Chapter 12
She chained Stefan up in the little holding cell that she had installed and walked over to the cabinet where she kept some of her tools. The only person who’d be aware of this dungeon would be Klaus, as she had kept the werewolf Mason Lockwood in there previously for Klaus to turn. Sadly, Klaus had killed him when he killed 12 of his hybrids.
Such a pity.
She was happy to find her vervain in there, and even a little bit of werewolf venom that she had snuck out of Mason that one time. He hadn’t liked the experience much, but she fed him when she didn’t forget, so he had to pay up.
But her favourite was the baseball bat. It was made out of aluminum, and it had been a present from Kol, and it was just perfect for Myriam to use it to get rid of some of her anger towards Stefan. He had it coming. He had it coming for so long, she could feel the anticipation bubbling underneath her skin. Would she be as mean as feeding him human blood to heal up? How about no blood at all?
“Wakey wakey,” Myriam sang as she circled around Stefan, twirling her bat once he started to come to. “Ah, there you are,” she smiled at him. “Good boy.”
“Myriam, what are you doing?” Stefan sighed as he hung from the chains.
“Doing what I should have done a long time ago,” she said as she swung the bat and hit him in the stomach with it. Twice. Maybe three times. Or four times. Ah, who cared? She lost count at some point. “That, that was for getting involved with Katerina and for turning your brother into a vampire in 1864.”
Stefan groaned and tried to get out of the chains. However, Myriam had them spelt by a witch from New Orleans, so there was no way he was getting out without Myriam’s assistance. “He forgave me!”
“Well, I didn’t!” Myriam countered angrily. She swung the bat once more before discarding it and opting for a knife. “Now… let’s see… what was next?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why does anyone does anything?” Myriam shrugged as she circled Stefan and thinking about her next move. “Oh, just so you know; my humanity isn’t switched off. I’m merely doing what I have wanted to do for so long but refrained because it wasn’t necessary. And it still isn’t necessary. But I can. And I want to.”
“That’s not…”
“A good enough reason?” Myriam barked out a laugh as she stabbed Stefan in the back. Literally. “Tough,” she spat at him before placing the knife on his skin, barely piercing it before tracing around him with it as she walked around him. “Next. You killed Zak Salvatore. Your uncle. Your amazing uncle who was willing to take a barren widow into his home and care for her. He was selfless. Modest. Harmless. And you killed him before it was his time to go.”
“Myriam, you need to stop,” Stefan groaned.
“I don’t need to do anything!” Myriam said furiously. “I’m tired of men telling me what I need to do. I’m no longer listening, because nobody was listening when Kol and I came back from our search for more information about The Five and Silas. You all thought he was insane and now look what happened! Silas is on the loose and already messing with you lot!”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I have to. And you know why? Because your precious ex-girlfriend and her brother killed my best friend. So I killed her best friend, and now I’m going to kill you. Might go for Liz Forbes next. Or Tyler. Or even Damon, because you were all in on the plan to kill Kol, weren’t you?”
“It was necessary!”
“Bullshit!” She plunged the knife into his abdomen and wiggled it around a bit before turning it. She could hear his skin rip and bones crush and Stefan yelled out in pain. “Oh, yell all you want, pup, nobody will hear you.”
“Stop!”
“No,” Myriam growled as she grabbed one of the vervain syringes and started to clean out his wound with it. “Heal up. I’ll be back after I’ve had a snack,” she said as she cleaned up the tools and headed upstairs.
“There she is!” Damon knocked her against the wall. “Give my brother back!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Myriam said as she looked at Damon. “What would I possibly want with your brother?”
“Exactly!”
She looked at Klaus, all confused. “Am I missing something here?”
“Damon came to us saying that you took Stefan in a fit of rage, and he wants Stefan back.”
“But I don’t have him.”
“But you went out, what did you do?”
“After I checked that the brothers got my presents, I left to have a little feed and came straight home,” she sighed. “Honestly, just because I killed your beloved Caroline doesn’t mean I’m on a killing spree.”
“You did what!”
“Oh, she didn’t tell you, Klaus?” Damon teased him. “She sent Caroline to us in bits.”
“Eye for an eye. You kill my best friend, I kill yours. How’s Elena? Still not switching back?”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk,” Myriam said as she managed to get free from Damon and headed to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat, but she could hear Klaus, Elijah and Damon talk in the other room.
“It’s quite possible that you weren’t seeing Myriam but Silas instead,” Klaus explained to Damon. “Silas got inside my head too, convinced me I was dying.”
“It was Myriam,” Damon assured him. “Silas was busy with Bonnie, pretending to be Jeremy, dude can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“Can’t he? We don’t know if he can’t,” Klaus countered. “But I shall keep an eye out for your brother. If I find him, I’ll make sure to return him to you. Right now I need to have a chat with my wife about Caroline.”
“Wait with that until I’m out. Don’t want to risk her tearing me apart for my affiliation with Elena,” Damon said before the sound of a door opening, and closing could be heard.
Myriam walked out of the kitchen as she sipped on her blood bag and looked at Klaus. “What? You’re hurt because I killed that cheerleader? I have already killed her, and she came back. She always had a target on her back and not because of you.”
