(PROLOGUE :
DEAL WITH THE DEVIL)

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"DAMON SALVATORE, YOU HAVE done some foolish things in your lifetime, but this is the most idiotic one to date." I scolded, breaking character when I was unable to repress a loud, loving laugh after Damon rolled his eyes, tightening his grip on my hand. After all this time, I was returning to the land of living. "You do realise that if we don't make it then we'll both be dead?" I ensured he understood exactly what he was risking by even attempting save me.

"We're already dead, Lottie." Damon responded in a slow, patronising manner. Another laugh slipped from my lips at this, I missed his sarcasm, I missed seeing his killer blue eyes everyday and I missed being able to . . . Touch someone, talk to someone. "But, if you really want, you can shout at me after we get out of here. Although I do believe a 'thank you for saving my ass' would be more appropriate." He mused, our speed increasing as we raced against the clock, zig-zagging between pine trees in an effort to escape the collapsing Other Side.

I shook my head. "That's hot ass to you." I corrected, lowering my head to check out my ass — after a century, I learned to love every inch of my body. "But, may I also remind you that I'm here because your girlfriend conjured up one terrible, disastrous, reckless — believe me, I could go on — plan. If they didn't try to murder a thousand year old vampire, who I happened to love, then we could be singing around a campfire about now. Of course that didn't happen, leaving me with a score to settle with a certain Gilbert family." I clarified, my anger over the betrayal of my friends never quelling over the years. However, I wasn't mad at Damon — I couldn't be — and that was when I decided to stop talking before I said something I couldn't take back about his girlfriend.

Abruptly, Damon stopped in his tracks. "Woah, no. There'll be no score to settle with Elena, she  feels bad enough as it." He jumped down my throat, but it wasn't like I planned to kill my ex friend. All I wanted her to do was feel even a quarter of the pain I did that night. "And their plan almost worked, so it wasn't that bad. None of us told you to run in front of that asshole. If anybody should be here, it's him." His grudge against the Original family hadn't dissolved since our last encounter, clearly.

To snap him out of his vengeful plotting, I slapped him across the face, appreciating the distinct echo of my hand coming into contact with his face. "First, that's what you get for insulting my failed attempt at playing hero. Second, focus, we need to keep moving." I explained my actions, a small grin cracking through my features as the wind looped through my curls when we started to run again. Like a child on Christmas, I couldn't contain my excitement because I was going to interact with real people in the real world again after over a year of isolation on the Other Side.

Feigning shock, my friend dropped his mouth so it formed an 'O' shape. "Well, it's been quite obvious all along you're no Katniss Everdeen." He remarked, in reference to a fictional character I had no clue about. In return, I gave him a blank stare. Classics were more my thing. "Why else would I be here to swoop in and save the day?" He questioner rhetorically, his usual arrogance seeping through.

"I slapped you once, I'll do it again." I warned lightly. "I don't need saving by you of all people, I just didn't get the memo that the afterlife had an exit door." I defended, waving my hands in the hair wildly to emphasise my point. "I mean, I thought my death would have taught you something about your plans. As in, they're terrible, disastrous, reckless . . . Ooh, let me add they never work too." I slammed his rescue mission, refusing to get my hopes up. "An entire world is about to fall apart because of our — your — friends back in Mystic Falls, Day. You can't tell me that's careful of them." I corrected myself when I called them 'our,' friends. Despite my love still being there for Damon, I knew the rest were likely in on the plan to kill Kol.

"Yikes, you're right. I hope they keep that town in one piece though, there's where all my bourbon is." Per usual, he managed to totally swerve the topic of conversation at hand.

Predictable Damon Salvatore, I thought to myself. "I don't want to be pessimistic, but — actually, I don't care, I'm being pessimistic. What will happen if this rescue mission goes dramatically wrong?" I inquired, serious for once. In my head, there were lots of the ways this could go wrong and the ones who'd be most impacted by it would be Bonnie and Damon. They were putting their lives on the line for people who meant to be dead.

Misinterpreting the tone of my voice, the raven-haired man opted to shrug off my question. "Then, you'll have show me to 'the Other Mystic Grill.' Even a spirit needs his spirits." He asserted, making me stumble in my sprint. From the sounds of it, he didn't know what the repercussions would be if he didn't make it back — there would be no the Other Side, just . . . an empty blackness.

I released a relieved sigh upon spotting Bonnie Bennett not too far ahead now. "If we make it those few feet and I'm alive again, I don't know how I'd repay you." I admitted, promise filling my eyes and my heart bursting with gratitude. Bonnie was waiting for us to run to her, to pass through her into the living world. "I'm not dumb, Damon. For a while, I watched your friends, I know they moved on. They forgot about me and that's fine, but I'm well aware that I wasn't one of the people they wanted to save today. You came back for me." I revealed to him, having popped by to check on the gang on special occasions like birthdays. Photos of me were cropped, talk of me was met with awkward silence.

