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“She was terrified,” Ryan said. “That was true fear. I haven’t seen that in a long time. I don’t like it.”
Byron’s expression remained grim. “She lives in fear on a daily basis, so don’t judge her too harshly for having abandoned Margo to an orphanage. It might have been the only way to save her.”
“Her real father is dead,” Niall said as though he hadn’t heard Byron at all.
“You’re her real father,” I told him. “According to Margo, and that’s what matters.”
He tried to smile. “What goes on in that compound that left her so scared? Murder, I’m guessing, given her answers about her lover.”
“Do you believe her?” Ryan asked Byron. “About Margo, about the past. Can we trust her?”
“She said the truth as she knows it,” Byron said. “Of that, I’m sure. Whether what she knows is the real truth is another thing. She certainly gave the impression of being sure of her words, but she lives in some kind of cult. Am I supposed to go home and ignore that place?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “One thing at a time. Those people aren’t our problem.”
“But that woman might just be,” the alpha said.
“All that stuff about living in seclusion…” I couldn’t think straight. "Does she want us to hide Margo so the rest of the harbingers can’t find her or to stop her sensing death? How is Margo supposed to avoid death anyway? Death is everywhere.”
“Right now, our priority is Margo’s health,” Byron said. “Even if we go back empty-handed, we know that we must stop Margo from using her gift at all costs. If it’s as that woman told us, then a human body can’t contain death, not over and over again. With everything we’ve seen, that’s the one explanation that makes perfect sense.”
“She’s taking death,” Niall said slowly. “Killing herself to save others, and that woman calls her a monster.”
“She doesn’t know any better,” Byron said. “But we do. We must stick with the two-day deadline. We don’t want any more harbingers investigating us, or worse, following us back to Margo. Whether our new friend shows up or not, we need to leave this place as soon as we can.”
Stealing death, Margo’s birth mother had said. Was Margo stealing death? Had Perdita and the rest been doomed to die? I couldn’t accept that. Nathan’s grandfather’s spirit had told Margo she was a bridge between life and death. That didn’t mean she was stealing death, didn’t mean she was upsetting a balance, didn’t mean she was a monster.
There had to be more to it. There had to be a way for Margo to live without the fear of death hanging over. She would never silently sit back and watch someone die, and that was the danger. Margo wouldn’t put herself first. There had to be another way.
