CHAPTER SIX

"It's always nice to see a vampire in his true element." Klaus says as he slowly moves closer to Nyx. "The species has become such a broody lot."

"I must say, I think I prefer the other vampire species. They may be harder to kill than a vampire like Stefan, but at least they didn't spawn from you." She says, and he smiles as he looks at her.

"Where is it?!" Rebekah yells as she rushes back into the gym. "Where's my necklace?"

"What are you talking about?" Klaus questions as he stands up and walks over to them. Sam keeps Elena close to him, and Dean walks over to Nyx as she makes it to the bottom of the bleachers.

"She has my necklace." She hands her brother a phone. "Look."

"Well, well. More lies." Klaus says as he looks at the picture.

"Where is it?"

"I don't have it anymore." Elena tells her.

"You're lying!" Rebekah attacks her, and her brother grabs her. Sam kneels next to Elena on the floor.

"Knock it off!" Klaus yells at her.

"Make her tell me where it is, Nik!"

Klaus turns back around and kneels in front of Elena and Sam. "Where's the necklace, sweetheart? Be honest." He says, and Sam looks at Nyx and his brother for a second.

"I'm telling the truth. Katherine stole it." Elena tells him.

"Katerina. Of course. Well, that's unfortunate." He says as he stands up straight. "If we had that necklace, it would make things a whole lot easier for your witch, but since we're doing this the hard way, let's put a clock on it, shall we?"

"Is he always this over the top?" Dean whispers to Nycole.

"Seems like it." She sighs.

Klaus hits a button, and the timer on the scoreboard turns on. "Twenty minutes. If Bonnie hasn't found a solution by then, I want you to feed again. Only this time, I want you to feed on Elena." He tells Stefan. "You know you want to."

"No." Nyx shakes her head.

"No, Klaus. Don't​ do this to him." Elena begs.

"No one leaves. If they try to run, fracture their spines." Klaus says as he and Rebekah leave.

Nyx shakes her head. "No, this can't be happening." She mutters as she looks around. "Where's​ my gun?!"

"Klaus took it." Sam says.

"You would shoot Stefan?" Elena questions, and her sister looks at her.

"You don't get it, do you? Klaus compelled him, Elena. He has no choice anymore." She tells her.

"You can't kill him."

"If it's going to come down to you dying or him, that is exactly what I'm going to do. I know you love him and I'm sorry, but I can't lose anymore family, Elena. I won't."

"I lost them too." She argues.

"Yeah, but John's not dead because of you!" She snaps, and Elena just looks at her. "His death is on me. Yours won't be too."

"That is not your fault. John made that decision all on his own." She argues.

"Do you honestly think that that makes me feel any less guilty?" She asks her sister. "Every morning that I wake up, I know that I'm alive because John is dead. What do you think that feels like, Elena?"

"Nycole..."

"You are not going to die because my being alive brought Klaus back here. I won't let Jeremy lose us both." Nyx tells her.

"And you're willing to kill Stefan even though that's not what I want?" She asks.

"Everything I do, I do for everyone that I love. If I have to kill my vampire friend who's over a century and a half old to save my eighteen-year-old human sister... Yes, I will. And you can hate me for it all you want, but at least you'll be alive to do it."

"Now you sound like Damon." Elena says, and she nods. "Those are the things that he says about you that you hate. That is exactly what he said after he forced you to drink his blood."

"Yeah, I know. I guess things​ just are what they are now, aren't they?" Nyx says,​ and her sister shakes her head.

Elena starts pacing back and forth, trying to figure out something to do and she eventually gets an idea. "Caroline's dad." She says, and they all look at her. "Stefan, he was able to resist compulsion. I don't know how, but he did it. Maybe it's possible."

"Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's just mind control, right?" He says sarcastically as he paces around as well. "Maybe it just takes some focus, a couple decades of training. No big deal."

"Stefan, you can control this." She argues, and her sister scoffs. "Shut up, Nycole."

"My apologies. Return to the land of delusions." Nyx says sarcastically.

"Stefan, when that buzzer goes off, just- just drink from me." Elena says, and her sister shakes her head.

