Page 74 of The Circus

The easiest part of grieving is directly after the incident, when the memories wash forth onto the beach and bring with it innumerable gifts.

It’s once that wave drifts back out to sea that the darkness settles into the cracks of your heart.

My eyes trace Eden’s slender, ethereal form. If fairies were ever real, she was one of them. If witches walked this earth, then she was burned at the stake. And if soulmates exist, she’s mine. In every snapshot of life, we knew one another, and there’s a future before us that doesn’t understand the man-made concept of time. We are eternal beings, and the pain we feel from one life to the next will always be outweighed by good eventually.

I have to believe that, or else what is this all for?

“Well, you come up with an idea, then,” she sasses back. Cash glares at her.

“I would, but I’m always too busy being your damn chauffeur.”

They both glance at me, and I sit straight, holding up my palms in surrender. “My idea of fun is highly illegal in every country.”

Cash huffs, but I catch the spark of intrigue in his gaze. He never wants to partake in the murders I commit, just gets a rush from being an accomplice. It’s terrible to indulge him, but I can’t help it.

I kinda like the company.

“You choose. Seems like you have an idea already,” Eden says. Cash shrugs, but a coy smirk is forming on his lips, and I know that devious look all too well. My chest flutters with excitement, because we’re about to do something fun, yet something innocent. Somethingnormalkids do.

Something Eden and I need before our lives further devolve into depravity.

“I don’t know. Senior prank, perhaps?” he says, grinning like a fool, drenched in an orange-hued glow from the street lamp above. To passerby, we probably look like a group of degenerates. If only they knew one was a serial killer, one saw the dead, and the other was… well…actually a degenerate.

Eden glances at me, biting her lip to hide her smile. She likes the idea, and this time my dick jumps at the same time butterflies flap their nasty little wings in my chest. Eden is too beautiful and fearsome to be a butterfly. She’s more of a little vampire bat; tiny, but fierce. Who knew that seeing her happy, of all things, would make my dick hard.

I quirk my brow and turn my attention to Cash.

“Is this where you ask me to steal Dick’s school keys and turn off the cameras and security system to Seattle Prep?”

He grins.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Donnedfrom head to toe in black—because, let’s face it, those are the only colors we own—we sneak along the desolate, dark hallways of our school. Of all the illegal actions I’ve committed in my short life, breaking and entering this building has never even been on my radar. Being here during daylight hours is torture enough.

But, just as I’m finding I like everything, at night, this place is beautiful. Bathed in darkness with fractured moonbeams filtering in through the doors and high windows, the shiny linoleum floors glow. The scent of books and the gym and cafeteria all mingle together in the quiet air, pushed through ancient vents as dust motes float peacefully to the ground, disrupted by us unruly, albeit brilliant, teens.

Cash lumbers ahead, ladder propped on his sturdy shoulder. He’s been hitting up the gym a lot more lately, claiming it’s to prepare for Basic. I know it’s because he wants to impress Juniper. If only he could see how deeply she’s obsessed with him, he wouldn’t feel the need to be a damn peacock.

Eden’s girlish giggle draws my attention and perks up the voices from their slumber as well. The way she laughs when being chased by me, the way that spark ignites into an all-consuming flame when I’ve managed to catch and subdue her…

A shudder runs through me, and as much as I adore Cash, I really wish he’d give us an hour to ourselves so Eden couldplay the naughty school girl for me. The voices collectively foist images of me slitting his throat onto my mind, and I grin to the darkness, hoisting the length of rope back up my shoulder. They’ve gone from desiring to throttle the life out of Eden while I’m balls deep in her, to yearning to slash anyone who gets between me and the only fix for our addiction, best friend or not.

Everyone in my vicinity should be thankful my frontal lobe developed far faster than my peers’.

Eden skips ahead and twirls around, hair fanning out around her shoulders as she releases a laugh, her eyes glinting. My heart gives a painful lurch at how bewitching she is, the muscle in my chest coming alive for what feels like the first time in my life. Maybe it’s because she is my first love, but something tells me this is far deeper than that. I want her etched into me, into my bones.

I stole the rendering of a heart she sketched, unbeknownst to her. She reminds me that I still have a heart, despite who and what I am.

Cash and I already booked the tattoo appointment. Hopefully she isn’t too pissed at me, but something tells me she will secretly be pleased. Perhaps one day she will let me tattoo her. I have a few ideas in mind, none of them appropriate, naturally.

“Okay, so how are we doing this?”

On cue, one of the seemingly hundred tarps we bought slips out of my grasp and thuds to the floor. Cash jumps and glares at me, two shiny black lines beneath his eyes. Eden looks more like a baby racoon with her eyes smudged, and I dragged the black Halloween makeup across both eyes and the bridge of my nose, satisfied to see how Eden bit her lip when she looked at me after.

“Edie, you go get your revenge, sweet pea. Tedster, tarps and tape. Me,” he says, waving a heavy duty wrench with his otherhand, “pipes. Circle back when you’re done for the…cherry on top.”

Her grin widens—a genuine one—untouched by sorrow for the first time in a while. Bringing her feet together, she salutes him before marching off, twigs, markers, and half burnt candles in tow. I watch her disappear up the stairs to where the senior class lockers reside, and Cash snaps his fingers, demanding my attention. Dropping the remaining tarps and rope, I quirk my brow at him.

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