Chapter 05

Kol didn’t know what Keelin and Freya were talking about when it came to the contents of Bella’s blood stream, and he didn’t particularly care because Freya was ‘taking care of it’. They had already slipped some cleansing herbs into Bella’s food and Freya even cleansed her up close with some spells, but it was going to take time to undo all the magic, and she wasn’t even sure she was supposed to undo all the magic, as she and Keelin had discovered that magic was in her DNA, amongst other junk.

However, he cared about the other things that Freya had informed him, and Klaus, of after reading Bella’s file. She had, on many occasions, had had uncharacteristic temper tantrums or freak outs and had turned brains to mush. Vampires had to be destroyed, and who better to do that than the wolf Bella had broken? In her cell, nonetheless! Right in front of her, too.

As of right now, it didn’t seem like Bella was going to freak out any time soon or have a temper tantrum. No, she was passive and only ‘lived’ underneath her table. The bed hadn’t been slept in, at all. She had grown more alert by the day, but Klaus posed a ‘what if’ question. What if she’d do such a thing? Not only would they be affected, but also the area around them, worst case scenario. But it could also mean nothing, that it was something else that had hurt those vampires and the wolf.

Bella was mildly telepathic, that was something they had already discovered, and were glad that she was using her words upon their request. But the only ability that hadn’t fully branded her as a ‘failure’ was her shield ability. She could trap someone in her shield, and it could deflect objects. People. Very useful in a child snatching situation. Was this ability the reason she’d been able to take care of herself with a demented wolf sharing her space with her?

And also very useful is she wanted to make a run for it.

Oh, he was in trouble. He had challenged her to escape and she had been determined to try. Truthfully, ever since learning of that ability, he made sure that all of her exits were blocked when he went outside or had a quick nap. She’d never make it out there by herself.

Bella had been eating better than she had previously; he made sure that she’d still get some of her oats, but then warm, with milk and berries and other fruits in the morning, some fruit in the afternoon and he’d tried to get her to eat some meat in the afternoon but she claimed to be too full to eat. Maybe skipping lunch was a better idea. However, she was pinking up even after a couple of days, still frail, but pinking up. And now he had to be careful. She was eating regularly, and she was getting stronger.

“You’ve neglected to tell me something, darling,” he said after knocking on her door and letting himself in, a playful smile on his face as he brought her a glass of orange juice and sat down at the table. She looked at him from her spot on the floor, puzzled, before getting to her feet and sitting down opposite of him. “You have other abilities than merely your telepathy.”

This wasn’t good, he knew what she could do. While she wasn’t at full strength, she could make a run for it now. Run away. Escape. But even though she could push people away with her shield, she couldn’t run fast, she was only human. She’d get caught eventually, that was the only reason why she hadn’t attempted to run away the day before, because she realized that she was a human, and she was surrounded by vampires. She looked down to her hands and nodded. “Yes sir, but you’ve never asked, either.”

“You’re not going to hurt my mind, are you?”

“N-no, sir!” She was slightly panicked, knowing that it was a bad thing to hurt other people and she didn’t like her accidents. “I’m a good girl, sir!”

“Relax,” he said soothingly. He had tried to compel her, but it hadn’t worked and Nik had laughed at him for even trying, because he already knew that the girl couldn’t be compelled. “I’m not worried. I understand that it’s a part of you that you don’t like to tell people about. After all, I’m your enemy, aren’t I? You’re still waiting for your Cold Ones to come back for you and you’re merely biding your time. I understand, darling,” he replied, a small smile on his lips. “You’ve been instructed well on that part. Very smart. I like that.”

She watched him rise from his seat again and there was no doubt in her mind that he was going to punish her for having those thoughts as he opened the door.

“Come on then,” he said as he pointed at the door. “The door’s open. The gate towards the outside is open. It basically never closes, so…” he shrugged as he leaned against the doorpost. “Let’s go.”

She was unsure what to do. He didn’t sound angry with her, but there was something in his voice that was different than before.

“I said, come here. Let’s go,” he said a bit more forcefully and hated himself as the girl scrambled to her feet and nearly tripped over them as she made her way over to him. “You have been here for a week, Bella,” he said as he gently pushed her in the right direction. “Granted, your first two days were a bit of a bad start on our behalf, but we have showed nothing but kindness to you, trying to help you get better, while you were here,” he continued as he kept pushing her towards the exit. “We’ve not done anything to hurt you, nor have we experimented on you. We’ve been trying to understand what’s been done to you so we can undo it and continue to help you. But that’s not enough for you, is it?”

