Chapter 71 The Alpha?

Chapter 71 The Alpha?
Zoe's POV

I stared at her.

"How do you know I'm wearing a mask." I asked again.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she shifted in her chair. Slow. Careful. Like her bones were tired from carrying too many years. She adjusted the brown shawl around her shoulders and looked back up at me.

"Because I watched you die." She said simply. "Or what everyone else thought was your death."

The room went very quiet.

Not the normal kind of quiet. The kind that has weight to it. The kind that presses against your ears.

"After they shot you." She continued. Her voice was steady but her hands tightened slightly in her lap. "After the Alpha gave the order and you went down and they threw you in that river. Everyone left. The crowd scattered. The warriors went back to their posts." She paused. "But I stayed. I hid in the bush at the edge of the bank. I couldn't leave." Her voice dropped. "I couldn't just walk away from you like that."

Something moved in my chest. Slow and painful.

I said nothing.

"I was going to go in after you myself." She said. Her jaw tightened. "Old as I am. I was going to go in." She shook her head once. Like she was still arguing with herself about it. "But then I saw him. Coming out from a corner I hadn't noticed. Moving fast. Quiet. Like he had been waiting there the whole time." She looked at me. "He went straight into that water like he already knew exactly where you were."

"Benjamin." I said.

"Benjamin." She confirmed. "I watched him pull you out. I watched him work on you. Breathing into your nose. His hands moving over you like a man who had prepared for that exact moment." She shook her head slowly. "I didn't know who he was then. I found out later. But I knew in that moment that you were going to survive." She met my eyes. "And I knew you would come back."

I sat with that.

The image of it. An old woman hiding alone in the bushes at a riverbank. Refusing to leave. Watching a dead girl get pulled out of the water.

Watching for me.

"So yesterday." I said carefully. "When I came to your chamber. When I told you about my friend Zoe." I kept my voice even. "You looked right at me and said you knew nothing."

She nodded. Didn't flinch from it.

"Someone had come to me before you." She said.

I sat up slightly. "I know. I saw him walk in." I paused. "The Alpha."

She looked at me. Then something moved across her face. A small frown. Like she was trying to connect pieces that weren't quite fitting together.

"The Alpha? That was him?"

"Yes. I saw him myself go in before—"

"No that's not what I'm saying." She cut in gently. "The person who came to me. He dragged me out of the house to a corner of my backyard." Her voice was quiet but her eyes were sharp. "He had a veil covering his eyes. I couldn't see his face properly. But while we were standing there in the dark he was warning me. Telling me to keep quiet. That if I spoke about certain things to certain people there would be consequences." She paused. Let that land. "Then while we were still there in the backyard we heard the Alpha's voice inside my chamber. Calling out. Trying to find me." She shook her head slowly. "Which I still don't understand. I don't know why the Alpha would come looking for me."

I said nothing.

I was thinking about Jeremy standing in that empty chamber. Screaming hello into the dark. Coming out with nothing.

Two people had been in that building last night.

One veiled. One not.

And I still didn't know what either of them wanted from this old woman.

The silence stretched between us.

"Can I ask you something." I said finally. My voice came out quieter than I intended. "How did you really know it was me. The skin mask. The hair. All of it changed."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then something softened in her face. Just slightly.

"That is all you changed." She said. "The skin. The hair." The corners of her eyes creased. "I come from a family of disguise artists. Skin mask makers. Identity changers. I have seen the best work in three packs and beyond." She tilted her head. "But child. Your structure. Your posture. The way you hold your shoulders when you are pretending not to be afraid." She paused. "And you smell like her. Like Seraphina. Like your mother. Down to the bone." Her voice dropped to something almost gentle. "None of that changes with a mask."

I pressed my lips together hard.

My eyes were burning.

I was not going to cry in front of this woman. I was not.

I looked down at my hands in my lap. Breathed through it. Slow. In. Out.

She waited. Patient. Like she had done this before. Like she knew how long it took for a person to hold something like that inside their body without breaking.

"You don't need to take the mask off." She said quietly. "Not yet. Not if you're not ready." She straightened up in her chair. Squared her small shoulders. "Just listen to me." Her eyes found mine and held them. Steady. Certain. "Because what I have to tell you is long overdue."

I looked at her.

At this small old woman who had hidden in river bushes for a dead girl she barely knew. Who had chased me across market paths and herb stalls and garden edges trying to give me something I kept running from.

Who had waited.

All this time.

Just waited.

I sat down.

"Tell me." I said.

And she began.