Vulnerable

Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Memory Lane

{K. M}

"You may, very well be the most wreckless vampire I've ever met," Klaus said tensely to Damon who had made himself comfortable on the bar beside him.

"What can I say? I want Dakota back, you have her, see my problem?"

Klaus toyed with the small decorative umbrella Dakota put in his drink as a joke. He pulled the top off, leaving him with a toothpick. Using his enhanced speed, Damon didn't have time to react as Klaus threw the toothpick into his chest, the small piece of wood scraping gently on his heart, but hard enough to that it was uncomfortable. "I made a deal with Dakota that I wouldn't kill you, but I'm afraid I might not be able to keep that promise much longer. You're becoming a nuisance."

Before Damon could respond to the jab, Dakota barged in tears welling in her brown eyes. In her hand was a photo taken a few days ago. "What the hell is this?" She yelled at him, slamming the picture down on the table before him.

"Look, Kota, I can explain."

"Is this a joke to you Damon?" A single tear fell down her face. "This is my family you're toying with, okay? My brother is dead and I have accepted that, so don't come to me and tell me that he's alive, because he's not!"

"Dak—"

Dakota's fangs and dark veins under her eyes made themselves visible, her brown eyes void and grim. "Get out." Maybe it was her menacing tone, or maybe it was the fact that she had never looked so broken, but Damon left as soon as Klaus released him.

It took nothing but a second after Damon was safely out of the bar that Dakota fell to her knees clutching the picture tightly in her hands. Klaus took a few steps to her, catching her before she could fall and easing her body to the ground. He asked no questions, but held her tightly to him, granting her the ability to cry into his chest.

She stayed that way for a couple of minutes before she pulled away, hastily wiping her eyes and drying her cheeks of the tears that stained her face. "Sorry I ruined your shirt," Dakota looked at her mascara that stained the plain grey top that complimented Klaus' skin tone better than she wanted to admit.

"Do you want to talk about it, love?"

Dakota looked down at the photo, drinking in the familiar face of her younger brother that she knew was dead, but the date at the top of the photo proved different. "No. " She was quick to answer before she sighed and nodded her head. "Yes. I don't know."

"I'm not going to rush you into telling me anything."

"A decade after I turned, I went back home to see my dad and brother. My little brother, Shawn had just turned eighteen and I wanted to make sure he was okay." Klaus listened tentatively as Dakota told her story, brown eyes glassy as she zoned out way too deep into her memory. "I didn't mean for him to see me, but he did and chased me all the way into the woods. I wanted to show myself, prove to him that I was really there and not a hallucination, but I was still young and couldn't control the blood lust that well. I didn't want to hurt him so I left. Two days later, I found out my father admitted him into a mental facility." Dakotas hands clenched tightly into a fist, the anger all but seeping from her pores. "Oh, you should've seen how they treated him in there. He was only eighteen and they beat him like he was a criminal. I was so angry, Klaus, I couldn't control myself. I left him in there for two weeks before I couldn't handle him being in there anymore, so I broke into the facility and killed everyone in there."

It took her a minute to regain her breath and calm herself down from all of the emotions that were surfacing, and Klaus was so engrossed with the story that he hadn't noticed how late it had gotten, neither did he care. "Shawn sat with me on the horse ride home, but he refused to talk. He was mad at me. He didn't lash out on me completely until we got to my home. He yelled at me for hours about how I left him in there by himself, until he just broke down in my arms."

"You aren't telling me something, I can feel it."

Dakota twiddled with her fingers, sucking in a deep gulp of air. "I couldn't handle it, he was too close and all I could think about was what his blood would taste like. I tried so hard, but I couldn't help it. I almost killed him but seconds before he died I fed him my blood. I-I thought he was gone for good because he didn't wake up."

Klaus lifted the photo from her, taking in the sight of the eighteen year old boy in the photo. They didn't look much alike, but small similarities like their nose and lips showed that they very well were siblings. "So he's a vampire now?"

"I don't know, but what else could he be, and why wouldn't he tell me he was alive?"

"Maybe he was scared, you did turn him and he didn't know how to control the urges and with not knowing what was going on with him, I'm sure he was just as scared as any vampire is when they first turn."

Dakota peeked up at Klaus through her eyelashes that weren't very long. "Were you? Scared, I mean."

"No, but my father was really big on not showing any weaknesses, I wasn't allowed to be. I was an abomination to my family and I had to keep up the attitude of one."

What he said wasn't in any way funny, but Dakota laughed. "Maybe that's why you're such an asshole."

"You love me."

Dakota was ready to give back a sarcastic remark, but her heart skipped a beat and she looked at his teasing smirk more carefully than before. It was just then when she took notice of the moles and barely-there imperfections on his naturally tanned skin. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night."