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chapter twenty-one from a cradle to a grave
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ELIJAH HAD BEEN too weak to run on his own, to search for Hayley as he hoped to find her which led to Esme allowing him to hang on her shoulders, ignoring the blood that oozed from his neck to drop onto her dark red shirt but it blended in with her shirt. She had managed to have skidded to a stop as she hovered outside the doors of St Anne's church which she had kicked open with use of her foot, the thud echoing through the place of God that didn't even make Klaus flinch as he laid at the foot of the altar. The night had been unexpected, where they hoped that things would've turned out differently than as it had.
Esme had been gifted without the bite of a werewolf as her vision wasn't as blurred as Elijah's was as they slowed at the end of the isle. Her brows arched as she wasn't so sure what she had seen and what she had smelt. Klaus didn't just sit at the foot of the altar alone, within his arms was Hayley's lifeless body, a line drawn at her throat with use of a dagger that left her blood oozing out, staining her clothes and the skin around her neck. Even though Elijah's vision had blurred, through the fogged vision he knew what he had seen and which had caused him to pull away from Esme's side to stumble down the church isle on his own.
The Browne's breath caught in her throat as she questioned what had happened within St Anne's church. She was slow behind Elijah who tried to keep himself upright by leaning against the pews that lead to the front to get a closer look of Hayley, who's life ended after giving birth to her daughter she had a second of holding. Esme's hand covered her mouth as tears begun to form in her eyes at the sight of the Marshall, who's bump had faded and who had died from the fatal cut to the throat, hand done by Monique Deveraux.
Elijah fell to his knees in disbelief as his head shook before his hand lifted to brush against the coldness of her cheek, to feel the lack of warmth from her death. His head bowed, the grief building up in his stomach and prepared to be unleashed with tears running down his cheek before Klaus had broken the silence. "She's gone." Esme yet grimaced as she allowed a tear to escape the brim of her eye and roll itself down her cheek which she allowed to drop onto the floor as soon as it had reached her chin where it had hung off of. Elijah had fallen onto his bottom in shock that ran through his body and which had led his brother to noticing the bites on either side of his neck. "You've been bitten." Klaus offered his wrist for Elijah to take after biting into his own flesh.
The vampire settled into the pew with her hands falling onto her knees with a shaky breath to try and comprehend Hayley's death. Loss was an ugly thing and as was death, Esme had always hated it but she lived around people dying. But she hated the fact that the baby was going to grow up without a mother, that she wasn't going to be able to receive the love only a mother could give. The witches had taken it all away from the baby girl as soon as she had been born. Esme's eyes lingered on Elijah who had been healed by his brother's blood and led him to placing Hayley gently against the altar and where the Browne observed the room around them. She questioned what had prevented Klaus from killing each of those witches. "H-How?" Esme's voice was shaky as she broke her silence and which had caused Klaus' eyes to pull from the ground.
