Keep On: Cassandra's Tangled Journey

Warning: This part contains extreme graphic scenes, so maybe give this one a skip if you're squeamish.

"What?"
"You heard me. Stop trying to fuck my husband."

Cassandra looked around the room. There was no one else Ilona could be talking to. She burst out laughing. Ilona stared at her.
"Wait, are you serious?"
Ilona nodded. "Very." She lit a candle and slowly made her way to the end of Cassandra's bed. "You see, I love my husband. My husband loves me. My husband also loves you. And you love my husband."
"What? No I-"
"Shh! I am speaking. Me and Albrecht have our ups and downs but at the end of the day, we both said 'I do' for a reason." She placed the candle directly next to Cassandra's foot.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "You're not really revealing anything dramatic, are you?"
"It doesn't matter," Ilona sneered, "you get my point." She walked back over to the other side of the bed and ripped off Cassandra's gloves. Unable to move her arms, Cass remained silent as she let Ilona discover her crispy hand. Ilona gasped. A thousand questions raced through her mind. She really wanted to know about what happened to Cassandra's right hand.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Cassandra said with a smirk. "This is the kind of stuff that happens when people don't take my advice."
Ilona scoffed. "Narcissist," she whispered under her breath. She turned away.
"Narcissist? You think I'm the narcissist? Lady, I'm trying to help you! This place was the pits before I got here. And I'm not saying that it isn't now but it's better than it was. You've gotta admit that. If it weren't for me, Annelise, Bastian and the others-" oh shit- where were the others? No time for questioning now, she needed to finish her monologue- "this place would be getting in deeper and deeper shit with each passing day. I have been working my ass off for the past 7 days, so has Anneliese, so has Bastian, so has Annie, Quora, Ralph and Bruce, because we want Knavitt's Point as a community to succeed. If you let us help you, this dump ground of a mountain top will thrive like it's never thrived before. And the thing is, I could have easily just left you guys on your own. I could have just woken up last Sunday morning, taken one look at the place, grabbed my horse and booked it the fuck out of here, but I didn't. Because I saw potential in Knavitt's Point. I did what Rapunzel would have wanted me to do." Cassandra sighed. She really wished Rapunzel was here. If she were, she probably wouldn't be in this mess. "I have spent the last five months of my life out in the world looking for my place. And if I can tell you one thing, it is NOT here. I'd honestly rather live in the mouth of an active volcano. But I've put my search on hold because I don't want you guys to suffer like you currently are. I have caused suffering to those I love in the past, and that's a fact I've spent the past five months trying to run away from. But you can't run away from your problems. You need to face them head on. That's what I'm trying to help you with. I am a good person. I just need to prove it."
Ilona raised her eyebrows. "To whom?"
Cassandra sighed sadly. "I don't know. But the point is, I have zero interest in watching you guys waiting in the wings, I have zero interest in living here forever, and for the love of god, I have ZERO interest in fucking your husband. In fact, I've never been interested in fucking any guy I've met. I mean, I've had some of them be interested in fucking me, but one was a fascist and the other was 14, okay, getting a bit off track, can you please just let me go!"

Ilona stared at Cassandra and paused before saying anything. "No." She turned towards the door again.
"Does Bertram know that you're doing this?"
Ilona scoffed. "Of course not. He'd lose his fucking mind."
"What about the others?" Ilona left the room. Cassandra kept screaming after her. "Just wait until Anneliese and Bastian get back! They're not going to be happy!"

~*~
Ilona made her way up the stairs and found Quora and Bruce walking through the hallway, half asleep.
"Everything okay, Ilona?" Bruce greeted.
"Where's Cassandra?" added Quora.
"She left." Ilona replied with a blank face. Bruce and Quora looked at each other, confused.
"That doesn't sound like Cassandra, is she okay?"
"She's fine," Ilona replied in a more loud and serious tone. "She decided that we're too pathetic to fend for ourselves, and she doesn't give a shit about us as is, so she couldn't be bothered to teach us any further." Bruce and Quora could tell something wasn't right.