A woman's revenge

It did happened

Francine pov

I woke up in a daze. Once again, I couldn't recognise where I was, but this time everything wasn't plain white. The first thing I noticed was the mirror on the wall in front of the bed. Then the bed. It was soft and cocooning. I had a dog and a cat when I was still a little girl. I slept on his belly when the cat always curled against me. It always felt like I was sleeping on clouds, so puffy and fluffy.

This bed was making me homesick but in a good way. I miss my dad. I closed my eyes and sighted.

" Miss, you are awake."

I turned towards the right to see a woman that seemed in her forties. She had grey hair, black eyes and was smiling warmly.

" Hi" I said, trying to sit in bed.

" No, no. don't. you haven't recovered enough." she rushed towards me and put her hand on my shoulders, encouraging me to lie down on the bed again.

I obeyed. I wasn't feeling that great anyway. Still a little dozzy.

"were am i?"

" Oh yes, he said you may not remember. You must have been really tired, poor baby" she said, tucking me in.

" He?" I was getting a bad feeling. My mind was still a little clouded but I knew I wasn't going to like what came next.

"Mr. Dupre! He brought you here yesterday but you still weren't feeling well, so he called his personal doctor." she looked at me with vibrant eyes like it was something so formidable.

" How kind of him! I never knew him to care so much for a woman and I had known him for a very long time. He called me at dawn to come here and nurse you when he was away."

Now she was actually patting her dampened eyes. Then she looked at me with expectations.

" Yes, he is so kind" I said, unsure.

" Indeed" she exclaimed, then started telling me again how much he cared about me, how lucky I was to have such a fiancé. She didn't even know he was seeing someone, but "children nowadays are just too complicated" and she wouldn't "bother trying to explain" anything anymore. This was just "love for young people".

Wait à minute.

"Fiancé ? love? Madam, I think you got something wrong. Lawson and I are.." I stopped. What were we? enemies? sworn enemies? best enemies? Either way, I couldn't tell her that, she was so kind.

" oh yes! Please call me Daisy! Just like the flowers" she laughed.

Yes, definitely too warm.

" Daisy, thank you for taking care of me". I looked around. I could see rays of light.

" Could you open the curtains please ?"

" Oh yes" she said, hurrying to execute.

For a moment, I was blinded by the light and blinked until my vision cleared.

I was in a pretty bedroom. I was lying on a double bed, there was a bedside table on each side with a lamp on it, two armchairs and a coffee table against the window and three doors in front of the bed. Two of them were on each side of the wall and the third one was the one Daisy used to enter the room.

" I'll bring you something light to eat."

" Sorry, what time is it?" I stopped her.

"Almost eleven."

That meant I slept all morning. I touched my hip. I could feel that it was sensitive but not as painful as yesterday. I settled in bed then let myself think of everything that had been on since that morning. I wondered what Oscar and my family were doing. It didn't seem like Lawson had called them. Actually, he was thinking this marriage was a scheme against him. But why? We didn't even knew each other before. We only met on my wedding day and, don't we forget, he hit me with that formidable car of his and questioned me when I was dying. Who did that? This guy was surely going to hell.

By the way, where was he? Whatever. I needed to think about my future. There was a remote control by my bedside. I took it, wondering where the TV was. I pressed the power button and the mirror went black.

" What the..." I sat up. Was the mirror a TV? Holy sh*t, that guy was FREAKY RICH. Then the logo appeared, another secret branch of his. No wonder he was the CEO. It felt like he owned the world.

I wasn't really listening, until I saw the title of the breaking news. Several towns on the east coast were under water. My body went cold. I switched again and again. It was the same news everywhere. The reporter was saying that the predictions didn't prepare us for that. The storm, the wind and the tornado changing course caused destruction that couldn't be prevented.

The number of missing people increased by minutes and it was still raining.

" Oh dear! you are sitting again" daisy said, entering.

"Daisy, what happened on the east coast? They said people were missing. Why?" I was sure I told everything about the flood to Lawson. I was sure.

"It's a disaster. They try to help but everything is turned upside down. They can't see right from left"

Yes. I remember that clearly now. It was that horrible. I couldn't go outside with Oscar because of nettlerash, so I was stuck in my bedroom, watching the news and crying.

" Oh dear, don't cry. You couldn't have done anything. No one could have."

But, I could have. I have been there. What if all of this new life wasn't about saving myself but saving others? I had so conveniently forgotten those people who were never found. How could I forgive myself?

" Don't worry, Mr Dupre is there with others trying to help" daisy said.

My head turned so fast towards her, it almost wrenched out of my neck.

"Mr Dupre is WHAT??!" I screamed.

Lawson Pov

It was hell.

People were rushing everywhere, screaming, fumbling, calling names. John and I were there with members of the task team helping as we could. We had several small boats and I was in one of them, taking those who couldn't walk to safety. Children, babies, older people, pregnant women. The security camp was far away. We first dressed nearby, but a dyke broke somewhere and the water submerged us. We had to give that one up with a lot of furniture inside. We didn't have time. We could either save the people that were already there or food and first aid. We chose people. We thought help would quickly be there, but because of the climatic conditions, no one could reach us for hours. Even my own crisis team could not be there for at least 6 hours. We were by ourselves. There wasn't enough food, medication or even water. Even the people we were saving could still die. And the rain won't stop.

"Mr Dupre, we must go back to the camp. Our boat can't take people any more." The commander of the team said.

"I will stay here and..."

" You can't. You are the only one in charge here. No one is qualified enough to navigate this nightmare. Nothing can happen to you" he interrupted.

I nodded. It was killing me but he was right. I knew nothing about first aid but I knew a lot about managing people. At the camp I could help. Here, I was a liability.

"I was wrong"

I lifted my head to look at John. We were back at the camp and I was looking at the map and at the forecasts on my phone, trying to predict where people needed immediate assistance. There weren't enough of us to divide our resources.

"I should have listened to you. This is my fault."

" No. This is a natural disaster, that is what it is. I need all your brain to focus on a solution, not on self-flagellation. You will do that when everyone is safe and sound", I ordered.

" Yes Mr. Dupre"

With that, we both turned to the map and resumed our next steps.