Shaolin Temple, Northern California, 1978

"NO!"

Twelve-year-old Peter Caine tried to sit up and push away the hands that held him pinned to the dusty ground, but the old Shaolin who kept him down was simply too strong.

"No!" the boy yelled again and maintained his struggle, but the smoke he'd inhaled in the ruined temple was burning his lungs and made it even difficult to breath. His next anguished cry was disrupted by a coughing fit so violent that the hands on his chest moved to his upper arms and carefully pulled him into a sitting position.

"Easy, Peter." Ping Hai tried to calm his young student while keeping him upright with a strong grip that betrayed his age. "Just breathe."

His soothing words didn't have the desired effect. As soon as Peter had gotten some air back into his lungs, he started fighting his teacher again, the light from the full moon overhead revealing his sooty face, marked by hot tears that streamed down his cheeks unchecked. This time he succeeded in his struggle, shaking off the Shaolin's hands and jumping to his feet. Sheer stubbornness kept him standing, albeit swaying slightly. Hands balled into tight fists revealed his anger and black despair.

"You're lying!" he cried, sobbing so violently that he trembled from head to toe. "My father is not gone. He would never leave me! It can't be true. I HATE you!"

The boy's voice broke, and before Ping Hai could say or do anything, he turned around and ran back into the temple the old man had just found him in. The ruin was still covered in a thick cloud of smoke and soot, and the small figure vanished from sight almost immediately.

Ping Hai called after him. "Peter! Come back!"

But it was obvious that pain and desperation had clouded the mind of the son of Kwai Chang Caine that made him deaf towards any words of comfort or warning. The old man got to his feet and quickly followed the desperate boy back into the blackened remains of their former home, hoping that no more harm would come to the child whose whole life had suddenly come to a brutal stop.

Just inside the outer wall, gray gave way to almost complete blackness because the roof in this part of the temple was still intact. The darkness was only interrupted by cutting beams of moonlight shining through the holes created by the explosions that had destroyed the ancient walls. Peter was nowhere to be seen, but Ping Hai had a very good idea where the boy had gone – that was, if he ever made it in his weakened state.

Carefully, the old Shaolin picked his way through the dimness, all his senses alert for any more danger from the ceiling above or from the treacherous ground below his searching feet. The other priests and their students had already been taken to the nearest hospital or found shelter with some of the kind villagers nearby, so Ping Hai knew he was on his own - at least until the police and firemen returned in the morning to collect their evidence and take statements from the surviving Shaolin. Luckily, no one had noticed the single man vanishing behind the temple walls again. There had been so much smoke and chaos and crying…

Ping Hai followed Peter deeper into the smoldering ruins, all the way past overturned candleholders lying in the half-blocked hallways and burned and blackened curtains hanging from the walls – gruesome reminders of times filled with laughter and life. Now everything was quiet, the lives of hundreds destroyed within minutes out of sheer spite and jealousy. But Ping Hai knew this was not the time to mourn their friends, their family, and their home. First he had to find his friend's distraught son.

He heard Peter before he even saw him. The boy had taken refuge in his father's sleeping chamber and, from the sound of it, was attacking everything in his way in order not to feel his inner pain. The old man sighed and took position just outside the doorway, waiting for the furious tirade to end, hoping the boy's adrenaline-driven body would shut down before he seriously hurt himself. If he intruded now, Peter would only run again or turn against him, so he waited patiently, listening to every slap and cry coming from inside. What he heard made his heart ache even more, but he knew there was no other way. He could not sway now.

There hadn't been much furniture in the simple room to begin with, so when the noise finally died down after a few agonizing minutes during which the frightened child had screamed his rage against the world into the silence of the gloomy chamber, Ping Hai found Peter backed into the farthest corner. In his small fists he held the only item that seemed to have survived the flames in Kwai Chang Caine's room: the dagger that had been handed down from father to son to grandson through the generations that had gone before him. The sight of the blade, glimmering in the bluish moonlight streaming in from the small window above Peter's head, made the old man's heart skip a beat and stopped him dead in his tracks. Very carefully, as not to appear threatening to the exhausted child, he held out a hand toward the boy.

"Peter?" he asked, but he received no reaction in return. Peter hadn't even heard the quiet call. His wide-eyed gaze fixed on the knife in his hands, he simply slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap by its feet. His knees had finally given out on him, and his eyes started to slide shut.

Ping Hai rushed to his student's side and, finding his pulse surprisingly strong, tried to pry the dagger from his hands. Even in his semi-conscious state, however, Peter maintained a death-grip on the only item his father had left him. Ceasing his fruitless efforts, the old Shaolin ripped a few strips of cotton from his home-spun robes and wrapped layer after layer of cloth around the dangerous blade, hoping it would be enough. Then he gathered the unresponsive boy into his arms and, for the second time this horrible night, made his way through the remnants of their once beautiful temple, carrying this precious child he had sworn to protect, no matter the cost.

Time had stood still for the old Shaolin, but eventually they reached the breach in the outer wall again. Peter still hadn't woken. Readjusting his grip on the defeated figure in his arms, Ping Hai started downhill, away from the temple and the village, away from the only place the youngest Caine had ever known as home.

They only stopped once on their way to the small cabin the Shaolin had found months ago on the other side of the mountain, not knowing he would ever need to seek shelter there again. He placed the boy in the grass by the stream that ran downhill next to the invisible path they followed in the dark. Gently, the old man washed tears and grime from his young charge's face, but despite the freezing water, Peter didn't even stir. His mind and body had reached the state of utter exhaustion, denying anguish and pain to enter his consciousness.

Ping Hai knew that Peter's helpless outburst in the temple had been only the beginning. When the boy awoke, a raging storm of emotions would surface and find its target in the only other person present: his old teacher. Ping Hai would make sure of that. And he would endure the onslaught without striking back because he knew Kwai Chang Caine's son too well to expect the boy to accept his fate as an orphan without lashing out in every way he could, even at himself. Because under the quiet and sometimes shy demeanor Peter usually showed lay a fiercely loyal and emotional soul whose despair would eat his gentle heart if he didn't find a way to express his pain. And finally, because Ping Hai knew he deserved it.

What he had done – what he was about to do – would change two people's lives forever. In order to save Peter Caine and his father, Ping Hai would have to lie over and over again. He would be forced to cause more pain to the two people he treasured most in this world because everybody else had to believe they were dead.

He could only hope that one day his soul would be forgiven.

The End

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