Page 12 of Circus From Hell

Between fight or flight, I always fight, but tonight, I freeze.

It doesn’t matter because the light sets her off, and I see her silhouette get smaller and smaller as she escapes at an insane speed on all fours.

She was in the circus. Her face is plastered all over town.

The contortionist freak from last night. The one Arlo was entranced by.

She followed us home. She followed me to work.

What does she want with us? And why was she wearing that creepy get-up? The hair, the face, the stitching, and that black, skin-tight jumpsuit.

To blend into the shadows? To stalk?

She may be gone, but that doesn’t lessen my pounding heart. The threat isn’t there, so I briskly return to the security box, slamming the door and locking it. I hold onto the handle, taking deep breaths. I’m not used to feeling fear. But that smile… It’s haunting me.

The rest of the night goes by slowly because I spend every single moment between tracking the view from the window and the CCTV screens on the monitor.

When I return to the apartment, Arlo asleep and his door shut, I stop outside of it, fist raised. I’m about to knock, to tell him what I saw.

But I refrain.

He struggles with fear more than I do. I’d freak him out if I told him.

So I make the decision to keep it to myself and return to my bedroom, despite the hole in my heart begging me to go see him, to make amends, to apologise.

I do none of that.

I sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

KARMA

“I’m very disappointed in you, Karma.” Snake perches on my shoulder as Kreo pulls the string through my thigh. I look away and focus on anything other than his unhappy expression. “It isn’t a show night. You’re aware you weren’t supposed to go out hunting tonight.”

He doesn’t know that I never killed anyone today. Or that I didn’t kill anyone yesterday, either. Both nights I was preoccupied with watching Micha and Arlo. I couldn’t stop myself after I followed them home. I also had to follow them tonight. Micha was coming out of their building, and it was a short walk to the graveyard. I watched him through the windows.

And then he saw me.

Kreo had no idea what I was doing. I don’t either. If he found out I’d been seen outside the circus and that the person was still alive, he would be even angrier. But my leg ripped as I turned and ran from Micha’s gaze, and Kreo caught me limping on my way back in.

“Why did you go?”

“I wassss hungry,” I lie as he ties the last of the string, my snake tongue hissing against my teeth as I speak. “I couldn’t help mysssself.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I told you to practice your speech. You sound like a snake.”

That’s why I hate speaking. I can’t get that rattle to go away for good when I pronounce my S’s. I’m close. It creeps out when I’ve not practiced in a while, like today.

“You gave me a sssnake’s tongue,” I argue, and he folds his arms, shaking his head.

“Don’t argue with me, madam. You need to keep practicing. In private.”

Because no one is allowed to see or hear me. Kreo says I’ll upset people. He calls me beautiful but tells me no one will understand who or what I am. The circus performers hate the way I speak, so he’s probably right.

But Arlo was watching me with such wide eyes, such an entranced smile. Then it was terror in the alleyway—terror that made my stomach ache with hunger—and that new scent, heady and hot.

Snake rubs his head against my neck, attempting to comfort me, but my mind is away from Kreo and his demands.