{2.01 | I'll Never Give Up Hope | part two}
June
"One month, Alaric. One month! She's been back--alive-- and you didn't think to tell me?!"
"I told you. It's complicated."
Complicated. That was what life had become for a lucky few.
With May coming to an end, the encroaching summer meant freedom for the students of the Salvatore school, and none of them had to worry about any monsters.
Or, at least, that's what they believed.
Alaric Saltzman believed differently. Despite the destruction of Malivore, he knew another monster would come for them, eventually. He'd seen with his own two eyes the dangers of the Hellhound, of the atrocities it was capable of, and he thought Bonnie Bennett would agree.
"Complicated." She pointed a finger at him, brown eyes narrowing into daggers. "She's a teenage girl. They're always complicated, and you know what makes them more complicated? Former headmasters attempting to do damage control on her for something she can't help."
He was very wrong.
Bonnie showed up earlier that day, after the rest of the students not spending their summer on campus left, and while she was happy to see the twins, she was not happy to see her former friend, especially when she realized exactly what he'd been hiding from her.
Even before Cedric and Emilia died, a line was drawn between Alaric and Bonnie. She loved his daughters, she loved Caroline, but the friendship between the former headmaster and the Bennett witch was over.
"The less people who knew the better," Alaric attempted to reason. "You and I both know exactly what would've happened if word got out that a werewolf came back from the dead."
"Word got out the moment Elara, two weeks after she died, emerged from her grave and showed up at the school."
"I was trying to contain that..."
"Well, you absolutely failed. Caroline knew before I did, and she's halfway across the world. I'm right here, Alaric!"
Alaric swallowed. "Her coming back isn't a good thing. It brings too many questions, questions that this school cannot afford to handle."
"Because an interrogation is your biggest problem-"
"-no, she is-"
Bonnie held up a hand, cutting off the former headmaster. With a knowing look, she looked towards the double-doors, and she twisted her wrist. The door unlocked with a click, swinging open to reveal the very person they had been arguing about.
Elara, the expert she was, showed no reaction, her fist raised as if she had been about to knock. She paused, glancing between the two.
"Am I interrupting something?" she asked (although she knew she was. She could hear their arguing from across campus).
"Not at all," Bonnie answered, offering her a smile. Elara didn't return it.
"Right." Elara nodded. Her expression was blank, and she held herself up straight, but Bonnie could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
"What are you doing here, Elara?" Alaric asked.
"Josie sent me," she answered nonchalantly, earning a confused look from Alaric. "Yeah, we're sort of friends again. I know, a shocker that she 'forgot' to tell you. Anyways," --Elara took a deep breath-- "she heard you were here and wanted to talk to you."
Slowly, Alaric nodded. Josie had kept to her word. She wasn't his little spy, anymore, and Elara seemed like she was starting to trust her, again.
Plus, Felix put in several good words for her. For whatever reason he'd taken a liking to the twin.
Alaric pushed himself off the desk, making sure to look at Bonnie. "We will speak later."
Bonnie didn't respond as he left the office.
Elara stifled a yawn in the back of her hand before she walked over to the desk and dropped into the big, leather chair. She crossed her legs, propping them up on the desk with a newfound attitude. "So," she began, watching Bonnie cautiously, "what are you doing here? Aside from berating Ol' Ricky."
Ricky. Bonnie didn't stop the small smile fighting its way onto her lips at the nickname, and to hear it from Elara, no less. Alaric hated the nickname; he had hated it for years.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were fond of Dr. Saltzman."
"Good thing you know better," she remarked. "I am fond of his whiskey taste, though." And as if to emphasize her point, she reached under the desk, pushed against a panel, and pulled out a half-empty, amber-colored bottle with a black label.
Bonnie's eyes danced between the seventeen-year-old and the bottle. Considering her own past, she had no place to talk about underage drinking, but the sight did worry her. "Isn't it a little early in the day to be drinking?"
With a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes, she answered, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere, and don't worry, it doesn't affect me. Now, again, what are you doing here?"
