⌜ chapter nineteen ⌟

"Shit, shit, sh..." Arya stumbles as she rounds a corner, hitting the brick wall and struggling to stay on her feet.

The teenager can hear the two men not far behind her, they've been chasing her through the streets of Ketterdam for longer than she thought she could run. And she has to keep going to find her way to safety. So she pushes herself away from the wall and takes off running again, flying through alleys and past bystanders as fast as her sore legs will carry her.

She's certain that she remembers the way back.

And just when she feels herself losing strength, she sees the crow hanging in the arch that leads to a new part of the city, giving her the hope that she needs to keep going. She hears the mens' footsteps slow for a moment before they continue after her. They know that they're crossing into enemy territory now, but they have orders to capture her.

"Jesper!" Arya yells as soon as the Crow Club comes into view, and he stands from his post at the door. She barrels right into him, and he wraps his arms around the brunette as he takes a step back, bracing them so they won't fall to the wet ground.

"What's going on?" He asks as he looks down at her, but then he hears the men coming from the same direction.

"I need help." She tells him, and his gun's drawn in an instant, aiming for the men who skid to a stop as they look at Arya and Jesper.

"You're a long way from home." Jesper's gaze flickers between them, keeping one arm wrapped around the brunette who's leaning into his side for support.

"We could say the same for her." One of them speaks. "She was trespassing in the Emerald Palace."

"And now you're trespassing on our territory." He tells him. "Leave before you cause a real problem."

"Not without her."

The one who hasn't said anything yet is suddenly jerked back, and then Jesper and Arya see the hand holding a knife to his throat. "I'd say definitely without her." Inej corrects.

"Wraith." He hisses as he turns to look at her.

"She's with us, and you're not taking her. Now leave before you can't." She lets go of him, but doesn't lower the knife in her hand.

The two men reluctantly leave, but not before casting more furious looks at Arya. Only once they're out of sight does Jesper then lower his gun as he looks down at the brunette, and she groans as she clutches his jacket.

"What happened to you?" He questions as she clutches her leg.

"Those assholes shot me." She tells him. "I think it just clipped me. They're morons."

"Come on, up you go." He leans down and picks her up, supporting her weight by keeping his arm under the crook of her knees while the other wraps around her back.

"I can walk."

"Mhm." He hums before telling someone to take his place at the door.

Inej easily gets ahead of them, moving up the spiral stairs that lead to Kaz's sleeping quarters, and Arya continues to complain about being carried when she can clearly walk. After all, she just ran all the way over from the Emerald Palace.

"Quit your whining, will you?" Jesper says as he walks through the door, moving past Inej.

"Then put me down." Arya's voice immediately pulls Kaz from his work, and he makes his way over from the back.

He walks in just as Inej swipes a letter opener that Arya was going to stab Jesper with. He dropped her into one of the chairs beside Kaz's desk, and she called him a dick as she went for the blade.

"What's going on?" Kaz asks, and Jesper looks over at him.

"Ow." Arya grabs Inej's wrist to stop her from touching the skin around where the bullet hit her.

"No idea, boss." Jesper says. "She came running, trying to get away from a couple of Pekka's men. Must've missed me with the way she slammed right into me, hugged me tight."

"Such a big head." The brunette mutters as she looks at the gash to her outer thigh. "I was just trying not to get shot again. It's called momentum, you-"

"Why were you at the Emerald Palace to begin with?" Inej asks as she looks up at Arya from where she's kneeling in front of her.

"Poppy was giving me a place to stay while I tried to figure things out. I was supposed to stay out of sight, and I was for awhile, but... I was headed out, and the men from the night Pekka came and told Kaz that he was taking over the job from Dreesen saw me." She shakes her head. "I ducked out, they ran after me, one of them fired off a shot, and they chased me all the way from the Emerald Palace."

"We need to get this cleaned and stitched." She looks over at the boys. "Jesper, can you help her into the bathroom?"

"Does she want help?"

"Not usually." Arya sighs as she looks over at him, then she holds her hand out toward him.

"Aw, the baby's growing up." He muses as he walks over to her, and she chuckles.

Jesper helps the brunette into the bathroom, and then she sits on the side of the tub that Kaz has there. Inej brings over a wet cloth, alcohol, and her kit for stitching it.

"Do you want help?" Inej asks, and she shakes her head.

