Chapter 5
Like any other day Maya was awoken by a nightmare. Usually she would spend the time training, but today she spent it assessing the house she was in. She entered the main hall and saw the walls covered in portraits of a family. The portraits looked old. Like really old. Practically ancient. She went closer to the nearest painting, a blonde girl sitting on a chair and two men standing on either sides of her, and saw the date of the painting, '1739'. And right next to the date was the family motto, 'Always And Forever'.
That's when it hit her, the house she was in was owned by the Mikaelson family. Various thoughts crossed her mind at that moment, but the biggest one was— shit! She knew most of their houses were surrounded by magic which let them know if an intruder entered their home. And if this was one of them, then it wouldn't be long before one of them try to make contact the house. She was terrified of that idea. Because not only was she in Beacon Hills, the town she was trapped and tortured in for four years, but she was at the house of the family that might kill her because of what she had done(her friends told her it wasn't her fault, but the guilt was drilled into her head for four years, and she continued to blame herself for the next seven years before they even tried to tell her otherwise).
She started pacing around the hall, still dressed in a pair of black track pants and a white tank top, which she found in a (Rebekah's?) room. Several thoughts kept running through her mind. She was vampire. There was no blood at the house. The sun would rise soon. She didn't have a daylight ring. She wouldn't be able to go out in the day. She didn't even know how to make a daylight ring, even though she was a witch. WAIT!! Was she still a witch? Was she still a wolf? Was she a hybrid? She had so many questions.
She was pulled out of her thoughts with the familiar 'ping' of her phone. She dreaded checking the message thinking it was from Kate or Chris or Allison, but to her pleasant surprise it was from her best friends.
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A thirteen year old Maya sat on the roof of a tall building. She replayed the events of that day in her mind, she had made her first real kill, and then she made a terrible mistake. She thought she could hide what she did from Kate, but she should have known better. Kate had people everywhere. She always knows what Maya does.
When Maya had gone home after, she was punished. Her hand unconsciously moved to the right side of her waist, where the Argent symbol was newly burnt into her skin. She remembered Kate telling her that this was to remind her of who she was and who she belonged to.
She had the blood of innocents on her hand, people who's only crime was not being human. They hadn't even hurt anybody. But Kate still forced her to kill them. She couldn't live like this. She didn't want to live like this.
That's why she was there, on a roof. Alone. Well at least she was, till she heard a voice.
"You know, being a thirteen year old for eternity would be a real pain in the ass." Came a voice, it had a slight accent.
She turned around and saw two men standing there. They both looked pretty young. The taller one looked like he was in his early twenties and the shorter one looked like he was in his late teens. They both had completely different expressions on their face. The older one was confused and the younger one was worried.
She kept looking at them, observing them. They both had a slim build, but seemed strong. The older man had blue-grey eyes and short, straight, dark brown hair. Where as the younger one had green eyes and longer, wavy, black hair. They were both good looking men. And they were also a little pale.
She snapped out of her trance when she heard the older man speak.
"You look so much like her." Now it was her turn to be confused , but she gathered herself and spoke to the shorter one, completely ignoring the tall man.
"What do you mean? Why would I be thirteen for eternity?"
Seeing the confusion on her face, he asked her, " you are the last Bennett witch right? People say what you are is just a legend. But we know it isn't, if you die now, you'll come back as a vampire. And be thirteen for the rest of eternity.
"I hadn't thought of that." Of course she hadn't, she spent seven years repressing the supernatural side of her. She sat back down on the ledge, and looked over New York skyline. The shorter man came and sat on her left side and the taller one sat on her right.
"Well its a good thing we found you before you made the biggest mistake of your life." He touched hand, and a shiver ran down her spine because of how cold his hand was. But she let him hold it.
Her magic kept telling her that something was off about them. She then saw the rings on their fingers. Daylight rings. They were vampires. When the older man accidentally touched her hand and she felt some of her magic drain, and he immediately pulled back his hand. He wasn't just a vampire, he was a siphon. He was a heretic. She knew that being around them should be terrifying, and that Kate would have told her to kill them by now. They were monsters. But she felt more calm around them than she ever had with the Argents
"What did you mean?" She asked him. She looked at him and added, "You said I looked like her. Who were you talking about?"
"Bonnie, your mother. You look like a kid version of her. Especially your eyes, they are the same shade of green. You also act like a self sacrificing idiot, exactly like your mother." He had a small smile on his face.
"You knew her." She spoke, she could feel the tears forming in her eyes. She held his hand with her free one and continued , "I'm sorry."
Seeing the shock on the heretics face the vampire asked her, "What for?"
"I killed her." Her voice was barely a whisper, and if they didn't have their enhanced hearing they wouldn't have heard her.
"Do you really believe that?" He asked again. They both knew that she was just two years old when Bonnie had been killed. They also knew that many people believed that she had killed her, especially after Elena Gilbert, Bonnie's 'best friend' told everyone the same thing. But knowing that the little girl blamed herself broke their hearts.
"Yeah. She's dead because of me. At least that's what they told me." They knew who she was talking about, the Hale's, the pack that had a hand in killing Bonnie, and then kept the child in their basement.
"I'm gonna ask you a few questions, and I need you to be honest with me." The heretic told her, and seeing her nod, he began her questions.
"Do you know how you become a wolf?"
"Yes, you need to kill someone, either on purpose or by mistake."
"And when did you become a wolf?" This time it was the vampire that asked the question.
"When I was six years old."
The Heretic hesitated before asking the next question, "How old were you when your mother died?"
"T-two." Her voice broke and tears ran down her face.
