His Hope (Only His Series: Book 2) *OLD VERSION*

Chapter 40

Klaus's P.O.V

I woke up after the witches snapped my neck. I got up and looked at Alex's body. I picked her up and sat on the floor, with her head in my lap.

"Alex, wake up. You need to wake up. Please just heal. Please come back to me." I said to her, but she didn't. "PLEASE!" I shouted and held her close to me. "Just wake up. Please." I whispered to her. I cried and screamed. I can't lose all of them, I won't.

Elijah bursted into the church and looked around desperately. "ALEX!" He yelled. He stopeds dead in his tracks, panting and out of breath, and struggled to look at us. I was near tears. Elijah approached us with a horrified look on his face.

"No. No, No. No..." He said and fell to his knees next to Alex and realized that she was dead.

"She's gone." I said numbed by the pain and loss of the woman I loved. Elijah started to cry, which caused me to start crying again as well. I looked up and saw he was bitten. "You've been bitten. Here." I bit into my wrist and offered it to Elijah. Elijah was stunned by my display of kindness, but fed off my blood and healed.

~

I laid Alex's body back onto the table at the sacristy while Elijah sat nearby. "How?" Elijah asked me, distraught. I didn't turn to him.

"I was bested." I said numbly. I turned to see Elijah's face go from an expression of horror to one of fury.

"You were bested. Huh." My brother said quietly. He walked toward me and stared at me furiously. "You were BESTED?" I looked at him in shock at his loss of temper, and Elijah shouted in exasperation. "My invincible brother!" Elijah shouted. I walked over to him weakly and looked Elijah in the eyes.

"They took the babies. But there's still time. We can save them." I said to him.

~

Elijah and I rushed around the cemetery in an attempt to figure out where the witches are keeping my children. "The tombs are empty. The grounds are deserted. They're NOT HERE!" Elijah said frantically.

"This is the only place they can be! We'll keep searching." I said to him. I won't let them hurt my children.

"They are NOT HERE, Niklaus! We're wasting time!" Elijah yelled at me and I turned to him.

"The Harvest was here! The Reaping was here! They're about to perform a ritual which will feed their ancestors for centuries! Ancestors who are buried HERE!" I explained to him. I stopped talking when I noticed an angel statue on top of one of the tombs and sighed in frustration. "This statue - we've passed by this three times, all whilst going in the same direction."

Elijah and I brainstorm silently as they examine the various tombs near us. "They've fabricated some kind of illusion." Elijah said to me.

I sped to the top of the tomb with the angel statue and tried to get a better view of the cemetery. When I looked out, there seem to be an infinite number of tombs, stretching out to make the cemetery appear to be endless, and my eyes widen in horror.

"That's one word for it."

~

Elijah and I are still walking through the maze illusion in the cemetery, using a stone like a piece of chalk in order to mark the tombs that we have passed. I sighed, "It's ingenious. I can see them, I can feel them, and yet they are not real." I said as I touched one of the tombs. Elijah was still visibly distraught as he ran his hands through his hair.

"There has to be a way. Even if we could just push through -"

"- What we need to do is focus." I said to him and Elijah turned to me.

"My only focus right now is those children and their safety, do you understand me?" Elijah said losing his temper with me. I knew he missed Alex as much as I did. My brother glared at me furiously as I stared at him in shock for his outburst. "This - all of this - this is the world that you created, Niklaus."

"Brother -"

"All of your scheming, the enemies that you have made every single day of your miserable life - what results did you expect? That your children would be born into a happy life? That the mother would be alive to know her son and daughter? That we could live and thrive as some - as some sort of family?" Elijah asked me.

"That was your fantasy, brother, not mine!" I said to him even though it wasn't the full truth. I did actually. I actually believe that I had found my happy ending with them. With Alex. But now she was gone and I wasn't about to lose my children either.

"NO, brother! This was our hope. This was our family's hope." Elijah shouted at me enraged by my words. He began to hyperventilate and stopped to try to catch his breath. "And now she is gone." His voice became softer. "Do you understand? I let this person in. I let her in!" He tried to hold back his tears, but ultimately failed. "I don't let people in! You knew this. You've taken her from me! I needed her, and you've broken me."

Elijah sat down on the stoop of one of the tombs and put his head in his hands. I quietly sat down next to him and gripped his arm in comfort. I knew he loved Alex. I could tell, from the moment I found out she was pregnant.

"You can tell your niece and nephew how much you cared for their mother when we save them." He looked up at me, his chin quivering, as I looked down. "But I let her in too." Elijah stood up and stood in front of me. "I loved Alex with everything I had." I walked to my brother. "Please, help me save them. I won't lose all three of them." I said and Elijah nodded before we continued looking.