chapter eight,     will you trust the hand closest to you?

THE SIGHT WASN'T APPEALING TO DAMON. His sister was fed the hybrid's blood with utter eagerness. He will have to have a talk with Stefan after this if they'll get out of here alive. Damon pointed at Bonnie and clapped his hands:

"Right! Whatever happened there—not my business. Here's a witch, talk about your juju and we'll be on our way."

Bonnie looked at the hybrid warily. She was supposed to kill him all this time. She was supposed to wait for the peak of his transformation before she would use her magic to kill him. For that, they faked her death so Klaus wouldn't suspect them of disturbing the ritual. Bonnie wasn't even needed for this. Whoever worked with the spirits, sent out Ophelia at the right time. But now, the youngest Salvatore was a target.

"I knew you didn't die," Klaus admitted. "As much as Elena's tears were real... I know the witches won't let a Bennett witch die so easily."

Bonnie didn't want to listen to his boastful tone. All she could remember was the expression on Alaric's face when he was possessed by Klaus. A different voice, but the boastfulness was the same. Instead, she turned to Elijah: "I didn't sense any magic on her. There's nothing I can do."

"We figured out this much," Elijah replied, looking briefly at Ophelia, who was standing a bit confused. "Have you ever heard about the mutations of the siphons?"

The witch slightly tilted her head: "You mean the forced mutations of the siphons?"

Klaus' face was decorated with a cheeky smile: "So the Bennett witch knows a few things about her history."

"Aren't siphons the ones that steal magic from the witches?" Stefan joined the conversation.

"Not very likeable between the witches. Getting your magic stolen... Couldn't imagine that," the hybrid cheerfully blabbered.

"Hard to understand when you have been chasing after your full potential this whole time?" The witch answered with the same sarcasm.

The smile got wiped off the hybrid's face almost immediately: "Careful, love. The ache is a little bit too strong for me to take it lightly."

"Could we get back to finding out what Ophelia is?" Damon placed his hands on his waist, looking more concerned and annoyed than all of them combined.

Elijah pushed his hand into the pocket of his suit pants and took the initiative: "For that reason, witches tried to force a mutation on the siphons, so they would not be able to take magic on their own. The idea was to create a bond between a witch and a siphon that there would be balance."

"But witches will be witches—they know balance is a hard thing to achieve... And they messed up," Klaus shrugged.

"By that," Elijah continued to tell the story, "He means that Nature didn't allow that to happen. Siphons already were a mutation of witches. It was a reminder that power can come and go so the witches should use it wisely.

"So it failed," Stefan started to get a grip on where all of this was going.

Elijah nodded, "So much power was unleashed unused that it got put into one person throughout recorded history. A person, not even born a siphon, shared power with a witch – enhancing them, controlling them."

"It is an abomination," the weak voice of Ophelia reached them all. Her brown eyes were looking at the floor underneath her, the story being told alive in her head. A forced mutation. Balance of Nature. A shared power.

The well-dressed vampire uneasily shook his head, as if wanting to reassure her that she wasn't: "In witches terms – yes. But it's something that Nature created itself by stopping something horrible."

Ophelia closed her eyes, wanting the buzzing in her head to stop – it was too much. Everything around her was too much. The fact that she was supposed to be dead was itching within her body – nightmares or not, at least she was in her deserved place. "It means that my power is connected with his and his with mine? I never—ever possessed any type of power," she placed her hand on her chest as if to show that she was being truthful.

"Your power wasn't activated because you never met him," Elijah explained.

"So, on which level we are talking about this 'connection'?" Damon asked, squinting his eyes, not knowing if he believed this story.

Klaus nudged his chin towards Bonnie and the fact that she was holding a huge grimoire pressed against her side. "Let's hope there is a spell that can tell us that."

In a few seconds, everything shifted in the room. Bonnie quickly placed the grimoire on a flat surface, flipping through the pages as Elijah was offering some sort of insight on what could help. Damon and Stefan were overseeing what was going on even if Damon was itching to find out what the hell happened while he was gone. And Ophelia, was just Ophelia, standing by the same painting, her back turned to everyone, not having strength to face them all. She barely managed to ignore that the hybrid was right beside her.

