Page 80 of The Circus

Eden’s transfixed, the only thought in her skull to obey. That level of power over another is fucking addicting, and I drink it in while the voices gnash their teeth and sing their praises of her. Though not athletic, her breathing is steady despite all of her running, save for a slight, excited tremble. She caught her prey, and like a mother lioness, I am about to teach her how to kill and devour.

“Good,” I mutter, cocking my head to the side, studying her precision.

“Now, here,” I say, squatting next to her, drawing an imaginary line across the base of the dying woman’s throat.

Eden doesn’t acknowledge me, nor does she waver at Miss Goss’ incessant pleas for her life.

“E-Eden, p-please, don’t…I’ll do…do anything…”

My teeth grit, fury flaring to life in my chest and burning through me like a raging wildfire, but I temper it the best I am able, eyes locked on Eden. Her obedience is my drug, my reward, just as I am Eden’s reward. We’re sick and twisted, but the moment her father died, I knew my little ghost was finally ready to sink her teeth into revenge that has always been just beyond her reach.

I’ve found her abuser, and her mother, and the plans I have for the four of us will be a hedonistic, savage retribution.

Eden raises the knife, her eyes wide and glistening, unblinking, those once-lavender irises now as hard and jaded as uncut amethysts. Pressing the tip of the knife to her throat, it sinks in just enough to draw blood.

“Deeper,” I command, settling my hand over hers that holds the knife, firming up her grip. She doesn’t quiver, and she’s not afraid. She is utterly consumed, fascinated in a way that is far from normal, but in a way that further proves she is the only soul in this universe that is made for mine. As though we were cut from the same stardust and breathed into earthly bodies fortunate enough to find one another in this cosmic wasteland.

Blood oozes from the new wound, and Miss Goss wails and wriggles, tied like a hog, bleeding from dozens and dozens of slices that litter her disgustingly familiar body.

The mausoleum is open, there is a tub of salt in my bag, and her blood seeps into the greedy ground of the cemetery at Eden’s delicate hand.

The perfect fucking day, if you ask me, and it’s only going to get better, my insanity reaching heights I never knew possible. This type of high is far, far more dangerous, and far more fucking addicting. I’ll never be able to breathe the same again, feel any semblance of an emotion, if Eden is stripped from me.

I’d slit my own throat from ear to ear with a grin before I let anything take her from me.

Releasing Eden as she continues her slow and methodical cut, I reach into my pocket and press the button, hearing that buzz come to life as she gasps and moans, dropping the knife and falling back into me. I catch her and shut it off, smirking as she whimpers, turning her dazed gaze to mine and blinking as lust overflows from those damning eyes and her bottom lip juts out in a pout.

I peck a kiss to her temple.

“You’re doing so good, baby, Keep going, here,” I say, delineating where she should sink her knife next. “You want to hit these arteries. Slower bleed.”

She continues to pout, batting her eyes at me, maniacal in her lust-infused murdering. Like Pavlov’s dogs, Eden will associate killing with unending pleasure. I quirk my brow in warning as a tremble of anticipation seizes my chest. The urge to throw her on the ground and fuck her into oblivion is almost impossible to quell, but torturing myself has always made the climax far better.

Eden will just have to suffer a little longer.

“Do as I say,” I command, my voice going rough. Her eyes narrow, her chin jutting out as it does whenever she wants to fight me on something. The voices demand me to punish her for questioning her master, but that will lead into exactly what she wants.

I have zero fucking self control around this damn girl.

“Or what?” she grits out, glaring at me.

“Pl-please,” the woman begs, disrupting the mounting sexual tension between me and my reason for existing. My eyes cut to her pathetic form at the same time as Eden, but my little ghost is quicker than I ever could’ve expected. She snatches the knife from the forest floor, a few dewy leaves flaking off and fluttering to the ground as she harshly presses the tip of the blade to her throat.

“You hurt him,” Eden hisses, livid and trembling, twisting the tip of the knife under Miss Goss’s quivering chin. Those muddy eyes flit between mine and Eden’s, forever begging for a life that is no longer hers.

Because it’s mine.

“I-I didn’t?—”

Eden sneers, pressing the knife in just enough to draw a drop of blood, effectively cutting off whatever lie we were about to hear.

“You’re sick,” Eden seethes, drawing her own cut this time without any instruction from me. The voices hum like giddy bees in my brain, and my entire body buzzes as I watch this twistedly beautiful scene unfold before me. “What kind of person does that to someone?”

“He raped me?—”

Eden lunges forward, driving the knife up through the soft flesh between chin and throat. Miss Goss gapes, the glinting silver knife skewering her tongue as blood bubbles and pools behind her teeth. Her eyes have gone so wide all I can see is the ghostly white that precedes imminent death. She gurgles and chokes on the thick, coppery scented liquid. Eden stares in morbid curiosity and fascination, at war with her differing desires.

Her desire to kill, her desire to revel in it, and her desire for pleasure.

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