The inside of the house smelled of dried lavender and old wood, a peaceful facade that felt like an insult to the storm brewing in Bonnie's chest. Abby had led them into a small, sun-drenched kitchen and offered tea that neither girl touched.
"I know why you're here," Abby said, her voice barely a whisper as she sat across from them. "I felt the pull. But I'm no good to you, Bonnie. Not as I am right now, my dear." She sighed, her gaze flickering to Elena's guarded expression before settling back on her daughter. "I can't help you. I'm sorry."
Bonnie felt the familiar sting of tears, but they weren't the tears of a grieving granddaughter, they were the tears of the child left on a porch fifteen years ago.
"You can't?" Bonnie's voice trembled. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You left me. You left Grams. When my magic finally manifested and I felt like my blood was boiling and the world was screaming, you weren't there. I had no one but Grams to keep me from losing my mind."
Bonnie leaned forward, her voice cracking. "I wanted my mother. I needed you to tell me I wasn't a monster, to show me how to go through the power. And you were just... gone."
Abby's eyes shimmered with unshed moisture. "It wasn't intentional, Bonnie. I wanted to save you. I had gotten myself into something dark, a spell gone wrong, a corruption that was eating at my spirit. I thought if I stayed away, if I drew the darkness to me, you would stay pure. You would be safe."
"Do you even care?" Bonnie interrupted, a sob catching in her throat. "Do you even know... do you even know that Grams is dead? That she gave her life to help me fix a mess I wasn't ready for?"
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. Abby looked at Bonnie, the tears finally breaking and rolling down her cheeks. She didn't look surprised. She simply nodded.
Elena, who had remained a silent, protective shadow beside Bonnie, suddenly narrowed her eyes. The sympathy she had been trying to feel vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.
"You knew," Elena said, her voice was livid as she saw the woman's expression "You knew Sheila was dead. You knew your daughter was grieving, alone, and likely the only Bennett witch left in that town... and yet you never once thought of visiting her? You never even picked up a phone to call?"
Bonnie shook her head, a stray tear falling as she stared at the woman she had spent a lifetime dreaming of. "Why? If you knew she was gone... why didn't you come for me?"
"It's complicated," Abby whispered with a shaky voice as she stood abruptly, unable to meet Bonnie's piercing gaze.
"Then uncomplicate it!" Bonnie snapped, her voice thick with the weight of fifteen years of silence.
Abby turned toward the window, her shoulders trembling. "Curse you, Michael," she muttered under her breath. It was more of her own personal thoughts, but in the tense silence of the kitchen, it rang out like a bell.
Elena's head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. "Michael? You know Michael?"
Abby didn't even attempt to deny it. She looked back at Bonnie, whose face was a mask of tear-streaked betrayal. "I left because I had to. When the Original hunter, Mikael, came to Mystic Falls seeking the doppelgänger all those years ago, I was the one who stood in his way. I used my magic, I had to resort to Expression to subdue him, to desiccate him. It was a dark, hollow power, and it began to consume me."
She took a shuddering breath. "Your grandmother found out. She was livid. She saw the way the shadows were crawling into my soul, and I was losing control. I ran to protect you from what I was becoming. I moved around for years, a ghost in my own life, until I met a man... he offered me a way out. He said he could help me control the hunger of Expression if I joined his Order."
"Order?" Elena questioned, her voice laced with suspicion.
Abby nodded solemnly. "An order of witches who channel their power from different sources. Michael was the one who facilitated it. He provided the resources, the sanctuary."
"You left everything... you left us for Michael?" Bonnie's voice was a jagged shard of glass.
"No, it wasn't like that—"
"Then explain it properly, Abby!" Bonnie screamed, the tears finally overflowing. "Explain how you could trade your own daughter for a seat at his table! Explain how you could play mother to Jamie while I was mourning you!"
Abby flinched as if struck. "I saw Jamie's father... he was broken, and Jamie was alone. I needed to be someone to someone, Bonnie. I thought if I couldn't be your mother without tainting you with my darkness, I could at least save him."
————-
In the forests on the outskirts of Mystic Falls, a special kind of ritual was taking shape. A circle of obsidian-black candles stood ready. A sharp, metallic groan echoed through the clearing. A young woman with dark skin fell to the dirt, the heavy iron chains around her wrists clashing. She rolled onto her back, staring defiantly at the figure that drifted into the circle.
The Banshee stood there, her face an impassive mask of pale skin and hollow eyes. Behind her, the air grew cold enough to kill the surrounding grass as that thing, the "beast" emerged from the treeline, a towering, nightmare with a bleached deer skull for a head. Its massive, jagged antlers pierced the air above its head.
With a heavy thud, the creature dropped the fourth coffin into the center of the circle.
"You have been tasked," the banshee spoke. Its voice was a chilling, multilayered rasp that sounded like dry leaves skittering over a tombstone. "Now. Get to it."
