It starts in the dark like everything worth his attention has the tendency to.

The room smells of cheap perfume, oily roast meat, sour alcohol and burnt tobacco. Dimly lit by candles and oil lamps, the vulgar decor of the room is sickening. Everything in the bar feels like an assault to Kol's enhanced senses. An uncomfortable grimace flashes across his face, but it's quickly replaced by a blank stoic expression that normal people would find intimidating.

Another cloud of smoke is blown from between the teeth of some lesser man towards Kol's direction. It's a rather rude gesture.

The original twitches his nose again out of habit, his disdain and annoyance showing, but still he says nothing - mainly because he is rather distracted.

His eyes drop over the other occupants, they look at him with equal suspicion and curiosity. Small towns, even across the world are at their core the same.

He was just glad to be away from Mystic Falls.

Niklaus wanted to reunite their broken family, as if all of them would crawl out of their caskets and be grateful for his generosity. As if they only get to have freedom on his terms.

He honestly should've known Elijah would follow him.

His idiotic elder brother would always hold on to the "nobility" of family. So he choose a bar that would purposely affect his brothers oh so delicate sensibilities. A smug smirk pulled at his lips, he watched a couple men play poker in the far right corner, freely exchanging their money.

Might as well.

The place was trash.

Smelling of cheap tobacco and overpriced beer.

It wasn't the sort of place Artemis would pursue for her own pleasure, dimly lit with a floor made sticky by too many spilled drinks. But it was perfect for her objective.

Far enough from home that no one would follow her and enough of a slum that no one would truly pay attention to her.

She sat alone at the back, nervous fingers picking at the label from her bottle. It peeled down, leaving a trail of glue and residue on the amber glass.

They were playing cards, had been since she'd arrived. High stakes, or higher than she was use to anyway. She'd been listening to them for nearly twenty minutes, watching them from her peripheral as they played one hand after another.

And she knew.

She knew what the one with dark hair and even darker eyes was the second she stepped into the room. The hairs on the back of her neck had been tingling for nearly an hour before she stepped into this place, so she knew before too.

He was powerful, the kind of powerful inherent in a soul.

They were speaking something foreign, (Russian? Maybe), quick words rolling off their tongues between sharp curses and barks of laughter; chain-smoking as they downed one drink after another.They were having a good time and from what Artemis could tell, being very free with the money in their wallets.

They seemed to be far enough along in their drinking she could hope for bad decisions and easy plays.

Her chair scrapped against old wood as she stood, taking a breath as she slipped her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and tried to look casual.

She walked eight short steps with an easy stride, almost lazy with the sort of calm she didn't feel, and she was at the table. There were three of them, sitting around the small scarred surface, cigarettes held lose and casual between fingers and bottles at their sides. Artemis stood a little more than a foot away from the closest player, a big guy with a shaved head and the faded tattoo of a cat on his neck.

She was desperate, and in her desperation she called the wrong attention to herself, "Hey, what's the buy in?"

They ignored her; another hand dealing out as they let Artemis wash over them like a ghost.

It was usually a good sign that she should leave. But she really needed to make rent and she wasn't going to manage it slinging coffee and delivering bad Chinese, not this month.

She took a breath and said it louder, "I asked: what's the buy in?"

"Piss off kid."

Drawled a skinny guy, his hair was slicked and greasy, too much product forced into the bleach blond strands in attempts to keep them back. He was a coke addict; sniffing and rubbing at his nose every couple of minutes, with a face so thin he looked gaunt.

"I want in."

"You fuckin' def? He said piss off," the man with the cat slurred. He was farther along than the others, drinking two to their one in the short time Artemis had been in the bar.

Forcing back her trepidation she tried again, "I'll pay double."

"If you don't fuck off, I'm gonna give you something to whine about," Cat, as Artemis decided to call the slurring drunk, snapped.

It was enough to have her moving on, she was looking to make some money not get himself killed.

