ACT TWO; TARGET IN SIGHT
SCENE SEVENTEEN; SEEK & DESTROY
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"FIND HIM."

The ordered words echo in her mind as she stumbles through the rows of storage sheds, stopping every few minutes to catch her breath. Her weak legs shake as she hurries away from Alaric's retreating form, so focused on getting away from the maniacal vampire that she doesn't see the two familiar faces wheeling a casket towards a black SUV.

"Salem," Her name is whispered forcefully and she whips around, facing Damon and Rebekah with wide eyes as they gesture for her to be quiet. Rebekah waves her down, and Salem grits out a sigh and clutches her aching ribs as she makes her way to them.

Damon looks at her with wide eyes, gesturing to the casket in a manner that makes realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

Her breath stutters audibly, and she gets a knowing look from the blonde beside Damon, one that silences her as she is reminded of the homicidal teacher-turned-vampire within hearing distance of them.

The three of them wheel the casket carrying the Original hybrid towards the awaiting SUV, but Salem stops short when she sees Alaric already standing there waiting for them.

Rebekah looks at him in shock before charging at him, but he quickly overpowers her and slams her head off of the vehicle. He grunts as he shoves her backwards and Salem shifts protectively in front of the casket as Alaric gets Damon next with a boot to the stomach that sends him flying away from them.

Salem stiffens and reluctantly takes her hands off of the coffin, approaching Alaric.

She swipes an arm out, hitting him with a burst of magic and she uses the momentum to kick him into the side of the SUV.

Quicker than she realizes, Alaric is on his feet again and sends her stumbling into Damon, who catches her and helps her to her feet.

Alaric opens the coffin where Klaus lies with wide eyes, and Salem lurches for him, only to be stopped by Damon's grasp on her. She yells out, kicking off of Damon, who grunts against her fighting.

"No, no," Her hoarse voice echoes in the storage lot, a scream crawling from her chest into her torn throat. "Don't!"

"No!" Rebekah's panicked screams come from behind her, and Salem watches in horror as Alaric stakes Klaus through the heart, making the decaying hybrid gasp in pain.

Salem and Rebekah's screams echo through the empty lot and Salem goes limp in Damon's arm as she watches Klaus's body be engulfed in flames as Alaric slams the coffin lid shut. "No, no– what did you do? What did you do?!"

She falls from Damon's arms onto her hands and knees, her nails clawing into the concrete as her head drops between her shoulders, and she lets out a bone-chilling scream that makes Damon take a stumbling step backwards.

Rebekah's cries flood her ears, Damon's panicked heartbeat, and Alaric's smug aura. It traps her in the loop of shock, the never-ending circle of pain that has just cracked her chest wide open once more. Her pulse quicks rapidly as her shoulders heave with sobs, and she pushes herself up, sitting back on her heels as she tries to breathe between her desperate gasps for air.

The slam of the coffin lid reverberates in her brain, and she feels the reflection of the flames encasing Klaus's body in her irises that glow brighter than ever before. A snarl rises in her throat, quickly growing into a growl that shakes her entire body.

As Alaric nears her, she lunges up to her feet at him with a scream and a cloud of yellow encases him, sending him flying back into the stacks of wooden crates and slumping to the ground. She stumbles to the side, ignoring the commotion behind her as she grips the black coffin in her hands so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

She whimpers, trying to shove the coffin open through her tears. "Klaus, please, please,"

"Salem," Damon's voice comes from behind her and she flinches at the hesitance in it. "Alaric is going after Rebekah. They're gone."

She shakes her head, ignoring him. "Klaus, come on, please," Another weak cry falls flat onto the coffin, without a response. "Nik, please,"

A hand reaches out for her, brushing her arm, and she jerks away from Damon like he'd burned her. He holds his hands up in surrender and she stares between him and the coffin with wide, unfocusing eyes.

"Just let me go– Damon," She stumbles out of Damon's reach, chest heaving. "Let me go!"

She ignored Damon's calls of her name as she ran out of the building into the chilly air, but she didn't stop as she ran towards the tree line, shedding her outer layers and stumbling briefly to kick her shoes off.

Her bare feet snap on the forest floor, and her eyes flash yellow as she lunges off of the ground, shedding skin for fur and four legs. Her panicked, grief-stricken thoughts are replaced with a hunger to inflict pain, to make someone feel even a sliver of whatever it was she felt at the moment.

The white wolf lands on the ground, standing in a clearing that leads back into town. The moonlight reflects off of the golden stripe of fur that runs straight down her back, and her flaming golden eyes shine through the night alongside the companionable moon.

