Tainted | Finn Mikaelson

Chapter 29

It had not worked.

Hayley had been waiting for her to wake up, and had smiled when the vampire beside her opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings and seeing that she was now in her room.

"Hey," said Hayley brightly, trying to remain optimistic at least for a little bit before she had to break the news to Katya about what Lucien had done to Marcel. "How do you feel?"

"I suppose I ought to say I'm thankful that you finally got those stupid chains off of me," said Katya sourly, getting up and rubbing her wrists, going to her bathroom to splash some water on her face. "I'm hungry. I'm going out to eat."

"Wait, what?" said Hayley, blocking her way to the door. "No— why are you—?"

"I'm a vampire now. I'm starving."

"But Katya— the spell—"

"Okay, and?" said Katya, making a face as if to add 'get to the point already.'

"Your humanity is still off!" said Hayley in disbelief.

"Uh, yeah. Davina's spell removed the compulsion."

"And Lucien compelled you to turn it off!"

"Yeah, so that part went away, but it doesn't necessarily flip the switch back. Come on, shouldn't you know this?"

"But you were feeling again, Davina said—"

"Oh my god," said Katya in annoyance. "I screamed and begged because you guys were hurting me! Not because my emotions were back! Now let me through, I want to eat!"

Hayley, wanting to avoid a fight, let Katya walk past. She stared at her departing figure in disbelief before rushing to the other room, where the rest of the Mikaelsons were gathered. The only ones missing were Davina and Marcel, since Davina was checking on him to make sure the serum hadn't hurt him. He seemed fine, but something about him was off, and Davina wanted to do a proper examination before she brought him to speak to the others.

"The spell didn't work!" said Hayley angrily to Kol, who was already enjoying some bourbon. "Her humanity is still off!"

"That shouldn't be possible," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Well, it is," said Hayley. "She clearly has no urge to kill Cami anymore, but the switch wasn't flipped, and now, she's gone out to feed."

"Why didn't you try to stop her?" demanded Klaus.

"Do you really think that would have gone down well? We need to tell Finn."

"No!" insisted Klaus. "I will not tell my brother how we failed to bring Katya back!" He balled his fists up. "She can still be compelled. I can make her turn it off now that I would not be countering Lucien's compulsion."

"There has to be another way to get her to turn it on," said Freya. "On her own terms. It was wrong of Lucien to force her to turn it off. It would be wrong if you forced her to turn it back on. She was in pain because of us, and this gives her an escape. Turning it back on will overwhelm her with emotion and just make it worse. What we need to do is find out who's the best person to convince her to turn it back on. I say Finn."

Klaus growled. "How many bloody times do I have to say that we are not telling Finn? Until you've ensured that his mind won't fall apart in that pendant a second time, there is no sense in worrying him. This time, we would not have Katya available to go in and search for him. The rest of us would not stand a chance of finding him in there."

Freya sighed. "Well, who else? Perhaps Cami could talk to her now? No offense, Hayley, but Katya doesn't seem to like you very much right now."

"None taken," said the younger hybrid. "Yeah, I guess Cami is worth a shot. Or you could do a spell to make her think the right thing to do is turn it on. Then, technically, she'll be doing it off her own accord."