Author's note: When the school carnival needed volunteers, Caroline offered to be the fortune teller. Unfortunately, her strategy of hiding her gift in plain sight went to hell the second a pair of Originals sat at her booth.
"This is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. It is a bad thing and it troubles people, so they do not come back."
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
And it had been such a nice day. Principal Lockwood was home sick with an especially nasty case of the flu which meant Caroline could enjoy the school carnival without having to pretend not to understand his clumsy innuendos. But now this was happening.
The power coming off of the pair that sat down at Caroline's booth made her wince, rubbing at her temples. The gesture was doubly embarrassing because it was such a stereotypical move for shameless pretenders. Not that anyone would believe she was the real thing. The gift was a flaky bitch, as her grandmother often would say, sometimes visiting several generations in a row or abandoning the bloodline for centuries.
Caroline was stubborn, ignoring her gift as much as possible, but then the school carnival ran out of volunteers and it was either this or the pie in the face booth. She might've reconsidered if she'd known how itchy the polyester scarf was going to be.
"So, can you see my future," the man asked with a teasing smirk, his dimples on display.
The woman next to him wrinkled her nose, haughtily telling him, "Wait your turn, Nik. I get to go first since it's your fault I haven't been to a carnival in ages." With a bladed smile that carried dark promises, she added, "Or anywhere else for that matter."
They were an attractive pair and normally Caroline would have been pleased to do a little experimental flirting to gauge either (or possibly both) of their interest, but she knew enough to stay far, far away from things that gave off that kind of power. And she definitely meant things. From their too-precise, too-quick movements, she knew right away that they were very scary things.
The science department didn't need textbooks this badly. She'd just go back to grainy photocopies for her students and lagging YouTube lab videos. Caroline willed her hand not to tremble as she examined the woman's palm, the lifeline unsurprisingly a thick, brutal slash that faded into the wrist.
An amused chuckle broke her concentration as Nik wryly observed, "Do you hear that racing pulse, Rebekah? Perhaps our fortune teller is a bit more genuine than one would expect at a school carnival."
Dangerous or not, Nik was an ass. Caroline dropped Rebekah's hand and scowled at Nik. "What do you want, vampire?" Narrowing her blue eyes, she let their energy signatures sink in further, and corrected herself with, "No, not vampire...you're both...more." Nodding at Rebekah, she blurted out, "Vampire, sure, but there's an age that lingers in your spirit...from a time before the Making of such creatures."
While Rebekah wore a look of surprise and intrigue, Nik openly scoffed, a slight sneer marring his annoyingly handsome face. "But while your age is an open secret, your spirit is...chaotic. Two beasts fight just below the surface." At his stunned expression, Caroline mocked triumphantly, "You'll never find peace until you release what's been caged, Nik."
"It's Klaus. And there's barely a whiff of magic curdling your veins. You, sweetheart, are nothing more than a charlatan," he pronounced with a sneer, looming over her booth with a dangerous glint in his gaze.
His sister looked stricken, her voice uncertain as she began, "Nik, she knows about your curse — surely that means..."
"Nothing. It means nothing. She's an insignificant human whose so-called power couldn't light a match."
In his agitation, Klaus waved his arm outward and despite Caroline's growing fury, curiosity got the better of her and she yanked his hand close to inspect it. She was under no illusions that she could overpower him, and quickly tucked away the irksome knowledge that Klaus allowed her to take his hand. He was playing with her.
However, that disturbing thought was chased away the moment she saw his fate line. "Shit." She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing deeply through her mouth as she valiantly tried not to freak out in front of her coworkers and students who so far were still milling around the carnival, blissfully unaware of the entire cosmos of fucked-upness she just saw in Klaus' hand. "Your fate line...it's deep. Way too deep and practically carved into your hand."
Shaking her head until the scarf printed with tacky silver stars fell back, she peered into his startled gaze and asked incredulously, "Holy fuck, have any of your life choices been your own? It looks like you've been fate's bitch for centuries."
"Insolent child," he snarled, yanking his hand away with enough force that her body rammed into the booth and sent the glass paperweight she'd been using as a prop tumbling to the pavement.
Caroline hadn't backed down when the narrow-minded school board tried to ban her lesson plan studying genetics via the Predator franchise movies and she wouldn't flinch now just because a supernatural brat was having a temper tantrum. The stubborn set of her jaw coupled with a searing glare seemed to spark something in Klaus. Respect? It was a fleeting emotion that was gone as soon as it registered, but he stepped back nonetheless.
"What do you see," Rebekah asked sharply, slamming down a stack of bills adorned with a ruby-bejeweled money clip that likely would've kept the school in textbooks for the next half-dozen school years.
When Caroline let her power in, it came with a warning. "It's coming," she gasped, lowering her voice when Valerie and Nora looked over curiously from the ring toss booth. "A powerful enemy will rise — the first of his kind. He's shrouded in darkness for vengeance is his only purpose. He will unmake this world and the next until everything turns to ash."
The siblings exchanged an unreadable look, as though they already had faced this darkness. She didn't like to see the raw terror on either of their faces — even Klaus'. She stretched her powers too thin, reaching for some small reassurance without understanding her need to offer them comfort. "It's not anyone you've fought before. Like a...um...relative or something," she awkwardly mumbled, understanding how invasive her gift can be.
