Chapter 210 ~The Freedom I Wanted~

Chapter 210 ~The Freedom I Wanted~
Camille's POV

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I was still free. For several seconds, I remained completely still, staring at the ceiling above me while trying to convince myself that I had not simply imagined everything that had happened.
The escape had gone better than I expected. Better than I had any right to hope for. Tyson’s plan held and they'd been focused on the diversion long enough for me to be moved, catalogued, and led out of the pack.
The look on their face when they discovered the truth must have been worth seeing. I almost regretted not being there for it.
But now there were no iron bars separating me from the outside world. There were no guards stationed outside the door waiting for me to make one wrong move. There was no Darius standing somewhere nearby, preparing to drag me back to the holding cells.
I was finally away from them.
I slowly pushed myself upright and looked around the small room I had been given for the night. It was plain and barely furnished, containing nothing more than a narrow bed, a wooden table, and a chair pushed against the opposite wall. It was not comfortable, and I certainly would not have chosen to stay there permanently and a year ago I would have turned my nose up at it without a second thought.
But none of that mattered as I had gotten out.
I lowered my feet onto the floor and for a moment, I just sat there listening carefully to everything happening beyond the closed door. There were footsteps moving through the hallway, quiet conversations coming from somewhere nearby, and the occasional sound of a door opening and closing.
I crossed to the small mirror hanging above the table and studied the woman looking back at me. She looked tired in a way I hated. Shadows sat heavy beneath her eyes, her hair cropped shorter than I would have ever allowed on my own, still messy from everything it had taken to get here. There was a thin scar along my cheek now, pale and faint, but permanent all the same. I had lost too much weight and looked nothing like the confident woman everyone was used to.
I let my fingers trace the scar once, slowly, and something hot uncoiled low in my chest. But I was grateful for the constant reminder of what all of this had cost me and exactly who I intended to make pay for it.
It was only a matter of time before I looked like myself again. Before I felt like myself again. I reached for the clothes folded neatly on the chair and changed quickly, and when I looked at my reflection again I let myself smile, faint and satisfied.
After all, something had gone exactly the way I'd planned it.
I had been almost giddy the moment I stepped off that bus and understood, truly understood, that no one was coming after me that night. The feeling hadn't faded since. If anything it had sharpened into something colder and far more useful. I finally had the one thing I'd been denied since the moment they threw me into that cell.
Time to think. Time to decide the order in which I would take every one of them apart.
Aria would come first as she had always been the soft, aching center of everything, the reason half my plans had needed extra steps. She had survived the cell. Survived the loss. Survived the divorce, and still she'd crawled her way back into his orbit like she was owed a happy ending after everything I'd sacrificed to try and take what should have been mine. That could not be allowed to stand. I wanted her to know exactly what helplessness tasted like. I wanted her to suffer for all the pain that she'd caused.
Darius would come after her because he too had taken everything from me and called it justice for his precious mate. I wanted him to watch it all come apart in his hands. I wanted him to finally understand that the woman he discarded and the woman he'd spent months hunting were one and the same, and that she would be the one left standing over the wreckage of everything he thought he controlled.
The others could wait, though I hadn't forgotten a single one of them. My mother most of all, who had decided ruining me was worth more than protecting me, who had cost me everything right when I'd been close enough to taste it.
I would take whatever time I needed. I would build exactly what this required. And when I was finally ready, I would come back for every last one of them.