"Where's Belle?" Marcel walked into the Abattoir and over to Thierry and some daywalkers.
"I think she's still out with Diego. She had a whole freakout this morning, he took her out, didn't say where."
"What do you mean a freakout?" Marcel repeated, already getting furious nobody had told him.
"I don't know, I wasn't listening," Thierry replied, "I just saw them leave."
"It was about her mom," Peter said from the other couch, "and something about her birthday."
Marcel looked at Peter, silently noting to get a witch to put a privacy spell on her room, but at that moment he was grateful for the daywalker's creeping.
He didn't reply, pulling out his phone just as Annabel's name popped up. "Hey, where are you?"
"Umm," she looked around the open courtyard, shops lining the area she was entirely unfamiliar with.
"The Cauldron," Marcel heard Diego tell her.
"The Cauldron," she repeated. "Davina's been having nightmares and I may or may not be in possession of one of Kol's old grimoires," Esther's grimoires, she corrected her lie in her head. "He's got some tea recipe that's supposed to relax you, he used it with Rebekah like a bajillion years ago. So we're finding ingredients." Marcel knew that Annabel was just distracting herself as she always did, but still appreciated what she was doing for Davina.
"Alright, well, just call me if anything happens. And be careful, you're in witch territory."
"Yeah, I know, I just met some. Apparently they all love my mom," she told him, her voice cracking slightly when she said the last word. "So I'm making friends," she finished. "You know, with the ones not in the french quarter coven hell-bent on sacrificing my friend."
"Put Diego on for a second."
"Say please," she retorted without skipping a beat.
"Please put Diego on," he said, though the please didn't sound all that genuine.
"Fine," she sighed, handing her phone to him and walking over to a nearby bench so they could do their gossiping in private. She didn't care, she knew all that would be said were threats to send Diego to the Garden for a few hundred years.
"You brought her to the Cauldron? Are you kidding me?"
"It's Treme territory, Marcel, and you know they ain't gonna hurt Mal's daughter. It was her idea, anyway. She..." he began, but didn't want to continue in fear that Annabel was listening. He looked over and saw her playing with her new braids, entirely distracted by them, so he smirked a little at her adorable behavior and then continued speaking. "Her mood's just been crazy erratic today, I don't know why. She was crying earlier, thinking about her mom, and then all of a sudden she decided she wanted to go to the Ninth Ward to some lady named Anita and get braids, then she decided she wanted to go visit Davina, then we left and she cried again, and now she's on this mission to find all these herbs for the tea."
Marcel was headed outside as he spoke, and as soon as he exited the compound he realized, "Diego, you gotta get her outta there," he said, suddenly sounding urgent. He checked the time, "It's already six, sunset's in an hour. You gotta get her to the forest and you gotta get outta there."
Diego was confused, until he looked up, seeing the big bright moon rising in the slowly dimming blue sky.
Annabel looked up just in time to see Niklaus speed over behind Diego and snap his neck. Her eyes went wide as he caught her phone and hung up the call, looking over at Annabel with a cheerful grin. "Why the sour face, love? I saved your phone," he said, stepping over Diego's dead body. "Let's go," he walked over and handed her her phone, but she just looked up at him.
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Fanfiction[book two] It had been just over ten years since Annabel called New Orleans home. Back then, her naivety kept her safe, clueless as to all the violence going on around her. But things had changed since then. She had changed. After graduation, Annabe...
