Camille’s Plan

Liora’s POV

I couldn’t sleep that night.

After minutes of lying on the floor in the dark, crying my eyes out, I willed myself to stop and find a way out.

My first instinct was to call Sebastian and tell him I was in trouble, but the doubt that he would help me was overwhelming. Still I tried. I brought out my phone and tried to call him, but the call couldn’t go through.

Then I realized why: there was no signal in this place. Of course Camille wouldn’t be so dumb to leave me alone with my phone is there wasn’t any signal.

I just needed to find a way out. It was a house; there had to be a way out. Turning on my phone’s flashlight, I went found a table close by that had candles; as least one thing Camille hadn’t lied about.

A wave of regret threatened to swarm over me again but I pushed it aside. Regrets could come later; I just needed to find a way out. I lit the candles and with the poor illumination, I scanned the place.

There was nothing much here, and I scoured the nooks and crannies of the house, trying the windows and looking for attics or skylights I could crawl out off.

Nothing.

The windows were tight shut, and I couldn’t find anything around to break them. No attics, no crawl spaces; it was a really small house.

With a heavy sigh, I fell to the floor, having no idea what to do next. I didn’t know how long Camille planned to keep me here, or why, what next she planned to do, but I wasn’t going to stick around and wait.

There had to be somehow I could escape this place.

So many questions flooded my mind as I sat there, looking around. Did her mother put her up to this? Why did she hate me so much? And mostly, how could I have been so gullible? I just wanted a sister, a companion, and for a moment I thought I had found one.

As I held my phone, lights still on, I felt it buzz. Curious, I checked it and saw a notification from a social media app pop up. The signal was back! But it was fluctuating.

Regardless, the first person I tried calling was Sebastian. The call didn’t go through the first few tries, but I was persistent.

And then he answered.

‘Sebastian,’ I said quickly, not wanting to waste any time, ‘please I need your help-‘

‘Liora?’ He sounded like he had just woken up from sleep.

‘Camille took me to a house-‘

‘Slow down,’ Sebastian cut in, fully awake. ‘Where are you?’

‘I-I don’t know,’ my voice cracked. ‘Somewhere outside the city, there’s no signal most of the time.’

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No. Not yet.’

He paused and spoke in a lower tone. ‘Liora, listen to me carefully. Look around for landmarks, anything.’

‘She picked me up from an old diner not too far away, but there’s so many trees around and no streetlights. And I can hear something like a river nearby.’

‘What’s the name of the diner?’

‘Frisky’s Diner,’ I replied.

The line crackled and there was a faint beep so I couldn’t hear him clearly.

‘Hello?’ I called out, but there was no reply. I looked at the phone and discovered in horror that it was dead.

‘No! No!!’ My hands shook as I tried to turn it back on, but it was flat dead.

How would he find me? I hadn’t even given him all the information I could process; not that I knew much, but still…

I don’t know how long I laid there, but I was aroused by the sound of soft knocking on the door.

‘Liora.’ I recognized Camille’s voice calling my name in a song-song tone.

‘Camille, please let me go,’ I crawled to the door. ‘Why are you keeping me here?’

‘You’re awake,’ her voice drifted softly from the other side of the door.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’ I demanded. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

‘You existed,’ she sniffed.

‘I don’t…what do you-‘

‘You were always the golden girl. Father always compared you to me, telling me that you were more of his daughter than I. He even gave you almost all the shares as a backlash against me.’

‘I didn’t ask him-‘

‘You didn’t have to because you were so perfect! And then Sebastian… I don’t know how you didn it, but you got him to love you also. Everyone loved the Bennett heiress, as they called you. Even strangers. You never had to fight for anything.’

‘That’s no true-‘

‘And me? I was always the bad guy, the black sheep of the family, the rebel. As long as you’re alive, I’ll always look bad; I’ll always be your shadow.’

‘You and your mother hurt me in ways that could drive someone insane,’ I retorted.

‘Ha! That was just a tip of the iceberg, little miss perfect.’

I didn’t know why, but those words seemed to hold more meaning for me.

‘What do you mean, Camille?’ I asked her directly.

‘Remember your favourite book, Jane Eyre? What the mad wife did to Mr Rorchester the first night Jane saved him in his bedroom?’ She purred.

Goosebumps appeared all over my skin as I heard that.

‘Camille?’ My voice was filled with urgency. ‘Camille…’

She didn’t reply, but I could smell the putrid smell of gasoline sifting through the door.

In the book, Mr Rorchester was almost burned alive in his bedroom by his mad wife, before Jane had saved him.

I became frantic, running around the house to look for an exit that I couldn’t find. The candles were burned out and my phone was dead. I didn’t even know where or what I was doing.

‘Save your strength Liora,’ Camille’s voice came louder through the door.

‘Because this time, no one’s coming to save you.’