Chapter 11

Kol was so glad to see Bella’s relief on her face when the angel statue that Myriam had spelled for her was actually able to work on her without placing it on some object first, and at dinner, she was relaxed, the way that he knew her to be. Jeremy was setting up her new phone for her while they waited for their food and they were talking about what they wanted to see now that Bella no longer had to avoid ‘difficult’ places.

They spent two whole days in Memphis as three ordinary people, doing touristy stuff without having to worry about anything and despite what Bella had said about getting drunk off her ass, Kol was slightly disappointed that he yet had to see her do that. At night, when Bella was asleep, he went for a quick bite out on the street before joining her in bed.

Kol was also itching to delve deeper into Bella’s mind, but he could tell that she was still reeling from the previous experience and didn’t press for another session. The information he had received from Klaus, who pulled it out of Charlie, seemed to match up with Bella’s repressed memories, but Klaus wasn’t done with Chief Swan yet. Staying true to his word of not breaking him, he had to show immense restraint and patience.

He didn’t tell Nik just yet what they had discovered in Bella’s mind, because in all honesty, it was unexplainable, especially with Bella seeing him – and likely the rest of the family – as much younger.

Kol was going to have to talk to Bella about the little angel statue that she now seemed to cling onto for dear life wherever they went. While yes, it was great for her to be able to function normally without embarrassing anyone, it wasn’t her. It just wasn’t. It was as if she was deliberately shutting a part of herself down, as if she was ashamed of it, and that had to stop. It was fine to have it in the car or in the hotel room for her own rest, but this extended mental vacation wasn’t good. Nobody knew, not even Myriam, what prolonged exposure could do to her.

She was in control of the blasted dagger, he was going to see if she was going to let him have control over the angel statue. It was only fair, she had given Jeremy control over her phone and emails and social media accounts. Granted, her viewers seemed to like the pictures Jeremy was uploading, seeing Bella with a big smile on her face.

His favourite picture so far was Bella licking an ice cream as she balanced on a line of bricks, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.

They were in the car heading north again, listening to some music on the car radio when Jeremy spoke up. “So, this sounds interesting,” he said as he was looking on Bella’s phone. “There’s this huge mansion in Chicago, ah, at a forest preservation that’s one of the oldest buildings in Chicago. Built in the 1850’s by-”

“The Cullens?” Bella guessed as dread rolled up in her stomach and made it its home.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“How do you not know about the Cullen Mansion? It housed a lot of people in its time, there have been rituals and other creepy things and it’s haunted as fuck,” she shook her head. “The ground it’s built upon was once owned by the Native Americans and there used to be a river flowing through the preservation but the Cullens didn’t want it, so they got rid of it. Very powerful family at that time.”

“Cool, so we’re going?”

“No! Absolutely not! Didn’t you see Spooky Investigations with Drew, Jace and Hugo when they went in for their 12 hours? Someone got possessed, Hugo got seriously hurt and they were all scratched and named. There were mimicked voices, shadows… their equipment continued to fail and freeze up. No, we’re not going there. It’s a fucking warzone.”

“Bella,” Kol said with a smile on his face. “You have such a lovely potty mouth when you’re passionate or dispassionate about something, but you do need to stop or I’ll have to pull us over and take you on the hood of our car.”

Bella huffed as she snatched her phone out of Jeremy’s paws and dialed a number she had memorized and put it on speaker once it connected. “Drew Clarke.”

“Hey Drew, it’s Bella, sorry for the strange number.”

Hey! How are you doing?”

“Doing much better, thanks,” Bella smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

Of course… Wait is this the moment where you’re going to ask if you can get on our show?”

“That will never happen.”

But… science!”

“I’m not a science project,” she retorted before sighing. “Hey, you guys have been to the Cullen House, right?”

Yes, the evidence we gathered was quite impressive, but it’s definitely not a place we’d like to return. Then again, we say that about many places and are stupid enough to return… but that’s who we are. Stupid.”

“Okay, so,” Bella said as she pulled up the email Jeremy was reading before. “I received an email from Edward Cullen, one of the descendants, asking if I wanted to come and explore the Cullen Estate for my videos.”

Drew’s first reaction was “Oh, God, yes!” But he soon calmed down and cleared his throat. “That property scared the shit out of three dudes, like… we experienced its after effects for a very long time, too, nightmares and stuff. We knew what we were up against, we knew that it was going to be a bad idea to go there, but we went anyway and we regret it. Immensely. While I’d love to see how you’d fare in there, please don’t. I don’t want that place to ruin you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Jeremy said as he bounced in the backseat. “And I doubt neither is Kol. All places have the added danger for dark entities and shit hitting the fan, especially unknown locations such as the Cullen House. Are we going to avoid going off the beaten path? Play things safe?”

