chapter twenty-four.
Back at the compound, Nadia walked into the room to see Gia lifting up Marcel's sleeve.
"Oh my god." Josh gasped when he noticed it.
"Is that a werewolf bite?" Gia asked him concerned.
"It's a scratch." Marcel denied.
"It's a bite." Josh told him. "You're six ways to dead if you don't get Klaus' blood in you." Josh then pointed towards the courtyard. "And when those guys find out-"
Marcel cut him off. "Well, they're not gonna to find out! Which means..." He stumbled but Nadia was quick to appear beside him and hold him up as he pointed at Gia. "You're gonna keep your mouth shut about this, and" He pointed at Josh. "You're gonna shut yours, period." He told them angrily.
Both look like they want to argue, but they're distracted by the sound of the church bells ringing loudly outside. Children and adults wearing red and white, some in robes, were ringing handbells as well as they march down the street. Marcel is clutching his stomach, overwhelmed by hunger and werewolf venom, and Nadia didn't know them to be this weak from all the stories.
"You hear that?" Gia asked him. "That's the sound of food that we can't even get near while you're sitting here protecting that idiot."
"Technically I'm protect him." Nadia spoke up with a glare. "I'm protecting him because Matthias cares about him, and if you care about your lives, you won't touch him or Matthias will kill you."
Marcel nodded his head in agreement. "She's right, by protecting him, I'm protecting all of you." He told her sharply. "Plus, it's just hunger Gia. Lots of people on earth have been a lot hungrier than us."
"You made us a promise when you turned us. You had goals we bought into. But look at us. We've been wolf-bait, beaten up, stuck exiled across the river, then stuck here! And now, when we're all looking to you for help, you don't even tell us that you're dying." She told him and Marcel opened his mouth to speak but she continued. "You're supposed to be our leader, but right now, you suck at it."
"You're weak." Nadia spoke up and Gia glared at her. "Against werewolves that can shift at will and witches who can now do magic freely, you're nothing but newly turned vampires which makes you easy to kill." Nadia told her.
"And what would you know?" Gia snapped at her. "You're friends with the Mikaelson's, you wouldn't understand what it's like to be us."
"I understand a lot more than you know." Nadia told her firmly before rushing at Gia and sticking her hand in her chest making Marcel and Josh shout in shock. "I understand that should kill you right here." She told the vampire. "You flirt with my mother's boyfriend, you talk down on Marcel when he's the only reason you have a life right now, and honestly I'm tired of you acting like you're something when you're nothing." Nadia twisted her hand and Gia's eyes filled with fear.
"Nadia, hey." Marcel called out to her. "I get it, you don't like her, but you don't touch my people."
"Do you get it?" Nadia asked him. "If someone hurt Matthias, no matter how big or small, would you let them live?"
"No." Marcel answered her.
"Then you understand why I want to kill her." Nadia said before removing her hand. "But I'll leave that privilege to my mother, so count your days Gia, because whether it be by my hand or my mother's you're going to die." Nadia promised her.
Nadia then walked out of the room and towards where Kol's body was laying at. She didn't trust the body around Marcel and the other's, so she placed him in Matthias' room. The other vampires were so focused on the people outside that they didn't dare venture upstairs.
Suddenly Kol woke up and sighed in relief at seeing Nadia. "Thank god it's you."
Nadia smiled at him, "I promised to keep you safe."
Kol was about to speak when Marcel entered the room. "I'm starting to wonder if protecting you is worth it."
Marcel looked like he was about to attack when Nadia intercepted him and wrapped a hand around his throat. Marcel tried to fight her off, but Nadia was older and much stronger than he was even with a werewolf bite sucking at her life.
"Hold it together. Just for a little while longer." Kol said while pointing towards the window. "A few minutes, to be exact."
Marcel frowned as Nadia let him go. "What are you talking about?"
"Finn." Kol said. "He plans to release the lot of you at sundown."
Marcel ran a hand down his face in anger. "The streets will be jam-packed with people right outside the gate."
"And you'll be half-crazed with hunger. You'll feed your way through the crowd, and that will be the end of vampires secretly living off the fat of New Orleans." Kol told him. Marcel was about to speak when he started to hallucinate again making Kol snap his fingers in front of his face. "Marcel. Listen to me. You are outmaneuvered, outmanned, and, quite frankly, you're... you're out of your mind." Kol told him. "We're not going to get out of this alive."
"No." Marcel told him. "We are all getting out of this alive."
⨳ ⨳ ⨳
Matthias was still seated with his eyes closed and Finn took note of how tense he was.
"So, what shall we talk about while we wait for nightfall?" Finn asked them before letting out a faux gasp. "Oh, I know! Let's talk about our parents."
"Your parents." Matthias corrected him. "Esther may have brought me into this world, but she is no mother of mine and you forget Finn, Klaus and I are bastard children."
Klaus took offense to this, Matthias never called them bastards. "You know, I figured you wouldn't be kind to Mother, but imagine my surprise to learn that Mikael met the same fate. Bravo, brother."
"You see, the parent I was interested in talking about was your father." Finn corrected him. "Your real one? I mean, you longed to know him your whole life, yet at the first opportunity, you murdered him. Why? I wonder."
Klaus started to approach Finn, "Possibly the same reason you took out Esther. Severing parental ties has a way of freeing one up to recognize one's true potential."
"Quite." Finn agreed. "But Esther was no fool. She pinpointed your wants, and knowing your true father was at the top of the list." He made a noise with his mouth before continuing. "No, something else occupies the top of your list of affections." He walked towards Klaus, "And it's not your favorite city." He smacked Klaus on the back, which prompted him to turn and get in Finn's face. "Because I'm about to take that from you, using your own vampires, and I barely get a rise out of you. I thought maybe it was Matthias, but I've seen how you've treated him since his return, how you ignore the signs he's been so desperately flashing at you so it can't be him." Klaus looked at Matthias but the tribrid didn't look at him. "I thought maybe it was Rebekah, but you remain calm, even when the one who knows her fate probably just met his."
"I am fighting the monumental urge to mount your severed head upon one of these walls." Elijah spoke up.
Finn only ignored him. "And then, I thought it was your favorite brother, but mother broke him into a thousand pieces, and rather than fix him, you left him to fend for himself god knows where." Matthias hummed at that, the amount of remarks he wanted to make being held in. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were hiding something from me. Something big. Something dark. Maybe your real father found out what it was, and you had to kill him."
"You want to know why I killed my father?" Klaus asked him furiously.
"Yeah." Finn told him.
"The answer is simple, I did." Matthias spoke up and Finn looked at him shocked. "Esther was right to find one of Klaus' deepest darkest wishes, but she failed to realize or remember that I didn't care about not having a father." Matthias told his older brother. "I knew what Esther was trying to do and to protect Klaus from being hurt and disappointed, I killed him."
"So, the secret is there is no secret?" Finn asked.
"He was honestly quite annoying." Matthias confessed. "I hated him right from the start.
"See that I can believe coming from you." Finn told Matthias, "But you."He looked to Klaus. "You long for nothing, care for no one?" Finn asked Klaus and Klaus only smiled at him in response. "The problem is, brother, I don't believe you." Finn told him. "It's clear to me that you're hiding something. And, as I control your presence here, we've got all the time in the world to figure out just what that might be."
Finn turned away from Klaus, not seeing how his face twisted with concern and fear of Finn finding out about Hope or even Matthias' unborn child.