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Josie is enjoying an orange juice as she smiles and listens to her girlfriend recounts how she challenged Jed in being the alpha in a pool match but Josie just can’t focus. Her mind wanders to the events that happened these last two days. There are still a lot of things that she needs to process, not only things but feelings, Josie needs to sort out her complicated feelings too. It’s crazy how one person could send her into this emotional roller coaster and kept her mind spiraling the whole night. However, it can wait because the last thing Josie wanted to do was to upset her girlfriend again. Well, it seems that’s the only thing she’s good at, upsetting Finch.
“Hey Josie, are you listening?” Finch waves her hand in front of Josie’s eyes. Oh shit. Josie sips her orange juice again and puts on a bright smile. “Of course! Tell me what happened next! Did you sink the eight ball?”
“Yeah, I did. And now I’m the alpha.” Finch says, her tone is slightly weird but Josie doesn’t put any thought to it.
“What?! Why did you just tell me about this? Oh wow, I can’t believe it! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!” Josie grins and tries to hug Finch but she moves away from Josie as she shakes her head and narrows her eyes.
Josie has a really bad feeling when she sees the shift in Finch’s expression. What the hell did she done wrong again this time?
“I should’ve known that you lied to me,” she shakes her head as scoffs, “because if you actually listened to me, you’ll know that I threw the game to let Jed keep his place as an alpha. I can’t believe you.”
Shit, shit, shit. Josie should’ve known something was wrong the moment Finch answered her previous question.
“I’m so sorry, Finch. I didn’t mean to space out, really, I was just too tired and I was listening to you but there are a lot of things in my mind right now. With Cleo gone and Malivore snatching Landon’s body and Hope—“
“Of course, you and your undying loyalty for Hope,” Finch spits out bitterly, “tell me, why is it that I am your girlfriend but you always seem to have no problem in ditching me for her?!”
Josie knows where this is going and she really don’t want to deal with this right now, she wants to just apologize to Finch and shove this problem away first, at least until she could get some time to process what happened on her time with Hope at the retreat and their conversation before they got high. However, Josie feels the urge to open her mouth and tells Finch the truth about how Hope means so much more to her than Finch. It will be ugly but Josie really couldn’t resist the words from coming out of her mouth. People around them are starting to look in their direction because of Finch’s raised voice and Josie really didn’t want to make a scene. This is not what she needed right now.
Josie finishes her orange juice and decides to ignore Finch’s question and forces a smile, “Finch, I’m really sorry but it’s best that we don’t do this here. I need some space to think first and I don’t want us to speak in this kind of state. Please.” Josie begs Finch but she seems determined to stay in the dining hall until Josie answers her question. So, Josie needs to come up with some excuse just to make Finch leave her alone for now but she couldn’t think of one. Plus, she has promised Hope and Lizzie to meet in the library to talk about their plan in defeating Malivore. Knowing the situation she’s in, it would be such a dumb move to mention Hope again to her girlfriend so Josie keeps her mouth shut.
Josie exhales heavily as she stands up quickly and grabs her backpack and leave, she knows that she’s making Finch angrier but she didn’t really care. In fact, she really wants to tell Finch to stop being so angry and suspicious toward her because it felt like Josie always end up disappointing her one way or another that now she’s becoming so good in apologizing and begging for forgiveness.
“What the hell Josie!” Finch shouts at her as she follows Josie, well all eyes are on them now. Josie keeps her head down and makes her way outside the hall. Finch catches up to her, “What the hell’s wrong with you?!” she questions angrily.
Josie doesn’t really want to answer her but maybe today she doesn’t feel like making any more excuses, “I told you to give me some time and I didn’t want to argue with you in the middle of the dining hall where the whole school could hear about it!”
Finch is taken aback when Josie snaps at her but she still has her sour expression and she keeps following Josie toward the library, bombarding Josie with questions, ranting about how she was always ditched by Josie. Well, that’s true but that’s not the point. The point now is that Josie feels her anger bubbling inside her, she really tries to bite her tongue and not escalates this whole situation but it feels like she’s urged to say something.
Huh, weird, she’s usually really good at this self-control thing. Ugh, maybe this is what happened when she tries to deal with her paranoid girlfriend while dealing with sleep-deprivation after being whammied with some potion that entrapped her in a sci-fi nightmare.
Josie tries so hard to stop herself from saying things she would regret toward Finch and she focuses on getting to the library. At least in the library she could tell Finch to shut her mouth and take some time for her to process her complicated feelings toward—Nope, Josie didn’t want to think about it because it’s not the time to do that, she doesn’t have the luxury to think about her feelings. Now what matters most to find a way to weaken Malivore so they could get Cleo back and maybe if they’re lucky, they could defeat him too on the process.
Finch keeps accusing her of not really wanting to be her girlfriend and maybe she’s just some sort of a rebound and that moving to Salvatore might be a huge mistake, she keeps bringing up Hope and Josie really hates it because Hope’s not to blame for this.
Josie can’t stand it anymore, as soon as they step foot in the library, Josie raises her hand and mutters a spell to shut the door and she casts a sound-proofing spell as a precaution from vampires or werewolves hearing them argue. The last thing she wanted was to be the center of Salvatore weekly gossip material.
“Stop it!” Josie at last shouts when she has sound-proofed the library.
“You haven’t answered my questions, Josie. Why did you keep ditching me over her? Who was she to you? Because it looks like I’m just a rebound for you!” Finch tries to corner Josie.
Josie really wants to keep her mouth shut, she tries her best to choose her words so it wouldn’t hurt Finch that bad, “She’s my friend and I told you that she’d do the same for me.” Josie tries to maintain her composure as she takes a deep breath.