“Sweetheart, that cheerleader might have been a pain in everyone’s ass for various of reasons, but she and I were actually talking about you most of the time. She gave me…” he sighed as he cast his eyes downward. “I have to admit, I was taking relationship advice of a 17-year-old hopeless romantic, and she told me that if I wanted to make things right with you, we needed to do more things together.”
“You wanted to come back upon hearing about the Cure, Klaus. You have your priorities all wrong,” she pointed out. “And as I said, Caroline was always on my shitlist. I took extreme pleasure with taking her apart and sending her in bits to Elena and the Salvatores. You got her hair because you liked it. They killed my best friend, I killed theirs.”
“I could have helped.”
Myriam looked at him in shock. “You did not just say that.”
“I could have helped because you’re right. Eye for an eye and all that. I love that kind of revenge. There isn’t any better kind of revenge than that. Although I would have gone for one of the Salvatore brothers seeing as Kol was my brother and all.”
Myriam was speechless. She didn’t know what to say.
“There is a reason why our family was feared for so many centuries,” Elijah piped up. “We all liked our revenge, we all liked to play with our victims and their families.”
“Yeah see,” Myriam waved her blood bag around. “I don’t see that. I mean, Kol and Klaus told me the stories and all, but the only dangerous one of you lot is… was Kol.”
“Niklaus and I did calm down somewhat over the years, admittedly. Power isn’t everything, and to be feared makes life a whole lot difficult. As you yourself have experienced ever since Niklaus came back to Mystic Falls. Your so-called friends didn’t like you anymore.”
“I never claimed them to be my friends. I tolerated them, but I was hurt by their treatment of me when they learned I was Klaus’ wife,” Myriam snarled. “I would have raised this entire town to the ground years ago if it weren’t for safekeeping his precious doppelganger who’s now a vampire so yeah, I don’t know what’s stopping me now,” she sighed before she looked back at Klaus. “Speaking of which, your doppelganger is useless now. Kol’s dead. He died here. What the fuck are we doing here still?”
“The cu—”
“Fuck that!” Myriam spat at him. “You know, maybe I should take a page out of Elena’s playbook and turn it all off. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, love.”
“Why?” Myriam challenged him. “You think you won’t be able to handle me?” She huffed then and shook her head. “Whatever. Go and talk amongst yourselves, I’m going back to our guest in our basement.”
“What guest?”
“Stefan Salvatore,” she said simply. “Do you want to join me? You did say you wanted to kill a Salvatore brother for killing your brother, now is your chance.”
“But you just said—” Elijah said surprised.
“Hey, did you know? I’ve been living with a bunch of unstable vampires for the last 300 years and am even married to one! I know how to lie, Elijah,” she replied as she took a sip from her blood bag. “Are you coming, husband of mine?”
“Niklaus, don’t,” Elijah warned him. “I implore you…”
“You know the reason why we’re not a menace anymore? It’s because of Elijah. He wanted us to behave,” Klaus said as he put an arm around his wife. “And if my wife wants to do a little bit of murder and mayhem, then she shall get it. And I still stand by the fact that you should have invited me when you were dismembering Caroline. I would have loved to see you taking her apart.”
Myriam smiled widely as she sloppily kissed him and dragged him off to the basement where Stefan was still hanging from the chains. “I used a lot of vervain on Caroline. You know, on her open wounds and after I pulled out her teeth, I rinsed her mouth with it, too.”
“Klaus, you need to stop her.”
“I don’t need to do anything, Stefan,” Klaus said as he joined his wife in the little dungeon. “Well, what I do need to do is listen to my wife more often. And to my idiot brother that you and your co-conspirators had killed.”
“It was a means to an end! He and Myriam killed the vampires you created for Jeremy.”
“It’s still not an excuse.”
“Caroline gave the same excuse, actually,” Myriam piped up as she grabbed the baseball bat and swung it at Stefan’s knees, breaking his legs in an instant. “You know, Klaus, they all consider themselves to be so moral, while it’s okay to kill someone loved by an acquaintance of theirs. They see you as the bad guy but what does it make them, though? At least you’re always consistent. They’re not.”
“And I’m the least of their worries love, they obviously need to fear you.”
Myriam beamed then. “Aww, thank you Mon LouLou!” She then hit Stefan again with the bat. “Grab a knife! Have some fun! Take your revenge!” She encouraged him as she picked up the knife and held it out for Klaus. “I mean, killing him swiftly would be merciful, but he doesn’t deserve mercy. Not for all of the things he did. Like Caroline, Stefan always had a target on his back for what he did in 1864.”
“He was my friend, once.”
“Oh, you just liked him because he was a ripper,” Myriam rolled her eyes at him. “There are plenty of those.”
“Although, I do wish to return to New Orleans and could use someone like him.”
“You don’t need anyone but yourself to take back your city, Klaus,” Myriam kissed him sweetly on his lips. “You’re the big bad wolf. It’s time you get your balls back. You’re the King. You’re my King. We’re done with playing nice.”
Klaus nodded and smiled wickedly before taking hold of Stefan’s almost healed up leg and pushed the blade inside of the leg before using it to carve around it and break off the bone. “Shall we send him back in pieces just like we did with Caroline, love?”
