•|•

Klaus and Isabel sat at a diner in the Appalachians, where Klaus was quietly talking on the phone with Elijah.

"If you find him, don't hesitate."

He hangs up the phone just as Isabel approached him. "Hope and Jacob fell asleep as soon as Mary started the car. And I bargained with Rose so she's been quiet. They should be good for the next few days without us." She looked down at a piece of paper ripped out of a small notebook, which had a list of addresses written on it. "So... which of these 10? Kingmaker offices should we go for first?"

Klaus stared at her worriedly, and after a moment, Isabel noticed his silence and looked up at him. "What?"

"Lucien has revealed his true nature." He told her worriedly. "He's taken, Freya." Isabel's eyes widen in shock as she took in this news. "And now, it seems her rescue depends on Elijah working with my ever-reliable brother Finn."

"And I'm assuming you want to go back to New Orleans to head up the hunt?" Klaus hesitated for a moment, clearly torn between their two different missions, and though Isabel was slightly disappointed, she understood and agreed. "Alrighty then. You should go. I'm sticking with Kingmaker, though. Lucien's working very hard to cover up these wolf kidnappings, and I want to know why."

Isabel reached for the list and the keys and turned to leave, and Klaus, after seeing that Isabel was hoping they could stick together, grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her.

Klaus sighed before saying, "no. The wolves, Freya's abduction... it can't all be a coincidence. We'll let my brothers pursue the obvious path." The original smiled weakly at her, and Isabel looked surprised by his change. "You and I... will pursue this one. No doubt all roads..." Klaus tapped his finger on the third address on the list, 122283 Forest Road, though the city and state are covered up by his hand. "...Lead to the same treacherous bastard."

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

Andrew vamp-sped out of the room, and Davina walked over to Cami, looking sad.

"I'm sorry about the harshness. I think he's getting used to being alive and a hybrid again. I'm sure you can relate."

Cami gave Davina a skeptical look and said, "yeah... If that's his problem." Cami turned back to the boxes and started to search through them again, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Davina, who frowned in confusion.

"What does that mean?" She asked confused.

Cami sighed and looked hesitant as she turned to face Davina again. "I've seen that look before, Davina. My uncle... after he was cursed."

Davina shook her head in denial and huffed out a weak laugh. "He's not cursed. I'd be able to tell."

Cami turned back to the box and pulled out a large bronze bowl and gave her a sympathetic look. "Would you?"

Davina's face fell as she realized that Cami could be onto something, and Cami looked guilty about making her upset.

"Look, maybe I'm wrong. Kol has been having trouble with wanting revenge. So maybe it's just being dead brought out something they need to get over. Just... be careful, okay?" She handed Davina the bowl and looked at her with concern, and Davina nodded uncomfortably.

"Thanks, Cami."

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

Klaus and Isabel walk towards the office while Isabel scans the area.

"Does he just build these from a kit or something?" She noted. "It's the exact same for the last five offices. Same windows, same plants..."

"And inside, same generic abstract art, same compellable receptionist..."

She looked at him for a moment thinking about how nothings happened and how he'd probably feel better with his brothers. "Are you sure you wouldn't be better off with your brothers? I can do the leg-work. There hasn't been much to do anyway."

Klaus smiled cheekily at his parabatai. "And split up the team now? Just when I'm discovering your carpool karaoke skills? I think not!"

Isabel laughed and rolled her eyes, which made Klaus laugh as well.

"No, I know Lucien. He is playing a game, here. Each unassuming little office building we search, the more sure I am of it. We keep going. Together."

Isabel smiled as Klaus walked toward the building, and she followed after him.

"Even if we have to scour one hundred of these poxy places," he said as he sped up to open the door. He lets Isabel in while surveying the area and closed the door behind them when it seemed clear.

Isabel walked ahead to the receptionist as she finished her call and hung up as she looked at them expectantly.

"Ah, hello, love! We're here for a spot of 'search and potentially destroy.'" Klaus made eye contact with the woman and tried to compel her while Isabel stood back.

"Do tell- where are the areas off-limits to general staff?"