“Stop lying! And don’t bother saying that she’s your friend because I’m tired of hearing that! You don’t think I can handle the truth?!“ Finch takes a step toward Josie, her eyes full of rage and her voice thick with anger.
“But that’s the truth, she’s my friend! What else do you want to hear?! What the hell should I say to you to get you to stop acting this way?” Josie asks desperately because the last thing she’s just so tired of these fights she always have with Finch about Hope.
“Are you sure that’s the truth?!” Finch eyes Josie and smiles bitterly, “Guess I should’ve known that you’re more damaged than your sister. I thought she was the evil twin, but you’re worse than her.” Finch calmly says as she looks at Josie with disgust.
That’s it. That’s fucking it.
“Say anything you want about me, but don’t you dare bring Lizzie into this!” Josie snaps furiously, “Isn’t it enough that you always brought Hope into our fight and now you bring Lizzie into whatever problem you’re clearly having with me?! “ she tries hard to control herself because truthfully, she really wants to summon Dark Josie and just let her take over and makes Finch regret that she ever brought Hope and Lizzie up.
“See, Hope again. Hope, Hope, Hope. I don’t fucking understand you, Josie! You defending your twin, I understand. But you, always defending Hope, choosing her over me, what the hell does that make me? What did you even see in that abomination?!” Finch spits out, her tone full of hatred.
“I fucking told you, stop bringing her into this!” Josie can’t hold her rage anymore as she grabs Finch’s arm, unconsciously siphoning the magic from her, causing her to shout in agony because of the pain. “You want the fucking truth?! You want to know why I always defend Hope?!” Josie tightens her grip on Finch’s arm.
Finch’s eyes are almost bulging out from surprise because of Josie’s sudden rage and before she has the time to respond, Josie continues, “Because I care about her so much! I just knew you for a short time and I’ve known her all my life, so yes, I choose her and I will always choose her! And if you dare to call her an abomination one more time, I’ll be sure to make you regret it your whole life.” Josie shakes with anger as she keeps siphoning Finch’s magic.
However, Josie doesn’t realize that Finch’s eyes are glowing and she pulls her arm away from Josie’s grip and she makes Josie steps back, “What are you going to do to me, huh? Grip my arms until I ran out of magic?! I knew that there’s something wrong with you, if it weren’t for this I wouldn’t know how messed up you are.” Finch takes out a small vial from her pocket and her heart drops when she sees the pale blue liquid residue inside.
“Y-you spiked my drink with that?!” Josie can’t help but raise her voice because what Finch does is truly a breach of privacy. She practically forces the truth out of Josie mouth, she really feels bad about the words that has been coming out from her mouth but now, not so much. “Huh, that makes sense because at least it got me to admit that you’ll never be able to compare with Hope.”
Josie regrets her words a second too late because Finch quickly shoves Josie and her back directly slams against the wooden wall, before Josie gets to cast a spell to immobilize Finch, she already gets thrown across the room and Hope is standing in front of Josie.
Wait. Hope? Where the hell does she came from??
Hope lunges herself toward Finch and pushes her back down, keeping her from standing up, “You touch her one more time, I’ll make you wish you never exist!” she raises her fist and grips it tightly as Finch howls with pain, Josie knows that Hope was using the vein-bursting spell and Josie quickly grabs Hope’s hand before she did anything she would regret.
“Hope, stop. Please,” Josie stands in front of Hope, her eyes glowing gold and Josie can feel Hope’s pulse racing wildly. Hope loosens her fist and slowly her breathing also evens out, her eyes are starting to turn blue but it is still full of ire, she glares at Finch who is wincing with pain and shouts, “Leave!"
In a split second, Finch shuffles out of the library and Josie’s left with Hope alone. Josie recalls what just happened with Finch and she looks at Hope uncertainly, “Uh, Hope… when did you get inside the library?”
“Just a while ago—“ Hope hesitates before she starts speaking again while Josie averts her eyes.
Huh. Weird. “But why didn’t I hear you enter?” Josie asks confusedly just to realize the answer in the next second.
“I was, uh—“ Hope sheepishly smiles as she motions her hand around the library, “waiting for you and Lizzie here then I heard you and Finch arguing and you were getting closer here, I put a cloaking spell because I panicked then you shut the door so yeah, I couldn’t get out.”
“So you were here the whole time?!” Josie feels her heart drop because she clearly remembers the words that spilled out of her mouth.
Hope only nods her head and apologizes, “I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop or even get involved but when I saw her shoved you, I couldn’t just stay still. I won’t let her hurt you.”
Josie smiles softly at Hope but she feels herself panicking since Hope hears everything, especially the part when Josie says she will always choose Hope. Oh god, her fucking subconscious and truth serum, what a perfect combination.
Josie carefully looks at Hope’s eyes as she bites her lip nervously, “Uh, so I guess you know how I feel about you now?” she says with a hint of uncertainty because she knows that it’s been a one-sided crush and admiration all this time.
“You don’t have to say anything Hope, I’m sorry that the truth came out that way but that’s how I’ve always felt and I just—“
Before Josie could finish her sentence, Hope’s lips crashes on hers and Josie freezes for a second but then she captures it eagerly. They come up for air and Josie can’t stop smiling while Hope’s hand is still on her cheeks.
“Whoa,” Josie says quietly.
“Uh, sorry, I couldn’t help it but I’ve been wanting to do that for some time,” Hope now averts her gaze sheepishly.
Josie lifts Hope’s chin up and kisses her again and she presses her body against Hope’s, it felt like she’s in heaven now and Josie doesn’t want it to stop.
