Fangs and Other Fairy Tales (A Camren Fanfic)

Chapter 101 - Epilogue

Camila's POV 

Five years, that's how much time i was given to let fifty years worth of trauma run it's course and leave a path of ruin inside of me that could be seen from the stars. I was awarded roughly eighteen hundred days of uninterrupted bliss for all my years of involuntary sacrifice, that's how much my life is worth to the universe, that's all it would grant me before it dragged me back to the gates of hell and threw me down at it's door step. Not only that but i would have to pick myself off of the ground and with no chance of looking back, walk right up to those mountainous, festering, manifestations of all my pain, hatred and turmoil and open the doors to my own demise. Free will is a lie and while it may seem like a good idea at the beginning, leaving your life up to fate or destiny is a risky gamble and yet entirely unavoidable all at the same time. Essentially all you're doing is betting on your destiny being worthwhile, no one ever tells you the odds of your destiny being a perilous journey of death and despair. 

However, five years is better than none and in the grand scheme of things it's five years with my sister that i might never have gotten otherwise. There was a lot of catching up to do, a lot of places to visit, the most important of which being our mother's final resting place and the place we once and to this day apparently still call home. Despite my disappearance, Sofi's departure and finally my mother's death the house was still in our name and being paid for out of a secret account our parents had set up for emergencies. It seems everyone is keeping secrets from me these days, some better than others and by that i mean we had amassed quite a fortune being the Beta family to such a powerful lineage of Alpha's. On top of that when Ariana died it stated in her will that half of her fortune would go to her Luna, who you might've already guessed was me, but as i was presumed dead at the time it went to her family for the time being until a body could be recovered. 

You can imagine what they must have thought when i walked through the door, or rather i could just tell you. 

I couldn't go home right away, not after we had just left one family without so much as a formal goodbye. No, i needed something new and far out of the way of everything we'd encountered so far, so when Phaidra suggested leaving the country it was impossible to turn her down. For two years without hesitation or reluctance of any kind and the fear of monsters and immortal beings on the hunt for our heads being far behind us, we travelled the world. Rome, Paris, Spain, if you could get there by aeroplane we went and even then we were three supernatural beings who never got tired or cold; that meant wandering into endless wilderness or battling icy mountain tops that none but the bravest of humanity would ever dare venture. It's true i may have been third wheeling the entire time what with Phaidra and Sofi being stuck together like glue, but honestly nothing could have put a dampen on this time we all spent together.

So, armed with an incredible tan, my sister and her badass Vampire girlfriend in tow i felt ready enough to face Ariana's family. It had been a month since we'd touched down in Mexico, the last and final destination on our world tour and from there we made our way back onto American soil and into the heart of my old routes. Suffice to say everything had changed, i barely recognised any of my old hangouts and were it not for Sofi or the use of a SatNav i never would've found my way back to our neighbourhood. What was once a predominantly Werewolf only population was now flowing with Supernatural creatures of all kinds, i didn't recognise a single one of them which hurt a lot more than i thought it would. This was home and yet at the same time it couldn't have felt less homelike, i never knew a place could seem like a stranger in the same way as a person. And yet here it was, living proof that while you can outgrow your home, your home can also outgrow you. 

I felt like a bad kid walking through those doors, as if these past fifty years i had just struck out on my own and tried to make it big only to fail and come back home seeking comfort and forgiveness for my misguided dreams and ambitions. The house had been abandoned for quite some time and without any proper upkeep or maintenance it had been left to battle the elements alone, ironically much like i once had. Thankfully that meant i wasn't overcome with the scent of my childhood home or the familiarity of it's surroundings, everything was covered in almost a foot of dust which instead struck me with an even worse feeling. My one, last remaining safe place that connected me to the life i once had would never be the same, again all too much like myself. It all left me behind and i would just have to accept that, at least now i know that there is no going back, i can only move forward and that's exactly what i planned to do. The first step was finding out what percentage of the Grande residence remained.