Chapter 13: Betrayal
"What’s wrong?" Camella raised an eyebrow.
"Sigh." She exhaled sharply. "Get out. Both of you." Her voice was raw and unfiltered.
Maria—once Azalea’s fiancée, now engaged to Ansley—turned to Isabelle, uncertainty etched on her face.
"Should—?" she began to ask, but Isabelle cut in.
"Mella, I know you’re hurting. You were close to Az too," Isabelle said gently, trying to reason with her. "But you have to understand—he betrayed us."
Camella shot her a scathing glance as she swung her legs off the bed. "You? I still can’t believe it!" Her voice cracked, thick with disbelief and fury. "You, of all people? You actually believed he would hurt you?!"
Isabelle sighed again, rubbing her forehead. "I saw it with my own eyes. He stabbed Auston."
Camella’s nostrils flared. "And that was it? You didn’t even ask why? He was weaker than any of us, Isa—an alchemist, unawakened. How could someone like him break a forcefield created by the Dean himself?!" Her voice trembled with the sheer absurdity of it. "How could you believe something so stupid?"
"I..." Isabelle closed her eyes. Deep down, she knew. She had been clouded by anger. She hadn’t questioned. She hadn’t cared. She had simply lashed out.
Even now, accepting the truth was a struggle. Admitting her mistakes meant confronting just how terrible of a person she’d become.
"But—"