Heartlines ▹ Elena Gilbert [1]

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY
SHE WAS FINALLY HOME

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     Rowan woke up to a horrible ache on the back of her neck and her head pounding. It took her a while to get her feeling back in her limbs, took her a while to get her mind clear. When she blinked open her eyes, she was no longer in the warehouse in Chicago, but rather in the back of Klaus's moving truck. She and Stefan had dubbed it the coffin truck, since the only things he put in there was his family members. She was facing one of the coffins now, a dark mahogany that she recognized as Elijah's. She didn't move a muscle past that point, still pretending to be unconscious. She could hear voices, and though it took her a moment to tune into what they were saying because her head was still so fuzzy, she still recognized the voice at Henrik's.

"...still angry about that?" Henrik was saying, his voice cutting through the static in Rowan's mind, making her focus a bit more. She was hyperaware of the fact that he was the reason she had gotten her neck snapped in the first place. She kept her body relaxed, kept her breathing deep and even, as he continued. Maybe she could find out something useful if she just pretended and listened. "I thought you wanted a new ripper to train. You've been complaining about how I stole one of your favorites for long enough. I was giving you what you wanted." The sound Klaus let out in response was full of nothing but disgust and contempt.

"I've wanted to make hybrids for a thousand years—"

"That's an exaggeration," Henrik said flatly. "You didn't get really obsessed until we found Katherine in England."

"—and you kept Elena's survival from me for three months. Even when my hybrids failed, you still—"

"How was I supposed to know you couldn't make hybrids if the doppelgänger was still alive?" Henrik demanded, his voice rising in frustration. They sounded so much like siblings that one never would've thought they were talking about something so dark and twisted. Hybrids, doppelgängers, sacrifices, it was a little hard to believe, even when Rowan had experienced it all firsthand. "I don't exactly have a hybrid handbook here. What I do have, though, is experience with magic, something you seem to love ignoring despite the fact that it has saved this family how many times now?" Henrik waited for a response, but he didn't get one. "Exactly. Now listen to me. Like I've been telling you since you found out, it doesn't matter that Elena Gilbert is still alive. Her coming back after the ritual was completed doesn't matter. If it did, then it wouldn't just be fucking up the hybrids, it would be fucking up you. You would be falling apart, too. You don't have any problems with your wolf side, do you?"