Chapter 3

A pounding headache was what greeted her as she came back to consciousness. Someone was calling her. At first, it was distant, like she was underwater and someone was calling from the surface. But then, it got louder and clearer by each passing second.

"Elena, Elena. Wake up." As she opened her eyes, all she could see were blurred lines. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision and gradually, the face in front of her became clearer. Damon was hovering over her, clearly worried about her.

A groan escaped her lips as she sat up. Even though her head felt like a truck had crushed it, she gritted her teeth and forced herself not to fall down again. She closed her eyes tight for a second and opened them again, trying to get rid of the headache. Damon was looking at her, a worried frown marring his face.

"What happened?" She mumbled, barely coherent.

"Kol knocked us out and took off." Damon answered.

"How long were we out?" She asked as she tried to get up, in vain.

Damon sighed. "For two hours, by what I counted."

Damon took her hand and helped her get up. As she tried to stand, her legs wobbled. She would have fallen had Damon not caught her in time. Regaining her bearings, she looked around the room. There was blood on the spot where she had hit her head. Cracks had formed on the floor where Damon had been beaten unconscious by Kol.

It was a good thing they had not brought Jeremy in here. Who knew what Kol would have done to him? She hoped he was alright. But why he hadn't he come and tried to wake them up? If it had indeed been two hours, that was plenty more than enough time for Jeremy to come up and help them. The more she thought about it, the more the implications pierced her with mind numbing fear. Fear for her little brother.

Damon picked up the sudden spike in Elena's heartbeat and frowned. "Elena, what's wrong?"

"Jeremy? Where's Jeremy?" She asked frantically, panic and worry fighting for dominance on her face.

Damon's frown deepened. He went to the open window and strained his ear, expecting to hear the familiar heartbeat of the little Gilbert. But instead of the steady thump that he expected to hear, all that greeted him was silence, that is, if you disregarded the occasional chirping of crickets, which he did.

"I don't know. I can't hear his heartbeat." He finally said, answering Elena's question.

As the answer sank into her mind, panic won the battle and she gave a loud cry. "No, no. Jeremy can't be ... he can't be."

"Elena, don't worry. I am sure he is okay." He said. Elena shook her head. How would her little brother be okay? Kol was a monster. The dead body pinned on the wall opposite to them was proof of that. A vampire almost as old as the Mikaelsons themselves didn't survive against him. How would her little brother survive? Who knew what Kol was doing to him?

The thought of her brother being hurt in such a way stabbed her from the inside. And, suddenly, she couldn't breathe. Her panic reared it's head like a monster, threatening to consume her whole. But then she felt hands on her face, urging her to look up. And she complied, looking up to see crystal blue eyes looking back at her with concern.

Damon spoke with a calm voice. "Elena, listen to me. We will find him. But you have to calm down first. You will be no use to your brother if you are a mess. Breathe, breathe."

Elena focused on his voice, taking the time to breathe in and out slowly, calming down a little with each breath. When she had calmed down considerably, Damon sighed. "Good. Now, Elena, I need to carry you to the front yard. It will be much faster this way."

Elena could do nothing but nod wordlessly. And before she knew it, Damon had picked her up bridal style and they were rushing through the hallway, down the stairs and to the front yard. It wasn't long before Damon stopped. As he put her down on the ground, she blinked and shook her head, trying to regain her balance.

She looked around and saw that they were at the place where they had parked their car. Her breath got caught in her throat as her eyes fell on the car. One passenger door was ripped off and thrown to the ground. The front door on the same side had a slight dent as if someone had been thrown against it.

She looked down on the ground beside the car and saw that the grass there had been trampled as if someone had been standing there with too much pressure. And so was the grass a foot behind it and so on, leading all the way up to, from what she could tell, the house.

And Jeremy was nowhere to be seen. Elena knew that there was next to no chance that Jeremy was here. But that didn't stop her from screaming out his name, hoping that he would hear her, willing for her little brother to come back to her. But before she could scream herself hoarse, Damon was in front of her once again, his hands on her shoulder.

"Shh, Elena. It's okay. He is okay." Damon said in a soothing voice.

"No, he's not." She said, her voice broken with fear for her brother. "If Kol has him, he's not okay. You saw, Damon. You saw what that bastard did to Mary. Who knows what he is doing to my little brother? He could be dead for all we know."

"He's not dead, Elena. Trust me." Damon tried to reassure her.

"How do you know?" She asked desperately.

"Because I don't smell any blood. And trust me, if Kol had any intention of killing him or hurting him, there would be blood. Here. Kol isn't one to wait patiently." Damon explained patiently.

And then he looked around. "Wait here." He told Elena and then walked a few steps away from her. Frowning, he sniffed around the air, hoping to catch a scent. And catch a scent, he did. He turned around to look at Elena in the eye and said, "Stay here, Elena."

