The bindings cut deeply into my wrists, turning my fingers red. the coldness of the stone bar my arms hugged around stung my skin and the rain that continued to fall flooded the ground until my shoes were sinking in mud. I didn't know how far into the forest we'd gone before stopping, under a wooden ceiling that must've once been part of a house. Water dropped through the cracks of it and when I looked up, rain fell into my eyes. I groaned to myself as I tried to make sense of my location, but the thicket of trees and strong rainfall made everything blur together in a smear of brown and grey. The only thing distinct I caught a few yards out were stone slabs, jutting through the ground like broken teeth.

I narrowed my eyes, hoping to clear my vision. Were we near a graveyard?

"Wow," I said, squinting out into the rain. "Do you take all your captives to cemeteries?"

I looked back to the man, his dark eyes following me. He shook his head, rainwater flicking off his hair. "Oh, this place? No. This house burned to the ground, killing the family inside. That's just where they're buried."

"How...symbolic." I said, and then decided to switch topics as his vampires securied the bindings around my hands. "So what is it exactly you want from Klaus?" I asked. "Do you want to kill him or manipulate him or do you just enjoy provoking people in general?"

The man just smiled, revealing a plate of very white teeth. "You could say I have a bone to pick with Niklaus. Some of us have spent decades looking for his Achilles heel. Something to hold over his head. We've even heard the rumor of a daughter. However, it isn't as if she'd be easy to find. But I," he took a step towards me, "I get the next best thing."

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Let me guess. This is the part when you torture the damsel in distress to get whatever answers she has out of her, right?"

He smiled again. "My, my, that switch really is off. But to answer your question, you're only partially correct." He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled something small and rectangular out. My eyes fell to the red button on the face of it.

"A recorder," I said.

"Yes, I believe it'll be more effective, as this way, Niklaus will have no opportunity to protest." He sighed. "And as much as I'd like to say this won't hurt, as it's a pity to harm such a pretty thing, I cannot; sacrifices must be made."

My eyes followed him as he moved to a wooden box in the corner of the room. He retrieved something from its depths and I expected it to be a stake but to my surprise, coiled like a snake in his hand, was a whip.

He shrugged at my expression. "What can I say?" He asked. "I'm old fashioned." Then he set the recorder on the table in front of me and held his finger above the button.

"Let's get started."

And he pressed it.

______________

KLAUS

She wasn't in the club. It took Klaus less than a few minutes to realize that and when he did, he blew out the door and searched around it, cursing under his breath. He'd lost her again, slipping through his fingers like water once more.

He ran the perimeter of the club, and then went to the next building, his concern steadily growing. Klaus mentally chastised himself; he should have kept better tabs on her; shouldn't have left her out of his sight. If he found that small red headed vampire again, he wouldn't spare her. On the contrary, she'd be begging for death after meeting with him a second time.

After searching the single story building, Klaus continued on, breezing down the street, his footfalls as quick as the rain.

His fear mounted, making his hands quiver. The town was eerily quiet. Not quiet in the sense of lack of noise, no, quiet in the sense of lack of fear. If Caroline were still here, he'd know it, in the form of burning shops and frightened civilians.

But she wasn't here. She wasn't anywhere.

He jerked back, sending his fist against the side of a building. The brick cracked where his knuckles met the surface of it. Already, a flurry of death threats was circling inside his mind, and he counted them off as calmly as if he were marking a shopping list.

It was a very long list that grew as the minutes elapsed.

Nearly an hour disappeared and Klaus kept looking, hyper aware of every suspicious glance; anything out of the realm of normal. But to him, everyone held that glance and he paused inside a quaint bar down Canal Place, trying to get his bearings.

He couldn't think. Oddly, he was finding it difficult to breathe as the knowledge of Caroline not being there sunk in, tinged with a note of finality to it.

He ran a hand over his neck, attempting to keep focused. If someone had her, she would have been disposed of quickly. Quietly. Perhaps this time, he'd be too late.

"Excuse me?"

"What?" Klaus snapped, his voice as sharp as a razor. He turned to find a waitress, holding an envelope out to him. "This was left for you." She said, extending the package outward.

Klaus snatched it from her grasp. "Who? Who gave you this, Love?"

She shrugged and glanced once over her shoulder. "Some man. He's gone now."

The waitress left him with that and walked away.

Klaus darted in the direction she'd looked at, shoving open the back door and stepping outside. His gaze drifted down the alley, before refocusing on the item and he tore the envelope open. Inside was a black box and he dropped it into his palm, enclosing his fingers over it.

Without hesitation, he pressed the button.

"NiKlaus Mikaelson, is it? Or can I just call you Klaus?" Came a male voice that he didn't recognize. He felt as his anger piqued. "I honestly cannot tell you how pleased I am to have found your little friend. A bit troubled, is she not? What do you think, Sweetheart?"

"I actually find you a tad more unstable. And rather creepy," Caroline's voice replaced the stranger's and Klaus took a small breath of relief.

It was short lived.

He heard a crack and someone's sharp intake of air and his hand tightened over the recorder.

"Consider this proof that I mean business." Another crack ricochetted from the small speaker. Klaus caught Caroline's hiss of pain, followed by the heavy sigh of the man. "You really should maintain a careful eye on the things that matter to you, Klaus. This was....this was almost disappointing in its ease. I mean, to be particularly honest, I expected a bit more from you."

"You really are just trying to piss him off," Caroline's voice said, ending with a third lash. Klaus felt his entire body tremor with barely contained rage.

"I'm trying to make my message very clear," the man deadpanned. "Let's face reality; Klaus is not fit to be in such a position of influence. He's careless and pretentious in thinking he can just let you have at it in a city without paying the consequences of it."

A fifth lash.

"So I want it relinquished. To someone who actually pays attention to the well being of the community. I want it relinquished to me."

Klaus heard Caroline groan. "He's not the freaking mayor," she snapped. "Are you really arguing over the technicality of just being acknowledged as-"

Another lash cut over the line and, though her hiss was muffled, it was a much more pronounced noise of pain.

"When are you going to learn the precise moment at which to stop talking?" He asked her. Klaus nearly dropped the recorder with the vibrations of his hands.

"I just have a few....terms for him to meet."

"And then you'll let me go?"

There was a pause on the line and Klaus imagined the faceless man smiling. "Then I'll let you live."

The seventh lash sounded, accompanied by Caroline's choked sob. She was holding back, her breathing ragged when she spoke. "So you're just....going to keep me here?"

"For as long as it takes," the stranger said. "I can hardly let you go now. I have to protect my interests. Because something tells me Klaus doesn't take threatening a loved one lightly."

She let out broken laugh. "You're wasting your time. Even if Klaus does care, he's not going to play Golden Retriever for you." She inhaled shakily. "You'd be better off just killing me instead."

"Well, you have a good sense of self preservation. But you see, if I kill you, I've defeated the purpose. Klaus," the man directed his words straight at him and it took Klaus physical restraint to keep from crushing the item in his palm. "This woman is my leverage and if you do not comply with my wishes, I will kill her."

"Or it's another grave dug," Caroline interjected, voice covered in sarcasm. "I think he gets it."

She nearly screamed this time when the crack of the whip appeared, stronger than the lightening in the sky.

"Consider this a favor, Klaus," the man said. "At this rate, the girl will switch it back on eventually. So you see? In the end, we both get what we want."

The flick of the whip came across the speaker again and this time, the noise of Caroline's cry turned Klaus's vision white. With a roar, he whipped the recorder around and it smashed against the wall, cutting off the sound of her scream.