Myriam thought for a moment as she looked at Stefan’s severed leg. “To be honest, wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunny eating vampire on one leg? Imagine the insults. Pirate Stefan. Ohh maybe we should pop out one of his eyes for good measure! Then compel him and send him on his way!”
Klaus looked disappointed for a second but then realised the fun this could be. “It could prove quite the entertainment.”
“Exactly!” Myriam smirked. “As much as I want the guy dead, I think it’s better if he gets ridiculed. More fun.”
“Love, you are quite diabolical. Are you sure you don’t wish to join me in New Orleans while I take back the city?”
She bit her lip then. “I don’t know, Klaus,” she admitted. “I love New Orleans, and I love Débauche, but… there are so many good memories of Kol there. And bad ones, like the time he set fire to my club but… it’s too fresh. I’ll join you when I’m ready.”
“But I will not allow you to stay here in Mystic Falls by yourself either.”
“I have Rebekah! And when she decides to join you, I’ll find somewhere else to live. Who knows? I might pull a Katherine and find and compel an entire town to like me!”
“Are you sure?”
“I am not running.”
“I’m not saying that you are,” he pulled her close and kissed her. “But I want you to be sure.”
“I’m sure. I need to heal, and I can’t do that in New Orleans. Here, the pain is less despite him being murdered here but…”
“I understand,” he smiled at her. “I’ll make New Orleans ours again, and when you’re well and ready, you can join me by my side, as my Queen. Because you are just that. My Queen.”
“You’re leaving tonight, aren’t you?”
He slowly nodded before Myriam dropped the bat and pulled the knife out of Klaus’ hands and jumped him, making him stumble against the wall as she kissed him. “Love me.”
“Oh no…” Stefan groaned.
~o.O.o~
A few days later, Myriam was all alone in her house. Klaus had set off for New Orleans, and Rebekah was out, having fun with her friends. Myriam knew that she had built the house and had lived in it by herself just fine, but now with everyone gone, she had the feeling of it being an empty nest. It was big and lonely. Myriam had surprised Elijah by daggering him, and she had unceremoniously dumped him in his coffin. Elijah was a bad influence on Klaus and Rebekah. A very bad one and they didn’t need him.
She hadn’t gone outside in a few days, merely to stop herself from lashing out again and instead had spent days on the sofa with bottles of alcohol and a compelled human standing in the corner of the room so she could have some fresh blood when she wanted it.
She loved watching all three Gordon Ramsay shows on television. There was one with a hotel, and she was just appalled by the state of the hotels he was going to try and fix. Kitchen Nightmares put her off from dining out for the rest of her life and Hell’s Kitchen was adorably sadistic.
She watched Toe The Line, a celebrity dancing competition, for shits and giggles when drunk and that was usually followed by Glee, and she danced and sang along. When she was drunk. If she wasn’t, she changed channels.
Supernatural was… entertaining. They had everything wrong about the supernatural, apart from maybe the demons. They were… slightly accurate. But it also made her miss that part of herself, her demons, and she usually ended up crying and drowning her tears in an entire bottle of vodka.
She switched channels at some point and had to blink twice because there was an actor on TV looking exactly like Elijah and he got blown up by a bomb. Causing her to cheer and throw popcorn around while she danced like crazy. Then rewound it, filmed it with her phone and sent it off to Klaus. For your enjoyment. This actor looks like Elijah. Kaboom!
A few minutes later, Klaus sent a message back. Are you glued to the idiot box? Go outside! Have fun!
But the idiot box is fun. Don’t worry about me.
I am.
Don’t.
Very well. Xxx
Now, one of Myriam’s latest additions to her TV line up was a show called Ghost Adventures. Three idiots who willingly locked themselves up in a haunted building. What could go wrong? Two of said idiots were quite easy on the eyes, and she couldn’t look away from it.
And at some point during the evening as she watched some of her TV shows, a freak storm erupted outside. “What the hell?” Myriam muttered as her TV switched off and all the lights went out. She swung open the door to the back garden and felt a strange sensation in the air, and she knew it was wrong. It wasn’t good. She quickly closed the door and grabbed a handful of her dark objects to surround herself with it before grabbing her phone and started to read a book on her phone instead.
She wasn’t scared.
Myriam wasn’t sure for how long she’d been reading, but the front door opened and when she looked, she saw Kol walking in. “Kol? Is that really you?”
Kol smiled widely as he sat down next to her on the sofa and pulled her into his arms. “The veil has been dropped, not for long and it’s not completely open, but you’re still in the triangle.”
“Really?” She poked him to make sure he was real. “You’re here?”
“Don’t look so surprised, darling, I just told my sister how much I appreciated her 24 hour mourning period and how someone who’s not a blood relative is still having trouble with my death,” he kissed the top of her head. “Great job on taking revenge.”
She smiled then. “Yeah?”
“I’d rather have killed Elena. Are you joining me?”
“Really? You get to spend time with people you love for only a short period of time, and you want to kill Elena?” Myriam looked up at him. “She’s still under Stefan and Damon’s protection, even though one of them has to regain his balance. And with the veil dropped, with you here, what about Jeremy? He’ll be protecting her wherever she is.”