Suddenly, Lizzie’s voice was heard through the door, “Josie? Hope? Malivore broke out of the dungeon! We need to go!”
Both Josie and Hope break apart as they groan in sync. “Why can’t we have a little break for god’s sake?!” Hope complains with frustration.
“Come on, Hope. We’ll talk about this later, I promise. Right now we need to stop Malivore and get Cleo and Landon back,” Josie heads toward the door quickly and Hope could notice the tension in her voice when she says Landon’s name.
Hope stops Josie and takes her hand, “Hey, even if Landon’s back, I promise that it wouldn’t change anything between us, okay?”
Josie only nods and she gently pulls Hope away with her out of the library where Lizzie is waiting for them, she scans them both from head to toe, “What took you guys so long? Are you guys making out or what?!” she rolls her eyes with annoyance and quickly turns back while Josie and Hope exchange glances with each other at Lizzie’s remarks.
As they quickly walk downstairs, Lizzie then stops in her track and turns around abruptly, “Wait… did you guys actually make out?!”
Josie smiles apologetically while Hope only rolls her eyes at Lizzie as she cackles like a maniac, “Oh my gosh I didn’t even think that you’ll have the guts to make a move!” she points her finger toward Hope and then she shifts her gaze and points her finger to Josie, “But you, last time I remembered you still have a girlfriend!”
Hope and Josie was about to protest against what Lizzie says when Kaleb, MG and Jed shows up, “Come on! Professor Saltzman’s waiting in the car! We know where Malivore would go!”
They rush toward the car and Hope and Josie starts doing a locator spell on the way, the lines on the map guides them to a familiar location for Hope, the place where she jumps to the portal almost two years ago, the Triad Headquarters.
On the way, Alaric explained their plan quickly, they will be trying out a solution in defeating Malivore without Hope having to die and turn into a tribrid. It’s actually Lizzie’s idea, she randomly thought of some way to merge Hope’s blood with any vampire’s blood since the only thing missing from the tribrid element is the vampire part.
Turns out, Alaric is intrigued by the idea and he asks Bonnie and Caroline about the possibilities and probabilities for this solution to work and it seems possible. They could try merging Hope’s blood with vampire blood and they could use the blood to defeat Malivore.
“Are you sure that this will work?” Hope asks the question that none of them has dared to ask.
“Uh…” Alaric hesitates, “yeah, it will. If it doesn’t-“
“If it doesn’t work, you need to kill me. No excuses.” Hope says with a stoic expression.
Josie grabs Hope’s hand as she shakes her head slightly.
“Jo, I have to do this.” her gaze softens as it meets Josie’s worried eyes.
“No, Hope I can’t let you, I believe that the plan will work.” Josie assures Hope and squeezes Hope’s hand.
Hope squeezes back and smiles slightly, “As much as I want to believe it, you know that 99% of our plans always went sideways right?” Josie frowns at Hope’s attempt to lighten the mood.
Hope then continues as she holds her gaze on Josie’s, “Please, Jo. I have to do this, this is the reason why I was born.”
Josie scrunches her face and pouts, “No, I refuse to believe it because you’re not born to be a weapon and you’re so much more than that. I just can’t let you die.” Her voice is soft but her tone is adamant.
“Hey, it’s not like I wouldn’t come back right? I’ll wake up Jo, it’ll be just like taking a nap.” Hope chuckles lightly and nudges Josie’s shoulder with hers gently.
“Well except your heart will be stopped by then!” Josie snaps at Hope and she immediately looks down, “I’m sorry, Hope. I know that I shouldn’t be selfish but I really don’t want to watch the person I love suffer, or even worse, die. I know that you want to enjoy your human life as long as possible, that’s why I’m really hoping for this solution to work.”
“You.. love me?” Hope asks carefully, afraid that she’s hearing the wrong thing. She feels a blush creeping up on her cheeks.
“Always have been…wasn’t that obvious?” Josie smirks at Hope’s reaction and puts her hand on Hope’s cheek.
Before Hope could say anything, they arrive in front of the abandoned Triad building and Alaric starts explaining specifically what each of them are going to do, Hope sighs as she shakes her head with annoyance because first, her moment with Josie gets interrupted, again. And second, she has very little hope – yes, pun intended- that whatever plan Alaric has up his sleeve will work. The only way to defeat Malivore is by turning her into a full tribrid.
As Hope’s head is filled by endless possibilities an calculations on how this plan is super fallible, Hope feels a squeeze on her hand and Josie is smiles at her, as if she’d know what’s happening inside her head, she shakes her head slightly at Hope and rubs her thumb against Hope’s hand, making a circular pattern and surprisingly it calms Hope down.
“Okay, so Lizzie, Josie, MG and Hope will go together, you’ll stay back here as you do the blood merge and meanwhile, Kaleb, Jed and I will go in and do some recon on what or who we should expect at the pit.” Alaric orders them as he arms himself with his crossbow. “Girls, here’s the grimoire, you need to start the spell as soon as possible and remember for the first 15 minutes, Hope and M.G. needs to stay still. It will be like a slightly complicated blood transfusion,” Alaric chuckles nervously at the four of them when they didn’t show any reaction toward his joke.
Jed, Kaleb and Alaric directly split up with them and they quietly enter the warehouse, on the other hand Lizzie is quickly reading the spell while M.G. keeps a lookout in case some monsters show up. Josie nudges Hope’s shoulder softly, “Hey, shouldn’t you tell Aunt Freya about this plan? Maybe there are some things that we could miss. Not that I doubt Aunt Bonnie and my mom but Aunt Freya will have more info, she knows you best plus she’s the most powerful witch that I know.”
