Chapter 103 - Break The News (1/2)

”You joined them too?” Amelia's voice was shaky. She touched her neck, massaging it in circles to relieve it from the lump that seemed to never go away.

She looked at Olivia and couldn't believe that her daughter followed in her footsteps. A sense of pride coursed through Amelia but quickly vanished upon seeing Olivia's blank eyes staring at her.

Unnerved by it, she looked away, in denial of the fact that every time she looked at Olivia's pool of hazel, who she saw instead was Henry Lin.

”They found me, yes. But it was my decision to join them. Nobody forced me or anything. If that's what you're worried about,” Olivia flatly stated. Waving her little recorder, Olivia urged her mother to speak.

”Oh, your question. Right. Hmmm, that night, I was on my way home after meeting with the king and it was raining. I just saw a bright light flashing ahead of us and then there was this hot, consuming fire. I blacked out and when I woke up, it was more than a year after the accident.”

The entire time Amelia was speaking, Olivia was sneaking glances at her and noticed that the former's fingers were shaking nonstop. In her thoughts, Olivia thought of what might cause such tremors. Was it the drugs in her mother's system or the memory of that night was still haunting her mother?

Soon enough, Olivia was snapped out from her trance when she heard her mother call out her name.

”Olivia,” Amelia almost whispered her name.  ”The… the evidence… Sebastian has it. If you're looking for that, the royal family has it for sure.”

”That's good to hear.” Olivia pressed the red button again and stopped the recording.

That's all she needed to send as proof to free her mother from an interrogation from the Pyxis. The truth was, she was hesitant to do it, but the last thing she wanted to see would be a group of hyenas circling a disoriented Amelia. After all, her mother used to be a candidate as headmistress, had not the accident happened.

”Do you really wish to go back to the Lin Estate?” Olivia asked, her head bowed down. She didn't want to see the truth in her mother's eyes, but she had to confirm everything so she could move on herself.

Olivia dramatically scoffed. ”Ha! He locked you up for twenty-plus years and when you're finally freed, you wanted to run back to him. I don't get it. It's like you're pulling tricks on me. On us.”

”He did it for me. I had no sense of time when I woke up. I was confused and depressed over your… death, which isn't the case now that I can see you happy and healthy.” Amelia defended Henry that Olivia had to take a sharp breath, filling her entire body with enough air so she won't get dizzy with her mother's reasoning.

She scanned her mother's face but saw nothing but a woman who was left an empty shell after years of captivity and drug abuse.

Olivia choked. She tried to hold the tears in her eyes but it fell on its accord, streaming down her face like a waterfall. And even with the tears clouding her vision, she could see clearly that the woman before her was no longer the Amelia Lin that people knew and talked about.