“Rowe—”
“Let me get through it.” He says it quietly, not unkindly. “He's why I can't be touched. It wasn't the pain. Pain, I could've—it was the gentleness after. He'd hurt me, and then he'd clean me up so carefully, like he was rescuing me from himself, and my body learned that gentle hands are the second half of something terrible. Twenty years later, it's still what my skin believes. You can't argue with skin. Not when it screams at you.”
Tears are sliding down my face. I don't wipe them because wiping them would mean admitting they're there, and he doesn't need my crying to manage on top of everything else. I sit with my hands folded and let them fall.
“The seven of us got out together,” he says. “Elias led it. He was—he stayed behind to draw the Prophets off while the rest of us ran. Logan set the fire that covered us. And there was a boy.” His jaw works. “Zach. Five years old. He didn't make it out. He died in Logan's arms in a field while the compound burned behind us, and my brother has carried him every day since.”
“The seven of you,” I whisper. “You, Logan. Elias, Silas. Cole. Jonah. Marek.”
“Brothers. Some by blood. Logan and I shared a womb. Elias and Silas shared a father. Silas and Marek shared a mother. The rest of us are brothers because we decided to be, which turned out to be the stronger glue.” Hestraightens a little. “We were kids with no papers, no names, no schooling anyone would recognize. We should have scattered into foster systems and prisons and gutters. Instead, we stayed together. We fought for it. We learned trades. Real ones and crooked ones. Elias could talk a bird out of a tree by the time he was sixteen. Silas taught himself computers. Cole—” a ghost of warmth crosses his face— “Cole learned knives, which surprised no one. We conned and worked and clawed until there was enough money for a truck, then two, then a tent. Seven Sins Entertainment. Built out of nothing by seven boys who didn't exist.”
“And the carnival travels,” I say slowly. “Town to town.”
“Town to town.” He holds my eyes. “The Prophets scattered after the fire. Communes across the country shut down. New names, new towns, new congregations and school boards and hardware stores. Respectable men. Beloved men. Men no sheriff would ever look at twice.” His voice drops low. “We look at them twice. We find them. We route the show through their towns. And they disappear.”
The paint on Samuel Harlan's house. Large, dripping letters.Ask Samuel about the scholarship boys.
“Harlan,” I say.
Rowe's whole body locks up at the name.
“Samuel Harlan is the Prophet who chose me.” Each word sounds like it's ripped out of his guts. “He was born in this town. He came back to it after the fire and built himself a hardware store and a front pew and a scholarship fund. For boys, Wren. He personally interviews the finalists.” His hand is white-knuckled over his forearm now. “In a week, we take him. And I'm going to stand in front of him as the man I turned into and take back what he carved out of me, and then he's going to stop existing, and no boy in this county will ever shake his hand again.”
I'm crying without sound. Both of my cheeks are wet, my nose is running, my chest is aching, and every cell in my body is pulling me toward him. I want to cross the four feet and wrap my arms around this man and hold him. It's a physical need, an instinct older than thought.
And I can't. His skin would scream. Gentle is what comes after. He told me why, and loving him means my arms stay exactly where they are.
So I give him what I can.
“The choice,” I say, sniffling. “You said I'd have a choice to make.”
“The trucks roll in nine days.” He's watching me like he's braced for a punch. “You could stay. You'd have a life here. The clinic will need a vet more than ever, and Paige is here, and it would be safe and clean, and nothing I've told you tonight would ever touch you again.” His throat moves. “Or you come with us. With me. For all of it. The road, the shows, the towns, the things we do in them. A tiny trailer and a man who might never be able to hold you, and a family of killers who already love you, and I can't promise you?—”
“Rowe.”
“—anything a normal man could promise, no house, no?—”
“Rowe.” I wipe my face with both palms, finally, because I need him to see me clearly for this part. “You have an elephant with a bad eye and a bear who holds grudges against entire states. A lion, a zebra, a pony with opinions, three monkeys, and a menagerie schedule that would make most practices weep. Not to mention Silas's doves and rabbits. And you've been paying house-call rates like a sucker.”
He blinks.
“You need a staff vet,” I say like it should be obvious. “Full time. Travels with the show. I hear there's one available because her boss just died.”
The sound he makes is half laugh, half surprise. His eyes are wet and he doesn't hide it.
“Wren.”
“I'll miss Paige.” My voice wobbles, but I keep going anyway. “I'll write to her. My parents moved to Arizona three years ago and we do video calls, so that's handled. Everything else in Thistlewood is a laundry chair and an exam table I never want to stand at again.” I look at him, at the space between us that we've learned to fill with everything except skin. “You said your animals choose. Fine. I'm choosing. I go where the menagerie goes.”
He stands and crosses to the bench and sinks down onto the far end of it, closer than he's ever come on purpose. Just two feet away, the same cushion.
Then he lifts his hand and presses two fingers to his own lips. Holds them out across the space between us, hovering an inch from my mouth. His hand is shaking.
I lean in and kiss his fingertips, feather-light, barely there.
He doesn't flinch.
22