"Alright," she relented, raising her hands as she turned to leave, "sorry."

"Buy in is forty." Artemis turned back to look at the third man at the table, with those dark eyes of his. He was in his early twenties...maybe, dressed in a basic black shirt. He was better looking than the other two, handsome in a rough sort of way, with high cheek bones and a scar on his nose that Artemis knew there'd be a story behind.

He addressed her with complete indifference, not bothering to look up from his cards as he discarded two, replaced them with draws from the deck, and dropped another twenty in the pot. "Yours is eighty."

"Kol-"

"Taci." he shut the man up with a word. The addict ground his teeth, looked at his cards and folded. Apparently Kol wasn't a man to be challenged.

Good to know.

The buy in was steeper than she'd anticipated, almost enough to turn her away. Her stomach did a flip as she grabbed the nearest chair and dragged it toward the little table to take a seat between Cat and the skinny guy, right across from the one named Kol.

Cat dropped a pair of Aces and Kol raked in the pot with two pair, nines over fours.

"You know the rules?" Kol asked, gathering cards to shuffle back into the deck. He looked up to take in the kid who'd thought to force her way into the game.

She wasn't what he'd expected.

If you live long enough you begin to see the same eyes in different people.

When you've lived for so many years, when the passing of a decade feels like the blink of an eye, history begins to repeat itself. People from your past melt into your present. A long-deceased lover's silhouette brushes past on the street, a laugh from the seventeenth century echoes through a crowd, a hint of perfume that has no place in a modern-day supermarket floats by for only a moment before wafting away once more.

Kol had grown accustomed to it.

But that doesn't mean he expects it now.

With sharp blue grey eyes cut in half by glasses worn too far down her nose, and a mop of sweeping chocolate curls that framed her baby face and fell down her back like something from a Renaissance painting, she was obviously too fucking young to be hunting at bars.

The last time he saw them (those eyes of hers), they belonged to a woman with a corona of red hair and a round face pale as snow. They'd always been inquisitive, probing, mischievous, depending upon the situation, and when they caught the candlelight, it'd been like staring into a bottomless pool so beautiful it could only belong in Heaven.

And here they were again.

In a dark filthy bar.

Either she was too desperate or too stupid to think better of it and take her business elsewhere.

He studied her carefully, none of the features bear even a passing resemblance to the woman before her time; had it not been for making eye contact, Kol could have passed the woman in a crowd without a second glance.

But the eyes.

Kol smiled.

The kid was cute.

"I've played before." Artemis finally answered, scanning her cards, and the voice that emanates from her lips is just as unfamiliar as the rest of her.

He was paying more attention to Artemis than to the game and it was making her nervous.

Draw Poker wasn't hard to learn, the process simple enough. Buy in, five cards each, discard, draw, raise and showdown. The game itself wasn't difficult to play; it was knowing your probabilities of draws and dumb luck that made the game a challenge: what to discad and when to fold.

She had a pair of fives, a king, ten, and three. She kept the king, dropped the ten and the three and drew two more cards. The chances of getting another king were low, but her odds were doubled with the two cards pulled, and better than going in with a pair of fives.

Eighty dollars riding on a pair of fucking fives, her father would have killed her for taking the buy in.

"You play often?" Kol asked in a puff of silver smoke, it curled to disappear in the clouding bar air.

He was still watching her; there was a keen mind working behind those bright stormy eyes.

He'd seen her enter the bar, cute little thing with a nice ass, and watched the girl take a corner in the back to stake them out before trying to get in for a play. He'd thought the girl might have been stupid before, getting in way over her head, but now that he watched her, the intense focus and nervous little ticks, the kid knew she was making bad decisions…but she was too desperate not to.

Kol wanted to know why.

Artemis bit her lip and answered him with a nod.The way she focused, or tried to, with the hint of teeth peeking over the pink of her lip, it was doing things to the original, bad things.