"Well, I heard that you were back," Bonnie said. She sat down in one of the armchairs across from the desk. "I wanted to check on you, see how you were doing--"
"--Great," Elara interrupted. She reached behind her to grab a glass from the table in front of the window. "I'm doing just fine. Alaric has been leaving me alone, which is great, and I came back from the dead as a literal monster, which is also great."
"Pretty sure we have different definitions of great," Bonnie muttered.
"I am okay, Bonnie. I'm completely fine."
"It's okay not to be. You've been through a lot."
Elara scoffed, pouring the amber liquid into the glass. "Haven't we all?"
"Not like you have. You- you died, Elara."
It was just like before when she first got there. People told her everything would be okay, that she would survive through her grief, but they had all been wrong.
Elara knocked back the drink without hesitation. "Right, so I should be grateful to still be here. Thanks for the advice, Bonnie. I'll take it to heart."
Bonnie, unable to stop her, watched Elara rise to her feet, keeping hold of the whiskey bottle with a white-knuckle grip. Her head turned to the side as if to listen to a person at her side, and for the first time, Bonnie recognized the emotion behind Elara's eyes. The feeling the teenager was trying so hard to hide.
Fear.
"I'm fine."
~-~-~
The next time Bonnie visited, she found Elara in the gym.
And she was fine.
She was totally fine. She was alive, her brother was back, and she finally figured out what she was.
Except her whole body hurt and felt like her organs were trying to escape through her skin, her emotions were as bipolar as weather in the south, and her mind was literally stuck between two places. She died, yes, but she came back.
And then had to crawl out of her own grave. With bare hands. And she kept seeing and hearing her dead father and memories that weren't hers.
Okay, maybe she wasn't completely fine, but she was dealing with it. Really, she was.
Her fist slammed into the punching bag, and for the third time that day, it broke from its chain with a loud snap, landing on the other side of the gym and rolling to a stop. Elara huffed loudly and pushed the stray hairs out of her face.
Adjusting to her new strength was challenging, to say the least. It was like when she first transitioned. Except she didn't have to kill anyone she loved, she just-
Died.
"You sure know how to ruin your own train of thought, don't you?"
Slowly, she inhaled, letting her lungs fill up all the way before pushing it all out. She was fine. She was fine, and she wasn't going to allow herself to have another anxiety attack.
Especially since Cedric was watching.
"I'm starting to think that's something I got from you," she grumbled. Elara stepped away from where the bag had been, rubbing at her bloodied knuckles.
Cedric chuckled from his spot on the bleachers. "Probably. You are my daughter, after all."
"Unfortunately."
"Hey! I have- had some good traits."
"Right," Elara sighed, wiping off her sweaty hands on the red gym towel. "Like a short temper and a terrible sense of humor."
Cedric smiled sadly. "You would've loved my bad jokes."
Her eyes flickered between Cedric, who still wore the same sweatshirt and pants from when she saw him the first time in her head, and the bloodied towel in her grasp. Truthfully, she didn't know how to feel about being able to see him, or even talk to him. It wasn't like how Bonnie had told her about being able to talk with spirits. This felt too real.
Elara rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
"I'm serious. From what I've seen, you think bad puns are funnyâoh! And you love dad jokes, which I happen- happened to be an expert at."
"Okay," she uttered. She felt it coming. She felt the heat, the anger, seeping throughout her entire being. Unstoppable and... unexplainable. "You've talked about your bad humor enough."
"I have been told that my comedic timing is excellentâ"
And it didn't take much more for it to burst.
"Shut up!" she roared, hurling the towel at her father with full force. "Shut up! Just stop talking!"
It simply went through him.
Cedric looked down at where the towel had "hit" before looking back up at his child. Sweat glistened across her forehead, her shoulders moved up and down with each breath, and he saw the unmistakable orange glow of her eyes.
She gritted her teeth, taking a deep, shaky breath.
A moment passed before she closed her eyes, her body shrinking in on itself. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"I know, baby," Cedric said, appearing right in front of her. This hadn't been her first outburst with him. In fact, it wasâroughlyâher tenth, and that wasn't even counting May.
