Hayley called Freya, Nik, and I into the ballroom. She had been in with Elijah and noticed the pendant beginning to crack, again.
"Despite the spell I cast, the very integrity of the pendant is growing unstable." Freya informs us as she examines the blue necklace, before placing it on the table in between her and us. "It won't be able to hold Elijah's soul much longer. We need to find a way to resurrect him tonight, or we could lose him forever."
"To do that, we'll need more power." Hayley states.
"Let me guess, a grand sacrifice." Nik says.
I scoff and narrow my eyes at Freya. "And who do you want to kill now?"
"I say we kill our enemy and sacrifice her, then I can channel the power from the Hollow's death, raise Elijah's body, and place him back where he belongs." Freya says.
"Finally, a death I can get behind." I smirk, before looking at her in question. "But, how?"
"We've tried everything." Hayley agrees.
"And we've come close." Freya explains. "Labonair blood is her Achilles' heel. Hayley, Kelsey, your blood weakened her, but you've both, technically, have been dead for years. So it won't be strong enough to kill her. If I forge a blade using the blood of the last two living Labonair..."
"We don't want Hope and Bexley involved." Nik denies.
"They're already involved." Freya counters, grabbing the twins drawings and putting them in front of us. "Bexley and Hope have been obsessed with the symbol that follows the Hollow: the serpent consuming itself. Now, I believe this is showing us the key, the only means to which she can be destroyed, her own blood. The Hollow's one end of the Labonair bloodline. Bexley and Hope are the other. And we need to close that loop. The best way to do that is for Kelsey or Hayley to wield a weapon forged with the twin's blood. When, they stab her, it's only then the Hollow can be obliterated completely."
"Okay." I sigh. "Fine. But, I'm the one that stabs her."
"Kelsey." Hayley protests as Nik turns to look at me in disagreement.
"It's not up for debate." I shut them both down. "Hayley dies and she's gone. If I die, I come back, thanks to the bond." I turn my gaze to Nik. "Which means you are to stay away and not put yourself at risk." I tell him and before anyone can say anything I continue. "I'll talk to Hope and Bexley." I walk out, leaving them.
_____________________
I carefully explain the situation to the twins as I heat up the end of a needle over a flame on a candle. They listen quietly and watch me. Once the end of the needle is hot enough that all the germs are killed off, I turn towards the twins.
"I don't want to." Hope voices looking at me.
"Me either." Bexley sighs.
"Are you scared it's going to hurt?" I ask them with scrunched eyebrows as I drop to my knees in front of them.
"We're scared if we do this, you're gonna pick a fight." Hope reveals. I look at Bexley and she nods confirming that she feels the same.
"The Hollow can hurt you." Bexley mutters.
"I know this is scary." I sigh. "I truly wish this wasn't something we ever had to talk about. When I was around you're age, I had to deal with a lot of things that I didn't want to. I tried to keep that from you. I didn't want either of you to have to deal with things like this, but here we are. Sometimes life throws us things that we don't want to do, because you're the only one who can do them."
"Like you?" Hope questions.
"Like me." I nod. "But, if it makes you feel better, your dad and I are bonded. That means our souls are tied together by magic. So, even if The Hollow kills me, his soul will anchor mine and I will come back."
"How do you know?" Bexley squeaks.
"It's happened a couple of times." I tell them and they're eyes widen.
"So, I promise you, nothing will take me away from the both of you, okay?"
"Okay." The say together and then, they both hold out their hand for me to prick their fingers.
______________________
Rebekah had gone radio silent, so Nik had to go check on her and Kol. She and Kol where suppose to be destroying the Hollows totem, so that I am able to kill her. Freya fused the twins blood to two blades, one for me and one for her. Hayley stayed at the Compound with the twins. Freya and I walk through the gate of a big, white, Victorian house, where Freya had tracked the Hollow.
"I sealed these with Hope and Bexley's blood." Freya states pulling out the daggers. She passes one to me. "One for each of us. Once the totem is destroyed, we can sacrifice the Hollow."
We walk up to the bottom of the step of the house. Freya hesitates and stops moving forward. I turn back to her in question.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah." She sighs with a humorless chuckle. "I never thought twice about fighting or dying for family before. But now, with Keelin..."
"Now there's someone you are afraid you might not make it home to." I state. "Freya, we both are going home when this is over. I know we've had a rocky relationship, to say the least. But, I have your back. That is something you can trust."
Freya nods. "Kelsey, I know we haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but... well, I suppose family rarely does." I nod at her and we both turn to the house and walk up the steps.
We enter through the front door. The place smells musky and unlived in. Dust coats the tables and the furniture. Jars filled with unknown preserved things line the shelves to the right. There are dead bodies laying everywhere, with blood trailing down their faces from their eyes, nose, and mouths. The door slams shut behind us.
