Fall

Chapter 71: What A Young Girl Should Not Know

"It's a long story, Klaus and I." Katherine starts as I pour more blood for her into the cup, just a small amount, a quarter of a cup. "Goes all the way back to England, 1492, after I left Bulgaria." At her words, I stop pouring. 1492. Elena was born in 1992, the both of us were. It can't be a coincidence that we were both born exactly 500 years after whatever happened with Katherine and Klaus. 

It leaves the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck standing up. 

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I go back to pouring. Katherine continues after giving me one of those slow, vampiric looks. Looking into my bones and my blood and my soul. "Or was thrown out." She says as I push the cup back over towards her and she downs it like a shot. 

"Thrown out?" Elena asks, furrowing her brow. 

Katherine rolls her eyes. "My family, your true ancestors...they disowned me. My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock. The shame." She raises her eyebrows, sarcasm clear in her tone. 

"It was kept secret?" My sister leans forward, sympathy and curiosity in equal measure on her face, bleeding into her tone. 

But her doppelganger seems intent not to let her emotions show about it, to hide everything behind a wall of sarcasm and nonchalance. "Mmhm. My baby was given away. I was banished to England and I had to learn to adjust. So I quickly became English." Katherine adopts a convincing English accent and it's a good distractor from how depressing her early life has sounded already. I doubt her baby was just easily given away, otherwise she would've said she gave it up. No, it was forcibly taken from her. 

"It was there that I made friends with a girl from Sweden, named Herja. I also caught the eye of a nobleman named Klaus. I was taken with him at first until I found out what he was and what he wanted from me. Not just me, but Herja too. And then I ran like hell." Katherine keeps going, looking at me now as she speaks of this Swedish girl. And the name is familiar, from the list of 39 Valkyries. 

Katherine continues to tell us the story, of how she ran through the woods, Elijah hunting her down. How Trevor was on her side and duped Elijah into looking in the opposite direction, giving Katherine some directions to escape to a cottage. "So, what did Klaus want. Exactly, explicitly." I ask her, even though I already know. I know what Klaus wants from us, but Elena doesn't. Maybe she'll believe it more from a different source, a source who went through this with him already. 

"Same thing he'll want from the two of you. He wants to break the curse." She answers me, lolling her head to the side against the stone wall. 

Elena stands from her crouched position, pushing her hair back from her head. "By sacrificing the Petrova doppelganger." She whispers it under her breath, like it's a scary thing, like we can't hear her. But we can, nothing is private between the three of us now. All linked with this unique fated death. One Katherine somehow escaped. 

"He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from my body. Herja's too."

My phone rings and I sigh, holding up a finger. "One sec, don't continue without me. Just...just give me a second." I implore at Katherine's eye roll and Elena's impatient need for answers. Moving away from the two of them, I bring my phone out of my pocket and see that Bonnie's calling. 

I answer without hesitation, even if it's just for her to tell me she hates me. I'll always be there for her. "Bonnie?"

"I met another witch today, or warlock? Is that what you call a guy witch? Anyways, he showed up at school, his name's Luka, and he wanted me to know. He gave me his hand to shake." She whispers into the phone hurriedly, and it hits me that she might be between classes right now, might be in the bathroom telling me this. "But the timing of this new witch coming to school is weird, right? With everything going on? I don't trust him."