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She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that! I didn’t mean?—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant. The end result is the same. You’ve made your choice. Your fate is sealed.”

She struggled to her feet, fighting to push the door open, but before she could, it all seemed to fall away.

The next thing she knew, Amber was alone in a small derelict room. It was presumably just one room of a small derelict boarding house. She was curled up on her side on a shabby mattress with a threadbare blanket.

But no matter how tightly she wrapped it around herself, she couldn’t get warm.

As she lay there, the cold sucking the very soul from her bones, Amber say flashes of the life she gave up, mixed in with flashes of the life she lived.

She saw the day she married the man she would spend her life with.

Opposed to the day their plan went off without a hitch and she sealed her fate to never marry.

There was the birth of her first child, a joyous day she’d worried would never come. Happy tears were shed by both her and her husband. She was tired, exhausted really, but she’d never known such joy.

Paired with her searching and failing to find work.

She was penniless.

No friends.

No home.

Nowhere to go.

CHAPTER5

Amber shot up in bed with a yelp, cold sweat coating her skin. The blankets tangled around her, sticking to her in an uncomfortable mess, trapping her legs in place.

Rose looked down at Amber from where she stood near the window, parting the drapes, concern covering her face as the early morning light shone down on Amber.

“Are you all right, Amber?” Rose asked, moving to come stand beside the bed.

“Of course. Everything is fine,” Amber replied, heart pounding in her chest as she did her best to push the nightmare from her mind. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Rose’s frown deepened. “That’s good, but I didn’t ask how things were. I asked how you are.”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it the same thing. Now, answer the question. If I wanted to know about everything, I would ask about everything, but I didn’t. I only asked about you.”

Amber huffed out a half laugh, fumbling her way out of the thick blankets. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. I’ve been with you far too long for that, so you might as well just tell me.”

“Very well, but will you pour some water while we speak? I’d like to wash off a bit before I need to face the others.”

“Of course, but I expect you to talk while I work.”

“Of course,” Amber agreed.

She sighed as Rose poured water into a bowl, setting it beside the bed with a rag for her to wipe off the sweat. “It was nothing, merely a dream. It’s best just to try to move on with my day.”

Rose tutted, “Didn’t you just mention how hard it is to hide something from me?”

“I’m not, I really did have an unpleasant dream. Now that it’s over, I just want to move on with my day.” She tossed the rag into the bowl with a bit more power than intended, wincing as some of it splashed onto the table below.