ACT THREE; MISSILES FIRED
SCENE FOUR; SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
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WALKING INTO THE LOCKWOOD MANSION, SALEM SCRUNCHES HER NOSE UP AT THE SMELL OF CHEAP BOOZE. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jacket and walks beside Klaus, stepping up behind Tyler who freezes when he registers their presence.

The scene before them isn't something Salem's fond of seeing– some brunette with her thumb in her mouth, giving Tyler a look from beneath her lashes that is both dramatic and full of heat. Salem's face twists in disgust.

"Well, don't let me interrupt," Klaus drawls, looking between the two amusedly.

"Who's this?" Salem asks, tilting her head as she eyes the girl.

"This, love, is Hayley," Klaus says, laying an arm over her shoulders as he gestures to the girl in question. "The werewolf that my ex-sire is having an affair with."

Salem's brows raise as she leans into Klaus's side, a smirk pulling at her lips as Hayley rolls her eyes. "Wow. So the homewrecker comes to town, and she gets a free room here at the Mayor's mansion. What a sweet life you live, honey,"

Hayley gives her a narrow-eyed glare as Tyler turns around to face them, visible disdain on his features.

"I didn't know you were here,"

Klaus pushes past the hybrid with a snarl, pulling Salem along with him. "Clearly," He picks up a bottle of liquor sitting out on the table and takes a hefty swig off it, looking at the lingering hybrids in the sitting room. "No, I just popped round to celebrate Dean's successful retrieval of the vampire hunter. Yet, when I arrived, I learned that not only was Dean unsuccessful, but that Elena killed the hunter."

"Well, maybe he would be if you had let Dean use force on Connor instead of sending him on a suicide mission,"

"Maybe you should mind your business, wolf girl," Klaus informs Hayley, narrowing his eyes at her defensiveness.

"What do you care if Connor's dead anyway?"

"I have my reasons," Klaus shrugs, shaking his head. "But they have ceased to matter. Cheers."

Salem takes the bottle from his hand before he can take another drink and holds it at her side, ignoring the way he looks at her.

A knock on the door halts any further conversation, and Tyler heaves a sigh as he goes to answer it.

He's barely got it open before Caroline's pushing her way in with a box full of things and a firm glare on her face. "I brought your stuff. Old laptop, your jersey, the charm bracelet."

"Care," Tyler shakes his head, briefly startled. "This isn't a good time."

"Just take it," She shoves the box into Tyler's chest pointedly and the hybrid grunts, turning to set it down on the table.

Her blue eyes shift to Klaus as he and Salem walk into the foyer, and they widen slightly. She recovers quickly, crossing her arms over her chest as her cheeks flush, and she suddenly avoids his eyes.

"Klaus," She sniffs, saying his name lightly.

He smirks, eyeing the ex-couple amusedly. "By the breakup drama unfolding before me, I assume you've met Hayley,"

Caroline looks ashamed at the mention of the werewolf lover her boyfriend had, and Klaus nods, satisfied with the lack of response. He turns his head, glancing back at the three hybrids lying around in the other room. "Alright, come on. Let's go. Let's leave them alone. Your talents are needed elsewhere,"

"For what?"

Salem rolls her eyes at Tyler's question, shrugging Klaus's arm off her shoulders so she can hold his hand instead. "It seems like you've got more important things to worry about right now, Tyler."

Salem and Klaus pile out of the door with the hybrids in tow, oblivious to the shared looks between the trio as they leave.

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"I don't believe we've met,"

Salem sets a box of her art supplies down, frowning as she turns to find the source of the voice.

"I'm Atticus Shane," A brown-haired man holds his hand out for her to shake and she does so reluctantly, brows furrowing. He takes in the small tattoos lining her hand, wrapping around her wrist and his smile quirks up interestingly. "You can just call me Shane, though."

"Salem," She takes her hand back, resting it on the edge of the cardboard box she'd packed up with things from her classroom. "Salem Kenner. You're the one in charge of the, uh, exhibit thing today?"

"The one and only," He nods, taking a small step closer to her. "I'm also mentoring one of your students– Bonnie Bennett?"

Salem's fingers twitched and she tilted her head, eyeing him warily. "Former student, yes. She's a very smart girl. Talented."

"Oh, you don't work here anymore? Bonnie mentioned you're an art teacher,"

She shakes her head, tapping the box in her hands. "No, uh, I'm going back to school. I'm not someone who can multitask, so I had to pick which one was more important."

