War is Love • Ava Rose Mikaelson

2. You Hung the Moon

Sometimes I think about the things that I've done and the things that I've been through that lead me here today. I question myself and I doubt myself, wondering if what I did was right. I start to think of things that I could have done differently. No matter the amount of other possibilities I come up with I can't change what I already did. The damage is already done.

The crescent pack had taken my daughter, claiming to protect her from Dahlia. I knew how strong Dahlia was and she would have massacred them all and taken Hope with or without me and Nik. I wanted Hope back. Us siding with Dahlia gave us a chance to have a bit of control of how things would end up. They didn't end great but we have our daughter back and I don't care that everyone in New Orleans hates us. Our goal was to get rid of Dahlia and we did. Now because of my decision to let Dahlia curse the Crescent pack they all might be dead.

Elijah and I were scouring the woods for the past three hours and nothing. I feels like as each minute that passes I'm becoming less hopeful. We should have found her by now and we haven't. The only possibility is that she's...

We're vampires. I'm a hybrid and Elijah is an original. With our powers together we should have already found her.

"Ileana!" I shouted desperately. "Ileana!"

"Ava..." Elijah calls to me in a soft voice as if he's telling me it's time to stop. "I don't think she's out here."

"Then where is she, Elijah?" I asked him. "If she's not in the bayou then where is she?"

"I don't know. We haven't found Jackson either. Maybe they got away."

"Or maybe they didn't." I told him as I started to get angry. "Or maybe they're dead like the rest of the wolves."

Elijah looks at me without saying a word, knowing that I'm right. I looked down at the ground and I noticed there's a pool of blood next to an animal trap and I could feel my heart drop to my stomach.

I can't be here.

I can't. This is not how things were supposed to end.

"Ava..." Elijah says as he gently grabs my arm and I shoved him away.

"No!" I shouted. "This is your fault! Why did you have to bring her into this?! Why did you help her with the stupid stupid plan they made? I knew what I was doing to protect Hope. To protect her. I never wanted her near any of this. Then you just had to be behind my back and for what? I never did anything to you for you to do this to me."

"I know." He said and he doesn't even bother to argue with me back.

"I knew the plan that you and Freya cooked up wouldn't have worked. Even Nik knew. We had a plan but everything got royally screwed up when you helped them take Hope. Hope was safe with me. It was never up to you or up to anyone to decide on how to protect my daughter. Only me and Nik. And Freya? You allowed her to use Hope to get to Dahlia."

"I never once allowed her to use my niece as bait." Elijah says as he starts to defend himself and that's a good thing. I need him to be angry at me.

"Why would let Jackson and Ileana and the rest of these damn wolves take Hope? Was I not enough to protect my daughter?"

"My brother was acting recklessly! You followed behind like a naive little girl!" He shouts at me and I laughed a little with a smile on my face.

"Oh yeah? I wonder why he was acting so 'reckless'." I said as I walked closer to him. "Maybe it was because everyone who he trusted just stabbed him in the back. You thought you knew better than him on how to protect his own daughter?"

"We were only trying to help." Elijah said as his tone drops to a calming one.

"The help would have been appreciated if you were on our side and not against us." I told him and started to walk away from him but at the last moment, I turned again. "As for the naive little girl following behind him? I trust him. He is my husband. Despite everything that we have ever been through I know he will always have our daughter's best interests. Sometimes things can be a little extreme but you have to get things one way or another."