“Y-you’re trying to confuse me, sir,” Bella stammered as she felt the cold tiles of the courtyard underneath her feet. “You’re trying to break me, because you think I had it bad at home and my-”

“We took you, like you were taking children. To give you a better life, like you did for those children. But we never hurt you, and the thanks we get for that is you’re wanting to leave. Well, go ahead. Leave. See how long you last out there on your own. You’re alone, Bella, truly alone. The center in Phoenix has been burned down, you have nowhere to go.” He shoved her over the threshold for good measure. She looked ridiculously out of place in the heat with her sweatpants, bare feet and fluffy cardigan. “Oh, and as you can see, New Orleans is too sunny for your kind of vampire to roam around in, especially by day, so I suppose… in three days or so someone might come and get you? But allow me to remind you, that they abandoned you. They could have taken you easily from Niklaus but they abandoned you. Left you.” He closed the gates behind her and locked them, before walking away.

He had no idea why, but he felt hurt, and he hated Nik for making him take care of the girl who clearly didn’t want to be helped. Perhaps it was cruel of him to treat her like this, but she needed to learn a lesson. No more kid gloves. If she’d truly leave the vicinity, he could always find her, her scent was burned into his nostrils, and he hated that. He hated himself for still wanting to save this girl and show her that life was to be enjoyed. He hated that he cared. He hated that he was fighting himself for walking back and to pull her back in. No, he wasn’t going to do that. At least not for a few hours. She needed to witness life outside the walls and realize that her life wasn’t normal and that he was merely trying to help her, yes.

Bella looked at Kol’s retreating back and she wasn’t sure what to do. He had let her go, just like that. Even locked the gate so she couldn’t get back in, but why would she want to get back in? She had liked his visits, she never received many visits when she was in confinement, but she also knew she had to go back home. Was this another test? What would happen if she’d truly walk away, would he come back to stop her? Did she want him to stop her?

She sat down at the gate and pulled her knees towards her chest, making herself as small as possible as she tried to make sense of her conflicting thoughts. Her loyalty was supposed to be to the Cullens, to her people, but they did abandon her and allowed her to be taken by Kol’s brother. Just like that. Because she was defective and they didn’t like her, anyway. They weren’t going to get her. To them, she may be dead, or perhaps she’d be that soon due to her change of diet.

Kol treated her like Jasper would. Like someone who was allowed to have her own thoughts and opinions, he asked her questions to make her think, and was being locked in a room that was warm that bad? It was different, because these vampires had a different lifestyle. She had to use a toilet and the shower. She wasn’t allowed to feel anything, but she couldn’t help but feeling warm. Everything was light, not dark. And Kol had been right, there were no experiments by doctors, only that one time when the girl doctor came to pull blood out of her body instead of injecting her with something. That had been strange. Or how Freya started to speak in a different language and blew smoke in her face on several occasions, that had been extremely strange.

She had seen everything as a punishment. The food. The shower. The room. The talking. But it hadn’t been a punishment, she didn’t have to pretend it didn’t hurt because it didn’t hurt. It hadn’t hurt. Not being allowed back into the building was what hurt. Because now she was alone. All alone. No one was going to come to help her, and while she had said she was capable of taking care of herself, she wasn’t. Her strength would diminish over the course of a week or two, depending on how much food she had had, and she had had a lot in the last few days.

She was like the children she had sent home; ungrateful and unfit for a different life, hanging on too much onto the past, from the place they’d been taken. But, in her case, there wasn’t someone like Jasper who’d bring her home. There wasn’t a home to go home to, she didn’t know where New Orleans was, or Alaska, for all she knew it was worlds apart or extremely close, but how was she going to get there? By herself?

The main question she needed to ask herself was; if she’d run into a Cold One now, would she beg them to take her home? Or would she run away? Because there were good Cold Ones and bad Cold Ones. And not every Cold One knew each other. And according to Jasper, most of them didn’t even like each other. There were even Cold Ones who wanted puppets so they could have their way with them, and according to Doctor Carlisle, that was a bad thing, especially for Bella.

Kol had asked her if she’d hurt him and she said ‘no’, because he was a good person, a good vampire, and he didn’t deserve to end up like Sam had. And he had told her to leave, because he discovered her plans, her thoughts, about leaving. But now that she was outside, it was scary. It was getting dark, people were getting louder and were tripping over her because she was in the way.

She couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt heavy and she couldn’t breathe, she could feel her insides tingle, her brain was swimming and she couldn’t breathe. The last time this happened she’d hurt a handful of vampires and she was far too close to the building for this to happen now. This wasn’t good. She couldn’t contain it in her bubble, they didn’t work well together. Bella needed to run and hope she’d be as far away as possible from the building when she’d explode.