And with that, he became a blur, vanishing from her sight. After he was gone, she tried to stand there and be still. Trying to keep her mind away from her gruesome imaginations, she started pacing back and forth in front of the car and focused on other things. Her relationship with Stefan and Damon, Bonnie's mom and her new life as a vampire, Tyler running around after Caroline like a lost puppy. That last wrung a small laugh out of her.

Jeremy's birthday was coming up soon. She wondered what she would give him as a present this year. And then she remembered her current situation and her thoughts, inevitably, returned to their previous morose tracks. Fortunately, though, before she could continue that line of thought, Damon returned.

She looked at his face to find a strange mixture relief and worry there. Without hesitation, she stormed towards him and demanded, "What? What did you find?" She knew he had followed Jeremy's scent. He had to have found something.

"He's alive alright." He said and then the frown on his face deepened. "But..."

But? Things were never good when there was a but. She tried to keep the panic away and her voice calm. "But? But what?"

Damon said nothing as he extended his right hand towards her. In his hand was a piece of paper with something written on it.

She took the paper with trembling hands. And as soon as she saw what was written on it, her chest constricted and her panic came back with full force.

Dear Doppelganger,

Your brother is an exquisite and priceless treasure. You should have cherished him when you had the chance to do so. Worry not. We will cherish him in your place. He will be safe and sound. At Mikaelson Manor.

Yours truly

Kol Mikaelson

'No, no, no,' was the first thought on her mind. Her brother couldn't be at that place. Those monsters would destroy him. Sure, her brother knew about vampires, but he didn't know the true horrors of the undead. He didn't know what they were really capable of. The only serious altercation he had with a vampire was that with Katherine in the cave. Otherwise, she and her friends had always protected him.

The smiling face of her brother from before everything started, before their parents died, when they were just a happy, normal family. And she knew she couldn't let that innocence be destroyed. She was responsible for this. She had dragged him into this supernatural mess. She knew she couldn't be responsible for ruining that sweet smile. And neither will she let those sadist monsters ruin that smile.

A steely determination entered her eyes as she looked at Damon. "Let's go." She said as she opened the front door of the car and sat beside the driver's seat.

Damon frowned as he looked at Elena's hard face. It was the same look she had when she went to Klaus to sacrifice herself. He didn't like that look. But nevertheless, he hopped onto the car and took the wheel.

"Where are we going?"

"Mikaelson Manor."

"Brother, I do not approve of this." Elijah frowned as he reprimanded his younger brothers, who were standing unrepentantly in front of him, with no regret for what they had done.

"Oh, come on, brother, you want the same thing. Let's have some fun while we are at it." Kol shot back, grinning.

"Kol's right, brother. We all want the same thing." Klaus agreed with his younger brother, making his older brother look at him with an exasperated expression on his face.

The reason for their present heated argument, one of the many in their family, was unaware that three most powerful creatures in the world was yelling at each other for him, being unconscious and sleeping. Jeremy Gilbert was sleeping peacefully on the bed between the brothers. Kol on the right, Klaus on the left and Elijah at the end. If someone watched from a geometrical perspective, they would have seen a perfect triangle made by their positions.

Anyway, straying from the topic here. Jeremy Gilbert, unaware of the creatures hovering over him who would be the topic of his nightmares from many days to come, slept peacefully, dreaming of the happy days. The happy days when he was just a moody teenager who would throw tantrums now and then, only to get grounded by his father and then coddled by his mother. Those days when he was a safe, young and innocent boy, unaware of the horrors that awakened at night.

And unaware of the sweet dreams behind the closed eyes of the sleeping boy between them, the three Mikaelson brothers continued their argument with more fervor than ever. "But did you have to kidnap him? We could have done this in a number of other ways." Elijah continued in the same exasperated tone.

"But none so effective, brother," Klaus retorted. "The boy considers us monsters. He will never agree with us."

"And with good reason," Elijah's answer was almost instant. "Do you think what we are doing right now will help his opinion? He will see us as more of the monsters than previously thought now."

"Still a better option than not having him at all." Kol said. "And you know that we have to have him."

That much, Elijah agreed with. It hadn't taken long for Elijah to figure out that Jeremy Gilbert was his mate. Not like affairs he had with Celeste or Tatia. Oh, he loved them. But he never felt quite this way about either of them. This intense and incessant tugging at his long dead heart that somehow made him feel alive. And he knew for a fact that his brothers felt the same way. In a way, this was the most they had ever felt for a human. They, gods help him, he was going to say it, loved the boy, though none of them would admit out loud. And that's why they had to have him.

And that's also why they decided to share him. Because they might be abominations of nature. But it was nature itself that created mates for them, as they did for every other supernatural being. There was no bigger crime in nature than separating someone from their mate. And Jeremy Gilbert was their mate. There was no point in arguing about who would have him. Sharing him was the only reasonable way.

