The clock keeps ticking away, it seems to get louder every second it counts . There are only sixteen seconds left, the number keeps going down.

I pray for a malfunction in the system, for the electricity to fail, so the clock will never reach zero. It's the only loophole I can find for this compulsion.

"Elena, you're going to have to run." Stefan groans out, his hands have been balled up into tight fists. He is doing everything to keep himself from hurting her, but their love, it doesn't matter how pure, is not enough to ignore the compulsion of an Original.

"But Klaus said that if I run.." He'll have to break your spine, and mine for that matter.

"I know what he said, but if you stay, it won't matter. Elena. Please. Lola, you have to take her." I nod in his direction and grab Elena's hand. There are five seconds left.

"Come on, Elena. We have to go." She stands still like a statue, takes my hand but doesn't follow my voice or my directions.

"There is another way, Stefan. It's for you to fight."

The buzzer sounds, now all I have to look at is the reality of those zeroes flashing on the board.

"Stefan... I love you. Fight, Stefan. Don't give up." She is begging now, this isn't a question anymore. She wants him to be safe, I know he'll never forgive himself if he hurts even a hair on her head.

"I can't hold it." His face changes and I immediately try to cover Elena, she screams, but he doesn't hit us, instead throws himself into the wall behind us.

"We need to go, Now!" I yell and squeeze Elena's hand tightly, she gives in this time. Stefan has penetrated the wall with his hand and is forcing himself to hold onto the brick.

We run through the hallways like it's a fucking horror movie. Behind us Stefan holds onto everything he can, all so he doesn't hurt her.

We are far ahead of him by now, but if he wants he can get to us in a second. Elena closes the door behind us and catches her breath, she looks through the small window in the door. I am not sure what she wants to see, Stefan, as a normal human/vampire again or something else. All I know is that she won't find it behind those doors.

I pull on her hand again, she looks through the window one more time before she follows me and starts to run again. Something stops us.

Something hard and strong, something that smells like a cologne I've been smelling for months now. It could really be no one else than the elusive Klaus Mikaelson.

"We've got to stop meeting like this." I look around, searching for a way out even when I know it won't save us. He grabs us both by the shoulders and drags us through the halls, he is listening to where Stefan is and taking us to him.

The doors to the cafeteria open, on the ground sits Stefan, he has made a stake out of a piece of a broom and has stabbed it through his own stomach. He is moaning on the floor, sweat fills his forehead.

"Now this is fascinating. I've never seen this before. The only thing stronger than your craving for blood is your love for this one girl. Why don't you turn it off?" My heart sinks. He's really going to do this. This one thing that I never expected him to actually do, maybe my trust in Klaus is fully misplaced after all. He lets go of us, his tight hand leaves my shoulder, but we both know we can't do anything now. One misstep and Klaus kills us, or Stefan just might.

"No!" Stefan yells through the pain, I set an involuntary step forward, but Klaus turns his head towards the sound and I see the yellow in his eyes, my feet return to their former place.

He sits down on one of the tables with such confidence. When we were young, that would have intrigued me, not it disgusts me.

"Come on. Your humanity is killing you. All the guilt must be exhausting. Turn it off."

"No!"

Elena cries, "Stefan..."

Klaus approaches Stefan who is still sitting on the floor and takes the makeshift stake into his hands.

"You're strong." He slowly starts to pull the stake out of him, no doubt causing excruciating pain.

"But you're not that strong. Turn. It. Off."

"No!"

"Klaus!" I yell back at the man, standing so threateningly in front of my friend.

"Shut up!"- he keeps looking at Stefan.

Stefan pushes him away, but Klaus is stronger and forces him into the wall. Now he can look into his eyes, really look into his eyes. Stefan won't win this.

"Turn it off!" Klaus yells, with all his power, so much that it even resonates through my head. Stefan's eyes close, and when he opens them again, he is no longer himself.

His stance has changed, he looks comfortable in this situation, isn't stopping himself anymore. His tears have disappeared in an instance, the grey veins under his eyes grow back.

"What did you do?" Elena asks, her voice sad. She knows what he did, she knows.

"I fixed him. But I think a test is in order, don't you?" he walks behind Elena, taking slow and steady paces, that evil grin on his face.

In that moment, I decide that I hate Niklaus Mikaelson. Every tiny bit of love that was left for him leaves my body, I can feel my blood heating up.

