CHARLIE WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS AFTER ONE OF her transformations. She had gotten a text from Stefan, telling her to meet him at this random point in the middle of the forest. She furrowed her eyebrows when she reached the point and saw Matt, Caroline, and Elena standing there as well. Matt was the first to say something. "Hey. What's with the cryptic secret meeting text?"

"I don't know. Stefan just said to meet here," the Gilbert girl answered, and a look around showed that everyone else there had gotten the same text.

"Where's Bonnie?" a voice asked from behind them, and they turned around to see both of the Salvatore brothers standing behind them. Stefan scanned the group and frowned at the fact that the Bennett girl was missing. "I texted her too."

Caroline shook her head, knowing that the witch would not be into getting involved in all of the vampire drama again and not for a while. "Um, Bonnie's mom bailed on her. Again. So, I think we should leave her out of this one."

"What are we doing here?" Charlie questioned, wanting to get home and shower as soon as possible. She was still gross and sweaty from her transformation, and she smelled like the cellar which was rich in old rusty metal and rock.

Damon sighed and glanced at his brother who was holding a duffel bag before informing them. "We found some more white oak. Long story, wait for the movie."

"Hang on," Elena exclaimed as they all stared at the man in shock. White oak was the only think that could kill an Original, and they were pretty sure that it either did not exist anymore or that it was extremely rare. "White oak? You have a weapon that can kill Klaus?"

"Nope. We all have a weapon," Stefan corrected before throwing the duffel bag onto the ground. It was open, so it spilled stakes onto the forest floor.

Charlie muttered, "Oh, my God."

"Klaus has always been one step ahead of us, but now we have the advantage. We're all armed and they are all linked, meaning we only need to kill one of them," the Salvatore boy explained to them. "We need to seize the best opportunity, which means we need to prepare for every opportunity."

"Scenario number one. You get to play Klaus," Damon announced, grabbing Elena and pulling he rover to where no one else was standing in their way. The Gilbert girl nodded.

The younger brother continued to explain the scenario. "Rebekah is our target so we distract her and catch her off guard. To do that we need to keep Klaus separate and occupied. Caroline."

"Why do I always have to be Klaus bait?" the Forbes girl complained, not wanting to have to spend so much time with Klaus after everything that he had done to the people that she loved. Plus, there was the possibility that he was faking it and just waiting for an opportunity to murder her.

"Because he's obsessed with you," Damon answered before walking over to her. "But for right now we need you to play Rebekah. We use the quarterback to distract her. Just keep her talking. Act interested. She's lonely, desperate."

The Lockwood girl scoffed, "Clearly. She slept with you."

"Beefcake holds bombshell. I come up from behind her," the man kept going after shooting the hybrid a glare. Damon grabbed Caroline and her arms and put them behind her back. "Grab her arms like this."

"Ow!" the girl exclaimed, and Stefan came up to her with the stake in his hand, imitating stabbing her like they would if she was actually Rebekah.

Stefan backed away as his brother released the Forbes girl. "Gives me time for one shot. Got it? Good. So we all have one stake, we keep it hidden and we look out for any opportunity we have. Charlie, since Bonnie's not here, you're going to have two stakes."

"Why me?" she questioned since she figured that one of the more important people would have more than one stake.

"Because they think you're still sired to Klaus, so they won't expect you to be in on the plan," the boy answered, and Charlie nodded in understanding. She was still partly sired to Klaus, but she had turned twenty-six times, and she was definitely not grateful for him. Damon looked to Elena as he said, "No last minute attacks of pity for any of them."

The human shook her head, letting them know that she was definitely not going to back out at the last moment. "Don't worry about me. Not after what happened to Bonnie's mom."

"Barbie?"

"Oh, I'm ready," the Forbes girl assured him, shaking her head. "Anything that will free Tyler from his sire bond to Klaus."

"Busboy?"

Matt sighed, knowing that if he said that he might back out, they would probably shun him or something. He questioned. "Do I have a choice?"

"Good point," Damon responded before turning to the youngest person there with raised eyebrows since he knew that she might back out for the man that she had been hanging out with a lot. "Little Lockwoof? You've been getting mighty cozy with Kol."

"I won't back out, not after everything that Klaus has done," she told them confidently. She hated Klaus more than she like Kol. She needed him dead for her sanity.

Stefan nodded, that being good enough for him. He wanted to get on with the scenarios. "We have 12 stakes, 12 shots at killing one Original. We can do this."

☾❄☽

CHARLIE ENTERED THE SALVATORE BOARDING HOUSE AT THE SAME TIME as Stefan and Elena, and they all walked side-by-side toward the library where Caroline had been watching Alaric. She was a little iffy about the job since she just found out that Alaric was the one that killed her father, so she was scared that she would snap at him or something. They stepped in, and the blonde climbed to her feet when she saw them. The Gilbert girl asked, "Hey. How's Alaric?"

"He'll be okay. I gave him a bottle of Bonnie's herbs and he went home," she informed them, and she turned to the two that were supposed to be a part of the killing Finn plan. When Charlie had gotten home, she had hid one of the stakes in a hole in her mattress where she used to stash drugs and alcohol, and she buried the other in her backyard next to a tree. She did not bury it pretty deep, but her yard was huge, so it would still take a long time for someone to find it if they did not know exactly where it was. "Oh, did you guys kill Finn, did it work?"

