Nothing but the maze of those wild eyes.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?You want to get rid of people like me.And you want to protect kids.Help them.Keep them safe.”Empty eyes.Hollow eyes.“You don’t want to hurt them.Let them go.I’m right here.I’m the one you want.People like me.”
“I am the wolf at the door,” Kai said.He made that strange howling again, the sound almost buried in his throat.“I am sent to purify the land.”
“They’re children.”
“Tean?”Daniel shouted from inside the room.“Tean, we’re in here!”
“They’re frightened,” Tean said quietly.“And they want to go home.Let them go home, Kai.Please.”
“I am like the right hand of God,” Kai said, “who dwells in everlasting burnings.”
His hand came up from his side, and now Tean saw what he held in his clenched fist: a lighter.
“No,” Tean said.But his voice was sharper than he meant it to be.“Kai, don’t!”
“I have walked in fire and been cleansed.”He rolled a spark.The flame danced yellow, the size of Tean’s pinky nail.
“Stop—”
But Kai dropped the lighter.
And the world turned to flame.
35
Jem felt a rib break.The pain was like a white spike, and then it was just another hot point under all the adrenaline.
He rolled away—tried to roll away—but Zeb came after him, grappling with him, refusing to let go.Zeb was bigger.Zeb was stronger.He smashed a closed fist into the side of Jem’s head, and only the fact that Jem was already moving away from the blow kept it from knocking him out cold.Colors flashed in his eyes.And then dark, like all the light had drained out of the room.But Jem held on, not letting himself slide under, flailing and twisting and feeling that hot needle digging into his side.
And then—miracle—his elbow made contact, and Zeb grunted, and for a moment, Jem was free.
He scrambled away, tipped over a table, put it between them.He was on his hands and knees, hacking, trying to breathe.The pain wasn’t bad.The pain was all in his head.
Somehow, he got up.He’d lost the antenna.The paracord hung from his wrist.
Zeb was on his feet too.A trickle of blood ran down the front of his mask, and Jem felt a flicker of grim satisfaction.Tean had done that.The wolfman started toward Jem again.Somehow, he still had the knife.
Jem backpedaled.He put more tables between them.Kicked over chairs.Zeb kept coming.The wolfman’s eyes never left Jem’s.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”Jem asked as he swiped one of the centerpieces to the floor.“Seeing him with his dick taped up, the wig, all that makeup.”
Zeb didn’t say anything.He kicked a fallen centerpiece, and plastic cracked.He kept coming.
“Doesn’t bother you, huh.”Jem slid around another table.If he could get to the door.If he could get outside.Then what?Nothing.Blackness.God, the right side of his body felt hot.“Makes sense.He’s all up inside you, isn’t he?”
The change in Zeb’s body was small—his pace slowing by half a second, his upper body tightening with new tension.
Somehow, Jem laughed.“Holy shit.He is, isn’t he?What’s he say?This is what friends do?You’ll like it, trust me?Just the tip?”
Zeb stopped.He rolled his head; vertebrae cracked.And then he said, “This time, I’m going to kill you.”
“You know what?I don’t blame you.See, you’re fucked up.Rydel fucked you up.And then Kai fucked you up some more.”Jem knocked over one of the background stands that was supposed to look like a window, and it crashed down between two of the tables.Zeb stomped on it, shattering the delicate woodwork, and then knocked the pieces aside.Behind Jem, the mask-making station marked the end of the line: he’d run out of room.“It’s nothing to feel bad about,” Jem said.“Hey, I’m fucked up too.”
“I’m going to cut your tongue out,” Zeb said.“And then your eyes.And I’m going to make you eat them.And then I’ll take your face off in strips.”
From upstairs came a whooshing sound.For a moment, it seemed like that might be all.And then flames came rushing down the hallway, following the trail of spilled paint thinner.Even from across the room, the heat pressed against Jem, and he caught the first hint of smoke in the air.
