Kill me

"Control."
It left my mouth in an almost whisper and immediately, Lucien smiled. "Good. You never cease to make me proud, my little Vixen. Yes, this was all because I wanted to exercise my control over you. I wanted to feel as though I still had you in my grasp, especially since the threat of my brother arose when he found you. In fact, I think that just drove me more insane than I ever was before. I didn't want him to be the only thing on your mind, I wanted it to be me. I wanted to know that you were mine, and that no one else could have you. That's why I've taken from you. I want to be the only thing you have left, because you're the only thing that I have left. That is what I want, what I crave. It's pure madness, don't you think? That's why I conjured up this final game, to show you how absolutely insane I am without you. To prove to you," he then knelt down from the seat and, to my surprise, placed the gun in my hand, "that you have to carry on this journey of yours, without me, because I love you, Jasmine, I love you so much, and I can't stand who I've become, and what I have done, and am doing to you."
The whole world froze around me and threatened to shatter if I even drew a breath. Everything I knew, everything I assumed... it was all wrong. This devil in front of me was so torn between heaven and hell that now, it had driven him to putting this lethal gun in my hand and deliver the final blow to him.
"I- I"
"You can't believe him, Jasmine. He's tricking you." Damon yelled out.
Lucien sighed and said, "Honestly Damon, can you shut up! I'm not tricking anyone... well, not 'tricking' exactly." He then turned back towards me and looked up into my eyes, this time with a completely different facial expression, one which was soft and sincere. "I am giving you one final choice to make here. I lied to you; we all did in your round of the game. None of those people are dead. They were not on werewolf suppressants at all and the bullets were normal bullets so by now, they have all healed. I knew that you'd be able to save the humans, otherwise I would have really had little to offer, and so I risked letting my employees shoot the wolves. Now, if you kill me, Jasmine, my team of people here will let you get to their location... before they run out of air and actually die. This is your final round Jasmine. After this, you can have what Damon promised you. You can have a normal life, a life free from me. You will finally be free."
I couldn't believe it... I didn't want to believe it. It was not possible, not in this lifetime. All those people... Landon and Loren especially, they were all still alive.
"I-I don't believe you."
Lucien took my hand in his and rubbed reassuring circles against my knuckles. "Yes, you do Jasmine. Don't mind Damon, he's never going to believe me, but you, of all people, should. I'm done hurting you, Jasmine, and I'm done hurting myself. This pain, this agony it's all because of this obsession I have with you. I want it to stop, I want to stop seeing Ambrose every time I look myself in the mirror. Please, Jasmine, I'm begging you to kill me."
His eyes were pleading and glossy as they threatened to spill tears from them. I couldn't bear to look at him when he was like this after what he'd asked and the way he asked it, and so I turned to Damon.
"I-"
"No, Lucien. You need to live. You can't let yourself off the hook like this. You need to carry around your pain and scars like everyone else, and you need to live with the things you've done." Damon uttered. But I could pick up the sense of urgency behind the sternness of his voice. He was also in the exact predicament as I was.
Lucien, however, did not take kindly to Damon's words and screamed out loudly, shocking both Damon and me. "Live with what I've done? Damon, do you honestly think I can live with what I've done? For you it must seem easy. You have Jasmine to tell you that she loves you and to reassure you that you're okay and safe and that you're not your father. But who do I have Damon? I have no one. I am alone, Damon, always have been, and always will be."
Damon stood up from his chair and shook his head violently, saying, "You have never been alone Lucien. You chose to be alone. You chose to go through everything all by yourself. And you're wrong, brother, despite all that you've done, you're still my brother, and I still love you. And there's proof that you are still good inside, and that you're not like our father. That proof is in the fact that you spared those people their lives. Now put that gun away, tell us where those people are, and then we can try this all over again. I can be your brother, and you can be mine."
For a moment, Lucien stayed silent and still and I let myself believe that perhaps Damon had gotten through to him. That perhaps he could talk him out of this madness, because as far as I was concerned, that was what this all was. But I was wrong, terribly so, and soon Lucien began running his fingers through his hair in frustration.
"You don't understand. You and Jasmine are not safe with me around. Right now, I just want to take her from you, I want to hold her in my arms, I want to tell her that she's mine. But she's not, she's yours, and that makes me... fucking livid." He growled the last part out deeply, making me shiver. The fear only increased when he looked down at me with enraged red eyes. Immediately I shrunk away from me, and when he saw this, his eyes softened and changed back to their gold.
