{1.01 | This is the Part Where You Run | part 2}
Elara didn't see Hope in the room after their discussion. She never went back. She spent the rest of the afternoon in the library, and by the time she was ready to leave, Josie invited her to the Old Mill for a party. With a gentle smile, she told Josie "No." Parties were not her thing, especially when she still felt on edge.
Instead, she wandered around the school, thinking. She hated thinking. Often, she went down rabbit holes, wondering about different ways things could be, questioning how she could be different, but at the same time, she knew she needed to think. It was just a matter of how much.
She hopped down the stairs into the transitional cellars. Some nights, when she couldn't sleep (which was every night) she'd explore the school and its grounds. The cellars weren't the best place, but she knew everyone else was out and about above, leaving her alone in the basement.
When Elara stopped in front of the door to her cell, her eyes caught onto a humanoid shape. Sitting on top of the bed was Landon, his back to the door. The anxious feeling returned, burning in her chest like a blaze, and there was a gentle ringing in her ears.
"Hey," she called out.
Landon jerked towards her, nearly falling off the bed. Elara laughed softly at the sight. "Jesus! You scared me." He cleared his throat. "Sorry-- Wait, is Jesus real, too?"
"Not a debate I'm up for," Elara mumbled. "What are you doing down here?"
"What are you doing down here?" he countered, more curious than agitated.
Elara gently raised a brow. "I go to school here, you don't."
"That's... fair." He released a sigh. "The persuasion-compulsion thing, which is cool and terrifying, didn't work, so Hope and Dr. Saltzman put me down here to let this plant-thing leave my system."
He looked at her curiously, a million questions clearly on his tongue, and Elara did not feel like answering all of them. There wasn't any harm in answering a few.
He wasn't going to remember, anyways.
"I was bored," she answered. "When I'm bored, I wander, and my usual wandering place is currently occupied by a Salvatore party."
"And you came down here?" Landon looked at her incredulously.
She shrugged. "I didn't think anyone would be here."
"I can't believe anyone would come down here willingly."
"It's awful," she agreed. "Ironically, your in the same place I was twenty-four hours ago."
"Wait," Landon began. He climbed to his feet, making his way towards Elara. "You were in here-- here-- last night? In the werewolf dungeons. So, you're like Rafael?"
Elara gave a thin-lipped smile. "Guilty."
She wondered if he understood the double meaning of her confession, and his shocked expression answered her question. Alaric only told him about werewolves because Landon was supposed to forget, but it became a problem when he couldn't.
"Cool," he exhaled.
She shrugged. "I guess." Her fingers tapped on the metal bars, anxiously. Rarely did her expressions give away her emotions. She had to learn how to do that the hard way. Her body was too wound up, too tense. Fidgeting helped her release that tension, but it could only do so much.
Elara let go of the bars. "I won't be here long, but I do have a question."
Landon nodded. "I have a thousand. Hit me."
"Are you a foster kid?"
He shifted his weight onto one foot. "Yeah, Raf, too," Landon answered in a mumble. Elara was disappointed she didn't make a bet with Josie. He crossed his arms across his chest as if to protect himself. "You?"
She slowly nodded. "Yeah. I actually lived in Atlanta for a while. I think I was like, eight or nine."
"Really?" Landon asked, surprise in his voice.
"Yup. I've been around most of the south."
A smile appeared on his face as she spoke. She was like him. "Me, too. It's rough out there for people like us."
Elara hummed. "You could say that, again."
Both of her parents died when she was six, their cause of death unknown. The only thing she truly knew about it was that she didn't do it. It didn't hurt anymore, but the time that it took to heal took her memories. She barely remembered what they looked like.
"How'd you trigger your curse?"
The question hit her like a bullet to the heart. She froze, her grip on the bars tightening, bending the metal ever so slightly. So, Alaric had told him how werewolves triggered their curse. A part of her had hoped he didn't. It made sense, though. He needed to find out how Rafael did it, and he couldn't ask Rafael if he was with his daughters and their friend.
