Chapter 26 - Olivia

I can't believe I said that to him.

More than that, I can't believe he didn't say it back. Of course, he was saved by the knocking on the door, but I could see from the look on his face that those words paralyzed him. After everything—after the memory sharing and the conversations, he still can't tell me he loves me?

What if he doesn't?

We scramble to get dressed, things left unsaid hanging between us as Byron drives us to the pack center. When we get there, Ado, Bigby, and Rafael are just barely managing to hold onto Percy, who's pacing back and forth, his hands in his hair, his eyes flashing around, a crazed look on his face.

I'd feel crazy, too, if my pregnant wife had gone missing.

"What are we going standing around ?" Percy cries. "We need to go find her !"

"Veronica is my first priority," Aris says, coming down the stairs two at a time. "But that's why we need to be careful about this. Percy, going on your own could be even more dangerous for the two of you. This could be a trap. Olivia, Byron—can you do work on the road?"

"Of course," we say in unison, me lifting my tablet, and him patting his laptop bag.

"Are we still going ahead with the Chicago mission?" Rafael asks, and Ado just manages to stop Percy when he lunges for him.

" Fuck you !" Percy screams, and I blink, realizing some of his veins have started to glow ethereally silver. Rosa said he was like that when he emerged during the battle with Amon's pack.

"Hey, man, calm down," Bigby says, trying to put a hand on his shoulder, but Percy shoves him off.

"If it was Rosa, would you be calm ?" he asks, practically spitting, and Bigby takes a breath, nodding.

"No," he admits.

"Let's go," I say to Percy, and when his eyes meet mine, I see them calm the slightest bit, and it dawns on me: Percy is more than my best friend. He's like my brother. "Good?" I say, looking back to Aris, and he pulls Olivia aside, handing her something and saying something briskly.

"Have Bigby drive," Aris says, looking between Olivia and me, "I have something for you to work on. Rafael, you and I will see if we can salvage the Chicago operation."

"Got it," he says, and I see Percy's eyes slide to him, scathing with anger.

The four of us run out to the parking lot, and when I toss Bigby my keys, he raises his eyebrow at me.

"It hasn't snowed yet," I say, "and my car is faster."

"No, I know," he says, as he slides the seat all the way back and squeezes himself in. "I'm just surprised you're letting me drive it."

Percy sits in the passenger's seat, directing Bigby in the direction that his mating bond pulls him. Breaking the awkward silence between us, Byron leans over, tapping what looks like a disjointed internal hard drive on my tablet.

"Aris said they found this outside Percy's apartment," he says, quietly, "they think whoever took her had a laptop, and while she was fighting back against them, she did this ."

He holds it up.

"Wow," I say, shaking my head. "She's fucking strong."

"Yeah," he says, nodding, "Aris wants us to get in here and see what we can find."

With that, he sets to work hooking the hard drive to his computer and attempting to access the files. He sends a copy of the encryption code to me and I get to work, trying to ignore how the speeding car makes me sick as I stare down at my tablet.

"I thought they were after Olivia," Percy mutters, his hand gripping the handle above his head tightly. "I just—why switch so suddenly? To Veronica? I'm just worried about the baby."

Lifting my head from the tablet, I stare at the back of Percy's head.

"What?" Byron asks, leaning over, and it clicks—why the vampires wanted me. Why they were coming after me so adamantly?

"The baby," I murmur, "Veronica's showing, now."

"Yeah," Percy says, twisting in his seat to look at me. "She is."

"But not before," I say, eyes watering as I look down at the tablet again, the numbers and letters blurring. "Not when the three of us were going on missions together—Bernice said we look the same. She said she would have thought we were sisters. With the brown wig, I looked like Veronica." A feeling of horror rolls over me as I look up at Percy, meeting his eyes. "I even borrowed her perfume in Minneapolis."

He stares back at me, processing this information.

"They know she's pregnant," he says, finally, "and they thought you were her , which is why they were going after you. Then she started showing."