"You don't get it. I can't stop, Elena!" He tells her. "I'm a ripper — a ripper doesn't stop! I listen to the words that come out of your mouth, and all I hear is the sound of your heart pumping blood through your body. And when that clock ticks down... I'm going to have to feed on you. And you know what's worse? I'm not going to be able to stop."

"I don't believe that." Elena says. "You can fight it. You just have to want it bad enough."

"Why, because I love you?" He questions.

"Yeah. That's right, Stefan. Because you love me. You'll fight because after everything that we've been through, you owe me that."

"You know what, you're right. I owe you everything. Because through all of this, you are the one thing that has kept me from giving up; from turning it all off. But I can't help who I am, Elena. The more blood that I get, the more I want, and if I so much as get near yours... Nycole will have to kill me, or you will be dead." He tells her.

"Sometimes love doesn't conquer all, no matter how romantic the notion." Nyx says, and Elena looks at her.

"Just because your boyfriend can't give up his lifestyle for you doesn't mean that Stefan can't fight this." The younger girl says.

"You think that's what this is? You think we're still out there because Dean can't give up this life?" She questions. "You don't know a damn thing about us, Elena. I haven't asked him to stop hunting because I can't walk away from all of this any more than he can. That demon they've been hunting — it killed their parents, and Sam lost his girlfriend because of it."

"I understand that—"

"See, the problem with that statement right there is that you should actually understand it. John may not have been the poster boy for perfect parent, but he was still our father. Jenna took us in and did the best she could for us. Klaus killed them and then started toying with Stefan to turn him into a ripper."

"I know."

"I want Klaus dead almost as much as they want the demon dead. And you should too." Nyx says. "But it's more than just Klaus for me. I want the demon dead too. It killed my babies' grandparents. I never met Mary, and I didn't know John that well...but they became my family the second that I met Dean. Because if I'm being honest, this pregnancy isn't what made him my family. He's been my family ever since I met him in North Carolina."

"Nyx—"

"Don't​, Elena. Just don't." She shakes her head as she looks at her. "I don't want to hear any more about how you disapprove of how I choose to live my life. I don't like your decisions either." Nyx walks away from them and wipes the tears from her face.

"Nycole!" Stefan calls, panic in his voice.

"I'm not leaving." She tells him.

They all watch the timer tick down, and it gets below a minute. Then thirty seconds — twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen.

"Elena, you're going to have to run. All of you." Stefan says, and Nyx walks over to her sister.

"But Klaus said that if we run—"

"I know what he said, but if you stay, it won't matter." He cuts her off as Dean and Sam move closer to the twins. "Elena, please. There's no other way."

"There is another way, Stefan. It's for you to fight." Elena says, and the buzzer goes off. "Stefan... I love you."

He's suddenly on the floor and he's trying so hard not to move toward them. They can all see the pained look on his face as he watches them.

"Fight, Stefan. Don't give up."

"I can't hold it." He says, his voice strained.

"If you don't want me to kill him, then we need to leave." Nyx says, and he suddenly runs at the four of them, but he manages to push himself past them instead.

"Nycole, get her out of here​!" Stefan yells. "Now!"

Nyx grabs her sister's arm, and they all start running as fast as they can. Dean and Sam are right behind the girls, keeping them ahead of them. They take off down the hallways and they can hear Stefan slamming into lockers behind them. They run through double doors and close them behind them.

Sam suddenly groans in pain, and Nycole immediately turns around. He's unconscious on the ground, and Klaus is standing in front of them.

"Hello, lovelies." He looks between the twins, then throws Dean across the hallway before he grabs the girls.

He​ pushes Nyx into a classroom with Caroline, Tyler, and Rebekah. They all look at her, but she's alone.

"Where's Nik?" Rebekah asks, and Nyx turns around.

"Elena." She tries to run back out, but Klaus' sister grabs her.

"I don't think so." She says as she looks at her. "You're not going anywhere."

"Nyx." Caroline says, and she looks over at her and Tyler.

"How is he?" Nycole asks.

"Not good." She tells her.

Rebekah then lets go of Nycole, and the brunette walks over to them. Nyx stays with her friends, and Klaus walks back into the room not long after.

