The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 08

The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 08

I curled up in a dark corner of a windowless storage room. The air stank of rotting wood and mildew, the scent of the Croft family’s faded glory turned rancid. Dusty portraits hung on the walls. In each flash of lightning, the Croft ancestors stared down at me with hollow eyes, judging the intruder.

The cold sank into my bones like thousands of icy needles.

I pressed myself against a leaking corner of the wall, catching a few drops of freezing rainwater in my palms to wet my cracked lips.

Fear and despair were a rising tide, threatening to swallow me whole.

Here, I was nothing more than an “unimportant thing” Julian had discarded.

I don’t know how much time passed before the hurricane’s roar suddenly ceased.

The eye of the storm.

A brief, false calm.

I staggered through the darkness and found an old radio beneath a pile of junk.

I twisted the knob. After a burst of static, a clear voice cut through the silence.

It was a local Charleston radio station, broadcasting live from the Founders’ Gala.

“…a perfect evening! Despite the hurricane, the Croft family’s Founders’ Gala remains the brightest jewel of the season. The new hostess, Miss Penelope Hayes, is radiant tonight. The magnolia brooch she wears undoubtedly announces the arrival of a new era…”

The reporter’s voice was slick with flattery.

Then I heard Julian.

Elegant. Steady. A hint of a smile in his voice.

“…thank you all for coming. Sometimes, a storm is a form of purification. It isn’t a bad thing when certain unimportant, ill-suited things are cleared away. Only then can room be made for what truly matters.”

My heart stopped.

The radio slipped from my trembling hand and crashed to the floor.

Purification.

Cleared away.

Unimportant things.

Me.

Just then, the storm returned with doubled fury.

But this time, it brought something even more terrifying with it.

An icy liquid was surging in from under the door.

Seawater.

The storm surge had arrived.

The water rose quickly over my ankles, then my calves, so cold I began to lose all feeling. I struggled onto a rickety old wooden table, but the water was rising too fast.

In the darkness, all I could feel was the freezing seawater swallowing my body inch by inch, stealing the last of my warmth.

My consciousness began to blur. The roar of the storm and the sea was all that remained.

I was going to die here.

In this rotten tomb that symbolized the glory of the Croft family.

Just as the icy water was about to close over my head, just as the last of my strength gave out, a different sound tore through the storm’s roar.

Not wind.

Not rain.

Not waves.

It was a heavy, rhythmic thunder, growing closer and closer, as if it meant to shake the ruined house apart.

The next second, a massive searchlight pierced the wind and rain, cut through the broken roof, and landed squarely on me.