He discarded a six and drew a new one before dropping another forty in the pot. The money gained more of a reaction than the question, her dark brows knitting as she watched bills hit the table, the barest hint of concern fluttering behind grey eyes.

She couldn't cover the raise. Good for him, bad for the girl.

Cat folded and the addict met, tossing another forty into the pot.

Artemis pulled a crumpled twenty from her pocket and tossed it in to join the rest.

"The raise is forty." Addict snapped.

"I bought in at eighty."

"That's your fuck up. Twenty isn't enough."

"Twenty is all I've got."

"Too fucking bad then isn't it?" Addict sneered, "You can't meet you're out. Piss off."

"What services will you render for the other twenty?" It was asked so casually, like an inquiry after the weather.

"Services?" Artemis's stomach did a flip.

She should have left the fucking bar.

"Mm, either you fold and leave your money behind, or you make up the difference," Kol explained in a smooth exhale of smoke. He wanted something from Artemis, and it had every warning bell going off in her head and telling her to run.

His eyes dropped to the line of her neck and she tensed.

She looked at her hand, folded her cards, and laid them flat. It was a lot of money to walk away from, sure as hell more than she could afford, especially tonight.

"Twenty bucks?" She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. This wasn't how she'd wanted the night to go. "What do you know of magic?"

"Blow job." Addict countered.

Artemis thought of her cards, the number of possibilities to be played against her, the probability of higher sets and suits.

"I'm not a cheap whore. Magic."

Kol grinned, chuckling as he wet his lip with a sweep of tongue. "You heard her Elek. Magic."

"I wouldn't pay her-"

"A whore wouldn't touch you for a hundred dollars."

Addict, Elek, scowled, lip pulled back to reveal surprisingly straight teeth, "What if I raise it another hundred? Then fucking what? What will she fucking do for a chance at my money?"

"Your money?" Kol ave him a look, "You think the cards in your hand are so fucking good the pot on this table is your money? Elek." So condescending, like laughing off the foolish whim of a child. It made the addict that much angrier, the skin around his jaw growing tight.

This guy was mad, furious. He would bet anything for the chance to one up Artemis and put her in her place. It made him dangerous, but it also made him stupid.

Kol smirked dipped his hand into his wallet.

"I'm all in," dropping enough bills on the table that her stomach twisted.

Elek growled. "All in."

There's easily over two grand sitting in the pot and there is no going back on it now.

"Straight," Elek spat flipping his cards and downing his beer.

Kol rolled his next, "Three of a kind."

Artemis flipped her cards with a wash of relief and bubble of adrenalin, "Full house, kings and fives."

She'd been hoping for three of a kind or a second pair; she hadn't thought she'd get both and quietly thanked every deity she could think of.

She reached for the money and just missed the knife that pushed through the thick wad of bills and into the table.

"She fucking cheated! I'm not letting her off with my fucking money."

"Keep the money then."

Artemis got up, she'd take the hit and catch the first train back before she got herself raped or worse. She'd worry about rent in the morning.

"Don't you fucking leave." Kol ordered, almost warned, making the younger girl freeze before turning back to Elek. "Get your knife out of my table."

"She said we could keep the mone-"

"I don't give a fuck about the money." He grabbed the blade, prying it from the wood and out of addict's hand to throw across the bar floor. "She won." Honey eyes turned back to her and she wanted to run. "Let me buy you a drink."

"I'm fine, I'm just gonna go."

Kol clucked his tongue, eyes narrowing as he snubbed out his cigarette and rose from his chair. "One drink. I just want a little conversation and you can take your money and go."

He gathered the mess of bills into a pile, tapped them into a haphazard stalk and held it out to Artemis, "One drink."

Kol smiled and led the way to the bar, reaching over the counter to grab two glasses and a bottle of Lagavulin scotch. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told Elek to get his knife out of his table, either he owned the place or he was tight enough with the owners that he might as well have his name on the lease.

