Chapter 22

Myriam decided to go out of town for a few days and left her cell phone at home. She had enough of people not listening and squabbling siblings. She went to New Orleans instead, quietly slipping in and out of the city while she caught up with Isabella and Débauche.

However, when she returned home a few days later, a jar of ashes was standing on the coffee table, and Klaus was sitting next to it with a few empty bottles of alcohol. “Where were you!” he growled as he got to his feet. “Where the hell were you?! I tried calling you at least a hundred times, and you didn’t pick up!”

“I left my phone here. I had enough of you and Kol making me choose a side!”

“Yeah, well, as my wife you should have chosen my side!”

“Not after all the stories Kol and I heard about Silas!”

Klaus pointed at the jar. “His insistence got him killed, Myriam. If only you had tempered his enthusiasm for those stories, he wouldn’t have ended up in a pile of ash!”

Myriam looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Kol’s dead because you went along in his delusions!”

She stumbled back in shock then, her chest tightened, and she could feel tears form in her eyes. It was like the wind got knocked out of her body. “No… He can’t be… w-what happened?”

“He was lured to the Gilbert house for a ‘truce’. It was all an elaborate plan to kill him, and complete Gilbert’s hunters mark!”

Myriam managed to bark out a laugh. “Just like you wanted.”

“Not at the expense of my brother! This is your fault, Myriam. You encouraged him and went along with him! You should have stopped him!” He walked towards her with a raised hand but lowered it after realising what he was doing. “It’s a good thing you’re my wife.”

Myriam hadn’t flinched, Klaus was grieving, but so was she. “Who killed him?”

“Jeremy. Elena helped,” Klaus admitted with a sigh. “To their defence, Kol was going to kill Elena and chop off Jeremy’s arms.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“Me?”

“Yeah? Did you at least get your beloved cure so that Kol didn’t die for nothing?”

“Katerina she -”

“Oh, of course! Mon Dieu! I told Kol this was a possibility! He died for nothing! Nothing! And his death is on you! You didn’t listen and take him seriously!” Myriam pushed Klaus away from her and ran out of the house. She managed to grab Caroline on her way to likely Elena. She snapped Caroline’s neck and dragged her off to Alaric’s apartment.

“What are you doing?” Alaric was drunk off his ass and watched Myriam tie up Caroline.

“Eye for an eye, but I’m going to drag it out,” Myriam said as she grabbed Alaric’s bottle and took a swig from it. “Are you off vervain?”

“I don’t want to deal with you guys anymore, leave me alone.”

“You should have left Mystic Falls if you want to get rid of vampires…” she said before she sat down next to him. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Ric,” she said as she compelled him. “You should leave Mystic Falls, start a life somewhere else. Teach. Sober up. Live a life away from vampires.”

“That sounds good.”

“Take a break from Mystic Falls, Ric. Start packing your bags and find a place that’s not here,” she didn’t break the compulsion just yet. “Heal. Go to your bedroom and sleep off the alcohol and leave. Tomorrow.”

Alaric nodded, and Myriam broke the compulsion, causing him to look at her, confused. “Are you alright, Myriam?”

“No,” she smiled at him. “But I will be. And so will you.”

“Yeah,” he nodded before pointing to the bedroom. “I’m drunk. I’m going to sleep it off. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Can I stay here for a while? With Caroline?”

“Yeah, sure,” Alaric nodded as he got to his feet. “Good night.”

“Good night, Ric,” she smiled at him and watched him go into his bedroom. After she was sure he was gone and out like a light, she dug into his closets to find a bottle of vervain water that she knew he had, some cleaning gloves and poured it in a bucket before dunking rope in it and started to tie Caroline to the chair. She could smell the scent of burning flesh, and Caroline was groaning as she came to.

Myriam started to hum Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline as she grabbed a knife and began to make deep cuts to wake Caroline up even further before grabbing some vinegar and salt and started to pour that in the wounds, causing the young vampire to cry out in pain. “Shh, Ric’s asleep.”

“Myriam? What?” Caroline said weakly. “What are you doing?”

“Eye for an eye, sugar,” Myriam replied as she squatted down in front of Caroline, waving around a big knife. “Elena and Jeremy killed my best friend. I’m going to return the favour. But I’m going to drag this one out and not give you the satisfaction of a swift death.”

“Myriam… you don’t have… you’re better than this.”

