JEZEBEL † The Originals †

22. An Executioner's Coronation

JEZEBEL

I step out of the dreary house into the dry and queasy sunshine of Louisiana, my morning already spoiled by sweat on my brow and the worn-down hairs that stick to my face. Rebekah sits on the porch, patiently waiting for me to return to reality. I don't say a word, standing there with her like a mound of sand, swept away from sanity one grain at a time. MX-107 confirmed it. Carmila made it back to Tamaonchan under the guise of the Salazar name. But that didn't explain why it named Berloíz Salazar's brother as the foster parent.
That could be explained if there hadn't been more to the story. Like why Kol Mikaelson was listed as a witnessed to the adoption two years after his death. Or why he was put down as my brother-in-law.

"Find anything?" Rebekah recognizes my looped gaze of a parched mind.

I shake my head tediously, shoving my phone back into my pocket after the final photo of the document details on my arm are imprinted into its memory. "No. Nothing," I lie, cruising off the porch in a daze.

KLAUS

My fingers run over the toy, a testament to my bond with Marcellus. When I gifted it to him, he told me he was never given anything without something expected in return. So I gave and gave; I knew what it felt like to be charged for existing by my own family. It was a train, the first railway built in Ohio. He was desperately excited to try it one day.

The same memory replays because I realized it wasn't me who took him. He took himself. My sister had fallen for a basket case and my brother Elijah had made a rotten deal with a dutchess in Belgium. I abandoned him for them for the very first time. I shouldn't have. My siblings were as capable as I of solving their own problems, but...I still wondered what could have happened if I hadn't stopped their mistakes. But mistakes by my standard always seem to be misinterpreted.

Jezebel, hesitant to walk in the room, looks onward at me from the open doorway, her hair strewn in two braids down the opposite sides of her head, ending in the full field of black gold that scents my pillows still.

"Rebekah was supposed to keep you inside," I welcome her inside.

She closes the door behind her, straightening her back dress as she sits next to me on the chest at the end of the bed.

"You should put one of those kid leashes on me next time," she justifies. "Cut her some slack, she was a good sport about it for someone with a lot of baggage herself."

I continue to watch the train turn and turn again in my grasp, gleaming with wood polish like new.

She asks me, "Where's Marcel? Did you stop him from taking the serum?"

I would have assumed Elijah had taken pride in telling the rest of the family, but apparently he neglected to tell Jezebel.

"Nik?" she tries to capture my attention, leaning forward to look at me.

"He's dead," I gulp. "Marcellus is dead."

Her serenity declines, her mouth agape and brows bent like broken ligaments. "Are you sure?" she frowns, fixing her hand on my upper arm guardedly.

"I watched Elijah rip out his heart. He was going to take the serum...to destroy us," I describe.

Her hand slides off of my lap. "I don't know what to say. What are you feeling?" she mumbles, beginning to skim the bottom of her lip with her soft fingertips.

"Like a failure. Just like any father," I sneer.

She sighs in lament for me, her eyes shutting in a stressed manner. "I don't think that's true. I also don't think he gave you many options," Jezebel reasons. She doesn't push anything more than that. I half expect her to try and lift the rock that sits on top of me; but it's finally been learned I won't crawl out from under. She's keen enough to read the room unlike my siblings. Standing from her seat beside me, she pulls a loose strand of my unkept wavy hair from the center of my forehead to be out of my way before she steps away. I catch her hand before it falls from my head, letting it comfortably slide off of mine.