"Well, the verdict's​ in — the original witch says the doppelganger should be dead." He says, and Caroline looks back at Nycole as her heart sinks.

"She's pregnant, Nik. You can't kill two innocent babies." Rebekah argues.

"Not to worry, dear sister. I'm fairly certain it means the opposite." He says, and they all look at him.

"What?" Nyx asks, confused, and Rebekah pulls Caroline away from her and Tyler.

"Call it a hunch." He grabs Nyx's hand and cuts her forearm. "Drink it." He holds her arm toward Tyler as it starts to bleed.

Tyler looks up at her, and she nods. "Ty, it's okay." She tells him, and he takes her arm in his hand as Klaus lets go.

He puts his mouth to Nyx's arm, and he drinks a little bit of her blood. Then he suddenly grabs his chest and falls to the floor. Nyx tries to run toward him, but Klaus grabs her and holds her against his chest. They're both facing Tyler as he groans in pain and holds his head. He starts screaming.

Tyler looks up at Nycole and Klaus, and his eyes are their yellow werewolf color and he has the vampire veins under his eyes. Her blood is running down his chin, and in that moment a part of her is afraid of him again.

"Well, that's a good sign." Klaus says as he lets go of Nyx. "You're free to go, love. And you might want to bandage that up, we don't want you bleeding out."

"Where are Dean and Sam?" Nyx asks.

"Wandering the halls, I believe."

"And Elena?"

"Don't worry about her, she'll be fine."

"Nycole, go." Caroline says, and she looks at her. The blonde nods, and Nyx grabs some paper towels before leaving the classroom.

Nyx finds the boys, and Dean looks down at her arm. "I'm okay." She tells him, and he quickly pulls her into his arms before kissing the top of her head. He was so afraid that something bad had happened to her after she and Klaus disappeared.

The boys take Nyx home, and she leans against the Impala after they park outside her family's house. Sam goes inside to talk to Ric and tell him what's going on, and Dean goes to stand in front of her as she tries to calm her racing mind.

"Are you okay?" He asks, and she looks up at him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

"Come on, let's go inside." He motions toward the front door, and​ she nods.

Nyx makes her way into the living room as Dean goes into the kitchen where Sam and Ric are talking. He starts making her some food, and she sits on the couch with her back leaning against the arm. She's not listening to their conversation; her mind's moving too fast as she looks down at her stomach.

Sam walks past, and her head turns to the side, but she still doesn't say anything as he moves for the stairs. She feels Dean's gaze on her as she returns her attention to her bump, and she presses lightly to get the twins to start moving. She feels a kick, and her eyes fall closed as she lets out a relieved sigh.

Dean walks over then, and he sets the plate in her lap before carefully moving her legs so he can sit down, then he lets her legs rest in his lap. She still doesn't look up as she continues pressing softly on her belly to get the babies to respond to her, and she moves her hand over Dean's when he reaches over; she uses his hand to get the twins to kick.

"Eat, please." He says, his voice low. "Even if you only eat half."

"I'm sorry." She says, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks at her.

"What do you have to be sorry for?"

"Me and my big mouth." She wipes a tear from under her eye. "Sometimes I talk...like I have nothing to lose. And I... It's not true, that's not how I feel. I have everything to lose — you, our babies... I just get so angry, and I don't think before I... I make it sound like I'm not afraid to die, and that's not how I feel. I've been terrified of Klaus finding out that I'm alive and killing me, of him killing them again. I know that if I die, you lose more than just me... I just— I'm sorry, Dean. I'm sorry that I don't handle these things better. I'm sorry that you got roped into my problems with Klaus. I'm sorry he keeps taking me, and I know that it scares you. I'm sorry you have to be afraid of losing me— us. I'm sorry you couldn't fall for someone normal, who isn't a doppelganger with an original hybrid monster constantly plotting to use her. I'm so sorry you're stuck with me."

"I'm not." He says, and she squeezes her eyes shut as he reaches up and rests his hand on the side of her face. "I'm not stuck anywhere, Nycole. I choose to be right here. And I will continue to choose you and our babies every day for the rest of my life."