If anyone had seen the gathering, they would have found themselves swimming in confusion. All seated on the couches in the living room of the Mikaelson manor sat five individuals. Four were related, one was not.
Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol Mikaelson were all seated and having somewhat of a cordial conversation with none other than Elena Gilbert, the doppelganger.
"Did you bring anything that could help us with our search?" Elijah asked Elena, feeling slightly odd about working with the doppelganger. When he told her about Europa, he was expecting Elena to go to the Salvatores, not to him and his family.
Elena nodded and pulled out her sister's laptop, logging in using Jupiter6. Pulling up the security footage, Elena shook her head at how oblivious she was. Her sister would have been working on this for a while and only now was Elena noticing?
Guilt ate at the younger Gilbert.
Elijah pulled out his phone and checked his call logs, "I called Europa at about 9:25 am," He told Elena, who typed in the time stamp and switched to the upstairs hallway camera.
They had about five seconds of footage before the camera went out. "What? No. No, no, no." Elena went through the next five minutes of footage, finding the same blank screen. If she watched the whole house, she saw herself answer the door and call up to Europa before leaving with Elijah. Then a minute later, all of the footage went dark. It stayed that way for about ten minutes until it came back to life, showing an empty house.
"What just happened? Why can't we see anything?" Rebekah asked worriedly.
Refraining from throwing the laptop, Elena jumped to her feet and tangled her hands in her hair as she paced, "Whoever took her knew she was paranoid. They corrupted to data. We know when she was taken but there is no other evidence outside of that."
"Can't we just retrieve it from the trash?" Klaus asked in confusion.
The group glanced at Elijah who typed away for a moment until suddenly the laptop screen went blue and an animated vampire showed up, "You Lose," It laughed, repeating the taunt, never stopping.
"What is that?" Asked Kol in confusion, "Why is it saying that?"
"Whoever did this left a virus, it might have even been Europa's virus to keep the serial killer from figuring her out. Either way, the entire computer has been wiped, I would hazard a guess that the desktop and her phone has been too."
There was a moment of silence as Elena slowly sat back on the couch, and the Originals considered their options.
"Do you happen to have Europa's hairbrush?" Kol asked.
Looking up, Elena nodded slowly, "But who would do a tracking spell? Bonnie is helping her mom, and she doesn't want anything to do with Mystic Falls at the moment."
"We have our witches, Love. Go and retrieve the hairbrush, I'll take care of the rest." Klaus assured the girl.
When Elena got back to her house, she was fully expecting it to be empty. Instead, she found Caroline, Damon, and Stefan, all standing there. Once she came into view, Damon sighed a breath of relief. "Thank god, we were worried you got taken too." Then he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Where were you?"
"I went to see if Europa was at her usual hideouts. She wasn't." Elena lied. She couldn't tell them that she went to the Mikaelsons for help, they would trap her in the house, again, and then her sister would really be in trouble.
Nodding, Damon accepted the lie, "Right, well, Caroline is going to stay here for the night, and then in the morning, Matt will stop by to make sure you're safe. Don't do something stupid."
Once Stefan and Damon were gone, Elena looked at Caroline stiffly before sighing. "You know that Europa is in danger, right?"
Caroline's eyes met Elena's, her hand flying to her necklace, "You have a plan?"
"Yeah, you willing to keep a secret from Stefan and Damon?"
A grin lit up the blonde vampire's face. "Oh hell yeah."
When Elena arrived at the Mikaelson Mansion a second time, it was with Europa's hairbrush and Caroline Forbes, much to the shock of the Originals. "Caroline, what a surprise." Klaus greeted slowly.
"I'm here to help Europa, do you guys have a witch?"
Elijah nodded, "She's on her way. Why don't we take this inside?"
The group all stood around in silence, waiting for the witch to arrive to give them something to do. Every so often, Caroline would glance over at Klaus, who was staring intently at the ground. Taking a breath, the blonde vampire walked over to the Original Hybrid with a smile, "I'm not in the mood Caroline,"
"Too bad, you need to pull your head out of your ass. Despite the turn of events earlier, I meant what I told you."
Raising his eyebrow, Klaus glanced at Caroline, "Which part, Europa being too good for everyone on Earth or me not being good enough to even be in the same room as her?"
A snort came from Rebekah who made a hum of agreement, "No, the part where I told you that she cares about you despite you being the devil incarnate and that you shouldn't hold one mistake against her. You can't tell me you aren't thinking about what will happen if we find her dead."