"I get that," He chuckles lightly, seemingly sensing her solemnity about the subject. "I couldn't do anything else when I was still studying. I got lucky with my job, it allows me to study full-time for the sake of teaching others,"

Salem smiles, nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, teaching is pretty great. I hope to come back to it one day,"

Shane checks his watch and jolts slightly, clapping his hands together. "Hey, look, sorry to, uh, drop our conversation, but I've got to start the presentation. I'd love to see you there– you might learn something new that you can study when you go back to school."

Salem purses her lips slightly and looks down at the box in her hands, leaving it on the half-folded table pushed against the wall as she steps back. "I, uh, I wasn't going to stay for it, but what's the harm? Teachers should always be learning more, right?"

"Absolutely," Shane grins charmingly and gestures down the hall to the open doors of the makeshift exhibit room. "After you."

Salem leads them into the cafeteria but stays near the back of the room as Shane breaks off, heading for the front.

He stands before a pedestal with a small boulder on it that looks like it's almost started to crystallize, and a wall of images behind him that show a zoomed-in photo of the rock, with engraved letters lined out to spell out 'SILAS'.

Shane is quick to capture the attention of the room and Salem sees how he can lead a lecture full of students.

"You're looking at what people believe to be the world's first tombstone," Shane gestures to the rock on the pedestal, and Salem tilts her head, eyes narrowing as he continues. "This item was donated to Whitmore College last month."

Salem's eyes drift to where Matt and Jeremy stand a foot away, with April Young beside them.

The younger girl leans in towards them, eyes alight in oblivious realization. "Oh, I just remembered how I know him– through my dad,"

Salem moves her braids behind her ear, tuning Shane's voice out as she tilts her head just to listen to the girl's words.

"That guy knew your dad?"

"Yeah," April nods, her voice low so as to not interrupt Shane's lecture. "He taught a theology seminar at Whitmore last year."

Salem's brows furrowed and a frown pulled at her lips as she moved her gaze back to Shane, watching him move animatedly as he spoke.

"A witch so powerful in fact, that Silas– that was his name–" He gestures at the translation being shown behind him. "Created a spell that would grant him immortality."

Salem watches closely as the screens behind him switch to a different slide, a drawing depicting some sort of ritual or something, as far as she can tell.

"Now, legend says that Silas did the spell with the help of a lady witch who loved him. A woman named Qetsiyah," Shane smiled wryly, shaking his head, and Salem startled slightly when a hand rested on her shoulder.

She snapped her head around, relaxing from her defensive stance when she saw it was just Damon arriving with Bonnie.

Damon gestured to Shane with a jerk of his head, an incredulous look on his face that Salem shrugged in response to.

"Sadly for Qetsiyah, Silas wanted to give immortality to another woman. So, Qetsiyah killed her and buried Silas alive, leaving him powerless, immortal, and alone," Shane's tone grew a bit solemn before he quickly recovered, and pointed at the supposed tombstone beside him. "This might actually be the origin story of hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

The room chuckled lightly at his comment, and Damon leaned towards Bonnie, keeping his voice low. "You got this?"

"Yeah," The witch nodded, dismissing Damon. "I'll bring him to you."

"Now, it's said that Silas wants to rise again, regain his power, wreak havoc on the world,"

Damon stops, turning back to look at the professor with a slight frown before he shakes it off, leaving the room finally.

"Maybe we should be afraid," Shane says, his voice grave and foreboding in a way that has the room silent for a prolonged moment that only breaks when he shakes his head and chuckles breathlessly. "Or maybe it's all a bunch of crap and that's just an old rock."

The crowd laughs again and he claps his hands before gesturing out around the rest of the room where the various items and information were displayed. "Alright, listen, enjoy exploring the exhibit. I'll be around to answer any questions– thank you for coming,"

Salem turns away as Shane walks towards Bonnie, pulling her phone out when it starts to vibrate. She opens the text from Klaus and sighs quietly, ducking out of the cafeteria, unaware of the satisfaction that her mere identity has brought to the man she's just met.

─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────

Salem sits beside Klaus at the bar, resting her hands flat on the surface. "What did you want to tell me?"

Klaus swallows the sip of bourbon he'd taken, swishing it around in his glass before setting it back down with a sigh. "There's a reason I didn't want Connor dead."

Salem raised a brow, turning to look at him. "Are you going to tell me the truth, then?"

Klaus is silent for a moment and she bites the inside of her cheek to resist the urge she has to get up and walk away from him. "When a vampire kills one of the Five, it's not over. The witch that created them put in a– a failsafe. Something to finish the job, just in case the hunter was killed before they completed their work."

"What failsafe? What's going to happen now that Connor's dead?"

