The Reckoning pt. 2
"I invited him to the party, love," Klaus argues back as Stefan wipes some of the blood away. "He's the one dancing on the table."
As both Elena and Klaus stand up the door to the gym gets pushed open once more and Rebekah storms back in. "Where is it?!" Rebekah demands agitated as she walks toward her brother and Elena furiously. "Where's my necklace?" She continues as both of them turn around to her. "What are you talking about?" "She has my necklace. Look," Rebekah holds up, what seems to be Caroline's phone, to Klaus' face and he takes it from her, looking at the picture on the display. "Well, well. More lies," Klaus says looking back up as Rebekah now stands in front of Elena demanding an answer. "Where is it?" "I don't have it anymore," Elena answers. "YOU'RE LYING!" Rebekah yells, the veins under her eyes appear and she growls while biting into Elena's neck.
Not even seconds later she is pulled away by Klaus as Stefan takes a few steps forward and I stand up from my seat on the bleachers. "Knock it off," Klaus growls at his sister loudly as she yells back, "MAKE HER TELL ME WHERE IT IS, NIK." He slowly and calmly steps away from the blond, turning around and crouching down in front of Elena. "Where is the necklace, sweetheart? Be honest." "I'm telling the truth. Katherine stole it." Klaus rests his chin on the back of his hands looking away from Elena. "Katerina." He sighs, "of course."
He stands up straight again turning slightly, "well, that's unfortunate. If we had the necklace it'd make things a whole lot easier for your witch. But, since we're doing this the hard way let's put a clock on it, shall we?" He points at the timer above one of the basketball hoops and walks towards the control panel on a desk. The timer buzzes as he starts the clock at twenty and walks back over to us. "Twenty minutes. If Bonnie hasn't found a solution by then I want you to feed again," he tells Stefan. "You know you want to," Klaus tells Stefan as he looks over at Elena. "Klaus," Elena starts, "don't do this to him." "Anna," Klaus shortly looks up to me on the bleachers, "come with me. No one else leaves. If she tries to run, fracture her spine." I get up off the bleachers without a word and follow Rebekah and Klaus out of the gym and down the corridors.
I don't like being compelled but right now I'm defenseless to it. I figure, as long as I do what they say they won't compel me.
"You go back to the wolf-boy. I'm gonna see if the witch has found a solution to our problem yet." Rebekah nods at her brother's demand and walks down a different corridor. "You're staying with me, love," he tells me and takes my arm again, dragging me along. As we get near the pool we can see Bonnie and a drenched Matt standing there, talking.
"-a message for you." - Matt
"For me?" - Bonnie
"From the witch that put the hybrid curse on Klaus. She said Elena shouldn't have survived Klaus's ritual. The hybrids can't transition because Elena's still alive." - Matt
"Tyler." -Bonnie
"He's gonna die, isn't he?" - Matt
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Klaus interrupts them and they turn to look at him. "Anna," Bonnie whispers as she sees me. "Given the choice, doppelgänger or hybrid, I go hybrid every time," Klaus says with a serious tone.
No one else can say anything as we hear something or rather someone crashing into lockers down the hall. Klaus starts walking towards the noise and Elena runs into him. "We gotta spot meeting like this," he tells her smirking. "Come, Anna," he holds out one of his hands behind him not looking at me, waiting for me to take it. As I take his hand he grabs Elena by her upper arm again and Klaus starts walking to the cafeteria, where Stefan just flung himself through the door.
As we walk into the cafeteria Stefan rams a broken-off broomstick end into his stomach. Klaus lets go of my hand softly at the door but holds onto Elena's arm still, walking further up to Stefan. "Now, this is fascinating. I've never seen this before. The only thing stronger than your craving for blood is your love for this one girl." Letting go of Elena, Klaus walks over to Stefan completely, as said vampire grunts and wheezes. "Why don't you turn it off?" "No," Stefan firmly answers, and the original scoffs. "Oh, come on. Your humanity is killing you. All the guilt must be exhausting. Turn it off," he tries again but Stefan still refuses.
"You're strong, but you're not that strong," Klaus tells him and pulls the makeshift stake out of Stefan's gut, throwing it aside. "Turn...it...off," the hybrid repeats slowly, staring him straight in the eyes. "NO," Stefan yells loudly and pushes Klaus away from himself. Speeding both of them against a wall Klaus yells at Stefan "TURN IT OFF," now compelling him.
As Klaus slowly lets go of Stefan, who is leaning against the wall taking ratchet breaths, Elena stares at them in shocked disbelief. "What did you do?" She asks as Stefan's body twitches one last time and Klaus turns to look at her, "I fixed him. But I think a test is in order, don't you?" The Original walks over to Elena and stands behind her. "Rippah," Elena twitches at the name as Klaus puts his hands on her shoulders. Stefan takes in a breath and sighs while closing his eyes. "Perhaps you'd like a drink from the doppelgänger's neck," Klaus says moving Elena's hair off of her right shoulder. Stefan breaths out one more time, his eyes focusing on Elena as veins appear beneath them. Moving away from Elena, Klaus walks over to me as Stefan vamp speeds at Elena and she screams.
