Even before she arrived home, she knew she was in trouble.

Almost as if someone had cast a spell, an eerie silence fell over the village as she walked slowly through. People were casting furtive glances in her direction before turning to each other and whispering amongst themselves. Some people smiled at her, but their smiles looked more like grimaces.

None of her brothers were anywhere to be seen, which was odd in itself. Kol, at least, was usually meandering around, trying to charm his way into bed with six or so girls at once.

Her apprehension was starting to grow. Their community was not a quiet one, and at this time of day was usually bustling with life as people went about their daily routines. What was going on?

She glanced at a pair of teenage girls as she passed them. They avoided catching her eye and looked at the ground instead. As they fell behind her, she heard one whisper to the other. She couldn't quite hear them, though it wasn't for lack of trying. She did, however, catch a name: Marcel.

She came to an abrupt halt as the dread that she'd been holding at bay for weeks now broke free of her barriers and washed over her. He knew. He knew.

It was a relatively warm day. The sun was shining and the sky was an exhilarating blue; odd for this time of year. The air was still with the exception of the occasional breeze, so she was very well aware that the icy sensation that had settled over her, burying right down to her bones, had nothing to do with the weather.

She took a deep breath, and another, and another, in an attempt to psyche herself up for the short walk back to the house she shared with her youngest brother, Kol. Nik would almost certainly be there, lying in wait for her return. How would he punish her, she wondered. It seemed that as they got older, his penalties only became more twisted and disturbing. She often wondered how much of his time he actually spent thinking up imaginative new ways to punish those who went against him.

She could see the wooden hut that she and Kol called home now. Perhaps it was just because she knew what was waiting for her inside, but she thought that it looked particularly sinister, even in broad daylight.

She hesitated outside of the door. Should she knock? That seemed stupid, it was her house after all. She fumbled at her belt, feeling for the blade that she kept there. Her hand wrapped around the handle and she felt a little braver. If she needed to defend herself, she had an easily concealed weapon to do it with. She didn't relish the thought of using a knife against her brother, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

With one last deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. She adopted a neutral expression; a guilty face was as good as a confession.

"Rebekah," Nik's voice rang throughout the room, though he spoke quietly; barely above a whisper. He was seated at the head of what served as their dining table, alone. His hands were clasped together, the tips of his forefingers pressed against his lips. "I see you've finally decided to grace me with your presence."

"What's going on?" She feigned ignorance, plastering on a mask of confusion. "Where's Kol?"

Niklaus gestured to the seat at the other end of the table, directly opposite him, completely ignoring her question. "Sit down, sweetheart."

She obeyed without question. In different circumstances she might have refused, but she saw no reason to make more trouble for herself. "Nik, what's going on? What's wrong?"

He considered her for a moment, his cold eyes never once leaving hers. She almost shivered from the intensity of his gaze.

"You know, I've fought to protect you your entire life," he heaved a sigh. "Although you may not realise or appreciate it, everything I've done has been in your best interests."

Rebekah stared at him. She supposed that she should agree with him, or nod her head at least, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She knew her brother, and whilst his words rang true in regards to the past, in more recent years they held no truth whatsoever. Nik didn't do anything unless it was in his best interests. His overprotectiveness nowadays was less about protecting her and more about making himself look good. After all, what sort of leader – and brother – would he be if he let his second-in-command screw his sister without any sort of consequence for their defiance?

"Is there anything you wish to tell me, sister?"

Rebekah shook her head slowly. Klaus looked disappointed.

"I know, Rebekah. I know about you and Marcel."

Rebekah tried to hide her sharp intake of breath. She hoped that he wouldn't notice that her hands had curled into fists against the wooden table top, or the way that her world seemed to be falling – no, crashing – down before her very eyes, but Nik didn't miss a thing. He never did.

"What about Marcel and me?" She made an attempt at nonchalance, for Marcel's sake more than anything else. Their affair would be impossible to continue from then on, that much was certain, but perhaps if she tried to play the whole thing down, maybe turn it into nothing more than a silly crush on her brother's right-hand man, and an unrequited one at that, Marcel might escape with his life. The last thing she wanted was for Marcel to be the latest name on the list of men Nik had killed for daring to show an interest in his sister.