"It's a curse," He says, eyes growing distant with memories of centuries upon centuries ago. "And it will drive you insane until you finish the hunter's job yourself."

Salem's eyes widened. "Does that mean–"

"Elena is already in the late stages of the curse. Hallucinating the people that haunt her the most. Being told that she deserves to die– that she'd be doing everyone a favor by taking her own life. There will be no relief for her, not until she finishes the job. So I've taken it upon myself to keep her safe from harm."

Salem purses her lips, a tug of sympathy yanking around her heart. "She's at the house, isn't she?"

Klaus nods silently, taking another sip of his drink.

"Klaus," Salem stops short, fixing him with an imploring look. "How long were you cursed after you killed Rebekah's hunter?"

He meets her knowing gaze with his eyes full of something like regret and fear swirled together in a storm. "52 years, 4 months, and 9 days."

Salem reaches for his hand, intertwining their fingers silently, their eyes staying locked on each other. "Nik,"

"Place looks pretty good considering your hybrid got blown up in it,"

The couple startles at the familiar voice and they turn in unison as Caroline comes to stand beside them at the bar.

"Caroline," Salem starts, narrowing her eyes at the vampire. "What do you want?"

The blonde sighs, looking between them. "I want you to give Elena back."

Klaus chuckles shortly. "Ah. They sent you to sweet talk me," He shakes his head, lifting his glass to take a drink with his free hand. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

Caroline's look hardens slightly in the immediate face of his defiance. "Why not?"

"She needs my help,"

His words earn a scoff from Caroline and Salem's fingers twitch in Klaus's hand, making him squeeze them reassuringly.

"I won't burden you with the gory details, I'm sure you have enough on your plate already with every other failure happening in your life," Klaus says, a slight smirk pulling at his lips.

Caroline turns away from him, a frown pulling at her lips. "That's none of your business, actually,"

"Well, you can't possibly not notice that the second he broke his sire bond to Klaus, he cheated on you," Salem offers, raising her brows innocently when the girl glares at her.

"I didn't come here to talk about me and my relationships," Caroline says through gritted teeth. "I just want Klaus to let Elena go."

"Not happening," Klaus smiled overly sweetly at the girl. "It's for her own good, trust me."

Caroline falls silent despite her desire to snap back at him, instead pulling her phone out of her jacket pocket as it vibrates with new texts. Her eyes widen as she reads Stefan's texts and she takes in a deep breath before turning to face Klaus and Salem again.

Plastering a smile on her face, Caroline hopes it hides the wince traveling through her body. "So, here's the thing. I didn't just come here to try to get you to release Elena,"

"You don't say,"

"I came here to distract you, so that Stefan could go to your house and break her out, which he did, and– don't get mad, but then he lost her."

Klaus slams his hands against the bar before he stands, his movements swift and angry in a way that makes Caroline flinch away from him.

Salem shakes her head and stands to follow him as he begins to storm out of the bar, but Caroline reaches for his arm, trying to get him to stop.

"Klaus, wait–!"

Klaus spins around, fixing her with a dangerous glare. "Caroline, you're a very nice girl, but if you don't stop talking, I'm going to kill you."

He turns back around, moving to leave once more, but Caroline yells out, halting them in their tracks.

"They figured out how to stop the hallucinations!"

Salem and Klaus share a brief look before they turn to face her again, both of the hybrids sighing resignedly.

"Okay," Klaus clenches his jaw, his blue eyes burning with anger. "You have ten seconds to tell me."

Caroline winces, waving her hands in the air for a moment as she tries to compose herself in the face of his threats. "The key to breaking the curse is waking another hunter– they're called Potentials, or something. After the whole ordeal here with Connor, we found out that Jeremy is a Potential, so all we need to do is get him to kill a vampire and like– wake up his inner hunter or whatever and the curse on Elena will go away. Easy peasy!"

Klaus tilts his head, eyeing her closely. "Are you offering yourself up as a sacrifice, then?"

"What? No!"

The hybrid smirks, stepping away from her. "Then Elena's going to die, and it will be your fault because none of you listened to me,"

"Wait!" Caroline hesitates, biting her lip for a moment before sighing. "It would be... the easiest way would be to kill,"

"Kill who?" Salem urges her to complete her thought.

"A hybrid," She bites out, holding her hands when she sees the start of a refusal on Klaus's face. "Just hear me out! I– okay, I am totally betraying everyone's trust here, but your hybrid, Chris. The one that was watching Elena. He's the one who helped us break her out."

