Chapter 191: The Anonymous Post
Lilith closed her eyes briefly.
"Mom is sick," she said. "She’s been in the hospital for about close to five months now."
"Oh no." Wren’s voice dropped. "Lilith....what happened? Is she okay? What’s wrong with her?"
"She’s stable now. She’s getting the right treatment." Lilith kept her voice even.
"I’m coming to visit," Wren said immediately. "Next week. Don’t argue with me, I’ve already decided. I want to see you and I want to see Aunt Cassandra and..."
"Wren...."
"I’m coming, Lilith. Ten years is too long. I should have come back sooner." A pause. "My mum’s mate has pack territory about four hours from the city and six hours from Shadowmare, so it’s not even far. I can be there by Friday."
Lilith opened her mouth to argue and then stopped.
Because the truth was...the thought of seeing Wren’s face. A real face. Someone who had known her before everything went wrong. Someone who had known her father, had sat at their kitchen table, had known what their family looked like when it was whole.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Friday."
She could almost hear Wren’s smile through the phone.
"Good. Friday. I’ll text the address to you when I’m...." She stopped.
"Lilith," Wren said. "There’s something else."
Lilith went still.
Something in Wren’s tone made the back of her neck prickle. She knew that tone. Even after ten years, she knew it...Wren had always sounded exactly like that when she had something to say that she didn’t want to say.
"What," Lilith said.
"There’s a rumour going around." Wren’s voice was careful now. Measured. "On the anonymous forums. Pack gossip boards, you know the ones." Wren took a deep breath. "Lilith, someone posted that Beta Thorne’s daughter was sent to The Blackwood brothers as payment for her father’s crime."
The room went cold.
Lilith didn’t speak.
"It’s anonymous," Wren said quickly. "The post doesn’t have your name directly, it just says Beta Thorne’s daughter. But people are talking and some of them are putting things together and...."
"Who posted it." Lilith’s voice came out flat.
"Nobody knows. Anonymous account, no history, posted three days ago." Wren paused. "I only saw it because someone in my pack shared it. It’s spreading, Lilith. Not everywhere yet but it’s moving."
Lilith stood up from the mattress.
She walked to the window without knowing she was doing it. Stood there looking out at the estate ground below, and felt the world she’d been carefully rebuilding over the last week start to crack underneath her.
Confidential. The contract had said confidential. She had read that word specificall when Alpha Garrette told her about the blood debt contract, had used it as one of the reasons she’d been able to tell herself that what she’d done would stay contained. That her father’s name would stay clean.
Someone had broken that.
Someone had taken the one wall she’d built between what she’d done in order to pay for her father’s debt and they’d put a hole in it.
"Lilith." Wren’s voice was gentle. "Are you still there?"
"I’m here."
"You don’t have to talk about it. Not now, not on the phone." Wren’s voice was steady and warm and exactly the same as it had been when they were twelve years old and Lilith had come to school crying and Wren had pulled her into a bathroom stall and said talk to me, I’ve got you. "I’ll come Friday and we’ll sit together and you can tell me as much or as little as you want. Okay?"
Lilith pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the window.
"They’re going to drag his name through it," she said. Quietly. Not to Wren exactly. Just.....out loud.
"They’re going to talk about him. Use his name next to...." She stopped. "He spent his whole life building a good reputation before they accused him of...." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "He can’t even defend himself now, he can’t..."
"Hey." Wren’s voice was firm now. "Listen to me. Whatever you did, you did it for your father. Anyone who actually knew your dad would know that." A pause. "And anyone who wants to use this to drag his name is not worth your time or your grief. Do you hear me?"
Lilith didn’t answer.
Because the thing about Wren’s logic was that it was completely correct and completely useless at the same time. She knew her father would understand. She’d done it to pay off the blood debt they placed on his dead body, But knowing it and feeling it were two entirely different things, and right now what she felt was sick.
Sick and cold and furious at whoever had decided that this information was theirs to share.
"Lilith," Wren said softly.
"I hear you," Lilith said. "I hear you."
"Friday," Wren said. "I’ll be there Friday. We’ll figure it out together. You’re not dealing with this alone anymore, okay? Those days are done."
Lilith closed her eyes.
Ten years. Ten years since she’d seen this girl and she was standing on the phone in her cozy room at the Blackwood estate at seven in the morning promising that the alone days were done.
"Okay," Lilith said. Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to.
"Okay," Wren echoed. Warm. Certain. "I’ll text you. Get some sleep."
"I was asleep."
"Good. Go back to sleep then. I’ll see you Friday."
Then the call ended.
Lilith stood at the window for a long time after that.
Her father’s face moved through her mind.
"Who told them."
That was the question. The contract was supposed to be confidential, that was the arrangement.
Someone inside that estate had broken it. Or.....
She stopped herself.
It didn’t matter right now how. It was done. The post existed. People were reading it and talking and putting the pieces together and there was nothing she could do about it, other than to figure out how to solve the problem.
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