Chapter 2.24: It’s everything and confetti
The rest of the afternoon was calm and mundane. They had boarded without any trouble after buying and dining at numerous tourist traps. Leila found herself lying down on her bed hours later and sighed. She could hear her companion showering with the water echoing softly in the bedroom. The two would sleep in the same room, with it being large enough for them to have plenty of privacy. The dark-haired girl had been pleased with the setup they had been given. The mattresses felt soft; the blankets were thick to keep them warm, and the windows gave them a magnificent view. Outside, she could see beautiful waves of clear, foamy water gliding against the ship's metal body. Some passengers walked around on the deck, chattering away as the wind and sand hit their bare bodies.
The heiress sat upward, pushing her body with her arms to look around again. Leila felt exhausted, to her surprise. She knew that soon she would probably fall into a deep sleep that would last the entire night. With this in mind, she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hands. This didn't do much, but she took in a breath and exhaled, thinking about what to do now. Liliko'i was safe for now, as she had checked for bugs and cameras. But she still had to worry about the other passengers and eventually tell her about the tea. Leila groaned. This was something that the noblewoman dreaded. Because it would change everything, and the assassin knew she was to blame. She knew the cult was in the picture and she hadn't been careful enough.
Her body sagged as she glumly thought over everything. 'I have to tell her.' Leila watched the boat careen over another milky wave. 'But I don't have to do it today.'
Not telling Liliko’i was a cruelty she wasn’t willing to commit. But she knew waiting was even worse, which she was going to do. The noblewoman couldn’t stomach the thought of Lili’s reaction once the truth came out. A part of her wondered if the blonde would feel relieved deep down. A child tied you to someone for at least eighteen years, at most an entire lifetime. Losing the child would free her from that bond and allow her to experience someone who treats her right. That respected her ideas on life and showed her that she had a right to independence. The heiress would be running for the hills, happy as can be if she was in the blonde’s place. But damnit, Leila just couldn’t imagine that being the case due to the death that awaited her. A painful death that no woman deserved would be on the other side of this.
If she managed to find who had given Oriane the roots, she would kill them. Leila had to admit that she felt a familial love for the country girl. Not quite that of a sibling, but she wouldn’t say it was that of a close friend, either. It was mostly created out of feeling sympathy for the situation they had put the foreign woman in. She naturally felt like she had to treat the blonde with a gentle hand compared to the other side characters in the novel. But now that simple urge to be kind had changed and the dark-haired girl couldn’t exactly say she welcomed this development. The last time she bonded with someone, she ruined that relationship with her foolishness. Her expression became stormy at the mere thought of Ezekiel.
Building another one with Liliko’i was like adding another target on her back. And the poisoning just proved it. Lili was harmed because she was traveling with Leila. Because a pair of wacko cultists saw them. The jade-eyed woman couldn’t risk being openly cordial with anyone now or else they might be stabbed in the back. Or, the heiress would falter when the time came to choose herself over everyone else. If it came down to it being her life spared or the blonde’s, Leila knew she had to choose herself. No one knew about her true identity and nobody could fix it. Sure, she could live a life of luxury, ignoring the revenge Cleo deserved for her own physical and mental sake. But that still left her trapped in a fictional world with outlandish laws. A prison where she lost her actual loved ones and friends.
Leila could never settle down in this world. She had to get revenge, and she needed to get blood on her hands. If she didn’t, she would never go home. So, deep down inside, she knew that she had to put up a wall between herself and the blonde. The heiress had to start thinking of her as nothing more than a nameless side character so her eventual death didn’t sting as much. Whether that demise came from the poisoned tea, that bastard Cale’s fist, or even Leila’s sword going through her chest. A shiver went down the depressed girl’s spine as she debated being the one to eventually end Lili’s life. They were supposed to be vacationing and here she was, thinking of killing her. It was moments of clarity like this that she found herself unable to recognize the person the teenager was becoming.
