Chapter 4.

Ruby jogged to the Quarry and saw Andy and Stefan at the top of the hill with Nicholas. She placed her hand on her chest, sucking in a deep breath, "Yeah. I ain't going up there."

She started walking towards the fire altar, spotting two figures sitting on the ground, surrounded by a fire ring each, so she stood back behind a tree.

Ok. I am here. What do I do? Think. Ruby. Think! Ruby. I thought I am not good at thinking. What should I do? Maybe I sh--- Her train of thoughts was cut off as someone grabbed her arm, pulling her from behind the tree.

"I thought I smelt something divine," Nicholas commented, dragging her along before gently seating her close to Eliza's ring of fire and his witch soon formed a fire ring around her.

Now, what do I do...

"What are you doing here?" Eliza asked, worried out of her mind for her little sister, and Ruby shrugged her shoulders.

"You're not supposed to be here," Mira told her niece, shaking her head.

Ruby bit her bottom lip, claiming, "I thought I could do more..."

"Well...?" Nicholas spoke up, running his tongue over his bottom lip, "Who's it gonna be, Eliza?" He held a wooden stake in his hand, moving it from Mira to Andy and finally Will, "Tough choice, love."

Eliza shouted out, "No!" She shook her head, "I did what you told me to! I didn't run and I didn't stop this, please don't...I can't leave my sister without family."

Ruby looked terrified at the outcome of that. It was either her best friend, or the only person she managed to consider a brother, or her aunt. What scared her more is how, at a time like that, could Eliza manage to be selfless and think about her ending up alone?

"Oh, don't worry," Nicholas chuckled, shrugging his shoulders before he vamp-sped over to Andy, snapping her neck, "There's actually no choice," As she fell to the floor and Ruby gasped out, he stabbed Will's abdomen, sending him to the ground.

"No, Will!" Eliza screamed out with angry desperate tears clouding her vision, and Ruby couldn't find her voice to scream out as Nicholas ripped the stake out of Will and look at two terrified women in front of him, excluding his soulmate because he didn't want to meet her fearful doe brown eyes.

"I have other plans for them," He told Eliza, adding, "I want them alive, but for now," Nicholas bent down, snapping Will's neck, "Now, where were we?"

"Whenever you're ready, witch," He called out to his witch and she started chanting, making the ring of fire around Mira Philips disappear, by now Ruby's face was filled with tears and she wasn't capable of making out words.

It was like she was paralyzed in time, she saw Eliza muttering something and then Mira looked towards her and mouthed 'I love you. You'll be ok' and in a second her aunt was biting down the witch's neck, and the next she was on the ground with a stake through her heart. It all happened so fast.

Eliza kept screaming her name over and over, crying out loud, while Ruby just stood there. Frozen in time. Not knowing how to feel. Tears were falling down her face but her eyes were blank, filled with nothingness.

The witch kept chanting and chanting. Ruby just stood still and did nothing, her older sister kept glancing at her with worry. Ruby had to watch yet another family member die in front of her eyes.

Nicholas took a glance at his soulmate, seeing her in such a state hurt him deeply but he knew he had to do it. He didn't want to be weak. He wanted to be strong to protect her, to be there for her, even if it meant seeing her hurt for moments. He knew he had eternities to make up for it.

"Its time," He announced, walking towards Eliza and extending his hand for her but she stood up on her own and walked towards the small hill next to her aunt's desiccated body.

He walked towards her with a smirk dancing on his lips, "Thank you, Eliza."

"Go to hell," She spat out and with that, he bit into her neck and kept drinking her blood until the very last drop as she looked at her sister and mouthed, 'I'll be ok, I love you'. In a matter of moments, her body was lying right next to Mira.

"I can feel it. It's happening," Nicholas claimed, and that's when Ruby couldn't take it anymore. The Goodbyes.

She screamed so loud that the ground was shaking, and Nicholas looked at her with worry. His body was going to go through the transition, becoming a werewolf, and he couldn't help her. It was an ear-splitting scream that anyone could hear from a mile away. Will was looking at her with the same worry Eliza used to look at her with once.

Suddenly the ring of fire around her disappeared and she stood up, abruptly. Nicholas' witch turned to the Hart girl with confusion and fear, written all over her face.

The thousands of years old vampire turned to his witch, expecting an explanation but she only managed to shake her head. Ruby screamed out once again, setting the whole forest on fire.

Her eyes examined the place as something turned off in her mind and she realized that she was surrounded with fire and had no idea what to do.

Nicholas' witch was muttering spells under her breath trying to stop Ruby from whatever it was she was doing but that just seemed to make the fire to grow higher and spread wilder, scaring Ruby more than she already was.

"What's happening to me?! Somebody help!"

That was when Clara and Van Langston finally came in. The fire that the brunette created was already weakening Nicholas, so all Clara had to do was push him a little farther towards the brink of death and Emmett came in to finish the job.