Kol didn’t say anything, because Jeremy was right. However, Bella’s safety greatly concerned him and he knew that she knew that, too.

I know you’re running with the new guys, Bella, I saw your latest video and damn, some great EVP’s there, but I don’t think they’re up for the Cullen Property just yet.”

“Oh, you have no idea what they’re capable of,” Bella said, a small smile dancing across her lips as she looked at Kol. “We’ll be fine.” Drew told her not to go, confirming her fears, maybe it was better to confront them. Besides, Kol was a vampire and Jeremy a hunter, it wasn’t as if they were ordinary folk like Drew and his buddies.

Bella, for fuck’s sake, you’re highly sensitive. That place will ruin you, even Astaria isn’t willing to go to that place.”

“And I’m not Astaria. I’m not bound by little rules in contracts of TV companies either. I don’t like the idea of going there, especially after some recent developments, but while you guys took the property’s investigation virginity, I want to be second – I hardly come across locations that haven’t been trampled by you loudmouths again and again.”

And you’re right about that, because you don’t have a whole company behind you… Fine. I’m in Idaho on a business trip anyway. I’m coming with. I will not hear no for an answer. I mean it, you’re like a little sister to me and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But-”

No. I’m coming with or I’m going to send Edward an email to turn you away or ask him to call the cops on you for trespassing.”

“What else is new,” Bella muttered, shaking her head and looking at her boys. “Well? Room for one more if he adheres to our rules?”

Kol knew that Bella would have fought harder against this guy’s insistence of joining them at the property if his energy wasn’t right. If he wasn’t a good guy or didn’t know what he was doing. And with the guy saying that Bella was like a little sister to him, made him very curious to this Drew Clarke indeed. “Fine by me, darling,” Kol said, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’d love to meet one of your friends in the field.” It wasn’t as if he couldn’t erase or modify the guy’s memory afterwards anyway.

“It’s likely we’ll do it like… the day after tomorrow, think you can make it up in that time?”

Definitely. I’ll call you when I’m in the area. This is great, I finally get to see you work up close!”

“I am not a science project!”

Of course not. I’ll bring my own gear but all the footage is yours.”

“Good. Thank you. I appreciate that, talk to you later,” she said as she hung up and handed the phone to Jeremy. “Go ahead, tell this Edward that we’re coming.”

“Awesome!” Jeremy grinned. “Now, see, we’re finally going to do something creepy.”

“Can’t believe we’re going to do this,” Bella said after a few quiet minutes of staring out of the car window. “I must be really losing my mind.”

“We don’t have to,” Kol took her hand and gently squeezed it. “If you really don’t want to, we’re not going to do it.” He didn’t scare easily, the dead were dead and sure, they could do terrible things, but it was nothing compared to what he’d already gone through in the past. This was all about Bella and her own fear.

“No, we’re doing it,” she smiled at him, bravely, before getting the angel out of her pocket and handed it to Jeremy with a sigh. “Between what we saw in my mind, the experience we had in the Sanatorium… who knows? Maybe going to hell is what I need to gain full control over everything and not to have it still humming in the back of my head.”

“Why are you giving me this?” Jeremy said, confused. “This is yours.”

“Yeah, it’s my safety blanket. Give that back to me when we get to the hotel. Holiday’s over for this girl.”

Kol hoped that it had been just that; a holiday. Granted, it must have been nice for her to walk around somewhere without being disturbed all the time – for him everything around him had become white noise over the years, but she had people trying to get her attention all the time and that was something that was a lot harder to deal with. He had to laugh when he saw the pensive look on Bella’s face. “You’re already thinking about what could possibly go wrong, aren’t you?”

“No,” Bella said lightly as she looked at him. “It’s best to forget what you know and go in anyway as buildings may surprise you. However, we may have to arrange some vervain for Drew. Just in case you do get taken over or jumped, I want to be sure that Drew can’t be compelled to do weird shit.”

Kol hummed, slightly bummed by the suggestion, but he could understand where Bella came from. “That won’t happen.”

“No, but it could. I know you’re mentally very strong so it’d take someone or something strong to break your mental barriers, but just in case.”

He would love to see that happen, if only for the rush. Kol thought for a moment and then smirked. “Fine, but we’re going to get you a dog leash. Retractable.”

