Lucy nodded one last time and rose from the table, taking her leave from her heartless and furious employer who wanted nothing more than to ruin the life that Lucy had naively hoped would be hers. She didn’t blame Lynn. She was looking out for her clan and she was looking out for her people, but it was painful, nonetheless, and she was cruel about it. Lucy had made a terrible mistake and rather than help her, she was just going to get rid of Lucy. But in her coldness and in her hatred, she had given sage advice that Lucy wasn’t going to ignore. She was going to make a run for it and she was going to head for the hills and never look back.
Lynn had dealt with this kind of thing before, but she had probably never felt a civil war brewing because of it and she didn’t want her friends and her family to get caught up in it. Lucy had been the fool here who had stuck her nose in the world that didn’t want her and wasn’t looking for her. Why hadn’t she ended up flirting with Justin and getting a marriage out of that? Her parents would have been happy and everyone would have walked away grinning and smiling. Her family would have been proud of her and her pack would have been tied together with another clan that was eager to make friends in this cold, hostile world, but she had blown all of that up when she slept with James. Why hadn’t he been a nobody like her? Why couldn’t things have worked out better?
She was crying by the time she made it back to her hotel room; she was bawling her eyes out and the sobs were shaking her entire body. She felt the stress of everything coming down on her and she knew that running away was her only option. There was nothing more she could do here. Her dreams had faded and though she was leaving, she knew that James was going to be confused and never have the answers that he wanted. Violet would probably tell him that she knew he’d cheated on her and that would be the end of it. She would hold it against him forever and she knew there was going to be no happiness in James’ life. Everything he loathed and hated was waiting for him and everything she feared was awaiting her. She took a deep breath and tried to find the courage inside of her not to give up and not to freak out. She knew there was a dark end to this story.
Sometimes, people didn’t get a happily ever after at the end of their story and that was just fine. She wasn’t going to have a problem with that and she knew she had brought all of this on herself. She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror, a red eyed, sad girl that would never have a chance to enjoy the life she wanted. Oh well, that was her fate, she supposed.