Arabella stops rummaging through Elena's fridge as soon as she starts hearing shouts. Furrowing her eyebrows, Arabella turns to look at Damon, who is looking under Arabella's sink. "Do you hear that?" She asks quietly.
Damon spares his baby sister a glance. "What? Stefan being a terrible liar to Klaus? I know it's pathetic."
Shaking her head, Arabella begins to move towards the staircase. "Elena!" She shouts. The doppelgänger races down the stairs. She quickly glances behind her before looking straight forward. She wildly looks around as though she is being chased by someone.
Once Elena looks at the hybrid, her eyes widen in fear. "Stay away from me!" She exclaims.
Taking a step forward with arms raised peacefully, Arabella shakes her head. "Elena, it's okay. It's me, Arabella."
Before the female hybrid can even blink, Elena breaks off a piece of the staircase and stabs the wood into Arabella's heart.
Stumbling back with a gasp, Arabella falls onto the floor as Elena steps around her. The hybrid claws at the broken banister in her chest while Elena races out of the door to the house.
"Elena!" Damon shouts as Klaus takes Elena away.
Releasing a groan, Arabella tries to gain a little bit of strength to take the wood out. Damon comes and assists her seconds after Elena is gone.
Arabella takes gasps of breath while Stefan calls Bonnie from across the room. "Remind me to never get on Elena's bad side," she murmurs as the wound in her chest heals.
Damon peers into his sister's eyes. "Klaus has Elena," he states.
Eyes widening in surprise, Arabella sits up. "What!?"
With a grimace on his face, Damon pulls his sister onto her feet. "Do you think that you'll be able to talk Klaus into releasing her?"
Shaking her head, Arabella walks towards the front entrance. "No. If Klaus has her, there's no talking him off that ledge." She pauses for a few seconds. "But I do know where you can find her."
The three Salvatores wait for Bonnie's arrival to formulate a concrete plan. Arabella is stuck with hybrid protection duty with Tyler and Hayley. She doesn't mind it too much, though, because it gives her the opportunity to talk with Hayley more.
It takes only a few hours to get Chris packed up, but once it has been done, Arabella received a call from Caroline. "One sec," she states. She exits the household to get away from prying ears.
"Hey, Care," she greets cheerily. "Chris is packed, we're just waiting until the time is right for him to leave."
"Bella," Caroline states in a sad and hesitant tone.
That alone is reason for Arabella to worry. "What's wrong?"
She can hear sigh on the other end of the phone. "Elena escaped and now Jeremy needs to kill a vampire in order to save her, and Klaus refused to give up a hybrid unless you go on a date with him," she blabs.
Furrowing her eyebrows, Arabella shakes her head. "What?"
Nothing about this makes sense. Why does it have to be a hybrid? Why can't Klaus or someone else just turn someone? "In order for us to save Elena, you'll have to go out with Klaus," she reiterates. "I know it's a lot to ask—"
"So, we're just going to give up Chris? After all he's done for us and after we promised to save him, you want me to turn my back on that?"
"It's the only way." Her voice cracks on the other end of the phone. "It's either that, or Klaus will kill Tyler. I can't lose him, Bella. I just can't."
Arabella goes through all her options. Klaus clearly put them between a rock and a hard place. Either they give up Chris, or Klaus will kill Tyler. Either way, a hybrid is dying tonight.
Slamming her fist into a tree in anger, Arabella half expects it to fall on top of her with how hard she hit it. Her knuckles come away bloody as she comes up with her final decision. If Tyler hates her because of it, then so be it. "I'll do it," she responds. "Tell Klaus that he gets one date of his choosing." She sucks in a deep breath. She will most definitely have to talk to Klaus later about his methods of asking someone out.
A long sigh of relief is held on the other end of the phone. "Thanks, Bella," she responds quietly.
As soon as Caroline hangs up, Arabella finds herself shoving her phone into her pocket. She releases an angry growl as she punches the tree again with her other hand. Once the wood makes a satisfying crack, Arabella slips down onto the ground and puts her head into her hands. She hasn't known Chris very long, sure, but they are both hybrids, and that has to count for something. Especially because he didn't judge her about her soulmate bond with Klaus. About how she yearns to be with him, yet knows she shouldn't at the same time.
She only enters the house when she regains her composure and when she knows she won't burst into tears at the first sight of the hybrid she just betrayed.
"Are you bleeding?" Tyler asks as soon as she enters the household.
Arabella glances down at her knuckles that are covered in blood. "Let's just say I'm a lot more short tempered now that I'm a hybrid," she lies as Tyler hands her a towel to wipe up the blood with.
He nods his head in understanding while Chris and Hayley enter the room. Chris stands at the front door to look at the two hybrids and the werewolf.
"You're doing a good thing, Chris," Tyler states.
Chris nods his head, his brown eyes shining in the dim lighting of the household. "Yeah, well, let's see how fast this good thing can get me out of town," he responds.