“Well, how about you and I go on a little scavenger hunt? For old time’s sake? I take care of Elena, and you get to beat up Jeremy Gilbert. He’s no longer a hunter. He’s dead. So even if you’d kill him again, no curse!” He said excitedly before motioning around her. “You need to stop drowning yourself in alcohol, Myriam. You need to find something you’re passionate about. Make new friends.”
“You were my friend.”
“And I still am, but I’m dead. And I’m telling you I won’t get jealous if you find someone new. Someone that can complete you as I did. But before you do, let’s have one last hurrah.”
Myriam sighed. “Fine. Because the TV isn’t working and I want to spend time with you.”
They found Elena crying at Jeremy’s headstone in the cemetery. “Hello, old friend,” Kol greeted her, causing Elena to turn around to face Kol and Myriam. “Pity about your brother. I guess it’s just the three of us now.” He rushed at Elena and started to hit her. And then kicked her, causing the vampire to cough. “Now this is what I’ve missed: two people connecting,” he said as he kicked her again. “It’s lonely on the Other Side…and I swear being invisible will drive you mad. The way you couldn’t see me standing in front of you, or feel my breath on your cheek as I whispered all the ways that I wished for you to suffer.”
“Let me have at her,” Myriam said as she pulled Elena up from the ground and squeezed her neck. “You’re the reason why I have to miss my pets. You’re the reason why Kol’s lonely on the Other Side,” she said as she squeezed a little tighter.
“Go ahead, Myriam. Kill me. You’d be doing me a favour.”
“Ah, but I won’t kill you,” she said as she tossed Elena into Kol’s arms. “He is! He deserves this kill!”
Kol dropped Elena and caught a flying stake. Both he and Myriam turned to see who fired the stake and realised it was Jeremy. “How many times do I need to kill you?”
“Jeremy Gilbert…Welcome back. Now, what’s the saying? ‘Kill me once, shame on you. Kill me twice, shame on–”
“Me,” Myriam said as she launched herself at Jeremy and pulled broke his arm so he’d release the crossbow before she took a bite out of him and plunged her hand into his chest to rip out his heart. The boy dropped to the ground, and Myriam sighed. “Shame he’s already dead.”
“Feel better, darling?”
“Tons.” She turned around only to see Kol’s neck being snapped and him falling to the ground as well, revealing the eldest Mikaelson brother; Finn. “Oh come on! Leave your brother alone!”
“You two need to stop killing, Myriam. You’re only going to allow it to consume you. First Caroline, then mutilating Stefan and now you’re killing a ghost?”
“Fuck off, Finn,” she said as she looked at Elena. “You’d better leave before I kill you myself, you little bitch!” She then picked up Kol from the ground and took him home, and she was going to keep him there until the veil went back up again.
They had caused enough trouble and mayhem now, and Myriam wanted Kol all to herself. She’d chain him up in the basement if she had to. Maybe that was a good thing to do anyway. There was no doubt that the everyone who had a bone to pick with the Scoobies would come back or were back too, and Kol would be the perfect ringmaster. She didn’t care about the town, but she was selfish, and Kol was now hers.
She dropped him in the basement and closed the door of the dungeon with a dark object in front of it to make sure he wouldn’t be able to open the door when he came to. Oh, he was going to be pissed, but she didn’t care.
“Darling?”
“Yes, mon chou?”
“Why am I locked in here?”
Myriam leaned against the door and smiled at him. “Because I’m selfish. Those people who were sacrificed in the name of Silas will be able to take their revenge themselves, they don’t need you for it.”
“But I’m so good at revenge.”
“And so am I, but I’ve missed you, and I’d like to spend my time with you instead you getting yourself into trouble.”
“I’m already dead, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?”
“I do. As I said, I watched you grieve and take your revenge. Good call on Stefan and daggering Elijah, he really didn’t see it coming!” Kol laughed as he got to his feet. “And as much as I appreciate you mourning me, you really should move on as my siblings did. I do not wish for you to miss me as much as you’re doing right now.”
“Kol…”
“Three hundred years is a long time to be friends, I know that and I feel your love and your grief over on The Other Side. Your grief hurts, Myriam.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Do what you told Alaric to do. Leave Mystic Falls. Don’t look back. Heal. And once you’ve healed and are ready to face New Orleans, be the Queen that Nik and I both know that you are. Run Débauche and give Isabella some time off.”
She sighed as she opened the door to his cell and hugged him tightly. “But I don’t want to let go of you.”
“You have to, darling, it’ll tear you apart if you don’t.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. He then let out a long sigh. “Very well, I won’t join the other spirits in their revenge against the town, let’s have a good old fashioned party with lots of booze, girls and alcohol.”
“And good music.”
“Of course,” he smiled at her and followed her upstairs before turning on the radio and grabbing a bottle. “Now, how are we going to get people in your house when everyone’s running scared?”
Myriam shrugged as she took a swig of her bottle and started to dance along to Bon Jovi’s You give love a bad name. A party with Kol was just what she needed, even if it was only going to be a private one, to give him a proper send off.
After the veil was put back up and Kol was back on The Other Side, Myriam gathered her things and did as Kol had wanted her to do; try to move on. Just like she had told Alaric. What better way was there than to hang out with Alaric?
