113Chapter One: Damned If You Don't…
A/N: Welcome! This is a sequel to Run. I have no idea when I can write for this, so lets just treat this as a one-shot for now. I really just needed something you guys can alert to, so I don't have to announce it later on when I get time to post regularly. There's something iffy about posting an author note as a "chapter" so I'll delete "chapter 36" on Run later. I'm sure I'll get to tackle this story sooner than later. Thank you for being here, and for your patience.
I love writing in this little alternate universe, so hope you do as well!
Enjoy!
POV: Katherine in 2nd person
-x-x-x-
"Damned if I do, damned if I don't. So, be damned, I will."
-Eleanor Roosevelt (completely paraphrased)
The ringing brings you back.
It's shrill and piercing, vibrating through your ears and straight to your pounding head. The sound is accompanied by a pained groan that you quickly realize is yours.
Your eyes flutter open, blinking slow at the haze clouding them.
You breathe.
Your hand moves over shattered glass.
You're puzzled. You don't remember what brought you to this moment until, eventually, you've propped yourself up with your elbows and you see the wreckage that you're lying in.
The lights are busted, some flickering, while a tangle of wires in the corner sparks out electricity every so often.
Panic sets in when you see the litter of bodies lying across the dark outlines of a sideways bus.
You can hear the thumping of your heart in your ears, the loud thrum of blood pumping through your veins.
There's an injured cry at the other end of the bus, followed by another as you see someone sit up abruptly. The woman is holding her head as she exclaims loudly, "Help! Oh god, please—"
Without thinking, you push yourself up further, stopping abruptly at the sharp pain in your side.
You glance at it but your attention wanders to someone in your view.
"Elena?" you think, foregoing the pain before you say her name out loud. Your voice catches in your throat and you try to clear it, rubbing a hand on your neck. "Elena?"
It's not just her state of unconsciousness that has you alarmed; it's that even in this dimmed light you see that one side of her head is drenched in blood. It matts her hair red and drastically contrasts her paling skin.
She looks dead.
Your heart leaps and you blink, shaking away how this scene reminds you all too well of a picture you'd much rather forget, and a voice that plagues you.
Elena?
You swallow through a dry throat and tear your eyes away. Pushing yourself to sit, you clench your teeth at the movement.
"Elena, hey," you say the second time with a nudge to her shoulder—feeling that that's the safest place to do so without any sort of damage.
Her eyes shoot open and she screams. The sound reverberates through the metal walls of the bus and you flinch.
"Hey, shh, Elena! Relax, you're okay."
Her scream subsides with your coaxing and she blinks at you.
"Focus, it's Katherine. You're going to be okay."
As you say this, her face contorts as her mind catches up to the fact that she's hurt. You don't have to imagine much to know what she's feeling.
"What…" she lightly clears her throat, "What happened?"
"The bus," you say. "We were being transported, remember?"
She yelps as she tries to get up.
"Hey, whoa whoa whoa. Hold on. I think you dislocated your shoulder, and I don't know what else, but you need to take it slow."
She only whimpers and you suspect she doesn't even hear you.
You look up when you see some of the others begin to get on their feet. You squint as the few people who've gained their bearings and slipped out of their shackles, head for the front of the bus. They knock away the shattered windshield and hop out.
Other women call out to them but those who are able follow suit without looking back.
"Get back here!" Unlike the others this woman isn't begging for help with her restraints, or her broken leg. She shouts, and you realize, without clearly seeing her, that it's Grant.
She struggles to get up as she pulls out her shock stick, but someone twists it in her hand and turns the electric end onto the guard. Grant shouts before crumpling to the floor and the person who attacked her begins to leave.
It's hard to ignore the ongoing scene in front of you.
And you have nothing against Geraldine Grant—you don't know if she's passed out or dead, but, quite frankly, it's not your problem. Instead, your energy goes to trying to identify all the women getting up.
"Stay here," you tell Elena, as if she has much of choice.
You get up, the world spinning for a second, prompting you to hold onto the nearest suspended bus seat.
Your eyes scan the conscious women still on the ground, most unable to leave due to their restraints. You can't spot any familiar blonde heads, unconscious or otherwise, but the bus is long and you're only on one end.
