#yeahiknowitslong

Vera takes action. She waits until Kenzo walks into the room to check on her and punches him with all the strength she can manage. It works.

She hauls open the door.

She catches Ciara off guard and uses it to her advantage. Vera has never been one for violence, but she is literally fighting for her life. If she doesn’t make it out, at least she didn’t sit around and accept her fate.

Above ground, the spell has worked.

The Vatore siblings cautiously enter the cemetery. Once it becomes clear it’s safe, they pick up their pace.

“He did it.” Lilith comments, impressed as she looks at Dakota, who is leaning up against a tombstone, gathering himself after the spell.

Caleb nods and stills his steps. He motions for his sister to follow him towards an uncovered piece of wood laying, seemingly, in the snow. As he grows closer, he can see that it is actually a door in the ground.

Below ground.

Vera thinks she has a chance after knocking Ciara down. She runs for the stairs, not noticing that Ciara has gotten up.

“Close but not close enough.” Ciara said, satisfied with herself. While Vera isn’t exactly dead yet, the longer she stays frozen, the closer Ciara’s desired outcome draws near.

Ciara goes to move Vera back into the other room with her magic when she finally notices the shift. The spell on the cemetery is gone. Ciara smirks.

“Dakota.” She says softly, readying herself mentally.

She readies herself for the wrong one.

In the blink of an eye, Caleb is on her, biting into her throat and drinking her blood. Ciara manages a scream, which makes Caleb drink faster. He had seen the block of ice containing Vera when he started down the stairs. Pain and heartache had shot through his entire being, thinking that Ciara had killed Vera. He saw red as everything in the world stops mattering to him. He thinks he has lost his chance to see Vera’s brown eyes again. To tell her the truth.

“Caleb! Stop!” Lilith yells, trying to not let the smell of blood get to her. While she doesn’t hunt humans anymore and drinks from plasma fruit like her brother, the smell of magical blood is still very tempting. The taste is intoxicating.

Caleb pulls back, still holding onto Ciara as her heart gives up. He has taken too much blood.

“She’s dead.” Lilith says what Caleb knows, as he lets the body in his grasp drop to the floor. Lilith slowly looks at Caleb, knowing why he went off the deep end when she hears it.

A heart beat. Caleb wipes his mouth clean on his sleeve as he hears it too.

Lilith approaches the block of ice and it grows stronger. The wind whips down from the entrance and blows out the candles as Lilith and Caleb use their bare fists and strength to hammer at the ice.

After a few moments, which seemed longer, even to the vampires, they free Vera from the ice. Caleb catches her limp body before it hits the ground and holds her to him, but he can not provide her the body heat she needs.

“Take her to Dakota.” Caleb stats flatly, before handing Vera to Lilith.

The snow has stopped as Lilith comes up the stares with Vera, she hands the mermaid off to Dakota.

He performs a quick spell to warm Vera up a bit before taking her away. Dakota feels light again, despite being exhausted from all the magic he’s used. Vera is alive. He wants to skip out of the cemetery with her, but decides against it. He can’t wait until Vera wakes up. He feels like the rest of his life is waiting for him in the morning.

Lilith returns to her brother, sitting down beside him on the ground. Caleb is beyond relieved that Vera is alive. He has to face the fact that he killed someone. He knows Ciara had to be stopped.

“What’s done is done. You can’t change it.” Lilith told him “You thought Vera was dead. So did I.”