"You always cower before me. You always have, and I hate it, Jasmine. I don't want to scare you anymore." He then took the gun again, grabbed my hand, placed the gun in it and then pointed it right to his chest, ignoring Damon's growing protests.
"Hush brother. This isn't something I asked you to do, now is it. I asked Jasmine, and she has the ultimate choice. Kill me or kill the people you love. Pull that trigger Jasmine and save me from who I've become because it's killed who I was."
I gulped and my hands shook in his as I held the gun. I didn't want to pull the trigger, because the truth was that I truly did love Lucien. Despite all of this, he'd saved me multiple times. He'd given me another chance at life and, indirectly, he'd led me to Damon. What he was asking me to do, it was impossible. I couldn't shoot him no matter how desperate he looked, and no matter how much he begged. I couldn't let him go.
I was about to shake my head and refuse, perhaps even try to reason with him because all this time, I had not been able to utter a single word out. But before I could even move, Macy burst through the doors, livid and just about ready to kill. She stopped as she glanced at the situation in front of her, and then shrieked out, at the top of her lungs, "You fucking bastard! I should have known! You were never going to keep your promise... you were never going to kill Jasmine."
At this, Lucien let go of the gun and took a few steps towards Macy, quite irritated, as expected. "Excuse me Macy, but didn't I ask you to stay out of this?"
"No!"
Lucien froze and I could see his hands close into a fist.
"What did you just say?"
Macy was not budging though and so she crossed her arms over her chest, huffed and said, "You heard me. I'm not leaving until that bitch is dead."
Lucien growled out lowly and I could see the blood dripping from his enclosed fist as he seethed out lowly, "The only bitch that will be dead here is you."
"Are you sure about that?"
And the next thing we knew, Macy had launched herself over Lucien, narrowly missing his attempts at grabbing her limbs. Everything, absolutely everything in that moment unfolded so slowly, experiencing it was pure agony. Macy ran towards me, heading straight for the gun in my hand. I attempted to make a move away from her and Damon attempted stopping her, but the both of us were running on little strength at that moment and our senses were not as they should have been. So, she shoved him off of herself, sending him skidding to the far corner of the room, and then, as I tried to launch myself away from her, she gripped at my waist with clawed fingers sending me to the ground. Immediately, the gun fell out of my grasp and skidded to the corner of the room.
"Damon!" I yelled out and glanced over towards him. To my horror, he was further from the gun than both Macy and I and by the time he could even get up, she'd already gotten herself off of me, grabbed the gun and had it pointed in my direction.
*This was it; I was going to die.* And as I thought this, I let my eyes shut for a second, blocking out Damon's cries and the sound of him scurrying on the floor. He wouldn't make it, not when he was so far away from me.
When the gunshot sounded into the air, I flinched, prepared and yet unprepared for the impact of the bullet in my body. But it never came.
Slowly, I began opening my eyes, only to be met with the horror that was Lucien who lay on the floor bleeding and gasping for air. She'd managed to shoot him right in the stomach. My horrified expression was mirrored by everyone in the room, including Macy who stared, with shaky hands at the bleeding Lucien.
"F-fuck..." She uttered. She then hesitated for a moment before shaking her head and placing her eyes back on me. "Sorry Lucien, but at least now you and your Jasmine can be together in hell." She held up the gun slowly but, unlike last time, I was not in my dazed and weak state of mine. Now, I was beyond furious. She'd shot Lucien, and now, she was going to pay for it. I felt the adrenaline begin to spike in my body and the fresh, familiar sensation of my werewolf abilities began tingling beneath my skin. Macy fired another bullet, and this time, I managed to dodge it, catching her off guard. I took the opportunity to lunge towards her, knocking her to the ground. By this time, Damon had made it to my side, and he held up a clawed hand, growled out lowly and then plunged it into her chest. For a moment, his hand stayed frozen in her chest as he uttered out, "I will never ever love you, Macy."
She gasped at his words and I saw a teardrop trickle down her cheek before Damon removed his hand from her chest, retrieving her heart. He dropped it to the floor, next to him and then wiped his hands on his trousers. And it was at that moment that Oliver and Nancy walked in. Nancy had a look of absolute horror on her face and tears began streaming down her cheeks.
"What the hell have you done!"
---
I'm curious, was anyone expecting any of what's going on? Has Lucien managed to gain some of your sympathy, or do you still deeply resent him?
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Sending my love!