The receptionist smiled evilly at them and sat back in her chair. "You just wait right here... and I'll have someone out here to help you with your inquiry." She pressed a button under her desk, which caused an alarm to blare loudly throughout the building. The alarm caused the reception area to go dark and red lights to flash as the room flooded with armed guards.

"I'd say we've gotten close." Isabel huffed.

"Stay right there!" A guard said as many of them surrounded Isabel and Klaus, who don't look as concerned as they do inconvenience as the guards' assault rifles are aimed at them.

Isabel and Klaus share a look as the guns' laser sights point right at their hearts. She raised her brow as she asked, "shall we?"

Klaus smirked. "Ladies first."

Isabel roared at the guards as she stormed toward them, and though they all start to shoot at her, she was barely affected by the bullets as she started taking out the guards one by one, with Klaus following her lead and roaring as well. The two hybrids break some of the guards' bones, snap the necks of some others, and impale them with their guns until finally, Isabel threw the last one standing through the glass door of the reception area. Once they're done, Klaus gave the guard one last passing look before he and Isabel make their way through the building in search of clues.

Klaus made his way through a wing when he sees a frantic scientist in a white lab coat rush out of a locked door and almost run right into him. Klaus grabbed him from behind and snapped his neck before reaching into his lab coat pocket and pulling out the credentials needed to get into the super-secret areas of the laboratory. He dropped the scientist's body onto the floor without another word and holds up the key card for Isabel to see as he laughed in amusement. Checking to make sure the coast was clear, the two make it through the locked door and into a laboratory.

Klaus and Isabel, upon entering see at least a dozen men and women chained up and attached to IV drips, while the corpse of a transformed werewolf lay in a cage.

Isabel looked horrified as she said, "they're all wolves." She walked over to where a young man was chained up and saw what looked like a breathing mask over his face, only it had two vials on the other side full of the same reddish-orange fluid that Lucien put in the new version of the Original vampire creation spell, revealing that he's been harvesting werewolf venom from them. When she reached out to touch the man, his eyes opened, revealing yellow-gold werewolf eyes, and he moaned in pain.

"Klaus," she said in terror. "They're still alive!"

Klaus looked equally disgusted by what Lucien had been doing, but when he saw a clear plastic curtain behind him, he turned and opened it to find a dead woman bound to an exam table with lesions all over her face, neck, and chest. Klaus breathed deeply through his nose for a moment.

"This one's a vampire." Klaus looked appalled as he turned back to face his werewolf companion. "What the hell is Lucien up to here?"

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

"Trust Elijah with this Matty." Isabel pleaded with her brother. "Let him save her. I can't promise that it'll be easy cleanup but I need you to do this for me."

Matt sighed reluctantly giving in. "Alright fine. I hope I don't regret this."

"Thank you for this," Isabel said. "I'll talk to you later. Bye."

She hung up and joined Klaus as he gently removed the werewolf venom-removing apparatus from one of the werewolves' faces.

"Help me with this one."

Isabel and Klaus work together to help the werewolf -a middle-aged man- out of his restraints and gently helped him sit down before Isabel bit her wrist and offered it to him.

"No vampire blood..." the werewolf weakly denied.

"That's okay. The others drank. I'm a hybrid. Go on." The werewolf looked at them hesitantly, and Isabel nodded in encouragement. "Go on."

The werewolf reluctantly accepted her blood while Klaus brainstormed what they've learned. "He needed their venom." Klaus looked around, eventually finding a small refrigerator that he opened to find a vial of cloudy white liquid. "He harvested the venom he needed, then reverse-engineered a vaccine. Clever stuff."

"And her?" Isabel asked as she jerked her head to the dead vampire woman who was still strapped to the exam table. "The dead vampire?"

Klaus looked at the woman's body for a moment. "It was the wolf venom that killed her." He found a syringe full of werewolf venom and examined it. "Just Lucien testing his cure."

"Why does he need to test out something he knows already works?"

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

Isabel finished helping the last of the werewolves when Klaus hung up his phone and returned to the main room in the laboratory to talk to Isabel.