Hope wriggles her eyebrows gleefully at Josie as she smirks.
“What?” Josie asks.
“Are you seriously fangirling over my aunt right now?” Hope shakes her head, “because, gross.”she rolls her eyes playfully.
“Well… she is awesome! But I don’t know if she’ll like me if I meet her again, remembering that I blasted her the last time I saw her.” Josie smiles with embarrassment remembering how she knocked out Aunt Freya and fled the bar.
“Don’t worry, she’ll love you,” Hope says as she moves her face toward Josie’s and when their lips almost meet she stops and pouts, ”But still, you crushing over my aunt is a no-no.”
“Don’t worry, I only have my eyes for one Mikaelson..” Josie winks as she tries to close the gap between her and Hope.
Hope is about to answer when Lizzie shuts the grimoire loudly, “Stop it! We can hear everything and you’re violating our ears!”
M.G. laughs as he covers his ears and adds, “And our eyes too!”
Lizzie rolls her eyes exasperatedly as she huffs, “Yes, good, great, at last you oblivious gays found each other but this is not the time, nor the place! Quit simping over each other and let’s start the spell!”
Both Josie and Hope pull away quickly and smile at each other like a pair of lovesick fools.
“Wait a minute, I’m going to make a call real quick,” Hope steps aside, leaving a flustered Josie with Lizzie and M.G. silently laughing at their reactions.
Hope calls Freya and tell her about their plans, Freya explains to her that the spell wouldn’t last long; the bonded blood only could last for 30 minutes so they need to do it fast. As soon as Hope gets off the phone, Josie and Lizzie start casting the spell from the grimoire. Hope and M.G. cuts their palm and keep their hands together and after Josie and Lizzie starts the spell it seems they couldn’t let go of each other’s hands.
Lizzie and Josie are concentrating hard as they keep the spell going when suddenly there’s a loud noise approaching them. Before Hope could see what’s coming for them, M.G. shouts, “I thought I freaking destroyed you!”
Hope turns her head and sees a monstrous wendigo walking toward them with its flailing, long arms, its eyes glowing. The wendigo looks unbothered and only focusing toward Josie and Lizzie, it didn’t care about Hope and M.G. As it is distracted, Hope signals M.G. to attack it together since they are still attached to each other.
Hope whispers toward M.G., “Hey, what did you do to destroy it last time?”
“I set its heart on fire, but now I don’t think I can do it again,” M.G. explains.
“Don’t worry about that, just approach him quickly and I’ll set his heart on fire,” Hope assures him.
Both of them then start signing toward Josie and Lizzie to keep the spell going and ignore the wendigo. Hope counts to three and M.G. uses his vampire speed to drag him and Hope behind the wendigo and Hope punches the wendigo’s chest as hard as she could as she shouts, “Incendia!”
Instantly, the wendigo howls in pain as it is set on fire and quickly turn into ashes, when the smoke clears, Hope directly checks on Josie and Lizzie, they are still doing the spell and what matters most, they are safe.
Hope looks at Josie and she’s looking back at her as she does the spell while she whispers quietly, “That’s my girl!” and Hope winks toward Josie and in a split second she blushes because she didn’t mean for Hope to hear what she says but damn her wolf super hearing. Josie only smiles shyly toward Hope while still focusing on the spell. Josie can feel Lizzie eyeing as a shit-eating grin appears on her face but Josie decides not to indulge her sister and keep chanting for the spell.
The spell’s almost over and Hope can’t believe that it might work, she still stays on alert, keeping her eyes on her surrounding, standing back to back with M.G. to be able to spot danger effectively as they keep guard near the twins. Hope and M.G. then could hear some noises from afar, like something splashing around and walking toward them. They look at each other but neither of them says a word since they didn’t want to break the concentration of the twins. So Hope eyes M.G. to move slightly farther to get out of their earshot, “Did you hear it too?”
“Yeah… I don’t know what the hell is happening but I don’t think that it’s any good,” M.G. worriedly tries to figure out what’s coming toward them.
“I think I might know what’s coming after us…” Hope fidgets as she keeps looking toward the twins’ direction, making sure that nothing is coming toward them, “M.G., get ready to fight like hell as soon as they finish the spell, we could split up and defeat more monsters that way.”
“What?! Monsters? What are you saying Hope?” M.G. confusedly looks around.
“The splashing sound? I think that’s the monsters getting out from the pit, I thought that it was inactive since I jumped there but I guess Malivore reactivated it again, I guess he’s sending all of the Malivore monsters toward us right now,” Hope explains and M.G. nods toward her and squeezes her hand.
“Don’t worry, we got this Hope,” he smiles as they both brace themselves to get ready to fight whatever monsters that are coming toward them. At the same time, Josie and Lizzie stumbles back in exhaustion, Hope feels that the bond that keeping his hand and M.G’s together are gone, that only means one thing, they finished the spell.
M.G. and Hope runs toward Lizzie and Josie and steadies them in time before they could fall to the ground. “Hey, you okay?” M.G. asks Lizzie as he props her back up with his hand and Lizzie smiles and nods her head slightly, on the other hand, Hope is securing her hand on Josie’s waist, “Jo, you alright?”
Josie nods her head weakly, “Yeah… put your blood on the vials and let’s end this once and for all,” she hands Hope the vials for her blood. Before Hope transfers her blood toward the vial, she takes Josie’s hand and put it on hers, “Jo, siphon from me first, we’ll need to be ready for what’s coming.”
