Page 131 of Circus From Hell

Kreo’s here.

Showtime.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

KARMA

“What happened to Moxie’s eye, Karma?”

Kreo sits on his wheely chair beside his desk, arms folded and eyes intense. My nails dig into the edge of the metal table; it takes everything in me not to dart my eyes to the clown in the corner of the room. Spiral is picking something in his nail, pretending I don’t exist, playing the act for Kreo. But he can’t keep his eyes from me, and it makes me nervous.

“I don’t know,” I lie.

“Come on, child. I saw it this morning. It’s a good thing I have some spare prosthetics around here. It looked like claw marks.” He nods at my pointed green and pink nails. “I attached those as an aid for hunting, and I let you choose the colours as a treat. I’m disappointed to see how you’re using them.”

Kreo trained me to feel a negative response when he reprimands me. It’s how he controlled me for so long. I find it hard to ignore that instinctual feeling despite how badly Moxie deserved it.

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I need to ask Moxie?”

So she hasn’t told him what’s been happening yet? Probably because she knows Kreo wouldn’t believe her without hard proof. And Dolly…

Dolly would be proof. She was always watching, lurking.

For Moxie.

I’m so fucking stupid. How didn’t I see it? Dolly’s always around, but this was intentional. Kreo would believe Dolly if she finally had something to say all these years later.

Let’s hope Spiral and I saving her in the forest was enough to convince her to shut her mouth.

“I didn’t do it.”

“Spiral, did you see anything?”

The room tenses as Spiral straightens and looks between us.

Eventually, he huffs. “This freak has done nothing but sleep and hunt.”

I ignore the pang in my chest; he’s just pretending.

“Manners, Spiral,” Kreo sighs. “Fine, but when I find out what happened, I’ll be upset to learn if you’re lying to me, Karma. Do you understand?” I nod quickly. “Good. Spiral, you can leave now.”

Kreo turns around to move something on his desk, and Spiral slowly walks to the exit. He stares at me like he’s trying to communicate that he didn’t mean what he called me, that we’re in this together.

When he leaves, I wait for Kreo to turn back around.

“How has everything been since I left? Have you fed well?”

“Yessss.”

“Good.” He grabs a small brown book and a pen from the table. “Is there anything you want to tell me about your week?”

I stare at the little book, unblinking. Spiral told me the answers to the unknown could be in there. The answers to whether I can die, to what I am, to what I could be.

“Karma?”

My name snaps me out of it.

“No,” I say quickly, and he looks deflated.