Elara wasn't going to be honest, obviously. Even if he was going to forget it, she didn't want to talk about it. She opened her mouth to redirect the conversation, but the sound of the door swinging open caused her to pause, bracing. There was silence. Then Landon let out a yelp, his feet sweeping out from under him. Literally. Elara blinked, and Landon began to drag-- no, be dragged from the cell.
"Help!" She reached out for him, but he moved too quickly. In a second, he was gone, and Elara was stunned.
What?
Elara let out a soft breath, almost like a laugh. "I thought the Salvatore School didn't have any ghosts..."
~-~-~
Turns out that Landon was not stolen by a ghost but by Josie, who used a summoning spell to bring him to the party. Josie herself told Elara when the two briefly bumped into each other in the dorm hallway. It was late when Elara finally got back to her room, and she wasn't surprised to see Hope in there, sitting on her bed with her legs crossed.
Her side of the room was barren, home only to her bed, desk, and dresser. When she arrived at the school, the only things she brought were her backpack and the clothes Alaric had gifted her. Even after her foster parents were contacted (somehow), there wasn't anything she wanted from them. She had nothing to ask for, anyways. They didn't really like her to begin with.
"Hi," Hope greeted from her bed, sitting with her legs folded. "How was the party?"
"Dunno," Elara mumbled, slipping her jacket off of her shoulders. "I didn't go."
She didn't want to talk. Her body ached. Her head ached. She still felt like any other feeling would send her over the edge of her emotions and she'd either scream or cry, and she didn't want Hope to witness either. Talking to Landon had briefly distracted her, but as soon as she left the cellars the feelings clawed their way back. Even her long walk around the grounds didn't help.
"Oh." Hope rubbed her hands together, and she looked at Elara with a curious look. "Would you happen to know why I found Landon outside, wandering the grounds?"
She walked over to her dresser and searched through the drawers for something to sleep in. "A ghost let him out. It didn't seem to like that he was stuck in the wolf dungeons," she said nonchalantly.
Elara didn't need to see her; she knew Hope rolled her eyes, disliking her joke. "We don't have ghosts, and they're transitional cellars," Hope corrected.
She smacked her hand on her dresser, her back still the older girl. "You can call them whatever you want when you have to be stuck in there!"
Elara had a temper, as did all werewolves. She would complain about an assignment or swear in frustration. She had a habit of snapping at most people, but not her.
Not Hope.
The blonde sighed, turning towards Hope with a pair of plaid shorts in her hand. She spoke lowly, trying to level out her sudden anger. "I let him out, okay? Those spaces suck, and he was in there-- alone-- separated from his foster brother. I felt bad for him."
Hope looked at Elara. She was speechless and seemed to have bought Elara's lie. Not that it was a full lie. She did feel bad for Landon.
"I found him in the woods," Hope began, trying to shift to another part of the subject. "He was going to leave, but I took him back to the school.
Elara's expression softened. "He was going to leave Rafael?" She didn't want to believe it. The two seemed incredibly close; She couldn't imagine ever leaving her own foster brother.
Her own foster brother...
"Turn around, I need to change," she said suddenly, her voice taut.
Hope's eyes widened. "There's a bathroom-"
Elara's usual hardened expression returned, the softness disappearing as quickly as it arrived. "Turn around," she ordered. "I'm too tired to walk that far."
Hope was silent as she turned her back quickly-- perhaps a bit too quickly-- to the werewolf, but Elara noticed the faintest blush on her cheeks. She let herself smirk a little as she stripped her uniform and pulled on her pajamas.
When she was done, she whistled softly, climbing under her covers. Hope turned towards her, her flustered expression gone, and the words are you okay died on her lips. She wanted to ask, but they came to an unspoken agreement: not to get attached.
