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“Seriously, guys, this isn’t funny anymore. Call me back.” Caroline huffed as she pulled the phone from her ear, angrily hitting the ‘end call’ button.
She slid the phone into her pocket and pulled out her keys, unlocking the door to her house. “I’m home,” she yelled as she toed off her shoes. Her mom didn’t reply, but she rarely did when focused on a case.
Lately there were a lot of those.
Her heartbeat remained steady, though, sounding from somewhere deeper in the house so she didn’t worry. She opened the fridge and grabbed the takeout box in the back, setting it onto the counter. She opened it and pulled out one of the blood bags that was stashed inside, using her fangs to pierce the plastic.
She pulled out her phone as she leaned against the counter drinking, hoping that she’d somehow missed the buzz of an incoming message during the minutes since she’d last checked. She hadn’t.
She sighed as she finished eating, throwing the bag into the trash. She walked upstairs and pushed open the door to her room, stopping in her tracks when she saw the figure standing at her desk.
“Hello, Caroline,” he said, not turning around. He had a picture in his hand that he’d pulled down from the corkboard collage stuck to her wall, and was staring intently at it. It was of her, Bonnie and Elena, taken a few months before the latter’s parents had died and everything had gone to hell.
They were smiling in it, with their arms wrapped around each other. Caroline swallowed. “Klaus. What are you doing here?” She knew her heart was racing, just as she knew he could hear it. Her eyes darted around the room, the hand still on her doorknob tightening.
“Don’t run, love,” he said, setting the picture down and finally turning to look at her. He left smudges of red along the edges.
She was proud of herself for not so much as flinching. “Run out of water?” She asked. “I have a perfectly good shower. Normally I’d be opposed to having you undressed at all in my house, but I think I can make an exception.”
He smiled, a mean one she’d rarely seen on his face, especially aimed at her. She didn’t like it. Her entire body was humming with energy; half of her instincts telling her to run, run as far as could, and the other half warning her that this monster in front of her was older and more powerful than she could comprehend, and that she’d never make it.
“My water is working perfectly well,” he told her, stepping closer.
She nodded then flinched when the doorknob broke off in her hand, the noise echoing through the otherwise silent room. “Nervous?” He queried, his tone kept light.
“You’re standing in my room covered in blood and you still haven’t told me why you’re here. I think anyone would be nervous.” She responded.
His eyes searched hers, or at least she thought they did. She tried to keep her breathing even, but by this point her heart was beating as fast as a rabbit’s and there was no hiding that. He took another step closer to her, so near now that their chests almost touched.
He lifted one of his hands up and she watched as dozens of tiny flakes of dried blood fell off with the movement. He rested it on her chest, part of his hand touching her tank top and part resting on bare skin, and her breathing stuttered.
On a day-to-day basis, Caroline generally found herself wearing heels. Not always fancy, no, most of them casual, but still. That is to say, generally, Klaus was only a couple inches taller than her at most.
She liked it like that. It even, not that she’d admit it to anyone, made her more attracted to him.
Sure, if you’d asked her three, or even two years ago she’d have said she liked tall guys. Over 6’2”. Klaus, if she had to guess, was around 5’11”. Not tall, but not short either. At 5’6”, everyday heels could get them pretty close to even.
But ever since Damon had happened a tall height had stopped being something swoon-worthy, and became something that shot panic through her. Something that reminded her of figures looming over her in darkened rooms, and the memories of being unable to control her own body.
All that was to say that Klaus, standing in front of her while she had her shoes off and was suddenly several inches shorter than him, was not something that helped calm her down from the panic she was already feeling thanks to him being covered in blood and his general “Klaus-ness.”
In fact, it only served to amp it up.
“What are you doing?” She asked. She didn’t know what sort of answer she was expecting but Klaus, like always, chose to defy expectations.
“The Salvatores are dead,” he told her, eyes boring into hers. “So is Tyler, and the quarterback, and the history teacher.”
Her breathing stuttered, horror flooded her, and the palm on her chest pressed just a bit closer as he continued. “The doppelgänger and her brother are strung up at my house in a manner that is most unpleasant, and the Bennet witch is locked safely away until she’s needed.”
“The only one left to deal with,” he finished, “is you.”
This, Caroline thought to herself, is where I die.
She opened her mouth to speak but he stopped her, shushing her. His free hand rose from where it had hung at his side and settled on the curve of her neck, the grip too restraining to be anything but a threat.
“Kol is dead,” he said. “My brother is dead, Caroline.” And oh, oh fuck. Because Finn, who Klaus had kept in a box for 900 years, was one thing. Finn had been trying to kill them. But Kol? Kol was another.
