Page 113 of Circus From Hell

“So why do you want to kill her?”

His eyes narrow, and I look away quickly. Soren warned us about his hypnotism.

Spiral laughs again, sharply this time. “Scared of being hypnotised, Curly? Worried what I’ll make you do?”

“Yes,” I answer honestly. “You’re a bad man.”

“And what makes you so perfect? You fuck your brother.”

“Step. And I’m not perfect. Far from it.” I grab the jumpsuit and hold it out for him to take so he has a semblance of privacy. “Why do you have pain in your head?”

“If we knew the answer to that, the pain wouldn’t still be there anymore.”

“We?”

He tilts his head, openly debating whether to tell me more.

“Kreo was working on me before he created Karma. He tested my eyes, my reproductive system. Gave me a second cock. But he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my head. He stopped trying to find out when he turned to Karma.”

“He left you with all that pain. Why do you want to stay around a man that does that?”

Spiral looks confused. Maybe he’s never asked himself that question.

“Because this is the only place for us.”

“Us?”

He waves his hand around the tent. “None of us performers belong anywhere. This circus? It’s all we have. Do you think the civilians of the outside world give a shit about the freaks in here? We all came from someone who couldn’t love us enough to give us a chance. But Kreo did.”

“To profit off you. To humiliate you.”

His shoulders shrug. “At least we’re not alone.”

That strikes my heart. Are Micha and I much different from Spiral? We’ve only ever had each other because we didn’t have someone to love us enough. We kept to ourselves, relied on each other, grew to love each other.

Spiral has something similar with his clowns.

But Karma… she’s never had that with anyone.

“Go on then. Tell me what fucked-up thing made you like this,” he demands.

The idea of telling him what happened makes me curl into myself, but he’s been open with me, so I guess it’s only fair.

“My stepdad beat me. Starved me. Drugged me. He and my mother… They tried to sell me. I was too young, too out of it to realise, but Micha saved me. I watched him stab our parents to death, and I hated him for it. Until I finally realised he saved me.”

Spiral doesn’t say anything for a period, but I know he’s listening. I stop avoiding his eyesight, and he stares intently back, testing how long I’ll last before I pussy out and look away out of fear of his hypnotism. But I don’t. I stare at him until he sighs.

He can’t scare me anymore like he thinks he can.

“I never knew my parents,” he mutters. “I lived in an orphanage. No one ever chose me. I had to watch everyone else come and go, but I rarely left my corner of the room. There was no point. No one would come for me.”

“What happened?”

He smirks behind the muzzle. “I burnt the place to the ground.” My lips part in a shocked ‘O’, and he laughs. “I’m kidding. Why does everyone think I’m so ultra insane?” When I don’t answer, he replies, “Fair enough. I did think about it, but there was no point. The circus came to town the day I turned eighteen, the day I planned to die. I had it all ready. But Kreo found me.”

“You were going to kill yourself?”

“There was nothing for me apart from pain.”