“Iamhelping,” Kai said.“You have been hurt.Badly hurt.By people who should have been protecting you.And now I’m helping you.What they’ve told you—”
The girl with the shaved head rushed him.
In one smooth movement, Kai clubbed her with the handle of the knife.She put out a hand like she was steadying herself, and it turned into a fall.
“Vyxyn!”Daniel shouted.
The boy started to move, but Kai spun around and warded him off with the knife.Daniel’s eyes were wet, and his lips were parted as he tried to breathe.Some of that was the smoke, Tean recognized.He was only distantly aware of the heat at his back, but already his throat felt scraped raw by the smoke.
“It’s not going to happen,” Tean said.
Kai turned to face him.The knife burned with reflected fire.
“The transformation,” Tean said.“Whatever you think is going to change.You won’t become a skinwalker.You won’t be turned into a wolf.Whatever you think, it’s not going to happen.”Behind the mask, Kai stared at him.“You won’t be straight,” Tean said gently.“That’s not how it works.”
Air whistled as it was sucked into the growing blaze.
And then Kai laughed.“I alreadyhavechanged.I have become more.Do you see what I am?Do you see what I’ve become?”
Tean took a sideways step.
Kai turned with him, following him with the knife.
“I see someone who had a horrible childhood,” Tean said.“I see someone who was abused and neglected.I see someone who is deeply divided about who he is.Ashamed of who he is, and yet unable to be free of it.”
“Ashamed?Ashamed?” The words rose in volume, their pitch twisting.“I have walked through fire!I am free!”
“I think you wish you were free,” Tean said.“I think you’ve wanted to be free your whole life.And instead, you’ve chosen to hide behind masks.Because you were afraid of what it might mean, to be free.To have to make a choice.And it was easier to be someone else, someone who didn’t have to choose.”
Kai rasped a cough.His eyes cut back and forth as though he were trying to read something on Tean’s face.
“You felt free when you dressed up as Lupita Bonita.”When Kai didn’t say anything, Tean asked, “Didn’t you?”
Labored breathing answered him from under the mask.
“And you felt free when you put on the wolf’s mask.A different kind of freedom.Two very different disguises.Two very different versions of who you wanted to be.”
“I don’twantanything.I am as the right hand of God.I am the wolf separating the sick from the whole.”
“Tess knew.She had known you long enough.She knew you had tried drag.That’s why she had to die, isn’t it?And you were afraid River would find them too, so then she had to die as well?You told yourself that they were going to ruin everything.You’d worked so hard to embed yourself at Rainbow House.You were so close to Daniel now.You could take him whenever you wanted.That was the whole problem, wasn’t it?You could have him.And you didn’t know what you wanted to do with him.”
“What?”Daniel said.He wiped his hands on his skirt.“Tean, we have to get out of here—”
“I know,” Tean said without looking at the boy.“I know, Daniel.Hold on.”Then, to Kai, he said, “You didn’t know what you wanted, did you?”
The mask hid everything.But Tean could sense the struggle before Kai growled, “I wanted to help him.I wanted to make him pure.Like me.”
“Tean!”Daniel was holding out a hand like he wanted to grab Tean’s sleeve.“We’ve got to go!”
The flames were higher now, and the heat scorched Tean’s back and side.He’d stopped sweating, or the fire was hot enough to lick it away now—neither possibility was good—and red-gold light danced along Kai’s blade.
The fire.Or the knife.
Keep Kai talking.Buy them all another minute.Maybe two.If Kai’s hostages had been adults, Tean might have been tempted to rush the wolfman.He had a knife, yes.But he would have been only one man against many.With teenagers, though, it was out of the question.And a part of Tean suspected that even with adults, the scenario wouldn’t have worked as he hoped.People—ordinary people—wanted to play by the rules.They wanted to survive.Jem had taught him that.And so they went along, even if it was only one man with a knife.
“You weren’t made pure,” Tean said.“You weren’t changed.You’re still the same Kai Butler who hung a poster of a rodeo star over his bed.”
For a moment, Kai’s body slackened.And then every muscle drew tight, and the knife came up.