“Oh, no, sugar, I’m not,” Myriam said as she gently ran a finger up and down Caroline’s leg. “Hmm… shall I put a tarp underneath you? Nah, why bother?” She twirled around her knife as she looked up at Caroline. “You’re not off the vervain yet, so I can’t compel you to be quiet, but please keep your screams to a minimum.”

She swiftly grabbed Caroline’s leg and severed it below the knee, blood spurting everywhere, covering Myriam and the surrounding area, and Myriam just laughed as Caroline screamed like a little piggy. “Fantastic!” Myriam cheered as she got to her feet and tossed Caroline’s leg on the couch before getting a salt-filled plate from the kitchen and put it against her open wound, causing Caroline to scream even louder. Her face was all red and puffy and so beautiful.

When Caroline passed out from all the excitement, Myriam quickly wrote a note saying Game On and headed to a neighbor with Caroline’s severed leg and compelled the neighbor not to tell anyone where she was from and deliver the leg to Elena Gilbert before leaving out of town for a few days so that nobody could track her back to Alaric’s building.

There were plenty of neighbours to compel anyway.

She returned to a still unconscious Caroline and slapped her cheeks. “Wakey wakey, we’re not done yet, but you’re bleeding out so nicely.” When Caroline opened her eyes again, she was slightly unfocused but enough focus so Myriam could compel the young vampire. “Don’t scream. You can cry, but you’re not to make a sound. Alaric is asleep, and we don’t want to draw attention to the neighbours. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “Stop, Myriam, please, you don’t have to do this!”

“We’ve been over this, Caroline. I’m so doing this. I don’t have to, but I want to,” Myriam picked up her knife again and started to cut off Caroline’s blonde locks. “Oh… I think I’m going to send these to Klaus. You see, he thinks I’m to blame for Kol’s death, but I’m not. He is. Because he didn’t listen. And he likes you. He just keeps on saving you, doesn’t he? Why is that? You’re nothing special,” Myriam said as she kept cutting Caroline’s hair. “You’re a dumb, blonde, cheerleader. What is so special about you, huh? Well, I guess you’re special because you get saved by my husband a lot…”

Myriam took a few steps back to admire her handiwork. Caroline’s hair was a mess. Some long bits, some shorter. She put the blonde hair in a doggy bag and compelled another neighbour to take this to Klaus. When she returned, Caroline was trying to get out of her vervained ropes, and Myriam grabbed a coffee cup, dunked it in the bucket that she had filled up with Alaric’s vervain water and dunked it over Caroline’s head. “Don’t make me compel you not to move. I already don’t prefer it that I told you not to scream.”

The vampire was shaking, and Myriam was thinking about what her next move was going to be. She went back into the kitchen and found a pair of pliers. “Ohhh,” she cooed as she walked back to Caroline and waved the pliers in front of her face. “What do you think I could do with this? You know, they usually use pliers to cut off fingers or toes… but… ah, I know!” She said all giddily. “Put your game face on, Caroline,” Myriam compelled her and saw Caroline’s face change. “Now keep it that way until I say otherwise.”

Straightening herself up, she grabbed the mug she had used to pour vervain over Caroline’s head and set it in Caroline’s lap. Myriam pulled Caroline’s head back and started to pull out her teeth, and her fangs. Caroline was squirming underneath Myriam’s assault, and Myriam took extreme pleasure pulling out all those perfectly lined up teeth and putting them in the cup while humming Sweet Caroline again.

“So much blood,” Myriam hummed after she had pulled out every tooth and molar in Caroline’s mouth. “Better rinse it out,” she dropped her pliers and headed into the kitchen to get another cup and dunked it in her vervain bucket and poured it in Caroline’s mouth. “You can turn off your vamp face now,” Myriam smirked as Caroline spluttered and nearly choked on the vervain.

“Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Caroline,” Myriam agreed with the vampire in pain. “Time to have a drink!” She grabbed her bottle and sat down on the sofa, looking at the young vampire from her spot and took a swig of her bottle. “Your best friend killed mine,” Myriam sighed. “You know, I had to miss him for a very long time, but I always knew that he was safe. In his box. And now…” she let out a dark chuckle. “My best friend is gone. Dead. Ashes. I’ll never be able to speak to him again. Have fun with him. He’s taught me so much over the years, and now he’s gone. Poof! For the rest of my eternal life, I won’t have my best friend. And I’m going to do the exact same to Elena. She’ll have to miss you for the rest of her miserable life.” She took another swig of the alcohol. “Ugh. Alaric should really invest in the better stuff, this is like drinking straight out of the gutter.”