She tips her head back and lets out a howl that shakes the leaves on the trees as it rumbles through the forest.

It felt like the tipping point. It felt like she wouldn't ever come back from this.

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Her bare feet carry her to the closed bedroom door and she pushes it open, empty eyes scanning the room untouched by all the chaos of the last few days.

Their sheets are still rumpled from sleeping in them the night before. They'd woken up with the sun, a still silence resting between them as they knew their moment of bliss together had ended at the dawn of a new day.

She couldn't have anticipated any of it, but she still feels guilt for being so cold.

The guilt had been building up from the day she woke up in the hospital, and begged Meredith not to tell anyone about her miscarriage, to this morning when she was stuffing Klaus's things in boxes and ignoring the part of her that was screaming at her to leave with him. That part of her she'd been ignoring for so long, that had been telling her he just wanted to go somewhere they'd be safe, even if he didn't know how to ask her the right way because he was just so used to taking. She'd been in such deep denial of everything falling apart that she was the one to finish breaking everything down.

Klaus was the one always begging her to leave with him, he never wanted to stay in this town for anyone but her, and she ignored him. She forced him to stay, and it caused them nothing but pain.

All she'd done was make mistakes, and now he's gone.

She walks to his side of the bed, trailing over the almost bare surface before she slides the drawer open. Her eyes scan the content, and her breath hitches in her throat when she sees the picture frame laying flat in the bottom of the drawer with a silver chain piled atop it.

Salem grabs the necklace, setting it on the nightstand before focusing on the picture once more. A small, watery smile grows on her face as she lifts it to her gaze. It was a picture of them, from sometime during the ball before Kol had attacked Matt. Before either of them knew what would happen because of Esther and Finn.

Klaus has a grin on his face as he looks down at her, and she was clearly mid-laugh, holding his arms around her waist as they stood amongst the crowd of people. She hadn't known Rebekah had taken a picture until Klaus rolled his eyes at his sister's actions, so she wondered when he had taken the time to ask Rebekah for the picture, let alone print it and frame it. He'd never shown it to her, but she wonders if he looked at it when he was alone. She wondered what it made him feel.

Her heart aches with the thought and she inhales shakily, biting her tongue to hold the hot tears bubbling in her eyes back.

To think she'd been pregnant and not had any idea. She wonders if Klaus would still look at her like that if he'd known. Surely if he did, it would all change after he found out she lost it just days later.

She gently sets the picture frame down on the nightstand and grabs the silver chain that had been sitting on top of it in the drawer.

The necklace falls, dangling from her finger, and her eyes soften at the sight of the shimmering M sitting on the chain.

Curiosity fills her, but she doesn't think a moment longer before she hooks the necklace around her throat, letting the poignant initial settle on her chest with a feeling of finality that resonates in her broken heart.

Salem's fingers tremble as she fumbles with the charm and her watery eyes fall to the picture once more.

Her shoulders begin to shake with her barely-stifled cries, and she whimpers pathetically when she can't stop the tears from spilling over her cheeks.

Her eyes squeeze shut and she hears her sobs echo in her ears as they had in the storage lot as Klaus's body burned. Her fingers grasp the picture frame tighter and her top lip curls in frustration when the glass shatters beneath her hold. Once again destroying everything she touches.

Salem's knees weaken beneath her exhausted frame and she crumples to the floor as the pillows on their bed explode into a mess of feathers. The mirror on the vanity shatters, millions of little shards of glass bursting throughout the room. A ceramic vase breaks across the room, and she sits, unflinching at the destruction of her own doing.

Salem lies in the midst of her chaos, untouched. She clutches the broken frame to her chest as she struggles for air. Her bare feet ache, bruised from her walk home after shifting back, and her tattered clothes do nothing to stop the shivers from racking her body as she drops her head to the floor defeatedly.

Her heart races painfully, and her eyes widen briefly before they flutter shut, taking her breath and her panic with her. Salem's brain can't seem to comprehend every emotion she's feeling, but for a brief moment, her heartache is dulled, and she can no longer find it in herself to care what happens to her.

Her eyes close, and she dreams of a life that will never exist. A life growing inside her, and Klaus at her side, promising to keep them all safe.

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Salem's spine straightens when she sits back, letting out a low sigh as she looks at the canvas sitting before her, still mostly white, broken up with sprays of red scattered mindlessly around it. Paintbrushes litter the table beside her easel, and she gently sets down her brush as she listens to the noise rattle through the mansion.