“What!”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Jeremy laughed. “Because you wandered off in the Sanatorium, and that’s not good.”

“You just weren’t paying any attention.”

“No! We were talking about the bloody beam that nearly impaled me!” Kol retorted. “No, you’re going to be leashed. We’ll attach it to your pants, don’t worry, nothing kinky,” he then winked at her. “You want to protect the human from me, I’m in charge of your safety and thus I want to protect you from yourself and things that go bump in the night.”

“Hey, you give some, you lose some,” Jeremy snorted. “It’s a great idea for your safety. We should just implement that for like… everything we go to.”

“Nik and Rebekah spent some time in Chicago in the 1920’s,” Kol said as he kept his eyes on the road. “Apparently they had a great time there before they had to continue to run from Mikael. Hey, who knows? Their old haunt might still be around.”

“Oh, I’m not willing to encounter anymore of your brother’s skidmarks, thanks,” Bella shook her head as she pulled her feet up in the seat.

“Bella, please call them residual hauntings,” Kol whined. “They’re not skidmarks, that’s just really unsettling.”

“Skid marks!”

“No.”

“I’m putting this on twitter,” Jeremy laughed as he started to type. “Question of the day: We encountered something the other day (but not recorded) that some call Residual Hauntings. Bella calls them skidmarks. What sounds better?”

Kol grumbled as his hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel. “Sounds like someone that shit their pants…”

“Which we’ll likely do at the Cullen House,” Bella stuck out her tongue to him.

“Not me. My father is dead. Nothing else could scare me that bad since the only thing that can kill me is in Klaus’ possession in New Orleans.”

“Nor me,” Jeremy shrugged. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit.”

Bella grumbled. “Still, I’m going to pack a clean pair of pants, just in case.”

When they came to Chicago, Kol made sure Jeremy had a room at the opposite side of the hotel and quickly ushered Bella into their room. Not even allowing her to unpack, he pushed the angel statue underneath a pillow and pulled her onto the bed with him, pinning her down underneath him. “So.”

“What are you doing?” Bella let out a snort as she looked at his face, searching for answers.

“Was that Drew guy right about the house?”

“Yes – but in his defense, they do things scientifically and they might have just upset the house and then spread rumors that the place is terribly haunted,” she shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I won’t know how bad the house actually is until I’ve been there. And it’s still fresh, mostly untainted by paranormal investigators or wannabe’s. It’ll be exciting.”

“Will you be in any danger?”

She pulled him down for a kiss. “I’m always in danger when I do these things, but I’ll be fine. I’ve got you, and we’ve got Jeremy. I can stay scared and not do these kinds of things, or I could just do it and be scared afterwards.”

“Okay, good,” Kol smiled at her, got off the bed and started to unpack. “I choose this hotel for us because it’s new and it has all the facilities one might need,” he then tossed her bikini into her face. “Like a swimming pool.”

“Why would I want to swim?”

“Relaxation,” Kol winked at her. “Until we’re going to that house, I’m going to do my best to make sure you’re well rested and absolutely relaxed.” He then grinned as he pulled out his red shorts. “And you can bask in the glory that is my body.”

“Gah,” Bella sighed as she fell back onto the bed. “Your body? That’s it? You won’t be present? Well then… I guess it’ll have to do… I could use your body as a floatation device.”

~o.O.o~

According to Jeremy, who had contact with Edward Masen-Cullen via email and over the phone, Edward had been very specific about when they were allowed to go and investigate. As it so happened, it was going to be a full moon the night they were invited over.

Bella was glad that her boys seemed to get along with Drew, who they met the day before over dinner. Even Kol behaved, likely because Drew was married and eagerly showed off his wife and kids on a picture he kept on him at all times. Drew playfully warned them about peculiar Edward, but nothing could have prepared her for the experience of actually meeting him. Nothing.

Edward was blatantly flirting with her all the time, despite Bella asking him to stop repeatedly. Jeremy had to pull Kol away several times because Bella could tell that Kol wanted to kill the guy. Edward was telling them more about the house; how it had been abandoned for years, that he’d never been interested in the house to live in because that particular generation of his family was quite eccentric and it was in the middle of nowhere.

He hated the chalk and graffiti inside the house, it had obviously been found by squatters and homeless people during the time the house belonged to his grandfather and father. He did seem genuine when he wanted to uncover the property’s mysteries before demolishing it and that that was the reason why he was sending requests to paranormal investigators to come and check the house out.