She drove up to McKinley after finding out where he was and even though the campus was closed for the Summer, Ric had an apartment close by. She knocked on the door and funnily enough, the door opened and revealed a very stunned looking Alaric. “Myriam? What are you doing here?”
“Following my own advice to you?”
“You didn’t give me any advice,” he said confused.
“Right, because I compelled you to leave and move on… right…” she sighed as she leaned against the door post. “Anyway, I needed to leave Mystic Falls after… everything. For all I care that entire town gets swallowed up by the Earth. I can’t join Klaus in New Orleans because… ah well. So I decided to come here.”
“And what’s your plan? Enrol in college?” Ric let out a chuckle. “Have you even been to school in the last 300 years?”
“No… but there must be something else I can do? Break legs? Make people run? Smack heads on the table? Ohhh, I could be like you! And be a teacher!”
“And what do you think you could be teaching? You said it yourself; you’ve never gone to school!”
“I run a successful business, Ric.”
“There’s already a teacher teaching economics and math.”
“Well…” she thought for a moment. “I know about demons and how they operate and how to control them as a demonologist… I know Voodoo… and I think I remember some magic from when I was a witch.”
“Not going to happen, either. I’m the Occult teacher at this college.” Ric could see that Myriam was trying hard, but she was a vampire, and the last thing he’d heard from Damon that she had been off the rails. Not quite as much as Elena, but she was unstable. “What do you truly want, Myriam?” He wasn’t going to invite her into his apartment just yet, although he believed that she wouldn’t do anything to harm him because he’d never hurt her. “What do you need?”
She looked at him then before huffing. “Forget it,” she said as she turned to walk away, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Let me go.”
“No. Tell me what you need, and I’ll help you. That’s the least that I can do for you after you saved my ass… twice.”
“I don’t need anything,” Myriam countered. “Forget it. I thought I’d… I don’t know. I’ll find it somewhere else.”
Alaric could see the defeated look on the newly Original Vampire, and that was sad, really. Pathetic, that too. “You need someone to talk to? Talk about Kol?”
“Don’t.”
“What do you want, Myriam?”
“I want a purpose!” she eventually blurted. “I want a purpose, and I want to get rid of the way that I’m feeling, like… extremely on edge and willing to kill just about anyone to make me feel better for a couple of minutes. Because everything’s been so unfair!” Myriam then started to cry. “Nobody wants me anymore apart from my husband, and I can’t go to him feeling like this!”
“Okay,” Ric said as he put an arm around her and smiled. “Come in, I’ll help you.”
How on Earth was he going to help a 300-year-old vampire who recently became an Original? Sure, he knew how to deal with grief, but the way that Myriam was expressing her sadness was completely different than he had done. She opted for the revenge route because that’s what supernatural beings did and could, he had launched himself into becoming a vampire hunter instead.
She was right, she needed a purpose. But for now, she needed a shoulder to cry on. And that’s what she did. Two days straight. And Alaric felt uncomfortable. So when Myriam had finally gone down for a nap, he called Damon.
“Ric! How’s college treating you, buddy?”
“It’s the Summer holiday, and I know I promised I’d come and help you look for Stefan but…”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I have my hands full at the moment, and I could use your help.”
“My help?”
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I discovered that one of my students is a vampire. She has been for quite some time, and a couple of months ago she and her family had a run in with one of the Five.”
“Okay?”
“Her parents died, and she has been having difficulties with dealing with their grief.”
“Easy. Kill her if she’s a pain in the ass.”
“Damon, come on.”
“I don’t know! Tell her to get on with it or whatever! Grief is a part of life. Parents die. It’s life. Hey, did you know? Bonnie resurrected Jeremy.”
“Yeah, you told me. That’s great. Okay, thanks for nothing buddy, I guess I’ll try to fix her.”
“Good luck. Don’t get yourself killed. And if you want me to kill her, just let me know.”
Ric hung up and grabbed his laptop. Granted, Myriam had wanted a purpose, she had told him so herself, but what could she do? He wasn’t sure if Myriam was ready to be released into the world, roam the campus by herself. Myriam wasn’t the collected vampire that she was previous to Kol’s death and her husband’s somewhat negligence. She had done everything for Klaus for years, and now that her mission was complete, she didn’t have anything to do anymore.
It was sad to see her having given up. She was better than this, and he knew this, not because of what he had seen of her so far, but because he had felt it when she and her demons cleansed him from his dark self. He wasn’t sure if she’d been aware of it, but he certainly was. And she was a beautiful person. And she needed help.
Rules. She needed rules. Restrictions. Parenting.
But first, he needed sleep. Seeing as she was in his bed, he took the couch.
~o.O.o~
The rules were simple enough. Myriam understood that if Ric was going to help her out, she’d have to follow his rules. Which was fine. No feeding on humans. They were going to keep the apartment clean together; that included using the vacuum cleaner and doing dishes. Laundry. She wasn’t to use her vampire strength or speed, and she had to keep a journal where she’d write her thoughts and feelings in. Alaric was going to print out multiple things for her to write about in her journal every day.
And over the summer she was getting better. There was progress, but slowly and occasionally they took day trips with just the two of them. Antique book markets for books on the occult or to food truck festivals to gorge on food. Myriam ordered high-end bourbon for her and Ric to drink.
