During the day, Hope, Rae, Freya and I were at the condemned property again.

Rae looked at Hope. "Okay, let's see what you can do."

Hope smiled. "Okay." She used her untriggered wolf/vampire powers to leap up the condemned property to the top, then down again. "Pretty cool, huh? What do you think?"

"I think I wish I had core muscles like yours," Freya told her.

"And that's nothing compared to what I'll be able to do once I trigger my werewolf side," Hope told us.

I nodded awkwardly. "Yeah. Um, has your mom ever talked you through turning?"

"A little," Hope answered. "And I--I have friends. I mean, the whole killing a human part sounds kind of rough, but..."

"What about the whole breaking every bone in your body part?" I asked. "I have had a couple of werewolf friends, and I've even seen one turn on a full moon. It was worse than anything I could imagine."

"And honestly, it's--it's not what your mom wanted for you," Freya told her.

"Wants," Rae corrected. "Not what she wants for her."

Freya nodded nervously. "That's what I meant."

**********

Marcel had called. A vampire named Greta had admitted that she had taken Hayley, and she hated hybrids, so she was trying to make Hope purify herself, submitting to the same spell that Esther once used on Klaus to bind him. Once her werewolf side was sublimated, Hope would no longer be able to create hybrids. Klaus didn't want to agree, but Marcel said that it was either Hope's werewolf nature, or Hayley's life.

Freya, Rae and I were talking to Hope about it now in the girls' room.

"It'll be painful," I told her.

"I don't care," Hope told us.

"You could die," Rae told her.

"Same answer," Hope told us.

"We're talking about snuffing out a fundamental part of who you are," Freya told her.

"Which, as according to you, my mom never wanted me to trigger anyway," Hope replied.

"But which she wanted to be your decision," I pointed out.

"And I'm making it," Hope told us.

"Not like this, Hope," Rae told her.

"Listen, I know what it's like to have something taken from you against your will, okay?" I asked. "For me, it was Rae, or Klaus, or Stefan and Damon. And humanity. I didn't even know I was gonna turn into a vampire the night I died."

"For me, it was time," Freya added. "Years and years, cursed to sleep by Aunt Dahlia, while the world spun around me. And we are telling you, when you realize everything you've missed, it devastates."

"You know, if it were just to save my mom, I'd want to do it," Hope told us. "Or it could be the fact that... I'm partially responsible for her being taken. Or that I'm not even sure I even want this freakish side of myself. But it's all of those things. Kaylin, Aunt Freya, please, get whatever supplies that you need, because we are doing this."

Freya and Hope walked away.

Rae turned to me. "You're not gonna let her do this. Are you?"

"It's her choice," I told her. "But it's also Nik's. And he'll never forgive any of us if we let Hope do this."

Rae nodded. "So you're gonna call Klaus. Okay. Hope might be mad at you, but at least you're trying to protect her and Hayley."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Because even if we do this ritual, the people who took Hayley might just kill her anyway. And then Hope would suffer for the rest of her life because of a mistake of trusting the enemy."

**********

At the condemned property, Freya was starting the ritual with Hope's blood.

"There's got to be another way," Rae told us.

"Her blood is the key, Rae," Freya told her. "I just need enough to soak the moonstone. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam."

"That word, 'marcam'," Rae told her. "What does it mean? 'To mark'?"

Freya read from a grimoire. "'The drenched stone is heated and used to brand the afflicted'."

"Brand her?" I repeated, slightly incredulous. "Where?"

"The palms of both hands, the soles of both feet, and the sit of the third eye chakra," Freya answered. "And, Hope, listen to me, you can't pass out or ever stop breathing, okay?"

"And if she does?" Rae asked.

"Just don't," Freya answered.

"No," I told them. "We have to stop this. This is insane. Even if we do the spell, they could kill Hayley anyway, and what would be the point of this?"

"I know you're worried about me, Kaylin, and I thank you for that," Hope told me. "But we're doing this."

"Hope, I--" I started.

Hope looked at Freya. "Do it."

Freya sighed, starting the spell. "Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka." When Rae and I both took a step closer to stop the spell, Hope held a hand toward us to use magic to keep us back. "Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka."

Klaus arrived to stop the spell. "I will not let my past become your future. Do you understand? Do you understand?"

"Did Kaylin or Rae tell you?" Hope asked.

"I didn't answer their call, so they didn't have to," Klaus answered. "A thousand years of family has taught me to expect betrayal from those I hold most dear. Bind her, Freya? Really? How many times have you heard me rail against the shame our parents gave me?"

"How many times have you heard me cry, devastated over having lived my life without my mother?" Freya replied.

I noticed plants all around were starting to die, worried and concerned. "You have to go, Nik. You can't stay here with Hope and Rae."

"Kaylin's right," Klaus told them. "But Hope, Rae, listen to me. This ends now."

**********

Freya, Rae and I were fine for the rest of the day after Klaus went back to New Orleans, though we were devastated that our family couldn't be together, and that Hayley was missing, and we couldn't find her.

Well, we were fine until we learned that Hope snuck off from school with Roman.

And now Klaus was going to be angry and we had to find them before something even worse happened.