When Drew told him that he was freaking nuts and wanted people to die in the house, Edward merely impishly smiled and asked Bella how long she was going to be inside the house and boundaries. Bella replied that it would likely be just a few hours, not overnight like Drew had done, it all depended on if the spirits were cooperative or not, or even if there were spirits at all.

Edward’s flirting got to a point where Bella reached her point of annoyance and then blurted that he needed to stop because she and Kol were married and that even though they weren’t wearing wedding rings, it didn’t mean that they weren’t committed to each other and happy. She then marched off towards the gate and froze the moment she set foot onto the property.

“Ah, that’s our cue,” Jeremy grinned as he grabbed the bags and pushed Kol towards his girl.

Kol handed Bella her recorder with a sly smirk on his lips. “So…when did this wedding take place, Darling? Perhaps in Memphis, with Elvis as a witness? And we are honeymooning with the Cullen ancestors?”

“I had to say something,” she muttered. “I would have snapped his neck myself if that had continued on for longer.”

“You get no argument from me. I am still more than happy to drain him dry. We can make a sock puppet out of him for whomever is left behind here to play with.”

Bella huffed as she felt how Kol secured the leash through a loop on her pants, but she was still frozen in place almost as if she was listening to something. “Alright, get this party rolling,” she eventually said as she managed to turn around and looked at Jeremy, Drew and Kol. “Are you three ready?”

“Sure wifey. Let’s party,” Kol grinned, winking at her.

“No rings, but a leash, kinky,” Drew snorted as he turned on his camera.

“She tends to take off without warning, now she can’t stray more than two metres ahead, much more secure that way,” Jeremy laughed as he switched on his camera. “Alright, you’re good to go for the intro, doggie!”

“Ruff!” Bella barked back at his camera. “I’ll set Kol’s brother after you when we get home.”

“Ha!” Jeremy let out a snort.

Bella barked again before she playfully smiled at the camera. “Guess where we are?” She thumbed over her shoulder and Jeremy briefly panned to the house before focusing back on her. “According to the guys from Spooky Investigations this is yet another portal to hell and I was actually told not to go out here by myself, with Kol and Jeremy. So…” She grabbed Drew and pulled him into the frame. “Drew Clarke himself is joining us, ready to shit his pants all over again,” she grinned as she carefully pushed a petal of vervain in his jeans pocket. “Did you bring a spare?”

“I’m wearing brown pants, I’m good,” he winked at her before starting towards the house. “You guys coming or what?”

“We’re actually standing on what used to be Native American ground, their energy is still in the soil,” Bella said as she turned around again, although still not having moved a muscle. “I’m still trying to convince them to let me pass to the house.”

Kol panned his camera around the area until it landed on her. “What’s the problem?”

“Us,” she mouthed as she gestured to the three of them.

He rolled his eyes at what she implied. “Mother strikes again,” he muttered to himself.

“They don’t like the house or what’s inside and they want it gone.”

“I’d love to help if I could,” Kol spoke. “Best I could help is with the annoying property owner…”

“It’s alright,” Bella said as she took a step, a smile on her face before continuing to move. “I convinced them that we won’t do any harm.”

“Easy for you to say. I still want to wring that tosser’s neck for his treatment of you.”

“Yeah, it looked like he wanted you as a trophy or something,” Jeremy shuddered as he followed them. “Bella the Trophy wife.”

“Oh, don’t start, Jeremy,” Bella caught up with Drew and walked passed him before she was being pulled back through the leash.

“Easy, tiger,” Drew winked at her, releasing the leash before turning to Kol. “Oh, you’re right, this is awesome.”

“I know,” Kol laughed.

“Bella, you’re in charge here. You made it very clear to me that before you enter the house, you want to make sure we all have a bright white light inside of us, so let’s take a moment for us to visualize that.”

“See, still not convinced if that helps or not,” Jeremy sighed as he closed his eyes. “Done.”

Kol stood there with a peculiar smile, peeking one eye open. “Oh I definitely thought of my bright light. Hmm only it was hard to imagine it in me, but the next best thing!”

“Do enough of these and who knows? The bright light might burn away the darkness that is the pit of your soul,” Jeremy grinned and ruffled Bella’s hair.

Kol looked over at him and growled, warning him away from Bella. He was still feeling rather possessive after the situation with Edward Cullen and wanting to rip his friend apart with a third party present would not make good video.

“Woah, was that a growl?” Drew swung his camera around, looking around in shock. “It sounded so close!”

“Uh,” Jeremy glanced towards Kol and stepped away from Bella. “It sounded like it echoed off the tree…” Total bullshit.