As soon as Josie siphons from Hope, she can feel herself gets refreshed and her exhaustion is gone, Hope also tells Lizzie to siphon from M.G. and just like Josie, Lizzie is instantly back to normal and smirks toward Hope, “You owe us one, Mikaelson.”
Hope shakes her head and chuckles and she bites her arm to transfer her blood to the vials. They are planning to divide Hope’s blood into several vials so that anyone of them that find Malivore first could shove it into his ugly ass mouth.
Hope is still transferring her blood toward the vials when a gargoyle, mummy and cyclops approach them, Lizzie, Josie and M.G. instantly step in front of Hope to let her finish transferring the blood toward the vial. Josie takes on the gargoyle, casting it with the spell she has used on it when she defeated it with Hope back at school, Lizzie is taking on the mummy, trying to stop it while M.G. is running full force toward the cyclops, hoping to crash toward it so he could give more time for Hope. When he charges toward the cyclops, he can hear more and more monsters walking toward them and he turns toward Hope, Josie and Lizzie, “Guys, I’m going to buy you some time, go kick Malivore’s mud ass for me okay?!” M.G. winks toward them and zooms toward another direction as he shouts, “Come here you dumbasses!”
Lizzie looks toward his direction with worry, “Hey he’ll be okay, he’s a superhero after all!” Hope smiles, trying to lessen Lizzie’s fear. She has finish transferring her blood to the vials and hand Josie and Lizzie one each.
“Come on!” Hope runs forward as she leads Josie and Lizzie toward the room where she last saw Malivore pit when she destroyed them. They arrive in front of the bubbling pit and see a figure turned back toward them, facing the pit, it’s Malivore. Well, MaliLandon to be exact, Malivore seems comfortable in Landon’s body. Hope tenses up when she sees him, she’s ready to charge but Lizzie stops her from going forward, “Hey, he didn’t know that there’s the three of us, let’s use this to our advantage, okay? I’m going to be a distraction. You both wait for my signal.”she whispers and without waiting for Josie and Hope’s response, Lizzie walks toward MaliLandon.
“Hey, mudface! Out of anybody you could possess, you choose the Hobbit’s body to dwell in? Seriously, I thought your previous golem vessel is still much better than this!” Lizzie sneers as she approaches MaliLandon.
MaliLandon turns around slowly as a creepy smile is plastered on his face, “Whatever plan you have, I can assure that it won’t ever work against me.”
“Ugh, I’m sorry but I couldn’t take you seriously when you’re talking with the Muppet’s body.” Lizzie shakes her head in disappointment, “Sorry not sorry,” she mutters nonchalantly as she walks around MaliLandon to trap him into a boundary spell.
Before Lizzie could finish her spell, MaliLandon quickly grabs her hand and shoves her away, Lizzie is caught by surprise and she couldn’t defend herself as she got thrown near the pit. MaliLandon turns toward her as he calmly flashes his teeth and starts opening his mouth and it gets wider and wider as he approaches Lizzie.
Lizzie couldn’t stand up as she watches MaliLandon’s mouth expanding, “What the fuck, did your jaw got dislocated?” she still bravely counters as her left hand stealthily reaches her back pocket to take the vial and throw it into MaliLandon’s mouth. It will be a very easy opportunity as his mouth is starting to open wider and his teeth grows sharper. But before Lizzie could throw the vial, MaliLandon swiftly slaps the vial away from her hand, the vial was broken and Lizzie couldn’t hide the fear in her face anymore.
“Well, fuck.” she could only mutters as MaliLandon is ready to swallow her whole but then he was thrown away toward the wall as Hope attacks him with a kick.
Hope fights MaliLandon and it seems like he candle Hope well, Hope tries to shove the vial toward his mouth but she keeps failing. Josie rushes toward Hope to help her and she shouts “Incendia!” toward MaliLandon, a blazing ball of fire instantly hit his chest but it quickly dies down and MaliLandon approaches her with an evil grin. “Stupid girl! Fire spell couldn’t harm me anymore!”
Before Josie could conjure another spell, MaliLandon stretches his arm that turns into mud and tosses Josie toward the wall. Instead of hitting the hard, concrete wall, a pair of hands catches Josie and steadies her. It’s M.G., he’s bruising and bleeding but he’s okay, M.G. then quickly charges toward MaliLandon, Lizzie and Hope are also ready to attack him. However, MaliLandon easily defeat them, he grabs M.G.’s hand and pull his daylight ring, causing M.G. to start burning as he quickly speeds away toward the corner of the room where the sunlight doesn’t reach him.
Lizzie quickly snaps her head back to check on M.G. and he’s giving her a thumb up to show he’s okay despite the burn marks that’s quickly healing. Lizzie turns her head slowly as she raises her hand, casting an immobilization spell toward MaliLandon as she yells, “Die, you piece of goo!” at the same time Hope also runs toward him and kick his feet. Unfortunately, MaliLandon’s reflex is pretty good as he evades Hope’s kick and to their shock, he was not immobilized by Lizzie’s spell. Instead, MaliLandon kicks Hope away from him and also shoves Lizzie toward the other side of the wall.
Hope quickly stands up and readies herself to punch MaliLandon in the stomach and slams him to the ground then she will force the vial in his mouth. She runs quickly and punches MaliLandon as hard she can and slams him to the ground. As Hope steps on his chest and about to throw the vial into is mouth, MaliLandon shouts, “Hope! It’s me! Please don’t do this, I’m still here. Please!” he begs and Hope hesitates for a while, searching his eyes.
