Chapter 22

Klaus could fully understand why Myriam would want Bella to be present at the burning of the Cullens and the Volturi guard, but the hour they had agreed upon turned into two as they waited for Kol and Bella to show up. Not that it was a boring extra hour, no. Bella’s compulsion was wearing off and they had to rip off the heads of the vampires that came to. Which was a blast, Klaus had been wanting to do this ever since he received that message from Myriam, so it wasn’t that bad that his younger brother and his girlfriend arrived late.

Myriam took extra pleasure in dealing with Carlisle Cullen, you might say she went a little overboard, but the look of glee on her face was worth it. This was the man who messed with two human babies and had the care of one of them and severely fucked up. She was carrying around his head as a trophy and kept asking when Bella and Kol would show up because she was ready for that bonfire. She had even made sure there were marshmallows and sticks to put them on for Bella to enjoy them.

Elijah was watching his brother’s girlfriend having fun with the remains of the Cold Ones, careful not to get burned by the venom. She was being disrespectful of the dead, but he and his brothers had done far worse in the past, it was simply not… appropriate. Marcel even suggested recording a video of the massacre and send it to the Volturi, and Elijah wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge. It was even out of character for Marcel to even suggest that.

Oh, how Elijah wished that things could go back to normal. The way it used to be before Nik decided to keep a girl in his basement for their younger brother to find. He was fairly certain that Myriam, in her animal form – or at least he hoped in her animal form, had urinated on his bed, and if that was her choice of retaliation for something he’d do or had done, then she was going to be costly.

On the other hand, his brothers were happy and content, something they hadn’t been in a long time, and it was Elijah who was still trying to take care of them. Was there still room for him in this family or was it time to create some distance? However, these moods of happiness and being content never lasted long, not with his brothers. It was best to stay with them to steer them back onto the right path when needed.

“Sorry we’re late,” Kol announced, holding Bella’s hand as they approached the rest of the family. “Bella’s still a bit wobbly.”

“If you had chosen not to have sex and had allowed her to sleep for an hour, you would have been here on time,” Klaus teased before nodding towards his girlfriend. “Not to worry, Myriam has had fun with the Cold Ones after they woke up.”

“Yeah! Bella! Look!” Myriam skipped over to her sister, holding Carlisle’s head by the hair. “We should keep all the heads in the dungeon so we can bowl with them, at least then they’ll be useful.”

“Ew,” Bella shook her head as she took a step back. Even though Carlisle was decapitated and couldn’t do anything other than bite, she didn’t want to be near it. At all.

“Really?” Myriam pouted. “No bowling?”

“Not with them. They need to burn,” Bella said as she took Carlisle’s head in an act of bravery and put it next to the heads that were laying in a circle as if they were stones for a bonfire that would be the neatly stacked pile of Cold One bodies. “But you can use the Volturi heads once they try to come to take us in revenge,” she said playfully. “I didn’t see them much, they won’t hurt.”

Myriam put her arms around her sister from the back and handed her a lighter. “Set them ablaze, sis, you’ve earned it.”

“But the whole building will burn down.”

“That’s okay, Klaus choose this spot because it’s old and in need of a replacement anyway,” Myriam said encouraging. “Burn.”

Bella nodded as she flicked open the lighter and produced the flame, before throwing the lighter into the pile of Cold Ones. It didn’t take long for the flames to consume them, clothes catching fire, large flames licking on the venom and marble. Myriam pulled Bella away for safety but once the fire was stabilized, she took Bella back to the flames and handed her a stick that had marshmallows on them.

“Let’s truly roast them!” Myriam cheered. “You’re free of the Cullens, Bella. For good.”

~o.O.o~

It was nice to live in a relative sense of security after their disposal of the Cold Ones. The Newborn army was retreating, and the Volturi had sent a messenger over with a white flag. The messenger tasted nice, according to Kol, who had wiped his mouth on the white flag and sent it back with the messenger, who he had compelled to kill himself on the square of Volterra upon arrival.

Myriam had been wanting to take Bella out in New Orleans forever, especially since her sister hadn’t really known the freedom that she had now. She’d never gone shopping for fun, or seen the masses and masses of people, because she was either being restricted or ‘on a job’. She had been begging Klaus for a few days, even threatening to stop having sex with him, and he relented eventually, on the condition that Kol would accompany the two sisters. Not because they couldn’t take care of themselves, but because Bella would feel more safe with the two of them with her.

And so, Kol and Myriam took Bella into New Orleans, to show her the beauty of the world around her and to have various kinds of food that they wouldn’t normally have. Meeting witches who did favors for the Mikaelsons from time to time – although that wasn’t truly necessary anymore with Freya around. Myriam had wanted to go to Walmart for so long, and hadn’t had the opportunity yet, but that was one store that Kol drew the line at. There was no way that he was going to set foot in that death trap that was Walmart. He was going to give the girls an hour to look around and buy stuff, but he wasn’t going inside himself.