Hayley opens her arms to give the hybrid a quick hug. "Call me when you're safe, okay?"
Nodding his head again, he pulls away and picks up the duffel bag that they had spent hours packing. Arabella eyes him carefully as she watches him begin to open the door, only to immediately step back.
Klaus enters the room with a tight lipped smile on his face. "Going somewhere?" He asks with raised eyebrows. He doesn't even bother sparing a glance at the other people in the room.
Tyler, Hayley, and Arabella stand back in horror as Klaus walks Chris back inside the house. The female hybrid certainly didn't think that Klaus would show up to watch the job get done himself.
In a flash, Klaus has his hybrid pinned against the staircase railing. He fixates an angry glare at Chris's face. "When I said 'don't let her out of your sight', what did you think I meant?"
Gasping for breath, the terrified hybrid claws at the hand around his neck. Arabella can't bear the sight of this. "Klaus, stop!" She exclaims.
"It's not his fault, it's mine," Tyler shouts. "I was distracting him! It's my fault she got away!"
Chris struggles even more as he quickly begins to lose energy. The death hold that Klaus has around the poor man's neck may be just enough to decapitate him.
"Then maybe you should be the one who died for it," Klaus snarls.
"No one has to die!" Hayley shouts.
It's difficult for Arabella to watch the scene unfold, but she forces herself to. She has to since she practically gave Chris up in exchange for Tyler's life. The guilt ties her stomach into knots while she stares at his fear stricken face.
Rushing into Hayley's face, Klaus angrily glares at her. "Did I not say mind your business!?" He screams in her face.
Hayley looks Klaus in the eyes defiantly. "Tyler's covering for me. I'm the one that let her go."
"Hayley!" Tyler and Arabella hiss at the same time.
"No," she responds. "You want to kill someone, go ahead. Kill me. I would rather die than end up as one of your sired little bitches."
For a second, Arabella thinks that he actually might do it. The hybrid might kill Hayley and leave the girl to never find answers about her family.
Instead, Klaus produces an evil smile. "Don't tempt me, little wolf."
Slowly turning to face his hybrid, Klaus's smile falls. He has yet to even look in Arabella's direction. If he did, he would see the pure disgust on her face at what he has resorted to.
Gone is the man that she fell in love with easily. Gone is the hybrid who set her body on fire with a touch. What has replace him is a pathetic shell of a man who needs to assert his dominance on anyone he sees.
Tears line the edges of Chris's eyes as he looks down on the hybrid, who he is terrified of. "Your existence is to serve me. To please me." He pauses a moment just to watch Chris squirm a little bit. "Do you understand."
Arabella can hear the boy swallow the large lump in his throat. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. His voice cracks on the end of sorry, which shatters Arabella's heart to pieces. "I won't fail you again."
This is the person she betrayed. A man who only wanted freedom from Klaus. To stop being a petty servant to a person he is afraid of.
Arabella can relate to that in so many ways.
Shaking his head at his hybrid, Klaus drops his glare. "No, you won't."
It is then that Arabella knows that it is time for Chris to die. All of this was just a dramatic buildup for the end.
"Get out of here," Klaus states while inclining his head.
Arabella shakes here head and moves to stop him. "No," she cries. Klaus grabs her shoulders at an inhuman speed and forces her to stay away as Chris moves towards the door.
He opens it only to be stabbed in the chest by Stefan with a stake.
"No!" Hayley shouts in surprise.
Stefan and Jeremy fully enter the room. The latter takes in the shocks gazes of everyone. Klaus turns around to get a good look at Jeremy and smiles.
"Go on," Klaus encourages. He keeps his grip tight on his mate's shoulders.
He watches satisfactorily as Jeremy swings the axe up and brings it down. Arabella turns her head away as the axe slowly goes down towards Chris's neck. She cannot bear to watch what she had done. What she caused.
She can hear Hayley shriek somewhere in the background as a thud echoes through the room. Thus concluding the end of Chris's immortal life.
Arabella looks back with tears shining in her eyes. She shoves at Klaus to let go of her as she stares at the hybrid's shocked severed head.
"Let go of me!" She shouts as Klaus vampire speeds out of the household. He stops in the middle of the woods, where he follows her request and releases her.
Seeing the tears glistening in the girl's eyes, Klaus frowns. "Don't be too upset, Chris did betray me."
Closing her eyes and shaking her head, Arabella sucks in a deep breath. "And I betrayed him!" She looks up at the hybrid. "He just wanted to be free. To go into the world and travel. That's all he wanted, Nik."
Klaus brushes back a strand of her hair. "Are you sure you're not referring to yourself, love."
Swatting his hand away, Arabella sends a glare in his direction. "No, Klaus. I'm talking about Chris, the hybrid I just betrayed to save two of my friends' lives."
She storms off into the woods without glancing back at Klaus. She wanders and wanders until she finds herself in a cave. There, she rests for the night to avoid the rest of the world.