The young witch in chains struggled to sit up, her gaze fixed on the ornate wood of the coffin. "This is wrong," she rasped, her voice defiant despite her trembling. "I cannot do this. A binding of this magnitude requires a complete connection through two generations of blood. I am a ghost in a stolen shell. I lack the tether."
The Banshee stepped forward, her voice a cold melody. "There is no need for tethers. Our Lord will provide the adequate power needed to crack the seal of the coffin. You are merely the conduit."
The witch opened her mouth to refute, but the words died in her throat. The black candles suddenly flared to life. The girl cried out in agonizing pain, clutching her head as a surge of hellish power forced its way into her mind.
The Banshee watched with a flicker of a cruel smile. "It would seem your kind agrees with the arrangement now."
She turned to walk away, but she paused at the edge of the circle and looked back over her shoulder.
"I would get to it if I were you... Emily."
—————-
The grand parlor of the new Mikaelson mansion had been transformed into a theater of agony. Stefan and Damon Salvatore were bound to the heavy chairs with vervain-soaked chains that hissed against their skin like vipers. Their clothes were shredded, their faces a roadmap of lacerations and dried blood that Klaus had spent the last hour meticulously carving.
Klaus sat across from them, swirling a glass of blood-red wine, looking remarkably like a bored king presiding over a trivial court.
"I must say, I'm impressed by your resilience," Klaus remarked with a smooth and amused expression. He leaned forward, a small, admiring smile playing on his lips. "Most vampires three times your age would have turned tail and run at the mere mention of my name. I've ended entire bloodlines for far less than the insults you've hurled at me today. And yet, you two come into my home, uninvited, and make demands."
Damon coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the expensive Persian rug. He looked up through one swollen eye that was healing, his signature smirk still stubbornly in place. "Well, you know us, Klaus. We're overachievers. Plus, your interior decorator has terrible taste. We figured we'd come by and brighten the place up with some 'Salvatore flair.'"
Klaus let out a genuine, melodic laugh. "Oh, you two are hilarious. Truly. It's almost a shame I have to break you." His expression flattened into a mask of cold iron. "But I can make it all end, you know. All the pain, all the burning... it stops the moment you give me what I want."
At a subtle nod from Klaus, two hybrids stepped out from behind the chairs. They held iron pokers that glowed with a sickening, incandescent red heat. Without a word, they drove the branding irons into the brothers' lower spines.
The air filled with the scent of scorched flesh. Stefan and Damon's bodies arched violently against the chains, their screams rang out but they tried to swallow it and not make much noise. Their eyes bulged, veins popping in their necks until the hybrids finally pulled the irons away.
Klaus stood up, pacing toward them. "I'll ask you both one last time: Where is my family?"
Stefan's head lolled forward. He muttered something, the sound lost behind the heaving of his chest.
"I didn't quite catch that, mate," Klaus whispered, leaning in close.
Stefan's eyes flickered with a dying spark of defiance. He managed to push his head up to speak in a raspy rasp voice, "Screw. You."
Klaus sighed, shaking his head. The sheer stubbornness of the two brothers seemed to baffle him. "You know, I actually wasn't going to harm any of your friends. I made a promise to my brother Michael that I would play nice with the local 'Scooby Gang.' But you're making it very hard to keep my word."
Damon let out a choked, dry laugh. "Oh, poor Klaus. Stuck between a promise and your natural urge to be a complete psychopathic prick. Must be a real identity crisis. Why don't you go cry to your hybrid puppies? Maybe they'll let you pet them."
Klaus's laughter resounded through the house before focusing on the two, "Gentlemen, it would seem a more drastic measure is needed. If you won't value your own lives, perhaps I'll start bringing your friends here one by one and peeling them in front of you."
He nodded to the hybrids, turning his back to walk toward the sideboard. "Finish the interrogation. If they don't speak in five minutes, take their hands."
He hadn't even taken three steps when the room was filled with a wet sound and heavy thud followed by a pair of choked gurgles. Klaus froze. He turned back slowly, his eyes widening.
His two hybrids were on the floor. Standing between the bound Salvatores was Michael, looking impeccably dressed and entirely unimpressed.
"Hello, brother," Michael said
From the shadows to Michael's right, Elijah stepped forward, casually flicking a stray drop of blood off his cuff while holding a still-beating hybrid heart in his left hand.
"I must apologize for the mess, Niklaus," Elijah said, his tone dripping with a dry, aristocratic sarcasm. "But your staff was remarkably rude. They lacked the proper etiquette for a family homecoming."
Before Klaus could even find his voice, Rebekah emerged from the foyer, her eyes burning with a mix of triumph and hidden hurt. And behind her, stepping into the light with predatory grins, were Kol and Finn.
The five Original siblings stood in a semi-circle, a united front of ancient power that made the very air in the mansion feel heavy and thin.
Klaus backed up a step, his wine glass shattering on the floor. For the third time in centuries, the Great Hybrid looked genuinely stunned.
Michael gestured broadly to the resurrected siblings. "You demanded what was yours, brother. I have delivered."