ACT TWO; TARGET IN SIGHT
SCENE TWO; TEMPERATURES RISING
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THE BAR WAS STICKY WITH OLD BEER AND THE MEMORIES FROM HUNDREDS OF STRANGERS STAINED INTO IT FOREVER. The lighting was dim and abysmal, but it made way for an unfamiliar, eye-catching face.

The man saddled up to the bar, a smirk on his face as he approaches the only woman worth looking at twice. She's sitting back against the chair, her skin sun-kissed and bronzy, glimmering as if specks of gold resided in it. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the smaller braids that made it up frizzy from the humidity, along with the baby hairs that crowned her head.

A sage green tank top sat, loosely tucked into old denim shorts that looked cut off or particularly rough around the edges, and she adorned a pair of once-white sneakers that had seen better days. Scattered along her arms and legs, and what seemed visible from what skin her tank top didn't cover were dainty tattoos that seemed entirely uncoordinated, almost like an artist's throwaway sketchbook.

She was effortlessly pretty, the slope of her nose making way for a set of lips that pouted naturally and curved upwards towards her thick, dark eyebrows. And when he lifted his gaze upwards again after raking it over her body, he found a pair of peculiar, hypnotizing eyes staring into his own.

One a pale yellow that looked nearly transparent when the dark of her pupil contrasted against it. The other green, not too dark and not too light, vibrant but muted compared to the seemingly glowing yellow of the other. It glimmered like the gold flecks beneath her skin, rippled like the tattoos on her hands as she reached for her drink, suddenly meeting his gaze.

She fluttered her dark lashes at him, and he felt his smirk widen as the bartender handed him his drink.

He says nothing at first, offering her his hand as she sips on a drink he can't name at first glance. "Ray. Ray Sutton," He offers his name and her eyes grow wide as she takes his hand in her own.

"Salem." She offers, a smile on her face that seems more satisfied than anything. Her eyes seem to leave his for a moment, shifting over his shoulder, and a small nod makes her head tilt ever so slightly.

Ray notices none of that, he just revels in the good looking girl beside him, grinning at him behind mismatched eyes. He chuckles a bit in disbelief. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Salem," An accented voice comes from behind him and he tenses, watching the woman meet an apparently familiar face. The blue-eyed man turns sharply towards him, a dangerous glint in his eyes as he regards the woman beside him on the bar stool. "I thought I said to wait for me."

"I got bored," She hums, shrugging his words off easily.

Ray's stomach rolls and he shakes his head apologetically. "I didn't know she was taken, man," He holds his hands up in surrender, and turns his attention back to his drink before him.

He sees from the corner of his eyes as Salem nudges the man in the ribs, turning him in Ray's direction. "This is him,"

He feels the man's attention on him abruptly, and he straightens his spine. "Ray? Ray Sutton?"

The man in question warily faces them, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Who wants to know?"

"I've been looking everywhere for you," He leans an arm against the back of the stool that Salem was seated in, his frustration suddenly morphing into the same shade of satisfaction that Salem had sported moments ago. "We started in Florida– Pensacola. I met a young chap there who you worked with before you moved to Memphis."

Ray inhales sharply, his grip on his drink tightening.

"Now, he directed me to two lovely women, and they led me here."

The werewolf sets his beer down on the bar, and pushes away from it. "I think I'll be going,"

Klaus is before him in a second, stopping his departure with a cold smile. "Not so fast, mate. You only just got here."

Ray looks behind his shoulder, and sees the woman watching them with a twisted shade of interest, and sees the sudden sharpness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Now, your type are very hard to come by,"

Panic floods him, and he turns, attempting to run. He's stopped by another man, one with the same dark look in his eye as the duo had. "Yeah, I wouldn't do that."

Ray sighs frustratedly as he's pushed back against the bar. "Vampires,"

Klaus smirks. "You're swifty-swift, Ray. Yes, my friend here is a vampire. He's compelled everyone in the bar, so don't look to them for any help."

The werewolf looks out frightfully, his heart pounding with fear.

"I, however, am something else. A different kind of monster. I've got some vampire, I've got some wolf."

"A– what?" He echoes shakily, eyeing the man in disbelief.

"A hybrid, Ray. I'm both. You see, I want to create more of me. Now, you being the first werewolf I've come across in many a moon– pun intended, Ray," He chuckles lightly. "I need you to direct me to your pack."