“L-Landon…?” Hope says uncertainly. MaliLandon nods his head and tries to hold Hope’s hand but Hope looks away and shifts her gaze toward Josie. MaliLandon then puts his hand on Hope’s leg that’s stepping on him, “Hope…please, I love you… you know that right? It’s me, I’m trying to fight him, please!” he whines and begs.
Josie’s frozen in her place as she sees the interaction between MaliLandon and Hope, her eyes looks scared and sad. Hope then looks back toward Landon’s face and back toward Josie, in a split second Hope knows that that’s her future. She steps on MaliLandon harder, “Do you think for just a second that I would believe your pretense? For all I know Landon’s dead the moment he dissolved into a puddle of goo. So you must be really stupid for an ancient monster to think that you could fool me with this kind of act.”
Hope kneels down and she’s about to punches her way to MaliLandon’s mouth so she can just shoves the vial but then MaliLandon’s snaps and catches her off guard, he slaps Hope’s hand and the vial is thrown away and he wraps his hands on Hope’s leg on his chest, causing her to fall on the ground. He is now laughing maniacally, “You stupid children, did you think you could win against me?!” he’s facing Hope and punches her then kicks her as she’s trying to get up from the ground.
“Pathetic!” he keeps kicking Hope and he chokes Hope as he raises her up, Hope’s struggling but MaliLandon is pretty strong, she tries to kick him but it fails. MaliLandon then raises his left hand and it turns into mud that transforms into a blade-like weapon and he stabs it into Hope’s stomach.
Hope’s eyes widen at the sharp pang on her stomach and she can’t breathe because MaliLandon is crushing her neck too. Hope thinks to herself, well if she dies she’ll come back so it’s okay either way, but still she’s afraid, not knowing what will happen next before she wakes up. Hope closes her eyes, her body couldn’t work anymore even though in her mind she still wants to beat this monster into a pulp.
“No!” Josie shouts with all her might, all she can see is red, she summons the vial of blood toward her that thankfully didn’t break when it fell. She runs while casting a spell toward MaliLandon to immobilize him, well it’s a dark magic spell and Josie can feel it draining her energy as she moves but she needs to do it because a normal spell failed to hold MaliLandon back. As soon as he’s petrified, Josie stands in front of Hope, protecting her. MaliLandon seems to be able to start breaking free from the spell, Josie quickly forces the vial into his mouth as she shouts with anger, “This is for hurting her!” Josie twists her wrist as she casts a spell to snap MaliLandon’s mouth for it to crack open and quickly clenches into a fist to close his mouth, “Now die!”
Josie waits for what seems like an eternity, readying herself to knock over MaliLandon in case their plan didn’t work. As Josie stares at him with hatred, her body is shaking furiously, ready to cast a dark magic spell toward him if he survive, MaliLandon starts struggling and he’s trying to say something but mud starts coming out of his mouth. Josie’s relieved that the spell actually work and she turns her head to check on Hope, she’s still unconscious and Lizzie’s already beside her, trying to wake her up. While M.G. is on the other side of the room, he signs he’s ok to Josie as he hides behind the shade.
Josie is about to cast a summon spell for M.G.’s ring when she feels an uncontrollable pain on her chest and then everything moves in slow motion as she looks around. She looks down and sees a blade jutting out from her chest and she looks back up and sees M.G. trying to get to her and Lizzie is running toward her. They are screaming but Josie can’t hear them, it’s like they are screaming through a sound proof glass, her surroundings become really silent. Josie’s hand is now covered in her own blood as she tries to breathe but fails because of the blood gurgling on her throat, blocking the air from coming into her lungs.
However, the only thing running through Josie’s mind and the only thing she could focus on through her vision is Hope. Unable to withstand the pain, Josie falls to the ground, struggling to keep her eyes open to see if Hope’s okay. She needs to make sure that Hope’s okay. And the last thing Josie sees before everything went black is Hope’s beautiful face that has always been on her mind since god knows when.
Hope wakes up and directly scans her surroundings, what the hell just happened?!
The last thing she remembered was….wait, why can’t she remember anything?
She looks around and finds herself laying on a blanket spread in the middle of a meadow, in front of her a beautiful lake with mountains behind it. It’s truly mesmerizing and Hope feels weirdly at peace. Something’s tugging her heart but she doesn’t really know what so she ignores the feeling and notices that there are two glasses, a bottle of champagne and a half-opened picnic basket.
Is there anyone with her? Hope looks around again, trying to find any hint of somebody who’s with her but the place is empty. But why are there two glasses? Somebody must be here with her. Hope calms herself down and she closes her eyes as she tries to recall what happened before she wakes up here in the middle of nowhere. Not that she’s complaining with the gorgeous view and spread around her, but still, she feels that she needs to know what happened before she gets here.
Hope takes a deep breath and starts to rack her brain for any details she could recall before waking up but she couldn’t remember anything. She tightly closes her eyes and concentrates in recalling any memories before waking up and suddenly she’s startled by a pair of arms circling her waist. Hope flinches at the sudden contact as she swiftly turns her head to see who’s behind her.
As Hope turns her head, she instantly meets a pair of warm, chocolate eyes of a really pretty brunette and her gaze turns worried in seeing Hope’s surprised reaction.
“Hey..you okay?” the brunette girl asks her as she places her hand softly on Hope’s cheek.
The moment the girl touches Hope’s cheek, she feels a jolt rushing toward her and she unconsciously whispers, “Josie..?”
“Hope…?” Josie replies uncertainly as her eyebrows wriggle with confusion.
When their eyes locked, Hope remembers everything, their fight with Malivore, the blood merge and damn, she got knocked out.
