Twisting Her Fate
Chapter 95

Astrid gasps as her hand releases, the pages falling to the ground, a small pile of white sheets fluttering, spinning, swirling as they fall gracefully and somewhat beautifully to the ground, it is a near mesmerizing sight, unlike the fall of Astrid's concept of her entire life. It's amazing how a few sheets of harmless paper can twist an entire outlook on life. The sheets that had long since dried tears of Rose are wetted once more with the fresh tears of Astrid as her entire world comes crumbling down around her. She can hardly breathe. Her heart is struggling to beat, her lungs are struggling to take in the required oxygen. The remnants of her life crumbling before her eyes, everything she thought she knew so distorted.

Astrid falls to her knees with a thud. Her legs unable to even hold up her body anymore as so much anguish surges through her, her heart breaking all over again.

Oscar who has watched his mother and just looked around this odd little cabin. Just waiting patiently for his mother to say something. Her silence since her sight of Leilani is baffling, but he feels like he is on the edge of something. Feeling like there is a discovery just waiting to be unearthed.

The name Cora just running over and over in his mind so familiar yet he has no memory of it. He just watches his mother read, getting more and more upset. Only snapping back to reality once she falls to her knees gasping for air. Pure and utter devastation radiating from her.

"What is it Mum? What's wrong?"

Oscar rushes to her side. Astrid is shaking like a leaf. There was just too much information for her to possibly process. The joy, the hate, the betrayal. Her eyes are hazy. Her brain is buzzing as she tries to process. She cannot hear her son's voice. She cannot tell what day of the week it is, even what year it is.

The last twenty-one years of her life just flashing through her mind, all the signs, all the wrong, the pain, the sorrow, all of it has one source.

Oscar repeatedly calls out to his mum but he gets absolutely nothing in response. All he can do is pick up the sheets of paper and read what was written. His curiosity getting the better of him. Astrid has enough wits about her to try and gather up the paper to stop Oscar from seeing it. She never wanted him to replace out this way, but it is, at most, a feeble attempt. Her strength is gone.

She knows what she has to do. She knows she needs to stop him but her hands and body don't want to co-operate, her fingers just gripping the air as she sobs, all her actions just spur Oscar on. He needs to know what is on the paper.

Oscar has never been one for gossiping or invading anyone's privacy. But this he just has to know.

While his mother is far from the happiest woman, far from the most emotionally caring woman, the facade is there but it is like something is missing. But for her to break down in such a way, it is unprecedented. "Oscar no"

Astrid's voice is barely a whisper and she doesn't even know if she said the words out loud. If she did, Oscar ignored them as he evades his mothers feeble attempt to grab the paper, looking over the written words quickly before settling in on the sheet covered couch, a small plume of dust erupting around him with the movement. But he doesn't even notice, to read the whole thing word for word, Astrid just watches, she doesn't attempt to stop him again, she has no chance of doing anything, her eyes are focused on Oscar but they aren't really seeing, she is just blankly staring.

It is every answer to the questions he asked. It is every answer to the questions he didn't ask. It's amazing how a small piece of paper can change everything. The reason his father hated him. The reason he hated his father, well, not father, adopted father. The reason Maggie and he looked so different. The reason Simon was so good to Maggie.

The reason he feels a connection to Leilani. "Is Leilani Cora?"

All the rest he can deal with for now, he needs to take some time to process it all, but the main point that he gets from the whole thing. His heart beats faster and he feels tears down his face, a sense of relief. His instinct was right, there was a connection. She is special, she is important.

Leilani is his sister.

There is no confirmation in the letter at all, yet he just knows.

Astrid looks at Oscar, she understands that fact, yet somehow she overlooked it, everything else overshadowing that fact. But Leilani, Cora, her daughter is alive? Her daughter is that strong beauty that she saw? Could it be possible, her features are so close, it would have to be true. Isn't that the reason that she is here? Isn't Leilani how Astrid always liked to imagine that her daughter would be?

"I think so....... I hope so"

Astrid once again falters as she looks at the stack of paper.

"He....he...he he tried to kill my daughter, he made me send you away. All so that I could be busy raising his own daughter, he killed Harris? He killed Rose? He has another son out there?"

Astrid clutches her chest, the pain is so intense, all the times that he made her feel bad about what happened before, the times that he blamed her for Cora, the times he told her to be a better mum to Maggie.

Twenty-one years of being mated to a stranger.

She feels like she doesn't know the first thing about Simon.

He ruined her entire life, he did so many bad things, he is a demon.

Astrid feels nauseous. She has spent a large majority of her life with this man. She has shared a bed every night with this man. She has kissed him. She has told him that she loved him. She has done everything to make him happy, but all she has been doing is catering to a murderer.

She has been feeling bad about being sad, feeling depressed. Hanging on to love of Harris when Simon is the one that took him from her.

The fact that Simon stood beside her with a stoic face as she held her daughter's corpse. Even if she now replaces out it wasn't Cora. It's still the fact that Simon was the one who did all of this. The fact that he is callous enough to do it. The fact that he could just stand by while she was so devastated that she wanted to die with her daughter. Seeing her daughter like that, holding her daughter's corpse did something fundamentally to Astrid. What was already broken was shattered so badly. There was no hope of return and she has lived like that for twenty-one years.

She could hardly sleep for the first five years. Having nightmares about watching her daughter die in that way. Every time she would look at her hands she could see her daughter's blood on them.

She blamed herself for going back to work. She blamed herself for letting someone else look after Cora. She blamed herself for letting Rose, who was sick. Look after her. Never blaming Rose for a single moment.

The fact that the only one she had left was Oscar and Simon sent him away with all sorts of excuses and she was too weak to fight him, believing that everything she touched turned to ash and if Oscar stayed with her that he would end up the same way as the rest of the family that he would be ruined by her own hand.

There was no curse against Astrid. It was only Simon.

He is the curse

He is everything bad.

Any love that she has felt for him over all these years. Faded out to nothing in a single letter from a person who died a long time ago.

But everything written in the letter is unforgivable offenses and it's not like he has worked hard to rectify his mistakes. He hasn't even tried to make it up to her. He has just made her feel bad at every turn, treated her badly, pushed her down. Made her feel worthless. Made her feel like nothing. Made her feel like an unworthy mother and unworthy mate.

But it was all just him.

How could he do that to her? What did she do to deserve any of this?

Astrid lays her cheek down on the filthy floor where twenty years of dust has accumulated. Not a single other soul has been in this place. Rose all but forgotten when, in this small place held such a large secret. Simon thought that Rose took it all to the grave, all his wrong doing's all remaining undiscovered.

Her tears mix with the dust, making a disgusting mud mess, but she doesn't even care. She just needs a moment or maybe two, maybe an eternity.

Oscar squats beside his mother, rubbing her back. He is disappointed in her, but he is disappointed in himself for not seeing the truth, all his gut instinct all along, he should have followed it. Everything was wrong with sending a future alpha away from the pack all the time, Simon's treatment of him. The certain disconnect between him and Maggie.

No matter how annoyed he is, it is undeniable that his mother must be suffering, all he can do is push back all his grievances and comfort his mother, but there is a flame of hatred for Simon that is igniting and spreading like wildfire through his entire body. He will no longer hold back, Simon has to die, Oscar will kill him, that is the only thing that will get justice for his father, his sister and even for his mother.