Rising From The Ashes

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

I must write quickly because I don’t have much time.

                        -The Diary of Lucinda Jane Waders (Line one from the final entry)

Time sped up like someone had put my life on fast forward. One day Cameron, Catherine, and I are hashing out plans for his escape and the next thing I know we were just a single day away from putting the actual plan into motion. The weeks had passed with a certain denial on my part. I counted down the days without ever letting myself think about just what I was counting down to. It was much too painful to think that every second that passed only brought me closer to the last second in which I would ever see Cameron.

Today was the last day, though, and I could remain in denial no longer. As Catherine and I entered the little house that had come to belong to Cameron in a way that it never could to anyone else, I knew it was the last time. I made a silent promise to myself that no matter what was said, no matter how much pain I felt, I would not cry. I’d make the most of what time we had left.

“Cameron!” Catherine called, her voice echoing throughout the house.

“In here,” came his reply from the living room.

The sound of his voice. One more thing to add to my list of what I would miss about Cameron. I wondered if I would forget the sound completely one day or if it would continuously echo in my mind, a teasing reminder of what I had lost forever.

“You okay?” Catherine asked. She must have noticed the pained expression on my face, which I forced away and replaced with a smile.

“Yeah, fine,” I replied and walked towards the living room before she could push the issue.

Cameron sat on the floor of the living room with the security detail papers in his hands, reading them for what must’ve been the millionth time. He glanced up when I walked in, though, and gave me that half-smile, half-smirk of his. His smile. Just another thing to add to my list of things I would miss.

“Shouldn’t you have those papers memorized by now?” I asked teasingly, trying to distract myself.

“Just making sure we didn’t miss anything,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s not like I have anything better to do anyway.”

“I can think of a few things,” I remarked with a suggestive smirk that made his mouth drop open in surprise. Before he can manage a response for that, Catherine interrupted.

“Hey, Cameron,” she said, thankfully having missed our conversation.

Cameron said something in reply and their conversation continued without me paying much attention to it. It was enough for me to just watch them interacting, Cameron with his easy-confidence and quick comebacks and Catherine with her snarky replies and surprising openness. Over the past few weeks Catherine had opened up to Cameron enough to be completely comfortable around him. She’d also opened up to me more lately and me to her as well. I was a little startled to find that snark aside, she was actually a pretty likeable person. It was starting to feel like we were really sisters for the first time. I could only wonder if it would continue after Cameron had gone or whether he would take that with him too.

“Well, since it’s our last night I brought a little surprise,” Catherine said with a grin and then reached into her bag. My eyebrows rose when I saw that her “surprise” happened to be a bottle of champagne.

“Champagne?” I asked questioningly and she nodded.

“Yeah. I figured we should be celebrating your last night here and all the hard work we put into planning this. I would’ve gotten something better, but I figured we shouldn’t be hung-over for the big mission tomorrow,” she explained. I don’t even know where she gets this stuff.