"There's no need to play dumb, sister. Marcel told me everything." He was smiling. That wasn't comforting in the slightest. She knew that his fury was there, just simmering beneath the surface.

"Told you what? There's nothing to tell, Nik."

He shook his head and made a tsk. He was still smiling, but his eyes were ice-cold. They'd been through this routine so many times now that they might as well have drawn up a script. "Why are you trying to protect him, Rebekah? You know, he sold you out almost immediately? He couldn't wait to tell me everything," he gave a short bark of laughter. "I shouldn't laugh, really. It's pathetic. It's embarrassing, actually. Again and again and again you give your heart out to people for showing you the littlest bit of attention. Pathetic."

"You're right, it is pathetic," she looked up from the spot on the table she'd been staring furiously at, willing herself not to lose her fiery temper, one of the only things she'd inherited from their father. "Go right ahead, laugh at the girl who loved too easily, but I would rather live my life than yours, Nik. No one will ever sit around a table, telling stories about a man who couldn't love," she laughed bitterly. "Did you learn nothing from our father?" There was a reason the five of them had hated their father, and it wasn't because he showered them with love and affection. "Although," she knew that what she was about to say was stepping way over the line, but she couldn't quite help herself. Nik's overbearing presence in her life had brought her nothing but pain, and she was growing tired of lying down and letting him pin all the blame on her and her constant need to defy him. "I probably shouldn't say "our" father, should I?"

She knew by the way that his eyes widened ever so slightly that she had hit out below the belt. She braced herself for the explosion, for the sheer anger that was about to erupt from within. The fact that Nik was not their full brother, only half, was still very much a sore subject for him, something that she and her other brothers knew very well.

He rose slowly from his chair, his eyes fixed solidly on hers. She grasped the knife on her belt, ready to pull it out and stick it through his eye-socket should the need present itself. He kicked the chair out from beneath him and came slowly around to her side of the table. Her breathing grew heavier out of fear. She knew what her brother was capable of, and that despite her being his beloved sister, he wouldn't hold back. He was indiscriminate like that.

Slowly, in the hope that he wouldn't notice, Rebekah drew the knife from its sheath. She looked up and met his steely glare. She entertained the notion that this time, he might actually kill her.

"Niklaus!" Elijah's voice broke through their staring contest. Nik's eyes slid from hers to the door, behind which Elijah's voice had come from. Rebekah let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. The door swung open and light poured into the room, along with it a breath of fresh air and a little bit of sanity. She'd escaped her punishment for now.

"What is it?"

"You need to see this." Behind Elijah, Rebekah could see a large group of people gathered out in the open, looking up at something. There were gasps and a couple of yells. Some people were even pointing. Rebekah pushed herself up from her chair, ignoring the glare that Nik shot in her direction, and pushed herself past the pair of them and out into the fresh air. She could see Marcel on the far side of the group. He was trying to get her attention, but she ignored him. If was Nik had said was true, Marcel had given up their secret rather easily. Apparently hadn't meant as much to him as it had to her.

"Bekah!"

She turned to see Kol beckoning to her. She hastened over to him, eager to put some distance between her and Nik.

"What's going on?"

Kol pointed at the sky. She followed his finger and found herself looking at… well, she wasn't entirely sure what. "What on earth is that?" It was large and grey, the size of a small meteor, and it was heading for earth at an alarming rate.

"Looks like some sort of spaceship."

Rebekah opened her mouth to refute this when parachutes billowed out above the thing, presumably to soften its landing. There was a collective gasp as the spaceship, as Kol had put it, made its way to the ground. What was going on? Who was in the spaceship, and more importantly, what did they want? Was this some elaborate trick on behalf of the Mountain Men? It certainly wasn't the Reapers, they weren't nearly clever enough to pull off something like that.

"It seems," Nik's voice came from beside her, speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, "we have visitors."