“And make it quick? That would be too easy, don’t you think?” he murmured, drumming his fingers against her shoulders, lest she forget who it was that stood behind her. No, her death would not be simple, nor blessedly quick. Not after she had made him wait. He would have her taste that exquisite torture herself before he sent her on her merry way to bigger and meaner things. Mainly his mother, may the gods grant her eternal misery should they still be casting about his family searching for ways to interfere. That much, at least, they owed him.
His mother, though, had him thinking. She had been too fond of trickery, and too fond of doppelgängers and their magic, truth be told, to be satisfied by the mere sacrifice of one at the right time or place. What was it then? Was it something the doppelgängers provided for her in the spirit world? Was there some form of energy they propagated with their death? Suddenly, his desire to kill Elena and thus hand her over to his mother, and with her all of the magic made possible by her very being, dissipated. He had been to hasty, as Elijah had always accused him of being.
But his impatience rebelled against his sudden change of heart. Centuries of waiting for his chance, his one shot at creating beings more like him, creating an army, an army with no choice but to be loyal, it was too seductive a lure. With one hand, his fingers danced upwards, coming to rest lightly over her neck, like a lover’s caress as he thought. “I wonder,” he murmured to himself, fingers still drumming to that same one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, over her windpipe with a whimsical, almost dreamy quality to them. He had waited this long, sure, but perhaps there was another way? A way to make the hybrids without granting his mother the boon of the doppelgänger she so clearly sought. Yes, it left Elena unpunished for her crime of survival, but that could be dealt with, and no doubt, with the threat he had left hanging over her head, survival itself would be enough of a punishment for now.
Yes, it would give him time to think. To consider carefully all avenues, to take a leaf from Elijah’s book, as it were. Until then, let his mother rot and let Elena quake in fear of what would come. They both deserved it. “You won’t die today, Ms. Gilbert,” he whispered in her ear, as he smoothed a loose lock of hair behind it, ever so gently. “And perhaps not even tomorrow. As for the day after that, I promise nothing. And I make no promises for Jeremy, or darling Jenna, or what’s that other one’s name? Mason? Michael?” Just then the blond-haired football extraordinaire wandered into sight below. “Ah yes, there he is. Matthew, isn’t it?” He ran his arm down from her shoulder until he gripped her hand by the wrist in front of her to see, clear as day. “Every death on my hands from now until you lay in the ground, soaks your hands as it does mine. Every failed hybrid, every human I drain, they’re all dedicated to you, now, Elena,” he murmured, his voice just barely audible now. He let her stare at the lines in her hand, wondering if she could see them coated in blood the way he so often saw his. It had been a long, long time since such an image had stirred horror in him, but he very much doubted she had the same wherewithal.
In the space of one of her ragged breaths, he was gone, leaving her to the bloody nightmares he hoped haunted her.
amandla
titsay
vaporwave
