The Set Up

Thirty-Six

Scarlett's POV

Her voice trembled with emotion as she spoke. I could only nod in response, unable to find my voice. A sob escaped her lips before she pulled me into her embrace. With my face pressed against her chest and my hands clutching her body, I cried into the fabric of her shirt. Her hand gently stroked the back of my head. Her repeated murmurs of "thank you, God" soothed me as my tears turned into hiccups. When I finally calmed down, Xander spoke up.

"Why don't we go somewhere with a bit more privacy?" he suggested. I pulled away, suddenly aware of the spectacle we'd made, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

"Follow me," my mother murmured, leading us toward their pack house. She guided us into a small sitting room.  My mother settled next to me on a loveseat while Xander took a seat across from us.

"What's...what's your name?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Scarlett," I whispered, still processing the reality of meeting both my biological parents in the last 24 hours and the shock of discovering I was technically royalty. The latter wasn't something I intended to share with people. 

"Such a beautiful name. It suits you. I always knew you'd be pretty, but for the first time in my life something has surpassed my imagination." She grasped my hands gently, and for the first time in a long time, I found myself liking the name I'd once resented. The part of me that Eric had beaten down, which had come to hate the name because of its association with him, began to heal.

"Who named you?" she asked.

"Elder Adelia. It was because of the blanket you had me wrapped up in when you...uhm, dropped me off," I mumbled. Her cheek pinched inward, as if she was biting it.

"That was my baby blanket from when I was a child. I snuck back into my parents' place a couple of weeks before I gave birth. I wanted you to have something from me, even if I couldn't be with you for long," she explained. It made me sick to my stomach that I had no memory of the blanket.

"It...it must have been lost with all my moves. I don't remember it; I've only heard about it from Elder Adelia," I said, sadness in my voice.

"I've missed so much since then," she said, glancing between Xander and my round belly. A sad smile tugged at my lips. She had no idea.

"I'm sorry it took us almost twenty-one and a half years to find each other. I started searching a few years after you were born. I thought it was safe by then. There were circumstances that forced me to give you away—" she began, but I couldn't bear the look of helplessness in her eyes.

"I know what my father did to you. I know how he threatened you," I interrupted. Her shocked expression might have been comical if the situation weren't so serious.

"H-how do you..?"

"How do you think I found you? Xander had to meet with him. It's a long story, but he came clean to me. He's known your location since shortly after I was born," I revealed. Her face went pale, as if she might faint any second.

"Oh God," she rasped, pressing a worried hand to her forehead. "I'm glad my search efforts were fruitless, then. But I did try, Scarlett. I've thought about you every single day of your life!" she insisted. "I didn't have many resources and had to be discreet. Every time I thought I found a lead, it ended in nothing. But I always had a piece of you with me." She undid the clasp of the gold locket hanging around her neck and placed it in my hand. I stared at it, unsure of what I was seeing.

"I gave birth to you alone in a motel bathtub not far from The Council's grounds. I spent a few hours with you. At that moment, life felt perfect. I couldn't bear to let you go. When it got dark, I knew my time with you was ending, so I took a stamp pad from the front desk and made handprints of your tiny hands and feet. This one is from your little pointer finger that you kept reaching up to poke me in the eye," she said, her voice choked with emotion as tears slid down her cheeks. I couldn't hold back my own if I even wanted to.