I shoved the front door to the Salvatore boarding house open, it was unbearably silent. I crept inside, straining to hear the beat of a heart or a draw of air.

Nothing.

"Hello?"

As soon as I stepped over the threshold, I could feel the magic bearing down on my soul.

Boundary spell.

I spun on my heel, slamming into the barrier that now stood between me and Elijah. I beat against it, the magic reacting to every thump of my fist or kick from my boot.

He rushed toward the entrance, eyeing the nearly invisible sheen.

"Morgan, stop." Bonnie fucking Bennett.

"Release her. Now." Elijah put his hands on either side of the door frame.

This is not helping Elijah's perception of any of them.

"No."

I turned around. "How did you even know I'd be coming here?"

She looked to her right and my brothers stepped out from the shadows. "Morgan." Damon's eyes flickered behind me. "Elijah."

"Damon Salvatore." He didn't even bother hiding his displeasure.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Here I was thinking this whole shit show couldn't possibly get any worse.

"Interesting theory you had, Elijah." Damon smiled. Fucking smiled. "We've been listening. There is a weakness."

"Tell me it's not true. Tell me you didn't orchestrate my kidnapping and torture." No matter how I might chafe under their control, whenever I was scared, I almost always wanted my dad.

And right now, I was fucking terrified.

"He was never meant to go as far as he did." Stefan wouldn't look me in the eye. "Try and prod out the information we needed."

"I ripped his heart out."

"No. You don't get to claim moral obligation." I pointed at Damon. "Tyler got tortured. The scars from that will never heal and for what? A weakness to exploit for people who would see you dead?!"

He shrugged. "You never gave anything up, I'll give you that."

As if it were nothing.

He was fucking complementing me.

At least Elijah knew I was telling the truth.

"Fuck you, Damon."

"You're going to tell us, here and now." Stefan was attempting to be stern. His lack of eye contact was taking from it. "So we can end this."

"Don't you see. There is no end." I closed my eyes. How the hell was I supposed to get past this?! "Even if this thing exists and you somehow manage to kill an Original, four more will come for your head. I'll have to come for you. Don't make me do that."

"You'd side with them?" Damon's expression darkened.

"Idiot. They're my family too. I'll defend them just as stubbornly as I defend you. They don't need as much protecting because they're fucking hard to kill."

"Not impossible."

I chanced a glance at Elijah and deeply regretted it. That anger that he tries so hard to hide from me...

It was burning in his eyes.

"Damn it, Damon." I turned back to them, suddenly all the more desperate. "They won't stop at you. If you do this, the whole of Mystic Falls will be wiped off the map. Your friends, their families. Everyone will die."

Kol and Nik and Elijah with all their rage.

It'd be a bloody massacure.

"I'm begging you."

"We should just accept our deaths?" Damon stepped forward.

"I came here to save your lives, just as I have been trying to do this entire time, you ungrateful bastards." I wanted to shake them. Get them to listen to fucking reason. "Holy shit. I have had to make deals and beg Elijah for your lives, one stupid thing after another. It hasn't stopped."

Damon and Stefan exchanged a look with one another, a conversation passing between them that I wasn't privy to.

Please, please, please, please.

If they admitted defeat, Elijah might have mercy on them.

"You are clinging to people whom do not exist." Elijah said it with a softness that was such a stark contrast to the anger. "An idea. Maybe they were once your brothers, but blood is all that ties you to them now."

I couldn't breathe. As if the air itself had been stolen from my lungs.

Was he right?

Had I been championing for people that died a long time ago?

"Don't lie to her." Damon snapped.

"Am I?" Elijah's previous softness was gone, replaced by biting hatred. "Where is your loyalty to her? I have yet to see it. All I've seen you fiercely protect is the doppelgänger, even now you search for a way to kill me so she may be safe."

I wanted to defend them.

It was so instinctual.

"Bonnie. Let me go. You know this is stupid." Though if they did, nothing would stop Elijah. "Picking a fight with the Mikaelsons won't end well. It never has, not for anyone."

"That's exactly why we have to keep you." Stefan sighed. "You are the biggest piece we could possibly play."

I was to be leverage.

God, I hated being leverage.

"Leave Mystic Falls, leave Elena and everyone else alone, and we will release Morgan once Elena has finished out her life." Damon held out his hands. "You won't do anything to endanger her."

"Fucking hell. That could be decades." I didn't want to be trapped that long.

"That is our hope." Stefan still wouldn't look at me. "Elena's not immortal, she will die eventually."

"Do you really think Nik's just gonna let her slip through his fingers?" This was so bad. So so bad. "You aren't going to win."

"We have Bonnie's spell." Damon crossed his arms.

"Yeah and all they fucking need is a stronger coven." I threw up my hands. "They'll burn this house to the ground! They could hunt down Caroline or her mom or Tyler. Have you even thought this through?"

There it was, the hesitation.

"Stop this."

"I'm sorry, Morgan. We can't do that."