[2] Darkest Hour • The Originals ✓

xxiv.

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.