Page 83 of The Circus

“You,” he whispers simply. Then, more confidently, “Your obedience. Your loyalty. You do as I say.”

My teeth gnash, and my heart thrashes in my chest like a shark ripping into its bloody meal. But all I can see is Eden. Her smile, the light within her sad, beautiful soul. I’ve known her an eternity. I just wish this universe wasn’t so cruel as to keep our other lifetimes a secret from us. I want to know her in every single one. I need to know that we always find each other.

Were we the children by the sea?

“And she goes free,” I counter. “Her debt is paid.”

“Done,” he answers swiftly, like a guillotine being loosed upon the neck of its victim. The wind leaves my lungs, and with it the last beats of my aching heart.

He steps forward, and I tense to step back, my eyes bouncing to his. Those thin lips press together in a frown. I’m already disobeying.Eden, my heart chants, wrenching itself in two. Stabbed through with hot needles because I am once again betraying her, and burning because I am saving her from a worse fate.

“Prove to me your loyalty.” He stands imperiously, shorter than me but somehow more immense than I ever thought him capable. I drop my knife and kick it aside, my joints locking, my bones refusing to submit. But I would submit to her, to my little ghost. Gladly. And is this not submission to her in some form?Can I mindfuck myself into believingthatto dothis, to give my body to this greedy fuck?

I have to. Because if I don’t, Eden will be gone.

And I promised I would never leave her, even in death. So I sink to my knees and stare up into the eyes of the puppet master, locking the voices away with as much strength as I have in me.

“Good boy,” he says.

And the hope Eden had cultivated to life in my chest, a garden of her wrapped around my ribcage and twining around my heart, dies.

FORTY-EIGHT

EDEN

Business as usual. C U tonite.

The textfrom Cash’s phone is a message from Teddy. One that has me flipping open my phone every ten seconds to read it again, as if I will find something new woven between the little black letters.

Why is he backing out? He’d seemed so eager to do it, to run away and never look back. Is it because he finally realized what a freak I am? We fuckingkilledsomeone together, and he liked it, and I let him fuck me over her dying body, andIliked it, and?—

“Quit,” his sultry voice says from right in front of me, his pointer finger tapping my forehead harshly. I jump as he materializes from the darkened hallway that leads to the dressing rooms, his teal eyes swimming with warmth but with a guarded edge, as though shark fins are circling the outer ring.

My eyes dart behind him, ensuring no one follows before I speak. When I find his face again, his lips are set in a pressed, harsh line, his jaw is ticking it’s so tense, and those bags under his eyes are as dark as the storm clouds over the Sound.

“What’s wrong?” I hiss, dread creeping quietly into my veins. It aches, the way my heart clenches, the way my pulse squeezes. I know he’s always been able to read me, often better than I think I can read myself, but here and now, something is wrong, and I don’t like the way it’s making me feel.

The weight of the reckless decisions we’ve made over these past few weeks settles into my stomach like a burning hot stone. He’s killed and I’ve watched in fascination, and then I’ve killed for sport, for curiosity…forhim. Are we about to end up in prison? Or worse?

“My mom?—”

“C’mon, kids,” Vic says from the ring behind us. I whirl, heart racing, for his approach was as silent as a ghost. He stands beneath the only light that’s currently on, and it washes his gaunt face to eerily pale shades, his skin almost luminescent. “Tick, tock. Knives again.”

Teddy moves to breeze past me, but before I can whirl and stop him and demand an answer, Daniel storms down the stairs.

Tie askew, hair disheveled, face blotchy with drink, he points a finger at me—atTeddy.

“You little fucking freak! You fucking killed him, didn’t you? My client! You worthless little faggot?—”

“Enough!” Vic snaps, stepping between us just as Daniel comes within a foot of Teddy. Spittle flies from Daniel’s lips as he jabs his finger at us and hurls more insults, Teddy pushing me behind him.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Teddy yells, a note of desperation to his normally calm tone. It’s then I see it, the silver glint of a revolver in Daniel’s other hand. My hands fly up of their own accord, sinking into the soft material of Teddy’s black hoodie, keeping him cemented from going forward, though I am powerless to drag him back, to push himbehind me and protect the only thing I have left in this world worth living for.

“Calm down, you drunken bastard! It wasn’t the boy!” Vic yells, shoving Daniel’s shoulder. It’s enough to make him stumble backwards slightly, his irate attention now directed at the one who became a father to me when mine couldn’t leave his bed anymore.

“You,” Daniel seethes, pointing the gun at Vic’s chest.

“No!” I squeak without thought, jumping around Teddy, who catches me easily and pulls me into him, locking his arms around my torso as I stare in stunned horror.

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