Dissipating Darkness [Klaroline]

Chapter 20: Night Terrors

I hold my breath as I stand outside of the guest room that I have let Caroline's mother occupy. Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes' words almost sting me as she vehemently spits them out.

"I want to go home! Now. I will not stay in this monster's house!"

"Mom—" Caroline's voice is soft and sweet.

"You are not my daughter. She's dead."

Caroline doesn't seem phased by her mother's cruel words.

"Mom, on the way over, you stated that you refuse to let 'disgusting, undead beings' into your home. So, we're not in your home." Caroline's voice stays sweet as she lets out a sigh. "But don't worry, as soon as you're able to be compelled, we'll get rid of this little hiccup."

Caroline didn't know it, but Liz had been drinking a little vervain in her coffee every morning. Now, we have to wait at least a week before we can wipe her memory of her own daughter being the thing that she hates the most.

The beast in me wants nothing more than to go into the spare bedroom, and muffle Liz's hatred with the thickest pillow I can find, but another part of me almost wonders what it's like to hate something instead of hating yourself, and for a moment, I find myself envying Liz. To be able to hate something because you see so much more bad in that thing than in yourself, that has to be a kind of paradise.

"I'll cook your favorite dinner, then we can eat together. How does that sound?"

I listen as Caroline's question is met with dead silence.

"Mom?" Caroline sighs as I hear her rise from the foot of her mom's bed. In my head, I can imagine Caroline reaching out to hold her mother's hand in a parting gesture; only to be met with a recoil.

"I'll be back soon." I finally hear the smile in Caroline's cheerful voice falter as she is now walking toward the door.

Her eyes meet mine as she closes the door behind her, and I see moisture immediately begin to fill the seas of blue. Before I know what's happening, Caroline's arms are wrapped around my body as her tears soak through the chest of my sweater. I softly pat her on the back as she shudders with sobs.

"It'll be alright, love. The sooner we can compel her to forget—"

Caroline's head lifts up immediately, and I brush my thumbs over her cheeks as she rests her hands on my chest.

"I don't want to have to compel her, Klaus. I want her to accept what I am on her own."

I take one look into her eyes and know that this is what she desperately wants. Unfortunately, she needs to hear the truth.

"Caroline, you know that my mother made me into what I am. So, what do you think she thought of her creation?" I let my hands fall from her face, only to grasp her hands into mine and rest them at our sides. I never want to go a moment without touching her.

"She accepted you and your siblings, right? I mean, she was the one to create you. All of you."

"My mother hated us her whole life. Her hatred was front and center even in her death. I never want you to experience anyone looking at you the way she looked at us; the way she looked at me. I don't know if it was because of me also having the werewolf gene, but it was like in her mind, she had already dug my grave and carved the stake that would put me in it." I don't dare tell Caroline I had never given my mother the chance.

"So is that why she isn't here now? She didn't want to be a vampire and live forever?"

Caroline's concern as to why my mother isn't alive makes my heart stutter with both love and fear. Love because she is concerned as to why my mother didn't choose to cheat death, and fear because she is treading too close as to why my mother died in the first place.