Chapter 162: Why should I be the one hiding

She had not seen anything. But she had been standing right there, and she was not stupid.

"Adam," she said. Her voice was almost too quiet to hear. "What did you do?"

He held her gaze.

For days he had been walking into her house and laughing at her stories.

He had listened to her talk about her grandmother and her books and the quiet life she lived, and he had told her nothing true.

He had let her believe in a man who did not exist, because it had been easy, and because she had made him feel for an hour or two that he could be someone else.

Now that lie had put a monster’s hand at her throat.

"I am sorry, Iris," he said quietly.

"For what?"

He did not answer. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he let the Mask go.

It did not hurt. It felt like setting down a heavy bag that he had carried for so long that he had forgotten its weight.

The soft magic that had held his features in a stranger’s shape loosened its grip, and the face of the man called Adam began to slide away.

His jaw shifted. His brows sharpened. The mild, forgettable lines of his cheeks melted into something harder and more familiar, and his eyes settled into their true color.

His hair darkened and fell into its old shape. In the space of three breaths, a stranger on a quiet street became the boy whose face had been shown on every screen in the country.

Someone behind him dropped a cup.

"That’s him," a man whispered.

"It’s the Allistar boy."

"I know that face. They showed it on every broadcast."

"Leon Allistar?! The killer?"

The whispers spread down the road like fire through dry grass. A woman screamed and snatched up her child.

The old man on the doorstep climbed to his feet so quickly that his chair fell over.

Two teenagers ran for the nearest alley and were stopped dead when a silver drone dropped in front of them and hovered there, lens glowing red.

"It’s really him!"

"He was standing right there the whole time!"

"He has been living in our neighborhood!"

Iris did not scream. She did not run. She only stood in front of him, with her arms limp and her face as white as paper, and looked at him as though she had never seen him before.

"You," she said. Her mouth trembled. "You are..."

She could not finish.

Leon met her eyes. He wanted to say something, anything, but every word he could think of sounded wrong. He settled for staying where he was, and for letting her look.

Above them, Batnac began to laugh.

It started low, almost a wheeze, and then it rose until it shook the whole street. He threw back his head and spread all eight of his arms wide, and the thrusters roared in celebration.

Down on the road, the neighbors cringed and covered their ears.

"Do you see?" he shouted. "Do you see it? I told you! I told every one of you!"

The laughter echoed off the rooftops.

"Ninety-eight percent!" Batnac cried. "Ninety-nine! A hundred! There is a name for this, ladies and gentlemen, and the name is Batnac!"

"I do not make mistakes! I did not make a mistake today, and I did not make one yesterday, and I have never made one in my entire life!"

"Master," the voice from his wrist said quietly, "you made a mistake with the cat last spring."

"That was a cat! It does not count!" He glanced at the crowd and sniffed. "Nobody here is going to ask me how I am never wrong? Not one of you? It is a very good story."

Nobody asked. The giant waited for a long moment, and then he shrugged, and all eight arms rose and fell together, as if to say that it was their loss.

He turned back toward Leon, his face glowing with delight, and wiped a metal knuckle across his eye.

"Did you hear how quiet they became?" he said. "That is the sound of the truth, Leon Allistar. All of that pretending, all of those little lies, and the moment I reached for the girl, you could not hold it any longer. I could see it on your face. You were afraid for her."

Leon said nothing.

"And now the whole street knows who you are." Batnac’s grin stretched until it was almost painful to look at.

"There is no more Adam, no more playing hide and seek. You bastard who killed your father, and you are going to face the consequences of what you did. Every single one of them."

"Leon?" Iris said.

It was barely a whisper.

He turned his head.

She was looking at him with her hands pressed against her mouth, and tears were shining in her eyes.

He could not tell whether they were from fear or from something worse. She opened her mouth to say something else, and nothing came out. She closed it again.

She looked at the broken hand on the road, then at the giant above them, and finally at him.

She did not seem to know what to say. She did not seem to know what to feel.

He understood, because he did not know either.

’Don’t look at her like that,’ Medusa said. ’It is not your fault that he is a lunatic.’

’I lied to her.’

It was not exactly comforting, but it was true.

Leon turned his head away from Iris. He faced the giant, and he looked up at the pale, grinning face above the steel, and for a long moment he only studied it.

Then Leon scoffed.

It was a short, quiet sound, but it carried, and it wiped the grin from the giant’s face more cleanly than any speech could have.

"What?" Batnac said. "What is it?"

"You are getting it wrong," Leon said.

The smile twitched.

"Wrong?"

"All of it." Leon looked around at the drones circling above the rooftops, at the neighbors

Batnac’s eyebrows drew together.

"Why should I be the one hiding?" Leon said. "Why should I be the one wearing a stranger’s face and looking over my shoulder, against people who are weaker than I am?"