Her lids lowered, narrowing her protruding eyes. “Do you have something to say?”
I swallowed. “I was wondering…” I only had the same question I’d been unable to answer for myself. “Why? Why couldn’t you let me be dead, like the rest of them? Why were you so determined to hunt me down? I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted… to go my own way.”
She leaped up onto her toes, shoving her face toward mine. Someone moved behind me, but I couldn’t hear more than that—she was shouting in my face.
“Because I was right!” she shrieked. “More than right! Look at them all! A vile nest of killers, lurking in wait! Just like I thought, only so much worse! I knew you were out here with them! One of them! I told them there was danger! I told them!”
She stopped, panting, and took a step back from me, staring over my shoulder. I didn’t look away to see what had made her retreat. I assumed it had something to do with what Jeb had just told me—once the guns come up, she backs right down. I analyzed her expression for a moment as her heavy breathing slowed.
“But they didn’t listen to you. So you came for us alone.”
The Seeker didn’t answer. She took another step back from me, doubt twisting her expression. She looked oddly vulnerable for a second, as if my words had stripped away the shield she’d been hiding behind.
“They’ll look for you, but in the end, they never believed you at all, did they?” I said, watching as each word was confirmed in her desperate eyes. It made me very sure. “So they won’t take the search further than that. When they don’t find you, their interest will fade. We’ll be careful, as usual. They won’t find us.”
Now I could see true fear in her eyes for the first time. The terrible—to her—knowledge that I was right. And I felt better for my nest of humans, my little family. I was right. They would be safe. Yet, incongruously, I didn’t feel any better for myself.
I had no more questions for the Seeker. When I walked away, she would die. Would they wait until I was far enough not to hear the shot? Was there anywhere in the caves that was far enough for that?
I stared at her angry, fearful face, and I knew how deeply I hated her. How much I never wanted to see that face again for the rest of my lives.
The hate that made it impossible for me to allow her to die.
“I don’t know how to save you,” I whispered, too low for the humans to hear. Why did that sound like a lie in my ears? “I can’t think of a way.”
“Why would you want to? You’re one of them!” But a spasm of hope sparked in her eyes. Jeb was right. All the bluster, all the threats… She wanted very much to stay alive.
I nodded at her accusation, a little absently because I was thinking hard and fast. “But still me,” I murmured. “I don’t want… I don’t want…”
How to finish that sentence? I didn’t want… the Seeker to die? No. That wasn’t true.
I didn’t want… to hate the Seeker? To hate her so much that I wanted her to die. To have her die while I hated her. Almost as if she died because of my hate.
If I truly did not want her death, would I be able to think of a way to save her? Was it my hate that was blocking an answer? Would I be responsible if she died?
Are you insane? Melanie protested.
She’d killed my friend, shot him dead in the desert, broken Lily’s heart. She’d put my family in danger. As long as she lived, she was a danger to them. To Ian, to Jamie, to Jared. She would do everything in her power to see them all dead.
That’s more like it. Melanie approved of this train of thought.
But if she dies, and I could have saved her if I’d wanted to… who am I then?
You have to be practical, Wanda. This is a war. Whose side are you on?
You know the answer to that.
I do. And that’s who you are, Wanda.
But… but what if I could do both? What if I could save her life and keep everyone here safe at the same time?
A heavy wave of nausea rolled in my stomach as I saw the answer I’d been trying to believe didn’t exist.
The only wall I’d ever built between Melanie and me crumbled to dust.
No! Mel gasped. And then screamed, NO!
The answer I must have known I would find. The answer that explained my strange premonition.
Because I could save the Seeker. Of course I could. But it would cost me. A trade. What had Kyle said? A life for a life.
The Seeker stared at me, her dark eyes full of venom.
CHAPTER 50
Sacrificed
The Seeker scrutinized my face while Mel and I fought.
No, Wanda, no!
Don’t be stupid, Mel. You of all people should see the potential of this choice. Isn’t this what you want?