Lights Flicker And Fade : Kol Mikaelson [3]

273: If We Cease To Believe In Love

EARLY 2017

Samu Carlin sat on a blue and black picnic blanket, alone on a beach, staring out at the ocean. The sand was so fine, leaving it bone white as the murky teal washed back and forth, a breeze finding his caramel hair, staring up at the dark sky. He couldn't help but shiver. Sam shouldn't have been surprised by the weather, just because California was talked about as 'sunshine city' didn't change the fact it was still early in the year, and inherently colder at night.

Not that heat really did anything to him anymore.

It was just odd to think back to days he had felt it, now, technically still eighteen, on a beach across the country from where he'd grown up. Convinced he'd never see anything outside of the city he'd been born in. Trapped, just as he'd been about to leave, because of a plan concocted by one of his friends, and the choices of the woman who used to wear his title.

The beach wasn't entirely empty.

There was a wooden shack at the base of a slight hill, grass roots and weeds poking through the sand as water was trapped, bleeding salty life in to the top of it. He'd rented the recently renovated bed a breakfast for the weekend, waiting, and waiting, and –

If the spot was a pack base, making it rentable during a full moon almost felt like a trap for a wolf hunt. God, Sam hoped the pack wasn't a hunting one. He'd started to hear too many stories about hunting packs forming as a backlash to Kol's own mission, always moving, finding as many other wolves as they could, and forcing members to choose a side. Join the hunt or become the prey. Be alone when a Mikaelson found you. Be untrained. Be de-clawed.

Hayley, Finn, or Kol himself.

It was almost funny how quickly the supernatural world had fallen back into old divisions now MJ was gone. MiMi Pasare as a concept was as powerful as ever, Whit, almost more protected than MJ had been, but...knowing the witch was dead? Knowing the original vampire family had turned on her? That they were hunting wolf venom?

Every single group was on the highest of alerts.

Sam had two journals open, on his left, taking in the sand beneath his toes, shoes and socks tucked away in his small backpack. He was wearing a dark blue jumper, merch from a sport's team, sleeves pushed up to his elbow, long shorts leaving his legs exposed to the air. The moon was like a crystal in the navy sky, full and glaring, his breathing trying to steady as he desperately waited for any sound.

Any howl, or a patter of paws.

Davina had found the spot. She'd seen packs gathering across this beach, and he'd dug through MJ's notes, and every Pasare email, slowly piecing together the details. The dunes behind him forced the city into a memory, the nearest car park still miles out, hiking paths carved into the terrain, all leading to that enclosed beach. Outside the shack was a stone pyre, like a fire should've been lit, a celebration for all who found it.

The kindling was rotted.

If Davina had senses something – seen something, there had to be something –

"Sam."

He jolted to his feet, body instantly on alert.

"Oh my god," Hayley was rushing out, somehow parking her car on the top of the hill, "What – "

She looked like she was going to fling her arms around him –

Sam's fist smashed into her jaw, Hayley flinching on impact, eyes wide, "What the hell?"

"How dare you?"

Tonight was not the night to see someone he hadn't spoken to in nearly three years.