I hate him, I hate him with every fiber of my being. All the memories I have of him in a favourable light diminish or change. Him kissing me for the first time, it was all manipulation, all fear.

Him loving me, asking me to be his, it was never real. It was always on his terms.

And his family? They never did anything but use me for their own gain, stealing my powers from me, making me weak and forgetting.

Making me into who I am now. Before I met the Mikaelsons I wasn't whole, but I was happy.

Now, I am nothing anymore, just an empty shell of a girl who has always existed but never lived. Hunted down by the person who told me he loved me.

Love isn't what the Mikaelsons perceive it as, and it should never be filled with this much pain.

"Ripper.. Perhaps you'd like a drink... from the doppelgängers neck?" Stefan's face changes again, his eyes are bloodshot and they disgust me. I love Stefan, but not this version of him. He bites her, without even thinking about it and she screams out.

"Niklaus, I'd advise you to get him off of her." Elena keeps screaming, my arms and body start shaking incessantly. There is something inside of me, something that is just waiting to burst out.

"Don't worry about it, my dear. I have not forgotten about you."

Before my body explodes something hits me over the head and I fall into a sleep so deep that even the heat of a fire can't wake me.

When I wake up something is tying me down. I can't move, anxiety fills my head. Calm down, Lola. First you need to focus on your surroundings. I can't see much, the room is almost completely dark. I can hear something though, the familiar beeping sound of a heart rate monitor. I am in a hospital.

My eyes get used to the dark and I see that leather belts have been bound around my body, I can't move, they are absolutely everywhere.

Then it appears to me, I snap my middle finger and thumb together. Out of the friction, a flame appears on my thumb. I let it dance around my hand as it grows bigger. Now I can see the room.

I lay my hand on the leather bounds and let them melt, the heat doesn't bother me, it doesn't even seem to touch me. The bounds snap off and I get up out of the bed.

When I go through the door a security guard stops me, "I'm sorry ma'am, but you are not allowed to leave."

I shake my head, "I'm so sorry for this." I grab his hand and let the fire pour out of every single pore on my hand, every opening in my skin. His hand burns, I can see the flesh bubbling, his skin is long gone by now. He screams in terror and for the first time in my many life times I feel like I am strong.

Like I am the one that Klaus should be afraid of, not the other way around.

The hospital is a maze, I don't dare to ask any of the nurses for the exit, scared that they might be compelled not to let me through. I don't want to hurt anyone else, I never wanted to hurt anyone.

I want to hurt him, however. The man who has hunted me for a thousand years, the man who made me afraid of being alive. The man who lived in the nightmares of a little girl, scaring her even when he wasn't there.

I am ready, ready for this fight, the fight I have been trying to finish for a thousand years.

He's outside, I had never felt it before but now I do. The connection that the moonstone created in us, it must be what made me close to him during our summer adventure. Now it just means that I know exactly where to find him.

There's light, so much light when I step outside. There is light and there's Klaus, holding Damon against a car.

"Niklaus." He turns around and behind him Damon smiles at me. Nothing had made me as happy as that smile, I realize how much I missed it.

"Ah, Paloma. There you are, I was just coming to get you."

"I'm not coming with you, Klaus." He is still holding onto Damon's neck with one hand, Damon has nothing on him, not even when there's only one limb in play.

"Well, that's not really up to you, is it now Lola." He smirks, he shouldn't have.

I laugh back, "That's where you're wrong Niklaus. Everything is up to me now." I close my eyes and today, for the first time, I let the power that that horrid witch imposed on me flow freely.

When I open them again all I see is the orange of a flame, and behind it the scared face of Niklaus Mikaelson.

"You should be afraid Nik." Damon looks confused, Klaus looks impressed and fearful. I am fully engulfed in the flames yet I do not burn.

"They found him, you know." I stroll towards the couple, leaving streaks of fire in my wake.

"All on their own, I had nothing to do with it." His hand is out in the open, so I take it into mine. He screams in pain, but he can't seem to do anything about it.

"Who did they find, Lola?!"

I smile and let the flames dim slowly, "they found Mikael."

I let go of his hand and let it hang loose in the air, "Run."

He does, but before he goes he puts all of his strength into reaching through the flames, putting his ice cold hand onto my neck , smiling that evil smile of his and snappin my neck.

so desperate to start the next book in this series. it will be in a different perspective, which will be really interesting for me to write! super excited.