Page 84 of The Circus

“Aye. You think I’d let you harm a hair on her head? She’s like a daughter to me, you bloody animal.”

Daniel smirks, his eyes glazed with drink, his frame wavering as though he’s floating in the steady current of the ocean. Time seems to suspend, to still to an impossible degree, the same way it did in the moments before and during my father’s death.

Vic glances at me. Tilts his head toward us. Gives me a small, sad smile.

“I’ve always thought you were a fucking waste,” Daniels says.

The gun fires.

Shock encases me as though I am stuck motionless in a block of ice. I blink. Red. So much red. Even more than when I drove Teddy’s knife into Miss Goss’ throat.

The body of the man who protected me while I was stuck here in this living hell wavers unsteadily, a gaping hole where his face should be. Someone screams. His body thuds resoundingly to the ground. The screaming reaches a fever pitch, threatening to cleave my skull in two, and before I realize that I am the one wailing, I am rushing forward through hot, sticky blood and bits of bone.

“Eden, no!” Teddy screams, his fingers just barely grazing my own as I throw myself toward Vic’s dead body. But my kneesnever meet the ground. A pair of arms wrap around my torso and cinch down so hard my ribs crack. A cool kiss of metal hits my temple, the center fiery hot from the round that just blew one of my only friends to pieces.

It’s then, as I’m trapped in Daniel’s arms, staring at the lifeless corpse, that I realize my grave mistake. My eyes, so wide now they feel as though they will pop from my skull and roll across the floor, land on Teddy’s.

The comfort and surety I knew I would find there is gone, replaced by nothing more or less than a type of terror that seizes my heart and prevents it from beating.

“You,” Daniel seethes, pressing the gun deeper into my temple, an ache surging where metal and bone meet. “You killed him, you filthy freak, she helped, and so did he.”

A knife glints by Teddy’s thigh, but can he be faster than a fucking bullet?

A tear rolls down my cheek, followed by another. Reality sets in that this could be it for me, the end of my short, lonely existence.

Even if that’s so, I would do it all again, if it meant finding my way to Teddy Poe. I know there’s something beyond this life, and so dying…dying doesn’t seem so scary to the girl who can see the dead.

But Teddy dying? I will never be able to bear even the faintest thought. When that day comes, I have to go first. I know he will follow.

I shake my head as much as I’m able, fear gripping me tighter than Daniel. All I can do is push it aside, but when he speaks again, my hope flickers in the cavern of my chest.

And dies.

FORTY-NINE

TEDDY

“Mommy dearest has been missing you.”

The knife in my grasp slips as it did this morning, before I sank to my knees and damned myself to hell for the sake of saving Eden. I can still feel the delighted shiver of his papery hands on my cheeks as I took him in my mouth at the bottom of the stairs, my mom sleeping peacefully just a few doors away.

And after, I vomited so hard I blacked out.

But all of that pales in comparison to the words Daniel has just uttered, and the truth of it is reflected in Eden’s terrified violet eyes.

“You fucker,” I seethe, taking a threatening step forward. Eden silently cries, a sliver of hope hidden in her gaze, but one I cannot latch onto, not right now. I have to be calculated, because Daniel’s stupidity and drunkenness can very easily spiral, and I will not risk her like that. But at the same moment, the voices have gone absolutely feral in my head, raging, gnashing their teeth savagely, each reaching for the one thing that keeps us sane, the pull so intense I rock forward onto my toes before I can stop myself. “Let her go.”

My voice is a hushed growl full of promises of chaos and sickening violence. Eden, pale cheeks blotchy, eyes as wide as they’ve ever been, tilts toward the command in my tone, her soul bound to mine in ways unfathomable.

Daniel chuckles and shakes his head, twisting the gun, grinding it to her temple, her raven black hair plastering to her dewy forehead and damp cheeks.

“You lost me quite a fucking sum of money. They are paying triple,” he says, stepping backwards, taking my life with him. My heart thrashes in my chest like a caged lion, provoked to its carnal instincts of horrific violence. Another step back. Eden digs her heels in, but he drags her raggedy Converse across the smooth concrete floor, a trail of congealing blood connecting her and what was once Vic.

If I move, I risk her. I repeat the words in my mind over and over, shoving back the voices with all of my strength.

“How swift do you think your death will be, if you do this?” I hiss. “You claim to know me. Which means you know it won’t be quick. I’ll keep you as my fucking pet, I promise you that.”

He shakes his head and laughs, dragging Eden back with increasing fervency. I’m scaring him, and I’d rather he run than linger; he wants his money, and I don’t want him to be able to hold a gun to her head anymore.

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