There's the sound of wheels spinning against pavement outside and a loud bang.
The destroyed bus shakes suddenly, making you grip the seat, but you drop to your knees anyways.
A second later, a van parks itself in front of the bus, flooding the inside with its headlights.
You squint, struggling to look in that direction.
From the van, a silhouette gets out and clears the remaining glass from the windshield. You stop yourself from calling out for help when the figure that steps inside laughs at what they see.
"Gods, this poor thing looks like a broken kaleidoscope!" he exclaims.
Your heart leaps when your mixed-up brain pieces together whose voice that belongs to. It isn't the owner of the voice, per se, that makes your blood cold; it's the others that will inevitably follow. Like clockwork, someone else steps into the bus, passing the first intruder.
"Was this entirely necessary, brother?"
"Yes! Did you see how many times this thing rolled over before it stopped? It's a miracle all these women are still running out of here. Tough little things."
"You endangered our sister."
"While I do fancy the spectacle, Elijah's right," another person joins them, strolling in like it's just another day at the park. "One roll would've sufficed."
"Help...me..." a woman at the front reaches out and your hands go to your ears as a gun shot echoes through the bus, threatening to deafen you.
"Kol!" Elijah reprimands, irritated. "We aren't to kill anyone. Able prisoners running away –"
"She didn't look very able."
Klaus snickers but Elijah continues firmly, unamused, "—are a welcome distraction for the authorities. We don't need anything pointing back to us."
"Buzzkill," Kol sighs sharply. "If my assistance isn't needed then I'll be waiting outside. Hurry then, will you?"
From their dark figures, you can see Klaus turn to his brother with an amused grin, "Surely, overturning a bus was bound to kill a few people."
"Yes. But death from an accident is a misfortune. A massacre with a gun, on the other hand, is not. No escaping prisoner would risk recapture by killing everyone in here if instead, they could run as far as they can."
Klaus jerks his head to one side as if to agree.
"And you needn't encourage him."
"What? Kol? I didn't even laugh out loud."
There's a pause where you imagine the elder of the two, scolding him with a look.
"Alright, I'm sorry," Klaus concedes, begrudgingly. "Well, shall we finish this then? Wouldn't want to come face to face with that Lockwood woman."
The only other guard that was awake is put down by his own weapon, along with three other prisoners alert enough to identify them if they end up with the authorities. Two of them had begged to be let out of their chains, each swearing up and down their mother's graves that they would not speak a word of their presence with anyone.
The two Mikaelsons don't use any guns, just blunt force and tasers.
You figure this way; the blame can be placed on escaping prisoners. Maybe someone settling a grudge, or maybe the injuries could pass as cause of death from the crash.
As they get closer, you realize they'll inevitably come face to face with you.
"Elijah," you call, pulling yourself to your feet and stepping out from behind the bus seat.
"Katherine," the man in question responds, surprise only showing in his tone of voice.
"I'll be damned," Klaus laughs, pointing a bloodied hand to you. "And here I thought you'd be the first one out of here."
"Shut up, Klaus," you tell him off, turning to the elder Mikaelson instead. "You caused this crash? What do you think you're doing?"
"Oh, do you hear that, brother?" Klaus looks to Elijah gleefully. "She's all bloodied and bruised, and yet, she believes she can make demands of us."
Elijah eyes you and then Klaus, his face neutral.
Instead of answering, his line of sight drops, scanning the number of people on the ground in the distance between you and them. His face lights up and he moves, swifter than his rigid posture suggests he can.
He bends down and examines someone.
You're suddenly anxious because you know who that is—the only person on this bus that Elijah Mikaelson would be excited to see—and you step forward.
"Niklaus, take Rebekah to the vehicle," Elijah instructs before you can make your way to them. There's too many people on the ground—in the way.
Klaus huffs but does as he's told. He wipes the hilt of the baton he'd been holding and drops it aside to unlock his sister's restraints, so he can lift the unconscious blonde up.
Somehow, you know she's okay.
"You can't take her."
Elijah steps in your way, "I beg to differ."