"Don't you think that if you had killed her, you would have become a wolf when you were two." He wiped her tears and continued with a gentle but stern voice, "Listen to me princess, what happened to her wasn't your fault. It will never be your fault. She loved you and she always will. She made a choice that day. The only people at fault are the ones who put her in that position. Not you, never you."
Before she could register anything, she threw herself into his arms and started crying.
Even once she calmed down she kept hugging the heretic, and the vampire also moved closer rubbing circles on her back. Knowing that she still had some time before she had to go home, she spoke again.
"Can you tell me a little about her?"
"Of course princess." She knew he was smiling.
She realised that the vampire had stopped rubbing her back, but before she could ask him anything, he spoke up.
"First, love, you wanna tell us what happened that made you come here" Seeing her tense up a little he quickly added, "It's ok if you don't want to talk yet, we'll be there whenever you're ready." When she looked at him he gave her a reassuring smile, and she calmed down again.
That night the heretic told her a few things about her mother and her family, while the vampire checked on her injuries, especially her burnt skin. They didn't ask her about it, they knew that they needed to earn her trust, and the only way to do that was to be patient. But to their surprise she told them. She didn't tell them everything, only why she was there.
They never thought that it was possible to get this angry. They were angry at everyone that hurt her. But they were also angry at themselves. They, too, had believed that the girl had killed Bonnie and that she was a monster. That's why they had gone after her. But instead of a monster they found a small child who was broken by the world. Who had nobody to protect her and care for her. A child who hated herself because of the things she had to do to survive.
After escorting her back to her house, both the men swore to each other that they would always protect her.
And thats how their friendship began. They would reach the town or city where the Argents were headed, before they could reach. Maya was always welcomed by them. She would meet them on days she didn't have to hunt. Even at nights, sometimes, instead of training, she would sneak out and meet them. And when she got a phone, she would talk with them everyday, letting them know that she was safe. At least as safe as she could be living with the Argents. They couldn't take her away from them, not because they didn't want, they did. They really did. But Maya would refuse it. She told them how they Argents would name her a traitor and hunt her down. She didn't let them heal her either for the same reason.
But they still took care of her, they wouldn't completely heal her wounds but they would reduce the pain. They helped her regain her confidence. She would tell her about her nightmares, and they would talk to her and help her understand that it wasn't her fault. The heretic even taught her some basic spells, and how to glamour herself, to hide her scars and her birth mark (the mark that showed what she was) easily.
They had seen the scars left behind from her injuries caused by a hunter or a supernatural, but they also knew that some of them were self inflicted. But with their support, slowly and steadily, she stopped hurting herself. Now she would reach out to them if things got bad.
They tried to convince her to reach out to her real family. But she refused. She was afraid of what they would do to her if they got to know that she killed her mother. All the stories she had heard of them called them cruel, vicious and monsters. And how ' no one hurts a member of that family and lives'. They didn't push it either, after all they had heard the same stories, but they also knew that her family loved her, especially her father. He had spent years looking for her. He didn't believe anything anyone said about her killing Bonnie or about her being dead. But she refused to make the same mistake like she had that day, the mistake of reaching out to someone who was supposed to care about her.
In three years, they became a dysfunctional family. They would treat her like a younger sister and she saw them as her brothers. They knew everything about each other, their pasts and all their secrets. In the process of helping her, they helped each other as well. It was no secret that all three were broken in different ways, but they built each other back again, together.
Somewhere in those years they gave each other nicknames, she would call the heretic her prince and the vampire her knight and they would call her their princess, along with love and darling sometimes. Being around them, she started smiling more and was genuinely happy most days.
They had saved her in every way a person could be saved in.
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She opened her phone to see the chain of messages from both the men.
K: princess.
R: where are you?
K: Maya?
R: love, are you ok?
R: we went to your house, you weren't there.
K: but all your stuff was
R: are you in danger.
K: you went for a hunt, and didn't come back.
R: we're worried
K: Maya
K: princess
R: love
R: darling
R: please tell us you are safe.
K: you're scaring us now princess.
That was the most recent message. She typed back her reply.
M: I'm fine, well kinda.
M: I'm in beacon hills.
She got an instant reply from both.
K: what??
R: why?
M: I turned.
K: when????
R: how? Do you have a place to stay, the sun will rise soon.
M: yesterday, and yes. Technically. I think the house belongs to my family.
M: can you come here?
K: shit. we're already on our way.
R: close all the curtains and stay inside. Am I clear.
M: yes sir.
And that's exactly what she did, she closed all the curtains and went into the room she had slept in the previous night. She went into the washroom hoping to take a shower before her brothers arrived.
When she got out of the shower, she dropped all her glamours and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked into her olive green eyes, the same as her mother, and saw the veins popping below them. She quickly averted her eyes and looked down at her body covered in scars along with the symbol of the Quadrabryd that she was born with and the Argent emblem that was burnt into her skin. All of her wounds from yesterday had healed completely.
She wrapped a towel around herself and walked out towards the closet and put on a pair of green shorts and a white top. She looked at the other outfits in the cupboard, some fancy enough for balls and some just casual sweats. Some of the clothes even looked really old, but still beautiful.
She wore Oak and Mystic on her wrists and put Fire around her waist. Deciding that she had nothing better to do for the remaining day, she went to look for an empty room to train. Five minutes later she found an empty room on the first floor and started her training.
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She trained for hours before she heard noises coming from below. She held Fire, ready to attack and started going towards the noise.
But when she reached the source of the noise, she was surprised by the view that greeted her.
There, on the floor of the main hall, clearly injured laid her best friends, Kai Parker and Regulus Black. And standing next to them, with blood on his hands, was her stepfather, Kol Mikaelson.