B E T T E R M A N | KLAUS MIKAELSON

TWENTY-TWO

The first time that Rhine knew there was something different about her, it was a couple of days after the funeral. It had been before her grief-induced addiction to nicotine, before Elena had coaxed her away from a dangerous situation, it had been before all of the events leading up to Klaus.

It had been the beginning of everything.

The funeral had taken place pretty much straight away, only mere days after the two siblings had returned from what had meant to be a family vacation. Rhine had only just even begun to touch the tip of the iceberg on how deep her blackout had gone, having only just awoken from a short-lived coma.

She could remember it all so vividly, the tipping point.

It had pretty much followed immediately after the funeral, a day in which she had been smothered by friends and family who might have been just as heartbroken by the tragedy as her. Police had even tried to talk to them, tried to investigate what had happened, but had shortly ruled it to be a simple accident when they discovered the siblings' little memory of what occurred that day. With the evidence they had been able to obtain, their cause of death had been listed as a fateful car crash.

For days the brunette had been buried under covers of thick, swallowing blankets in an attempt to block out everyone's pitying stares. She had thought it worse, since she seemed to have been struck with amnesia, memories of anything after they got into the car on the way to their vacation had been wiped. Non-existent.

Adriel had finally convinced her to get out of her room, take a shower, eat some food.

Her back had been hunched over the oven at the time, electric rings glowing red as she turned the controls of the electric device. It had been a simple mistake really, or maybe a childish act, to try and feel something other than an empty void of nothingness. She was numb, and who was to tell her it was so wrong to try and test those boundaries?

Nimble fingers hovered over the ring, scorching waves emitting from the circumference. They pressed down, fingers widely-spread, with each tip touching the outer diameter of the circled heat. At first, Rhine had been convinced that she was in agony, that fire was spreading through her entire being, burning away her fragile skin and decimating the skin cells only to leave severe scarring.

But truly, she felt nothing.

Those first few seconds, of pain, were a distant memory, something her brain had pulled through from her memory to try and trigger a reflex, to try and hide the fact that in reality, she felt nothing.

Amber eyes sparked, and crackled, darting over the image in front of her.

Maybe I'm not actually touching it?

So she pressed down harder, hearing the squeaking of the delicate material under the pads of a thumb.

And still there was nothing.

Rhine had taken her hand away, turned it over, examined every particle of derma for any signs that she had ever even touched the electrifying fusillade. And just like her lack of pain, there was nothing. She found herself pressing down again, though this time her reaction differed slightly, there had still been no cries, no reflex telling her to pull away, no shortening of nerves. Nothing.

Warm-toned hands lit up, glowing and pulsing a dainty red. Embers of a flame danced across her skin, jumping from minuscule markings, to freckles, to moles, until they dove, backflipping into the pool of honeycomb.