three
Lion Boy slumped on the floor of the cage at the end of the day’s last performance.
Another exhausting day had ended, leaving him sore, thirsty, and spent. He had only a moment of peace before voices and footsteps came from behind him. He didn’t even stir. He would recognise Cade’s booming tone and Murdock’s uneven steps everywhere.
Cade unlocked the cage, smirking. “Grabbing that man was a great idea. You’ll do it again tomorrow. The crowd went crazy.”
What man? He barely remembered anything about each performance aside from the pain, the anger, and the laughing faces.
No, that was a lie.
He remembered a young woman with hair the colour of a raven’s feathers and the eyes like a quiet lake. She’d been the first person ever to talk to him as if he were a human being. Although he wasn’t. He didn’t even have a name.
Or perhaps she was the product of his hallucinations. He had no idea. Maybe he’d only dreamt of a beautiful lady feeling compassion for him. Yet he remembered her asking him questions.
“Quickly.” Murdock staggered closer. “You need your drugs, and I don’t have all evening.”
The lights from the oil lamps glinted off his bald head. Short and with a bad leg, he shouldn’t be difficult to beat in a fight. Lion Boy towered over him a good foot and a half. But the sheer terror Murdock triggered in him paralysed him.
Cade was a violent, greedy man but stupid. Murdock—the circus’s physician—had both the brains and the coldness to be dangerous. Oftentimes, Lion Boy wondered who the real ringmaster was. Cade might be just another Murdock’s slave, the face of the organisation, while Murdock was the puppeteer working in the darkness.
“Crawl out.” Murdock waved him closer, showing him a glass bottle.
Lion Boy’s senses heightened as he rushed to grab the magic potion that would take the pain away.
Cade winced. “Disgusting.”
Murdock hid the bottle behind his back. “Cade is right. Manners, you cur.”
Lion Boy wanted to tell him he was too tired to play games, but only a pathetic whimper came out of him.
“Beg.”
He slammed a hand on the rough wooden planks of the cage in protest.
Murdock’s slap hit him across the cheek. When the effects of the drugs wore off, his skin was left extremely sensitive and tender. Lion Boy’s face burned with pain.
Tears welled in his eyes. He joined his hands and hung his head, begging his tormentor to torment him.
Cade shook his head. “You don’t have a spine.”
“Good boy.” Murdock tossed him the bottle, and Lion Boy barely snatched it before it hit the ground, his reflexes sloppy.
He drank the content with one sip, already anticipating the relief washing over him.
It took time before the pain vanished. He waited for relief. His muscles loosened, and his head cleared right before he dropped asleep on the floor.
He woke up with a start as one of the other circus workers shook him. Maybe it was dawn, or maybe it was still night. He didn’t care. Time didn’t have a meaning.
“Lion, come on. You have work to do.”
Lion Boy shuffled out of the cage to the corner of the tent where there was a water basin. The chain locked around his ankle rattled with his steps. A few attempts at escaping in the past had earned him the inseparable iron companion. Murdock removed the shackle before a performance and put it back afterwards.
He quickly washed, ignoring the bite of the icy cold water, and put on a fresh shirt long enough to cover him to his knees. The shackle prevented him from wearing trousers.
In the part of the main tent that was designated as the circus workers’ kitchen and canteen, he wolfed down two cups of tea, a few slices of bread, and bacon. The others filed out, saying good night to each other and ignoring him.
He was a circus freak inside a circus of freaks.
