To His Hell and Back-Chapter 153: A Familiar Place

Arabella’s eyelids twitched, the slightest flutter beneath the closed lashes showing how the dreams she had seen stirred her. Cassius, seated silently beside her, caught the movement almost instantly.

He tilted his head and his eyes deepened their hue as he pondered in silence. What was she seeing behind those eyes? Was it an old fond memory? A nightmare? Or something gentler, perhaps something that gave her peace like an illusion of what she had hoped to see but couldn’t?

He didn’t know, he couldn’t guess what was in her head, and that, oddly, unsettled him.

For the first time in his life, Cassius wondered about the world inside someone else’s mind. He never needed to understand someone on a heart level, and this was not for leverage nor manipulation but just... to understand.

Only now did he understand just how much he wanted to know her. The reason why he had kept her beside him all the time and why he had always enjoyed seeing her was because he enjoyed her presence and wanted to know who she was.

Not just the girl lying here now, silent and pale, covered in the thick duvet. But the one from before the court, before the blood, and even before him. What had she seen? What had she endured? What had always made her so strong despite being powerless? What had made her so rebellious and defiant enough to go against any vampires in front of her?

He’d never bothered to care before, after all, curiosity was a luxury he spared only for power, not people. But Arabella... she had pulled a heart string from the quietest depths of him that he never knew ever existed. Now that she lay unconscious, still lost in whatever realm held her captive, the questions began to flood him.

What does she like? What does she dislike? Was there anyone in this world who mattered to her more than her sister? And, perhaps most tormenting of all, why had she shielded him that night?

That moment burned in his memory, and he could still feel the echo of her warmth against him as she rushed to protect him.

It didn’t make sense to him, after all, there was no one in this world who would have shielded him the way she had protected her. Not out of loyalty or an exchange, simply an action that she does instinctively, without the slightest hesitation or doubt.

But why? She had every reason to hate him and to run from him. She had decided to protect him instead. When she woke, if she woke, it would be the first thing he asked. Because, despite all logic, all pride, all armor he wore before the world, he needed to know.

Cassius had always considered himself far too filthy to be protected, so he couldn’t understand why she had so readily given up her life for him. Then he found himself wondering- what kind of answer did he even want from her? If she said it was out of pity, or care, or simply something she would have done for anyone in danger, he wasn’t sure which of those answers he was hoping for. But he knew one thing: as long as she woke up, no matter what she chose to say, he would accept it. Readily.

He continued to stay by her side, letting go of the chaos and the embroiled fight inside the court, staring at her quietly as many thoughts swirled inside his head, one that no one could ever deduce to guess.

Meanwhile, Arabella was in another realm that she had never seen before.

By the time she had realized where she was, she had found herself in a place she never remembered to visit. It was an old village, a place she never seen yet felt familiar regardless.

The village wasn’t too run down but was filled with only the elderly and houses that were far too old to be lived in. Then there was a young girl running across the muddy street with her dirty shoes, her hair glistening, and it caught Arabella’s eyes at once as the color of the girl’s hair matched her far too much.

She walked like a ghost, transparent, as she followed the young girl into a house. The young girl was far too young, maybe she was just six or five years old with chubby cheeks and bright green eyes.

After taking another look at the young girl, Arabella was now certain that this was herself. But she when she was still young, and in a memory she never recalled before. She seemed to be in a hurry as she rushed into the house, holding something inside her hands which she released only when she arrived at the side of a bed.

Taking a closer look, Arabella saw her young self pouring red flower petals into the side of the bed, and the person who was asleep slowly stirred from the bed, awoken by her presence.

The woman sat up, and for the first time, Arabella finally saw the face of her mother.

She wasn’t quite the way Arabella had last remembered her to look like. She was... hollow to say the least.

Even though she had such luscious blonde hair and the glimmering green eyes that would have made anyone who saw her to be stunned by her beauty, her mother’s gaze was empty, staring far but at nothing. When she looked at the young Arabella, her mother’s green eyes seemed to narrow as if in pain.

But the woman managed to look at her daughter, albeit still empty with her expression, and even looked duller as she saw the young girl, "What’s wrong, Bella?"

"I found this mama!" The young Arabella said excitedly, not noticing her mother’s tone that was bleak and rather callous. She seemed excited as she looked at the petals she had gathered with her hands that were still filled with mud. "Flowers for you! So you could get better."

Her mother seemed to be taken aback by her words and then looked at the flower petals, which seemed to make her once empty expression to change into a startle. Before Bella could continue to explain, her mother pushed away all the flower petals from the bedside, tossing it to the ground in a hurry as though the gift her daughter had gathered was far too filthy.

The young Arabella was far too shocked to say anything, her round green eyes then stared at the floor, finding all those scattered petals she had taken so carefully tossed away like her heart that seemed to shatter somewhere far behind her ears.

"Haven’t I told you to stay inside the house, Bella? Why did you leave?"