"I guess she knows we're here." Freya says. We slowly approach the double doors across the room.
The door creaks open as I push it. As soon as, I cross the thresh hold, Freya goes to follow. However, she is thrown backwards across the room and into a table. The table collapses and Freya hits the ground unconscious.
"Freya." I exclaim exiting the room and going towards her. I don't get far, because Inadu comes down the stairs and steps next to Freya's unconscious body. She holds up her hand and snaps my neck, making everything go black.
I groan and open my eyes. My vision is blurry, so I rub my eyes to focus them. The water in front of me becomes clearer and I push myself up off the dock. I'm in the Bayou at the abandon cabin. The same cabin Tyler Lockwood held me and Hayley captive, the one where Eve taught me how to breath during labor, and the one where the wolf slit her throat a few days ago in front of me, Hayley, and Marcel.
"There you are." A voice says behind me. I quickly turn around and see a woman exiting the cabin with two beers in her hand. She has long, dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes. A leather jacket covers her plain white shirt, that is tucked into her black jeans. I immediately recognize her from the pictures Hayley found in her parents storage locker and the vision Hayley and Freya showed me, showing that she actually died, not abandoned me. I quickly get to my feet in shock.
"Mom?" I mutter.
"I've been waiting for you." She smiles softly as she walks towards me.
"How am I here? How are you here?" I question in confusion.
"I'm not an expert, but my guess is that you're currently going through some kind of psychological break right now." She explains. "You've been through hell. So your mind took you some place peaceful. Honestly, I'm surprise you thought of me given that most your life you thought I had abandoned you. Which in a way, I guess I did."
"If I'm unconscious, I need to wake up. I have to go back." I stress.
"I know and you will. I'm on your side." She reassures me. "We'll get you back in the fight, before the Hollow finishes whatever she started."
________________________
We both had walked a few yards away from the cabin. I pace back and forth and my mother stands, leaning against a tree. "I need to snap out of this." I look at her. "If I don't, we could lose Elijah forever. Who knows what the Hollow is doing to Freya."
"Why do you care?" She looks at me curiously. "I mean they murdered your sister."
"Because, they mean a lot to Nik." I tell her. "They're his siblings and I know what it's like to lose a sibling. He's already been through that pain more than once, I won't be the reason he has to go through it again."
"It's more than that though, isn't it?" She squints her eye and crosses her arms over her chest. "You actually consider them family."
"Of course I do." I snap. "They're my daughters Aunt and Uncle. And Elijah protected me, Hayley, and the twins when Nik was in denial about being a father. I owe him for that."
"You were so desperate for a family that you aligned yourself next to monsters. You fell in love with a monster and you continue to raise your children along side him." She shakes her head in disappointment and slowly walks up to me.
"I fell in love with a complicated man who has a dark and complex past." I growl. "But, he treats me very well and he is an excellent father to our twins. You don't get to have an opinion." She smirked darkly and I take a small step back in realization. "You're not my mother. You're stalling me. You're The Hollow."
I turn around to walk away but she grabs my arm. I push her off me and she flies into the trees a few feet behind her. She grunts a little, but looks up at me with a twisted smile and starts approaching me again.
"No I deny. You're not you." I shake my head. "You are not my peaceful place. My mother is a dark hole of unanswered questions and you used her to distract me. Fuck you, you bitch." I slam my fist through her chest and snatched out her heart. Her body hit the floor and I throw her heart to the side.
Suddenly, I open my eyes and take in my surroundings. I'm back in the house that Freya and I found Inadu in. I'm sitting in a chair, my wrists bound to the arm rests. She distracted me and tied me down to take my blood. I yank on them, grunting. After a few hard pulls I break free and stand. It's a bit of a struggle to get myself moving. If I had to guess, she has either poison me with Vervain or Wolfbane. I stagger through the room carefully.
"You're wasting your energy." My mothers voice says from behind me. I quickly turn and look at her where she is leaning against the wall casually.
I clamp my eyes shut in confusion. "You're a vision. You're not real. You can't hurt me."
She chuckles in amusement. "You still don't get it, do you?" She picks up a knife off a dresser caked in dust and waves it in front of her. "The Hollow is more powerful than you can possibly imagine." She walks right up to me and imbeds the knife into my stomach. I yell in surprise and pain. Gasping as the knife cuts into my abdomen. I painfully slide the knife out of me and drop it to the ground, as she watches.
"Why are you doing this?" I inquire, panting to regain my breath.
She shoves me into the wall behind me, pinning me there. "All I ever wanted was to protect you!" She laughs, letting me go and backing up. "And now you're gonna die here."
