Chapter 355
Chapter 355:
Rose pressed the knife harder, just enough to break the skin. A thin line of blood ran down Camille’s cheek.
“Nothing’s broken in me,” Rose hissed. “I see the world exactly as it is. I take what I want. I don’t wait for it to be given.”
“Then why do you care so much what I think?” Camille asked. “Why make me watch? Why not just kill them and be done with it?”
Rose stepped back, blinking rapidly. The knife trembled slightly in her hand.
“Because… because you need to understand. You need to feel what I felt.”
“When? When did I ever make you feel like this?”
“Every day!” Rose’s voice cracked. “Every single day when they looked at you with love in their eyes. When Stefan chose you instead of staying with me. When everyone believed you were some perfect, precious daughter while I had to fight for every scrap of attention!”
Tears streamed down Rose’s face now, her careful mask completely shattered. The knife hung loosely in her hand.
“I wanted them to see me,” she whispered. “Just once, I wanted to be the one they chose first.”
For the first time since her capture, Camille felt something beyond fear and anger—a flicker of pity for the broken woman before her. The girl who had never been enough, who had learned to take because she believed nothing would ever be freely given.
Rose wiped her face roughly, angry at her own weakness. “Stop looking at me like that. Like you feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” Camille said quietly. “I understand you. That’s different.”
“You understand nothing!” Rose shouted, but her voice lacked conviction.
“I understand what it’s like to lose everything and have to build yourself again from nothing,” Camille continued. “I understand what it’s like when the people who should love you most betray you instead.”
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Rose gripped the knife tighter, her knuckles turning white. “Stop it.”
“The difference is what we built from our pain,” Camille pressed on. “I chose to create. You chose to destroy.”
Rose paced the room like a caged animal, her breath coming in uneven gasps. “You still don’t get it. You never will.”
She turned suddenly, slamming her hands on the table beside Camille, her face inches away. “I’m going to hurt him first. Your precious Alexander. And I’m going to make you watch. Then maybe you’ll understand what it feels like to lose the one person who sees you. The one person who chose you first.”
Camille met her gaze steadily. “And that will make you feel better? Watching me suffer will fill whatever emptiness drives you?”
“Yes!” Rose shouted, then quieter, “Yes. It has to.”
“It won’t,” Camille said simply. “Nothing will. Not as long as you keep believing that taking from others will somehow make you whole.”
Rose stared at her, something lost and desperate flickering in her eyes. For a moment, Camille glimpsed the small, frightened girl who had come to their home from foster care—the girl who had learned to hide her fear behind perfect smiles and careful lies.
.
.
.