STOLEN | THE ORIGINALS

3.7 | Goodbye, Sister. Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Friend

[ Chapter Thirty-Five ]

NOTHING SEEMED right. When Raylynn's eyes fluttered open, everything swirled around her in a hollow emptiness.

Raylynn found herself atop the soft duvet of hers and Klaus's bed in the Mikaelson Compound. She had no idea how she got there, or how long she had been asleep. Shadows encased the corners of the room as she sat up. Night had already fallen across the city.

Raylynn racked her brain for what happened. How did she get there? In her bed? What happened before then? She pushed herself up from the bed, ready to look for someone to tell her why she could not remember anything.

As soon as her bare feet touched the hardwood, scenes flashes in her mind. Raylynn stumbled, but she kept herself up right as they played out. An abandoned house, Klaus and Elijah amidst a fight, hail raining from a cloudless sky, and Hayley - bursting into flames.

A scream erupted from Raylynn's throat. Tears stung her eyes, before they fell down her cheeks in hot streams. She reached out as she began to fall, latching herself onto the nearest piece of furniture, which happened to be a circular table. The room spun as sobs chest through her chest. She could not breath. She could not think.

How the hell did this happen?

"Love?"

Raylynn lifted her blurred gaze to where Klaus rushed into the open doorway. Her tears continued to fall as her lungs refused to pull in air. Raylynn's hands slipped from the table, sending her toward the ground. Klaus sped forward and caught her before she could hit.

"She - she's gone. She - she's really - gone," Raylynn gasped into her husband's shoulder, clinging to him as if she would slip away. "No. No, no, no, no, no! HAYLEY!"

"I'm so sorry, love," Klaus muttered, running his hand up and down her back. "I am so sorry."

Raylynn did not answer. She could not answer. The only thing she could do was let herself cry and scream in Klaus's arms. For the life they loss. For the sister she would never see again.

_______

Raylynn failed to fall back asleep for the rest of the night. Instead of staying in her room, she made her way to Hayley's. Her eyes drifted over the vanity where multiple pictures were placed along the reflective glass. All of important moments in their lives. One of them held Ryan and Raylynn at the top of the tower at their castle in Scotland. Another of Hope and Ryan on the girl's eleventh birthday (cake smeared all over their faces). Several of them were of Hope, Hayley, and Ryan at parks, in the bayou, and one of the children and Mary at her lakeside cabin.

Raylynn did not know how to feel, or how to she was supposed to move on. For the last twenty-four years of her life, Hayley had always been at her side. Her shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, and voice of reason when Raylynn thought she could not go on. She was her rock, her savior, her best friend, and her sister.