot rise further than to his knees. No threats or gruesome promises spill from his lips—only a low, thunderous growl that Elena can feel resonating in her chest.
Wary of what she'll find, Elena turns to find Davina standing over Celeste.
Grim triumph shines from Davina's face.
Beneath her hand lies the eight pointed star, jammed brutally into Celeste's shoulder. The device for controlling a witch—successfully activated and deployed, judging from the way Celeste has deflated under Davina's grip. A thin line of blood runs from Davina's hand, dripping onto her shoes. Apparently how Davina had activated the device in the first place.
"Looks like I made it just in time," the younger girl says, her light tone belying the enormity of their situation. Myriad cuts and bruises bloom on the exposed skin of her face and arms, some of them still oozing thin trails of blood. There's a scorch mark on her jacket and her hair floats around her face like she's been shocked with a live cable. "You okay?"
"Never better," she croaks. Carefully, Elena readjusts the pressure on her neck as she considers her options. Either she's going to need vampire blood or she's going to need stitches, but her unfortunately extensive experience with neck trauma tells her that she's not in danger of bleeding out so long as she keeps pressure on the wound.
She can feel Klaus watching her. He's gone dead silent, a sure indicator that things are a hair's breadth from going irrevocably sideways. Everything she says right now will have repercussions.
She pushes those worries out of the way. Right now, she has to prioritize.
Elena studies Celeste. She stands slumped over like a puppet whose strings have been cut, but beneath that slack facial expression, cold fury sparks in her eyes. She's not just an animal caught in a trap, the way Elena had been. She's been totally sapped of her ability to control her own body.
Surprisingly, no niggling sense of guilt worms its way through her conscience.
She doesn't let herself analyze that lack.
It's then that she notices Celeste's limp, empty hands.
A bolt of anxiety rips through her.
Somehow, in all the chaos, the bloodstone had been dropped.
Frantically, Elena scans the room, her eyes darting among the wavering shadows and dim half-lit spaces along the floor, not daring to so much as swivel her head lest Davina notice she's searching for something. Klaus must be able to hear her body's response to the stress, but he remains silent. Distractedly, she wonders if Davina has slammed him with the same silencing spell as Celeste had done to her.
She has no idea how she's going to spin this once she regains possession of the stone—all she knows is that she has to get a hold of it if she's going to have a shot at controlling how any of this goes down at all.
From the back of the room, Marcel groans again, this time managing with visible effort to force himself upright. He takes great, labored breaths, as though just the effort of sitting up has drained him. Maybe it has. The blood on his face looks as black as wet tar in the dim light. The wound on his neck has begun to fester prematurely.
"Marcel?" Davina calls uncertainly. She takes a tentative step toward him.
Marcel coughs wetly and tries to stand. He gets one foot under him before he trips, landing back on his knees. Davina rushes for him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. "The bloodstone," he rasps. "Don't let her take it."
Elena spots it, then, kicked halfway under a chest of drawers. Halfway between herself and Marcel.
"Celeste can't use it anymore. She's under my complete control now," Davina assures him.
Elena sidles over, quietly, hoping to reach it while Davina and Marcel are distracted. She can feel Klaus's eyes on her the whole way.
"No, not Celeste—"
The house rolls, and a beam crashes down from the ceiling. The floor buckles, then, toppling over furniture, knocking lamps and glasses and strange objects from the tops of the tables. The bloodstone skitters across the floor.
Davina turns just in time to spot the red flash of it as it slides past her. Elena dives for it, reaching out with fingers still wet with her own blood just as Davina catches it up.
For a moment, everything is quiet as Davina cradles the bloodstone in her palm. "Why is it so small?" she asks as she gently rocks it back and forth.
The meaning behind Celeste's earlier words return to her in force. "Is it too small to work?" She asks the question as neutrally as she can.
"I don't know—I can't know until we try—"
The building seizes. They hardly keep their feet. At this point, there's more broken clutter on the floor and overturned furniture than not.
When it's over, Davina looks over to Marcel, who, beneath the smear of blood and sweat, has begun to turn an alarming shade of gray. "What's wrong with him?" she asks.
"I'm fine," Marcel says, lugging himself onto his feet.
"You're not. What did Celeste do to you?" Davina grabs him by the elbows and studies him. She blanches when her eyes land on his neck. "What is that?" she whispers.
The faint, edgy sound of other voices drifts up the stairs. However disarrayed Davina might have left the remaining coven members, it's clear from the sound of their voices that they've regrouped. They'll be on them soon. Elena wonders if they can make it through another fire fight.
"We have to go," Marcel says, mirroring her thoughts. He shuffles toward the door, tossing Elena a warning look as he passes her.
Davina nods, watching his progress with anxious scrutiny. "Okay. But for the record, I don't believe you. You're gonna let me look you over once we get out of this, okay?" She heads over to gather Celeste, preparing to march her through the door.
"What about Klaus?" Elena asks.
Davina turns back. "He's pinned. I have enough juice to hold him until we clear the area. If the house doesn't bury him, the rest of the coven ought to take care of him for us. It'll buy us enough time."
Elena glances over to where he still kneels in the same place Davina flung him. The muscles in his shoulders and back strain under his shirt as he strives to push back against Davina's spell.
He's going to be absolutely murderous when he gets loose. And he will get loose.
Except…she thinks of what will happen to him if she abandons him now. Buried alive. Tortured by those witches, helpless to defend himself. The idea of it hitches at her heart.
"I can't leave him."
Marcel groans.
"C'mon, Elena," Davina urges. "We don't have time for this." She walks back toward Elena.
"Leave her," Marcel interjects. "We've already got what we need."