"You shouldn't let him kill her, you know," I tell him lowly, finally finding my voice again and he looks down at me. "And why is that, love?" "Because you need her for your hybrids to survive," I simply tell him and he frowns but quickly speeds over to Stefan getting him away from Elena. She falls to the ground unconscious from the blood loss. "Stop," he tells Stefan who tries to go at her again.
Klaus looks back at me, "enlighten me, sweetheart. What have I been doing wrong in your opinion?" I walk over to him, "I've been thinking about this the whole time," I tell him, "Elena told me how the sacrifice works. You sacrifice one of each species and then you have to drink the blood of the doppelgänger. But why the doppelgänger? Why exactly that specific human? What's so special about her?" He looks at me weirdly, "because she was a part of the spell the Original Witch cast." "Right, but not really," I tell him and he frowns.
"The original doppelgänger wasn't a part of it. Her blood was. That's why you had to drain Elena of hers and not just kill her like the other two." His frown deepens, "well, it's nice that you understand how everything works but what does that have to do with my hybrids?" I scoff, "well, from my experiences so far, witches love messing with other supernatural beings to keep the balance. You turned into your true hybrid form after draining Elena. That means, the blood turned you. To keep the balance the Original Witch put that nifty little detail into your curse."
I smirk at the realization, "your hybrids have to drink the blood of the doppelgänger to turn. If the sacrifice would have happened as it was supposed to, Elena would be dead, you couldn't create more of your kind, and the balance would be kept. Ta-da!" Klaus looks at me in awe before quickly collecting himself. "Let's test that theory then, why don't we?" He goes over to Stefan and tells him something I can't understand, then he walks over to me, takes my hand, and walks out.
A few moments later we enter one of the science classrooms where Caroline and Rebekah are waiting with a transitioning Tyler. "Well, the verdict's in. The Original Witch says the doppelgänger should be dead," Klaus tells them and Rebekah walks over to us. "Does that mean we can kill her?" "No. I'm fairly certain it means the opposite," he tells his sister. "What?" She asks and pulls Caroline away from Tyler, holding her in a tight grip. "Call it a hunch," he says and glances at me before turning to Tyler holding up a test tube with Elena's blood in it.
"Elena's blood. Drink it," he tells him, and Caroline protests, trashing in Rebekah's grip. "No. No, no, no, Tyler, don't." "If he doesn't feed, he'll die anyway, love. Consider this an experiment." Tyler looks at him uncertainly and then up at me as I stand beside Klaus.
"It's okay," I tell him reassuringly and he slowly takes the tube from Klaus's hand. "There we go," Klaus says as Tyler drinks Elena's blood, "good boy." As Caroline still trashes against Rebekah Tyler falls to the ground groaning and yelling making me jump in shock slightly. Sitting on his knees he holds onto his head and screams in pain. I take a wary step back as Klaus walks closer to the boy on the floor. Tyler falls back to the ground still screaming as Klaus kneels in front of him. Standing on all fours Tyler screams again looking back up revealing fangs and golden eyes with dark veins beneath them.
"Well, that's a good sign," Klaus comments and smirks.
• • •
"So, the doppelgänger isn't the problem, her blood is the solution," Rebekah states while sitting on the hood of a car in the parking lot at the hospital. "Seams so," Klaus says glancing at me. I zone out the rest of their conversation.
Klaus took me with them after what happened at the school and brought Elena to the hospital to get her blood for his hybrids. I still don't know why he keeps dragging me along with him. There is no apparent reason for me to even be here. But yet, I am standing beside him at the car, not knowing what comes next. I'm ripped out of my thoughts as Rebekah jumps off the car hood.
"And what about her?" She points at me in question. "I don't know yet," he answers and his sister walks away with a shrug as Klaus watches her leave. "Well, look who finally decided to show up to the party." Klaus and I turn around to see Damon walking toward us.
"Where is she?"
"Elena? Uh, she's making a donation to a greater cause. Can't let you interfere, mate," Klaus says blocking Damon's way to the hospital.
"Then you'll have to kill me," Damon retorts.
"Oh, I would love to kill you, but, oh, I made a pledge to your brother and unlike him, I keep my word. Although, you know what, thinking about it now he probably doesn't care much anymore," Klaus finishes with a smirk and vamp speeds them against a car, pushing Damon down against it, getting ready to rip his heart out as I gasp at the scene.
"Don't you wanna know about your friend Mikael?" Damon's words make the Original stop all movements.
"What do you know about Mikael?"
"Just that he knows you're here," Damon says with tightening airways.
"You're bluffing," Klaus says and wants to go for Damon's heart again.
"Katherine and I found him. Consider it our leverage." Klaus yells out in frustration and slams the younger vampire against another car. I feel Klaus hold onto my waist and then gushes of wind surrounding me.
As I feel solid ground under my feet again I look up and meet Klaus's eyes. "I'm gonna have to leave now and I don't want him to find out about you," Klaus tells me and I just now realize the proximity we are in. "Give me your phone," he tells me and lets go of my waist. Not looking away from his eyes I take my phone out of my jeans' back pocket, unlock it and hand it over.
He breaks our eye contact and taps something into my phone. As he gives the phone back he says, "whenever you need help or if something happens, call me and I'll be here as soon as possible." I take my phone from him and look down at the screen, seeing his contact and phone number. I feel a gush of wind and look back up to see no one standing there.
He's gone.
Word count: 2147