Page 52 of The Circus

I smile, his bare leg brushing against mine, a constant reminder in the back of both our minds that we’re still naked together under the covers, but it feels so…right. Like this is how every day is supposed to be. I thought I’d be far more self conscious around him, but Teddy has a way of making me feel safe and comforted without even trying. “She can be pretty elusive when she wants to be.”

“Does she like me?” he fires back. I snicker.

“I don’t know yet. She was a little timid last night.”

He grins, rolling to crowd my space, hand finding my hip as he digs his fingers into my flesh. My heart races at the contact, at the possessive glint in his gaze that I understand far better now. He hears voices, and I wonder what they’re saying about me. “They don’t…watch, do they?”

He smirks deviously, and I roll my eyes.

“No. Everyone thinks that but no. They give privacy to people.”

He chuckles.

“Well when I’m a ghost,” he says matter of factly, shifting his body so it’s atop mine, his hard cock nestled between my thighs, his tip pressing at my sore entrance. “I’ll watchyou.”

I shake my head, smile fading.

“I don’t want to be a ghost without you,” I whisper, my chest swirling with too many emotions at the thought of him gone from this earth. Slowly, gently, he presses a lingering kiss to my lips that leaves me breathless.

“Then we go together, baby. That I can promise you.”

THIRTY

TEDDY

I’m hopelessly in love.Or addicted. Obsessed? I can’t tell. I’ve never been in love, but I know what it is to love someone. I love my mom, obviously, and I love Cash like a brother. But to love another soul? To feel myself burning from the inside out every time I lay eyes on her? It’s new. It’s beautiful.

It’s fucking terrifying.

Terrifying, because there are so many unknowns about our future, and protecting her from her past and from everything at the circus is going to zap me of energy. I know what’s coming for her on Tuesday, and the voices have already painted such vivid, gory images in my brain of what I’m going to do to the fucker who paid twenty grand for her virginity.

The voices collectively smirk, smug in their satisfaction that it belongs to me for eternity now.

I won’t tell her I know, or how I found out. She will tell me when she’s ready. Daniel is just a fucking idiot who likes to leave his laptop open and unaccompanied while he tries and fails to flirt with the girls who perform. He steers clear of Eden because of Vic, but I know that his resolve is thinning. When Danny boy wants something, his daddy always ensures he gets it.

I can’t wait to fucking end them both.

I wonder if Eden would let me hunt them through the asylum. Daniel would shit his pants in that basement, and Dick would cry in a corner. It would be so cathartic.

Her cold little hand clasped in mine, my little ghost leads me through the dark, ominous woods, a game trail marking our slender path. It’s drizzling, the storm clouds crowding in over St. Ignatius, but the canopy above is so thick with boughs and moss that it doesn’t drip down to us yet. My eyes linger on her form, flip flops on her feet, and my Misfits band tee hanging off her petite frame, the white cloth making her appear even more ghostly.

I say nothing, choosing to instead absorb this moment in all its perfection, her long, black hair still wavy as it cascades down her back. She turns and flashes me a brilliant grin, her cheeks pink, her eyes smudged with her makeup from prom. She is devastating in her beauty. I can’t help but wonder what I did to deserve someone like her.

“Almost there,” she whispers.

I smirk, for I can hear it—the sound of waves crashing on rocks; the ocean is near, the heaviness of salt in the air filling my lungs with life. She knows this place like the back of her hand, and I ponder in awe how she gets out here so much. Poor Cash will be stuck as our driver for the near future I think, because I have plans to fuck her in every room and on every surface of that haunted building.

I tried to seduce her again before we left on this little trek, but she pushed me away with a giggle and told me to wait. I can’t deny this girl anything, even if my cock is still as hard as a fucking steel pipe in my jeans right now. My Eden is a sadistanda masochist, I think, and I can’t wait to play with her, to stoke those desires into full, engulfing flames. The way I know I’d been hurting her last night, but she still begged for more? Fuck. Ifperfection does exist, it’s in the form of this little gothic sprite, and I’ll never let her go.

She turns back to the path before us, and ahead there’s a slight break in the trees, allowing the heavy, gray morning light to seep through and blot out the darkness. The cacophony of seagulls and wind and waves grows louder with each step until we break through the dense forest. Dark gray rocks jut out from the trees, holding firm against the power of the ocean as it slowly wears them away. We stand upon a cliff that juts out into the air, the tangy breeze potent on my tongue. And on the horizon, stretching as far as the eye can see, is nothing but more gray emptiness—the edge of this world. My heart gives a painful clench at the majestic, dark beauty of it all. An asylum nestled snug in the mountains by the ocean.

The kingdom by the sea.

She turns to grin up at me, her cheeks flushed from the cool wind, her eyes the color of dark purple lilacs, her hair whipping across her features, and my white shirt clinging to her small frame. She wants me to stare at the breathtaking view, to enjoy it with her—something she also finds stunning—but I can’t take my eyes off her right now as our worlds begin to shift and collide in cataclysmic ways.

She is at once both dark and light, yin and yang, life and death, wretched and divine. She is everything to me, an enigma that will satiate the voices in my head until long after my physical body is buried in the ground and my bones are dust. Even then, I’ll never stop hunting her, my reason for existence. For if Eden Clemm goes, then so do I. I made that vow to her, and I intend to keep it.

So I pull her close until our bodies clash, wrap her in my arms, and press a lingering kiss to her cold lips. When I pull away, she’s breathless, blinking up at me with those perfectly round eyes, our foreheads resting against one another.

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