Mara squared up to him, vibrating with anger and aggression. The others all stepped back, but Victor held his ground, if a little uncertainly. “If you touch him, even look at him, I will rip you apart. I won’t hold back anymore.”
“Bloody hell.” He turned his back on her. “She’s as crazy as Alex.”
I had to move fast to hold back Mara. She screamed profanities at him in several languages as the others urged Victor away. She hit me, lashing out over and over again, and I took it until she calmed down. Finally, her anger wore down into grief, and she pressed her face against my chest, but she refused to cry.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Victor’s not worth it,” I said.
She shrugged me off. “We should get to school. I have homework to finish.”
“Wanna copy mine?”
She looked up at me, her chin trembling. “You’re the only one I trust now, Dorian. Now that Alex is gone. If they send you away, I’m going with you, okay? I’ll protect you from now on.”
“Mara.” My voice cracked. She was as desperate to stay as anyone. She couldn’t leave for me.
“It’s me and you now.” She sounded so determined that I couldn’t argue with her. But I hugged her first, and this time, she let me.
* * *
Later,at lunch, Mara wasn’t in the canteen.
“Where’s Mara?” I asked the others.
“Probably needed to run during classes,” Victor said. “She’s in a bitch of a mood today.”
“She shouldn’t be running off,” I said under my breath. “There’s a killer out there.”
“They won’t get lucky twice,” Victor said which just kicked off a shitstorm of werewolf posturing at the table. I left them to it. I’d never match up. And I was starting to think I’d never want to.
I headed outside and noticed Margo sitting alone on the steps in front of the school. Cursing myself, because I should have kept far away from that girl, I headed over to her. She looked exhausted. Dark bags hung under her red-tinged eyes.
I should have interrogated her, but what came out of my mouth was, “Are you okay?”
“Peachy.” She frowned at the ghost of a bruise on my cheekbone left by Mara. “What happened to you? Was it Victor?”
“It’s nothing.” I took a step closer to her. The chill was gone, or rather it was mightily subdued. She jumped with fright, an odd overreaction, and knocked her bag over. A capsule of pills rolled down the steps and away from her. I chased them down and picked them up.
“What are these for?” I asked, handing them back to her.
She blushed furiously. “Me.”
“Are you sick or something?”
“I just… I sleepwalk sometimes. These help me sleep deeply enough to avoid that.”
“You don’t look like you’re getting a lot of deep sleep, Margo.”
She slipped the pills into her bag. “Just started them. Takes a few days to kick in properly.”
She walked away. I stared after her. Margo was a sleepwalker. That was why her scent had been in the woods, why I had seen her that night. She wasn’t a part of what was happening, after all. One less thing to worry about.
So why didn’t I feel any better?
* * *
Mara wasn’toutside after school with the rest of the wolves. Nobody had seen her since that morning. A dark worry clung to me, so I hurried home, found Ryan and told him what I knew.