Drew just looked at him with an incredulous look on his face. “Buddy, I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than you have. Echoes don’t sound like that. If it wasn’t a growl, who forgot to eat today?”

Bella and Kol intentionally looked at Jeremy on that cue.

“Sorry,” Jeremy muttered, looking down to his feet for emphasis, but he was so going to kick Kol’s ass later.

“Alrighty, let’s do this,” Bella said as she opened the door to the mansion. “To anyone who still resides in this house; my name is Bella and you’ve already met Drew. Kol and Jeremy are here too. We’re not here to hurt you or to remove you from the property, we’re merely curious.”

“This is getting old,” Kol said as he pushed passed her and stood in the middle of the grand entrance, the house reminding him a lot of how Nik and Elijah would decorate it. Grand staircase, weird paintings, the works. “Did they hire my brothers to design this place or something?”

“Oh, I sure hope that your brothers didn’t have anything to do with this,” Bella muttered as she followed him in. “Hate skidmarks.”

Drew turned to look at her his mouth hanging open. “Skidmark? What the fuck is a skidmark?”

Kol and Jeremy replied simultaneously. “Don’t ask!”

“Well, you know, when you poop your pants or forget to wipe…” Jeremy started to clarify, trailing off.

“Bella’s term for residual haunts. She came across something traumatic of my brother’s history as a child and it disturbed her.”

“It’s…. Certainly an interesting choice of words,” Drew smirked. “I like it.”

“You can use it with Jace,” Bella offered with a pretty smile as she looked around.

Drew was a little skeptical by her expression. “I dunno if I should be afraid of that.” After a moment of silence, he spoke up again. “We had most of our activity on the second and third floors, even equipment failure. It’s pretty quiet down here, I don’t know why, but we hardly got anything.”

“Oh, there’s plenty down here,” Bella said as she headed towards the staircase, feeling enough energies around them to make her wonder why they were so quiet, even attempts to make light conversation with them didn’t work. “They’re just not particularly interested in talking.”

‘Stop.’ A voice sounded when she was halfway up the stairs, quickly feeling Kol’s body behind her as she stopped dead in her tracks. ‘This house is no place for you, Miss Bella, turn around and leave.’

^leave^

“You have the Ovilus on all the time?” Drew asked from behind them. “Why?”

“Because we’d like to know when someone’s talking, too,” Jeremy told him. “In real time. It’s likely the voice recorder won’t pick up anything. We still have to use our other toy, the Wonder Box.”

“I brought mine too, so that’s going to be awesome when we split up.”

“And we’re not leaving, whoever you are. Bella wants to tell your stories,” Jeremy added.

A full bodied and detailed apparition of a male looking like a soldier appeared before them on the stairs for a good five seconds, illuminating the area around them and causing all four of them to gasp in shock, Jeremy immediately rewinding his camera to see if he caught it to look at it again. “Holy shit.”

‘I drew energy from your vampire companion to give you what you want, now leave.’

^leave^

“But that’s not what we came here for,” Bella said, ignoring Drew’s amazement and excitement as she took a step back to gently collide with Kol, making sure he was alright. “And next time you should ask if it’s alright to borrow someone’s energy because you’re not able to return it,” she said a little bit angrily.

It was a good thing that Kol had overfed before they had left the hotel to come to this place. He had felt the ghost pulling energy from him, but it was just enough to manifest, not to weaken him. “I’m alright,” Kol assured her. Besides, he knew that Bella had a thermos of blood in her bag in case of emergency and he could always drink from her – of course, out of Jeremy’s sight.

‘Even we don’t go up there, why would I allow you to go up there? You need to stay safe.’ He felt as if he was protective of something, or wanted to keep a secret. Bella didn’t like him very much, especially after the energy zap from Kol.

^restricted^

“So, apparently, everything that’s upstairs is off limits to the ghosts downstairs, interesting,” Bella said as she gently rubbed Kol’s arm. “This spirit doesn’t want us to go up.” She took a deep breath and continued to walk the stairs. “Let’s go, I don’t believe him.”

“Look at you, being all brave,” Jeremy laughed. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m the only girl, I can’t be the scared one,” Bella said as she kept going up the stairs, ignoring the spirit’s voice yelling in her ear to stop. “I’ve got balls, just like you guys… and I’m certainly not allowing some spirit to tell me not to go somewhere. I’d have to be physically stopped first.”

She turned on her flashlight upon reaching the top of the stairs and looked around. It didn’t look as preserved as downstairs with parts of the floor missing or parts of walls, making the whole level look creepy. The energy felt different too, and there was electricity bubbling underneath her skin. “Wow.”