There was no "goodnight" from either of them, both too stubborn to say it. Hope fell asleep first, like most nights. Neither of them were experts at falling asleep, each with their own reasons. Hope was a tri-brid, and her body had a lot going on inside of it. Elara was just a werewolf, but her mind ran rampant. Even her moments of peace, in her deep slumber, her mind trampled over her.
~-~-~
A yawn left Elara's lips as she sat on the steps of the front door to the Salvatore School. Again, she had been given the task of escorting Rafael-- this time without the twins. She didn't know if that was a good of a bad thing.
She watched Rafael say his goodbyes to Landon with a smile on her lips. Although Landon was leaving, she was glad Rafael was given closure. It was for the best that Landon left. He brought major risk to the school, and even though she didn't mind having him around, she knew he had to go.
The school meant more to her than the human.
Her eyes drifted away from them as she noticed subtle movements out of the corner of her eye. Hope stood in one of the tall windows, watching the two brothers with a gentle expression. Her shoulders lifted as she inhaled deeply, barely noticeable. To most people, at least, but Elara wasn't like most people. Her wolfish senses were top-notch compared to the others.
Elara looked back at the brothers as they shared a hug, and when they separated, Rafael's smile quickly fell. Over his shoulder, Landon shot her a small wave before walking off. She pitied Rafael. He was losing his brother, the one thing that still made sense to him, and he couldn't do anything about it.
She knew the feeling all too well.
A moment passed before Rafael approached her, a grim expression on his face. Elara stretched her arms above her head. "Ready for Werewolf101?"
"Do I have a choice?" Rafael grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Elara shook her head, climbing to her feet. "Unfortunately, no, but I will do my best to make your transition here quick and simple-"
Suddenly, a loud ringing noise pierced into her ears. Like nails on a chalkboard and a fire alarm going off at the same time. She clapped her hands over her ears, trying to muffle the sound.
"Do you hear that?" she asked Rafael, who stopped next to her with his brows drawn together in concern.
"Hear what?"
She placed a hand on her forehead. The sound died down, but the pounding in her head continued. "That ringing."
Rafael shook his head. "I don't hear anything. Is this a werewolf thing?"
Elara didn't respond to his question, rubbing at her temples. Her ears rang from time to time. But this was something else, something dire that she couldn't explain.
Never mind that. It wasn't a big deal-- probably... hopefully. She dropped her hands back to her sides and gestured with her head. "C'mon, we're gonna be late for class."
Rafael said nothing else, following her into the building.
The day went by quickly much to her liking. She and Rafael shared most of the same classes, which meant they spent more time getting to know each other. His last name was Waithe. He used to run track, even had a scholarship to college for it. They actually got along pretty well.
But their blossoming friendship-- if you could even call it that-- didn't help Rafael's foul mood, and the sudden, emergency assembly that night didn't help either.
The two sat next to each other, having arrived at the same time. She had been showing him the gym equipment when Alaric made the announcement. Behind her sat Hope. The two hadn't spoken since the night before despite being partners in one of their classes.
Her head turned to the side as she looked at Hope. Their eyes met, and Hope's expression was bare except for her eyes. They were intense, glaring at Elara as if she just kicked her puppy.
Quickly, she turned her attention back to the front as Alaric continued his speech. Next to her, Rafael bounced his leg up and down and refused to look up. She had no idea what he was feeling in that moment.
Hell, she didn't know what she was feeling. She felt awful-- guilty, even, but she shouldn't be. The knife being stolen wasn't her fault, but something in the back of her mind told her it was. The strange thing was that she remembered the exact knife Alaric mentioned. It was the one from the library, stashed in a glass case with other supernatural artifacts. She had stopped in front of it the night before during her reading and ensured that the thing was locked. It was like her body moved of its own accord, the desire to protect something stronger than her will power.
Why was the knife even important? Elara meant to protect it, but Landon stole it. She failed and didn't even know why.
Her first month had been as normal as any supernatural's can be. Yet the arrival of Landon and his foster brother showed that there was change to come.
Great.