CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
❝You'll Die❞︎

SHE WALKED DOWN THE HALL WITH JOSIE, JED, AND KALEB, STOPPING WHEN THEY WERE MET WITH RAFAEL, HOPE, AND LIZZIE. The twins stopped and stared at one another before asking in unison, "She's coming?"

"I need all the help I can get, so please put your twin war on pause." Hope told them whilst Harper moved to stand on the other side of Hope.

"Why is he going?" Rafael asked, nodding towards Jed with furrowed eyebrows. "He hates Landon."

Jed turned to look at him. "Look, you're the alpha. If Landon's your pack, that makes him ours."

"Where's MG?" Kaleb questioned.

"He's on his way." Hope assured. "Let's load up while we wait for him. Come on." They followed Hope out of the door before they were forced to stop when they saw armed men making their way towards them.

"Oh, sorry." One of the men called. "We were about to knock."

"Who the hell are you?" Lizzie snapped.

"Name's Burr." The man, Burr, answered. "Triad Industries."

"Propellere." Hope called, but nothing happened.

"I got this." Kaleb put his bag down and went to move forward only to stumble back when his skin started to burn in the sunlight.

"What you don't got is magic. Which is why your daylight ring won't work. And what we have are stakes, wolfsbane. . . and other things." He smirked. "So I think you should invite us inside." They all walked back inside with the men following them, all of the students being forced to gather around. "We're looking for an artifact known as the Chalice of Arimathea. We have reason to believe it's part of your school's collection. Now, you know this place a lot better than we do, so the sooner you help us find it, the sooner we'll be gone. Triad thanks you for your time."

Harper stood there, her hands shaking as she looked at the man. He reminded her so much of her father, and that simple fact made fear ignite inside of her. Josie glanced towards the woman and saw her shaking hands, she carefully reached out and grabbed onto Harper, interlacing her fingers and offering her a small nod. All of the students split up, doing as the men asked with Hope, Harper, and the Saltzman twins entering Alaric's office

Hope tried the phone but shook her head and placed it back on the hook. "It's dead. We have to find the school cell."

"Check MG's tighty-whities." Lizzie commented.

"Really?" Josie glared. "This is serious."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Lizzie snapped. "We can't all be born with resting concerned pouty face."

"Jesus, can you two stop for five minutes." Harper snapped.

"Didn't this book shelf used to have books on it?" Hope asked, pointing to one of the shelves on the bookcase. Instead of books, their was simply a red chest of some sort.

"Yeah." Josie nodded. "That's weird."

Hope picked up the small chest and brought it over to the desk, sitting it down as the other three moved closer to it. Hope looked at it for a moment before standing up straight once more. "Whatever they're doing to block out out magic must have knocked out a cloaking spell your dad had."

"Big shocker. Dad's hiding something from us." Lizzie walked over to the chest and picked it up.

"Unless it has the school phone in it, it doesn't matter." Hope was quick to tell her before walking away.

"Sorry I don't feel like laughing while my world is falling apart." Josie told her twin, her arms crossed over her chest. Harper sighed before walking away from the two and over to Hope, the two exchanging looks with one another before Hope pulled open the glass doors to another book shelf, the two taking a moment to look through the books before Hope found something.

"Hey, guys, found it." Hope called, stopping their argument as she held up the phone. Hope was quick to call Alaric, explaining to him everything that was happening. When she hung up the phone with an annoyed huff, Lizzie was the one to speak first.

"So, what do we do now?"

"Now, we figure out a way to get our powers back, and we kick some paramilitary ass."

"Sounds good to me." Harper shrugged.

"Wait, dad said not to do anything crazy." Josie told them.

"Me defying your dad isn't crazy. It's consistent."

That's when the door opened to reveal Burr. "Well, at least we know where you stand."

"You're damn right we do." Hope snapped.

"You're not very scared of me, are you?" He noted before pulling out a gun. "How about now?"

Hope chuckled in amusement. "That's your plan. You're gonna shoot a kid."

"This gun would never harm a human child." He laughed. "You four, however. . ." He started to load the gun. "These bullets were formed from the mud of the Malivore pit and weaponized by Triad scientists. They can break the skin of any supernatural creature like a hot knife through butter. Fester. Infect them. Disintegrate them from the inside out."

"We don't know where the chalice is." Josie muttered.

"I believe you." He nodded. "This is just for fun, really." He pointed the gun, switching it between the four witches. "Eeny. . . meeny. . . miny. . ."

"Mo!" Lizzie yelled, going to jump forward but Josie stopped her, jumping in front of her sister and getting shot. Harper gasped, watching her fall to the ground. A black hole was placed right below her collarbone.

"Lock them up." Burr ordered.

"Josie." Harper whispered, grabbing her hand with tears in her eyes. Before she knew it she was being pulled away from the hurt girl and dragged to a cell with the other three soon to follow suit. Lizzie of course was reprimanding Josie for jumping in front of the girl, and Hope was walking around the cell whilst Harper stayed in the corner of one of the cell with a tear falling down her face.

"You okay?" Hope whispered, stopping in front of the girl. Harper wiped away the tear and just nodded her head before moving to sit on the other bed that Josie and Lizzie weren't sitting on. Hope glanced towards the guard that had yelled at them to be quiet before watching as he walked away before kneeling down to look at the three. "You guys, I'm so sorry. I mean, I dragged you all into this, and I have absolutely no idea how to get us out of it."