“Oh god, I remembered everything!” Hope exclaims, “Why are we here Jo?! What the hell happened? Did the blood merge thing work? Where the hell are we?!” she panicly bombards Josie with several questions.
Josie chuckles softly, “Hey… deep breaths Hope…everything’s okay. It works…” Josie trails off as she smiles softly toward Hope, pulling Hope in her embrace.
Hope feels herself relaxes at Josie’s touch, a wave of relief washing over her, “God, I thought for a second that it didn’t work. But how long was I out? And how the hell do we got here? How about the others?”
There’s a silence and then Josie speaks, “Yeah you’re out for a while… it doesn’t matter how we got here. Right now what matters most to me is spending time with you together without any interruptions now that we actually could have some peace and quiet…”
Hope chuckles at what Josie says because it’s right, their moment on the library got interrupted by Lizzie and the moment Josie told her she loves her, they got interrupted again. Hope swears if they got interrupted again, someone must be putting a hex on either of them so their moments will always be destroyed by interruptions. Without wasting anymore time, Hope softly pulls Josie closer to her and presses both of their lips together.
After they break from the kiss, Hope sighs in relief and keep her forehead on Josie’s, “Thankfully we didn’t get interrupted this time.”
Josie grins at her and stares adoringly at Hope, “You’re so adorable, you know?”
Hope pouts, “I’m a wolf, not a puppy, so I’m not adorable.”
Josie pinches Hope’s cheek and laughs at Hope’s remarks, “Cute.”
Hope’s about to say something but when Josie’s looking and smiling at her, Hope could feel a blush creeping in and she just smiles back sheepishly at Josie.
Josie then opens the champagne and pours it into the glasses, she also takes out the food from the picnic basket, there are sandwiches and fruits inside, she takes a sandwich and feeds Hope, “Here. I know that you’re hungry from all the fighting.” Hope munches on the sandwich and smiles contentedly at how delicious the sandwich is. Josie hands her the champagne and they clink their glasses before drinking it.
After a while, Josie puts her arms around Hope’s neck and pulls her closer into a hug, their bodies are pressed toward each other, Hope can feels Josie’s warm breath on her neck and she smiles goofily at their contact.
“So…to fulfill my promise, let’s talk about what happened at the library, before we got interrupted by my dearest sister..” Josie says gleefully and Hope smiles at what she says.
“You know what? I was merely seconds away from using a cloaking spell for the both of us to prevent anymore interruptions,” she lightly taps on Josie’s hand and brings it to her chest.
Josie laughs at Hope’s statement, “Yeah…seems like somebody’s always jinx us from being together, am I right?” her tone suddenly turns sad.
Hope intertwines their fingers together and presses a light kiss on Josie’s fingers, “I thought so too… but hey, we’re here now right? We got all the time in the world…”
They stay in silence for a while and Josie speaks softly, “I am sorry that you have to find out about my feeling that way…” she trails off. “Seems like you always have to find out about it in some uncomfortable situations where I was forced to spew out my feelings. Am I right?” Josie says with a hint of regret in her voice.
Hope shakes her head lightly, “That’s okay, Jo…I didn’t blame you. But why didn’t you say anything to me all this time?”
“I almost did…” Josie sighs, “three times actually, but I always got beat by Landon. First time on Christmas just seconds away before he was brought back by Lizzie and Sebastian.”
“And the second time?”
“When you woke up from the coma, I was going to tell you about my feelings because I was aware of how much you fought for me and tried to get me back even though Dark Josie was controlling me.” Josie confesses as she recalls yet another failed attempt in confessing.
Hope nods her head so Josie continues, “The last time was after the cult thing, when we were sitting by the fire, I tried so hard to restrain myself from saying anything because you’re vulnerable, still fresh from the breakup while you told me that I deserved to be happy, I remembered that you were referring to me and Finch and I kept reminding myself that she’s still my girlfriend even though on that day we had a fight before I left.” She pauses for a while and chuckles lightly, “Funny how I was so slow in realizing it but most of the time we were always fighting about you. To think of it, she’s always irrationally accusing you and she got angry with me whenever I told her that I was helping you.”
“Y-you were fighting about me?“ Hope asks in disbelief.
“Well…most of the time. I know that I was being unfair to her but invading my privacy by spiking me with the truth serum, it was messed up. Actually, a part of me was glad that I could at last speak out the things I wanted to say to her and at last got to admit my feelings for you. But I promise you, I never told you because the time was never right and I didn’t want to ruin any relationships we were having at the moment. So I kept backing out, I’m sorry Hope.” Josie explains lengthily because she wants Hope to know that her feelings are genuine and sincere.
Hope then intertwined their hands together as she presses her lips softly on Josie’s fingers, “Well...I never thought that I’d have any chance with you.”
“Are you crazy? You always have my heart Hope.” Josie chuckles as she strokes on Hope’s hair. “Now it’s time for you to wake up.” she gently cups Hope’s cheek.
“Wake up? Wait. I thought this is real?” Hope looks around with confusion.
Josie only smiles and shakes her head, “Come on, you need to wake up!”
“I love you Hope, I will always love you, remember that okay?” Josie holds Hope’s gaze on hers.
“I love you too Josie,” Hope replies sincerely and then she nervously asks, “Now that Malivore’s gone, do you think we could give dating normally a shot?”
Josie didn’t answer and she puts her hand on Hope’s cheek, “You need to wake up first before I could give you an answer.”
Hope couldn’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong, “Is all of this happening in my subconscious then?” she gestures toward her surroundings.
“Well, yes and no, now go. Everybody needs you to wake up; I need you to wake up.” Josie smiles and encourages Hope.
