A Way Out

Chapter 11

Caroline can hear someone screaming. The scream is terrible…heart-wrenching, agonising. She wants to rip the person's throat out just to shut them up. This person is screaming like they're watching everything they love, burn. But there's no one up there but them three.

The screaming, burning vampire and Klaus, falling to the floor with a dagger in his back.

That's when Caroline realises who is screaming. It's her. Her humanity is screaming at her from that place in her psyche she had banished it to. It's tearing at her, trying to rip away that blank persona she now shrouds herself in. It's torn away enough for her to feel fear.

Fear that it comes back. Caroline closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and viciously culls the emotions churning inside her. They will not control her.

She considers whether to un-dagger Klaus at that moment or not. She knows he'll be raging when he finds out the turns the night took and she really doesn't want to deal with his temper right now.

But she also knows that Klaus is her only true ally, no matter how furious he might be. With a sigh, she moves forward to pull the dagger from the Original Hybrid's back.

A couple hours earlier…

The grapevines wrap around the staircase and the white pillars like passionate lovers. The smell of grapes in the air adds a sweetness to the air that merely sets off the decadence of the atmosphere. The black curtains interspersed between the pillars whispered of mystery while the topless females strolling through them with trays of wine-filled goblets screamed 'come get it.'

The room is filled with women dressed in the flowing but sexy dresses of Grecian times, their tresses either hanging like rope down their backs or bound around their heads like crowns. The men go the "less is more" route, wearing only cloth wrapped around their waists and laurel wreaths for head dress. They all wear masks.

It is the night of Klaus' party and it has just kicked into full swing. Even now, he can see a few vampires feeding from the waitresses in the shadowy shade of the curtains. He has no doubt that, by the end of the night, they will be fucking them as well.

The mask does not impair his vampire sight but he is having a hard time finding Caroline. Swearing to himself, he swings around and cranes his neck to try to see her.

"Looking for someone?"

He turns around and there she is. Her mask, like his is half-white, half-black but the eyeholes of hers are accented by silver glitter and rhinestones shine from the edges of the mask. He can' help but notice how her eyes shine, how she seems to shine even in the dim lighting. The dress she is wearing is the exact same shade of blue as her eyes. It flutters around her legs, giving the impression that she is floating. Her golden hair is curled into ringlets that fall tantalisingly around her face and down her back.

At that moment, to Klaus, she has never looked more beautiful. Until she removes her mask.

"I know you're freaking out right now," she says with a calm smile, "but you need to smile. We're at a party. If you look too serious, people will wonder what's going on."

Klaus automatically breaks into a bright smile. "What's going on is that I'm going to die tonight, right love?" he says, with an angry edge to his voice.

Caroline scans the room. "If we're lucky."

The guests have just started arriving and Caroline spots Thierry. He would be there early. Probably to scope the place out and report back to Marcel before his royal Highness deigns to make an appearance. She grabs him and pulls him into one of the bedrooms. Before she can get a word out, he pins her to a wall, kissing her deeply, murmuring some gibberish in between kisses about how he missed her and how could she just disappear on him like that and how he's gonna have to punish her later, heh-heh.