“Please…”

“Oh please,” Myriam rolled her eyes at the young vampire, weakened by the loss of blood. “Relax, I’m going to take my time with you… although you’re bleeding out so fast that I might have to speed things along and then spend days giving your bestie a pressie,” Myriam chuckled then. “Bestie a pressie. My bestie won’t ever give me a pressie again.”

Sighing, Myriam got to her feet and ripped off Caroline’s arm with a single jank. “You know, I wonder how soon your friends realised that you’ve gone missing. You think she’d like to receive your arm as a consolation prize? She could use it to hug herself!”

“Please stop… please…”

“Nope,” Myriam said as she tore off Caroline’s other arm and threw both of them on the sofa. “You’re fading. I need to make the pain last for a while. Right until you die. Or you know, you could just turn it off, but I suppose you’re too chicken to do that,” she shrugged as she picked up her knife again and made a deep gash on Caroline’s remaining leg, almost cutting it in half before scooping up some more vervain water and poured that into the wound. “To be honest, I thought you’d last longer,” Myriam said slightly disappointed. “Ah, not to worry, Stefan’s next. Or… ohh, what about your mom?”

“NO! No, please, not my mom…”

“Tyler then. I’ll have to buy a muzzle, so he doesn’t bite me, but Tyler is a good candidate. He’s a hybrid. He’ll definitely last longer than you.”

“No!”

“Matt?” Myriam picked up the pliers again and pulled Caroline’s ears off of her head. Then her nose before sighing deeply. “Okay, bored now,” she said before punching Caroline’s torso and ripped out her heart. “Oh, that’ll make a pretty gift for Klaus!” She dropped the heart on the floor before going back into the kitchen to find some sandwich bags to wrap it up in. She wrote little notes for all the body parts before severing Caroline’s leg and disconnected her head from her shoulders and wrote notes for them too.

After compelling more neighbours with set times to deliver the packages, Myriam could hear fire truck sirens driving fast through Mystic Falls and curious as what had happened, she followed the noise, only to see the Gilbert House going up in flames and a part of her made her happy about it. Elena didn’t have a home anymore. But it was also the place where Elena and Jeremy had murdered Kol and Myriam couldn’t go there.

She hadn’t been as conspicuous as she believed she’d been, and Damon spotted her. “What are you doing here? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Myriam said evenly as she looked at the flames. “Did you do this?”

“No, Elena did. Jeremy’s dead. It’s his body that’s inside the house.”

“Oh,” she said in the same tone of voice. “Did Silas kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. My condolences.” She didn’t mean it. Not at all, and that was very evident in her voice. Even Damon seemed to be taken aback by how cold she sounded. “You know who else is dead? My best friend. And guess what? He warned you about Silas, but did you listen? No.”

“Myriam…” Damon sighed. “Elena and Jeremy did what they have to do to complete Jeremy’s mark. You shouldn’t have killed those vampires at the bar.”

She looked up at him then. “If you had listened to us in the first place, Kol wouldn’t have died! To… to use the excuse of ‘he had to die’ is lame and hurtful. Downright disrespectful, too. Why him? Because he’s an easy target?”

“He was convenient. Why won’t you come home with us?”

“Go to hell, Damon,” Myriam shot at him. “Just so you know, Kol liked Jeremy as a potential friend. What he and Elena did to him, it’s the ultimate act of betrayal.”

“Shouldn’t you help Klaus find Katherine or something?”

“I’m not going to do a bloody thing!” Myriam snarled before she remembered what she had done for hours previously. “However, I’m sure that in the coming day, you’ll get some surprises delivered on your doorstep,” and with that, she sped off, back to her home.

Ignoring Klaus, she headed straight to Kol’s room, took a shower to rinse off the blood and laid down in his bed. His scent still lingered, and suddenly she was overcome with grief and started to sob. Just for a little while, she could be vulnerable. Mourning her best friend.

There was a knock on the door, and she could hear it open. “Love? Are you alright?”

“Leave me alone,” Myriam replied as she rolled herself in Kol’s blankets. “You have no right to ask me if I’m alright.”

“On the contrary, I’m your husband,” he said as he sat down on the bed, holding a bag. “What did you do to Caroline?”