Klaus clenches his jaw, a new wave of anger washing over him, undercut by the consistent betrayal he's felt with every loss of every hybrid he's made. "You're asking a lot of me considering you came here to lie,"

"I know," Caroline nods, pushing out a breath of relief, if only because he hasn't ripped her heart out yet. "I know it's a lot, but it's the only way to break Elena's curse and we all want her alive, even if it's for different reasons. And you... you aren't the type of person to let someone get away with betraying you."

Klaus is silent for a moment, and Salem watches a myriad of emotions cross his face, can see his thought process as it happens but she's not going to let Caroline in on any of it. She knows exactly what Klaus is feeling, and she doesn't blame him in the slightest. They both know what he's got to do because Caroline's right.

"Alright," He starts, making Caroline's eyes light up. He stops her with a hand, halting her relief just as it begins to bloom. "But listen to me closely, Caroline. If you all don't take this as a lesson to be learned, I'm going to get revenge for every one of my hybrids that has died in the name of saving Elena Gilbert's life, and I'll start with you."

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The hybrid stops short in the doorway, halted by the Original's presence. Klaus steps up, backing him further into the house with a dangerous smirk on his face.

"Going somewhere?"

Salem's eyes moved past Klaus to where Tyler and Hayley were watching with wide eyes. They stumbled back as Klaus lunged for the hybrid, Chris, pinning him against the railing of the staircase with a firm grip around his throat.

"When I said don't let her out of your sight, what did you think I meant?"

"It's not his fault!" Tyler exclaims, stepping forward only to be stopped by Salem swiping a hand out, wrapping thick ribbons of her magic around his wrists and neck. She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes in a silent challenge. He doesn't try to struggle against her magic, apparently having learned from previous attempts that it was useless.

"It's mine," He breathes out quickly, trying to get Klaus's attention on him. "I was distracting him. It's my fault she got away!"

"Then maybe you should be the one to die for it,"

"No one has to die!"

Salem and Klaus move together, turning towards Hayley with deathly glares.

Salem holds a hand up, bracing herself to attack as Klaus grits his teeth, fixing Hayley with a murderous look.

"Did I not say mind your business?" He growled out, making the werewolf duck her head to avoid his gaze before she braced herself and lifted her eyes again.

"Tyler's covering for me," She looks between the couple, her eyes briefly drifting to Tyler still being held in place beside her with Salem's magic. "I'm the one that let her go–"

"Hayley," Tyler whispers, brows furrowing concernedly.

"No!" She doesn't look away from Klaus, digging her grave a bit deeper. "You want someone dead, go ahead. Kill me. I'd rather die anyway than end up as one of your sired little bitches,"

Klaus smirks, shaking his head slightly. "Oh, don't tempt me, little wolf,"

He turns away from her to face Chris again, but Salem lingers, eyes narrowing as she watches the werewolf's shoulders drop slightly like all of her bravado disappeared the second Klaus didn't rip her heart out.

"Your existence is to serve me," Chris nods furiously at Klaus's words. "To please me. Do you understand?"

"I– I'm sorry," Chris shakes his head, eyes wide in fear. "I won't fail you again."

"No, you won't," Klaus agrees, stepping away from him with a jerk of his head, and gesturing to the front door. "Get out of here."

Chris stays still at first, expecting Klaus to lunge for his head or his heart, but when another second passes and neither he nor Salem makes a move for him, he heads for the door quickly.

Just as he gets a foot out the door, a stake is shoved into his heart and he's pushed to the ground, making Hayley cry out.

"No!"

Stefan and Jeremy walk into the house with a stake and a hatchet in their respective hands, and Tyler looks at them in utter shock.

"Jeremy?" Tyler jerks angrily and Salem releases her hold on him, smirking slightly. "What the hell, man?"

"I'm sorry," Stefan shakes his head, offering Tyler and Hayley a genuinely sympathetic look. He turns to Jeremy and nods, gesturing to the hybrid half-dead on the floor, and Jeremy raises the hatchet above his head before swinging it down onto his neck, severing his head from his body.

Hayley's short scream spills through the room as blood spatters on Jeremy's face, and the younger boy moves quickly, flipping his hand around to watch the ink grow on the back of his hand, already beginning to trail up his arm.

"Did it work?" Stefan looked at him with wide eyes, waiting with bated breath.

Jeremy met his gaze and nodded once, his eyes drifting around the room as the blood on his face grew cold. "Yeah. It worked."

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​​author's note; a bit of a shorter chapter today but!!! I didn't wanna hurt your feelings too bad after the last chapter. 

I have a new TVD fic go check it out!!! it's called mirrorball !

edited and published; 1.30.24.

- liz