“But I like it here,” Hope pouts.
“Hope…come on,” Josie replies with a pout too and Hope couldn’t win against her.
“Okay… okay… I mean I love it here because we don’t get interrupted here, it’s so peaceful,” she chuckles and Josie gives her a slight smile.
“Well you’re right about that…but you can’t keep staying here. Come on Hope, wake up.” Josie smiles and pulls Hope into a long, sweet kiss.
Hope could feel herself melting into the kiss and when she opens her eyes, she could feel the ground against her and she stares at the ceiling of the warehouse. She jolts awake even though it feels her body could break any moment, the pain and memories are now all coming back to her, “Josie!” she looks to her right as she feels a hand intertwined on hers.
“N-not your f-fault, Hope…” Josie whispers weakly as she gasps for her breath, trying to open her eyes, “I love y-you..” her voice dies down as she exhales with a smile and her eyes slowly closed.
“Josie?” Hope calls out again as she squeezes Josie’s hand, blood is smeared on both of their hands and Josie didn’t move, Hope nudges her softly and she feels an unexplainable knot looming on her chest, “No..no…it can’t be…” she unconsciously whispers as drags herself toward Josie.
Hope feels someone grabbing onto her as she tries to move, “Hope…you’re injured, don’t move…” it’s Kaleb, speaking very softly, like he’s afraid that Hope will snap anytime. Hope looks around her, Jed is holding her shoulder back softly too while Professor Saltzman, Lizzie and M.G. make a circle around her and Josie and the second she sees Lizzie’s face, she knows.
It feels like her heart drop instantly and that dread turns into anger, Hope slaps Kaleb and Jed’s hands away from her shoulder, “Don’t touch me!” her shout echoes through the empty warehouse and everyone stays in silence.
Hope can feel her heart beat slowing down, the weight on her chest gets heavier as she slowly brings herself closer toward Josie and her hands shake as she tries to touch Josie’s cheek. Hope knows that she can’t hear the beating of Josie’s heart anymore, her lips starts to shake and her whole body also follows.
Gently, Hope lays her head on Josie’s chest, hoping to hear it miraculously beats again as she tries to breath in Josie’s scent as much as she can. Her heart aches so much, it aches more than her whole body, Hope can feel herself shaking with both anger and loss, she tries to control her breathing but the absence of Josie’s heartbeat only causes her to feel like someone is stabbing her heart with an overwhelming amount of sadness, like it was punishing her for being alive. It hurts so much but Hope hangs on to Josie, burying her head on Josie’s chest as she feels the tears she’s been holding fell uncontrollably.
“You promised,” Hope says in a very low voice, barely a whisper, only meant for Josie to hear. She repeats again, “You promised,” her heart now aches with regrets and grief, “You promised.” Hope says over and over again as she grabs on Josie’s lifeless body, wishing that her love would wake up anytime soon and that there’s some kind of loophole or secret plan that could revive Josie. But no, nothing happened as Hope repeats her sentence again and again while she breaks down into a heart-wrenching sobs.
As she’s engulfed with unspeakable grief, Hope feels a pair of hands hugging her tightly, it’s Lizzie. Then she explains in between sobs, “Hope your pulse was gone for a split second, we can’t feel it. But Josie insisted in holding your hands, she needed to make sure you’re okay and as soon her hand touched yours, we couldn’t wake you up, you both are breathing really weakly.”
Hope’s furious at them for doing this to Josie as she yells with frustration, “You should’ve saved her goddamnit! Not me! Why?!” her eyes are lifeless as she utters the last word with her voice shaking with anger.
“We’re sorry Hope…” M.G. quietly says, all of his energy has left his voice as he looks at his best friend’s lifeless body, his eyes filled with sadness and anger.
Hope then realizes that it’s not only her that’s grieving, she looks at Lizzie who’s still sobbing as her body shakes with an indescribable amount of sadness of losing her twin. Hope also looks at Dr. Saltzman, crouching beside Josie as he takes her hand and whispers apology toward his daughter, looking so broken and lost. Jed, Kaleb and M.G. also gathers around Josie as their faces are painted with guilt and sadness for not being able to protect her.
“No, oh god, I’m sorry!” Hope says frantically, realizing her selfishness.” I’m so sorry Lizzie, Dr. Saltzman, I’m so sorry, it’s my fault.” Hope can feel tears streaming down her eyes; her heart hurts so much from the situation they are in.
Dr. Saltzman looks at her gently and takes her hand, “It’s not your fault, Hope…it’s never your fault.” He clearly says to assure Hope because he knows that Josie wouldn’t want Hope to feel guilty when this happened.
Hope shakes her head quietly as she lets herself feels the overwhelming sadness that’s crushing her heart, feeling the pain caused by the failure of protecting Josie, it’s all too much, Hope lets out a heart-wrenching cry and she buries her head into Josie’s neck again, muttering “I’m sorry,” over and over again in between sobs.
As Hope feels herself calming down, she shakily lifts up her head and presses a light kiss on Josie’s forehead, she’s not ready to accept the reality but it is what it is, a part of her heart was gone with Josie. Hope takes a deep breath as she closes her eyes, recalling her memories with Josie before she wakes up, realizing that it’s actually Josie’s subconscious on hers, so what they talked about was real, it’s not only in her head. But the only thing left now is the memory inside Hope’s head. She smiles slightly through her tears and presses her lips on Josie’s cold ones.
“We just found each other why did you leave me so soon?” she softly whispers, her voice full of regret, pain and bitterness, knowing that it took them a while to confess their feelings just to be interrupted by death itself this time.