Rebuild (The Originals, Book Two)

Ch. 22: Ashes to Ashes

We were still in the compound, in the courtyard.

Gia's charred body was still lying on the floor where she had died.

Elijah no longer hand Papa Tunde's blade in his chest. He stood over Gia. He looked devastated, covering her body with a sheet. 

Cami was awake, her neck still wounded from Klaus.

I fed Cami my blood to heal her.

Cami grimaced at the taste as she swallowed it.

Freya stood nearby.

Elijah turned to me, his voice raising to a shout. "So, now what do you mean, Niklaus had a plan? We had a plan! A plan he has mercilessly destroyed--"

"Your plan wouldn't have worked, Elijah," I told him. "When Klaus compelled me, he said your plan would fail, so he had to enact one of his own."

Freya was stunned and frustrated. "And what might that be?"

"He has to get her to link to him," I answered. "To do that, she has to unlink from you."

"My brother wishes to bind himself to our enemy?" Elijah asked. "She'll be virtually indestructible."

"He said I had to convince you that everything he had to do, he had to do alone," I told them. "You had the wrong ingredients to kill Dahlia. Klaus got into her head." I looked at Freya. "You didn't break her heart. We needed the blood of the witch she loved the most, and you are not that witch." I looked from Elijah to Freya. "That honor goes to your beloved mother."

Freya sighed in frustration. "So, we need Esther's blood?" I nodded. "Well, that's impossible. I killed her."

Cami was surprised by this confession.

I was impressed.

Elijah seemed indifferent. "One incarnation." Freya looked at him in surprise. "Our mother is buried in New Orleans."

"Klaus wants us to revive the original body," I told them.

"And how is he going to buy the time for us to do this?" Cami asked.

"Once Dahlia's unlinked herself from Freya, and linked herself to Klaus, he's gonna dagger himself and render them both useless," I answered. "Just waiting for a message that warns me beforehand."

Elijah looked at Gia's sheet-covered body.

Cami looked at Elijah and me sympathetically. "I am sorry about your friend."

"Are you?" Elijah asked skeptically.

"I don't condone Klaus' actions," Cami told us. "I'm trying to help you." Elijah looked up, hurt. "All I know is, Klaus will do whatever he has to do--"

Elijah yelled furiously. "Klaus will do whatever he has to do for Klaus." He held up his phone, walking closer. "Now Hayley isn't answering her phone, and Rebekah is nowhere to be found." He began to shout again. "Now, what has he done?"

"Don't kill the messenger," I told him. "Rebekah's in her Original body because he compelled Marcel to kill the witch body. I think she killed herself, though, to get back into her Original body, and that wasn't that long ago. It'll take a while for her to wake up." Elijah was frustrated. "And, as for Hayley..."

"What is it?" Elijah asked worriedly.

I sighed. "When Klaus compelled me, he stole the spell that I used on the Crescent wolves."

"So, he would condemn her to the body of a beast?" Elijah asked furiously.

"Elijah, Hayley will be human once a month," Cami told him. "We will find her and we will help her."