"Nothing worked until I see Klaus' dead body myself," Stefan answered, refusing to be optimistic until he knew that it had worked.

Elena's phone rang all of a sudden, and she picked it up. It was Bonnie, and she was shocked since the Bennett girl had not answered any of her calls for a very long time. "Where have you been?"

"Klaus has Damon," the girl informed them, and Stefan's head snapped up in attention, listening to Bonnie. They all grew tense after hearing the news that Klaus was alive.

"Kl—Klaus should be dead," Elena stammered out since that was the deal. They kill one Original, and they kill them all. That was how it worked. "They should all be dead. We just killed Finn."

"No, Elena. He forced me to do a spell that unlinked all the siblings. He's still alive," the witch explained to them, and Stefan internally groaned at the Original hybrid being ten steps ahead of them like he usually was.

The other girls grew worried. "Okay, Bonnie. Where's Damon?"

"At Klaus' mansion," she answered, and she was speaking really low as if she was scared that the man would show up any second and kill her for warning them. She started to choke up as she continued, "It's bad, Elena. He threatened Jeremy. And my mom..."

"Are — are you okay?" the human girl questioned, scared that Klaus might have harmed her in some way to get her to do that other than threatening the girl's loved ones.

"I don't know," she stuttered, and it was clear that she either needed or wanted to go. "I'm sorry, I have to go. I just...I have to go."

"No, Bonnie just—" the Gilbert tried to stop her, but she had already hung up. She sighed and lowered her phone before sticking it into her pocket.

Stefan stood up to leave and go get Damon from Klaus, and the other girls followed him. He turned to the older brunette girl. "Stay with Caroline. I'll call you when it's over."

"Stefan, stop," she told him, trying to prevent him from walking into a sure death trap. There was no way that Klaus would allow him to just waltz in there and grab Damon and go. "Klaus is stronger than you, we need another plan."

"What we need is for Klaus to be dead."

Elena finally grabbed his arm, causing him to spin around and face her. She yelled, "Stefan, stop it! You're acting in anger!"

"Anger gets things done, Elena!" he insisted, and he really did not sound like Stefan. The Stefan before Klaus would have been reasonable and thought things through. He was too blinded by his hatred for Klaus to think, and Charlie, despite knowing that he was wrong, understood.

"Or it'll get you killed! It'll get Damon killed along with you," the Gilbert girl pointed out, trying to convince him to stp.

"Klaus does not get to survive this," the Salvatore man. He had done too much to be able to survive. All of them hated how he could do such awful things and then walk around the world like he owned the place, which he kind of did. It was so infuriating. "Not after everything he took from me."

Then, he walked out and slammed the door, and Caroline sighed, "I miss well-adjusted Stefan."

All of a sudden, the door flew open with Stefan along with him. He went flying into the living room as Sage stepped in the door. Sage, the woman that was in love with Finn. Troy, a man that she had turned, walked behind her. She grinned, "Ding dong." Caroline went to attack her, but she threw her to the ground before doing the same with the hybrid girl. She glanced between the Gilbert and the Salvatore. "I'm not here for you. I'm here for him."

"I had to kill him, Sage," Stefan insisted as she took a step toward him.

"Oh, you remember me," she mused, and then she kicked Stefan so hard that he flew into a chair. She smirked as he groaned in pain. "Good. Then you know I like to go all ten rounds."

Then, she started to cough, and her nose began to bleed. Troy furrowed his eyebrows. "Sage?" Stefan climbed to his feet, and she tried to throw a punch at him. He caught her wrist and threw her to the ground as she began to cough up blood.

"Troy, help me!" she shrieked, and Troy let go of Elena and rushed over to the redheaded woman. But he started coughing as well and collapsed. "What is happening to me?" After a moment of them struggling, and the others watching in shock and horror, they went still.

"She just died!" Elena exclaimed, pointing out the obvious.

Caroline furrowed her eyebrows in confusion since they had died so suddenly. She pointed out, "So, Sage and this Troy guy die within an hour of Finn."

"But why? Were they bitten by a hybrid or...?" the human girl questioned, looking between all of them to see if they had any ideas as to what the hell just happened.

Charlie shook her head as she thought back to the time when Tyler had bitten Caroline in the woods on her birthday. "Hybrid bites don't look like that."

"Maybe Sage was so in love with Finn she just died of sadness," the blonde girl suggested with a shrug, but how sad do you have to be to start coughing up blood?

Elena shook her head because that did not explain why her little male friend died unless he loved her so much that he died of sadness with her or something. "No, that doesn't explain Troy."

"It's the blood. The bloodline. It has to be," Stefan spoke up, and they all looked at him with questioning looks, wondering what the hell he was talking about. "Think about it: Finn turned Sage, Sage turned Troy. They're all part of the same vampire bloodline that originated with Finn."

"Wait, so when an Original dies every vampire turned from their bloodline dies along with them? Because that would mean..." the Forbes girl trailed off, thinking about everything that would happen if all of the Originals died.

"If the Originals die, so do all of you. The entire vampire species would...it'd just be dead," Elena pointed out, looking between them in shock before her eyes settled on Charlie. "Even if you guys aren't connected to Klaus, if he died—"

The younger girl nodded before finishing for her, "Tyler and I would die too."