"I've got it, thanks." Arya offers her a small smile, and she nods before grabbing Jesper and pulling him out of the bathroom.

Kaz stands across from Arya, leaning against the counter as he stares at the floor. Her skirt is torn and it's hanging over her leg as she cleans the skin around the wound. The bullet grazed her, but it's a bit deeper than she'd thought it was, and stitching it hurts like hell.

Once she's finished, her hands clutch the side of the tub and she leans over, trying to regulate her breathing. She inhales deeply and then lets out a shaky sigh as she feels Kaz sit down beside her. Even hearing his footsteps and his cane weren't enough to ease her nerves as he neared.

"I'm sorry I brought trouble here." Arya says as she turns her head and looks at Kaz.

"I told you to come here if you needed help."

"Yeah, but neither of us expected it to be Pekka's men that I was running from when I promised that I'd find you." She argues, and he glances at her.

"I'm not surprised. Making my life difficult is what you do." He says, and she smirks.

"I'm sorry." She repeats, and he shakes his head.

"Are you alright?" He asks, and she shrugs.

"I've been worse."

"Recently?"

"Why? Do I look worse than the last time you saw me?" She asks, and he turns his head so his eyes meet hers. He doesn't say anything, and she takes a deep breath. "I was on my own for awhile before I went to Poppy for a place to stay. She could see I was freaked; I think she recognized the look in my eyes... A man tried to grab me from the street, said something about a good find and making decent money. Wasn't too hard to puzzle together that he wanted to sell me."

"What happened?"

"I killed him." She says as she looks away from him. "I actually kinda liked Kerch before that night. Now I... I feel like being here is turning me into someone else."

"You don't look any different to me." He tells her. "Still the same Arya that I met in this very room a few months ago."

"I think your view of me might be a little biased."

"You were defending yourself." He argues. "What I see...is your strength."

Arya smiles as she looks at him. He looks exactly the same as he did the night they met: dressed all in black, cane in gloved-hand, hair combed back. She feels so different from the girl that he met, so it's comforting to be beside someone who feels the same as they always have.

"You know, this past month has been...hell-ish." She tells him, leaning her shoulder against his as she looks into his blue eyes. "So many times, I found myself missing you."

A smile tugs at the corners of his lips as he looks at her.

"What about me?!" Jesper calls from the other room, and then there's a thud. "Ow!"

"Shut up." Inej hisses, and Arya chuckles as she looks toward the entryway to the connecting room. She can't see them, but she knows they're close.

"Being back here..." Arya starts as she returns her gaze to Kaz. "The Crow Club, up here, with you three — it feels like-"

Both of their heads snap up when a light emits from the other side of the room, and Arya gets to her feet as soon as she sees a rift that's identical to the one Katherine shoved her through. She pulls her gun, aiming at the rift at the same time she hears Jesper's gun cock. Kaz is on his feet as well, his body angled so he can watch what's about to happen while still blocking Arya.

A man steps through the rift, and he looks between the four of them. His blue eyes land first on the two on the far end of the room, seeing a gun on him while the man aiming it has another ready to use, and the woman at his side is armed with two knives. Then he looks to the others, seeing the man there with nothing more than a cane; his gaze lands on a stunned Arya.

"That was easier than I'd expected." He says, and the other three all recognize an accent identical to Arya's.

"There's no way." Arya mutters as she slowly lowers her gun, and Kaz looks down at her.

"I made you a promise, remember?" The man asks. "Whenever you were lost, I'd always find you and bring you home. I haven't broken it yet, have I?"

"D-Damon?"

"It's good to see you, little sister. It's been a long time." He glances around the room. "I see you made a few friends. You wanna tell 'em not to shoot me?"

"He told me you were dead."

"I don't know who he is, but you should know by now it's not that easy to kill a Salvatore." He smirks. "Where do you think you got it, huh?"

"Jesper, put your gun down." Arya says as she glances over at him, and he looks at her before lowering his hand.

"Are you gonna hug your brother?" Damon asks. "Or are you just gonna continue hiding behind emo boy there?"

"You shouldn't be alive." She shakes her head. "Crowley told me that it's 2010, and I can see by your clothes that he wasn't lying. So can you please explain to me how you're 171 years old, but don't look any different than the last I saw you?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"It's only been three months for me, Damon." She tells him, and his eyebrows furrow.

