To His Hell and Back-Chapter 409: Regardless of Danger-I
The last time they have met each other was when Isabelle had let her escape from the dungeon. A kind person, that was what Arabella had always thought but for some reason now standing before Isabelle, her heart doesn’t feel at peace, as if someone was telling her that she shouldn’t stay where she was, alone with Isabelle’s company.
"It has became more difficult to see you," Isabelle muttered as she walked slower towards her, "Ever since you left the dungeon, I could not meet you again as easily as before."
"Isabelle," she called, "I thought you have gone home."
"Home? Where would I go without you?" Isabelle crossed her arms and looked at Arabella’s figure now. She looks radiant, beautiful and satisfied. Her gown made from the best silk though Arabella had always chosen to wear something simpler in term of looks, it was something that only a king would buy for their queen.
Arabella had always felt something odd about Isabelle but when had she said that she would go with Isabelle to her home? That never happened does it? She never made such a promise or else she would remember it as that was a heavy promise to make.
"But why would you need me to come with you?" Arabella asked while clenching her fists, "I don’t think that I have promised to come with you back to your homeland," she answered, "Isabelle why do you seem different today?"
"Different?" Echoed Isabelle, "am I not the same as usual?"
"The same," so was this how Isabelle had always been? So angry, so... utterly hateful. But despite that, Isabelle would always smile to her and had the best intention... perhaps this was what Isabelle had always wanted her to think. So she would lower her guards.
"How long do you think it would take for the king to become tired by your presence?" Isabelle echoed as she walked toward one of the white roses in the garden and reached out her hand toward it, crushing the entire bud of flower under her hand until it shattered into pieces, "Men aren’t to be trusted. For now he seems so loving towards you but what if your beauty fades? What if one day he sees you as a threat for the power you have? But I have always stayed with you. I know that you have your power but never had I ever treated you differently did I? Even if you don’t have power, I won’t cast you aside."
Arabella backed away when she saw how Isabelle’s red eyes dipped into darkness and the sense of uneasiness that clenched the core of her guts. "My power?"
"That you can kill!" Isabelle smiled when seeing her confused face, "The people who had came to kill us in the hunt. I wasn’t the one who had killed them, it was you."
Arabella’s eyes turned small from the shock and her hands trembled almost immediately, "I did... what?"
"I know you have forgotten it so I took the blame. See? I would stay with you forever, never will I ever abandon you even if you have killed hundreds or even thousands of people!"
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Arabella instead frown. To think she had killed... those lives. How horrified she felt at once when she thought of the people she had killed.
It was different to kill for survival it was even more different to kill being aware and not aware. The sensation of someone else taking a life using her body was utterly uncomfortable, as if someone was trying to steal her skin.
Isabelle was startled by her question and tried to smile again, "I know you would be upset if I tell you the truth."
"Is that really all?" Arabella inquired. "Since I became a witch, I have a new sensation that I’ve never felt before, a gut feeling? A sense of something that I would never feel before. Lastor told me that it’s due to me dipping my hands too deep into witchcraft that it allows me to have a keen instinct. That keen instinct allows me to smell whether someone wishes good for me or... they only wishes good for themselves."
In an instant, Isabelle’s smile dropped. Her hands that were crushing the flower turned into a tight angry fists, "I care about you."
"That is not the truth," Arabella uncover her lies, "You want to use me for your own goal. That much I can tell. It would benefit you to have me, is that not it?"
Blinking Isabelle tried to force her smile, "What are you saying, Bella... I won’t do that to you. That’s something only those men would do! To use women for their own advantage and cast them aside whenever they feel like they have had enough of their use."
"Men or women doesn’t matter, Isabelle. Regardless of gender, people uses others and that’s the truth that you have to face. You tell me that it’s for my own good but in the end didn’t you decide that on your own, for yourself, so it would suit you better?" Arabella sighed softly, "I don’t want to go away from here but you plan otherwise don’t you? You want to bring me away from here even if that is what against my wish."
"That’s not true! You will know soon that staying with him is nothing but a misery," stressed Isabelle, "I’m saving you from heartache."
"That’s what you decide," Arabella pointed out, "should I live trapped according to all your words and wishes? Can I really say that you do care for me if all I do is pose as the doll that go as you wish? How is that any different from the men you say would only love me for my power and beauty? Are you certain that you could love me if I don’t look the way I do or my power? Isabelle... I know that you have never looked at me. I wasn’t sure before but now I do. You have always seen me for my power and what I can do to help change your fate but... I can’t."