"Freya's safe."

Isabel, relieved, asked, "what about the others?"

"Well, Finn's in a bad way. Some kind of werewolf bite. Elijah and Hayley think I should return home and heal him. Ease his pain."

Isabel gave Klaus a look knowing he didn't plan to help him. "Klaus, you should go. As soon as these last few recover, I'll get them home, gather what I can, and torch this place.

Klaus chuckled as he walked toward her. "No. Finn can purge it himself. He's earned the agony. Besides, you know how much I love burning things to the ground."

"Klaus, when you said that you wanted to work together, I wanted to know what that looked like. And now, I do. I appreciate you helping me rescue the wolves, but if there is any chance of making Finn an ally, you should take it. Go."

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

Isabel poured gasoline all over the laboratory, including the dead vampire's corpse, while the middle-aged werewolf man watched her. When she finished, she walked over to speak with him.

"Go outside and tell the others to keep their eyes peeled for trouble. As soon as this place burns, I'll take you back to the Crescents."

The guy frowned. "I'm not from there. One was. He died last week. We're from the seven packs: Deep Water, Malraux, BasRoq, Barry, Poldark... I'm a Paxon."

"That was my father's pack." She told him. "Wow. They had to look long and hard to find one of you."

"You're Nathan Paxton's little girl? Wow." He said in slight disbelief. "The former wolf queen turned Crescent queen. I'm sorry about your family. I heard they fought real hard that day."

She frowned hearing her about her family. "Yeah, it was a bad time then. It was better, until now."

"They want our venom. That's what they are torturing us for." He walked toward Isabel and pointed to the dead vampire. "They kept... pumping it into her over and over and over again. Then they'd heal her with some drug. Except for the last time. They shot her up with something so powerful... there was no saving her."

She looked horrified by the information for a moment before returning to the task at hand. "Go. I'm gonna burn this hellhole."

The man nodded sadly and left. Isabel, looking furious, reached into her pocket and pulls out a lighter before lighting it and throwing it at the feet of the dead vampire before she turned and walked away while the laboratory quickly burst into flames.

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

"As much as you hurt this family before I wanted to say thank you for helping them with Freya," Isabel said not looking at him but ahead of them.

"She's the one sibling who always loved me. I couldn't leave her to die." Finn stated.

The hybrid gave him a side glance, the car still moving and her long waist-length blonde hair swishing back from the breeze. "I still know when to say thank you."

Finn Mikaelson looked down at her with a small twitch to his lips. "In all my years and you are the fourth person to thank me. My mother, my sister, my lover, now you."

"I figured it was about time." She nodded once before looking away from him. "Goodbye Finn."

"Goodbye, Isabella." He whispered before he finally disappeared into peace. He was no longer held captive in his vampire body nor did he have to walk on the Other Side or in limbo for all eternity. Instead of pain, all Isabel felt was calm.

≪≫•≪≫•≪≫

Freya, Kol, Elijah, and Klaus are sitting in the upstairs living room in front of the blazing fire in the fireplace while Klaus talked. "Lucien did all of this to become like his maker, and yet, my bite cannot kill an Original. What are we up against here, brother?"

Klaus looks genuinely terrified, and Elijah shook his head in disbelief. "I truly don't know."

Just then, Isabel walked into the room and joined them. "I might. Klaus and I found Lucien's R & D lab full of werewolves. He's harvesting venom, but not to find a cure. He's trying to create a more lethal strain."

"Well, that must be what he added to the spell to make him whatever the hell he is now," Freya said angrily. "He kept boasting about having something that would make him better than an Original."

"Klaus is descended from one of the seven original wolf bloodlines. I am descended from two of them. Lucien's venom... is derived from all seven packs."

Klaus' eyes widened in horror when he realized the implications. "Giving him a bite that not even I can cure."

"There were two vials of serum, and he only drank one. Maybe it's because the spell will wear off eventually and he'll need another dose?"

Klaus realized in a moment as his blood ran cold. "Or he made enough for two."

Elijah frowned in confusion at Klaus' terrified face.

"Aurora."

Bella's back home 😩