"What does it all mean?" Ophelia silently asked, looking at the painting. "If my death is not necessary—this connection," she uneasily said the last word and closed her eyes. "This connection is not based on anything. I have never encountered you in my life."

Klaus was as puzzled as she was—what did it actually mean? The ritual seemed like the easy part – he needed only death for that. It didn't matter that he had been waiting for centuries to try and break it, but he only needed death and a witch who could do the spell with a piece of stone. It was clear now that Ophelia's death won't fix this instantly. They had no reassurance that this connection could be broken and if broken—there was no reassurance that he would get all of his power back.

"You wouldn't have wanted to encounter me."

Ophelia tilted her head, "You do not mean that."

"You don't know anything about me."

It was the truth. She knew nothing about who he was, but the image painted in her mind wasn't the prettiest. "You do not know anything about me either." That was the thing that bothered her the most. If this connection was real – she didn't feel connected to him. Wasn't there supposed to be this magical bond or something that would make her feel some sort of happiness to be even near him? All she knew was that he could be violent, murderous even, and he enjoyed being more powerful than the others. His impulsiveness was overtaking him and the sarcasm was only a mask. How was she supposed to be connected to a man, who probably didn't even know what he was himself?

"I have my purpose and I'm willing to reach it," he began. "If you are related to it, I can promise you that you won't like it."

Shivers went down her back after his words. He wanted her to be afraid and he succeeded. But she wasn't going to shake out of fear beside him. "There is only so much a woman can take. Neither of us knows what is going on. Perhaps you will be the one to hate it."

A half smile tugged on his lips, "Is that a threat?"

How much more disgrace could she take? Father was dead, after all. "It is not," she slightly straightened her posture. "You do not know me. You do not know my past. You do not know my sorrows. I will not let you play with me."

Klaus turned to her, seeing the same anger he had felt in her before. It was one of the most beautiful things to exist on this Earth—that silent anger that was bound to explode. He wasn't like that – not anymore. He was angry and he showed his anger loudly. He was expressive and he wasn't afraid to leave a mess. He could recognise her anger, her stuffed feelings and he knew how powerful they could be. But she wasn't a threat to him. A mystery, that's all.

"We found something," Elijah announced, placing everyone's attention on him.

"You're not gonna like it. It's going to hurt," Bonnie said, her sorrows going to the woman and not to the hybrid.

"What is the spell?" Stefan asked.

"It's a form of a spell that takes the magic away from a siphon. They are not siphons, but it is the best we could've found," Bonnie explained.

The idea of pain wasn't appealing, but Ophelia slowly moved closer to the witch and nodded as a sign of readiness.

The witch looked at her and then at the Salvatore brothers, but they didn't say anything even if they wanted to put an end to this as soon as possible. But Ophelia was determined and they couldn't ruin it.

"It's going to hurt as the power will try to come into your fullest form," Bonnie explained. "Hold each other's wrists and under no circumstances do you release it. If the pain becomes unbearable, you tell me and I stop the incantation. But during the incantation, do not release the grip."

The instructions sounded absolutely horrible, but Ophelia and Klaus were now facing each other. Their palms wrapped around each other's wrists and they stood close as the witch stood beside them.

"Do not push them out of the spell because I have no idea what the power can do if it is broken," Bonnie told to the brothers specifically.

Ophelia raised her chin to meet Klaus' blue eyes as her grip on his wrists wasn't too hard even if she was breathing quicker. As soon as the incantation started, she noticed that she understood most of it, given that she wasn't the best Latin reader.

The grip of his was oddly calming as if it gave her a chance to share the incoming pain with someone else. As the incantation repeated a bit louder, she felt a sharp pain in her chest that moved up to her neck. She huffed out of pain and only readjusted her grip, not daring to stop this.

The pain slightly grew and it was getting harder to breathe. The room around them started to become one huge blur as the incantation was louder than it should've been. She noticed some dark veins appearing on Klaus' neck, meaning that this was the source of the pain. Her grip tightened, but he didn't seem too bothered by the pain as he stood still, no ounce of pain in his face.