Ray looks away, uneasy, and Klaus looks upon him uncaring. "So, where can I find them, Ray?"

"You can't compel me," The werewolf shakes his head. "It won't work."

Klaus looks to Stefan, who scratches his temple for a moment before giving Klaus a conceding nod. The vampire turns towards the bartender, waving him down. "I need a scotch on the rocks, please."

Stefan clears his throat and turns back to the werewolf. "Tell you what, Ray. We're gonna play a little drinking game. Something I like to call Truth or Wolfsbane."

"Oh, this is gonna be fun, Ray,"

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Salem rarely feels guilty. She's always been a bit impulsive when it comes to things (see: leaving town with a man that threatened to kill you), but she rarely regrets the things she does, no matter if she's thought them through or not.

But now– she feels guilty right now, and for every reason one wouldn't expect.

She's been able to forget about it for the most part, what with Stefan's hardly being around except for when Klaus needs him to be a particularly threatening figure in their plans. But when Stefan is around, looking as miserable as ever, Salem is reminded of the fact that even if they had been able to find a pack of werewolves to turn, it wouldn't even work because there was a chance that Elena was alive.

And with every step they took, they came closer to actually being able to make the hybrids, and Salem's guilt reared its ugly head in reminder that it might not work.

It's a familiar scene, stepping into the elevator with Klaus. They've seen the insides of dozens of hotels over the past few months, from sandy white beaches to ones that had seen their prime in the 1980s. Salem hasn't regretted a bit of it, not except for the knowledge of Elena Gilbert's possible survival.

Tilting her head back against the wall, Salem watches the numbers tick away as they're carried up through the building before her eyes flutter shut tiredly.

"You should rest tonight. We've got a long day ahead of us."

She hums, not bothering to open her eyes at his lowly spoken words. "I plan on it,"

Brows furrowing with sudden realization, she stands up straight and forces her tired eyes open, hiding her surprise at the sight of his gaze already on her. "You know, when I agreed to come with you, I didn't know it'd involve so much physical activity."

Klaus rolls his eyes, but there's a humorous glint in his eyes that Salem feels herself smiling at. "I haven't heard any complaints about that physical activity before,"

"That's not what I meant," She batted a hand in his direction, earning a small laugh from the man. "I wasn't meant to spend my days outside, traipsing through the woods and sweating layers of my skin off."

"Oh, is that so?" He turns towards her, taking a few steps across the elevator that quickly puts barely two feet of space between them.

She nods, crossing her arms over her chest as she does her best to ignore the pattering of her heart. A playful smile pulls at her lips, reddened by the hot sun she spent most of her days in. "We should take a break. Just for a few days."

He hums, contemplating her words as he takes two more steps to stand before her, his eyes peering down into hers. "A break?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

He chuckles at her mouthiness, cherry lips parting in a grin that she mirrors. "If a break is what you want, then a break is what you'll get."

"Really?"

"Of course. After I make my hybrids,"

Salem's face falls as his floods with amusement and she waves her hand out, hitting him on the arm. "Really? You're such an ass,"

Before she can even blink, Klaus is leaning into her space, placing his hands on either side of her head and tilting down to meet her suddenly shell-shocked gaze.

His blue eyes search her enticing ones, watching as she peers up at him through dark lashes that flutter against her cheeks when she's tired, and nearly hit her eyebrows when she rolls her eyes. Her eyes hold all of the answers, and his the questions. A simple equation with a glaringly obvious answer.

"Perhaps a break is in order," He murmurs, lips barely parting around his words as his voice hits a deep pitch that makes her pulse flutter. His eyes shift to her neck, and he swears he can see her pulse point calling to him. "You must be exhausted after all these months."

She swallows, visibly rough. "Exhausted," She echoes, mentally cursing herself for how breathily she'd echoed the word to him.

"That's a shame,"

When it feels like her pulse might be audible, the elevator dings and Klaus's eyes squeeze shut, obvious irritation crossing his features. He pushes off of his hands and walks out of the elevator, and Salem stands for a moment trying to regain her breath.

Shaking her head, she digs her room key from her pocket and steps into the carpeted elevator. "Shit," She curses, locking her door behind her as it shuts.

Salem kicks her shoes off and throws herself onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before slamming her hand into her mattress petulantly. "Shit!"