She peeked out from underneath the covers and saw the bag that she had put Caroline’s hair in as a present to Klaus. “I gave her a haircut, now, leave me alone. You’re ruining this space.”

Klaus sighed and nodded. “Very well, love. I’m just letting you know that I might be out of town for a bit. I have Katerina to hunt down.”

Myriam felt anger rise inside of her again. She wanted to tell him that finding the cure was the least of his problems but bit her tongue instead. “Go away.”

He planted a kiss on top of her head and left the bed, gently closing the door as he made his way out.

Myriam took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was almost as if Kol was still with her. Almost. She sat up straight and looked around for a moment before realising that she could have him with her. Maybe it wasn’t too late to use Voodoo to bind his essence to something. But would he want it though? Likely not. Sighing, she fell back down onto the bed. “You’re lucky that I take your feelings into account, Kol,” she muttered. “Binding you to me wouldn’t do you any good, and that would be incredibly selfish. Just stay with me? I hope I did you proud with what I did to Caroline. I hope you saw that. I think I’ll go for Stefan next, what do you think?” she added in a whisper before she allowed the tiredness to overtake her and drifted off in an uneasy sleep.

When she woke again, she found a message from Klaus on her phone that he was on his way back again, deciding to leave the chasing Katherine to Rebekah because he felt he needed to be home for his wife.

Myriam reluctantly went to get a blood bag to have something to eat before taking her ritual objects into Kol’s room and started to do a few voodoo blessings for the dead and for Kol’s protection, and she immediately felt somewhat better afterwards. Knowing that that was the only thing she could have done for her best friend, it felt right.

Klaus’ screaming jostled her from her peaceful thoughts and energy, and she ran downstairs only to see him with his top off and trying to ram into a wall. “What are you doing?!”

Klaus wasn’t paying attention to her as he stumbled through the living room, groaning and clawing at his back. She stopped him and made him look at him. “What happened to you?”

“Silas,” he groaned. “He attacked me. He stabbed me with the White Oak Stake.”

Myriam tried hard not to laugh as she looked at his back, seeing nothing. Silas was playing mind games. It was a good thing that she had decided to steer clear of the whole mess. “Can I say it?”

“Say what?”

“We told you so,” she said as she let go of him and sat down in one of the chairs with a glass of bourbon.

“Aren’t you going to help me?!”

“No. You’ll live.”

“I’m your husband!”

“And you’re an idiot!” Myriam took a sip of her drink and watched as Klaus writhed against the fireplace mantle. “If only you used that brilliant mind of yours better. Perhaps you’d be less impulsive and jumping to conclusions.”

“Myriam, please.”

“No,” she said firmly. “And you know why? Because I was trying to help you with Kol and you blame me for his death. I don’t like to put the blame on you, but you were a factor in his death, Klaus, by pushing him away and telling him that he was crazy for believing in scary bedtime stories.”

“I forgive you, please, help me.”

“No,” she said as she took her phone and called Damon. “Hey, where are you?”

New York, chasing after Rebekah and Elena. Elena has switched off. Why?”

Myriam sighed as she made circular motions with her wrist to swirl the bourbon around in her glass. “Is Stefan home?”

No.”

“Thank you,” she hung up on Damon and called Rebekah instead. “Hey Bekah, can you give me to Elena for a moment, please?”

You don’t want to know how the hunt for Katherine is going?”

“Nah,” Myriam said as Klaus let out another yell in pain as he tried to dislocate his shoulder again. “And don’t mind your brother, Silas is fucking with him.”

Rebekah sighed as she handed the phone to Elena. “What?”

“I heard you turned your humanity off,” Myriam sighed. “Such a pity. I think you need to rush home, there are a few time-sensitive presents waiting for you. You’re gonna love them.”

I’m not interested.”

“Ah, such a pity, perhaps I should ask Stefan to open the presents instead. Then he can call you with the good news.”

Whatever.”

Myriam blinked at her phone as Elena had disconnected the call. “Wow, Stefan and Damon must have their hands full with that one. Did she do that because she lost Jeremy?”

“Who cares!” Klaus called out. “Help me! A piece of the White Oak Stake is still inside me!”

“No there isn’t.”

“Yes, there is!”