At first, Myriam took a cart and took Bella through the store, getting everything she had missed as a Cold One, including several boxes of cereal, chocolate, drinks and other stuff that she had asked Chef to get her many times before but never got what she wanted. When a store associate came over to them while browsing the book section and asking if they needed help, Myriam started to cry. “Why won’t you people just leave me alone?”

Bella had been as startled as the store associate, who paled and backed off. “Are you alright, Myr?”

“Of course I’m not, he asked if we needed help, but do we look like we need help? Do we look helpless?” She still cried, the associate still backing away. “Just because we’re females doesn’t mean that we need help.”

“I think he was just being kind,” Bella said quietly, feeling sorry for the associate and really not understanding what Myriam was doing. She didn’t feel sad, she felt funny.

Myriam sighed as she wiped her pretty convincing tears and stopped crying. “It was a joke, Bella, jokes are to make people laugh. Let’s see if we can annoy more people!” She grabbed a handful of self-help books and they went back to the groceries.

“Self-help books? Why do we need those?”

“They aren’t for us, exactly… For other customers. And maybe a couple for Elijah. I think I need to piss in his bed again soon.”

Bella blinked as her sister blatantly admitted to peeing in Elijah’s bed. It was a strange thing to do, but who was she to say something about it? She then watched her sister put the books in various carts before dropping two of them in their own cart. She then started to stamp her feet like a maniac. She started spinning like crazy before cheering. “What?”

“That was a cockroach!” she exclaimed loudly. “And I think it was pregnant but I killed it and the babies!”

“Myr!” Bella hissed. “There was no cockroach!”

“I know that, but they don’t know that, look at their faces!” Myriam giggled as they quickly went out of the aisle. “What else can we do… hmm… Oh! I’ll be right back! Keep on shopping for groceries Bella, anything you might think you’ll like, I think you’ll like chips.” She then used her speed to go somewhere, leaving Bella absolutely terrified of what she might do now.

Myriam picked out various sizes of sexy lingerie and put them in carts where married men, preferably old, were pushing them. She didn’t have to wait long for a wife to come back and find it, berating her husband and accusing him of cheating on her because that’s so not her size.

Myriam then went on to compel random people to do the stupidest of things, only for her own entertainment.

Bella didn’t like Walmart much, but her sister seemed to have a blast. Kol had told her that at a store she’d have to pay for her things at a register, and when she found them, she queued up and texted Kol that she was coming out with the stuff Myriam had wanted, but that she had no idea what Myriam was up to – and acting crazy.

Kol found Bella at the register with the cart overflowing. “Myriam wants all of this?”

Bella nodded. “She wants to eat it all.”

Sighing, Kol put half of it on the counter and then kicked the cart back into the store. “She’s getting half. I’ve called Nik, he’ll be here shortly to make sure she doesn’t do anything too outrageous.” Bella then proceeded to tell him what she had already done and he merely rolled his eyes. “Don’t allow her to corrupt you, darling. You’re right, messing with an entire store of people isn’t right. Even I wouldn’t do that on a bad day.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bella countered quickly. Having been in his mind for a few times, and having been connected to him like that, she knew better than that. “If it weren’t for me, little old me who’s a stranger to New Orleans as a city, you’d be right there with her to create chaos and mayhem. Perhaps drink everything in the alcohol department while you were at it. Go on then, have fun with Myriam, I’m not helpless and I’ll wait. Outside.”

“No, Nik will be here shortly,” he said as he put an arm around her. “And you’re right, this is my kind of fun, but frankly, I’m having more fun with you. We’ll have someone bring this back to the compound and then I’ll take you somewhere that I think you’ll like.”

“Where?”

“Oh, it’ll be a surprise,” he smiled at her. “But trust me that you’ll see enough to be wanting to go back with your sketchpad to draw everything you see.”

Kol took her to the zoo, and he’d been right, she was enjoying it very much to see so many animals in one place and she did want to go back to draw them all. But for now, she’d have to do with the pictures that she took on her phone. She was glad that she had received a phone from Kol for this day and he had shown her how to text and now how to make pictures with it.

He then took her out to dinner, to a restaurant that was not really a restaurant as it was in a normal house, with the front room decked out as a dining room, and the family living in the house serving as the cook and waiters. He liked a small setting like this, especially because Bella had been exposed to a lot of influences that day already. The food was spectacular, and he was grateful that it was still around, that an anonymous donor helped to keep the doors open. And Kol liked it that she liked the setting very much too.

Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have his own little apartment with Bella once they knew for sure that the Cold Ones wouldn’t be a threat to her and her sister anymore? Granted, that likely meant moving somewhere close because of Myriam, but he believed that Bella would flourish being away from it all. On the other hand, maybe it was too soon to take the two sisters away from each other, they were both still adjusting to their new lives, after all.

