[ BOOK THREE ]
Ryan Mikaelson has spent his entire life hearing stories about his family and their past. The infamous Original family. The villains of the supernatural world. His world. But now, it's his turn to make his own mark.
Now a student at...
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CHAPTER FORTY
You Can't Save Them All
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A LOW GROAN tore through Ryan's lips as his consciousness returned to his mind. Pain radiated across his skull, forcing him to squeeze his already closed eyes tighter together. He knew that he rested on a something hard and cold, but he failed to recognize what. His accelerated healing kicked in and caused the headache to fade, allowing him to pry his eyelids apart.
Ryan blinked up at a dingy, block ceiling tinged red by the lighting around the room. Was he on the floor? The question just brushed his thoughts when memories flashed behind his eyes.
The tiny bar in Mystic Falls, a taunting call from Kai, Josie kissing him before she spelled him unconscious and broke the Sandclock.
Ryan scrambled off the floor, snapping to where he remembered Josie fell moments before he was dragged into darkness. He expected to find the girl still there, fighting against the Black Magic that rushed back into her body, but all he saw were displaced tables and the remnants of the broken mora miserium.
"Josie?" Ryan called out, swiping his gaze across the empty bar. "Jo?"
"Yes."
Ryan whirled to the right when the familiar voice reached his ears. He almost sighed in relief until he laid eyes on what used to be Josie Saltzman. The person in front of him still looked like the girl. She had the same facial features, the same clothes, the same doe brown eyes. But what changed the most had been her once straight, brown hair that darkened to a pitch black and curled away from her face.
The Black Magic Josie from the vision.
Ryan swallowed when the darker version of Josie stood less than a foot from him. A cold, heavy feeling pooled in the pit of his stomach. The feeling he noticed moments before he, Alaric, and the twins were sucked into the 2018 Prison World. He now realized what it had tried to tell him.
Josie tilted her head as she met his gaze. Her own blank and emotionless. "You're awake. Good. We must go," she stated in calm, monotone voice, before she pivoted on her heel and started for the exit.
Ryan's eyes widened and hurried after her. "Go? Go where? Shouldn't we talk about what just happened? You broke the Sandclock. Are – are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Josie did not glance toward him as she shoved open the bar's exit.
Ryan winced when he stepped out of the building. The morning sun rose, illuminating the overcast in a bright blanket across the sky. How long had he been out? It was night when he followed Josie and Jade into the bar.