She knew people generally saw her as a ditzy blonde, even her friends, but she wasn’t. And she knew that if there was one thing Klaus cared for above all it was his family. Her group saw the way he carted them around in coffins and attributed it to carelessness, but she knew otherwise.
She thought they’d have figured it out after all he did to get them back, but apparently she’d been wrong. She didn’t want to know how many people were going to die as punishment for Kol, but she knew it would be more than he’d already killed.
“My brother is dead,” he said again, “and all I want to know from you, is if you were aware of the doppelgänger’s little plan.”
Her breathing, her heartbeat, her entire body froze for a second. “No,” she breathed out.
He stared at her, his eyes darting over her face before his body relaxed so minutely only a vampire would have been able to see it, and his hand left her chest to join the other on the other side of her neck.
“That’s good,” he said, and wretched her neck to the side, sending her careening into darkness.
Caroline woke up, so to speak, in a room she didn’t recognize and on a bed that wasn’t hers. Terror trickled through her veins as she recalled the conversation she’d been having with Klaus moments before he snapped her neck.
Her neck was sore in a way that it often wasn’t after a broken neck, especially when she’d just eaten. It made her wonder how many times it had happened.
She was up from the bed in a flash, her hand opening the door as quietly as she could. She could hear faint noises coming from somewhere and followed them, her steps making no noise as she moved.
The house she was in wasn’t one she recognized, and it definitely wasn’t the Fell house in Mystic Falls. The walls were darker, the decorations less ostentatious. On one of the hallways she passed there was a stylized “M” in a design she’d once seen Rebekah wearing on a necklace.
The noises got louder the closer she got, until she could make out the distinct sounds of someone crying, and another’s wheezing breath. She turned around a corner and stopped in her tracks, half her body still hidden being the wall.
In the center of a large room were Jeremy and Elena. Both were hanging by their arms from chains strung to something on the ceiling, although Jeremy’s were far thicker. They, and the floor, were covered in blood.
She couldn’t even tell what they had been wearing, their clothing was just sheets of red. Jeremy looked worse than Elena, all though that wasn’t saying much.
His face was black and blue, swelling in various places. His arms and torso had cuts covering them, some so deep she was surprised she couldn't see bone. Elena's eyes were sunken like she’d been drained of blood, and various spots on her skin showed that Klaus hadn’t held back from using vervain on her.
In her shock at seeing them, Caroline had forgotten to watch for the Original and stepped forwards into the room. She flinched when he stepped into her line of sight, wiping his scarlett-stained hands on an already dirtied piece of cloth. “Caroline, love,” he said, “come to enjoy the show?”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw more movement and started, turning to see Elijah. She hadn’t interacted with him much before, but she didn’t recall ever seeing the look on his face present before. It was entirely blank, in a way that just shouldn’t be possible. His eyes, however, told a different story.
They were old in the way all vampires’ seemed to become after a certain point, and filled with a rage so deep it made the nothingness of his expression all the more unsettling. He was sitting in a chair, watching, a glass of amber alcohol in his hand and his posture as relaxed as could be.
He tilted his head to the side while looking at her, a hint of curiosity entering his expression. She wasn’t ashamed to say that she flinched. “I hardly think she’s interested in watching, Niklaus,” he said to his brother, although his attention remained on her. “Take her back to her room.”
They didn’t get the chance to hear what Klaus would have said in response because a quiet, rasping voice spoke instead. “Caroline?” Elena asked, followed by a coughing fit that a vampire shouldn’t be able to have.
She made to speed over to Elena but only got a few feet before she was stopped by an iron grip on her forearm. “That would not be wise,” Elijah said from where he stood behind her and just off to the side, still not releasing her arm.
She tried to yank her arm free, but it did nothing. “Klaus,” she started, desperate to say anything to get Elena and her brother down from there. He spoke instead.
“I hunted Katerina for 500 years for running from me. Can you even begin to imagine what I’ll do to her?” he asked, gesturing towards Elena. “For 500 years I chased her, letting her think she’d gotten away, letting her settle, relax just a bit, before sending her running again. 500 years, and I only let her know slivers of peace for the sole purpose of ruining them”
“The first thing I did after she turned was track down her family in Bulgaria and slaughter them, leaving the bodies displayed for her to find.” He turned, angling his body so he could look at her. “So I'll ask you again: can you even imagine what I have in store for her?” He seethed.
“A thousand years I’ve kept my family safe. Only to lose one of them to a doppelgänger; and not even the smart one.” He snarled, his eyes flashing gold. Caroline tried to take a step back but Elijah was there, stopping her.
“And this one,” he said, standing in front of Jeremy, “the one who did the killing? Well, his fate will be worse than his sister’s.”
