It wasn't only his terror, he realized. It was the terror and awe of all those around him. He could hear it in their silence, see it in their absolute immobility. And he could feel it rolling in waves over him whenever he looked at the great golden dragon who stood in front of the multitude. Holding Tom's father.
Right.
There were moments, Tom had learned, when fear was the best thing. Fear of the street thug kept you from saying something that would have made him kill you. Fear of the poisonous snake kept you too far away from it to be bitten. And fear of some animals would make you stand absolutely still, so that their eyes, adapted to movement, couldn't see you.
And there were moments when fear had to be ignored. His fear was perfectly rational. He could sense the menace of the Great Sky Dragon and the fear that infected those around him, crowding the parking lot. He could feel it, and it made him struggle to draw breath. It made him have to fight his every instinct to be able to step forward into the crowd, which parted to allow him through.
His fear was the most natural thing in the world and it came from the fact that he did not wish to die. And it didn't take a genius to know that was the most likely outcome of this situation.
And yet . . . And yet, of course Tom didn't want to die. There had been enough ambiguity in the exchanges in the car that he thought he just might still have a chance with Kyrie. And who, thinking of Kyrie—particularly when she'd smiled at him—could want to die and not even try for something more with her?
But all of that was irrelevant, for the same reason that it was irrelevant whether or not Tom could or wanted to eat some human beings on occasion. It was irrelevant because if Tom did it and succeeded he wouldn't be able to live with himself afterward.
As he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he walked away now and let them kill his father. His father had walked into this at Tom's request. It was Tom's doing, and it was high time Tom dealt with his own mistakes.
He walked forward through the crowd, which parted for him, leaving him a wide aisle to walk through.
He could hear his friends walk behind him, but he didn't turn to look. That would only make what he needed to do harder to accomplish.
* * *
Edward wasn't really scared until Tom showed up. Before the Great Sky Dragon arrived, even, while Lung and his minions had kept him prisoner in the entrance area of the restaurant—where the TV blared endlessly about round-the-clock monster truck rallies—he'd realized what was going to happen and he was prepared to take it.
Funny how, just days ago, when the Great Sky Dragon had told him that he held him responsible for Tom's actions, Edward had bridled at the idea and tried to deny it. Now it seemed absolutely self-evident.
Tom was something that Edward had made. Not only by inadvertently passing on some long-forgotten gene that had caused the boy to turn into a dragon—no. Of that guilt he could have easily absolved himself, because . . . who can be sure of what he's passing on to his sons? And who can control what his children inherit?
But these days with the other shifters—getting acquainted with Kyrie and even the policeman—Edward had realized that he'd done something else, something drastically wrong with Tom. Because the other shifters weren't as troubled and hadn't gone through so much to get to a place of balance. And hadn't made mistakes nearly as bad as the ones Tom had achieved.
Which must mean that shifters weren't inherently unstable. Of course, Edward had tried to tell himself that Tom was inherently unstable; that there had been something wrong with the boy from the beginning. But he'd seen Tom at the diner—Tom holding down a job and establishing contact with other human beings all around him.
There was nothing wrong with Tom. If he'd gone around the bend, it had to be his father's doing.
And so, Edward was ready to pay for his crimes and for the fact that he had been a truly horrible father. So he'd been perfectly calm, in the Great Sky Dragon's grasp, while the dragon lifted him above the crowd. Even though he'd been held there, immobile, for half an hour, he didn't feel scared or upset.
He devoted his time to a vague dream that Tom would come back; would figure things out with Kyrie; that sometime in their future they would have children. Even if Edward would never get to see his grandchildren, he could imagine them vividly. And it was worth it to him to sacrifice himself for them.
And then the car stopped. And Tom showed up. The four of them—the four children, as Edward couldn't help thinking—walked through the massed triad crowd toward the Great Sky Dragon.
Tom was at the front, looking pale and drawn and absolutely determined.
"Tom, no," Edward shouted. "It's not worth it. Leave."