"Well, that is just not good enough, Hope." Lizzie frowned. "My sister is clearly dying, and we did not wait ten years to become friends with you for you to not come through with your annoyingly perfect Hope Mikaelson heroics when we need you the most." Lizzie held out her hand and Hope looked at her for a moment before managing a small smile and placing her hand into Lizzie's. She did the same thing with Josie before the three glanced over to Harper. She looked at them for a moment before standing up and walking over to the bed, grabbing Josie and Lizzie's other hands.

"She's right, for a change." Josie spoke up. "It's hero time, Hope."

That's when the guard appeared again. "I said keep it down in there." That's when he suddenly grunted, a hand flying to his neck before he fell to the ground, revealing MG standing there with a dart gun.

He looked at the four as they stood up before asking, "Did someone say hero time?"

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"A BLOOD FOUNTAIN? GROSS." Hope scoffed.

"It's even grosser in person. Trust me." MG told her. "I was looking for a way to shut it off, but I couldn't figure out how."

"All right, I'll go find the secret tunnel, I guess." Hope sighed.

"Thanks. We get our magic back, we'll have the upper hand."

"And then I can siphon the sludge out of Josie." Lizzie spoke up from Josie's bedside. "Not that she'll appreciate it."

"Great, then I'll just be shot." Josie rolled her eyes.

"See?" Lizzie smiled. "This new you is so snarky."

"Okay. I'm gonna be back as soon as I can." Hope told them before looking at Harper and MG. "Please keep these two from trying to kill or die each other."

"Hope, you need to go help Landon." Harper frowned.

"We don't need you to be here." MG agreed.

"But I can't leave you guys here."

"For the love of Frodo, go rescue your hobbit. We'll muddle through." Lizzie rolled her eyes.

"She's right again." Josie nodded. "He needs you."

"We've been watching you save the day this entire school year, Hope. We got it." MG assured the girl. "Now go save Landon."

"Go." Josie urged. "If you go soft on us now, I'm just gonna hurl Maligoo."

Hope looked over to Harper who nodded her head. "Go. We'll be okay here." Hope nodded her head before walking out of the cell.

MG then moved to walk over to the sisters. "Y'all need to stay out of sight until we get the magic back and you can throw down with the rest of us. In the mean time, I'll rally up the troops, and Harper is going to stay here to make sure you don't kill each other like Hope said." He placed a hand on Josie's leg. "Everything's gonna be okay, Jo."

He stood up to walk away, but stopped when Josie called his name. "MG, wait. I have an idea." She removed the necklace around her neck and handed it to him. "Take this. You know what to do with it." MG nodded before walking out of the cell. Harper made her way over to Josie and offered her a small smile as she gave her other hand a squeeze.

When they got their magic back, Lizzie was quick to try and siphon the bullet and poison from Josie's body, but it wasn't working. Harper even tried to help, see if it was because more magic was needed, but still nothing.

"It's not working." Lizzie cried. "Why isn't it working?"

"Maybe it can't be siphoned." Josie weakly answered.

"But then you'll die."

"That's one way for you to avoid the merge." Josie tried. "Cheater."

"No. Uh-uh. You do not get to be the martyr. That was my job." Harper looked away as tears strolled down her cheeks.

"I'm obviously better at the too." Josie joked.

Lizzie shook her head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I'm the broken one."

"Just think of the amazing outfit you'll wear at my funeral." Harper stood up and walked over to the bars of the cell, deciding that she was interrupting a sister moment. She didn't listen, she just stood there and closed her eyes as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She glanced over to them only when Lizzie was helping Josie up, she shared a look with the two before nodding in understanding and following out after them.

They made it upstairs to find out the party had started without them, witches were using their magic, Kaleb was rushing all of the little kids to the buses with his vamp speed. That's when the three girls noticed MG standing on the steps with Burr pointing a gun at him. Josie and Lizzie grabbed onto Harper's hands as they said a spell that caused bugs to fall from the mans mouth. Burr was quick to run away whilst MG made his way down the stairs as Lizzie and Harper moved Josie to sit down on the steps.

Rafael appeared with worry in his eyes. "Jo, you don't look too hot."

"We got to go after Burr." Harper clenched her jaw. She was pissed. She stood up straight and looked towards MG and Rafael.

Rafael pulled out a necklace Hope had given him before saying, "Don't worry, I got Hope bling too. If Josie, Harper, and Lizzie can help me with a veiling spell. . . he'll never see me coming." The two girl's glanced towards Josie and she nodded.

They helped him before MG and Harper made their way outside after Rafael did his part. The two nodded towards him, watching as he turned visible once again. MG nodded towards the wolf. "We got it from here, Raf. Hit the woods till Hope comes back." Rafael was quick to run away and towards the woods whilst Burr was quick to turn and face them with his gun pointed out at them.

"You're monsters, just like him, and you all need to be put down." They were getting ready to do something when all of sudden he turned to stone. The two exchanged confused looks with one another before turning to see Nia coming towards them.

"I'm gonna check on the kids." Harper whispered, shooting MG a smirk before making her way towards the bus.

When all of the men had been arrested and taken from the school, Harper softly sighed and made her way up the steps she was tired and was ready to go to bed. When she knew that Josie was okay after drinking a vial of Hope's blood, she offered the Saltzman twins a goodnight before making her way into her room. She was going to miss Alaric's big speech about how he failed them, and that he was stepping down as headmaster, Harper would of course find this out in the morning. They would've woken her up to fill in for Hope at the honors council, before they all agreed that the girl needed sleep. But Harper wasn't focused on any of that. All she could hope for, was that Hope was okay, and that Landon was alive and safe, not knowing that once she woke up, she would forget Hope ever existed.