They did research to set up the curriculum for the next school year, and then Ric had a brainfart. “Why won’t you become my TA for a while?”
“Your what?”
“Teacher’s assistant. You help me set up lessons, you enforce school rules, help students with their work, or with problems they might have. You help me with keeping attendance and grading.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Or would you like me to enrol you in college as a student instead?”
Myriam opened her mouth to object before closing it again.
“You came to me for help, Myriam. I don’t want you to be alone, and I think that you’ll like the work,” Ric smiled at her. “You love helping people when they deserve it. What better way to help me teach young, impressionable people?”
“I help people. That’s how I started my business. We now help humans who were hurt by the Supernatural.”
“But you haven’t run that business for at least 100 years,” Alaric pointed out. “You haven’t actually properly interacted with humans for a long period of time other than making sure that people behaved like cattle for Klaus and breaking his curse. Most of your interaction has been with vampires. You can learn with the kids.”
“But…”
“I trust you not to do anything stupid,” Ric laughed. “Come on, it’s going to be fun!”
“Fiiine,” she sighed as she drank from her blood bag. “But if something goes wrong, it’s on you.”
“Nothing will go wrong, I trust you.”
~o.O.o~
“Myriam, wake up,” Alaric knocked on her door. During the summer Alaric and Myriam had cleaned out his spare room and created a space for Myriam with a bed and a fridge and just a place to retreat to so they wouldn’t be on each other’s lip all the time.
“What?” Myriam opened the door and looked at him as she cleaned her mouth from dripping blood.
“Were you out last night?”
“You’d know if I was but why do you ask?”
“A student got murdered during a party last night. Elena and Caroline were witnesses, and they saw that their friend was killed by a vampire.”
“And you think it’s me?” Myriam raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you trusted me.”
“Apart from Caroline and Elena, you’re the only vampire on campus.”
“That you know of,” Myriam huffed. “It wasn’t me! And I’m not going to help you find out who it was, either. You want me to live as a human, right? I’m not going to walk head first in danger. What do the police say?”
“That it was a suicide.”
“Ah, cover-up.”
“Exactly. Are you sure you don’t want to investigate this?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, good, get dressed, freshen yourself up, we have class in 30 minutes.”
“What!”
“Chop chop, Myriam, can’t be late for your first class!”
The teacher’s lounge was quite something. While you had the serious and old professors, the younger ones just hung out and were on their phones or on their laptops. Alaric was happily chatting away with Dr Max Westfield. Oh, he made sure you called him doctor instead of Max because ‘all those years of med school would be wasted’ if he wasn’t called Doctor.
Such a prick. Myriam didn’t like him. Especially when she overheard Max talk to Alaric about Greyson Gilbert, Elena’s father, who apparently taught a few classes at Whitmore College back in the day. It made sense because Greyson had been a doctor, but with him being a Gilbert it likely meant bad news, so despite her not wanting to do anything outside of what Alaric wanted her to do, she wanted to do her research for this one.
Gilberts were nuisances.
Over the next few days, she managed to piece together enough information about Greyson’s time at Whitmore College and why Dr. Westfield was so in awe of him, a fanboy. Rumour was that both Westfield and Gilbert had been a member of a secret society called The Augustine Society and they used to perform experiments on vampires back in the day.
However, she wasn’t so sure that it was all ‘back in the day’, seeing as Megan was killed by a vampire and Max Westfield had signed the death certificate, ruling it a suicide. It was obvious that he was hiding something.
She went back to Mystic Falls, with Alaric, for Remembrance Day. She wanted to ring the bell for Kol. Remembering him. For Zak. But she did it in the early hours of the morning, wanting to avoid the Scoobies as she’d likely rip everyone’s throat out. Alaric stayed behind to experience the rest of the day and Myriam went back to Whitmore College.
She did surprisingly well if she had to say so herself. The knot in her stomach when thinking about Kol got less and less each day, and she tried to remember the good times she had had with him instead of the pain of his loss. When she got back to the apartment, she wrote in her daily journal to distract herself.
She had to admit that doing work for Alaric every day, every week, had appeared mind-numbing but she actually appreciated it. Myriam liked helping him prepare for classes and do the research along with him, she loved helping students out when they’d come to her for help – even though at the beginning she wanted to snap their little necks for disturbing her peace.
But what Myriam had learned, these kids were stupid, but they weren’t as stupid as most of the Mystic Falls gang. These youngsters used their brain and partied. Did stupid stuff, sure, but once and then never again.
It was the end of September when Myriam was sitting in the park near the college with her journal and a large cappuccino to enjoy when Katerina sat down next to her. Myriam knew she wasn’t Elena because she smelled like a human and she was told that Elena had shoved the cure down Katerina’s throat. “You’ve got some nerve,” Myriam mumbled as she closed her journal and looked at the former vampire. “What do you want?”
“Since becoming human, my priorities have… shifted. And Silas drained me from my blood, and I’m dying.”
“Not my problem.”
“No, I know, and I’m not here to talk about Silas,” Katerina sighed. “Believe me, I don’t want to tell you this but you’ve been through enough crap as it is, and truthfully, nobody but Alaric has been nice to you lately so… I want to make amends and be nice to you.”