A sudden growl sounded, and Caroline found herself pinned against the wall, Klaus' hand loosely on her throat. It was a threat, but he wasn't applying pressure. Elena gasped, and Elijah quickly grabbed her, shaking his head.
"Don't you ever suggest that! She's not- Europa cannot be dead! I won't allow it." Klaus snarled at Caroline, who gave him a soft smile. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because you just proved my point. Talk to Europa, she feels bad about what happened at the ball."
Klaus took his hand off Caroline's throat and glanced at her Tiffany's necklace, "How would you know? You haven't spoken to her since the ball, only Elijah has."
"Because it's Europa, I've known her since birth. She is not the type to not feel guilty about hurting someone." Caroline assured Klaus before stepping away from him.
No one could comment because at that instant, the doorbell rang. Elijah disappeared to answer it, coming back moments later with a young and pretty witch, "This is Carmen, she's a witch from one of the London covens."
The witch in question smiled brightly at the group, "Hello, I heard you have lost a sibling doppelganger? No worries, I can do a simple locator spell in my sleep," Her voice was soft and kind, she was reasonably petite with a light skin tone and vibrant red hair. "Now, where is my map?"
Once seated, the witch got to work with the items Elena brought and Elena herself, chanting softly. Every so often, her hazel eyes would flicker between the group until she grabbed the dark powder she had with her and scattered it on the map.
The grains moved, attracted to Europa's location like a magnet. Eventually, it all stopped, but Carmen's chanting didn't. Now she was in a trance, her hand gripping Elena's tightly. "Elijah? What's happening?" Elena asked in confusion, glancing at the older Original as he gently placed a hand on Carmen's lower back.
"Death, genocide, triad. Immortality, fire, betrayal. Jazz, rebirth, Hope." She chanted in triplets. Carmen continued the chant three times before she fell silent and her hand fell from Elena.
Everyone was silent as Elijah cradled the woman in his lap, "What was that?" Caroline finally asked nervously.
"I do believe that was a premonition."
Everyone looked around cautiously. If it was a vision, then who was it for?
"Of what?" Klaus finally asked softly.
Shaking his head, Elijah looked to be at a loss. "I have no idea."
With that, Carmen blinked awake, slowly drawing herself from Elijah's grasp as she looked around, "What happened?"
"You had a premonition, do you know who it was for?" Asked Elijah tenderly, getting shocked glances from everyone present.
Biting her lip, Carmen looked at Elena, "It was your sister's future, I only saw glances. It's already fading. I'm sorry, but whatever the premonition was supposed to mean, I cannot interpret it." No one seemed at ease with that information. Clearing her throat, Carmen looked at the map, "But I do have her location."
The group looked at the map before Elena and Caroline glanced at each other in shock. "I don't recognize the location, but she's in the city," Rebekah noted.
"We know where she is." Elena and Caroline said in unison, still looking at each other in confusion.
Tears were dried on my cheeks. Dawn was breaking, and no one had come for me. My strength was slowly leaving me, but at the same time, I was too alert to sleep. Alaric should be back any second now, I refused to be caught off guard.
If I could somehow break through the psychopath and get to my best friend, then I would have a chance. I wanted to help Rick, now I needed to help him before I lost my life.
Which was fine, now I just had a deadline to work under.
I heard the large steel door open, and many footsteps clamber down the iron steps. "Help!" I croaked, my throat dry and raw from screaming often. "Please, help!"
"Europa?" I heard Elena shout, her face appearing at the door. "Europa, are you okay?"
I nodded my head, "Please just get me out."
The door opened, and suddenly I felt a knife drive into the back of my leg. I let out a scream of pain, "Europa!" Elena gasped, running forward in concern. More tears raced down my cheeks. "Europa what's wrong? What happened?"
"Move," A familiar growl sounded. The sound of metal snapping rang through the air until comforting hands grabbed my torso, lifting me from the chair. "The door triggered a knife. It stabbed her leg. I have to remove it, then I can heal her."
Klaus? Why was he here?
Any questions were driven from my mind as more pain erupted from my leg. Another scream tore from my lips. Guess that answers that question, Klaus was here to torture me. "Stop it, stop it! Please! Please stop it!" I sob lightly, grabbing Klaus' shirt weakly.
The sound of a knife clattering along with my pain ending let me know that it was over, "Europa, I need you to drink this, it will make you feel better." I didn't even hesitate as I allowed Klaus to heal me.
As his blood flowed into my mouth and healed my wounds, my fatigue finally won out. The feeling of safety was enough to convince me to close my eyes and give in to sleep.