Blue ▹ The Originals [2]

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
RESCUE MISSION

"When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching, they are your family."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     Henrik paid very little attention to his siblings as they feasted on an entire truck full of prisoners who had probably been transferring to another facility. He stayed by the car and tried to block out all the screaming. He had been pouring over a map the entire ride, though granted the ride hadn't been very long. They only lasted maybe an hour or so before his siblings had started complaining about their thirst. He and Freya stayed in the car as they fed, and while Freya was trying to find Klaus through a locator spell, Henrik was doing the same with Francis. He wasn't struggling like Freya, though. He was simply staring at the map in confusion, then going over and repeating the entire process of the spell, convinced that it wasn't working.

There was simply no way Francis was in the exact same spot he had been in five years ago, yet each time he did the spell, the same dot of blood landed on the same spot on the map, right over Lafayette Cemetery. Henrik sighed and tossed the talisman he was using off to the side. It clattered across the flat surface of the jeep trunk, bouncing against the back of the seats. He pressed his palms flat against the lining and bowed his head, releasing a frustrated sigh. He could feel that his magic wasn't at its strongest quite yet. It was coming back very, very slowly, and he was losing patience the more he had to wait.

He felt something wet drop from his nose the same time he heard footsteps against the gravel of the dirt road. He quickly reached up to wipe the blood away before Freya could see it. She was hovering enough as it was, on edge and constantly moving. The nervous energy surrounding her did nothing but make the rest of them anxious. He made sure to wipe his nose one more time before straightening and turning to face her. She was looking at the map with a frown.

"Anything?" she asked. Henrik immediately scowled.

"I don't understand," he snapped, turning back to the map and glaring at it. "It says he's in the exact same place that he was in five years ago. How is that possible? Surely Marcel would have moved him by now, or at least put him under a cloaking spell, but..." Dread filled his stomach then, his next breath coming out shaky and thin. "Freya, what if he's—" He couldn't say the word, tongue freezing in his mouth and something in his chest seizing in so much pain he suddenly couldn't breathe. He braced his hands on the edge of the trunk again and bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to get rid of the ball lodged in his throat.

He felt Freya gently touch his shoulder and didn't bother fighting the urge that rose inside of him. Henrik was long past that now, and he was tired of acting strong when he felt like he was crumbling to pieces. Releasing something akin to a breathless sob, he turned and dove into Freya's waiting arms, burying his face against her shoulder and gritting his teeth to keep himself from emitting another sound. The last thing he needed was for his siblings to hear him crying and crowd around him. They would mean well, but it would do nothing but make him more upset. Freya seemed to understand that, because she let out a low shush under her breath and held him tight against her.

"He's alive, Henrik," Freya murmured, squeezing him tighter, until it was hard for him to breath for a different reason. It made him focus on something else aside from the constant dread in his stomach, and the next breath he released was a little easier. "He wouldn't have appeared on the map at all if he wasn't alive. You have to listen to your head, okay? I know you're hurting, and I know it's hard, but you have to listen to your head and ignore what your heart is telling you." Unable to get a word out, Henrik nodded against her shoulder. She spent the next few minutes whispering theories to him, possibilities as to why Francis hadn't moved for five years. As soon as she mentioned Marcel's garden—a pretty name for the ugly practice of locking vampires in brick walls or inside cement and letting them desiccate for years and years—he felt himself calming down.