Myriam let out a breath. “Here we go again. Again with the not listening to your wife,” she said as she finished her glass of bourbon and refilled it. “Anyway, in case you were wondering, I’ve performed a few voodoo rituals to protect Kol’s spirit from harm from other spirits, and I’ve said a few prayers.”

“And how is that going to help me!”

Myriam shrugged.

“And why did you call Damon and Elena?”

“Reasons,” Myriam replied as she finished her glass in one go. “Speaking of those two…Once they all return, I’m going to bring home a guest and put him in our soundproof basement.”

“You could help me, first!”

“My dearest husband,” she sighed as she rose to her feet and approached him to ruffle his hair. “For Silas to be messing with you, you must have done something to piss him off. But what you’re experiencing is not real. You don’t have a piece of the White Oak Stake in you, and you’re only hurting yourself. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you’ll be fine.”

“What?”

“He got inside your head,” she smiled at him. “And here you thought you were telepathically sealed. Nope. Not for Silas. He’s to be feared, Klaus. And my guess is that you poked the proverbial bear. He’s the real big bad wolf here. So, calm down, and claim your mind back. I’ll be upstairs.”

~o.O.o~

Everyone returned two days later. Everyone, including Elijah. Who, much to her and Klaus’ surprise had been fooling around with Katerina. Who, not to anyone’s surprise, had been lying through her teeth to get Elijah’s protection from Klaus.

Aaand, the cure.

Rebekah was whining, begging, for the cure. She wanted to be human again, start a family, much like Kol and Myriam had anticipated she’d wish to. The four of them were sitting at the table to have that discussion about Rebekah wanting the cure. Myriam wisely kept her mouth shut. “Elijah, being human means a fresh start,” Rebekah said hopefully. “I can grow old and have a family and fill my days with meaning knowing that each day matters.”

Klaus laughed then as he looked at his brother. “Well, that was poetic.”

“Well, if you can provide us with a more compelling reason for wanting the cure, Klaus, please,” Elijah invited him.

Klaus sighed then and folded his hands on the table as he shifted. “I suppose we’ve now established that the crazy ramblings of our brother weren’t that crazy after all.”

Myriam huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Silas can appear as anyone,” Klaus continued. “He got inside my thoughts, convinced me I was dying. He will torment me until I give him the cure.”

“And, in doing so,” Rebekah interjected with a sigh. “He will break down the wall to the Other Side.”

“So it doesn’t trap him there when he dies,” Klaus shot at her before motioning with his hand, trying to prove a point. “He wants to reunite with his lost soulmate.” He then looked at Elijah with a cheeky smile on his face. “You, of all lovesick fools, should applaud his devotion.”

“He will open the floodgates for every supernatural being that has ever died!” Rebekah retorted.

“Including our dear brothers Kol and Finn,” Klaus countered. “We’ll have our family back.”

“Yeahhh, I’m not going to sit here and not to tell you ‘I told you so’,” Myriam said as she got to her feet. “Have fun squabbling, I’m going to see if the Salvatores and Elena liked my present.”

She spat off to the Salvatore House and giddily entered the house where Damon and Stefan were having an argument about Elena. “Oh, poor Elena, still with her humanity switched off, what can we do? Oh, what can we do?” Myriam sang as she leaned against the doorpost. “Hello boys, liked my present? Oh wait, did you like my many presents?”

“You killed Caroline,” Stefan said as he ran up to her and pushed her against the wall, his vampire face out as he was so angry, causing Myriam to just laugh. “What?!”

“You’re cute,” she said as she ruffled his hair. “Now, let me go.”

“Why did you kill Caroline? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

“Hmm… well… no doubt the Sheriff is sad that her vampire daughter got herself killed… and oh, no doubt that Elena is refusing to turn on her humanity even more!”

“The sheriff is on the warpath, Myriam! She thinks it’s one of us, what would you do if I told her it was you?”

“I’d kill her,” Myriam replied as she pushed Stefan away from her and snapped her fingers. “Just. Like. That.”

“Oh great,” Damon groaned. “As if we didn’t have our hands full with a baby vamp with her humanity switched off, there’s now an old one too!”

“Sugar, I have not turned my humanity off,” Myriam purred. “Eye for an eye. Elena and Jeremy killed my best friend, I killed hers. And I think I’m going for one of her ex-boyfriends next,” she smiled as she snapped Stefan’s neck, hoisted him over her shoulders and ran off with him to throw him in the soundproof and vampire proof basement underneath her home.

Round two.

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