"You are the last people she would want to see! You really think after everything she'd want to wake up to any of you?"
"And what do you propose? Better her family than another prison ceiling. Or this," he gestures around the motionless bodies littering the ground. "This chaos."
This chaos. His voice echoes in your ears and the bus tilts for the briefest of moments—the slowest of moments—and rights itself before you even get the chance to adjust. There's an empty feeling in your stomach and your lips feel cold.
"We will not abandon Rebekah. Not again."
That statement angers you, but you know at the core, his intention is good.
If Rebekah was awake, she'd be yelling at him right now, but no matter what she wants, the promise of safety the Mikaelsons bring is too tempting to pass up.
"Take me with you."
Elijah tilts his head, "You ask for help from us now, yet you have, time and again, refused the same for us?"
"It's not the same and you know it."
"And nevertheless, it reaps the same reward."
He doesn't break eye contact and you realize he's absolutely, unapologetically serious.
"It's not just me," you argue. "My sister—"
"Your sister?" his eyes flicker over your shoulder and he must've seen Elena because they narrow. His way of showing shock.
"Katherine. Don't presume to garner any sympathy just because we once considered you family. We were the ones who extended an olive branch. You knew we would help you from Port Hill and you refused it. Had you chosen differently, this would've ended differently."
He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a gun.
"You can't leave us here, Elijah," you insist. "Please."
You don't shrink away. Despite his icy exterior now, you know he won't hurt you, and you're counting on his good nature not to simply abandon you and Elena. Deep down, you acknowledge that you've crossed more than a few lines with the Mikaelsons and there are some things even the reasonable Elijah won't forgive.
"Your uncle has proved relentless. He will no doubt think the first place you'll seek refuge is with us," he shakes his head. "Fortunately for you, he's mistaken."
"Yeah," you bite back. "Fortunately."
Shifting the gun and the keys Klaus had used, Elijah tosses both and you almost fail to catch either of them.
"First responders will be here soon," he turns around to leave. "Goodbye, Katherine."
You only glare after him because trying to follow is no use. You would never be able to catch up before they sped off and you need all the time you can get to leave before rescue comes.
"Who are those people?" Elena, who has propped herself up, asks you when you get back to her.
It's too bright for her to see anything and you're not sure what she could've heard from back here. Elena is fairly perceptive when she wants to be. She could probably piece together half the answers she asks for, even if you'd never confirm or deny her logical, often reasonable, conclusions.
You don't answer her question.
There are muffled voices outside, and car doors slam shut before the headlights turn away and the Mikaelsons speed off.
The bus is swiftly reduced once more to only the flickering lights.
"We need to go," you say, using the keys to unlock her cuffs.
Elena reaches a hand to her head, and she flinched at the contact. "Hey, don't do that," you warn, moving her hand away.
"Go? Who was that? And go where?"
"Anywhere but here. Come on."
You groan at the pain on your side as you help her to her feet.
By the time you're outside, you're practically dragging Elena.
The entire wreck made you pause for a second when you'd first stepped out. The two police cars that had been escorting the bus is either overturned against it or in the ditch on the side of the empty road. There are officers on the ground, some prisoners are scattered, all of whom are probably dead or unable to get up on their own.
You want to check if Caroline is around here somewhere. For your own sanity, you need to check if she is, but there's a stifled whimper beside your ear and you turn to Elena.
Her eyes are closed, with her dislocated arm tucked across her torso, gripping her blue jumpsuit.
She doesn't say anything; just leans onto you like she's confident that you know what you're doing. You realize, not for the first time, that she trusts you.
You swallow at the thought.
She shouldn't.
Glancing around only once more for your friend, you lead the way towards the woods. When someone comes, it'll be harder for them to find you in there.
Rescue shouldn't be far behind, and if not, someone bound to pass by will report the incident.
"Caroline has probably already left," you tell yourself because the alternative—your best friend being dead—is much worse than the thought of her abandoning the crash the first chance she got.
Like her, you aren't going to sit around and wait for the authorities to come.
You'd planned to escape anyhow, hadn't you?
And you know, like no other, that this window of opportunity is small.
You'll be damned if you don't take it.