LOVE ²

5 ⋆ fruit of the poisoned tree

"I still don't think this was a good idea," Alexandra paced around a cabin, back in her regular clothes, a cardigan, t-shirt and leggings, and rid of the leather gloves and tight jeans. She stopped and looked at the older woman, hoping for some words of comfort, to tell her that it would be okay, that the teenager passed out on the couch would wake up soon enough and Marcel's vampires wouldn't come murder the lot of them.

But Jamani only gave her granddaughter a look of slight disappointment, "You want this as much as I do, this was the only way. You've been watching her, you've said it yourself, she is the spitting image of Malika. And her mother was forever stubborn, I imagine she's the same."

And just as the two pairs of eyes landed back on the girl, they heard her groan and a quiet, "Va te faire foutre." Both women looked bewildered by her foul mouth, while Annabel just stared daggers at her captors.

She flinched when the kidnapper stood up, but Alexandra said, "We're not here to hurt you. Here, I made you some soup. I could smell the booze, figured you'd need something to help with the hangover. It has chamomile and turmeric-"

"Stop," Annabel ordered the girl walking toward her, just barely able to push herself into an upright position.

She obeyed, setting the bowl down on the coffee table. "You don't remember me, do you?"

Annabel gave the woman an odd look, confused how someone with such a naturally intimidating stature could possibly speak with such frailty in her voice. "Should I?" she finally asked, entertaining what would no doubt be a load of bull coming out of the stranger's mouth.

When Alexandra saw the younger girl rub her tired eyes and turn away from the blaring sun, she said, "That soup will help your head. It was Malika's recipe."

Annabel's eyes turn cold, while Alexandra, who was never one to cower at anything or anyone, felt her self preservation instincts come in, slight worry and regret seeing the teenager's pained, bloodthirsty eyes.

Annabel then looked to the other stranger, an old woman. Her skin was sepia, not anything like Alexandra's cool, pale complexion. But somehow they still looked the same. Something about them, maybe their eyes, maybe their shared look of apprehension and love, Annabel didn't know.

Of course, Jamani was thinking the same thing looking at Annabel and Alexandra. While they had always looked similar in the few photos they had together, she could see so much more clearly now her daughter, Malika, in each of them.

"I'm sorry for kidnapping you," Alexandra spoke, regaining Annabel's attention from the death glare on her grandmother.

"Oh, yeah, don't mention it," she seethed back. "Kidnapping is, like, my favorite method of fucking with someone's life."

Alexandra had been planning what to say for a while, months now, since she first found Annabel in Mystic Falls. She had known what to say, had a plan for what to do, and yet in this moment, seeing the hostility of the girl before her, she had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

"Can you just tell me who you are and what you want so we can get on with this and I can go home?" she said, exasperation in her truthful voice. But the anger that was plastered to her face started to dissipate when she saw a new presence by the door.

Yes, Jamani had planned it this way, but she knew Malika well enough to know she had never been capable of being angry with a child, and her daughter wasn't, either. "Layla," Alexandra greeted the young girl walking in. "Did you bring what I asked for?"

The girl nodded, wondrously looking back at the stranger whose eyes were transfixed in her direction. She bravely walked up to the older girl and handed her a journal. "Here you go," she said.