WHO KILLED VICTORIA? | Complete

Chapter Forty | She Watched

QOTD: DID YOU EXPECT IT?

Victoria's POV

20 Days Until Victoria's Death...

I felt a creeping figure lurk behind me. It may be because the amount of time I spent in these walls ruined me, made me start hearing things, voices, that aren't really there. Affirmations being said to me through these thin bed sheets as I try to sleep at night, or the ceiling, talking to me, as I lay in bed watching it laugh. I feel death nearing, approaching like a tsunami ready to absorb me. I never left the house ever since.

 Ten days had passed since the news on Isabella's death came out by Samuel, but no one believed him. News on Isabella and Damian came out the same night she went missing, articles, magazines all across town spoke of the step-siblings who ran away together. Because Damian was also nowhere to be found. I pictured Samuel, wearing his black fitted shirt, crying on the front porch now that the three people who took him in are nowhere to be found. Christina left, Isabella supposedly dead as he said, and Damian, gone.

 I stalked him for some time, I saw him on the cameras around town walking into police stations, and leaving them with tears filling his eyes. A part of me felt like he knew I was there, always. Watching as he decides every step he will take. Laughing at him like the devil in disguise. I see how paranoid he is, and how uncomfortable I am making him feel, but I never spoke to him because I worry he's not thinking about me at all. I worry he already forgot about me and was genuinely devastated for losing Isabella. I thought about how he would feel even if the rumors were his truth. It would kill more to know your lover ran away with her step-brother than her dying while being in love with you.

I would rather Samuel die a million deaths knowing he loves me, than live with the fact that he ran away with another.

I tried to cry, but tears never came. I tried to penalize myself for not feeling any sort of guilt for everything happening, but I simply couldn't. Tears turned to laughter and despair into joy. Everything that happened with them for the time they abandoned me broke me piece by piece. Until there was no more Victoria in this house. It was a sad woman, smoking her life away, drinking every sip till the bottle dropped on the floor next to her dead body. Alive, but not living. A shadow. Someone I used to know. The house looked like an absolute mess, and now worse than before. It reeked of alcohol and cigarettes. Dishes that have been there for weeks. Food boxes all across the floor. The house died with me, and all I cared about was watching the cameras in this town, watching his next step. Because without him, I'm soulless.

I got up and turned the laptop on. I logged into the CCTV in town — credentials that I got doing unreasonable things for, and watched him. I saw him leave his motel, looking worse than ever, and doing his daily routine. He walked to every police station, and left it crying. He walked to the park and fed the birds. He went to the bench where he and Isabella used to sit, and started writing. And finally, he walked up to the mountain where he told people she died, and spent the night looking down. I must admit it was difficult to place a CCTV camera up on the mountain, but with a hot body you can get anything done nowadays. I wondered if he ever thought of jumping down. I know I would, given the chances. I would take a deep breath in, close my eyes, and simply release my feet off the floor and let the waves take me away.

I looked down to see 3 empty packs of cigarettes and 6 beers scattered beneath me. The moon light made its way to the pictures on the wall, and only then did I notice that I spent the entire day watching him again. I placed my hand on the screen to turn it off, but before I shut it down I saw him taking a different route than he usually does. I watched as he came closer and closer, and only when he was a moment away did I notice — he was outside my house.

I panicked when I heard the knock on the door. I didn't care about the alcohol on the floor or the broken tables. I didn't care about the smell of cigarettes or the dishes that reeked. I cared about one thing, and one thing only — the smell of her dead body consuming the house.