Black veins crawled underneath Klaus' cold gaze, the tips of his fangs out as he seethed, "You think to threaten us with your false prophecies, worthless witchling? If you dare to speak of such lies again, I will carve out your tongue and feed it to you slowly." He stormed off without another word, and Caroline didn't bother to hide her shaking hands as she shoved Rebekah's obnoxious wad of money in her face.
"I won't profit from someone's bad fortune."
Rebekah studied her closely, clearly shaken by her words but wary of a trap. "You won't?"
Caroline shook her head firmly. "No." Hastily scribbling her number on a carnival ticket, she handed it to Rebekah and muttered, "I must be crazy, but I'll answer if you need me."
The women shared a moment of perfect understanding — and trepidation. Nodding briskly, Rebekah replied, "Let's hope I never have to."
One month later
All of this was Rebekah's fault. Was it really that hard to resist a Scottish accent? Caroline glanced up from Galen Vaughn's ruined head, surprised by how messy the bullet to his brain ended up being. She'd only taken her small-caliber Beretta to the shooting range a few times a year, but hadn't really understood the kind of damage it could do. Until now. A month ago, she'd given her number to Rebekah on a whim, hoping she'd been wrong about the darkness that had been looming over the siblings like a supernatural time bomb. It was a curse being right all the time.
She glared over at Rebekah, who was calmly wiping gross red chunks off her cheek. "He practically sat in your lap at that dive bar — how did you not see that was a trap?"
With a well-placed kick at the gloppy remains, Rebekah sent the head flying across the cavern floor, her tone defensive as she accused, "Maybe I was too distracted by your ridiculous fight with Nik over the bloody boat!"
At the reminder of Klaus' complete inability to be a decent person, Caroline threw a glare over her shoulder at Klaus. "You're a cheapskate billionaire, you know that, right? You couldn't take two seconds to leave some cash on the counter when you compelled the poor guy at that boat rental place?"
Klaus stalked toward her, bellowing, "And you foolishly risked your life for us! That bloody bastard had no qualms about harming humans who got in his way!"
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't have had to get in his way but if you guys killed him, you'd go crazy because he's in a super-secret cult of Buffys or something!" Fists clenched, she spitefully added, "Although it's not like your family would be able to tell the difference with you — your special brand of crazy is front and center 24/7!"
Caroline didn't realize how close they were standing until Rebekah muttered irritably, "You two should just shag already; the tension is ridiculous."
Both of them stilled, and for a fleeting moment Caroline's gaze met Klaus' before they quickly looked away. That brief moment of lusty insanity in his study last week was something they absolutely did not discuss. She was not some excitable little girl eager to gossip with her friends about kissing a boy.
And yet, it felt like her first kiss all over again. The scent of dusty grimoires must be an aphrodisiac because one moment she was yelling at Klaus for leaving his bourbon tumbler on top of 200-year-old parchment and the next had his tongue mapping urgent trails along her throat. Had Rebekah not stomped her way through the front door yelling obscenities about idiot teenager vampires and a mopey doppelganger, Caroline's certain she would've ended up with more than a ripped shirt.
After that, Klaus got weird. He stopped making snarky comments and those weighty stares had grown more frequent. Then, he "accidentally" came across a priceless letter the famous mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, wrote in the 1100s and just gave it to her. Well, he all but tossed it at her and then hurriedly walked away before she could do more than awkwardly sputter her thanks.
Next, an antique tarot deck had been left outside her hotel room. When Klaus casually mentioned over breakfast that it had been painted by Botticelli, she nearly spit her orange juice all over him and his stupid sexy dimples. An overconfident fuckboy or idiot man-child she could handle; whatever Klaus was, she was completely ill-equipped to handle.
Apparently, the silence had stretched out too long, because Rebekah snorted, "Are you still sulking because we wouldn't let you keep a DNA sample from Silas?"
"No," Caroline huffed, rolling her eyes. "But you have to admit the potential for scientific discovery is incalculable..." at the siblings' twin horrified looks, she sighed and muttered, "Never mind."
"Your seaplane will be docking soon," Klaus gruffly said, the line of his shoulders oddly stiff as he pointedly turned away to finish scraping the fossilized remains of Silas into a container Caroline nearly had blown every bit of her power infusing with the proper incantations to hold whatever dark energy remained from the ancient witch.
In the middle of fighting for her life just hours ago, it hadn't occurred to Caroline that once they defeated the most dangerous creature the world had ever known, she'd go back to the real world, where the most terrifying aspects of her life would be stacks of half-assed lab assignments, apathetic students and willfully ignorant parents. And no more Klaus.
Which was fine. Definitely. She much preferred dipping her toe into the supernatural rather than drowning in the endless baggage these ancient creatures all seemed to carry. She liked her life just the way it was. Besides, if she started missing cedar or pine or whatever that woodsy fragrance that clung to Klaus' skin was, she'd just buy an oil diffuser.
Nodding to herself, she slung her backpack over her shoulders and started marching toward the cavern's entrance. Dead mystical hunter — check. Dead immortal witch entombed for millennia — check. Leaving behind a pretentious Original who kept telling her she dressed like a diseased pauper — check. That one actually twinged more than she thought it would. And one Original who...who...fuck.
She spun on her heel, marching back toward Klaus despite every instinct telling her to run. Stupid sexy dimples. Gesturing toward the spelled container, Caroline told Klaus, "You know, just because Silas' remains were calcified may not mean he's gone for good." After all, marine invertebrates like starfish can regenerate tissue and organs at an alarming rate, and while Silas certainly looked dead, she'd be an idiot not to see how easily science and magic intersect.
"So, what do you guys know about starfish?"