"What?"

"You had Katherine's blood in your system when he killed you." She doesn't have to ask. "You're a vampire."

"Katherine's a sneaky, manipulative little slut... She had been giving her blood to the both of us the entire time." He explains, and she nods as she looks down.

Tears fill Arya's eyes, and her free hand finds the back of Kaz's vest, curling her fingers around the material. Her jaw clenches tight as she takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut.

"There are worse things in the world, you know?" Damon says, and she scoffs. "Come on, it's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" She looks up at him. "What exactly is worse than you being an immortal blood-sucking monster like the one that destroyed our family?"

"Well, since you asked... I need your help with our brother."

"What's wrong with Stefan?"

Before he can answer, someone else comes through the rift, and both Arya and Jesper raise their guns again. "Damon..." The brunette's eyes widen when she sees the guns, and Damon's suddenly a blur as he moves at his sister.

Damon knocks the gun from Arya's grasp as she moves away from Kaz, and then he pins her against the wall on the other end of the room. What he wasn't expecting was for her to be so quick in a fight, or the knife that she plunges into his side before knocking him back. He goes after her again, but she uses his momentum to roll them over, landing them with her knees on either side of his torso and the bloody blade against his throat.

Arya groans as she uses her free hand to clutch the stitches she just put in her leg, but her harsh glare is on her brother. "What the hell...is she doing here?" She questions through clenched teeth.

"Arya?" Jesper glances at her, not wanting to keep his gaze from the wide-eyed brunette on the side of the room for too long.

"She's not Katherine." Damon says, looking up at his sister. "Her name's Elena, she's eighteen, and she's human. They're from the same bloodline; they're doppelgangers."

"Mhm." Her breathing's still labored as she nods. "And you're here with Katherine's human double, why exactly?"

"It's a long story, but she was supposed to stay on the other side of the rift." He tells her. "We had a plan, Elena. I was gonna tell her about you later. You're supposed to be at home."

"Caroline's worried about Bonnie." Elena says. "And Emily can't keep the door open as long as she thought. The witches on the Other Side don't want to help you."

"Emily?" Arya raises her eyebrows.

"Yes, that Emily." Damon tells her. "Get off of me."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm still contemplating killing you."

"Not with that, you're not."

The knife in Arya's hand suddenly gets too hot to hold, and she gasps as she tosses it to the floor beside Damon. It clatters, and they all see the red-hot metal. The brunette moves away from her brother, and he gets to his feet as he looks over to see Bonnie standing beside Elena.

"We don't have time for this." The newest one from the rift says. "The witches are maintaining the spell for Arya, but they won't hold it for long. If we don't go back now, they'll close it with us all on this side."

"I hate witches." Arya mutters.

"You and me both, sister." Damon says as he offers her his hand, and she takes it so he can help her to her feet.

"I'll take it you're a Bennett."

"This is Bonnie." The witch says. "She's my great-great-great-great granddaughter."

"Emily."

"I know how this must look-"

"Like I asked my only friend for help, and instead she helped Katherine throw me through a door to a world that's almost killed me numerous times." Arya cuts her off. "That's how it looks from where I'm standing. Do you have a different view? Jesper, you can put the gun down." She adds as she glances over at him.

"A man came to me, claimed he was an angel of the lord." Emily starts, and Kaz watches Arya's anger morph into confusion and uncertainty. "He told me that if I didn't do something, you were going to die at Katherine's hand."

"Nice suit, loose tie, trenchcoat?" Arya asks, and she nods. "I'm gonna kill him." She mutters.

"You're friends with angels now?" Damon questions as she glances at him.

"Hardly."

"I didn't believe him at first, but then I saw your bloody corset. And you came to me with a plan to drive Katherine out of town... I knew that he was telling the truth." Emily says, and they look back at her. "You were so angry, so determined... So I pleaded with her to let me handle it in a way where you wouldn't have to die. She said she didn't care what happened to you as long as you were gone."

"My brothers' girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen." Arya smiles sarcastically as Damon shoots her a dirty look.

"This wasn't supposed to last so long, but Katherine outed me as a witch, and the founding families burned me."

"That's your father." She glances at Damon as she turns around. "Where's my gun?"

"This gun?" Damon holds it up. "I think I'll keep it. I don't like you with weapons."

"I have no shortage of weapons."

