Page 44 of The Secret Librarian

Chapter Twenty-Three

Camille

Every step hurt. Every time Camille lifted her left foot, she felt more pain than ever before as it ran up her leg and exploded in her side.

She placed her hand there again, and it came away wet. Sticky. She recoiled, lurching forward and being sick all over the pavement.

‘Come on, we have to keep going. Just one step after another.’

‘Can’t. Keep. Going.’ Each word was painful, almost impossible to push out, and Camille groaned as Avery adjusted her hold on her.

‘I can’t carry you. You have to keep moving.’ She could hear the pain in Avery’s voice, hear her start to cry. ‘I can’t lose you, Camille. Please, just keep going. Do it for me.’

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she held on to Avery, trying so hard to stay upright. But it was just so, so hard.

‘Just a few more steps,’ Avery whispered. ‘Keep going. Keep walking.’

Camille stumbled, falling against a door as Avery fumbled in her pockets, cursing as more pain spiralled through her.

Then she realised they were at the bookshop.

But when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat, the pain in her side so severe that it was like she’d been set on fire, the agony searing straight through her insides.

The pain only intensified when the door opened and she fell through, and suddenly she was being dragged across the floor in the dark, heard the sound of a door shutting, of someone crying, panting, breathing too heavily, and she wondered if it was her or someone else.

‘Hugo?’ she murmured, reaching out when she heard a voice. ‘Hugo, is that you?’

‘It’s me. Camille, it’s me, Avery?’

‘Avery?’ She wasn’t sure if the word had even come out of her mouth. Avery . Of course it was Avery. But she’d been so certain she’d heard Hugo’s voice, that she’d felt him beside her.

‘You’ve lost a lot of blood and the bullet wound ...’ She could hear Avery, but her friend was starting to sound as if she were talking to Camille from far away, her voice almost like it was disappearing down a tunnel.

‘So tired,’ Camille whispered as her eyes fluttered shut. ‘I’m just so tired.’

‘Stay awake!’ she heard Avery cry. ‘You have to hold this here, against your side. We have to stop the bleeding so I can figure out what to do next.’

Camille tried to keep her hand where Avery had placed it, against her side, but it hurt so much, and every time she pressed it, she cried out in pain.

She thought she heard someone else crying too, but everything seemed blurry, as if the room and Avery and what had happened were all mixing together while she tried to focus.

‘Where’s James?’ she asked, suddenly confused. ‘Did something happen to him? I—’

‘Shhh, James is fine. Remember we left him to, well, to clean everything up,’ Avery said. ‘Now this might hurt, but I’m going to tie this sheet around you, tightly, to try to stop the bleeding.’

Camille wondered then if Avery had taken her starched white tablecloth from her display at the front of the store, but she didn’t have long to wonder before Avery moved her, positioning the sheet beneath her and tying it so tight that Camille fell into darkness, as if she were tumbling down a hole that went on and on, each spasm of pain sending her deeper, further away from Avery.

‘Hugo?’

Camille reached out a hand, smiling as he came towards her, his wide grin telling her that it had to be him, that he was really there. She tried to touch his face, to palm his cheek, but every time she reached for him, he was just a little too far away.

‘Hugo?’ she said again, stepping forward as she tried to get to him.

She was so certain he was there, that if she could just move a little faster, just reach a little further, she’d be able to connect with him.

‘Hugo!’ she cried this time, as something started shaking her, and her husband faded away as if he’d never been there in the first place.

But when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t Hugo staring down at her, it was Avery; her eyes were wide and she looked like she’d been crying, they were so red.

‘Hugo was here,’ Camille murmured.

But as Avery stroked her forehead and whispered something she couldn’t hear, she realised that Hugo had never been there. Her mind was playing cruel tricks on her as her body fought to stay alive, pain continuing to ricochet through her.

‘It’s just you and me, Camille,’ Avery said, softly, one of her hands reaching down to clasp hers. ‘You just have to hang on, you have to fight this, because I’m not losing you. Do you hear me? I’m not losing you, Camille.’

‘I know,’ Camille whispered. Avery bent low over her, her ear almost to Camille’s lips. ‘I know now, who did it. I know who betrayed us.’

‘And he’s gone now,’ Avery said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. ‘Now you get to live, Camille. You get to live for Hugo; he’d want you to live.’

Camille nodded, slowly, but it was a nod. Seeing Hugo had made her want to slide away from the world and reach out to him, but Avery was right. She needed to live now. She needed Hugo’s death not to have been for nothing.

She heard a noise then, turning her head as far as she could to see what Avery was doing. Avery was on her hands and knees, and Camille watched as she lifted the loose floorboard and took something out.

It wasn’t until Avery lifted Camille’s hand that she knew what she was doing.

Camille stared down at her hand as Avery slipped the gold band on her finger. Her wedding ring. The ring she’d taken off the day Hugo was killed.

‘You stay alive for him, Camille,’ Avery cried, leaning over her. ‘He would want you to live, do you hear me? He wouldn’t want this to be the end.’

Camille moved her thumb enough to touch the ring, the familiar round edges, the coolness against her skin. And she couldn’t help but wish she’d never taken it off in the first place.