Footsteps echo in her hyperactive ears and she silently pushes the bench out from beneath her as she listens to the person's footsteps echo up the stairs into the wide hallway. They were only four doors down from her now at most, so she straightened the white t-shirt she had tucked into a pair of jeans, and slid her beat up shoes back on from where she'd taken them off hours ago.

Salem turns just as the person swings the door open, and she takes a deep breath when three more men pile in behind the first one. Her eyes narrow and she looks at their bulletproof vests, barely able to stifle her amusement at the army-grade weaponry they seemed to be sporting.

She clears her throat, adjusting the chain around her neck, not missing the way the movement of her hands makes them all tighten their grips on their guns. "I don't suppose you boys have the wrong address?"

The four men share uneasy looks, and she smiles more to herself than anyone else.

Taking advantage of their obvious fear, she lunges at the first man and grabs his gun, jabbing it beneath his chin in a movement that makes him choke on his breath. He's barely able to take a full gasp of air when Salem pulls the trigger and drops him to the ground without so much as a flinch.

Blood spatters on her face and she smiles wickedly, turning her head to look at the three hostile men now cocking their guns directly at her.

The second man comes towards her and she bends down, picking up the dead man's gun to aim between his eyes right as he nears her. He lowers his gun from her head to her legs and takes a shot, and she grunts as the bullet lodges itself into her thigh, but doesn't falter.

She shifts the aim of the gun to the two men behind him and wastes two bullets in their legs, momentarily taking them out of action. She chucks the gun carelessly out of her hands and drops a clenched fist into the crook of the man's outstretched arm, catching the gun as his arm snaps with an audible crunch.

He yells out in pain, not unlike his companions that were bleeding out on the floor, and she grunts when he uses his good arm to swing a punch at her. Salem scoffs through the dull pain when he hits her directly in the nose, and her eyes water from the force of it before she swings her head forward and slams into the bridge of his nose.

Stumbling back from the force of her blow, the man fumbles for balance and Salem drives her foot into his chest, sending him flying into the hallway. She storms after him, grabbing him by the useless bulletproof vest as she walks him to the top of the staircase.

She holds him at her eye line, gritting her teeth as the tangy copper taste of her blood seeps from her nose onto her lips. "Who sent you here?"

He grunts when she shakes him, and she sees the stubborn refusal in his eyes as soon as she speaks, and figures she should waste no more time on a man that would rather die than sell someone out.

With an otherwise stifled grunt, she throws him down the staircase, watching as he tumbles down the marbled steps onto the floor below where a pool of blood begins to seep out from beneath him.

Salem turns on her heel and enters the gallery again, her hands grabbing the two groaning men as she drags them to the top of the stairs just as she had their friend.

She holds them tight by the backs of their necks and makes them look at the body lying mangled at the bottom of her stairs. "Who sent you to me? How do you know what I am?"

"They– they said you were," The man to her left panted out, still seething through the bullet in his leg. "Different. You're a– a threat."

She raises a brow, not particularly interested in what was said about her. "Who sent you here?"

"A–Alaric," The man breathes out. "Alaric Saltzman went to the Council."

Salem tenses, shaking her head at his words. "Fuck," She looks between the two men in her hold and rolls her eyes as she crumbles their necks in her grip. They fall to the ground right before the top step, and Salem steps over them, her footsteps harsh on the marble floors.

"Rebekah?"

Her voice echoes through the house and she mutters another curse, peering through the doorway into the half-empty study. "Bekah?"

Her eyes drift to the front door, still swung open from the harsh entrance made by the Council and she grits her teeth at the sight of a black van skidding out of the driveway with two police cars flanking it.

She shifts, pulling her phone from her back pocket and dialing a number she'd hardly ever used.

"I'm kind of busy, Salem, could you chew me out for letting your boyfriend die another day?"

She scoffs at his tone, kicking a half-packed box out of her path. "Trust me, you won't be getting just a phone call for that, you asshole. I need to know if there's any more useless Council members coming after me."

Damon stops on the other line, before he heaves a sigh. "Alaric's dead for good this time, so I'm not really sure what the hell the Council's doing. I'm sure there's another hit out on you somewhere."

She hums, clenching her jaw irritatedly. "I'm going to kill them all, Damon. Every last one of them. And if anyone tries to stop me, I'll kill them, too."

