𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘, tvd

𝘃𝗶.

006.

SEASON FOUR, EPISODE TWENTY

━━━━━━

HAYLEY DOESN'T LIKE BEING IN the Abattoir. The 'alliance' she made with Marcel is tenuous at best and she doesn't really trust his pack of bloodthirsty dogs not to creep up behind her and snap her neck so they can wipe their hands of her.

But, one of those dogs had appeared at her hotel this morning, demanding that she come to the Abattoir for a meeting with Marcel.

In the two weeks since she'd allied herself with Marcel and the vampires ( thereby forsaking what she has spent so long searching for ), not a lot had happened. Well, apart from capturing Jane-Anne.

Somehow, and Hayley isn't sure if she really wants to know, but Marcel had managed to detect Jane-Anne's use of magic—something which is strictly outlawed in the streets of New Orleans—and had her brought in.

He'd been tough, had her kneeling in in the Abattoir courtyard as vampires hissed and circled her, fangs flashing and veins crawling, but nothing had stirred Jane-Anne. She'd remained blank-faced and silent as Marcel demanded to know where Elena was.

After Marcel started torturing her, Hayley decided to leave.

( Her screams still echo, her tears still pour in the chipped crystal of her mind's eye. )

( Another thing to ignore, another thing to scrub and scrub and scrub at until her skin is red and raw but it still remains. )

Marcel had mentioned nothing of the pain he had inflicted on Jane-Anne when they met the next day, only jovially conveying in that manner that is entirely his that no progress had been made, but it was only a matter of time before Deveraux crumbled.

Hayley had nodded, prepared to leave, but Marcel had stopped her. What he did next was something Hayley doubted she could have ever predicted.

He bared sheer-white fangs and ripped into the skin of his wrist with an ease that had the werewolf repressing a shudder as blood dripped into an empty shot glass he had laid out on his desk.

"Drink," he commanded simply, and Hayley blinked. Marcel met her shocked gaze as he licked the remnants of his scarlet blood off his lips.

"What?" Hayley demanded, "You realise that I can't be changed into a vampire, right? That's not how it works."

Marcel chuckled and pushed the shot glass closer to her. "Funnily enough, yes. But do you know why you can't be changed into a vampire, or even a hybrid with just regular vampire blood? Because vampire blood and werewolf blood are naturally opposing forces—just as we are."

Hayley frowned and crossed her arms. "Quit the biology lesson and get to the point."

"Because they're equally opposing forces, they cancel each other out. Vampires get no nutrition from werewolf blood, and werewolves can't be healed with vampire blood in their system. But . . . when a werewolf drinks vampire blood a day or two before the full moon, the blood stays in their system long enough to prevent their curse from enacting. They don't shift."

Hayley went still. Her mind whirled like a sandstorm, thoughts flying through her mind too quick for her to catch and pause and think.

"What?" She croaked out, and a small shard of hope unveiled itself from the wreckage of her heart. She'd long ago given up trying to find a way to break her curse, or even just put it off. She doubted the Curse of the Sun and Moon the moment she heard of it—it sounded too good to be true and Hayley was far too cynical to trust it.