Page 147 of Wicked Promises

Telling her daughter to escape this house, maybe?

“Take your broken wings and learn to fly.” The line Margo was later repeating to herself in the yard.

She looked at me and asked why her wings were broken, and I hated to say it was because of us. What Amber and I were doing to our families.

What I had already done.

What did I say? Something like, “You’re a pretty little bird, Margo. Our wings let us fly, but they’re also fragile. Protect your wings.”

She seemed to like that.

I shake my head. “Shewasscheming.”

“Pretty little bird,” Margo says. “From Lydia. From my mother.”

“Claire read it. The whole thing, probably. Whatever happened between our parents… I don’t think it was your dad’s fault. Or yours.”

“You’re right.”

I meet her eyes. “I… am?”

She sighs, tipping her head back. “Yeah. Let me tell you what really happened.”

Chapter 37

Margo

Past

Ifidgeted by the sink. Dad was at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper, but he kept glancing at me. It was rare that he wasn’t working in the middle of the afternoon. Nice, too. I crept back home. The door to Mr. Asher’s office was closed when I passed it, and Mom’s car was gone.

“You seem off, kiddo,” Dad said. “Everything okay?”

After Mom left me in Caleb’s room, Mr. Asher had rounded on me and demanded to know what I saw. I tentatively told him all of it.

And Caleb hadn’t been surprised. That was the worst part. He had a dead look in his eye while I spoke, and after…

He had come alive, grabbing my shoulders the same way Mom had.Please don’t say anything. It’ll ruin everything.

I shook my head, and then I remembered Mom’s plea.

“All good,” I managed.

He set down the paper and twisted toward me. “The truth, now?”

The gate opening drew my attention. Mom nudged it closed with her foot, her arms full of brown paper bags. Any minute now, she was going to walk in and see my expression.

The look that was one hundred percent guilt.

Dad saw it. A flash of fear.

“You saw them?” he asked in a low voice.

I jerked toward him. “I d-didn’t mean to.”

Mom came in and stopped short. Her gaze went from my face to Dad’s. “Margo, what did you do?”

Dad stood. “Amber.”