"I could never leave you behind, you're a little sister to me." Damon's thick eyebrows were pulled together, baffled at the thought of not coming back for me. "When I first saw a seventeen year old girl on the streets, painted red with blood, I felt I had a responsibility to do what I never could for my brother. I never imagined I'd become so protective over her or love her as much as I did." He reminisced on our first encounter in New York alleyway. "That girl on the streets became one hell of a friend to me, I want her back — bad taste in men and all." There was a softness to his snark that made me smile, he didn't care if I loved Kol, he valued our friendship above all and that meant more than he knew to me.

"Even if I still believe that you're a total jerk with the awful plans, I love you too, Blue-Eyes." I parroted his sentiment, pulling the man into an embrace. "You're my best friend and I don't know where I'd be without you. Thank you for everything over the past century because it's sure been a hell of a ride." I confessed to him, warm tears forming in the corner of my eyes. To think, if he didn't come to save me, the Other Side would have imploded and I'd be in fragments in some unknowable, treacherous oblivion. Although the Other Side was torturous, being amongst nothing at all sounded far worse.

Urging me in the direction of an exhausted Bonnie, the older vampire chuckled at the irony of the situation. "This shouldn't be feeling so much like a goodbye, Lottie." He mentioned, finding it funny how we were acting as if we would never see each other again when it was quite the opposite.

I didn't laugh with him, I felt it in my bones that this was our goodbye. Turning my head to the left then the right, I searched for something that might ruin this for us. Nothing. Despite not seeing a visible sign of calamity ahead, the knot in my stomach assured me that there would not be another hello between us in the future for a long time — if ever. Even to me, it sounded bizarre, but I felt it and I knew to trust my instincts. The sudden shift in the crisp air wasn't a result of the impending doom that loomed over us all, it was a result of an inventible change in my life — in everybody's life.

Taking a hesitant step closer to the weakened witch, I unlinked my hand from Damon's, overly conscious of how sweaty my palms were. "You'll be behind me, right?" I quizzed, glancing over my shoulder to take another look at my old friend. There had always been a paranoid part of me that was worried he'd abandon me one day, one day I'd push him over the edge.

"He will be." Bonnie vowed, her voice sounding small and meek like it could break at any given moment.

"Bonnie, is this hurting you?" I wondered, squinting to see exactly how tired she was. From her hallowed, droopy eyes to the knots and tangles in her short locks, it dawned on me this spell was killing her.

Ignoring my queries, the eldest Salvatore nudged me forward. "She's fine, she's a Bennett witch." He insisted, adding a small 'woot' sound to provide additional encouragement. "Go ahead, I'll follow as soon as I can. I just need to find Ric." Damon stated in a rush, praying that I wouldn't catch what he said if he said it quick enough.

Immediately, the corners of my lips edged downwards at this new information. "No! I don't want you to be stuck here because you wasted all your time finding me and I certainly don't want Bonnie to die so I can live." I argued, folding my arms. Never did I want to put my friends in a such a compromising position, but that was a disadvantage of knowing such caring people. Both were willing to sacrifice themselves for people who didn't belong amongst the living.

Damon scowled, pushing me closer to the witch. "Don't be so stubborn." He demanded through gritted teeth, not having the time or energy to debate the matter with me. "If you won't go through willingly, I'll push you through." He threatened.

"Don't be so difficult." I retorted, mimicking his tone. "I'll find Alaric for you. Please, go." I begged, dodging his attempt to forcefully send me through the portal. "You finally got the girl, Damon. You're finally in a good place with your brother. You have it all. I've got nothing back in Mystic Falls, Kol moved on in New Orleans. Trust me, I've been watching." I pleaded with him to pass through first, to do what he had been known to do best — be selfish. "Whereas you've got everything on the line, I've got nothing." I whispered in a final bid to sway him.

Several excruciatingly long seconds later, Damon surrendered. "I'm not leaving without both of you." He decided. "You can help me find him." The Salvatore settled on a happy medium, plastering a fake smile on his face.

"I doubt she'll last that long." I murmured, my brow creasing at my old friend. Undeniably, Bonnie was mentally and physically strong, but everybody had their limits.

Narrowing his eyes, the vampire began heading back towards the woods in search of Alaric Saltzman. "And I thought I was the cynic." He commented whimsically, refusing to address the girl's ill health. However, his deep frown lines made me suspect he wasn't as oblivious to her fragile state as he wanted me to believe.

Brushing my fingertips against each stray tree branch we passed, I flicked them out the way in hopes to catch a glimpse of my old history teacher. "I'm not a cynic, I'm a realist." I corrected him. "Bonnie is close to her breaking point, she's giving this spell everything she has. If we don't find him soon, all of us will end up trapped in whatever Hellscape is beyond the Other Side." I declared bluntly. If there weren't such deadly stakes, perhaps I would have made light of such a strange scenario.