"And now it's obvious that she's the pregnant one," I say, talking through the knot in my throat, "not me."

I can feel Byron looking at me, but I can't bear the thought of returning it. Of course, I'm not the pregnant one. Even though Veronica is going through all this because of her pregnancy, I can't help the jealousy that fills my mouth like battery acid.

"Where to, man?" Bigby asks, his hands flexing on the steering wheel. "We have to choose an exit."

I look up through the windshield. One leads west, toward Leech Lake, the other east, toward Duluth and Lake Superior. Percy falters for a moment, panic crossing over his face.

"Shit," he says, "I—I think west?"

"It's the water," Bigby murmurs, "like losing her scent, the mental connection gets weaker."

Percy's face goes white, but Bigby takes the exit toward Leech Lake, reaching over and patting him on the shoulder.

"Your intuition is probably right, buddy," he says, then, into the backseat, "you guys got anything for us?"

I blink, realizing that I haven't been looking at the code this entire time, while Byron has been hard at work, tapping on his keys. I nod, take a breath, and return to the code in front of me, heart racing.

Veronica is on water. But that could be Lake Superior, or Lake Leech. Hopefully, it's Leech—if it's Superior, it's going to be a lot more challenging to find her.

"There's a weakness," Byron says, biting his lip, and then tapping on my screen. "Focus here. I know you can do it faster than me if you focus."

He knows exactly how to motivate me. I zone in on my tablet, letting everything else fall away. Forgetting about Veronica, and how we look the same, about how she's pregnant, about Percy's worry, about how Bigby is driving this car like he's trying to qualify for the Indy 500.

After a moment, there's just me and the code. I work systematically, focusing on the area Byron indicated, breaking through wall after wall. I exploit the weaknesses, dig at the holes, unravel the webs of encryption.

And then the files are open in front of me.

"I did it!" I say, a little too loud, which makes the other people in the car jump. Byron grins over at me, and we quickly break through on his laptop using the information I have on my tablet.

"There's so much information here," Byron says. I'm scrolling through pages and pages of documents, so much stuff I don't have time to begin to understand. I filter my search, tapping frantically. I find a bill of sale for a boat, identify the marina, and find information about a security system on the boat.

"I have the location," I say, breathlessly, looking up and meeting Bigby's eyes in the mirror. "I have the location!"

"Alright, great," he says, his loud, rumbling laugh filling the car. "Care to share?"

"Oh, right," I say, hands shaking as I lean forward and hand my tablet to Percy.

"Lake Leech," he says, sounding like there's something in his throat.

"Right," Bigby says, "that intuition, man."

"Guys," Byron says beside me, and I realize he's been looking through the information on the hard drive this entire time. "I think this is worse than we thought. I'm sending these files over to Aris—but if they're in Chicago right now, they might be in trouble."

"Send them to everyone," I say, breathlessly, "not just Aris. Rosa is home, right? And Ado. Have them start on the files so they can inform Aris, Rafael, and Triste if they're in trouble. That way, we can focus on this and they can get a head start on reading through this stuff."

"Good idea," Byron mutters, and I watch as he sends the file out to everyone, just like I suggested. It might be the first time he's ever agreed with me when we've been working on something like this.

"What?" he asks, when I'm still looking at him. Bigby pulls off the paved road, and Byron's car skids around on the gravel as we near the lake. "Oh, you want to look? This is a—"

His not saying he loves me back is still hanging around us, like a film over my eyes, but it doesn't matter. I lean over, grab his face, and kissing him. Whatever happens when we get to Veronica, I want to know that I kissed him. That, in our last moments, he was smiling at me.

"Liv," he says, breathless, "I—"

"Let's go!" Percy says as the Firebird comes to a halt, practically doing a rolling jump from the car.

"Shit," Byron says, his eyes flicking to mine before he undoes his seatbelt and puts his hand on the handle.