🎉 ANYTHING FOR RACHEL 💥
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{ 📃✒S.v painter}
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🌺 #Episode_10 🌺
“Pedro.” I said anxiously into the phone when Octavia c@m£ to my room.
“Calvin,” He replied politely. “We are here, safe and sound.”
The relief I felt washed over my cold b©dy. “Thank god.” I said ru-bbing my face. “And you, of course.” I added. “plea-se, tell me about her.” As much as I nee-ded to know that she was safe, half of my anxiousness for his call had to do with finally getting know what she is like.
“She’s perfect.” Pedro crooned. “So beautiful, smart, and I mean smart. She is as quic-k as a wh!p, and she’s funny, and so kind.”
“I know where she gets that from.” I smiled to myself, an action that almost felt foreign to me now after years of not smiling at all.
“Rachel has certainly raised a good little girl.” Pedro agreed.
“She’s a lot like her, but she looks like you too.” He told me.
“She’s very talkative when you get her going.” He laughed.
“What does she like?” I asked, wanting to know everything about her, but the look on Octavia’s face meant that I didn’t have time for a long conversation. “Actually, Pedro, I will talk to you tomorrow.” I told him. “I want to stay in the loop at all times, un-derstood?”
“Of course, Calvin.” He responded and in the back ground I heard a high pitched child’s voice.
“Who is Calbin?” She asked Pedro.
“He’s a very good friend of mine.” Pedro replied to her.
“Oh, tell him hi from me.” She said happily.
I staggered back, the backs of my legs hitting the be-d and I sat clumsily.
She spoke to me.
She speaks at all.
How fast a child changes I marveled to myself. My hands shook at the joy of hearing her sweet little voice, angelic, just like her mother.
Her mother.
Rachel.
“I will check back in tomorrow.” Pedro said, bringing me back to the pres£nt moment.
“Very good, thank you, Pedro.”
I handed the phone off to Octavia and she tucked it away. “I told you that they’d be fine.” She smiled.
“You have ‘told me so’ quite a few times over the last few days.” I pointed out to her and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“I know.” She beamed. “Are you any more relaxed now that you know they are safe?”
I wanted to laugh at the word ‘safe’. Anytime I’ve tried to make a person safe, or tried to feel safe, it has always backfired on me. “There is no safe until the rebels after her are dealt with, and I get Rachel cleared and freed from here once and for all.” I sighed.
“Speaking of that.” She said suddenly. “The meeting is going to be tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked, honestly surprised.
She nodded, her long black hair swaying away from her
shoulders as she moved. “Yes, the council wanted to do it sooner, and I am on board with it because I feel like she is safer now, especially after the meeting.”
I nodded my head. “I don’t like it.”
Octavia narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t like it no matter when we did it.” She reminded me. “You’d worry no matter what.”
I leaned back my head and gro-an ed. “Octavia, you have no idea the kind of trouble that girl is capable of getting herself into if left alone to do it.” I told her and she laughed.
“She does seem to be quite the firecracker.” She nodded.
“You have no idea.” I shook my head.
“I’m beginning to.” She told me.
I wanted to smile, but didn’t. “Does that mean she is giving you are ha-rd time?” I asked. “How does she seem to you? She’s ok?”
Octavia began to roll her eyes but caught herself and st©pped.
“She’s lively, that’s for sure.” She said. “It’s not so much her giving me trouble though, it’s…”
“The boy?”
“He isn’t a boy, majesty.” She pointed out.
I shrugged. “He is to me.”
She shook her head at my leveled expression. “Right.” She said shortly. “Anyway, he isn’t too much trouble, just an inconvenience.”
“Don’t I know that alre-ady?” I asked glumly. I don’t know what I had expected from this. She would never be mine again after all I put her though, but I hadn’t thought a new man would have taken my sp©t so easily, and I’d really not thought of him coming here with her. I honestly would have done the same thing for her, but I’m not sure how that makes me feel. “How does he treat her?” I asked, the unavoidable temptation to know what I am sure will only hurt me more taking me over.
Octavia dropped her eyes to the floor, pretending to be focused on her shoe. “Well, he does seem to care de-eply.” She admitted.
“Of course he does, but I nee-d to know more than that.”
She sighed. “He’s very good to her, your highness, and she seems to care just as de-eply for him. Also, I don’t know if I should tell you…”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What?” I snapped.
“They are engaged, Sir.” She said softly, gaging my reaction.
“Also…” She sighed again, stalling. “Rose thinks he is her father.”
I lifted my eyebrows, keeping my eyes in check although I felt the rage in me to let that p@rt of me take over. Her father? But I am her father.
She doesn’t know that.
Of course she doesn’t, how would she? I threw away my family.
No.
I pushed away my family to give them something better than this, and apparently, that p@rt of my plan actually worked. She’s marrying him. He has stepped right into the hole in their lives that I had left vacant.