"No." I denies. She raises her hand and pins me back to the wall with a grunt. My brain feels like it's on fire as she pops a aneurysm over and over in my head. I groan loudly, pressing my hands to my head. Finally, she stops and I look at her. She has a knife in her hands again, still keeping me still against the wall.
"You saw it: the violence, the rage." She taunts coming closer. "That's what he is. You fell for the sad childhood, Kelsey. The wounded, unloved, broken child. The grown man that needs to be fixed. You were blinded by his charade." She points the knife centimeters from my face.
I quickly knock her arm to the side and push her off me. "You're not my mother, and you don't deserve to wear her face. Not when it was your followers that killed her."
She grabs my throat and pushes me against the wall again. "You're right." She grits. "You mother was good." She slams my against the wall again, tightening her grip on my neck. I grunt, closing my eyes and opening them. When I look in front of me, my mother is not longer choking me, instead it's Nik. "And me...." He raises me up off my feet cutting of my windpipe. I grip his wrists tightly. "...well, I was never good."
Suddenly, he disappears and I drop to the ground. I pant heavily as the door opens.
"Kelsey." Freya exclaims running over to me.
"Hi." I gasp.
"Are you alright?" She questions, dropping next to me. She has a gash above her left eyebrow and blood pouring down her face.
"Did Nik break the totem?" I ask.
"I hope so. But we can't wait." She says. She pulls out her dagger and passes it to me. "You need to stab the Hollow. You think you'll be strong enough?" I tighten my hand around the handle.
"Let's finish this." I tell her.
___________________________
I find Inadu in a room with her back to me as I open the door. But, she immediately waved her hand and throws the knife out of mine. Then, she forces me to my knees, then my stomach, until I'm flat on the ground and I yell out in pain. I grunt and look up at her. She turns and looks at me.
"First, I will break your body." I groan in agony, trying to reach the knife. "Then I will break your spirit." I claw at the carpet. "Your spirit is nearly broken already, isn't it?" I grunt, again. I feel Freya come in behind me and she magically throws a small metal rod into Inadu's neck, causing her to release her hold on me. I take the opportunity to grab the dagger and pin Inadu to the ground. I hold the knife at her chest as I straddle her waist. "Do it." She taunts. I slam the dagger down into her chest. Then, I pull it out and do it again, and again, and again. Rage blinds me and I don't even notice her blood splattering all over me. I just keeping stabbing her over and over.
"That's enough!" Freya yells, grabbing me from behind and pulling me off her. "That's enough! She's gone. She's gone."
______________________
I clean myself off in one on the bathrooms. When, all the blood is off my face I take a deep breath and stare at myself in the mirror. Dark circle are easily seen resting under my eyes. I look like I've aged ten years from stress and exhaustion, even though that's impossible. I rub the heels of my hands against my eyes. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I instantly pull it out to find Josh's name flash across it's screen.
"Josh?" I question. "Are you okay?"
"It's me." A female voice says on the other line. I swallow hard and tears prick my eyes.
"Davina?" I croak.
"I know. I know." She says. "It's a lot. Can you meet me at Rousseau's. We're in the back alley."
"I'm leaving right now." I tell her and hang up.
I vamp to Rousseau's as fast as my legs would carry me. I was quick to tell Freya I'd see her at home, but I didn't say where I was going. I stop at the end of the alley to see Davina leaning against a car as she stands beside Josh.
"Davina." I whisper. I start walking towards her, still in shock. I quicken my pace. "Davina!" I yell, making her head snap in my direction. She smiles brightly and I start running to her, as she faces me. I crash my body into hers and hug her as tight as possible, tears escaping my eyes. "You're alive." I gasp. I pull away from her and put my hands on her shoulders. "How? I d- don't understand?"
"The Hollow." She says. "She brought me back to force Kol's hand. She link me to her, so that Kol would protect her totem, so I wouldn't die again."
"But.... But I killed her." I scrunch my eyebrows.
"Kol's plan must have worked." She explains. "He went to the Compound to have the twins do an unlinking spell."
"I almost killed you." I whisper.
"You didn't know." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry I didn't call you as soon as I could. I just knew there was a lot going on and I didn't want you to have to choose between me and the twins. If that became a choice I wanted you to choose them without knowing it would effect me." I pull her into another hug and breath in relief.
"I've missed you so much."
"I've missed you too." She says. She pulls back. "But Kol should be back by now. If Klaus got to him..."
"Then you have to leave anyway." Josh interrupts her. She looks at him and I grab her hand, not wanting to let her go yet. "Davina, you almost died back there. Look, you remember the first day we met? You told me you wanted to be normal."
"You said 'normal's relative'." She smiles at him.
