#Chapter 123: Taste Of Freedom

Aurora POV A few weeks pass in near-silence. It’s strange how quickly I start to notice the absence of drama. No frantic phone calls from Gianna about the latest Camilla problem. No whispers carried to me second-hand about her latest schemes. No late-night pacing in my kitchen, clutching my phone to my ear while Gianna breathlessly told me what fresh hell my stepsister had conjured up this time. It’s all just… dried up. Instantly. The absence is jarring. At first, it makes me uneasy, like waiting for the other shoe to drop and trying to predict when. Camilla has always been drama incarnate, a hurricane that tears through everything and leaves nothing but chaos in its wake. For her to just… stop? It feels alien. Gianna mentions it during one of our late-night calls, recalling that since the day after her sudden freak-out in my room, Camilla’s been completely docile. Not kind or warm—those words would never fit her—but oddly subdued. “She’s like a doll,” Gianna had s