She fell onto her knees, burying her face in her hands. Her emotions were all over the place, truthfully. One minute she felt nothing. She could sit in peace, forgetting about the weight on her shoulders. The next she felt absolute anger towards the first thing she laid her eyes on, and she would be damned if that was ever Felix or Josie.
Despite their openness with her, she wasn't doing the same, and she thought she was doing a good job at hiding it.
"Talk to me," Cedric said.
Elara shook her head. She didn't feel compelled to speak about her feelings anymore.
"Kiddo," Cedric began. His hand rested on her shoulder, and like before, Elara barely felt it, but she still felt it. Cedric was much more than a spirit. "You cannot bottle it up, anymore. I understand that you've learned a lot about the Hellhound in such a short amount of time, but you mustn't do it alone. It's eating away at you. This anger, this sadness-"
"I'm not sad," Elara interrupted, removing her hands from her face. "I'm not upset about anything. I'm fine, y'know, with the fact that I died. I'm fine knowing that my foster brother is back as a vampire."
Cedric lifted a curious brow. "Are you?"
"Yes, I'm totally fine with it. Felix is alive, a little different, but he's alive. And he's here."
"...so instead of jumping at every opportunity to be around him and finally be honest with another person about your thoughts, you choose to push him away and treat him like everyone else?"
Her jaw clenched, and the orange glow flashed over her eyes again.
"You're regressing."
"I'm being careful!" She jerked away from him, rising to her feet. "I'm- I'm being careful, and I'm protecting them."
"From yourself?"
She jabbed a finger at him, and the desperate look in her eyes answered his question. "You out of everyone else in this goddamned world should understand that."
"Correct you are, Elara, but you must learn from my mistakes. The longer you keep it secret, the harder it becomes to share, and the Hellhound is not something that should be unknown. I know you're afraidâ"
"I'm not! Quit telling me how I feel!" She turned her back to him, shoulders heaving with each breath. "I'm not upset, I'm not afraid. I'm fine."
Elara left the gym without another word. Cedric watched her, a sigh leaving his lips. She certainly inherited his stubbornness.
And with furrowed brows, Bonnie Bennett watched with confusion as Elara ran away from an argument with herself.
~-~-~
The day of the full moon, Elara made several mistakes, and her worst ended in death.
She spent the morning in town while Josie and Felix met with Alaric at the Grille. She walked around town, eventually sitting in the park. Bonnie had called her the night before, telling her that she was going to be out of town, but that she would be within reach if Elara needed anything.
Elara wasn't even sure why she bothered. She was a lost cause, a soul stuck between two places, yet Bonnie kept trying.
Cedric told her when she first came back that since she transitioned into the Hellhound, she wasn't bound to the full moon anymore, so they didn't have to worry about her shifting uncontrollably. The Hellhound was far more than just a werewolf, and nature couldn't contain it.
While sitting on the bench--the bench that she knew she should never have stopped at--dedicated to one of the town's former sheriffs, another person decided to join her. He was tall and burly, his beard long yet well kept, and there was a set look in his eyes that Elara didn't like.
"I know this is a public bench and all, but to sit and stare at a teenage girl is very creepy," Elara said, closing the leather journal she'd been reading.
The man chuckled. "That would only matter if you were just a teenage girl."
She lifted a brow, feigning ignorance. "Again, really not leaning away from the creep factor."
"Where are the rest of you?" He tilted his head to the side, and for the first time, she noticed the claw shaped scar across his eye. This was no ordinary man. He was a stranger to Mystic Falls, and if there was one thing she remembered from Cedric's life, it was that strangers were rarely friends to the town.
"Oh, you mean other teenagers that you can stalk. That's not something I feel keen to share."
His dark eyes narrowed. "You monsters are always so difficult."
She rose to her feet, watching his hand twitch towards the holster on his side. "And what monster would that be?"
He practically spit out the word. "Wolf."
"Elara!"
Both of their heads snapped towards the voice. From where he was approaching, Felix waved at Elara, then involuntarily scrunched his nose at the sight of the weird man.
Elara glanced between him and the man, who was now watching Felix with intrigue.