"Yeah, well, you're a twice-resurrected Harvest Girl with an Original vampire boyfriend, a hybrid sister, and two powerful Mikaelson witches as nieces. Normal's always gonna be relative." She and I chuckle. "But with or without Kol, you have to take this chance. You deserve it."
"I can't just leave him." She denies.
"Listen, Davina." I sigh. "As much as I would love to keep you with me forever and never allow you to leave my sight. But, I need you to go and run far away. Right now the Hollow should be dead, but if the last eight years has taught me anything, it's to expect the unexpected. If we're wrong and she's still alive, everyone here is going up against her. That's all of Hope and Bexley's family. I need you to go so that if something happens to Nik and I, they have you. I can't leave them alone."
"Kelsey..." She shakes her head. "I can't leave you to fight on your own.
"I'm not alone." I tell her. "I have the Mikaelson's and Marcel. Even Josh. But, if everything goes to shit my babies are going to need someone." She nods and wraps her arms around my waist again.
"I still can't just leave Kol." She mutters. As Kol appears behind her.
"You won't have to." I smile and turn her around.
"Well, that sounds like a broken promise." He smirks. She smiles and runs up to him, capturing his lips with hers.
"I thought that you were daggered, or worse." Davina exclaims pulling away and looking at him.
"I caught Klaus in a rare charitable moment." Kol explains and I smirk. "But it won't last long. Are you ready to go?"
"Kelsey." She whispered looking back at me. I smile and nod encouragingly.
"You deserve to be happy, 'Vina. Don't worry about me and the twins. We've got this."
She turns back to Kol with a wide smile. "Anywhere." She answers him.
"Anywhere?" Kol questions, teasingly. Then, he looks at her deeply and full of love. "Everywhere." He brushes some hair behind her ear. He kisses her again. I avert my eyes to Josh, who rolls his, making me chuckle. Kol, finally, steps away from Davina and approaches Josh.
"Thank you." He says squeezes Josh's shoulder. Josh nods and Kol turns to me. He opens his arms wide and smirk. "Bring it in Claire." I laugh in amusement and roll my eyes at his theatrics. I wrap my arms around his waist and his go around my shoulders. "Look after my family, especially that bloody brother of mine."
I pull away and look up at him. "As long as you look after my little sister. Because finding you won't be that hard."
"I have no doubt you would." He chuckles, but then he looks at me without any humor. "She's safe with me."
"I know she is." I nod.
"I love you." Davina says to Josh. He smiles.
"I love you, too." She smiles at him and wraps her arms around his waist. He hugs her tight as Kol gets in the driver's seat of the car.
Davina changes her attention to me and her smile flatters. I open my arms and wave her in. She immediately complies and I hug her as firm as I can without hurting her with my strength. I pull away and grab her face between my hands.
"You don't need to worry about us. You go, be happy. I promise you I will keep you updated daily. And I swear if I need you, I will call you, okay?" A tear falls down my face as she nods. My hands move down to her shoulders. "I am so, so happy you're alive. The last five years have been hell without you. I love you so damn much."
"I love you, too." She smiles through a few tears. "Will we see each other again?"
"Absolutely." I tell her. "I'll need you. Who else is gonna be the maid of honor when all of this is over?"
"Really?" She smiles.
"There's nobody else I'd rather have next to me." I tell her.
"Now get out of here." Josh says with a chuckle. "Go."
Davina laughs a bit and I kiss her forehead, nudging her towards the passenger's side.
"I'm going, I'm going." She chuckles and gets into the convertible. As soon as her door closes and she in, Kol takes off down the road. Josh and I watch the car zoom away until it's out of sight.
_____________________
When I get home, I peak my head in on the girls to find them sleeping soundly. I smile softly and quickly close the door. I make my way to mine and Nik's room, where he is sitting on the bed, waiting for me.
"Hey." I smile closing the door behind me. "Did Freya wake Elijah?"
"She did." He smiles. "Have you spoken to Kol, because if not there something you need to know."
"Yeah." I nod, kicking out my shoes and removing my pants and shirt and grabbing one of his t-shirts from his dresser. "I saw him and Davina before they left. I can't believe she's alive." I smile at him. I walk over to my side of the bed and lay down under the covers.
"Are you okay?" He asks me. "With what happened with The Hollow today."
I shrug. "She got under my skin, that's all. She impersonated my dead mother." I sigh deeply. "I actually thought I might get some answers, but then she started... I don't know. Questioning my choices revolving around you and your siblings. Then, I just knew it wasn't her."
"I can't imagine how frustrating that is." Nik says, his voice filled with concern.
"The Hollow's gone now." I smile at him. "That's all that matters." He nods and sinks down into the bed, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me to him.
"I love you."
"I love you back."