Page 58 of The Circus

There’s no one else I’d want to discover them with anyways.

“Yes,” she hisses as our teacher meanders by, only giving us a glance. She keeps tapping Brant’s desk, forcing him to wake up and threatening to fail him if he doesn’t participate. His poor partner is Eunice, a prim and proper first generation American who doesn’t fall for Brant’s pleas for help writing his paper. He’s offered to pay her multiple times, and she pretends to not hear him as she eviscerates his essay.

“What secret do you want, then?” I answer when the coast is clear, circling a dangling participle. Again, she glares at the stroke of my pen and the red ink that mars her paper she printed in the library this morning, and I bite my cheek to hide my smirk.

“How do you know about tomorrow night?”

I should’ve known that was coming, but it still jolts me, causing the voices to awaken in barely controlled fury. They gnash their teeth and hiss in my skull, enraged that anyone would attempt to take what’s ours. Swallowing down my white-hot ire, I flip to the next page of her essay and answer with caution. “Daniel left his laptop unattended. I saw the emails, and the money transfer.”

She’s gone still as stone, and I begrudgingly bring my eyes to hers, not wanting to see the pain I know is swirling there. Her lips are parted in slight shock, her face paler than normal, purplish bags that match her irises under her eyes. It does hurt her, knowing those two fucks sold her innocence and trapped her, making it seem like her decision. But what surprises me most is her own wrath, emboldened because I think she knows I have her back, now and forever.

“How much?” she grits out haughtily, returning to her marking of my paper. Furiously, she crosses out a line and writesRedundantin bold red ink, the tip of her pen nearly sinking through to the next page in her cute fury. It’s kinda hot, her taking out her anger on me in this indirect way. I wish we had time to get back out to the asylum so she could fight me again, so we both could have a reprieve from our lives. Maybe next weekend.

“Twenty thousand.”

She rolls her eyes, reaching for her grammar book and flipping it open to the section on punctuation for indirect quotations. I frown. She’s far too thorough, and thus is the reason she is valedictorian, and I am not. I don’t mind her besting me in academics, though.

I’ll put her in her place with my cock later.

“I’ll take care of it, Eden. Just go along with it, okay?”

Her eyes snap to mine, frightened and angry.

“No.”

I smirk.

“Yes, baby. Don’t argue. You know what happens when you do.”

Her cheeks flood with crimson, and her eyes water, but there in her slender, pale neck, her jugular pulses hotly, betraying her desire. She shakes her head and sharpens her glare.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Teddy. There’s too much at stake.”

“You think I’m going to let another man fuck you?” I hiss, the voices all pushing forth, rushing against my defenses and nearly making it out. My body trembles with the effort to keep them in check, and her doll eyes widen. I researched him, the man who paid for my little ghost. Killing him will be tricky, and more dangerous than simply ending degenerates.

Mainly because he’s the dean of the University of Washington, and his record is spotless. But fuckers like him always have skeletons in their closet. I just have to unearththem within the next twenty four hours, or his death will be investigated far too thoroughly to keep me safe.

Seattle’s current chief of police is an old west type of man, one who is good through and through.

One who often laughs at the crime scenes I leave behind, because I’ve made his job easier, giving justice the comic book hero way.

“Teddy…” she says softly, worry laced in her haunting voice. I glance at her, my anger ebbing, but only just. I give her an unconvincing smirk.

“Not happening, Eden. I don’t care what I have to do.”

Her throat bobs as she swallows. The bell rings, but we hold one another’s gaze still, hers softening bit by bit as the ice around my heart thaws. Everyone jumps up around us, shoving books and papers into their bags and rushing away from the dread of impending finals. And still we sit, the air charged between us again, just as it was in the graveyard. She shakes her head, and her cold little hand falls over mine.

“I can’t lose you, too,” she whispers, tears wavering in her eyes. I grit my teeth against the desire to pull her to me, to whisk her away to our kingdom and never come back. Before I can respond, the shadow of our teacher falls over us, and Eden hastily pulls her hand away, leaving me cold, my heart rent asunder.

“Aww, I always thought you two would be cute together. I’m excited to read your essays!” she says kindly, one of the few people in this shithole I actually admire. I flash her a grin, camouflaging myself as nothing more than a teen prepared to graduate soon.

“Eden’s is excellent. She’s cemented her place as valedictorian,” I say smoothly, winking at my little ghost. She’s not buying it, my act, but I quirk my brow at her and prod her to play along.

Mouth screwed up in annoyance, she says, “I don’t know. Teddy mightruinmy streak.”

I snort, for her ire toward me is somewhat scary, but also fucking hot. I have to constantly remind myself she rules the dead, and there’s a certain type of power there that I’ve yet to see.

“Well don’t be late for your next class, you two. I look forward to your essays.”

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