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Thankfully, she didn’t have to sit in her extreme self-loathing as the bathroom door opened. Out stepped the woman in question, her tan skin wet from the hot shower water. She yawned a little as she looked over at Leila and started to happily chat about the room. “I’ve never seen a shower so big before! It was like having a complete pool of steaming water to myself. I love it! Will the showers in the resort be the same?”
"I think so. The invitation said we have a master suite." The heiress tried to come off as jovial, but she failed spectacularly. Instead, she sounded rather monotone.
The vibe shifted downward, and both women became quiet. With a hesitant glance, Lili stopped drying her hair off with a stray rag and sat down. The younger girl had put on a large tank top with shorts, but her skin was still wet. Leila could see that her shirt was becoming soaked. This made her look even more meek than she already was with her legs pulled to her chest. She wrapped her arms around herself and bit her bottom lip. The noblewoman was about to ask her what was wrong, but Liliko'i started to talk before she could.
"I'm sorry for arguing with you on the train," Leila blinked momentarily, lost on, what Lili meant as the blonde unexpectedly sniffled. "I was being stupid. You are right about Cale, alright? You're right."
She let out a shaky exhale and looked away, facing a nearby wall. “I have been thinking about what you said all day. And it’s been bothering me because my first instinct has been to argue with you.” Her tiny hands gripped her skin, causing her to scratch herself. “I wanted to look you in the eye and accuse you of trying to sabotage my relationship. My happiness is out of jealousy or from being misguided.”
The heiress frowned. “Liliko’i, I’m not trying to ruin your happiness. If my brother just made you happy, I’d keep my mouth shut and stay in the shadows. I’m not even trying to get you to leave him or to put off the marriage. All I’m saying is that you deserve to know he’s the problem. He’s the screw-up.”
It drove Leila mad that men like Cale could exist, even in a world of fiction. She wished with all her heart that she could just stab him the moment they met. But she couldn’t just go around murdering people. Being a serial killer wouldn’t get her any closer to destroying the royal family. It would hinder all the work she had done for months. The best course of action would be to just let Cale cause his ruin. But as she had debated earlier, a part of her bonded with Lili and fought with that bystander mindset. That part of her wanted to try to get Liliko’i out of her family before the massacre eventually began. The teenager felt that this was a shred of the person she had been before the transmigration. The girl who hadn’t been beaten and slapped and degraded by so many nameless faces.
Her sister-in-law sniffled and whipped at her face with the back of her hands. She uncurled her body before curling back up and huddling into herself all over again. “I know that he’s in the wrong. But I know the part of him that’s right, that especially sees me nobody else ever has. And that’s why I’m struggling with even being near you right now.” This last sentence made the heiress change her tune.
“So, what? Do you want to go back home? To be ridiculed and mistreated-” Lili cut er bitter rant off by throwing her hands in the air and cursing in her native tongue. This was the first time the teenager had ever seen her display an emotion that wasn’t submissive.
The blonde hopped off the bed, her feet planting on the ground with an enormous thump as she began to pace. She looked like she wanted to vomit as she shivered and held herself. “-being mistreated by a rich man is better than getting mistreated where I come from! A place of nothing but endless forests with no way out or to even think for yourself!” Her eyes were watery as she huffed. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
Leila wasn’t angry that the blonde offloaded her emotions onto her. Instead, she found herself feeling satisfied in a sick sort of way. Because her words were getting through to her. Weeks back when they sat for tea, the heiress said something to her. Something that might have been cruel in hindsight. She told her that the blonde was marrying into a rich family. That being Cale’s wife would grant her liberties and benefits she could have only dreamed of achieving before. All of his money, all of his jewels, all of his titles would be her own. And that made the relationship even more terrifying. Because this gave the man another chain to wrap around her neck. He had so much more than her and he could take it all away. The heiress watched her fidget, knowing that her mind was racing with the future she wanted and the future she needed.
‘This is perfect.’ Her inner thoughts sang as she quickly morphed into a sympathetic display.
“You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like and I'm sorry for attacking you. It’s not my place to tell you what to do in such an intimate situation. Please don’t cry, Lili.” She spoke softly, holding a hand over her heart, causing the blonde to crumble into a blubbering mess.
Perfect was a good way to describe it.