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Chapter One
Camilla Queen pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she inhaled deeply through her mouth.
She began to cough profusely when the pungent smell of the sewers invaded her senses.
“Sometimes, I wonder why I even wanted to be a journalist,” she muttered under her breath as her face contorted in disgust.
Camilla Queen wanted to be a journalist for as long as she could remember. Ever since she was little, she’d ride her bike around the neighborhood with her little pen and notebook, jotting down information when she could, and searching for clues when people weren’t forthcoming with their answers.
As she had gotten older, the little girl with blue eyes and blonde hair had still retained her sense of curiosity. She was the youngest person on the team because she had just graduated from college.
She was also a bit on the heavy side. Not that she minded. After all, nothing could comfort her quite like food could, and nothing tasted as good either. Except maybe men.
She stopped her train of thought before it went too deep into the gutter. When she told her boss to give her a chance on something hard hitting, she had expected something interesting, and maybe even slightly dangerous.
Investigating whether or not someone was polluting the city sewers by dumping toxic waste into them was the last thing she had on her mind. The only thing dangerous here was how close she was to hurling her lunch.
She crouched over something and poked it with her leg. She grimaced as she noticed that it was a dead animal. She made a face as her lunch tried to make its way back up her throat.
She shined her flashlight on the whole place, and finally decided that there was nothing else to see. There was nothing else to report here in any case.
She made her way out of the sewers and sucked in huge gulps of air as the cold night breeze filled her lungs. She took a whiff of herself and decided that she would need a shower before she met up with her friend Katherine.
She held her arms away from her body as she speed-walked to her car, eager to get home and wash the stink off of her.
She grabbed a plastic bag out of the trunk of her car, carefully placed it over the chair and then gingerly sat on it, careful not to touch anything else lest her entire car be left smelling like that.
She revved the car and backed out of her parking spot and onto the highway to head home.
***
Camilla wiped the steam from the mirror with the edge of her bathrobe. She smiled as she inhaled the smell of soap and body wash.
She twisted her hair up into a bun before turning on the faucet and waiting for the water to heat up. She lathered her face with soap before splashing water on it, relishing the feeling of the droplets sliding down her face and onto the tile floors.
She picked up her toothpaste, squirted some onto her toothbrush and began to brush her teeth.
A loud banging on the door made her pause and stare. She tried to speak around a mouthful of toothpaste, but it came out sounding garbled.
She spat some of the toothpaste into the sink, and yelled out. “What?”
“Are you almost done in there?” her friend Katherine’s voice came from behind the door.
“Kat, I literally just stepped into the shower fifteen minutes ago.”
“It took you fifteen minutes to wash off the gunk?” Katherine’s voice sounded dubious, at best, and Camilla chuckled under her breath as she realized that had it been Katherine, they never would’ve left the house tonight because she would’ve been in here all night, seeing imaginary germs everywhere.
“Are you sure you did it right?” Katherine’s asked.
“Well, unless you want to come in and see for yourself, you’re going to have to take my word for it,” Camilla responded as she bent over the sink once more.
Camilla shrieked as the door flew open, and Katherine stood there, her massive brown curls tumbling down her head, her hands placed on her hips as she surveyed the bathroom.
Her petite form came into the room and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose as one foot took a step forward, and the other hovered just outside the bathroom.
“Kat, what are you doing?” Camilla placed her hand on her heart to calm her erratic breathing.
“You told me to come in and see for myself,” Katherine pointed out as she paused as if deciding something. Finally, she put both feet forward and came into the bathroom.
One eyebrow went up. “I didn’t mean that literally.”
“Well, if you don’t mean it literally, then don’t say it. You know I’d take you seriously, and I never back down from a challenge.”
Camilla rolled her eyes. “I know that only too well.”
Katherine’s green eyes turned to face her. “Aw, come on. I said I was sorry. How was I supposed to know the guy couldn’t take a joke?”
Camilla gave her a wry grin. “Well, when you walk up to a guy and declare that Disney princesses are real, and would he like to meet one, how do you expect him to behave?”
“I expect him to know that it’s a joke, then he’d laugh and play along, or think it’s a dirty reference and still play along,” Katherine pointed out as she hovered near the edge of the bathtub and peaked in.
“Well, clearly, this guy wasn’t in a mood to joke, and besides I was kidding. I didn’t know you’d actually go through with the dare.”
Katherine gave her a pointed look. “I’m crazy enough to do crazy dares when I’m sober, did you really think I wouldn’t because I was tipsy?”
Camilla paused as she gargled some water. She spat it out. “Good point.” She watched Katherine in the mirror as she stood there, staring down at the bathtub as if she was staring into the abyss.
Katherine took a step back and turned to survey Camilla herself. She edged around her and circled her a few times, leaning in to sniff her.
“Okay, now you’re just being weird.”
“You know that I hate germs,” Katherine said as she lifted Camilla’s arm up, looked at it then put it back down.