Myriam blinked then, deciding to wait for what was going to happen next. “Alright,” she replied as she put her journal into her bag. “What do you want?”
“I know you’ve been digging into Greyson Gilbert and Dr Wes’ infatuation with him,” Katerina replied. “So has Elena. Little twerp nearly got herself killed to prove that she wasn’t a vampire. Thing is, Wes is a member of a secret society here on Campus. The Augustine Society.”
“I gathered that, but all campuses have a society, secret or not.”
“The reason why it’s secret is that they’re doing research into vampires. Actual scientific research. They have an Augustine Vampire who does their bidding, and right now Dr Wes has a student there who was healed by Elena and now turned into a vampire.”
“That’s sick!”
Katerina nodded and sighed. “I made a deal with Wes. He checks out my blood and sees if he can stop the deterioration of my body and I…” Katherine watched as the Augustine Vampire snapped Myriam’s neck and lifted her from her spot and hoisted her off. “I told him I’d get him a vampire.”
~o.O.o~
She came to in a cellar and Wes was standing over her with a syringe. “Wes, what are you doing?”
“I didn’t know you were a vampire, Myriam,” Wes sighed as he squatted down and injected her. It felt like vervain. “But, I suppose that’s alright, it’s been a while since we’ve had female test subjects. And I’m giving you just enough vervain to keep you sedated. Don’t worry, Katherine told me about your trick of drinking vervain every day, so you’re getting a bigger dose until that’s out of your system.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” she sighed and closed her eyes. “And her.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing that you can’t do anything in your cell,” Wes happily replied as he drew some blood from Myriam. “I’ve started something with Jesse. And I think that I’m so close to eradicating all the vampires… I think I’ll experiment on you first before giving it to our loyal vampire next door.” He pushed her hair out of her face. “And don’t worry, you’ll regain some movement in your limbs shortly.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Myriam said weakly. “They will come for me.”
“Who?” Wes let out a chuckle. “Katherine told me you didn’t have any friends left. That you alienated them all. No one’s coming for you, Myriam, not even Alaric. But it’s a good thing you’re here. You see, Elena was taken from me as my patient, and I was about to do something spectacular to her, so I suppose you’ll take her place. Tomorrow.”
“Idiot,” she groaned as he injected her with vervain again and some very strong sedative.
The next day she found herself strapped to a table with every safety measure in place, she couldn’t free herself as she’d usually do and she was shot up with vervain. She was hooked up to some machine that was draining her of her blood, and she didn’t understand what was going on. “Stop.”
“Almost done,” Wes chirped. “I’m surprised you’re actually coming to instead of you know, passing out. Or continued to be unconscious. In the past, vampires have passed out for less,” he said as he kept looking at his notes and his machine. “You’re doing great, Myriam. You really are.”
“What you doing?”
“Hopefully I’m going to make you stronger than you are now and give you a different diet. No idea if it’s going to work, of course, but everything for science.”
She tried getting out of her bonds again. “Stop.”
“You’re in no position to make demands,” he said as he frowned. “How is it that you’re appearing to make more blood still? I can’t seem to drain you dry!”
Myriam sucked in a breath when Wes merely made a bigger opening for her blood to flow away quicker, and he even wedged something into the wound to keep it open. He gave her more sedative, and she passed out again before being awoken by the sensation of someone shaking her awake.
“Come on, love,” Klaus said as he shook her. “Wake up.”
“Klaus?” she opened her eyes and had trouble focussing for a moment, but she was indeed looking at her husband. “What are you—” she felt better. A lot better. “How?”
“Alaric called me, asking if you’d snuck off and had come home,” he helped her sit up and kissed the top of her head. “I moved heaven and earth to find you.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Kill who?”
“Wes?”
“Sadly, no,” Klaus shook his head. “He ran the moment we kicked in the door, and I’m sorry darling, but you were so close to desiccation that you were my priority. We could go after the bastard later.”
“I think he did something to me.”
“Marcel, grab everything you and your vampires can carry,” Klaus ordered him as he lifted Myriam off the table. After having fed her his blood, she seemed to be pinking up quite quickly. “Myriam’s coming home.”
“My bag. Did you find my bag?”
“Love, it’s not important.”
“My bag, Klaus,” she insisted as she managed to look at Marcel who was holding up her bag. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Alright, let’s get you home, there’s a car waiting out front.”
“Why? Ric’s apartment is close.”
“You’re not going back to Alaric’s, sweetheart,” Klaus said kindly. “He’s the one who called me after you went missing, and he also told me you’re ready to come home.”
“No!” she said as she tried to get out of Klaus’ arms. “I can’t! What about the students! I need to stay here and help them! And Ric! You can’t take me away.”
Marcel let out a chuckle. “Well, she certainly has pinked up.”
“I can’t go, Klaus. We need to stay.”
“You have no obligation to stay, love, you’re coming home with me,” Klaus said as he struggled to hold the weakened vampire. “Marcel, make sure you get the notebooks.”
Myriam briefly gave up trying to get out of Klaus’ arms. “I’m hungry.”
“Come with me to the car and let’s get you home,” he said again and finally managed to get her out of the building and into the waiting car. “You’re safe now.”
