26: Old Photographs

The other maids had a vague idea of what Camilla meant by what she said and none of them backed down.

"Mr. Reyes won't be back for at least three more days, that would give us enough time to get rid of her," The first maid that had spoken chimed in.

Camilla smiled even wider, pleased at their cooperation, "You still have the item, right, Ella?"

The first maid lifted her nose proudly in the air, "Of course, I do."

"Good," Camilla nodded, "For now, let's get to work, we don't want to arouse suspicion in the others."

+

Nova got little done before it started to get dark, unmotivated to do anything but doing it anyway because she had to. She spent most of the day watching videos on her laptop so by the time evening came around again, she felt slightly better.

She braced herself for what troubles dinner time would bring her but it didn't at all prepare her for what she saw as she sat down to eat; the food had been completely replaced with sand and stones.

Nova stared at this conundrum for a few minutes, completely silent as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at. She just quietly closed the tray again and stood up.

Usually, she would go right to bed after eating the terrible meals the maid brought for her but now she was so shaken that she needed something to distract herself. She picked up the tray and placed it outside her door and then started arranging her things again.

Once again, she considered leaving, if only she still had her phone with her, she could have made up some kind of excuse to Roan and then left before he returned. She knew well that she didn't belong in his world, it was best that she went off on her own.

She arranged until she ran out of energy and then she went to bed, watching videos to distract herself from the hunger.

Nova didn't know how she managed to fall asleep but somehow it was morning. She had woken up late which was a relief because it meant that her torture would end quicker. If she wasn't fresh out of options, the moment Roan returned, she would insist on getting her own place but she had to endure for the meantime to get what she wanted.

Getting out of bed was difficult because she hadn't had a proper meal in days now, she felt really weak and dizzy but she was almost done with arranging and she wanted to get that out of the way.

The final box held her pictures and Nova had put it off until the very last moment because she didn't want to see the pictures she had taken with Levi and Stella. When she finally got out of bed by noon and showered, she sat on her bed with the box, wearing a white sweatshirt and dark blue dungarees.

Did she really have to arrange her pictures? She could just leave them in the box and hide them away as she didn't really have the energy to deal with her past just then.

With that, she got off the bed again to tuck the box away in a corner where it was hidden from plain view and because she had no energy, she immediately fell on her bed and slept off.

She woke up a few times but forced herself to go back to sleep. If she was still unable to eat properly, she would be forced to leave the house to find something to eat.

The thought was so humiliating that Nova just wanted to remain on her bed. She would just sleep until she hopefully died from a lack of nutrition, it was better than the other alternatives.

She couldn't believe that after everything that Stella and Levi had done to her, they still treated her like she was the villain. They knew well that she had no one to rely on besides them yet they had the nerve to act like she was a gold-digger when they knew well that if Roan hadn't taken a liking to her for whatever reason, she would be homeless.

They were the reason she was living the way she currently was, with nothing but pennies to her name. Although she had worked so hard and saved so much, she couldn't even afford to buy food - it made tears run down her face.

By the time the sun set, Nova had a headache and a stomach ache, and she couldn't fall asleep again because she had spent the entire day sleeping. It was at this point that there was a knock on her door, momentarily distracting her.

She frowned and sat up halfway on the bed, she didn't remember ringing the bell to ask for dinner because she didn't even want to see what the maids would bring for her this time. Then who was knocking at her door?

The door swung open before she could respond and a maid walked in with a tray. Nova watched her warily, wondering what they planned to do next. The maid however said nothing to her, placing the tray down and then leaving just as silently.

Nova hesitated for the longest time on her bed before going to the sitting area to inspect the food. To her surprise, the food was completely fine and it hadn't been tampered with, not even the bottle of wine.

It was a little too good to be true though, the maids clearly despised her for whatever reason so why would they treat her nicely? There had to be a catch to this, an ulterior motive. She studied the food intently, the alluring scent of the steaming food making her mouth water.

She was really hungry though and it was possible that the maids were doing this right before they would go back to tampering with her food. After all, they couldn't hurt her outright and it was why they stuck to petty pranks like messing with her food.