Page 30 of The Circus

“I should’ve known,” he hisses. Teddy’s smirk is arrogant as hell. “What else did you find?”

Teddy brings his hand up, flipping his palm over to study his cuticles nonchalantly. “Not sure. But I wouldn’t chance it by making me mad and not letting us go.”

Dick is about to turn purple and spew like a volcano, and the beginnings of a panic attack have my hands trembling. What is Teddy doing, playing with fire of this magnitude?

“You’ve exiled me to a school that can’t accept men liking men. Iwantto go with Cash. Eden is my cover, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything…untoward. Feel like it’s a win-win, right, Edie?” Teddy says, glancing down at me, mirth hidden in his gaze that only I can see.

Slowly, giving him my trust in this moment, I begin to nod.

“Yeah…Yeah,” I say, clearing my squeaking voice, looking at Dick. “My dad kept…pestering me about going. I couldn’t tell him about…working here, so…”

Dick grits his teeth.

“Fine,” he seethes, pointing a gnarled finger at Teddy’s chest. “But I’m warning you now, if anything funny is going on, then it’sherI will be punishing, not you.”

Rage rolls off Teddy in that instant, so potent it’s tangible, an entity of its own. My body recoils in fear instinctively. I know Dick doesn’t mean me, but the person he is referencing is unknown.

Whoever it is, they must mean the world to Teddy, and my anxiety only grows. After a long moment of the two staring each other down, Teddy speaks, his voice low and rumbling likethunder across the Puget Sound. “Careful who you threaten, Dick. Because once she’s gone, so are you.”

He turns on his heel and strides out, leaving us all in the wake of his unrelenting fury.

I may have my secrets about speaking with phantoms, but something tells me he has his own secrets…

And I think italsoinvolves the dead.

NINETEEN

EDEN

I’mawoken by a warm palm slipping over my thigh, fingers curling inward and gripping me possessively, his sultry voice in my ear as his lips brush against my skin. I shiver at the intimate touch, and as I fully wake, the screeching of brakes disrupts the peaceful slumber I just found myself in.

“It’s your stop, Eden.”

Swallowing back my drool, I lift my heavy head from none other than Teddy’s shoulder, a wet spot left behind on his soft, dark gray hoodie. Immediately, my cheeks flame, and my eyes zero in on his hand that’s still gripping my thigh. Through his pale skin, tendons and veins snake along the back and wind their way to his wrist before disappearing up his sleeve. I wonder his thoughts on tattoos, because he’d be even more beautiful inked and covered in the darkness that he seems at one with.

Wiping my lips free of drool with the back of my hand—my heart still hammering—I move to stand, but he keeps his hand on my thigh. When my eyes clash with his, they’re positively murderous. “I’m walking you inside tonight. Don’t argue with me.”

In that instant, I become a frightened little girl again, needing her dad to chase away the monsters under her bed. I’ve been alone in that double-wide for a year, and sure, some nights I get scared, but I’m an adult now. Except for when Teddy looks at me like this, demanding my obedience. My body gives it to him before my mind can keep up, and I nod dumbly. He doesn’t smile, or acknowledge my lack of fight, but instead stands and extends his hand to mine. Again, without a thought in my brain, I slip my hand into his, and he laces his fingers through mine, warmth seeping from him to me.

We exit the bus, my mind still in a fog from being so soundly asleep and awoken in such an…eroticsort of way. We walk slowly and in silence down the street, turning sharply onto the abandoned dirt road that leads to my home. Teddy seems to know the path even in the darkness, and I realize he’s probably followed me a few times. Why that makes my underwear unbearably wet, I’m not sure, but it does, and I begin to tremble. I lie to myself and peg it on the chilly, damp air.

No lights guide our way, this part of Seattle beyond run-down. Empty homes weep at us as we walk by, their inhabitants the ghosts I’m fond of or addicts passed out for the night. The silence between us grows thick, as though he wants to say a lot but is instead biting his tongue. It makes me nervous for a few different reasons, especially after that meeting in the office.

The white picket fence surrounding our quaint home comes into view amidst sweeping pine boughs, the grass within wildly overgrown. I never learned how to use the lawnmower before my dad got sick, and I’ve done my best to keep this place up all on my own, but it’s exhausting when there’s so many other things I have to do.

We pause outside the gate, and I glance up at the side of his face, chewing my lip. His eyes narrow on the house, but he’s not scrutinizing the broken screen door, or the siding that needs apowerwash. His eyes are on the front window, and he’s as rigid as a German shepherd poised to lunge. Something flickers in his gaze, his eyes widening slightly, and he pushes me behind him. In the next breath, the glint of a long, deadly knife strikes my eyes, and my breath catches in my throat.

“Keep your eyes down and only walk where I walk,” he whispers, and raw fear courses through me.

“Wh-what?” I breathe, glancing around his tall frame, but he shoves me gently behind him, stern and forceful but still soft enough not to hurt or scare me.

“Eden,” he warns, voice taking on an authoritative edge. That’s all it takes, that tone, so deep from within his chest. Hearing my name spoken in such a manner has my spine stiffening. “Grab my sweatshirt and keep your eyes down.”

My trembling hands obey, fingers curling into the fabric as I breathe in his scent. He takes a step forward, and I can barely see our feet through the darkness, clouds scuttling in front of the moon and blotting out our only source of light. He takes another step, each one so carefully measured that he makes no sound. Is he evenbreathing?

The silence he is capable of is unnerving. Before I know it, we’re on the small stoop, and the asshole is slipping my key from its hidden spot beneath the fourth piece of siding to the right of the door. Despite the fact there may be some murderous lunatic in my house, I pinch the skin of his back through his hoodie, a reprimand for him clearly stalking me and knowing how to enter my home. I suppose I am partially to blame for not being more alert about my surroundings and discreet about where I keep my key, but still.

He makes no show of pain, and the door swings open slowly, the blackness of night pouring out and spilling onto our feet. I do listen and keep my eyes down, now, because I may not be afraidof the ghosts who haunt my home, but I have always been afraid of people.

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