Stefan in his humanity free times hadn’t shied away from telling them all stories of what he and Klaus had gotten up to in the twenties, and if half of what he said was true she knew Klaus could be cruel at the best of times. She could barely make herself try to imagine what tortures he could, or already had, invented in his anger.
It was too late for her to save anyone else, her heart clenching as she thought about Tyler and Matt, but she had to try for Elena and Jeremy. The pit in her stomach warned her that it wasn’t going to work, and her mind told her that they were already as good as dead, but she had to try anyways. “Klaus,” she said again, her voice pleading.
She tried to reach out but Elijah used his other arm to grab it, his hand settling on her upper arm and pulling her back. Essentially fully restrained she began thrashing, trying to get out of his hold. “Let. go.” She said through clenched teeth, turning her head to glare up at him.
“Enough.” Klaus said, causing her head to snap back towards him. He’d moved closer without her noticing.
“I debated what to do with you,” he said as though discussing the weather. “Wondered to myself if this… obsession, would finally abate if I killed you. I heavily contemplated it as I brought you here.”
He shook his head. “But no, I think we’ve proven by now that that wouldn’t be possible.” She stopped fighting, her body going as limp as it could without her falling to the floor. Behind her Elijah relaxed ever so slightly, his hold loosening just a bit. “That,” he continued, “is a weakness I don’t enjoy having.”
“So I considered keeping you locked in a room.” She shivered at his words, and the casualness they were spoken with. “In comfort, of course. Dressed in the finest fabrics money can buy, surrounded by luxury and all manner of things to keep you content.”
He looked at her and laughed, and for a minute she could have pretended everything was normal and that she’d said something amusing. “That look you have,” he said, ruining her imagination. “So hateful, so spiteful. But ten, twenty years, a century even, and all that anger would have settled; disappeared.”
“Even vampires, sweet Caroline, are not immune to the passage of time.”
Panic filled her like it hadn’t before, even back at her house when she’d thought that he’d come to kill her. She began fighting again, struggling against Elijah’s hold. “Calm yourself,” he whispered, his hand letting go of her bicep to wrap around her waist, keeping her arm pinned to her side and her body even less able to move.
Klaus watched them with a sharp gaze. She didn’t stop fighting until he got closer, and then her body became shock still save her heaving chest as she sucked in deep breaths. “I ultimately decided against course of action,” he told her, as though that made the fact that he’d considered it at all any less horrifying.
“No, even knowing it would lessen, I find myself unable to tolerate your fear.”
“And when your obsession ends?” She spat at him. “What will you do with me then? What are you planning to do with me now, now that you’ve so kindly decided not to lock me in a room!” Her rage at him warred with her fear, neither placing as a clear winner.
He sighed, looking almost disappointed. “The Salvatores greatly failed you in your vampire education, Caroline. We are, for the most part, unchanging. What does change, however, tends to stay the way it changes.”
“Obsessions,” he told her, stepping closer, “for our kind, are rarely fickle. Rarely temporary. Look at Damon, so obsessed with a woman he spent 175 years trying to free her even though she loved his brother more than him.”
“No,” he continued, “I don’t see what I feel for you fading, ever. As for what I do with you, well, that depends on you.”
“In that case,” Caroline responded, “I’d like you to let me go. Thanks.”
He laughed again, and she even felt Elijah vibrate with a silent laugh behind her. “If I can’t have your affection,” he told her, the silent “yet” left unsaid but implied, “I’ll have your loyalty.”
She scoffed. “My loyalty?”
“Yes. I’ve seen how you so freely give it to those who are so undeserving of it. Tyler, who let his friends torture you, the Bennet witch, who so deeply loathes what you are, to the doppelgänger, who didn’t so much as warn you what she and her brother were about to do. To all of them, using you as a pretty distraction yet overlooking you for all other matters.”
He stopped, his chest heaving. “I will make you a promise. I will never physically hurt you, or lock you away from the world. In return, I want your loyalty.”
“I can't just give you my loyalty!” She yelled. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t trust you!”
“I'm not asking you to,” he said, his hand reaching up and brushing against one of her curls. “Trust comes later. What I want from you is simpler.”
She shook her head, “nothing about this is simple. You have my best friend hanging from the ceiling behind you, and you’re talking about wanting my loyalty.”
“There is nothing,” he said, “that you can do for her or her brother. They murdered Kol, and they will pay for it. In this there is no staying my hand.”
“You won’t let me go home, will you?” She asked.
“No.” He told her, and for the first time Caroline could see all one thousand years reflected in his eyes. Ancient, terrible.
“Swear that you won’t compel me,” she said, her shoulders slumping as she looked away from Elena and Jermey.
“I swear it,” he said. “But someday you will tell me why you felt the need for me to promise that in particular,” he finished.
“But not today,” She responded.
“Not today,” he echoed.