When they finally got back to the compound, Klaus was fuming and drinking in the courtyard. “Never ever take her to Walmart again, do you understand?!” He said the moment he laid eyes on his brother. “Do you have any idea what she’s done? Aside from small pranks, she had all the managers line up and had their underlings pelt them with marbles taken from the children’s department. Apparently there was this really annoying pharmacist that she got wind of who was treating his staff poorly and wasn’t doing his job, so she had him strap on some gear and abseil from the building, but not safely, no, half way down he had to let go of himself and hit his head. Killed! The amount of police and ambulances present was massive. Even NCIS showed up because surprise, surprise, the pharmacist had been part of the Navy for a few years!” He refilled his glass and gulped it down. “Oh, and she also put pregnancy tests in women’s baskets. Condoms in other baskets. She took a bite of all the fresh produce in her sight, and even ruined the food court! You will not take her to Walmart again!”

“It wasn’t my idea, Nik,” Kol countered, trying really hard not to laugh. “She wanted to give Bella the Walmart experience. Had I known Myriam would do all of that, I’d certainly would have joined! Lighten up, Nik. It’s just Walmart,” he started to laugh and ducked when his brother threw his empty glass at him.

Myriam flounced down the stairs with her chocolate twizzlers and flopped on the couch beside Klaus. “Oh don’t worry. There’s is a Super Target in Harvey we can always visit next!”

“Yes! Let’s!” Kol grinned.

“Absolutely not!” Klaus huffed as he looked at his girlfriend and then at his brother. “Have you two lost your mind?”

“It’s a bit of harmless fun, Nik!”

“Tell that to the pharmacist!”

“He was an asshole, believe me, I’ve coaxed it out of the pharmacy workers. They’re better off without him. He was some transfer from New Jersey because they didn’t want him there, but he was bound to kill people with his lax behavior and not paying attention to the fucking details,” Myriam rolled her eyes at him. “We don’t like bad people, we do like killing them!” She then reached for the bottle standing on the table next to the couch and drank from it, not bothering to grab a glass. They were all dead, and couldn’t catch anything from each other, why use a glass? “Did you have fun at the zoo, Bella? That place Kol took you to for dinner looked great!”

“Yeah,” Bella smiled, almost remembering that she had the pictures of the animals on her phone. She couldn’t wait to start drawing them. “We had a great time, but I don’t think that I should be in the city that often… what if I get lost and I don’t have the phone on me?”

“You’ll be alright. You simply need to become more familiar with the city, that’s all. And you can do that by going into town more often,” Myriam said as she took another swig of the bottle. “But I think we should go to Italy first, take care of the Volturi and the newborn army that’s retreated to them. We need to end this. Now. They’re preparing something big and it won’t be pretty.”

“Hey now,” Kol said as he put his hands on Bella’s ears. “No ruining the great day your sister’s had, you could have saved this for tomorrow.”

Myriam shrugged. “I’ve been sitting on this for days now because we were having so much fun, but seriously, it’s getting bigger the longer we wait, better go there now and end this,” she then pointed at Bella. “It will be easy. We’ll set off a few glitter bombs so they can’t really see things coming and then Bella will just put everyone to sleep. We’ll puncture everyone until they start leaking, light a match and watch them all burn,” she then sighed. “The only snag is, Bella will have to wipe everyone out in one fell sweep. That’s at least two hundred of newborns and the Volturi.”

“No!” Bella said as she swatted Kol’s hands away. “I can’t do that! Think of something else!”

“Fine, but you are coming with. On an airplane. To Italy. And once we’ve gotten rid of them, we’ll go to the beach and soak up some of the mediterranean sun,” Myriam countered before looking at Klaus. “And you have no other choice but to take that holiday, too.”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t. You’ll like being away from New Orleans for a bit, recharge. Buy cool trinkets for Hope,” she smirked as she put her arms around his neck. “So summon the troops, we have to leave soon.”

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Kol insisted as he took Bella to her room. After closing the door, he sighed. “I am sorry that she ruined your day, darling.”

“Nothing ruined,” Bella assured him, a big smile on her face. “I still had a great time, Kol, thank you,” she put her phone on the table and then went towards him, putting her arms around him and looked up at him. “Can I keep the phone for the photos?”

“It’s yours, darling,” he smiled and softly brushed her lips with his. “It’s yours. No need to return it to me, because I’ll hand it back to you,” he kissed her again and then grinned. “I was thinking we should knock the wall down that’s separating our rooms, that way we can have a living space that’s as big as Nik’s, what do you say?”

“I’m saying that…” she thought for a moment before tiptoeing and kissing him hard. “We should have some more fun before we are going to Italy tomorrow, and think about other things when that’s over.”

“You won’t hear me complain, darling,” he grinned as he scooped her up and brought her to the bed. “Not a single complaint here.”

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