She ends the phone call and drops her phone onto the counter as she grabs her keys, ignoring the immediate vibrations from it as Damon's name appears on her screen. She steps outside, eyes narrowing in the sunlight as another vested man comes into focus, gun raised in her direction.

"That's not very nice," Her voice echoes through the air, and the man doubles down on his silent threat as she walks towards him. "How about you and I make a deal? You tell me where they're taking Rebekah, and I won't string you up by your feet off my balcony."

"I have orders to shoot on sight."

"Then do it."

Salem steps closer to him, within reaching distance, and she smirks as he hovers his finger over the trigger. Moving fast, she smacks the gun out of his hand and grabs his arms, holding him off the ground just enough to immobilize him. "Where are they taking them?"

He trembles in her hold and she shakes him threateningly. "Where are they taking Rebekah?! Tell me!"

"Pastor Young's house! They're going to Pastor Young's house!"

"See, now that wasn't hard at all," Salem mocks, setting him back on his feet as he looks at her pleadingly.

"Y–You said you wouldn't kill me if I told you."

Salem pouts, tilting her head as she releases her hold on his arms, straightening his sleeves and dusting imaginary dirt off of his chest. Sighing, she shakes her head. "I guess I lied."

The man doesn't even have the time to take in a breath before she snaps his neck and drops his body to the ground.

She steps over him, shoes crunching on the gravel. Blood dries on her cheeks like freckles, and she tilts her face up towards the sun, eyes closing as it beats down on her. It doesn't warm the chill that lingers inside her in the slightest.

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Salem steps over the bleeding body of yet another vested Council member and she looks through the open cells for the blonde Original.

"Rebekah," Her voice echoes in the room, and she stops before one of the only still-closed doors, finding the blonde slumped over, silently shaking with tears. "Rebekah– oh, thank God,"

The blonde looks up, a barely there glint of hope shining in her watery eyes. "Salem?"

The hybrid nods, wrapping her fingers around the lock on the door and yanking it off swiftly. "Come on, we need to get you home."

She kneels down besides the blonde, throwing an arm around her shoulder as she heaves her to her feet. "Where is everyone else?"

"They," She shakes her head. "They got out. Elena is a vampire, I don't–"

"Rebekah," Salem quiets her hazy words, a question in her eyes. "Why didn't they let you out?"

She swallows harshly, looking up at Salem with a hopeless gleam in her eyes that frightens her. "It was Klaus. He– he left me here. He took Caroline, and he left me."

Salem's eyes widen, but her face furrows into an upset frown as she tries to ignore the way her hands suddenly tremble. "Klaus is dead. Alaric killed him, he's dead. I watched him die, Rebekah. We both did."

Her voice is purposefully hard in an attempt to stifle her own emotions and get the blonde to break out of her delusions, but she stubbornly shakes her head even as Salem helps her into the passenger seat of the car.

Salem rounds the vehicle, shutting and locking the doors quickly as she leaves the body-littered barn behind. "Rebekah, what happened?"

"Klaus, he– he came, and he took Caroline. He was in Tyler's body, I don't– I don't know. He left me there, Salem. He left me to die."

The blonde dissolves into tears once more, and Salem winces to herself as she turns her attention back to the road.

Despite knowing that Rebekah was logically out of her mind at the moment, she couldn't help the way her knuckles went white with the force she used to wrap her hands around the steering wheel.

She couldn't dwell on the quickly spiraling train of thoughts her words led to, and instead focused on getting Rebekah home in one piece.

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"Goodnight, Rebekah," Salem situated the blankets over the girl's shoulders, reaching to turn off the lamp at her bedside before she stood and left the room.

She pushed her hair back out of her face with a sigh as she stepped into the hallway, glancing down at the shirt that had once been white. Her aching feet carried her down the stairs, and she turned to go down the hallway into the kitchen, but stopped when she heard a quiet noise from the study.

Changing her route, Salem crept into the doorway of the study, finding it illuminated and contrasting the darkness that the rest of the house had been encased in. Her eyes skim the room, and when they land on the broad figure a few feet before her, she can't stop the gasp that spills from her lips.

"Klaus?"

He snaps around, eyes widening and filling with something she can't quite place. "Salem, thank god," He takes two large strides towards her and cups her cheeks in his hands, not wasting any time before pressing his lips to hers.

She inhales sharply, but her brain kicks into overdrive and she pushes back at him with just as much fervor as he'd met her with. It's anything but beautiful as she pushes all of her anger and grief into it and he takes it all with open arms.