She tried to get up but was knocked over by a passerby and that knocked the air straight out of her chest. No. It was happening. There were tears rolling down her cheeks. Tears were a foreign thing to her, and they always came when she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t allow her to hurt Kol or his family, they didn’t deserve it. Nobody deserved it, but she couldn’t stop it. The least she could try was to direct it into one direction. Not to her back, but only towards the front, outward.

Her brain exploded then, she let out a cry as the sharp pain shot right through her head, causing her to start breathing again as several people dropped in the street before her, a car was coming right for her but she was just in time to put up her shield so it bounced right off, into a building opposite.

She hugged her knees to her chest again and started to sob. She had hurt people again, because she was hurt. She was alone and now there were people hurt. It had been her fault. She was a bad girl. A very bad girl, what was going to happen to her now? She should have allowed that car to hit her, it’s what she deserved.

~o.O.o~

Jasper had sensed her from miles away and they had to hurry, she could hurt a lot of people if she was set off, and he worried about the safety of others. Unfortunately, they arrived too late, there’d been no sign of her, and Klaus and a pretty little blonde were doing damage control.

Myriam felt how her heart sank. “What exactly makes her do this?” She questioned as they watched from afar. “I mean, this is bad, Jasper. She’s a danger to people around her, how the hell are we supposed to take care of her?”

“Well, we can take care of her because I can regulate her emotions,” Jasper replied coolly, hating the scene before them. “Ease her into feeling things the way things should be felt. She was taught not to feel. Not to show any emotion, but under duress or extreme stress, she can’t stop herself from feeling and everything comes at once. Then this happens.” He nodded towards the building next to the street. “She’s in there. She’s confused, or she’s feeling torn about something. She’s also sad and lonely. She feels abandoned. Shame. Defective. It’ll take a few hours for her to compose herself again, but she’s haven’t had an episode like this for about a year now. She knows she’s a danger to everyone.”

“So it’s something mental. I can deflect this,” Myriam realized. “I can make sure nobody gets hurt, and we weren’t fast enough.”

“Unfortunately we weren’t,” Jasper agreed, feeling how sad Myriam was about all of this. “But if it makes you feel any better, the person who’s now with her seems to adore her. They’re not like the Cullens, Myriam, perhaps she’s better off with them.”

“No. She’s better of with us,” she said determined. “I didn’t come this far to leave her with some wannabe vampires who, whatever their intentions might be, could turn her into a weapon. You’ve said it yourself, Klaus Mikaelson is a monster.”

“And yet, he genuinely seems to be affected by the people in the street.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to get her back. Now. We’re so close!”

He put a hand on his lover’s shoulder. “Let them deal with the fallout first. For now, she’s safe. Your presence will only aggravate them.”

“Let go of me.”

“Myriam,” he said calmly as he reached out to her with his gift, only to have it reflected back. “That’s not fair.”

“No, you’re not being-” She narrowed her eyes before turning around, coming face to face with a traditional vampire. “What do you want?”

“Your kind is not welcome in the Quarter,” the vampire replied as several more vampires appeared behind him. “We’re here to keep the Quarter safe, especially after what has just happened.”

“Bite me, asshole,” Myriam spat, and wanted to take the vampire down, but Jasper held her back. “Jasper!”

“They’re Klaus’ vampires. It won’t look good for you if you kill them now. Let’s leave.”

“Oh, but I can’t allow you to leave either,” the vampire replied. “You’re coming with me, I’m sure I know someone who would love for you to pay for your atrocities against children, especially his daughter.”

Myriam growled when the vampires took hold of them and couldn’t help but to kill them all in one fell swoop. “You see, that’s the downside of your kind, you’re so damn breakable,” she snarled, leaving the one who was seemingly in charge alive. “Don’t put your filthy hands on me again! Let’s go, Jasper.”

“You need to calm down,” Jasper said once they were sufficiently far away from the French Quarter. “You’re of no use when you’re like this.”

“I am this close to get her and I can’t get to her! That’s ridiculous! Just let me march in there and get her, what’s so hard about that? Fuck it, we don’t need Klaus Mikaelson as an ally, I just want her, we’ll fight the Volturi on our own if we have to!”

He sat her down. He understood her rage and in her rage she wouldn’t be able to see reason. “You need to calm down, we’ll discuss this when you’ve calmed down. Let me help you.”

“Don’t you dare,” she warned him. “Jasper, I love you, but I will kill you if you try that again.”

He held his hands up in complete surrender. “Fine, but you need to promise me not to do anything while you’re feeling like this.”

“I promise,” she snapped as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked out over the city from the rooftop they were on. “This fucking sucks!” She yelled at nobody in particular.

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