She wants to go knock on Klaus's door, and perhaps spend another night in his room, wondering why they even bother getting separate ones at this point. But she's reminded once more of the secret she's been forgetfully keeping for the past three months, and she knows that she shouldn't follow after him. She thinks if she looks in his eyes right now, she'll spill every single thing on her mind.

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Vividly, Salem recalls telling Klaus less than 24 hours ago that she didn't want to continue hiking through the woods, sweating through every layer of her clothing as they went up the mountain. And then she huffs an irritated sigh and purposefully stomps on a stick, snapping it beneath her foot.

All afternoon they'd been trekking up the mountain, following the directions Ray had given them before Klaus had snapped his neck and begun the transition into what would– hopefully– be Klaus's first hybrid.

Ray was slung over Stefan's shoulders, still unconscious, and the vampire had been silent the whole way up the mountain– no doubt a side effect of his dealings with Damon last night. When they'd gotten news of Damon's presence nearby, she couldn't help but feel dread build in her and begin to fester. It only got worse when Stefan returned with obvious guilt and regret in his eyes.

"You okay? Is Ray getting heavy?" Klaus's persistently smug voice breaks her from her thoughts and she shoots a glare at the back of his head instinctively.

"I'm fine."

"You sure about that?" He smirks at Stefan, amused at the man's irritance. "You know, we've been walking for quite some time now. If you need a little water or a little sit-down,"

Stefan huffs an empty laugh and gives the man a passive aggressive smile. "You know, I get that we're stuck together, Klaus, but if we could maybe skip the chit chat, it'd be great."

"So much brooding," Klaus huffs, giving Salem a mocking look over his shoulder that makes her roll her eyes, despite her own smile twitching at her lips. "Your self-loathing is suffocating you, my friend."

"Maybe it's because I'm a little tired of hunting werewolves. We've been at it all summer."

"Thanks to our pal Ray, we've found ourselves a pack." The trio comes to a stop when they see the flattened ground before them, filled with werewolves milling about tents and fire pits aimlessly.

Salem hadn't been much help in finding werewolves in the surrounding areas to make hybrids out of despite being one herself. She'd been a part of a pack once, she was sure, but her mother wasn't a werewolf and she'd kept Salem practically locked up her entire life, so there was no chance she had any memories of where another werewolf may be, besides Tyler Lockwood.

Salem had run into a werewolf while she was in college, it was a random man she'd never seen before who had taken one look at her, and then a poorly hidden sniff that had his eyes glowing yellow, before he shot her a glare that had her practically sprinting back to her dorm. She was loath to admit that her mother was right on the fact that she wouldn't be accepted by werewolves, because she was an abomination. Some sort of freak of nature, with no discernable cap on her power.

That reason was also why she had little to no remorse for the packs they did find. Salem had no sympathy for people afraid of power simply because they were weak in comparison, even if she did share a part of her DNA with them.

Their presence is noticed almost immediately by the camp as Stefan takes the lead, dumping Ray unceremoniously on the forest floor.

A woman in a purple tank top rushes forward, panic written all over her face. "Ray, oh, my god! What's going on?"

Salem raises an eyebrow when the woman looks up at them defensively.

"Who are you?"

Klaus steps forward, smirk in place. "The important question is who am I?" He plasters on a charming grin as he looks out at the rest of the camp. "Please forgive the intrusion. My name is Klaus."

The man beside the woman in the tank top grabs her, and they take wary steps backwards away from the man. "You're the hybrid,"

"You've heard of me. Fantastic."

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"It's fascinating, actually. A werewolf who isn't beholden to the moon, a vampire who doesn't burn in the sun. A true hybrid." Klaus's eyes are wide in wonder where he sits, looking out at the terrified werewolves with no care.

Ray jerks awake with a gasp and Salem snaps her gaze over to him, raising a brow at the fear that immediately floods the man's face.

"Excellent timing, Ray. Very dramatic." Klaus smirks at the man, humor on his features.

"What's happening to me?" Ray looks at the man frightfully, his eyes darting between the trio that tormented him for hours last night.

Klaus's eyes shift to Stefan, who heaves a sigh and stands up. "Are any of you human? Your friend needs human blood to complete his transition to vampire. If he doesn't get it, he'll die."

"It doesn't take much, just a sample." Klaus stands, looking out at the group. "Anyone, a boyfriend, a girlfriend along for the ride?"

