Love & marriage

Bring it on

Hayley emerges from a small store into a truck stop parking lot. She cautiously looks around as she walks between two eighteen wheelers. Suddenly, she hears the sound of something hitting metal. She stops for a second and looks around. She hears the noise again but from behind her this time. She turns around and sees a man standing between the two eighteen wheelers. 

He vamp runs over to her, grabs her by the throat, and slams her against the side of one of the trucks. Hayley begins to choke and gasp for air. The vamp throws her to the ground and looks down at her, his lip curled up into a snarl. Diana speeds up to her, vamped out and kills the vamp by eating him alive. She looks at Hayley and turns back to normal. "What happened to you?" Hayley asks her.

"Better yet, what about you? You made a deal with Katerina so she could find the cure. She beat us to it, now Klaus tasked me in protecting you."

"Since when do you do what Klaus says?"

"Since I had ulterior motives for doing this." She speeds Hayley into her car. She locks it so Hayley can't get out. "You're going to tell me everything you know about Katerina and now."

XXXXX

Hayley and Klaus are sitting at a table across from each other. Hayley, pulling her foot up onto her chair, takes a sip of wine while Klaus talks to her. "So, you're rested, you're fed. Tell me about Katerina." Klaus asks.

"Most men get their power kick from torture and intimidation. With you, it's drinks and fine dining."

"Well, in your case, I favor hospitality over unpleasantness, but I have been known to change my mind on a whim. Where is Katerina?"

"You seriously think I know?"

"Stop bluffing!" Diana says, slamming her hand on the table. Klaus clears his throat. "You tipped her off as to what we were up to and set her on a course to find the cure. In return, she sent her lackey to snuff you out. Tell me, what did Katerina promise you?"

"I was in New Orleans trying to find information about my real parents. Katherine found me and told me she could help."

"An orphan? Well, that does explain your charming bravado. Abandonment issues will do it every time."

"Sounds like you would know."

"I'm the only one that can protect you. I'm happy to do so, provided you cooperate."

XXXXX

Hayley walks into another room with a drink in her hand, Klaus following behind her and stopping in the doorway. She approaches an area where Klaus' paintings lay on tables or stand propped up on the ground. "Hate that. Too much. I don't get that."

Klaus walks further into the room, looking like he's about to say something but instead smiles and says nothing. Hayley starts picking up smaller paintings and gives her opinions. "Hmm...I don't care." She tosses it away. "What even is that?"

Diana picks it up and looks at it. "That's me, asshole."

"Hmm. This one." Hayley says. She picks up a painting of a dark figure silhouetted by a fading sky, standing near a bare tree. "It doesn't make me wanna puke. Why'd you paint it?"

"Painting is a metaphor for control. Every choice is mine-- the canvas, the color. As a child, I had neither a sense of the world nor my place in it, but art taught me that one's vision can be achieved with sheer force of will. The same is true of life, provided one refuses to let anything stand in one's way."

Hayley snorts slightly, smiling. She looks up at Klaus through hooded eyes, and as she talks leans in to speak near his ear as she passes him. "So this is your thing-- show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?"

Diana shakes her head as Klaus looks down. "I felt I had many charms, but, uh, regardless, I'm enjoying myself." He says, looking back up.

"And you do whatever you enjoy...up to and including hunting my friend Tyler for the next century."

"Oh, surely not the next century. Only until I kill him."

"You talk a good game but the truth is you let him go. My guess: you know if you kill him, Caroline will hate you forever."

"If I simply killed Tyler, my revenge would be over in a moment. Sentencing him to a lifetime of paranoia and fear-- that's Tyler's true punishment. But come now. You never really thought there was a future for you two, did you?"

"I don't know. He might've left Caroline for me if I'd used the cure to kill you."

"You know, if Tyler has even half your resolve, he may actually make it through the year."

"It doesn't take resolve. It takes allies, a network of people willing to do anything for you, including chase down loose ends to their death. That's how Katherine escaped you all this time."

"Perhaps you know the names of Katerina's special little helpers."

"Maybe I know one or two. Maybe I'll even tell you."

XXXXX

"Anyways, so you wanna see my birthmark?" Hayley asks Diana.

"We're family, but we're not that close."

"It's on my back, it pretty cool actually."

"If it's on your back, how do you know about it?"

"I was trying to get get a tattoo on my shoulder says: Bite me." Diana stares for a moment. "So, anyways, I got the tattoo and the guy says that he found this cool birthmark on my shoulder, look." She shows Diana the birthmark. "Woah."

"What's wrong?"

"That's not just any birthmark. Hayley...you still have a lot to learn."