SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Camille sat propped up in her hospital bed, the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window casting warm patterns across the white sheets. Three days had passed since her rescue, and the bruises on her face were beginning to fade from deep purple to yellow-green. Alexander sat in the chair beside her bed, holding her hand as she slowly regained her strength.

"The doctors say you can go home tomorrow," Alexander said, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "Victoria's already been discharged. She's at the estate, resting under doctor's orders."

Camille smiled weakly. "Good. She needs to take care of herself. The cancer treatments, the stress from everything that's happened... I was so scared we were going to lose her."

Alexander squeezed her hand gently. "We didn't lose anyone. We're all here, we're all safe, and James is in federal custody facing charges for kidnapping and murder."

"What about Rose?" Camille asked quietly. "Has there been any word about her situation?"

Alexander felt his chest tighten. This was the conversation he had been dreading, the promise he had made to Rose that he wasn't sure how to keep. How do you tell someone that the sister who tried to kill her also saved her life?

"Camille, there's something I need to tell you about Rose. About how we found you and Victoria."

Something in Alexander's tone made Camille look at him more closely. "What do you mean?"

Alexander took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to reveal would change everything Camille thought she knew about her relationship with Rose. "Rose called me while we were searching for you. She knew where James was holding you and Victoria because James had approached her in prison, asking for her help with the kidnapping."

Camille's eyes widened with shock and confusion. "Rose knew where we were?"

"James went to her because he thought she would help him hurt you and Victoria. He thought their shared hatred of the Kane family would make her a willing ally." Alexander's voice was gentle but clear. "But Rose refused to help him. More than that, she gave us the address where you were being held."

Camille stared at Alexander in stunned silence, trying to process what he was telling her. Rose, who had spent years manipulating and undermining her, who had tried to have her killed, had provided the information that saved her life.

"I don't understand," Camille whispered. "Why would Rose help us? She hates me. She's always hated me."

"She asked me to tell you something," Alexander continued. "She wanted you to know that she helped save you because somewhere inside her, there's still a sister who loves you."

The words hit Camille like a physical blow. She felt tears starting to burn her eyes as she realized the complexity of what Rose had done. Even after everything, even from prison, Rose had chosen to save her sister's life instead of helping destroy it.

"She really said that?" Camille asked, her voice breaking.

"She did. And Camille, I could hear something in her voice I'd never heard before. Regret, maybe. Or genuine love underneath all the hatred and manipulation."

Camille closed her eyes and let the tears flow freely down her cheeks. For the first time in years, she allowed herself to remember Rose not as the enemy who had tried to destroy her, but as the sister she had once loved with all her heart.

"I need to tell you about Rose," Camille said through her tears. "About who she was before everything went wrong between us."

Alexander settled back in his chair, understanding that Camille needed to share these memories to make sense of what Rose had done.

"When Rose first came to live with us, I was eleven and she was thirteen too. I remember the day my parents brought her home from the adoption agency. She was so small, so scared, carrying everything she owned in a single garbage bag."

Camille's voice grew softer as she lost herself in the memory. "She wouldn't talk to anyone for the first week. She just sat in her room, staring out the window like she was waiting for someone to come take her away again."

"What changed?" Alexander asked gently.

"I did. I started sitting with her, not talking, just being there. And slowly, she started to trust me. She told me about the foster homes she'd been in, about the families who had given her back when she became too much trouble."

Alexander felt his heart breaking as he imagined two young girls, both dealing with their own forms of abandonment and fear, finding comfort in each other.

"Rose was so smart, Alexander. She could fix anything that was broken. She taught me how to braid friendship bracelets, how to sneak downstairs after bedtime to steal cookies from the kitchen. She used to read me stories when I had nightmares."

Camille's tears were flowing freely now as she remembered the sister she had lost somewhere along the way.

"We had this ritual every summer. We would build a fort in the backyard using old sheets and lawn chairs, and we would spend entire days out there, making up stories about being princesses or explorers or anything we wanted to be."

"What happened to that closeness?" Alexander asked.

