We All Want Hope (Hope Mikaelson)

Chapter 18

Hope stands in the bayou on the bank of a lake holding completely still. She focused on all of the sounds around her, there was a herd of deer grazing in a meadow about a half a mile away. Lots of birds in the trees flitting around to gather tools to build nests and some were sleeping. Hope could hear the vampires training with Asher less than a mile off, and the wolves who were running around this very lake for the tenth time. She heard the witches back at camp base who were chanting spells to untie an impossible knot that helped them harness their power.

She heard more than animals and people around her, she could also hear mother nature working. The lake rippled as the wind picked up and rushed through the trees, thus causing leaves to float down to the ground. The weak and dead branches snapping off and falling to the dead grass.

Hope could hear everything.

Normally Hope could hear a mile or two away from her. So it concerned her that she could only hear a half a mile out. As if the outside world had been muted. She listened closer and heard the small vibrations of the shield around their camp space. But it seemed to be blocking everyone including her.

Hope vamped to the shield and she could vaguely see the shimmer as the wind passed through the wall. She pursed her lips and touched it, but it immediately burned her. She jerked her hand back seeing blisters on her hand. Hope cursed and held out her hand, palm out, not to touch it but to feel around it.

Her witch senses tingled as she did so and she could feel the power that this wall held. It was meant to keep guests in and intruders out. Did Josephine have them here to kill them? Didn't she need Hope for some sort of take over? Did Hope have a choice after all? If she was here, and she couldn't leave, that meant that she would have no choice.

Hope knew that something had to be done about that wall. She couldn't do what she needed to do without being able to leave camp. Josephine could kill her without a second thought and Hope would be helpless. She needed Eric, he knew things that she didn't and was just as powerful.

When she got back to camp, everyone was bustling about like they usually were. The witches had their noses stuck in their grimores, the werewolves were rubbing their sore muscles and vampires were fighting over a pretty blonde in the corner. Hope scanned the crowd but Eric wasn't with the witches. 

Where was he?

It wasn't Eric that caught her eye, it was Josephine who was being followed by six toddlers. Everyone's hands were linked together like little elephants. Their eyes were huge and frightened as they looked around at all of the monsters surrounding them. But not in the usual I'm-in-an-unfamiliar-place-and-this -frightens-me  look, they were in that Where's-my-Mommy state of mind. I knew that all too well.

That was the look of an orphan.

Oh my god. Hope thought,She didn't.

White hot fury coursed through Hope's veins, as she took in Josephine's self righteous walk. Hope had to take a deep breath, and purposefully change her pose to one that was calmer than her mood. She walked towards Josephine, but was a silhouette cut her off.

"Get out of my way Eric," she growled, not taking her eyes off the kidnapper.

The boy gently touched her shoulder, "Now's not the time for this," he whispered.

"Those kids-"

"I know," his grip tightened, "I know Hope. Trust me, I've been there. But you can't just march up to her and demand that she do things differently. Right now she sees you as an ally, if you want to have the upper hand, that can't change,"