Page 64 of The Circus

“Thought that one through already. Wouldn’t work.”

“Why?” I bite back, feeling utterly defenseless for the second time in my life. The first was with my father whenever he’d beat my mother or slap me around and call me a fag. I was too young, too weak to fight back. But the moment I loosed the voices like an arrow was the moment I found my strength. Being stuck in this situation makes me feel like a caged fucking animal, and the desperation that begins to take root in me is dangerous.

“Too many connections. You kill them, every paying customer in that joint will start looking for answers. And where would those answers lead?”

“So we kill them and run,” I say, ready to do it here and now.

“My…my dad…” comes Eden’s soft, sorrowful voice. It’s my turn for my shoulders to droop. She’s right; we can’t do anything right now, and I can’t say anything about waiting for him to die before I commit a double homicide. It would ruin her.

“We’ll plan, then,” I say with surety, holding Vic’s gaze, and then Eden’s. “Because I’m not going to live my life under their thumbs for much longer.”

Vic snorts softly and shakes his head, uncrossing his spindly arms and cupping Eden’s cheek. “Let laddie take ya home. Get some rest and put this from your mind for now. Promise, eh?”

She leans into his touch, the fatherly figure she’s needed while hers wastes away. A few tears gather and spill over her porcelain cheeks, but she nods all the same, sucking in a calming breath.

“I can’t lose either of you,” she whispers to the dark. “I’ve already lost too much.”

“You won’t, little ghost,” I promise with utter surety. But when her eyes find mine, she sees the deplorable lie hidden there. We both know the cost of our budding love is a great price to pay.

We just have to wonder how much, before the end.

THIRTY-SEVEN

EDEN

The glow-in-the-dark bouncyball I bought for ten cents in a vending machine down in Hangman Hollow rolls back to me across the littered floor. The day is foggy and cold, a constant mist that has a chill settling into my bones. Hands dangling off the mattress I lost my virginity on, a wan smile paints my lips as the ball comes to a stop right in front of my pointer finger. Eyes flicking upward from my stomach-down position, I glance into the void hallway beyond the empty door.

Nothing greets me but scant, rainy light for a moment. The longer I wait to flick the ball away from me, the more her energy buzzes and grows, as does my smile. She finally peeks around the door frame, her round blue eyes glassy, her cheeks pink, and her blonde hair long and tangled. She died before she even breathed her first breath, but she’s stuck as a toddler.

I don’t know how I know, but I do. It doesn’t make sense, and maybe it never will, but I’m content with that. Lily is perceptive, and whenever she comes around, so too does Eve. Almost as though they’re siblings, Eve keeping an eye on the wild little spirit that roams these dark and sometimes sinister halls.

I roll the ball back to Lily, my smile soft as her eyes shimmer. She wavers like all the ghosts I see, transparent but with touches of soft watercolor here and there. It’s like watching a TV tuned to the wrong frequency; you get the static, but you can sometimes make out the words and see the shapes just enough to get the jist of what is happening. That’s how it’s always been for me, and I’ve never met anyone else with this ability, so I have nothing to compare it to.

Lily smiles and reaches for the ball, but at the last moment her eyes flick upward, her gaze directed down the hallway. She flickers and vanishes with a girlish giggle, unafraid but wanting to play hide and seek. My muscles tense and I frown, pushing myself up and swinging my legs around so I’m sitting. There’s only two people aside from myself who know my secret spot, only two who would know this is the room I now find peace in.

And I know for damn sure Cash would never come out here alone.

So when Teddy appears around the corner, neither of us are surprised to see the other. He gives a firm but somewhat timid smile, his dark hair still damp and slicked back, his scent wafting to me on a breeze that moans through the empty hallways. Clad in jeans and a hoodie with some indie band plastered on the front, he still manages to void my mind of all the things that could go wrong and makes me focus instead on how sinfully sexy he is.

I still hate him for that.

He pulls something forward from behind his back, and a little ball of black fluff with two very pointy ears mewls at me, sharp white teeth and pink tongue splintering the darkness of his tiny face. Two bright green eyes stare unblinkingly back at me, and I fight my smile, my gaze flicking to Teddy’s. He waits patiently, not saying anything for once.

All week, I’ve been a mess. Stressed about my dad, graduation, the fucking murder the man I love committed right in front of me, and Vic cleaning it up. Dick and Daniel haven’t said a thing, and neither has the news, and so I’ve sat on pins and needles for nearly a week, miserable in my anxiety. Teddy has tried to help, but I’ve pushed him away, and he’s given me far more space than I deserve. I can see the hurt that swirls in his eyes growing each day.

But I’m still scared, and I bristle at him.

“You can’t bribe me with a kitten, Teddy.”

“He’s pretty fuckin’ cute though.”

I roll my eyes, falling back onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling; paint and plaster peel from above and dangle over me, brown stains the shape of puddles blotting out what was once a pristine white.

Teddy sits next to me, his gait silent and unnerving. The weight of the kitten settles on my chest, and I can’t help my grin as the tiny thing meows again and hunkers down in the valley of my small breasts, timid but trusting. Reaching up, I stroke my finger through the plush fur atop his little head, and he meows again.

“Where did you find him?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away, and so I glance at him, struck into silence at the view before me. Teddy sits with his knees pulled up and his arms resting on them, one hand clasping his other wrist, staring down at me with those electric teal eyes and a thousand emotions clamoring in his gaze. In the shadows, his jaw is even more chiseled, his full lips set in a firm line, as though there’s a lot he wants to say but isn’t. And suddenly, I feel like a little girl, afraid of reprimand because I know I’ve been unfair to him.

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