Page 137 of Circus From Hell

SPIRAL

Igrab Karma’s shoulders and shake, trying to snap her out of whatever trance she’s in. The scissors in her hand drop to the floor, but she doesn’t blink. She doesn’t look at me but through me.

She’s ripped out the stitches on her smile.

“Speak to me, dead girl. Come on.”

“What happened?” Soren asks, looking around the trashed room.

“Is she okay?” Arlo whines, but I ignore them. Micha stands by the entrance, staring at Karma like he can’t decide what to do.

“He is a liar,” she whispers, her hands balling at her sides. “A liar. A traitor.”

“Who, baby?” Arlo whispers, but I put my hand up, stopping him from coming any closer. She looks gone, and I don’t trust her instincts not to lash out in this state.

“Kreo,” she spits, and it’s like Karma is slapped back into herself as soon as the word leaves her down-turned lips. She shoves me away with the strength of five men, and Soren catches me in his arms before I trip over the table. “That lying, betraying, traitorous fuck!” she screams, hands fisting the thick bases of her pigtails. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.”

I look over the torn pages spread across the floor. The diaries. The ones I reminded her of.

Is this my fault?

“Just talk to us, Stitches,” Micha says quietly. He steps in, moving past the rest of us. “Tell us what’s the matter.” She’s about to lash out at him, but he grabs her wrists and holds her at his chest. “Calm it. Now.”

Her chest heaves, like she’s choosing to rely on oxygen when she’s never needed to before. Bright green eyes narrow on Micha, and I see her internally make a decision. Micha’s brat-taming skills work, and her body relaxes slightly.

“That’s my girl. Now tell me what’s happened.”

“Kreo, he—” She groans, looking around the room at the rest of us. “He’s going to kill me. Or wait for death to take me. He— Ugh!” She screams, but Micha doesn’t let go. “He’s going to ssstudy my death! He put bellsss in my hair ssso he can hear me fucking coming! And he won’t help Ssspiral. He’s lying. And there’s a whole other one like me. But worssse. And— And⁠—”

“Slow down,” I urge, approaching her side. She blinks at me, and for a split second, it looks like tears line her eyes. “Just slow down.” I didn’t miss what she said about me, but right now, I don’t give two shits about what she might have found out. I only care about her.

“He won’t fix you, Ssspiral,” she whines, and the noise cracks my chest open, because she looks devastated by that fact. “He jussst wanted to keep you on a leash.”

So the pain… It’s never going to go away? The drinking, the smoking—it’s never going to stop?

The fix I’ve been so desperately waiting for since Kreo found me all those years ago.

Ten years. Ten years of lying, of secrets, of betrayal.

Twenty-eight years of constant pain and suffering that I was waiting—praying—to disappear as soon as someone gave enough of a shit about me to try and take it away.

All for naught.

“No.” I shake my head and fist my hair, the constant pounding rattling around my skull. “No, I can’t— I don’t want— Make it stop. Make it stop.”

“Fuck, not him too,” Micha grunts.

“Spiral,” Soren says calmly, like I’m a string about to snap. “We’ll sort it, okay? There are people, doctors. We’ll find someone.”

“Okay, okay,” I pant as he drags me to his chest and engulfs me. “We’ll find someone. We’ll get out of here. I’ll be okay.” I repeat the words like a mantra as the panic that coiled around my chest slowly loosens. I don’t believe the pain will ever go away, but I guess there’s still hope.

“Karma, you said there’s another one like you. But worse.” Arlo closes in on her, tentative, cautious. “Can you tell us about that?”

“I’m Project Human Two. There was someone before. Someone he likened to the devil. Someone he could never let out again.”

I pull away from Soren and look at Karma’s furious face. “He had another?”

“They were too much for him. But I was just his test. Not hisss child, not something he cared about. Just a fucking test.”