The man tilted his head to one side. "That's what a cynic would say." He hummed in a sing-song, his tune dropping towards the end as his eyes enlarged when he looked down at my hands. "You look different. Crap, why do you look different?" He fretted, the amount of concern he held alarming for the century old vampire.

"Dying will do that to a girl." I answered, unsure why he felt it was suitable to point out how much I had changed at that exact moment.

"No, you look different. As in different than you did five minutes ago." He snapped in frustration, grabbing my left hand and waving it around in front of my eyes. "Look at your hands." The vampire freaked.

Staggering back a couple of steps, I tripped over a tree root in shock. "I'm f-fading away . . . Why am I fading away?" I panicked from my position on the ground, unable to tear my saucer-sized eyes away from my near transparent hand.

Staring at his own hand, Damon found it to be perfectly ordinary. "It's just you." He breathed out, prepared to take action instantly. "Come on, we need to get you out of here." He commanded, speeding away the moment he realised that his plan had gone wrong somewhere along the line. Between the two of us, we gathered the solution was simple, I needed to get to Bonnie before I was more sixties television budget ghost than lost vampire spirit.

"But Alaric!" I protested, not wanting for the poor man to be left in the dust.

"Your skin is translucent, Lottie. You're literally fading away and it's happening faster and faster. Get off your ass, take my hand and run!" Damon screamed at me, yanking my body upwards by the forearm — my hands no longer being visible — and charging in the direction we had left the Bennett witch. "I can find Ric myself, you're my priority." He reasoned, his face void of emotion.

Disregarding the dull ache that invaded my head, I allowed my friend to drag me to safety. "Thank you, Damon." I shouted over the bustling wind, knowing that the two of us weren't going to make it in time. Already, my torso was vanishing. This was the end.

"You've said that too many times today." He mentioned causally and I didn't care if it sounded obsessive of me, I just needed to him to hear it as many times as possible. I needed for him to know that I was grateful for everything he did for me — as a precaution, just in case this would be our last meeting.

"Sometimes you need to hear it. You're not half bad at playing hero." I countered cockily. However, I soon registered that my voice sounded distant, like it was somewhere else and had escaped me. "Damon, do you hear that too?" I called out in reference to the far away sound my voice had developed.

Dead silence. Curiously and violently, I jerked my head from side to side in a futile attempt to spot my friend from New York. Dead silence. "Damon?!" I yelled out desperately, my honey blonde ringlets sticking to my face as hot tears raced down my cheeks.

"He isn't here." A familiar voice interrupted —familiar in such a way shivers did the foxtrot down my spine.

"Here." I repeated dully. "Where is 'here?'" I blinked, for the first time registering that I was no longer in the woods, but a dark stretch of corridor with one lamp hanging from the ceiling in the centre. Seemingly, I had been magically transported somewhere — alone.

Loudly, the voice cackled, a female figure stepping into the dimly lit area of the room — it was Esther Mikaelson. "That is not important right now, child. All that matters is the Other Side is collapsing as we speak, leaving you with a choice to make." The Original witch announced in a voice that I found sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "Damon Salvatore won't be able to save you now, but I do have a rather . . . enticing . . . offer for you instead." She smiled at me, wiping some blood from her hands onto the wall behind me.

Daringly, I stepped closer to the intimidating woman and held myself with a confidence some might consider unwise. "I'm not scared of you, Esther." I told her a matter-of-factly. "And, I don't tend to make deals with bitches — oops, I meant witches." I sassed, recalling how she had treated her own children only a few years ago.

"Are you prepared to make a deal with the devil or not, Charlotte Hatton?" She implored politely — too politely. I didn't take her as the kind of woman to take such a snide retort slip with the ease she did.

"Devil? Well, I guess there's no modest Mikaelson." I snipped. "Now that you mentioned it, I'd rather rot in Hell than make a deal with you — I've been meaning to get a tan and the weather's meant to be lovely this time of year." I barked, not fooled in the slightest by her kind act. Underneath her motherly appearance, she was a serpent.

Unamused, Esther sent an intense wave of pain throughout my body with the flick of her wrist. As a result, I bit down on my lip till it drew blood in order to muffle my cries. "I would rethink your words, child." The woman suggested smugly.

Gritting my teeth, I succumbed to her wishes due the pain being amplified with each second she waited for a reply. "I may not agree, however I am listening." I howled out, falling to my knees and panting heavily.

"Good."

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A.N: Welcome to the third book! I am so excited for this and so excited for Lottie to go to New Orleans and mix up her look. This will be the last we see of Mystic Falls and Sasha Pieterse for a while.

Who do you think Lottie will or won't get on well with in New Orleans? You got a taste of how she is with Marcel back in Memories!