Chapter 190
CAMILLA’S P.O.V
I felt like I had been thrust underwater. Marie was speaking but I couldn’t hear her. I saw her mouth moving but it came out garbled and like white noise. She apologized to the customer for the disruption and while they were talking, I took that as an excuse to walk away. The day wasn’t over and Marie would have a lot to deal with but she could handle it. I just needed some space.
I didn’t know where I was going to, all I knew was that I needed to go. I heard Marie call out to me but I ignored her. I needed some space to process everything had just happened. How could six years pass and I wasn’t aware. It made absolutely no sense to me. I was running from Tyson, that was the last thing I remembered doing. How could it be that six years had passed and I was only realizing it now?
I felt a hand wrap around my bicep as Marie pulled me to a stop. Her cheeks were red and her hair was a mess. She was breathing heavily as if she had been running and I noticed that she had the keys to the store in her hands. I opened my mouth to speak but she held up a hand to stop me as she tried to catch her breath.
“You walk very fast,” she managed out through staggered breaths. “Couldn’t you have waited a f**king second? I wanted to lock up the store. Are you alright?”
“You can go back,” I said turning away from her. “I just need some space right now, okay?”
“You just found out that you lost six years of your life. I don’t think space is what you need. Except you were joking and that was some elaborate scheme to-”
“Do I look like someone who wants to spend her time on elaborate schemes to prank you?” I turned on her and she went silent. “Look, you don’t even like me, so you should have no problem returning to the shop. I just need to figure out what the hell is wrong and I don’t need you breathing down my neck while I am doing it.”
She raised her brows in amusement. I had never snapped at her like that before, not even when she was being horrible to me but my patience was at an all–time low today. I had too much to worry about and I didn’t need or want to waste my time arguing with her. I turned to leave but I didn’t expect her to keep walking in step with me. I tried to ignore her at first but after a few minutes, I turned to her ready to rip her a new one when she cut me
off.
“I don’t have to like you to know that you need someone right now,” she whispered softly. “Just let me do this, it would help with my crippling guilt.”
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Chapter 190
I couldn’t stop the corner of my lips from curling up into a small smile. When she realized that I wasn’t going to protest, she winked at me. As much as I hated to admit it, walking with her made things a little easier to handle. It made me feel less alone as my thoughts went round in circles. I had no idea what this meant, what I was doing
and what I was going to do but at least I had someone.
When we got to the house, Peggy was nowhere to be seen. Marie and I sat in the living room and I watched as she made me a mug of hot chocolate. She placed it in front of me and gave me a small smile that I couldn’t help but return. The hot chocolate warmed something inside of me and a feeling of nostalgia warmed over me which I found weird considering I never had hot chocolate in Tyson’s pack. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was somehow related to what I was doing over the past six years.
“So,” Marie began slowly. It was shocking to see her at a loss for words. She never hesitated and she never doubted, but for the first time in a long time, she was confused. “You truly thought this was 1827?”
“I could have bet my life on it,” I sighed deeply. “How could it be? I remember running from the pack. Everything about it is blurry though but that’s all I remember. I thought maybe I had gotten hurt and wound up here.”
“Okay, where is the pack?” I stilled at her question. “I know you don’t want to tell me who your mate is and you don’t have to but if you tell me where the pack is then maybe we can find a way to get you back home.”
“No,” I cut her off sharply. “I am not going back there. You have no idea what it was like for me there. I won’t willingly go there, not for anything. He will still be there and if he gets a hold of me.”
“Okay,” she raised both hands in surrender. “You don’t want to go back and I respect that but it might give me some idea as to where you came from. I just need a name Camilla. I need to know what to avoid in case he is still looking for you which I doubt because if it has truly been six years, he should have moved on.”
“He would have, yes, but if he sees me again, he will do anything to get even with me for running away,” I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I didn’t know what to do. Marie was trying to be helpful but she wasn’t going to understand. “He raped me. He rejected me but he came to my room and raped me. As if that wasn’t enough, he accused me of trying to trap him and publicly ridiculed me.”
Her mouth fell open in shock and anger. I could clearly see the hatred swirling in her irises. “What a bastard. Now I want the name so that I can beat his f**king a*s.”
I laughed. “Thanks for the offer but I’m good. I just want to forget that part of my life ever existed.”
“I can respect that,” she said finally as she squeezed my hand softly. “I’ll go find something to do. You look like you could use some space.”
Chapter 190
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I gave her a curt nod, it was the best I could do without actually saying any words. It was one of those situations
where words weren’t necessary, they would never have been able to fully express the length of my gratitude.
I sat there in the living room for the majority of the day. For the better part of it, Marie avoided me and stayed out of my way. I waited for Peggy to return but she didn’t and by the time the sun was setting, I couldn’t help but wonder where she had gone. She didn’t leave the house so often and even if she did, she always found a way to tell us because Marie tended to worry.
It struck me weird that Marie hadn’t asked once for her mother so I made my way into the kitchen where she was working. The smell of pie wafted through the air and she turned to me when she heard me clear my throat. Her hair was in a messy bun and she looked a tad bit unfocused.
“I see you’re out of your self imposed exile,” she mused aloud. “Are you ready to join us yet without me having to throw you a pity party?”
I rolled my eyes. “Where is Peggy? I haven’t seen her since the afternoon. Did she tell you that she was going anywhere?”
Marie was confused for a full minute before turning to the window and when she saw how dark it was getting, she cursed. “Can you check out back for me please? Sometimes she goes out there and loses track of time. It is getting late and I don’t want her getting hurt in the dark.”
I nodded. “Where are you going?”
“To check everywhere else,” she was already running out of the room when she said that.
It took me a second to get my bearings together and once I did, I ran towards the back of the house calling out Peggy’s name but there was nothing but pure silence which was weird because the woods were never silent. There were birds and there was rustling of trees but this time, there was nothing. I called out to Peggy louder hoping that maybe she hadn’t heard me but I still came up with nothing.
I cursed when I got to the base of the tree by the lake. “Peggy, where the hell are you? If I return to that house without you, Marie is going to skin my ass. You know she doesn’t like me, let us not make this worse, shall we?”
I was about to leave when I saw a ripple in the water. It was subtle but it was there. At first, I thought I imagined it until I saw it through the bubbles, it was a scrap of grey fabric. I let out an ear splitting scream, one that I didn’t even realize I was capable of.
“She is here!” I yelled out hoping that Marie hadn’t gone far and could hear me.
I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I wanted to go in after her but after knowing I was found in water, I
didn’t want to take that risk. I heard footsteps and Marie rushed to stand beside me.
“Get here!” she exclaimed. “She’s right there.”
“Why can’t you get her?”
“I don’t know how to f**king swim!” she screamed at me and my skin prickled as the weight of the decision settled on my shoulders. I didn’t know what to do.
Marie was still screaming at me to get her mother and in that moment, I couldn’t help but just wish that the water would somehow part and spit her out or something.
Just as quickly as the thought dropped into my head, there was a disturbance in the waves.
