Any Dream Will Do | Hale - TVD/TO/TW [2]

33 | Perfect Tomb

As Lexi parks the car by the edge of the Beacon Hills Preserve, she sighs at the sound of her phone ringing. Bailey coos in the car seat behind her, laughing at the way her fingers move. Lexi smiles in the mirror as the line picks up. "Hello, brother," she says.

"Alexis," Elijah greets. "I've been expecting a call."

"Mikael's found me," she says, bitterness coating her tongue. "I hear you've been in India. Can I meet you there?"

"Actually, I've come to America," he replies. "I heard news of Mikael and came to get you. I am currently in California, about an hour north of you, I believe."

Lexi pauses, her expression going slack. "You came for us?" She asks, though her voice holds no conviction.

"Of course."

Shaking her head, Lexi takes a deep breath. "Well, I can meet you somewhere. All I have left to do is make sure my compulsion worked. Then, Bailey and I will find you."

"Who is this Bailey? You know the consequences of bringing someone else into this."

Bailey chooses that moment to start babbling loudly.

"That's Bailey."

"Ah."

She can hear the disapproval in his voice, but she does not care. "It is either both of us or neither," she states. "I will not leave her. She's a child, Elijah."

Elijah sighs, his voice crackling over the line. "Fine, I will see you soon."

She hangs up the phone before she steps out of the car. The instant the air hits her face, smoke engulfs her senses. Coughing as she shuts the door behind her, Lexi glances back at Bailey. "Stay here, darling. I'll be two minutes."

It only takes Lexi five steps to hear the screaming. That is when she takes off in a sprint. Smoke hangs low in the forest as she nears the house; when she sees flames flickering up from the foundation, Lexi screams. "Talia!" Her voice fights against the crackling fire. "Peter! Derek!"

She races into the house.

"I'm not doing this," Peter snaps at the rest of the pack. "I'm not living this again." He steps back, almost cowering behind the large trees. He can remember the feeling, the screaming, the burning of flesh.

Lexi's voice echoes through the air. "Cora, run! Go as far as you can and don't look back!"

A small child races out the front door of the house, her shirt tattered and her hair lopsided. Ash covers her face as she sprints past the invisible group into the deep thicket of forest awaiting her with only one tattered shoe on her foot.

With a body leaning against her, Lexi stumbles out of the flaming house, both tumbling down the porch stairs and onto the moist soil. The body lying next to her is barely recognizable as burns cover his entire body; the pack does not need to recognize who it is to know who lies before them. Lexi pushes herself up before laying her head against his chest.

"One minute, Peter," she says as she gets to her feet. "Hang on—"

She shouts when the roof of the house collapses on itself. Dust and raw heat explode outwards, knocking Lexi back to the ground as debris covers the entrance to the house. Lexi curses when she sees the destroyed threshold before she scrambles to her feet and races around the house.

Only Derek follows her, ignoring Peter's shouting.

Lexi drops to her knees before the barred window close to the ground. The glass has smashed to pieces but Lexi ignores the shards biting into her palms as she grabs the bars and pulls. Straining her muscles, Derek watches as he veins pop from her skin, her jaw clenched so hard that her teeth grind together, but the bars do not move.