She clutches him to her, afraid that she will wake up from yet another nightmare, even as he parts from her and tracks his thumbs across her cheeks, pushing strands of hair behind her ears as he looks into the galaxy that exists in her eyes.

Salem takes a deep breath and takes a small step away from him, looking him up and down with narrowed eyes. Klaus shifts, chest heaving with an invigorating air that makes his heart race.

In a split second, her open palm comes up and lands on his cheek, shocking the hybrid into a pained silence. He groans lightly, hand coming up to cup his cheek as he looks at her with wide, betrayed eyes. "What on earth was that for?"

She points an accusing finger at him, glaring. "Never do that again. Do you understand? If you ever do that and don't immediately find me, I will kill you. Again."

Klaus clears his throat, still looking at her with impossibly wide eyes. Salem is unwavering in her anger, though, and instinctively, his eyes dart to the side where the briefcase sits with the last three bags of Elena's human blood inside it.

Salem follows his gaze and she feels her eyebrows flicker in a confused furrow before realization sets in. "Elena is a vampire now, that's what Rebekah said." Her eyes flicker up at the ceiling, knowing the blonde was asleep in her bedroom upstairs with a fresh blood bag and clean clothes at Salem's insistence upon their arrival back home.

Klaus nods once, and Salem doesn't miss the hesitancy that flickers in his icy pools, only finding that it makes the growing fire inside her impossibly brighter.

"Why did you save Caroline and not Rebekah?"

"I made a deal with Bonnie," He sniffed, feigning ignorance in a way that made her fingers twitch at her side irritatedly. "She would put me back in my body so long as I let her try to save Elena from becoming a vampire. Seeing as that didn't work, I saved the next best thing."

"You left Rebekah there to die. She was half-dead when I found her, and in hysterics because you left her for Caroline."

Klaus shakes his head, taking a step towards her that she immediately steps away from. "Darling, I was trying to fix things. I needed Elena to stay human, and when it didn't happen, I still had to find a way into my body."

She scoffs, eyes widening in a naive disbelief. "You and I both know that you had every means to get back in your own body, whether Elena and Caroline were alive or not. You're just a selfish man with a personal agenda that spares no one but yourself. I should've known that dead or alive, you were never going to save your sister."

Klaus clenches his fist at his side, fighting down the anger quickly rising in him. "I'm not going to argue with you, Salem. We need to gather my sister, and our things. We need to go and find more werewolves so I can make more hybrids."

"You don't get it, do you, Klaus?" She looks at him questioningly, the look in her eyes surprisingly cold. "Rebekah isn't going to follow you around the country to make your hybrid family. I'm not going to follow you and watch you replace every person in your life who actually cares about you with another sire who's forced to."

Hurt flashes in his eyes, but he quickly covers it as he watches her raise her hand slightly, sending wisps of her magic breezing past his arm in a way that makes him stifle a shiver. "Salem,"

"I don't think you understand, Klaus." She looks at him, her head tilting ever so slightly in a way that makes him turn to see what she's focused on.

His eyes widen and he snaps his head back at her, a plea already forming on his tongue. "Don't. Don't touch it, Salem."

The three bags of blood hover in the air, protected only by the hand she's got raised mid-air. She arches an eyebrow daringly at him, and he takes a step towards her, forgoing all attempts at placating her.

"Salem, put it down, now. We can talk about this in a civilized manner–"

"Civilized manner?" She echoes wildly, laughing emptily. "I am so far past civilized, Klaus. I've spent months trying to do things in a civilized manner, and I am done."

She grits her teeth and bites back tears, using her unused hand to point accusingly at him again. "I watched you die, Klaus. I begged and I pleaded, and I watched you burn, only for you to come back and tell me nothing's changed?"

"Salem, I will argue all you want, but you will not destroy the last–"

"Alaric is dead. Elena is a vampire. You– you were dead. I told you," She laughs again, the sound bone-chilling and haunting as it bounces off the empty walls. "I told you all it would take is one more time, and I'd end this. "

Her hand twists as Klaus shouts her name, and she flinches as blood spatters across her face again, spraying in every direction.

Klaus looks at her in disbelief coated in rage, and she inhales sharply when his blood-stained hand wraps around her throat. She grabs at his wrist, but doesn't make any move to pull him off of her as she glares up at him.

"What have you done?" He grits his teeth audibly, and she grins breathlessly around her short gasps for air.

"You're not going anywhere, Klaus. No more running."

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author's note; me when toxic salemxklaus... 😵‍💫🤭

edited and published; 12.2.23.

- liz