“I have eyes, don’t I?And it’s not just me—”
Jace sighed.
“What?”Lee snapped.
“You’re doing it.The same thing I did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ran away, said it was because I’m a screw up, but that wasn’t it.I mean, Iama screw up, but that isn’t why I left.”
“Why did you leave?”Andy asked.“You never said.”
Jace sighed again.“I was afraid.I already lost one pack, kicked out for not being strong enough, and now I have another, but...”
“You think you’re gonna get kicked out again, so you kick yourself out first?Make it make sense!”
“It doesn’t make sense.Fear doesn’t always make sense.But it’s like...it was easier to leave ‘cause I told myself I wanted to, than to have Cyrus tell me I’m not up to it.Or have Lia keep me around just ‘cause she felt sorry for me, after what happened to Jayden.I couldn’t take that, okay?I didn’t want to be a burden.So I left.”
“That’s stupid!”Andy said angrily.
“And has nothing to do with me,” Lee pointed out.
“It has everything to do with you,” Jace shot back.“You’re just like me, scared out of your mind—”
“Speak for yourself—”
“I can smell it on you.And I get it.It’s easier to make up some bullshit excuse to let you leave, than to stay and fail again.‘They don’t trust me—’”
“That’s not what this is!”
But it was.I could smell it on him, too, bright and burning: longing, anger, pride,fear.Fear that he wasn’t good enough, that he never would be.That his old clan had been right and he was worth nothing, just garbage to be kicked out into the street.
“And now there’s all these others,” Jace said.“First Lia’s students and now the othervargulfs, hundreds of them, and you think they’re gonna bring down Fireborn, have it be known as the trash clan—”
“And isn’t it?”Lee snarled.“We had a real chance for the first time, maybe theonlytime, and what the hell is happening?Do you even know how many are in Fireborn anymore?And half of them are toothless old weirdos, not fighters—”
“They’re not weirdos—”
“One of them kept pushing his dentures out at me!Like those things from Alien with two mouths!”
“Heh.”
“It’s not funny!They’re going to ruin this for us, and then we’ll be back on the street—or worse!And I can’t Change anymore—”
“YouareChanged—”
“Not into a Relic!Not unless I’m with Lia, and she doesn’t want me!And without that, what the hell do I have?What do any of us have?”
He slumped against the wall, and the boys crowded around, their scents radiating concern.But it was Andy who finally spoke.“You want to be a monster?”
“I want to be able to protect my clan!”
“I’m not a Relic, and I fought the other night,” Andy said.“I fought damned hard.I still have the scars—”
“Yeah, but to be fair, we fought humans,” Jace reminded him.
“Well, somebody had to!”
