JEZEBEL † The Originals †

16. Last Of Us

KLAUS

"I told you twice. We won't move so much as a hair to bother him," I caution her harshly.
On her knees, putting a rabbit-sized dent in my red comforter, she only watches my lips move. I should have known no amount of lecturing would stick to the insides of her ear.

"I'm not going to bother him, that's why I'm going somewhere he's not," she puts on a positive.

But what Jezebel wants this time is to actively go toward the beast instead of away from gim. She most likely thinks she's doing someone, me or herself, a favor. That she's being brave and actively punishing a blooming crisis. She's only using what's right as a compass—not logic. It's ironic, especially for such a young scholar.
"Jezebel, I admire your vigor to chop down the enemy's basin—"

She interrupts me, pulling up the strap of her white camisole. "This isn't about kicking ass; it's about ruining the right person's life, that's it!"

She shows me the same paper she's been referencing this entire time. "Starting last year, Kingmaker poached half the Western side of the bayou. He already has a home base in New Orleans, Houston, and Philadelphia. Why would he poach territory close enough to the New Orleans tower to be seen from its windows? You lose income and you lose reliability with every environmental hazard you cause—he's not concerned about money, or saving face—he's doing something with those wolves."

The stray hairs on her forehead which deny the pull of her messy updo try to show the clear divide between the amber and green in her far iris.

"So this is about environmental justice?" I mock her unusual enthusiasm.

I bring back the stumped, frustrated pout she wears on a daily basis as her long fingernails and tattooed left knuckles feather into a point at me.

"You know what, forget it. I'm not here to convince you I'm right. I'm here to tell you that I'm taking the car to Texas," she rests her case, getting off my bedside.

She steps around me, folding up the research she'd come into just this morning. I follow her towards my doorway, shutting the door while she's still on this side of it.

"You're following a gut instinct. I'll stop you there," I wag my finger back at her. "At what point will you realize you have to have a plan before you walk into enemy territory?"
"Do you think I want to hear a Mikaelson speech about planning?" she snaps at me, pushing my hand out of her face. "Who here, in this general establishment, has made a plan and followed it? Not you."

She makes me sound like a hypocrite. Perhaps, I am. I know if I bring it up she'll have some extensive list of all the moments I rang true as a complete fraud in front of her.
Jezebel is set on going this route toward Lucien's lair and I can't stop her. If she's questioning my dismissal of a fair trial after what she told me about Lucien and Gaspar, I cannot lie.

I blink away the dryness she brings to my eyes from her impatient stare.

"I just want you to be safe," I huff.

She's taken aback, arms uncrossing and feet shifting. I've made a wave of some kind in that rigid brain of hers. "That's a lot to ask of me," she says. "So, I'll just call you when I get there." She opens the bedroom door, half out of its range before I make a new decision.
"You're not driving. I am."

ELIJAH

Celeste stands on the edge of the dedicated St. Louis altar, awaiting my presence as suggested at an urgent pace.
I stand beside Celeste, hands likewise in my pockets as hers in Vincent's.
"They're studious when they physically work under the ancestral fist," I declare.