The Young and Gifted

6. fatal family

Kaura stared at the food in front of her, trying to ignore all the murmur revolving around the one name that brought her stomach nausea. She gripped the fork, ignoring the searing burn of the metal that erupted under her fingers. At this rate, her magic was going to explode if kept hear her name.

"Dude, I didn't know she was a freaking Mikaelson. Do you know who they are? God, I would do anything to be as powerful as them," MG gushed, taking slow sips from his bag of animal blood.

"And we can we talk about how she's a tribrid? I heard that her dad was the first hybrid but damn, that family is loaded," Kaleb said as he sucked on his own packet of blood, teeth stained red.

"I don't even understand how, vampires can't procreate. And how does she activate her other heritages—"

"Hope Mikaelson, Jesus that last name makes me shiver. There was a small rumour that they had new witches in their family," Kaleb shook his head, fangirling over them even more.

"Yeah, didn't they find a long-lost sister or something?"

"They weren't the only powerful witches, apparently a Bennett and Gemini witch was in the family as well. Wait, Kaura, aren't your parents—"

"Shut up, Kaleb," Raf hissed. He knew how sensitive talking about her family was and he could tell she was losing it.

"Who are the Mikaelson's?" Landon was asking. With all the tension around the name, he really wondered why it made Hope so special.

"Dude."

"Embarrassing."

"You really are a human, huh."

"The Mikaelson's are the most lethal, feared and oldest family in the world. They were the first supernatural family on the planet," MG informed, sitting at the edge of his seat.

As they spoke about the fatal family, Hope tried to focus on her food but her appetite seemed to be lost in the dust. Occasionally, her gaze would meet Landon's and she would smile but he would be the first to look away. Hope sighed as Mason continued to eat his breakfast. "Great. I think I scared him away."

Mason shrugged. "To be honest, I think that smile scared him away."

Hope gave him a grimacing smile and playfully shoved him before returning to her food. "It's literally only been my first day here and so much has happened. Much better than watching my Aunt Freya kick the asses of vampires who don't follow the rules and try to secretly feed on the tourists."

Before Mason could respond, two twin shadows stepped forward and Josie and Lizzie emerged, a group of witches trailing behind. "You've been pardoned," Lizzie declared beside her floating tray.

Hope narrowed her eyes in confusion. "Pardoned? What did I do?"

Lizzie scoffed and seated herself in front of Hope. "The disrespect. Don't make me change my mind." She was insinuating what happened last night.

Hope looked to Josie and with the glare she gave back, Hope decided not to respond. The other witches all followed suit and sat down. In seconds, they started twirling their hairs, battling their eyelashes and flinging a couple of smiles at Mason. "Hi—"

Immediately, Mason grabbed his tray of food, saluted to Hope and disappeared down the hall. The flirty gazes dropped and they turned to Hope like it was her fault. She shrugged. "He doesn't like people."

"He seems to like you though," Josie pointed out, opening her milk carton.

"It's not like that," Hope clarified.

Lizzie grinned and leaned forward with a menacing gleam of challenge in her eye. "So you wouldn't mind if I went for him, right?"

Hope's eyebrows rose with blunt surprise. "If that's what you want, go for it."

"Okay," Lizzie shrugged and sat up again, following down Mason's path.

They all watched her disappear away and Josie sighed. "Ignore her, Lizzie always thinks there's competition when there is none."

"Mason and I are just friends," Hope clearly stated to Josie as the others went down their own conversations.

Josie winked. "I know. Everyone knows about you and Landon."

*

Hope and Josie walked in class together, Lizzie nowhere to be found. The moment Josie stepped in, her gaze connected with Penelope's and they held it for a long time, the tension was only thickening. Hope cleared her throat, noticing that the teacher, Emma, was getting irritated. Josie shivered out of it and quickly led Hope to the back of the room where they sat at their desks.

"Welcome back, everyone. I hope your summer breaks were delightful. But the time for school has returned and it is about time you learn of a new concept," Emma paced around the room, speaking with a loud clear voice. "Can someone tell me what a humanity switch is?"

Somehow, Penelope's hand flew up before anyone else's and the teacher picked her. "It's a state of vulnerability for vampires where they completely turn off their emotions and return to their original "ruthless vampire" mood. It's easy to turn off but to turn on, you usually need something or someone emotionally connected to the vampire."

"Well phrased, Miss Park. Who can tell me what a morality switch is?" No hands came up. "Yes, I assumed so. It is a term for witches and the switch itself is rare amongst our kind—" The door opened and all the attention turned to Lizzie who walked in. "Miss Saltzman. Would you care to explain your tardiness?"

Lizzie swallowed and said swiftly, "I needed to talk to the vice-principle." Emma nodded and fell for the lie.

"As I was saying, the ability to have a morality switch is more prone in teenagers your age, dangerous in the most unstable of witches. To state it clearly, a morality switch is when a mentally unbalanced witch's magic goes haywire. The magic becomes connected to their naturally wild and rabid emotions and all senses of right and wrong are completely gone. Some call it the sociopathic switch..." The teacher went on and on about the history of morality switches in witches and how the chaos has rewritten history and before they knew it, the bell rang.

The day powered through rapidly and soon enough, it was lunch. Hope found herself now sitting with Lizzie and her harem and just when she thought Mason was going to avoid them, he sat down beside Lizzie. Hope watched in perplexion as the twin grinned at him. So that's why she was late for class this morning.

Before they knew it, lunch had ended and Hope caught up to Mason's pace. "Tell me that you didn't hook up with Lizzie."

Mason turned to her with a confused look. "I did. Is there an issue?"

"Why about Kaura?"

"What about Kaura?"

"I thought you had your eye on her, not Lizzie."

"And? She hates me, remember? It doesn't hurt to admire from afar," he winked and continued off down the hall.

~

 "Klaus Mikaelson: The Great Evil."

try to guess who said it and don't forget to vote ;)