Knife In My Back

Lizzie Saltzman stumbles into her empty dorm room numbered twenty-three, a bottle of bourbon clutched in her shaky hands.

Empty. She wants to feel that -numbness over feelings. A mental anesthesia.

She all but drops onto the floor in front of the fireplace, glaring daggers at the flames dancing around. Alaric would probably have something to say about stealing the bottle from his office and Josie would be disappointed with her choice of coping mechanism but she couldn't care less. Right now, all she wants is to forget the hot yet cold aching inside her. It's not the dark magic.

It's the pain of betrayal.

She fought so hard to keep herself from being vacuumed into the darkness. To not let that negative emotion swallow her and pour acid into her soul. So she chugged the acid-like liquor down instead.

Lizzie tried to put herself in hope's shoes. She thought about how it would feel to lose Landon. Ugh, seriously what is it about that flying chicken that hope likes so damn much. He accomplishes things about as well as he flies...which he doesn't.

Despite her continued warnings, the Mikaelson went behind her back and included Josie in this, knowing full well that she was taking a time out. She could get past that because the brunette had made her own choice to take her magic back.

Just like Josie is Lizzie's blindspot, Landon is hope's. She would lose her mind and probably go down the path her dearest uncle took if she lost Josie. That being said, she let the incident where the tribrid nearly hacked open her head with an axe slide. Lizzie understood how it was like to lose control. Been there a hundred times.

But the blonde would never put hope in danger like that. She dessicated Milton knowing that he would be okay. In a few hours, he'd be just fine.

Hope had no idea if the siphoners would survive. She had no idea if they would make it out alive. Which begs the question, Would she have let us die if it meant Frodo would be back? She didn't even know if Landon was actually in the prison world.

The black magic seethed through her veins. Her brain felt like nails scraping against the chalkboard. Her skin stung like glass shards had stabbed and lodged themselves in. Her body was on fire as she cried out in agony.

Hope watched. Hope told her to push through because she wasn't going to abandon him again. At that moment, Lizzie knew. Hope Mikealson made a choice.

Her mind almost formed that choice into words before Josie entered the circle and hope watched again. She didn't stop the spell. She put Josie in danger. Lizzie Saltzman could not get past anyone hurting her sister- even if that person was hope.

If you leave your friends to suffer when you could have saved them from it - that's betrayal. Hope chose to let them go through the pain. Hope betrayed them.

And that hurts even more than when Josie drove a wedge between them. Even more than the words her sister said to her during miss mystic falls. Even more than the time the twins were fighting. Even more than everyone laughing at her funeral. Even more than when dark Josie forced the merge.

Because in all those moments she was there. In the car ride back to school, she knew hope was not at fault. Hope understood her. She allowed the younger twin to hold her when she broke during the pageant. When Lizzie was having an episode, she was the one to calm her down. She figured out a way to save her life. While the blonde siphon handled the arrangements outside, the auburn-haired girl was trying to get her sister, her anchor, back. The tribrid was always there in the corner ready to catch her if she fell.