Salem's eyes scan the campground, and they meet frightened pupils a few feet away. She lifts a long finger and points at the man in the blue shirt. "Him." She stands and looks at the scared man.

The woman pulls on the man's arm, and looks at her defensively. "What about you?"

Salem glares, and curls her lip in a snarl that makes the woman flinch. "I'm not a blood bag."

Klaus looks at her for a moment before looking at the man she's pointed out, his smirk widening. He rushes over to the man and grabs him, tearing into his forearm with sharp fangs. He throws the man at Stefan, who pins him to the ground beside Ray.

"No!" The woman lunges for him, but Salem stops her, yanking her back by her arm and holding her still as she struggles.

"If you don't drink it, Ray, I will." Stefan pants, veins crawling beneath his eyes at the scent of the blood. "Problem is, I don't know how to stop."

Klaus looks at the woman that Salem has pinned. "It's the new order, sweetheart." He brushes hair away from where it's matted to her face with sweat, the glint in his eye deceivingly kind. "You join us or you die."

She jerks against Salem's hold, glaring at the hybrid. "I'd rather die than be a vampire,"

Veins crawl beneath Klaus's yellow eyes, and Salem watches with rapt attention as he bites into his skin and forces his blood down the werewolf's throat.

Salem's eyes shift to where Ray has lunged towards the pouring blood on the man's arm, and her eyes widen when she realizes this will be Klaus's first successful hybrid. Her heart pounds with anticipation as she meets Klaus's gaze, and she doesn't look away as she wraps her hands around the woman's jaw and twists her neck, letting her fall to the ground carelessly between them.

Klaus's smirk widens and he lifts a finger to his mouth and dabs at the blood staining his hand, his eyes peering into Salem's as she stares, unashamedly enraptured with his vicious actions. He holds his hands out, smug satisfaction radiating off of him as he looks around at the frightened werewolves. "Okay. Who's next?"

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Salem drops the last body with a sharp sigh and stands, wiping the sweat off of her forehead as she faces Klaus again. "That's the last of them."

Klaus lifts his wrist away from the human, and pats his cheek condescendingly. "There, good as new. Now you relax, okay, mate? We're gonna need you when the rest of them wake up."

Salem leans against a tree, eyes watchful of Ray and his behavior. He'd done nothing to show he was any different than before, but she didn't know if that was because it wasn't working, or if the transition was just different than normal vampires.

"They're dead. They're all dead."

Klaus ignores the panicked murmurs of the soon-to-be hybrid. "He's through his transition, he should be feeling better soon,"

"So is this your master plan?" Stefan's sarcastic tone makes Salem flick her eyes to him, attention on the thin line of patience between him and Klaus being pulled tight. "Build an army of hybrid slaves?"

"No, not slaves. Soldiers, comrades."

"For what war, might I ask?"

Klaus brushes his volatile manner off easily. "Oh, you don't arm yourself after war has been declared, Stefan. You build your army so big that no one ever dares pick the fight."

Stefan scoffs at the man's smugness. "What makes you so sure that they'll be loyal?"

"Well it's not difficult to be loyal when you're on the winning team. That's something you'll learn once you shake that horribly depressive chip off your shoulder."

Stefan laughs at Klaus, though it's humorless. The sound makes Salem tense, though she's far used to the back and forth between them after three months of it. It just grits on her nerves, and makes her want to snap.

"That's why you're, uh, why you're keeping me around? To witness my attitude adjustment?"

Salem frowns when she looks back at Ray, seeing the blood spurt from his mouth right as he coughed. "Stefan, could you be quiet?"

"No, I want to know–"

"Stefan, shut up," Salem cuts him off firmly, kneeling before Ray with a frown. "Look, Klaus. Something's wrong with him,"

Klaus shoots a glare at Stefan, though he's got his focus centered on Ray. "You'll know why I'm keeping you around when I've decided that I want you to know." He pulls Ray's head backwards, examining the blood coming from his eyes and leaking out of the corner of his lips.

Stefan observes the would-be hybrid, his sarcastic attitude not lessening in the slightest. "That shouldn't be happening, should it?"

Klaus fixes him with a glare. "Well, obviously."

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author's note; i always feel like i never update any of my books and then i look at my profile and it's like "updated 12 hours ago" like damn liz CHILL

edited and published; 3.5.23.

- liz