Vulnerable § Klaus Mikaelson

63

Chapter 63: Back to Back

{D. K}

        "What's going on?" Dakota mewled in pain, her neck sore, and he guilty expression worn on Kol's face explained the rest. "You snapped my neck!"

        "It was the only way I could get you out before you killed me."

        Dakota stood, marching her way to a retreating Kol. "Going somewhere?" Rebekah stopped the interaction all together, blocking her brother from the chance to escape the two seemingly angry women. " I would if I were you. If Damon kills the hunter, Nik will not be pleased."

        "I told Nik I wouldn't touch the kid. I didn't."

        "Oh, how cleaver," Rebekah sarcastically praised. "I'm sure he'll really appreciate it." Kol stepped aside, confident Rebekah wasn't going to do anything but scold him for his choices, but as his back was turned, Rebekah pressed a dagger dipped in white oak ask to his back.

         Kol's voice was quiet, less cocky. "You'd really dagger me?"

         "If I do, Damon's compulsion ends and this is all over."

         The youngest brother was tense, and his heart hurt with betrayal. "Then you are no better than Niklaus. Daggering siblings when you disagree with them. Look at what this family has become. I mean, Elijah won't even show his face, he's so disgusted by out bickering. This cure has ruined us, even Dakota wants it."

         Rebekah looked back at her, not knowing she too wanted to cure; a strong competitor. "This family was ruined long before we knew about the cure."

         Dakota saw it before Rebekah, from where she stood she could see Kol subtly pulling this white oak from his sleeve, gripping it—a weapon far more powerful than a dagger, and held it up to Rebekah. "I won't let you raise Silas."

         It was now, when Dakota took action, she stood between the siblings, body turned in such a way that she could look at both with the simple flick of her eyes. "You two are so foolish. So blinded by your wants that you'd kill each other. Yes, I want the cure, but you don't see me putting stakes to people hearts. That's not the right way to do it. Neither is snapping people's necks, and compelling people to kill each other."

          "All things you've done before," Kol snapped hostilely, and his words were true.

          "I'm not denying it, but you were going to kill each other, your own family."

          Kol scoffed. "What do you know about family? You've been on your own since you've turned. Shawn doesn't talk to you, everyone else is dead. You don't even have a family, so don't scold me about mine."

          Dakota was shocked by the words coming from his mouth, but she couldn't say that they hurt. Through the years, she learned to take the harsh comments until they stopped having effect on her, and the only thing she could now do, was run. "Burn in hell."

•

•

•

          "Are you okay?"

          Dakota leaned against the bar of her own home, a bottle of scotch beside her. "I've been around a while, Kol's words don't hurt me."

          "That's why you ran away?"

          "I didn't run," Dakota protested, drinking straight from the bottle. "—the conversation was over and I left quickly."

         Klaus teased his plump red lips with the tips of his fingers. "Sorry sweetheart, as much as I'd love to continue on about your dramatic exits, Kol is out running rampage with a white oak stake and my collection of daggers. I've concluded that Rebekah will have a spare, no doubt. Care to join me?"

         "Not particularly." The sun shone through the curtains, and Dakota stopped drinking before she made any irrational decisions. "—especially since she has company."

        "What company?"

        "Stefan's been sleeping here since the break-up with dopplebitch, now she's banging his brother. He needed an outlet, something to make her jealous, Rebekah was there and more than willing."

        Klaus' eyebrows clinched together. "How do you know all of this?"

        Dakota smiled teasingly at the man, eyes twinkling with mischief. "He took a page out of the revenge sex handbook. Rebekah's tried to kill Elena multiple times, the only person he could've had sex with that would've mattered enough to make Elena feel something towards him, was Rebekah."

        "You seem to know a lot for someone who doesn't make attachments to people."

        "I'm not making attachments to anyone," Dakota insists. "—I'm simply winning the war. in order to do so, you need to know what's happened on all sides."

        Klaus nodded. "Which would be what? Exactly."

        "You're not the only one who'll take drastic measures to get that cure."