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.”