“Sir?” Octavia whispered, and I looked up, seeing her throu-gh a red haze.
I looked down at my hands at my sides, my knuckles ba-re white from the fists I was ma-king. I took a de-ep breath, re-leasing my hands, and closing my eyes. “I nee-d to see her.” I whispered.
“Sir, they’d be asleep right now, and the meeting is tomorrow, you will see her then.” Octavia said carefully.
I opened my eyes, standing in front of her. “I nee-d to see her.” I repeated, then turned away from her, leaving her standing in my be-droom while I stalked out into the hallway, ignoring the guards who wanted to accompany me, and I rode the elevator down to the first level, weaving silently throu-gh the corridors until I c@m£ to the dead end.
I leaned my head against the stone.
Maybe this is a bad idea.
What if they aren’t slee-ping? What if they are…
I put my hands against the stone, listening around me to be sure no one was around. The wall slid ap@rt silently, and I pu-ll-ed the key from my pocket and slid it carefully into the lock, slowing pushing against the door.
The lights were off, and I could hear the heavy breaths of two people asleep.
Her scent clung to the air in here, wra-pping around me as I crept in, closing the door behind me. I moved soundlessly over to the be-d and stood at the foot, glaring and gazing at the two of them. The boy had his arms wra-pped around my angel, holding her to his n-ked che-st.
For five years I have done my very best to bury my thoughts of her de-ep within me. I’ve focused only on my job, and keeping her and Rose safe. I never let my mind wander too far, being sure that the pain and the reality shattering love I felt whenever I thought of her stayed buried de-ep. Down where my loss couldn’t hurt me, and her memory couldn’t drag me out to take her back. But now, standing here, seeing her in the arms of another…
It all c@m£ flooding back to me. The way I felt when she’d hold me like that. The way I felt whenever I saw another onlooker noticing her beauty. The jealousy within me crept up my spine, creeping into my veins and spre-ading throu-ghout my b©dy.
How could this pale boy have stolen the love of the two most important girls in my life? There is no way he can love her the way that I do, or can t©uçh her the way I did. I’m the one she nee-ded. Me. Not him.
I didn’t realize I was doing it until it was almost too late. I st©pped my hands from reaching for his n£¢k, and I put them back at my sides. So easily, just a minor second, no pain, I could snap his br@wny n£¢k, and his annoyance in my life would be over. The idea was tempting, but then I looked over at her again.
I backed away from him and moved back to the end of the be-d, gazing at her as her che-st rose and fell, her eyelids fluttering as she dreamt, I knew I couldn’t hurt her that way. She’d never forgive me for doing what I did to her, and then taking away the person who had made her life whole again.
She was still perfection. Five years couldn’t t©uçh her kind of beauty. Her long strawberry blonde hair fanned out behind her across the be-d, and I wanted so badly to reach out and t©uçh her. The urge was stronger than I could control. As de-ep as I had tried to bury my feelings, and my heart, her being here in front of me was ma-king them all come back to the surface at record speed.
Just a simple t©uçh won’t hurt anything.
I reached out, trailing two f!ngersacross her cheekbone, feeling her silky warm skin beneath them.
Her eyes fluttered, and herl-ips p@rted. “Calvin.” She whispered.
I sh0t back away from her, hiding in the shadows.
She’d said my name. Was she dreaming of me? I had the thought that I nee-d to make a decree that no other person but her should ever be allowed to utter my name again, not after hearing the perfection it is when it pas-ses from her perfect mouth.
She stirred in her sleep, rolling away from the boy and I smiled in the darkness.
“Rachel.” I whispered her name, just nee-ding to say it in her pres£nce.
Suddenly she was sitting up.
It was dark in here, dark enough that she can’t possibly see me, but she sat up quic-kly, glancing down at the boy for a moment before looking back up and around the room. “Calvin?” She whispered quietly.
I was frozen in the darkness. She was almost looking right at me, but she sighed, almost like she was disappointed, but maybe that’s just what I wanted to think, then she pu-ll-ed the covers up to her che-st before she began to lie back down into the pillows. I took that opportunity to run to the door, knowing she was going to notice when the light entered the room now, but I didn’t want her to catch me in here.
I got out into the corridor, st©pping just outside of the door, pressing my back into the wall on the right side. I waited there, expecting to hear the sound of the door closing so that the wall on this side would slide shut, but instead I heard ba-re feet padding the carpet in the room, running this way.
I thought about running away, but I wanted to see her so badly.
She ran out of the door, pas-sing me without noticing, looking up the corridor.
“You’re really here.” I whispered, and she wh!pped around, her hair flying around her shoulders, and her purple silk pajamas reflecting the light around her.
She took a de-ep breath, her crystal blue eyes staring across the space into mine.
“I am.” She sighed.
“I missed you.”
💖
💛
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To_be_Continued 💥
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