She couldn't stop herself.
"If you even think about it, I'll show you what kind of monster I am."
The man simply grinned up at her.
Ignoring him, Elara intercepted Felix before he could get any closer to the man. She grabbed him by the elbow, pushing him back the way he came. The man must've been what Bonnie called a hunter, and judging by the notches on his belt, he was a good one.
"Who's that?" he asked, and Elara just shook her head.
They made their way back towards the school, taking the scenic route. Elara couldn't shake the feeling that they were being followed, and when she looked back on it, she knew that was another mistake she had made.
"Crap," Felix uttered. "I left my jacket at the Grille. I'll be right back!"
He vamp-sped away before she could even stop him. Again, another mistake.
She couldn't stay in the same spot, not while a hunter was after her, but what if he found Felix? What if he caught Felix first?
Elara knew what she had to do. What the Hellhound would want her to do.
Protect them. No matter what.
It didn't take her long to find the hunter. He was sloppy and careless. For such a seasoned hunter, he sucked at hiding. With his pistol in hand, he walked through the trees, never looking back.
And that was his final mistake.
Felix had been honest with Elara. It took him less than five minutes to make it back to the woods. His vamp-speed was very handy, and he had figured out how to use it to its best efficiency. He sped to a stop where he'd left her, remembering the big tree with the low hanging branch, but he didn't see her.
He scanned the woods quickly, zipping from place to place, but he couldn't find her until he smelled the blood.
His nature compelled him to follow it. The sweet, sweet scent of human blood was impossible to ignore. He expected to find a hiker, someone who had fallen and perished. The perished part was right.
When he came to the gruesome scene, a gasp escaped him. Elara stood over the body of the man from before, what looked like his heart in her hand. His arm was torn off, his leg was broken, and his chest had been ripped open.
Elara's orange eyes slowly lifted from the corpse, landing on Felix. The grin on her lips fell, the heartâstill beatingâtumbled to the ground, and Elara frantically wiped away the blood from her mouth.
Felix stepped back from them, his own hand covering his mouth in shock. His eyes were wider than Elara had ever seen before. He had hurt people before by accident. The moment he learned about his nature, he did everything he could to stop himself from becoming a killer, even learning how to feed without killing. He had never killed anyone.
Felix couldn't believe it. He couldn't. The Elara he knew would've never tried to kill someone, but Alaric was right. She was the Hellhound.
In less than five minutes, the Hellhound hadn't just killed a man.
She tortured him.
~-~-~
The Olde Mill was, undoubtedly, Elara's favorite place to go at night. For as long as she'd lived, Elara had trouble sleeping. Insomnia wasn't what she would call it. She tossed and turned, her mind moving a mile a minute, and she could never get comfortable enough. Falling asleep meant feeling safe.
She couldn't remember why she was able to before. Not exactly.
Memories were a funny thing, Elara realized. They were images of the past, videos of moments lost to time, and they could be tampered with. Elara knew she didn't have the best memory. She forgot a lot of things in her life--some willingly-- but lately, it seemed like some things were just unforgettable.
A scream sounded from the laptop's speakers, and Elara rolled her eyes.
"That was so fake," she grumbled, shoving a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
From her side, her friend spoke. "It's acting, El," she pointed out, lifting her head from Elara's shoulder. "It's not always realistic."
"Well, duh. The actor is actually pretty good. I meant the character is faking it."
They sat against the headboard of the other bed in Elara's old room, leaning against a pile of pillows and sharing a blanket with the laptop at the edge of the bed. The position wasn't the comfiest, but they made up for it by laying on each other.
Which, strangely enough, Elara really enjoyed.
"What?"
"She's the killer."
"No, she isn't." A gruesome scene played out before them on the screen. The character was being chased down an alleyway, a shadowy figure behind her. She couldn't escape as the figure caught up and drove a knife into her back. "See? She's dead. You can't be the bad guy when you're dead."
"Nope. Totally pretending."
"We just watched her die."
"And I'm still ninety percent sure she's the killer."
Her friend lifted a brow. "Wanna bet?"