The words grew louder and some sort of high-pitched sound was overheard. The pain moved up, making her lips tingle and her teeth feel as if there was no place for them anymore. Her chest was rising unevenly as soft wails were leaving her mouth as it was becoming unbearable. But the tight grip of his only meant that he was not going to let her go.

A lump got stuck in her throat and her shoulders started to slowly rise as she started to cough, uncontrollably, spots of blood dropping on the floor.

Ophelia couldn't breathe anymore – the coughing was overtaking every sense as the incantation was so loud, that it sounded like it was screaming at her, her vision became blurry and the only anchor keeping her in that moment was the grip on her wrists.

And suddenly the pain disappeared and the heaviness in her chest vanished. With a loud exhale, she opened her eyes, but she was met with total darkness. Panic rose in her chest as she looked down, but it was so dark that she couldn't even see if she was there. Or if this was just a mind game.

"Klaus?" She called out.

"I'm here." The grip on her wrist changed as one of the hands was free and the other was intertwined with his.

"Where are we?" She didn't see him, but at least, she was aware of her body and that they weren't alone.

"I don't know," he answered before he tugged on her hand, making her turn around and she saw a bit of light in the distance.

It reminded her of when she came out of the cave. Of how she walked through the woods and thought the fire was going to save her. But she wasn't safe. Nowhere was safe.

Both of them moved towards it because they knew this wasn't real. Getting closer to it, the surroundings started to get clearer – they were walking through the woods towards what seemed to be a bonfire as the shining moon started to clear the way out for them.

Looking to the side, she finally saw Klaus beside him and their intertwined hands. Both of them clearly did not want to break the instructions and unleash something unknown.

Suddenly, distant voices made them halt for a second and she turned to him, noticing that he was trying to listen. The soft wind felt real on her skin as the coldness of the night was making her shiver. It was hard to believe that this place wasn't real—or maybe it was... She didn't know anymore.

They kept on going toward the voices and as soon as they noticed the people, they stopped and listened.

"Matto... Sei sempre matto..." A woman's voice was shallow almost, deep with sadness. She was tending a big wound on the man's arm.

"Non preoccuparti... Sto bene," he tried to calm her.

"Abbiamo promesso di non fare nulla di affrettato. Dobbiamo andare via," the woman disagreed.

The man pushed his free hand on her: "Questa è la nostra casa."

The woman angrily looked at him: "Ci daranno la caccia! Le streghe ci uccideranno! Andiamo via..."

"Senza di noi, non ci saranno altri... Il potere deve continuare a vivere. Abbiamo il potere della creazione - non mi interessa cosa dicono le streghe!" He took her hand lovingly.

Ophelia's heart dropped – the power of creation? These people must be the ones Elijah told them about – the first ones who shared the power. What did they mean by the power of creation? What did it mean for her and for Klaus? Why were they seeing it?

By the look on Klaus' face, she figured out that he could understand Italian and that he knew what was going on.

"Klaus, what does it mean?" She whispered as the two people by the bonfire kept on arguing.

"The power of creation, Ophelia. The ritual would've never worked. It was always you."

Not understanding what it meant, he grabbed her other wrist and the view instantly faded and they were back standing at the abandoned house as there was no more incantation. They let go of each other's wrists and they were met with very concerned gazes.

"You two were gone as if in a trance," Bonnie explained.

"We saw—two people Elijah has mentioned. The people who share power. They were living in one of the Italian lands," Ophelia tried to catch her breath.

Bonnie furrowed her eyebrows: "But why were you meant to see that?"

"Because it showed what power she has inside her," Klaus was unbelievably calm. "The power to create."

"No... Klaus, listen!" Elijah breathed out, but Klaus only grabbed Ophelia's wrist alerting everyone else in the room.

"The power that I needed to unleash," Klaus kept on explaining. "The power to create more hybrids and I hate to tell you—but I'm going to need her a lot more than you lot." With these words, both he and Ophelia disappeared into thin air.

The ritual meant nothing. It was always her. And the witches gave her right into the arms of madness.

i feel a bit self conscious about this version- please tell me what you think about this book and about this chapter!

i feel like klaulia's relationship is going to be different in many aspects, but how do you find them so far?

you can find the italian translations in the comments when you read! and thank you for your support! xx