lifeline ⇾ kai parker

39┃the other side of the door

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

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A SERIES OF KNOCKS HAD LED MILA to crawling out of bed and putting a pin in her depressing thoughts. She had spent the day replaying her and Kai's encounter over and over again, trying to decipher what everything meant. The last thing she expected was to have filthy sex with him on a bar countertop. Shame and guilt intertwined in her conscious, because not only did she feel taken advantage of, but Mila also felt like she betraying Kai by getting off on a hollowed version of himself.

Needless to say, things were at their most complicated. And yet, another surprise had been evidently thrusted upon her when she opened up the door.

"Hey." Hope Mikaelson's greeting was interwoven with unsureness, as if she couldn't quite believe she had shown up here, either.

"Hope. Wow. You're..." Mila spoke, not bothering to hide her shock at the unexpected arrival of the supernatural prodigy. They weren't exactly on a close friends basis.

"The last person you expected to see?" Hope filled in, nodding in agreement. "Yeah. I wasn't expecting to come here tonight, either."

Mila pulled herself together and stepped aside. "Uh, well, come in."

Hope entered the simplistic space of Mila's hotel room. She scanned the minimalistic furniture, the plain white walls accented with the occasional mediocre artwork, and the patterned floor that had the faintest hints of vacuum lines. Mila closed the door behind her.

"Surprised you don't have a suite. Since you're a hot shot lawyer and all," the tribred commented, turning around to face Mila after she stopped in the middle of the room.

Mila leaned against the bathroom door frame, folding her arms over her robe and nightgown. She manages to form a humorless smile at the reminder of a life that seemed to be eons away from the one she had now. A hand briefly raises to sweep some disheveled hair out of her face.

"Was. I haven't called to see yet but I'm pretty sure once you miss a month of work out of nowhere, you're very fired."

"Well, they didn't remember you were even gone until yesterday. Maybe can you still salvage it and find a work around."

"Maybe, but that's the least of my concerns."

"Right. That's why I'm here," Hope replied. She took a few steps forward in Mila's direction.

Mila closed her eyes for a brief moment, sighing with the premise that her already complex situation was going to get a lot harder. "Let me guess: you wanna take down Kai, too."

"More so use him to our advantage," Hope answers carefully, and this response gets Mila completely alert again.

"What do you mean?"

"Obviously I don't condone any of his horrible behavior as of late, but all of us, including him, have a common enemy."

"The Necromancer." Mila rolled her eyes as she filled in the blanks. There was no one who wanted to get rid of him more than her.

"Yes. And since you can get through to him in ways no one else can," Hope continued, her gloriously blue eyes coaxing the notion she was named after, "you can convince him to help."