Elara sat up a little straighter, smiling. "You know I like to gamble."
"Right," the person began, tapping her fingers against the blanket. Blue eyes bore into Elara. They weren't sharp or narrow like how many people looked at her. They were soft and relaxed. "If I win... you will let me do your makeup one day."
Elara couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Of all things you could possibly get, you want the chance to do my makeup?"
Surprisingly, her friend looked away, a gentle blush reaching her ears. "Maybe."
"Okay, and if I win, you will do my math homework for a week."
"Deal."
The movie continued, and neither girl really jumped at the scares. Their lives were a lot scarier than a slasher film. Every now and then, Elara felt a pair of eyes on her, watching her reactions instead of the movie, but when she turned her head, the eyes returned to the movie.
"Well, you were right," her friend said as the credits rolled. "She was the killer."
Elara grinned, leaning back and placing her hands behind her head. "I know. I looked it up before we started."
A mix of a scoff and a laugh came from her friend. "That's cheating."
"You do the same thing when you start a season of Hell's Kitchen."
"That's different than this."
"Nuh uh."
"Nuh uh," her friend mocked, and Elara wasn't upset by it. She just laughed.
Elara let out a sigh, leaning back against the tree. A sheet had been set up not too far from where she sat. There were nights she wasn't alone at the Mill, where Landon would set up a projector and watch a movie with wolf-Rafael, and maybe that was what stirred the memory for the girl. Landon had been at the Mill the night before, doing just that. Watching a movie with his friend.
Surprisingly, he invited her, but she declined.
The crunching of leaves caught her attention, reminding her that she wasn't in her dorm. The steps grew closer and closer, but Elara didn't tense. As far as she was concerned, she was the scariest thing in the woods.
A large, black wolf stepped into view, its head bowed and its eyes watching her carefully. He circled her, sniffing the air, then he laid down near her, a tired huff escaping him.
"You, too, huh?" she muttered.
Ever since TRIAD invaded the school, Rafael had been stuck in his wolf form. Elara knew that Landon was looking into it, spending several nights in the library surrounded by books, but he had yet to find a solution. Whatever happened to Rafael was beyond their knowledge.
But Elara knew someone would figure it out. Rafael was one of them.
Them. Elara grimaced at the thought. Since when had "them" included her?
She reached out a hand, making sure Rafael saw it before she gently brushed it against his head. Whenever she visited the Mill, Rafael sought her out. Some nights she would stay in the building, but Rafael seemed to prefer it when she was on the ground. A part of her thought it was the Hellhound, that Rafael sensed the creature. Another part of her thought it was because he knew it was her.
"The Hellhound part," she answered. "But at least that means you're finding some comfort, bud."
Her eyes drifted back up to the sky, settling on the full moon. She remembered the terror in her brother's eye when he saw her earlier that day. She remembered the frantic phone call to Alaric and the distance he made between them. She remembered Alaric's reaction, Josie's reaction... Felix's reaction. Even without directly saying anything she knew they were afraid of herâof what she could do.
And without a shadow of a doubt, she knew they weren't alone in that fear.
~-~-~
The last night of June, Elara made a decision.
Swimming wasn't something she had ever wanted to do. The first time she tried was when she was eight.
Elara remembered it in pieces. It had been a pool party hosted by one of the families in the neighborhood. All the kids had been invited, and Elara's second round of foster parents, who were still adjusting to having a child, thought it would be a good idea.
How was an eight-year-old supposed to say no to that? They arrived early, she remembered, and left early. The middle part was fuzzy, but Elara remembered the pool. It was decently sized, shaped like an oval, with a light blue lining.
She had been keeping to herself, quietly watching the other kids jumping in and out, then the next thing she remembered was the water. It surrounded her, pushed her down further and further until the light was barely visible. She had tried to breathe in the water, flailing and screaming, but nothing worked. Elara couldn't swim.
Who saved her was forgotten, but the fear was remembered.
Yet, when Elara sat on the edge of the dock, the weighted chain in hand, the fear was forgotten. She wasn't scared of drowning anymore, no.
She was scared of living.