You Don't Know What I'd Do For You (Love you like oxygen)

ten

*A/N* AYOOOOO!!! DOUBLE DIGITS!!! FINALLY!!!

On a very different note, this chapter has several of the triggers that are in the tags, and it gets a lot darker, please don't read if you are triggered by anything there and probably leave this book alone because they will pretty much continue to be present, more or less, from here on out. Please stay safe, I plan to post more Elijah works in the future that don't involve those topics so make sure you can get notified somehow if you would prefer to read those.

Rebekah POV

Pure, fiery rage flowed through my veins, drowning out the rational side of my brain and instead filled me with a rapid, whirling turmoil. It made my fingers itch to hold a heart in its last beats and glare into panicked eyes as I tore out a throat. The bloody, cruel thought almost brought a smile to my lips, at being the last thing they would ever see. At this very moment, I'm not sure there was anything that I wouldn't do for Elijah, that there wasn't anything that I wouldn't do to whoever was holding him captive, whether it was a friend or a foe.

He had to come back safe, he simply had to. But a horrible, black, cold, terrifying fear crept into me in waves. Maybe he really had left, the nightwalkers had even confirmed it after all, he had left the compound of his own accord. My stomach knotted at the possibility that maybe he hadn't been planning on coming back. Elijah had left before, it obviously wasn't above him, and it's not as though I could blame him for it. I could barely handle Nik and I didn't spend nearly as much time with him as Elijah did. Everyone had a limit, and strong, religiously-upheld, completely-impenetrable guard or not, my older brother had to be reaching his.

We were all at our wit's end, every new threat and rising issue was just thrown and piled and heaped onto the end of an overflowing lineup. There were so many priorities, so many things that we needed to put first, so many things that would blow up if they weren't handled immediately. But some things came before all else, no questions asked, and family topped that list. Once the witches had started pooling their magic and combining their strengths in an attempt to get Hope, all forces were pulled back into one, central power. Everything stopped dead, grinded to an instantaneous halt, and would not move an inch until everyone was sure that the baby was safe.

Elijah was now on that list as well, entire worlds ahead of everything else. The witches further scheming could wait, the werewolves could hold tight, even Mikael might as well be frozen in stone at the bottom of a volcano for all the concern he was right now. Once my older brother was safe, they could all dare to start inching forwards again. But until that happened, whatever gods existed had better have mercy on anyone who attempted to threaten my family right now because I sure wouldn't spare them any.

I was suddenly pulled into a memory, my body now moving through the forest on pure autopilot, just following the quickest, most direct path to Elijah. My head was filled with the familiar scenery of our childhood home. I recognized the particular moment immediately, I remembered it well, but, I suppose, how could I ever forget?

Flashback

The house was dreadfully quiet but my own heartbeat pounded loud in my ears. I was barefoot in my nightgown, tiptoeing across the floor. Carefully stepping over the sleeping forms of my siblings that were spread out in a sea of fur blankets. That night, I hadn't been able to sleep at all, the sound of leather and a belt buckle against skin kept resounding in my head and making me sick to my stomach.

A paddock of horses had gotten loose, the gate left open, two had ended up dead. Of course Elijah had instantly tried to admit to the mistake, even though everyone knew that Nik had been the last to tend to the animals. Mikael had been furious, two of the best horses from the herd was certainly a heavy loss. Nik had screamed and cried out the entire time from our parents' room as the sound of the whip came down over and over. Elijah had gone running in, shouting at our father to stop despite Kol having begged him to stay put and not intervene.