Looking at the label, Artemis recognized the brand though she'd never tasted it before.It was high end, better than anything else they were serving in the dump of a bar and most likely Kol's private stash. "What's your name?" He poured them three fingers each and she tried to remember the last time she'd eaten.

This was going to hit her a lot harder than the beer.

"Art."

"Art," he said it as though tasting it, curling it on his accent in a way that was far too attractive for the dangerous man. "Hello Art, I'm Kol. The man licking his wounds behind us is Elek, and the big guy is Anton." He introduced them without bothering to look back at the pair left behind. They weren't invited and knew to keep their distance. "Where did you learn to play cards?"

She scoffed, "Do you think I'm stupid?"

The original's brow furrowed some. "Not at all," he drawled.

"Then what makes you think I'd fall for that?" she counters. The fake smile slips into something sharper, something that shows slivers of square teeth.

Kol waited, ushering elaboration with his eyes.

The smile grows razor-sharp.

Artemis took a deep breath. "You want to ask me easy things so you can know simple things about me and use them against me later." She explained, her head tilted and her eyes rolling over him.

He grinned, like a cat that caught the canary. His expression never straying from pure enjoyment. "How would I do that?"

"For example, I could tell you where I went to school," she began. "And from that you may be able to gather what kind of community I grew up in...what social class I was raised in. Then, from there you could make assumptions on whether or not I enjoyed my childhood; whether or not I finished school; whether or not I think my mother is proud of me."

She tilts her head slightly to the right, and for a moment, time blurs together, and Kol sees that red head girl staring at him across a broad table dotted with dozens of candles, saying volumes with only a small movement and a smile.

"Digging for information while masking it as simple niceties." Artemis leveled him a glare. "Tell me if I am getting cold?"

Kolcould destroy her.

It would take two simple steps and the flick of a wrist to snap Art's neck in two. He could drag her body closer, drain her dry, and make her disappear. It would be almost laughably easy.

But she doesn't seem afraid.

Her heart rate has barely fluctuated and she's not perspiring.

She made sure however to keep her voice playful, antagonizing one of his kind was not wise, even one who chose to appear civil.

"You're rather protective of yourself," Kol purrs after a moment, his eyes dancing with wicked glee. "But I swear to you, I am just making converstion."

She kept her eyes on her drink, aware of the movements that happened around her, but trying not to look paranoid. Paranoia would only attract more attention, and she already had more than enough.She didn't want anymore. " I learned how to play by my dad's fishing buddies. I used to watch them play on the docks for quarters.They let me join in a couple of times, taught me the game."

Artemis held her glass but didn't drink it, waiting until she saw Kol take a swallow before bringing it to her own lips for a taste; just enough not to piss off the guy and to seem neither ungrateful nor rude.

"You're pretty good. What's the money for?"

"Doesn't matter."

He smiled, straight teeth showing like a shark, "That's good, none of my business. You in school?"

Artemis touched her face, skin soft under her hands and still too smooth. "College."

"How old?"

"My ID says twenty-one."

"And your birth certificate?"

Artemis smiled and took another sip, the taste of smoke and the burn of good liquor over her tongue making her stomach warm. "I'm studying forensics."

"You must be a clever little thing to study forensics. What do you plan on doing with that?"

"I'm hoping to go into law." She shrugged. "But you really don't care about that. You're still hoping to get in my pants."

"I was hoping to share a drink." He tossed back the expensive liquor like a cheap shot. "But I'm still interested in you."

Artemis took another sip, "I'm not for sale."

"I never said you were." The sound of a table flipping had Kol spinning to see Anton with a chair in hand, ready to break it over Elek's head. "Fuck, hold that thought darling." Kol looked back toward Artemis to find an empty bar stool, heard the slamming of the door.

It made him smile. "Clever little thing." He listened the sound of wood breaking and ignored the scream of pain, turning his attention instead to the abandoned glass still three fingers full on the counter. "You still owe me a drink."