“You guys feel that?” Jeremy said as he followed behind them. “This is insane!”

“Yeah, it made our equipment fail when we were here, kept having to change the batteries out,” Drew replied as Bella could hear him move a little, checking his equipment. “Seems okay now, though.”

Kol was unusually quiet, which disturbed Bella a little bit, it was too early for him to shut down like this. “Hey, Jer? Why won’t you and Drew go to the right, Kol and I go the other way, we’ll meet back here after we’ve circled around?”

“Fun! Call if you need anything,” Jeremy said as he pulled Drew with him like an excited puppy.

Bella turned around and shone her flashlight in Kol’s face. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yes,” Kol replied and softly kissed her. “Merely keeping an eye and ear out for things. I don’t like this place.”

Bella hummed for an answer as she softly caressed his cheek before turning around again. “Maybe we can have Jer and Drew stay up here and take the third floor as well, and we go downstairs where it’s a bit quieter once we’re done here? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

“I think you’d feel a lot more comfortable there too,” Kol snickered as he playfully pushed her ahead of him. “Go on then, my little ghost buster,” he said, smacking her behind.

Bella let out a snort as she found the first room with her flashlight and switched it off, making her way to it in the dark. “Up here it feels like a suffocating blanket of some sort. Dark, the stuff of nightmares… There are definitely some ‘live’ energies here, but nobody’s talking.”

She used the wall to get to another room, keeping an ear out for anything happening but it was simply too quiet, and that was suspicious. She could hear Drew and Jeremy talk and goof off on the other side of the hallway, but they were moving away from them and their voices fading.

“You sure about that?” Kol said as he pointed his camera into a room. “I heard some growling coming from inside the room,” he took a few steps to the side and passed Bella, going in first, which had been the biggest mistake so far – before he knew it he was being pushed back against a wall further into the room, dragging Bella with him as she was connected to him on the leash; he managed to pull her safely into his arms before he connected with the wall with a loud bang, causing the whole house to shake. “You okay?”

Bella nodded as she shone her flashlight around in the room – shocked at what just had happened. Whatever it was, it was powerful, very powerful and it did not feel right in that room. Maybe she was getting a little scared now, and was glad to be in Kol’s arms. “What the hell was that?”

Her flashlight flashed over what looked like a drawing on the wall, and when she focused on it, she knew what had happened. She hadn’t seen anything like this herself, but she had heard people talk about it. This was a portal – created by humans – and it likely connected to a different part of the house according to the scribblings on the wall, or, in the worst case, connected to hell itself. “Who would do such a thing like that?!” Bella blurted out before blinking when Jeremy and Drew appeared, flashlights in hand, scared looks on their faces.

“What happened?” Jeremy asked worried. “You guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” Kol said, clearly very angry, getting to his feet after helping Bella up and pointed at the portal. “That needs to be closed. We should have brought a witch.”

“Oh, Ric and Bonnie could visit this place.”

“Yes!” Kol smirked. “And we’ll not tell them anything!”

“You were just thrown across the room and you’re joking about it?” Drew said confused. “We need to get the hell out man.”

Bella stepped closer to the portal, seeing the light around it becoming brighter as she approached it. It was scary to even look at it, especially when she considered that a powerful being had come through it to send Kol flying and that same being exiting the room through that same portal. It was highly unnerving and yet, she couldn’t help but being drawn to it.

She couldn’t hear the voices of her friends as there was so much noise coming out of the hole, and the tugging on her leash didn’t interest her at all. Putting her hand on the wall close to the portal, she could feel a burning sensation, but yet, it didn’t hurt her.

“Listen up, you assholes,” she spoke addressing the voices. “This portal and every portal connected to it will be closed forever when I remove my hand. When it does, you will burn in God’s heavenly light on your way back to where you came from. Your time here is done. For every dark spirit residing outside the portal and able to hear me; as long as you play nice, we’ll play nice. No more throwing people around!”

What the hell was she doing? Kol couldn’t help but having to follow Bella as she seemed unfazed by his pulling, almost as if she had anchored herself to the floor. He didn’t like this one bit. Granted, he had seen the light aura that the portal was giving off, but he had hoped that his Bella would stay away from it.

When Bella removed her hand from the wall, she was knocked back by a force, stumbling right into Kol as the aura disappeared. Bella looked at Kol with a confused look on her face. She knew what just happened but she couldn’t believe it. “What just happened?”

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