Van, noticing the situation Ruby was in, vamp-sped towards her, trying to avoid getting burned to death before he finally was by her side. He held her close before vamp-speeding back to their so-called hideout.

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Van and Ruby were standing in front of the hideout. He was holding her fragile figure up in a bridal style. That time she forgot how much she never liked him and was just holding on to the fact that someone she knows was still alive.

He was about to step into the hideout when she spoke up for the first time since they left the Quarry, "Don't. Put me down."

"What?"

"I can't go in there," Ruby said, placing her feet on the ground before she moved away from him, holding her head in her hands, "The voices and this stuff I see...it's just too much. I...I can't."

Van shook his head, questioning, "What happened? How did you leave the house in the first place?"

Instead of answering him, she kept staring at the grass in front of her and the vision from earlier came to her. The place those brutal ladies burned the others to stake. Ruby turned around, realizing how its the same place the vision took her to. That the resemblance between the lady, that was shouting at the pleading woman, and Clara was undeniable.

She started walking away from the hideout, with Van right behind her, "Hey, what's happening?" He asked, his hand curling around her wrist as he turned her around to face him.

"I...I don't know," She stammered, gritting her teeth as she shook her head, "But I can't be here. My aunt is de—gone. She is gone and maybe even Eliza, my sister!" Ruby attempted to control her rash breath, "I'm not really in the..the best state for talking...."

Suddenly, she gasped out a scream, placing a hand on her chest. Blood was oozing out of her. Ruby felt like somebody was grasping her heart and ready to rip it out, when in reality she was bleeding, abnormally, a lot of blood and her heart was slowing down.

Van bit his wrist, feeding her his blood but nothing was working. He was holding onto the collapsing girl, not knowing what to do to help her as she endured an unimaginable amount of pain.

"Hey, Ruby, stay with me!" Van called out, lightly slapping her face as her eyes were slowly closing, "Ruby! Don't close your eyes," He begged her but the pain was too much that she couldn't make out his voice.

The grief that she had just gone through made her believe that death could take it all away. It made her think that maybe death wasn't so bad. Ruby thought that if dying will stop the amount of grief that she was forced to live through and that she just won't be there anymore. Then so be it.

"Wake up! Ruby, wake up!" Van shouted out, involuntarily tears clouding his vision "You can't die, wake the hell up!" He called again, desperately trying to get her to move. He was so afraid that he didn't even notice how her heart rate was slowly picking up and beating again but she was still passed out.

So, he went against her wishes and took her inside the hideout, laying her passed out body on the couch as Kevin and Winnie came to see what happened, just to be shocked. There, in front of them, lied Ruby Hart with her shirt soaked in blood and her pulse barely there.

Winnie's blue eyes zeroed on her best friend as she turned to the raven-haired vampire, "What the hell happened to her? What did you, Van?!"

"Me? I'd like to know what happened, too," Van ran his hand through his hair in anticipation as he looked down at her.

The blonde witch shook her head, sitting down beside her, "C'mon, you are not allowed to die. You can't do this...Just wake up!"

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Ruby looked around herself, the white light fading to reveal she was standing in the hideout's living room, "What the...," She paused, noticing Winnie, Van, and Kevin, all sat around the couch.

She raised her eyebrows, walking over to them, "What happened?"

"Guys?" Ruby frowned, calling out again, "Hello?" She got no response, leaning over to look at the couch before a soft gasp left her lips, "Oh, my God...," Her eyes were on her collapsed body as she presumed, "Am I dead?"

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"Clara, Winnie... Just do something!" Eliza screamed out at them, holding onto her sister's hands.

She had only been back from the dead for two hours to find out her sister in that current state. Apparently, Emmett betrayed them for his brother but before backing out, he lunged his fist in Nicholas' chest and as the blonde Nyx looked at her sister's shirt. She knew that the linked soulmates theory was very much correct.

"She's not waking up! I can't lose anyone else I love, she is all I have now," Eliza sucked in a deep breath, shaking her head as she refused to accept that truth.

She couldn't lose her, not Ruby. Not the cheerful girl who welcomed her in what could have been her third foster home, who treated her like a real sister. Not the one person who knew how to make her laugh and where she was tickly and not, or the girl who danced by her side in victories and held her when things didn't work out.

Winnie and Clara exchanged looks, kneeling down beside Ruby's body, their hands were barely levitating over her body as they chanted aloud, their eyes shut close.

A loud gasp was heard, ringing through the hideout as Eliza rubbed her face with her knuckles, pulling Ruby off the couch and into seating position as she embraced her tightly, "You are awake and you are alive...oh, my God...I thought I lost you, too."

Ruby swallowed a lump in her throat, forcing a small laugh out of her lips, "Took you long enough."