Chapter 51: Tell Him

Chapter 51: Tell Him
Olivia sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor.

She had been sitting there for ten minutes. Maybe longer. She had lost track of time somewhere between the garden and this room and she did not particularly want to find it again.

Her mother.

Alive.

She turned the words over the way you turned something fragile in your hands, carefully, from every angle, afraid of what would happen if you held it too tightly.

She had buried her mother three years ago. Not with a grave or a ceremony, there had been no body to bury, no time for ceremony, nothing but the chaos of that night and the understanding that came afterward when she counted who was gone and who was not. She had buried her in the way survivors buried people. Quietly. Inside. With a permanence that felt like the only honest response to something that could not be undone.

And now Reta had stood in the garden and said she was alive.

Injured but alive.

Being taken.

What are you going to do? Lisa asked.

"I do not know yet," Olivia replied.

You are trying again to carry everything alone.

"I am fine."

You are not fine.

"I know I am not fine," Olivia said. "I said I am fine. There is a difference."

Lisa was quiet for a moment.

Your mother is strong, she said finally.

Olivia pressed her hands flat on her knees and looked at them.

Something in her chest shifted slightly. Just slightly. Like a window opening a crack in a room that had been closed too long.

++++

The knock came ten minutes later.

"Liv?" Cassandra's voice came through the door. "Jean said you were supposed to write a list of what will be needed from the market for the Alpha twenty minutes ago. Are you–" a pause. "Can I come in?"

Olivia said nothing.

The door opened anyway because Cassandra had always treated silence as an invitation when it came to Olivia.

She stepped in. Took one look at Olivia sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands on her knees and her face unreadable.

Cassandra closed the door behind her.

She crossed the room and sat beside Olivia on the bed without a word.

They sat like that for a moment. Side by side. The room quiet around them.

Then gently Cassandra asked: "What happened?"

Olivia opened her mouth. Closed it.

"You do not have to–" Cassandra started.

"There was a woman," Olivia said. "One of the survivors who arrived last night. She found me in the garden this morning."

She told Cassandra everything Reta had said. All of it. She kept her voice steady and plain the way she kept it when things mattered most.

The room was completely quiet when she finished.

Cassandra grabbed both of Olivia's hands in hers and held them tightly.

After a long moment she said: "Do you believe her?"

"I do not know," Olivia said honestly. "I want to. I am afraid of how much I want to."

"That is not the same as not believing her," Cassandra said.

Olivia looked at her.

"Wanting something to be true does not make it false," Cassandra said simply. "She had no reason to lie. She came all this way to speak to the Alpha. She sought you out deliberately. She did not have to tell you anything." She squeezed Olivia's hands. "I think she was telling you the truth."

Olivia said nothing.

Her mother.

Alive.

Somewhere.

"What are you going to do?" Cassandra asked.

"I do not know yet," Olivia said.

Cassandra was quiet for a moment. Then she said, with the particular gentleness she reserved for things she knew Olivia was not going to want to hear:

"You have to tell Josh."

Olivia said nothing.

"Liv."

"I heard you."

"He is investigating the raids. He has survivors here. He has more information about what happened that night than anyone else in this palace." Cassandra held her gaze steadily. "If there is any chance of finding her, any chance at all, it starts with him. You know it does."

Olivia looked at her best friend.

She knew.

"He already knows about the raids," Olivia said quietly. "He already knows I was in one of the carts. I told him about the symbol. The H." She stopped. "If I tell him about my mother he might not hesitate to send his men to look for her. And it might be me creating more difficult work for him."

"That is why he is your Alpha," Cassandra said firmly.

Olivia thought about it honestly.

"I do not know what it will cost," she said.

Cassandra opened her mouth to respond.

Three knocks at the door.

Dan's knock. Measured and precise.

Both of them turned.

"Miss Olivia." His voice came through carefully. "The Alpha is asking for you in the study. He said now, if you are available."

Cassandra looked at Olivia.

Olivia looked at the door.

She stood up slowly. Smoothed her uniform. Pressed her hands together once.

"I will be right there," she called.

She looked at Cassandra for just a moment.

"Go," Cassandra said quietly. "I am here."

Olivia went to the door and opened it.

++++

Inside the study Josh was at the shelf running his finger along the spines of his books, searching for something. Several had already been pulled out and sat in a scattered pile on the table.

"Your majesty," Olivia said from the doorway. "You sent for me."

Without thinking she crossed to the table and began straightening the scattered books, arranging them the way she always did – largest to smallest, spines facing outward.

Josh turned from the shelf and watched her do it.

"Sit," he said, gesturing toward the chair across the desk.

Olivia sat, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight.

Josh came and sat across from her. He looked at her for a long moment the way he had been looking at her all morning, like he was waiting for her to say something she had not said yet.

"How are you really?" he asked.

Olivia held his gaze.

She thought about Cassandra's voice saying… you have to tell him.

She took a breath.

"Your majesty," she said quietly. "I need to tell you something."