"Who the hell are you?"

Arya slams her elbow into his ribcage and then takes the gun when he doubles over. "I could ask you the same question."

"Please-"

"Don't..." She looks over at Elena, cutting her off. "I don't care who you are, you have her face."

"Are you aware that you're a raging bitch?" Damon asks as he rubs his side.

"How else am I supposed to survive being related to you?"

"They found Klaus." Emily says, knowing how to regain her focus, and Arya returns her gaze to the witch. "But with a human doppelganger alive, he didn't care as much about Katherine. And he brought a lot of...problems. He turned Stefan into a problem, and Damon's hoping that you can fix him."

"Fix him?" She echoes.

"Arya, he flipped the switch." Damon says, and her head snaps back in his direction. "And when he shuts it off...things get bad. So we need to go before the witches strand us here."

The anger and hardness in her is gone as she looks up at her brother. "He turned it off?"

"He didn't have a choice. Klaus compelled him."

"Vampires can't be compelled."

"They can be compelled by an original." He tells her, and she takes a deep breath.

Arya nods. "Okay. Go. I'll be right behind you."

Damon turns back and ushers Elena through the rift. "Judgy." He mutters before the witch follows after her. "Arya."

"Will you shut up for one minute?"

"So this is it, then?" Jesper asks as she walks over to him. "The ticket home you finally get to take. Oh, don't cry, gorgeous." He reaches up to wipe a tear from her cheek before he pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her.

"I'm actually gonna miss your terrible jokes and perverted comments." Arya says, and he laughs.

"I'm gonna miss you too." He pulls back and looks down at her. "If you do have little ones of your own, promise you'll name one after me."

"It's so unlikely that'll happen, but I promise that I will if I ever do." She tells him, and he smiles.

"It's not gonna be the same here without you." Inej says, and she looks at her. "This last month has been so strange already."

"Yeah, tell me about it." She takes a deep breath before hugging her as well.

"You'll always be one of us." She tells her, and Arya smiles as she pulls back and looks at her.

Kaz watches as she turns toward him, but she doesn't move in his direction. Tears well up in her green eyes as they lock on his blue ones and her jaw tightens.

"I don't like the way you're looking at emo boy." Damon says, and she sighs as her eyes fall shut.

"Shut- Kaz." She turns when she hears him leaving the room. "Kaz!" 

"We have to go."

"Then go!" Arya tells her brother as she goes after Kaz. "Kaz?"

"This is what you've been talking about since the day we met." He says as he leans over his desk, refusing to look up at her. "Now you can go home. Go."

"Like this?" She questions. "Without a goodbye? Without you even looking at me?"

"We said goodbye on the ship."

"Arya!"

"Why are you doing this?" She asks. "Why are you making it harder than it already is?"

"Your brother's waiting." Kaz says. "You should go. I have to figure out how to deal with Pekka after you brought his men here tonight."

"Now it's a problem? You didn't care five minutes ago."

"It was always a problem. It just wasn't your problem." He tells her. "Nothing here has been. We were just a stepping stone for you getting home. Now you can go. So go."

"Why are you-"

"Go!" He snaps as he looks up at her from the papers on his desk.

"Fine. If this is how you want to end everything once and for all... Fine." Arya takes a step back, tears filling her eyes again before she turns and heads back toward the others.

"Arya-" Jesper tries to grab her arm before she can pass him.

"Goodbye, Jesper. Goodbye, Inej." She makes her way toward Damon and then nudges him through the door to their world before following after him.

The rift vanishes as quickly as it had appeared, and Inej and Jesper both look back at Kaz as his hands rest on his desktop. He lets his head hang as he looks down, and his eyes shut as he lets out a heavy sigh; he stays that way for a moment.

"Why did you do that to her?" Jesper questions.

"Shouldn't you be on the door?" He asks as he stands up straight, turning away from them.

"Right away, boss." He leaves, slamming the door shut behind him on his way out.

"I'm sure she'll forgive you." Inej tells Kaz as she starts for her own exit. "The question is whether or not you'll ever forgive yourself?"

He won't. He knows he won't.

that's the end of book one; i
hope you all liked it! it's gonna be
awhile before i publish the next book.
i'll be working on both a prequel
and sequel for this series, and i have no
idea which will go up first.
i'll add another part in the future
to announce the next book.