Davina ignores him. Her tone turns pleading. "This place is going to collapse, and the coven will be on us any second. Come with us, please." She holds out the hand not holding onto the bloodstone for Elena to take. The place where she had cut herself to activate the eight point star draws Elena's attention. An inkling of an idea swims through her thoughts.
Elena takes Davina's outstretched hand. Gives it a squeeze. She'd given up on having a friend quite like this again—in so many ways, a sister.
Relief fissures through Davina's whole body. They share a smile. Davina turns to lead her out of the building.
"I'm sorry," Elena says, half a second before she darts forward, snatching the knife from where Davina had tucked it into her jacket. She uses the blade to slice open the length of her palm. Immediately, her blood wells to the surface. When she thrusts her bloody palm against Davina's, the bloodstone leaps into her grasp as though magnetized. Too late, Davina's fingers close around nothing but thin air.
Elena dances back, to stand in front of Klaus.
Confusion spreads over Davina's whole face and body as she takes her in. "Elena, what is this?"
"I can't go through with this. Not like this. I can't leave him." She says the last part so softly that doubts Davina even heard her.
Behind her, Klaus gives a mighty heave against the spell. This time, he shifts in its hold.
"No use trying to persuade her," Marcel says. "She already refused to turn the stone over to me before Klaus interrupted us. She's out."
Davina shakes her head. "Look, I know you're confused, Elena. I get that. You've been trapped with him for months and I can't imagine what that must've done to your head. But you don't have to live like this anymore. This is your chance. Come with us."
Everything Davina says is true. She knows she's warped, her soul bent out of place by the enormity of what she feels for the nightmare crouched behind her. She knows that. Knowing doesn't make what she feels for him any less real.
For months now, she's wished for an opportunity to move the board how she sees fit, instead of always having to respond to how everyone else chooses to move her. That opportunity is in her hand right now.
She won't hand anyone else the means with which to harm Klaus.
The direction of her thoughts must show on her face, because Davina gives up her attempts to talk her into leaving with them. Her jaw clenches as she reaches out and performs a sharp reeling gesture.
The stone leaps in her hand, but settles when Elena squeezes it. It feels slick to the touch, coated in her blood. Davina tries again, and this time, the stone doesn't respond to her at all.
Not to be deterred, Davina raises her hand once more. Elena feels the vice of magic encircling her wrists, preparing to hurl her bodily into Davina's grasp. It is at that moment that Klaus wrenches himself to his feet and grabs her by the arm. His hold on her is as implacable as iron. Davina's magic strains against his grasp on her, battling for dominance.
From the sounds of it, a group of witches have reached the top of the stairs already. How many reinforcements could they have gathered by now? Either they will find them, or Klaus will break free of the hold Davina has on him. Either way, their time here is up.
"I thought you were my friend," Davina says.
"I am."
The truth of her words hits the other girl like a blow.
"Someday, you're going to have to choose."
"You'll thank me for this when Marcel tells you what's wrong with him," Elena tells her, not ungently. "Come talk to me then."
Invoking Marcel's welfare works. The involuntary look Davina gives Marcel right then speaks volumes about her devotion to him. Davina turns back to her, her eyes briefly landing on Klaus behind her. "I can't let him loose until Marcel and I are truly out of range. You get that, right?"
"You do you, and I'll do me."
With one last, lingering look, Davina leaves with Marcel and Celeste in tow. She must use a cloaking spell, or something, because Elena never hears the sound of any altercation with the swarm of witches streaming into the house.
With Celeste under her power, Davina will only be that much stronger the next time they meet.
Elena already knows she won't be able to catch her so off-guard ever again. She wishes she weren't the one to teach Davina that lesson.
She can't bear to meet Klaus's eyes, so she keeps her eyes on the door while she waits for him to be able to move.
His fingers dig mercilessly into her arm the whole time. She'll have serious bruising there in the morning. It won't be the first time.
A minute passes. A deep crack in the plaster shifts and lengthens as the wall bows out. Another minute goes by. She can hear the witches down the hall now. Surely Davina must have made it out by now.
The floor lists under their feet. Klaus's grip on her keeps her steady.
The bloodstone throbs insistently in her hand, in sync with the beating of her heart. Her connection to Klaus, in the palm of her hand.
A group of witches open the door, surprise lighting up their faces when they take the two of them in.
Unfortunately for them, it is as this moment that the bindings holding Klaus evaporate, or maybe he simply finally manages to snap them. Either way, it ultimately amounts to the same thing. Klaus breaks each of their necks before they even see him move.
Wordlessly, he returns to her, scooping her up into his arms and spiriting her out of the building in an unsettling repeat of her last retreat from this compound.
She's spared, this time, from having to endure him murder every witch on the premises by the immense distraction of his doubtless rage.
Klaus doesn't take her back to the Abattoir, as she had expected.
Instead, he brings them back to the pink stucco house they had stayed in last December. Apart from the new front door, everything else looks just as they left it. Seeing him in these familiar surroundings sends a pang all through her.
He drags her into the front parlor, where he pushes her up against the wall, his hands like vices pressing into her shoulders. The pain of his touch focuses her.
Their eyes lock, and she is as pulled in by him as ever. She realizes that this is exactly what it had been like to drown. The night her parents' car had gone off the bridge, she had fought it and fought it for as long as she could, holding out in terror and desperation against the impenetrably dark waters. But eventually, that resolve had cracked, and she had surrendered. An immeasurable calm had swept over her as she breathed the water in. She had floated, suspended in the infinity of that moment, knowing that it would kill her, but okay with that. She feels that, and more, when she looks into the blue of his eyes.
He frowns, and lets go of her. "We need to talk."
A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on this fic, I have really appreciated each and every one of you! Lots more to come soon, and as always, my inbox is always open over on tumblr at livlepretre.