Chapter 189
CAMILLA’S P.O.V
After I had told Marie and Peggy everything that happened with Tyson, they were very sympathetic- well Peggy was. She offered me the option to stay with them for as long as I needed and Marie didn’t protest once. I didn’t want to but the truth was, I couldn’t get far on my own. I was still healing and I had no idea where I was going. Everything seemed fuzzy to me. All I remembered was running, I couldn’t remember the lake or how I fell.i didn’t even know whre exactly I was, but I was safe and that was all that mattered to me in that moment.
After about a week of staying with them, Marie walked into my room early in the morning. She had her hands crossed over her chest and for a second, I thought she was going to ask me to leave the house but she just stared at me for a full minute before speaking. “If you’re going to stay here there have to be some ground rules.”
I sat up immediately knowing that was as much of an acceptance statement I would get from her. She proceeded to explain how she lived with her mother on the outskirts of a neutral land and they work in the town. She explained that I would have to help them if I wanted to stay. I honestly didn’t mind because I had spent so long working as an omega, it felt like a good change to be doing something not because I was being forced to.
The longer we spent together, the more I realized that Marie wasn’t completely a bad person. She was just very tough and protective of her mother. She never spoke about her dad but it wasn’t farfetched to say that he was not in the picture. She was tough as nails and very snarky. On my first few days of working with them in the bakery, I was terrified of everyone who walked in. She snapped at me a few times but I knew she wasn’t trying to be malicious. She just preferred to give tough love.
She wasn’t outrightly trying to kick me out of her house and I did hear her defend me to a few customers sol knew she didn’t hate me. We barely spoke to each other outside of when necessary but we were almost always around. It was a good schedule that worked for the both of us in the month I had been here and she taught me a lot of things just by watching her. I never imagined I could be anything but an omega but she taught me otherwise.
She grabbed me one day at the store and took me to the back after I had cowered when a man had yelled at me. “I don’t give a shit what happened in your old pack so I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay?”
“I’m sorry, I messed up her order and-”
“Will you f**king stop apologizing?” she hissed. “You’re not an omega here. Everyone here is equal. You have to f**king stand up for yourself or you cannot stay here. Everyone is going to try to take advantage of you if you don’t grow some f**king balls.”
Chapter 189
Ever since that day, Marie made sure to put me at the forefront with the difficult customers. It was difficult at first but I slowly got the hang of it. Marie never said anything about the new development, but I saw her smile a bit one afternoon after I had put a rude customer in their place.
“Camilla,” Marie’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I turned to her. “Is there a reason you are standing in the back and doing nothing? I need you to run home and get some spices from mum. I’m almost out and I need to do a fresh batch of cookies.”
I nodded and rushed out. For a small bakery, they had a lot of sales most days of the week. I was sure it had more to do with the fact that everyone knew Peggy. She was that kind old woman that everyone grew up with. She always went out of her way to help people and make them feel welcome. In my short time living with them, I had noticed that she never passed by an opportunity to help without doing something about it.
The house was a ten minute walk from the shop and Peggy was waiting for me in the rocking chair outside the house, a small basket settled on her laps. The plan was to take it and run back but Peggy wouldn’t let go. She tapped the seat next to her and I hesitantly sat down. I anxiously looked out onto the road as if Marie was going to find me. I could already imagine how much she would scream at me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked her and she nodded. “You don’t look okay. Do you want me to get Marie?”
“No,” she said immediately and almost too quickly. My brows furrowed in suspicion and she sighed. “I just wanted a little company for a while and I wanted to ask how the transition was. Do you feel safe here?”
I nodded. “Safer than I have in a very long time. Sometimes though, I worry that he will find me.”
“If you tell me his name then maybe I can help you look out for him. I can let you know if he is coming or not.”
I shook my head abruptly. “The last thing I want to do is put you in danger. You don’t know him like I do, he will hurt you and you have been nothing but kind to me. I appreciate the concern but I can handle myself and I can handle him.”
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to,” she whispered softly placing her warm hand over mine. “Allow us help you, even Marie is worried about you despite the fact that she refuses to show it. She is worried about you.”
I gave her a warm smile and stood to my feet. “You have done more than enough.” I took the small basket from her hands and she let me. “I’ll be back at the end of the work day. Please try not to get into any trouble.”
She didn’t miss the fact that I had changed the subject but she also didn’t push more on it. She just gave me a
Chapter 189
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small nod and allowed me leave. Her words filled my thoughts as I walked back to the bakery. It would have felt good to just tell them that I was running from Tyson but I couldn’t. If I did, I could risk putting them in danger. Peggy liked to see the best in everyone and I wouldn’t put it past her to go looking for Tyson just so that she can talk to him and I couldn’t see that ending well for anyone.
By the time I returned, Marie was thigh deep in customers. She saw me and let out an exasperated sigh. “It took you long enough. What the hell have you been doing all this time? Can you stay here and ensure everyone gets what they want. Try not to get screamed at.”
She didn’t give me a chance to process what was happening before she grabbed the basket from my hands and went out into the back. I swallowed deeply before making my way over to the counter to take care of everyone. It was difficult to say the least and I had no idea how Marie was able to do it on her own. There were screaming customers, impatient ones and the occasional flirty ones.
I managed to clear out the area within forty five minutes and I was right on time too because Marie returned from the back. I could only guess that the cookies were baking. She helped me clear out the last customers and I let out an exhausted sigh.
“It was very full today,” I mused aloud trying to make some conversation and she just shrugged. “Okay, I know you don’t like me much but can we at least try to be friends? We practically live together. I don’t want you to hate me.”
She turned to me with her hands crossed over her chest. “I don’t hate you and you should be less worried about what I think and more concerned about yourself.”
“You act like you hate me,” I shot back and she sighed deeply. “I just want to be civil.”
The door opened at that exact moment. “You can be civil by attending to the next customer while I go to check on the cookies.”
The customer in question was a middle aged man and I could tell that he wasn’t a supernatural. He didn’t quite have the scent for it. I gave him a warm smile and struck up conversation with him while I packed up his pastries. I was in the middle of handing it over to him when I noticed something on the news paper in his hands. Somehow, in the past two months that I had been here, I had never asked for the date. It just never seemed important to me and also because I wanted to pretend like I was in another world.
I was staring at the small numbers on the paper and blinked slowly. “That cannot be right.”
“What can’t be right?”
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“I think there is a typo on your newspaper. It is six years ahead of when it should be.”
The man furrowed his brows at me. “Is that a joke? I don’t quite understand the punch line.”
“is everything okay?” Marie asked as she made her way over with a steaming tray of cookies. “Camilla, give him the pastries and let the nice man leave.”
I handed it over to him and he unceremoniously snatched it out of my hand before turning to Marie. “I think you should take her to a doctor or something. She sounds insane.”
He stormed out and Marie turned to me with raised brows. “There better be a good explanation.”
“When I left Tyson, it was 1827.”
“That can’t be right. It isn’t 1827. It hasn’t been for six years.”