Elijah came out of his inner monologue and glared at Kol. "Are you implying that we are incapable of achieving this, achieving him," Elijah jerked his head towards Jeremy, "in a civilised way?"

"Oh, we are not implying it," the reply came from Klaus. "We are outright saying it."

"I am liking you more and more this century, brother." Kol sind with a smirk.

And Klaus returned the smirk. "Why, thank you, brother."

And then Kol turned to Elijah. "How did you know that I had kidnapped him, anyway?"

Elijah turned towards his brother, his face, though polite to the outside world, showed clear amusement towards his brother. He raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at Kol, as if the answer should be obvious. And, frankly, if you asked Elijah, it should be. At least, to his family.

And, as expected, it didn't take long for his brothers to figure out the obvious scenario. Both of their eyes lit up as they found the answer at the same time. Kol opened his mouth to speak, but Klaus beat him to it. "You sent one of your minions to spy on him, didn't you?"

"An apt, if somewhat crude, explanation, brother." Elijah now wore the same smirk that his brothers gave a few moments ago. "I had instructed Zachary to observe and extract Jeremy if and only if there was any indication that Kol would harm him and I told him to do so after he had informed me. He called me the moment Kol took Jeremy with him."

"Hey, stop talking about me as if I'm not here." Kol frowned. "Anyway, why didn't you tell him to get Jeremy away? How did you know I would not hurt him?"

"Come, brother, let us be real." Elijah said as a small smile replaced his smirk and he looked down at the sleeping boy. "We can never hurt him. Not truly."

At that, both his brothers gave that same small smile, indicating that they agreed with Elijah, who then turned faced Kol with a frown. "And that is the last time you compel him, Kol. What were you thinking, compelling him to sleep? He could have gone into a coma."

Kol rolled his eyes. "Contrary to your beliefs, big brother, I am not stupid. That was just a mild a compulsion to put him to sleep after what he witnessed."

Elijah's frown deepened. That was another thing he did not approve. He could understand getting possesive over someone. Gods knew he was just as possesive of the boy as his brothers were. But to actually kill someone in such a gruesome way, especially in front of their good friend, who just happened to be your mate ... Elijah shook his head. He never could straighten out Kol. One of the many reasons he helped Klaus dagger him.

"I do not condone that either." He told Kol, which had both Kol and Klaus rolling their eyes at him. "And you will not compel him anymore."

"Of course not, brother." Kol replied. "Like I told Jeremy, I do not want a mindless slave, thank you very much."

Klaus, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, spoke again. "And, how, may I ask, are you planning on keeping him here if not by compulsion?"

"Don't you know, brother?" Kol asked with a chuckle. "The Gilberts are selfless. They would do anything for their family."

"Yes, agreed," Elijah started, "But there is the slight problem that the only family he has is Elena. How do you plan on bringing her here before Jeremy wakes up?" Because if he woke up and they didn't have any leverage, his escape would become much easier.

"Oh I have taken care of that as well." Just as he said it, they heard the rumble of engine coming through the open window behind the bed, along with angry voices.

Klaus, who was the closest to the window, sniffed. And as he recognised the scent, he smirked. "It's the doppelganger. And the older Salvatore."

"Well played, brother," Klaus said to Kol, coming to the same conclusion Elijah had. Kol must have left a very taunting message to get them here, to Mikaelson Manor.

Kol then turned towards the eldest Mikaelson. "Well, what do you say, Elijah? We will not get another opportunity like this."

Now there was one thing that people did not know about Elijah. He wore the face of a nobleman. Of course, most of the time, he attempted vigorously to be so. He did not hurt innocents unless he absolutely had to. He would lay down his own life, metaphorically speaking, his family and those he cared about if need be.

But what people didn't know, was that under the mask of a nobleman, he had layers. A thousand years' worth of layers, which hide the terrible crimes when his controlled violence became ... well, uncontrolled. And there were only a handful times such things happened. See, Elijah would do anything, and he meant, anything, only in two kinds of situations. One, when his family was in danger, like what he had done a few days ago when his mother and brother plotted their death. And, two, when he really, truly, wanted something.

And, he wanted Jeremy Gilbert more than anything he had ever wanted in the last thousand years. And so, he came to a decision that a would get him what he wanted. Well, it would get all three of them what they wanted. And a vicious smile formed on his face that showed his brothers his decision without him saying anything.

His brothers sported the same smile as they saw his answer. And Kol spoke, "Well then, as the youths these days say, it's showtime."

Showtime, indeed.

A/N: I am so sorry for the late update. I was busy with my other stories. I promise I will work on a schedule for my stories. But know that I will publish at least once a month. It might be a little late or a little early. But please don't kill me for that. And with that, enjoy the story.