"I don't know exactly when it changed. Maybe when we started high school and Rose realized that was getting attention from boys and teachers in ways that she wasn't. Maybe when my parents started

expecting more from hered

academically and she felt like she was always being compared to me."

Camille wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "But there were still moments, even in high school when I could see the sister I had fallen in love with. When she would help me with my hair before@ dance, or when she would stay up all night listening to me cry about some boy who had broken my heart."

"She cared about you," Alexander said.

"She did. But she also resented me in ways I didn't understand at the time. I had been born into the family she had to fight to join. I had security she had never known. I had love that felt unconditional while hers always felt like it had to be earned."

Camille looked out the hospital window at the city where she had built her new life, where she had found love and purpose despite all the betrayal she had endured.

"The night before I married Stefan, Rose came to my room. She sat on my bed like she used to when we were teenagers, and she told me she was happy for me. She said she hoped I would always be as happy as I was that night." "Did you believe her?"

"I wanted to. But I could see something in her eyes, something dark and hungry that scared me. I think even then, part of her was already planning to take Stefan away from me."

Camille's voice broke as she continued. "But Alexander, hearing that she saved my life... it makes me remember that the darkness wasn't all there was. There was real love too, even if it got twisted and poisoned by jealousy and pain."

Alexander moved closer to Camille's bed, understanding that she was processing not just Rose's recent actions, but years of complicated sisterhood that had ended in betrayal and violence.

"Do you think she really meant it?" Camille asked. "When she said there was still a sister inside her who loves me?"

"I think Rose has done terrible things that can never be undone or forgiven. But I also think that when James asked her to help him kill you, she chose love over hatred. Maybe for the first time in years, she chose to be the sister you remembered instead of the enemy she had become."

Camille cried harder as she processed the painful complexity of loving someone who had hurt her so deeply. Rose had tried to destroy her marriage, had hired men to attack her, had spent years undermining her self-confidence and sabotaging her relationships.

But Rose had also been the sister who braided her hair and read her bedtime stories and built blanket forts in the backyard. Rose had been the scared thirteen-year-old who

needed someone to love howho

unconditionally, and the young woman who had sat on her bed the night before her wedding andnoveldrama

wished her happiness.

"I miss her," Camille whispered. "I miss the sister she used to be before everything went wrong between us."

"Maybe the sister you miss is still in there somewhere," Alexander said. "Maybe that's who made the choice to save your life instead of helping James destroy it."

Camille looked at Alexander through her tears, seeing the man who had fought so hard to save her, who had been manipulated and used just as she had been, who had chosen love over revenge when it mattered most.

"I want to write her a letter," Camille said suddenly. "I want to tell her that I got her message, that I understand what she did for me."

"Are you sure? Camille, Rose is still dangerous. She's still manipulative. Opening communication with her could be risky."

"I'm not opening communication. I'm saying goodbye." Camille's voice was clear despite her tears. "I'm saying goodbye to the sister I loved and the sister who tried

to kill me. I'm acknowledging both parts of who she was to me." Alexander nodded, understanding that Camille needed this closure to heal from years of complicated love and betrayal.

"What will you say to her?"

Camille was quiet for a long moment, thinking about the teenage girl who had once been her best friend and the woman who had become her greatest enemy.

"I'll tell her that I remember the fort we built in the backyard. I'll tell her that I remember the way she used to braid my hair and read me stories when I was scared. I'll tell her that I know she saved my life, and that somewhere in my heart, I still love the sister she used to be."

Camille's tears were slowing now, replaced by a sense of peace she hadn't felt in

years.

"And I'll tell her that I forgive her. Not because what she did was forgivable, but because carrying hatred for someone you once loved is too heavy a burden to carry forever."

As Alexander held Camille while she cried for the sister she had lost and found and lost again, he realized that healing from betrayal wasn't just about moving forward. Sometimes it was about making peace with the complexity of loving someone who had both protected and destroyed you.

Rose Lewis would spend the rest of her life in prison for her crimes. But the thirteen-year-old girl who had once built blanket forts and braided friendship bracelets had finally chosen love over hatred when it mattered most.

And that choice had saved her sister's life.