Myriam snuggled up against him as they sat down in the car and Myriam closed her eyes. “He did something to me, I feel strange.”
“You’ve been through a lot, of course, you feel strange.”
“Why me? First, your mom and now this and… will Alaric be safe?”
“He’s not a vampire, I’m sure he’s safe.”
“Because he can teach in New Orleans too. We need to keep him safe.”
Klaus toyed with her hair before kissing the top of her head. “Rest, love.”
She sighed. “I rang the bell for Kol on Remembrance Day.”
“I think he’d appreciate that.”
Her eyes shot open when Marcel entered the car with a few notebooks in his arms. “Alright, we’re done. They’ll meet us back in New Orleans, Klaus,” Marcel reported before he looked at Myriam. “I know you don’t like me, but stop looking at me like that.”
“Shut up,” Myriam growled at him as she put her arms around Klaus tighter. “I’ll rip your heart out.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Alaric said you were doing better, what made you go to him?” Klaus asked to distract her. She had never told him the reason why she had gone to him in the first place. It had been an odd decision in his mind.
“Kol told me to do the same thing I told Alaric to do,” she sighed. “So I went to Alaric. And he helped me. And he’s a great friend, I don’t want to go to New Orleans yet.”
Klaus wasn’t surprised that Kol had somehow managed to give Myriam a message from the Other Side in her grief. “You’re going. You can visit Alaric in a while.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Myriam sighed as she looked at Marcel again. Narrowing her eyes as they were driving towards New Orleans. She cocked her head, not understanding this hunger, this rage towards another vampire. It felt as if she was a young vampire drawn to human blood. “What did he do to me?”
“Well, that’s what we hope to find out in these books.”
“Start reading, Marcel,” she growled at him.
Marcel blinked as he scratched his head. “Uhh, Klaus? Not because I’m afraid of her or anything but uh, she’s never been openly hostile to me like this.”
“She’s been through a lot, Marcellus, leave her be.”
“Why are we in a car?” Myriam looked up to Klaus. “We’re going home?”
“We’re going to the airport, love,” he smiled at her. “Now rest.”
“Stop telling me to rest. I’m hungry!”
“You’ll get a stewardess on the plane,” Klaus sighed. “You’re trying my patience, love.”
“Fuck you.”
“Gladly.”
She sat up and grabbed her bag, hugging it as they drove to the airport. She could feel something itching underneath her skin, almost as if she’d taken drugs – well, it was likely that she was shot up with something a few times because she remembered being awake when her blood was pumped out of her body, but she didn’t feel right.
Myriam hurried into the waiting plane and quickly found herself a spot to write in her journal like Alaric had told her to. Whenever she was feeling off, she had to write it down to figure out what was going on. Maybe she could figure it out on her own. But wow, she was hungry. And there was so much rage that she wasn’t sure if she wasn’t going to hurt Klaus.
An hour after the plane had taken off, Myriam started to pace, clawing at her arms as she tried to calm down. “Did you find anything yet?”
“It’s all medical crap,” Marcel replied with a sigh. “We’ll have to find someone to look at it.”
“Not good enough!” Myriam shot at him.
“Easy, it’s the best we can do right now.”
Both Klaus and Marcel had left her alone during the last hour as she had looked so distraught, but right now she was acting like a caged animal trying to control herself. “Try harder!” Her vampire face briefly came to the surface, and Marcel paled.
“Uh, Klaus? When she turned into an Original, did her game face change or something?”
“Of course not.”
“Because she didn’t look right.”
“Shut up, Marcel or I swear I am going to rip your head off your shoulders and shove it up your ass,” Myriam ran towards him, smacking his head against the fuselage and couldn’t help herself while she violently bit his neck and drank from him. Any attempts from Klaus trying to pull her off of his lieutenant caused Myriam to grab Marcel tighter, and the feeding was becoming even more of a bloody frenzy.
When she was done, she dropped Marcel’s mangled and desiccated body and wiped her mouth before she realised what she had just done; she had fed on a vampire and felt satiated. “I-I didn’t mean to but… he was annoying, and I was so angry and hungry…”
Klaus was quiet for a moment to process what he had just witnessed. Ripper behaviour. Vampire on vampire. “We still have three hours to go before we land,” he said calmly, but worry etched on his face.
“I’m good, Klaus,” Myriam said as she stepped over Marcel’s body and sat down next to him. “I’m full, I’m feeling fine.”
“But for how long? I can’t have you eat all my vampires! What if you decide to take a bite out of Rebekah? Or me?”
“Well, you would live.”
Klaus rolled his eyes. “We’ll figure out what’s been done to you and we shall find a cure. I promise.”
“But I’m fine!”
“You just fed on and killed a vampire! That is not fine, and you know it!”
“I didn’t like him anyway.”
“That’s not a good enough reason,” Klaus argued.
“I couldn’t help myself, Klaus,” she shot at him. “I’m fine now. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, I won’t take a bite out of you.”
“Sweetheart, this is serious.”
“I’m not denying that.”
“Do I have your permission to snap your neck if things get too out of hand?”
“Yeah, sure,” she sighed as she reached for the wine. “And you’re going to get a scientist or a doctor to take a look at that, right?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, love, we’ll fix this.”
“And then kill Wes?”
“Of course.”
