LITTLE WITCH ▹ THE ORIGINALS

thirty-one; i'm not home

-•-•-

Remi's face was adorned with an shy grin as her teeth grazed the left side of her bottom lip. The teen's hazel eyes scanned and rescanned the texts exchanged between her and Sawyer,  almost as if she couldn't believe such words had been said. Had the boy really said 'I love you'? Did he mean it in the way she meant it? So many thoughts were running rampant in Remi's mind - as per usual. Remi Moore: The World's Most Uncertain Girl to Exist.

"Hop in," Armand uttered as he and the teen walked out of their fourth motel and approached the car. "We'll be in South Carolina within the hour. Are you excited to meet the rest of your family?" the man asked. In the last few days, Armand had begun to act strange - stranger then usual. His eyes were sunken into his head and they appeared darker, perhaps because of the horrible bags under them. 

Remi nodded, closing the car door as she got into the backseat. "Yeah, I'm super excited," she said gently, tracing the bleached sun-induced streaks on the seats. "It's weird knowing that other family members exist besides you, my mom, Amelia - and the Mikaelsons, of course."

At this, Armand's hands tightened around the steering wheel, a subtle round of pops emitting from his knuckles. "Oh absolutely. The DeMarcos are everywhere. We just can't seem to be exterminated," he said with a low chuckle, an attempt at a joke . . . maybe. "You really got attached to those originals, huh?"

Remi cleared her throat, blinking her eyes a few times. "I guess. They've just done so much for me, and I don't even know why. I've only known them for a year, but it feels like forever. Klaus, Rebekah, Elijah, Freya and Marcel; they're my family, too," she replied, her voice getting quieter and quieter near the end. She didn't like talking about them around her father - it felt odd, though she didn't quite know how to describe it. It's like talking about your significant other with your ex (or vice versa), something that would cause the average person to shudder at the thought of.

"That sounds . . . nice. They sound like they were good placeholders for the time being, but you don't need to worry about them anymore. You're with your real family now; your blood."

Remi's eyebrows inched together, almost not believing what the man in front of her had just said. She lightly scoffed, biting her tongue and almost choosing to ignore what he had just said. Almost. But she couldn't fight it. "No offense, dad, but you've only known me for about two weeks. You don't get to tell me who my family is, and you sure as hell don't get to say 'family is blood,' because where the hell have you been for the past sixteen years?" the teen blurted out, hands clenched beside her lap. She felt her magic bubbling in her veins, which only acted as a catalyst to her rage. The last time she had such a feeling was when her aunt died, and that didn't bode well for anyone.

Despite this, she had no idea where the sudden outburst came from; it was definitely out of character for her. But for some reason she didn't regret it. It felt good. "They've done more for me than you're ever done. So don't you dare say they're just 'placeholders'," Remi said, her voice simmering by the end.

Armand's eyes never faltered from the road ahead of him. The early morning sunrise blinded Remi as she tried to catch at glimpse of his face, but not once did it appear move. All she could see, however, was a thick vein in his neck twitch, and an inconspicuous movement of his middle and index finger. Then, darkness.

"Somnus quietam, obliviscar tui cogitationes," he muttered with gritted teeth. "Sorry, kid, but that's not the Remi I was expecting. Time to mellow out."

-•-•-

Remi jolted awake by a hand shaking her shoulder - a hand belonging to Armand, that is. Her eyebrows knitted together, trying to form a cohesive line of events, but to no avail. "What happened? Where are we?"

Armand licked his bottom lip, unbuckling his seatbelt as he did so. "You must've fallen asleep at some point, I don't know," he lied through his coffee-stained teeth. An aftereffect of the spell he preformed was short-term memory loss; how convenient. "We're here - South Carolina. Your grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin are inside waiting for us."

Remi nodded along, wary of the words falling from his mouth. It felt like a chunk of her mind was missing. "Oh, okay," she replied, swiftly unbuckling her seatbelt as well. The air was cold in the car; frigid, even. 

The two exited the car together, with Remi somehow winding up in front of her father. He lingered behind her, arms crossed over his chest and occasionally rubbing his two hands together in an attempt to generate some warmth. Remi pushed her fear to the back of her mind. Why should she be nervous? It's family, after all, right?

Their shoe-clad feet padded along the thick, gravel driveway until they approached an old-looking home. It's shingles were shedding the tomato-colored paint that had been slapped onto it, and the dark blue front door held a silver '1' plaque.

"1 Orange Street," Armand spoke up from behind Remi, his gaze wandering from one side of the house to the other. "Build in 1765 - the only house on the block."

Remi nodded, mirroring his eye movements. "It's nice. How is it still standing, though? With the amount of hurricanes the east coast gets, I'm surprised it hasn't fallen apart."

"This house was built with DeMarco blood-magic woven into it's very existence. The floorboards, the roof, the paint, even. The only way this house could ever fall is by the same way it was made. DeMarco blood. Hurricanes are like drops of rainwater against a steel fortress," Armand replied proudly - and Remi couldn't help but feel a ghost of the same sense of pride. She was ashamed to say it, but it almost felt nice to feel like she had a legacy, a bloodline of her own, however arrogant or cocky that sounded. "Come on. Let's not keep them waiting any longer."

The girl nodded, pivoting on her heels and walking up to the front door of the house, or 'fortress,' as her father called it. Before her or Armand's hands could connect to the doorbell, the door swung itself open - literally, by magic - and revealed five grinning faces, each with jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. She felt terribly out of place with her honey-brown features.

"This must be our Remi DeMarco," the oldest female voice spoke. "Welcome home, dear."

-•-•-

tl;dr: remi snapped at armand for being a dick, he magically knocked her out, they arrived at the DeMarco house in SC, and now we're in the end-times. 

yeah I hated that. armand is annoying - he's a dick one second, a smug dick the next, and a charming dick the second after that. 

only two more chapters until the beginning of the end, and then around five more after that. sorry about how boring this chapter was. the next two definitely will not be.

thank you for reading. I love u guys <3

-charlotte