Gone (A Klaus and Caroline Fanfiction)

Weakness

I've gotta start doing that "update once every Friday" thing. Hope you guys like it. :)

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KLAUS

The message came about a half hour later. As Klaus walked through the city, unable to sit still, he tried to quiet the worry that wouldn't cease to put perfectly clear images of Caroline hurt in his mind. His eyes drifted to each shop and tourist attraction, silently asking himself where the next lead was.

Before he was about to enter one, he passed a pay phone.

It rang.

Klaus paused, whirling back to it and tearing the phone off its cradle. He raised it instantly to his ear, feeling his back go stiff with untamable outrage. "If this is who I believe it is, know your quality of life is to decline drastically if you continue to harm her."

"Not one to waste time, I see," the man drawled, and Klaus could decipher the light hint of amusement dancing in his voice. He was laughing at him. "I hope you know I don't take pleasure in harming her. It's rather bittersweet, in fact."

Klaus growled. "Put her on."

The man sighed, exasperated. "I'm sorry. She's a bit tied up at the moment."

Klaus gripped the cage of the pay phone with such force that the metal dented around his clutched hand. "Put her on the line now or I will believe her to be dead. And then I will devote myself to tracking you down in order to personally demonstrate how many methods of torture one can use with nothing more than a spoon. Now put. Her. On."

"Creative," he said, but he heard the line jostle, as if the man were moving. His voice reappeared but this time at a distance. "Say hello, Sweetheart."

"Screw you," Caroline's voice bit out and Klaus knew that, for once, it wasn't directed at him. He felt both relieved and disgusted to hear the weakness in her tone.

"Caroline, I promise you this will be over soon," Klaus said, and he could catch the desperation in his own voice. "I promise, I-"

A scream silenced him, echoing through the speaker and erupting in his mind. His hand tightened more, bending the pay phone until it was partially mangled. "You have no concept of who you are dealing with!" Klaus roared, the volume making his own ears ring. "I'll make you regret ever touching her in full, so much so, it's even indescribable to me and I have a thousand years worth of vocabulary to attest to that."

"A small man with big words," the man said. "Did you really fall for this, Dove?"

"What's up with old vampires and pet names?" Caroline's voice gasped on the other end, rough with screaming. "Seriously, do you have difficulty with a first name basis?"

"Such blatant disrespect," the man chided and Klaus had to unclench his fingers to stop from snapping the phone in two. "You really are incredibly stubborn."

"Oh, you want to start pointing out fatal flaws?" She asked him. "Yours is easy. Greed. And bad fashion sense. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to use so much of the same color in a single outfit?"

The man let out a bark of laugher. "What trivial concerns you have," he said, his voice becoming more clear as he neared Caroline. "But for the sake at quenching my curiosity, would you mind guessing what Klaus's are?"

Klaus breathed through his nose, trying to stop the tremors. He spoke before Caroline, furious at this game of cat and mouse.

"Caroline," Klaus said, his voice shaky. "How hurt are you, Love?"