Page 27 of Circus From Hell

“Fine.”

Spiral’s smile is wide and deceiving. “Good slut. Now go back to your tent. You’ll be with me tomorrow so I know you’re not running off. And before you say no, you don’t have a choice. Disobey, and I tell Kreo.”

CHAPTER NINE

SPIRAL

Ilove watching her sleep.

So unaware. So unusually calm. So helpless and vulnerable.

I can’t wait to kill her.

Well, kill her again. Once I figure out how to kill a dead girl.

I take another swig of whisky, knowing I need it to sleep.

This is my nightly routine. Watch Karma sleep, drink half a bottle of alcohol, and pass out until I’m woken up by one of the clowns sucking me off.

I’m bored of it. Bored of the regular orgies and the performing and the demands. They’re a placeholder until I get Karma wrapped around my little finger. Kreo doesn’t appreciate her morally corrupt brain like I do. No one does.

But I hate her. So fucking much. I was Kreo’s fixation until she came along, and as soon as I watch those neon green eyes turn off—maybe after I play around with her body—Kreo will come back to me. He’ll stop doing all his tests on her and his other creatures. He’ll come back to testing me. He’ll finally fix my brain and take away the pain.

Karma thinks I hate her because I was Kreo’s star, his favourite, until he made her. And at first, that was the truth. It enraged me. I love the lights and the fans and the attention, and Karma has always hated it. She hides in the shadows, so how was it fair that she got it when I didn’t? But the more I hated her, the more I watched her, the more obsessed I became. I loathe how obsessed I am with her. Despise it.

I tell myself it’s total hatred.

I tell myself that every day.

Kreo was so close to fixing my brain, to taking that hurt away. Then he created her, and he never bothered again. He’s done test after test on me. He’s given me extra appendages, played around with my eyeballs, tested my reproduction skills—all for naught. The pain is still there, still unbearable.

And now these boys have decided to step onto my territory. Onto my obsession.

I will kill her. And I will be the first to fuck her virgin body. Dead or alive. Then I’ll get rid of her.

I drop the flap to her tent and stumble back. I haven’t done my evening jobs because I was too busy looking for Karma earlier before I found her on her knees with other men, which means Kreo’s caged pet will be hungry. But that’s Karma’s fault. She unknowingly forced me to watch her inhale dick, and when I saw the three of them under the benches, I couldn’t look away. I know she disobeyed Kreo’s direct orders the night he left—she went out when there wasn’t a show—so I’ve had my eye on her. But to know it’s because she’s been seeing those fuckers? Yeah, I’m pissed.

My legs are wobbly as I make my way across the field to the trailers, drops of whisky spilling from the bottle to land on the grass. The padlock takes me a couple of tries to get right, and I’ve usually done this part of the routine before I open the bottle and drink away consciousness. Normally, I wouldn’t be allowed in here, but Kreo didn’t want his pet dying when he went away.

“Wakey, wakey,” I sing out, my words slurring as I nearly trip into the trailer. “Food time.”

I turn on the bright light, squinting my eyes. Kreo has me feeding this thing for the next two weeks. He found it a few months ago and likes to do tests on it regularly, but when he’s fixated on a new creature or concoction, he forgets about it for a while.

There’s a plate of fish left over from this morning that Kreo’s pet refused. I pick it up and walk over to the large cage at the end of the trailer, passing the wide wooden box covered in chains that I haven’t been allowed to touch. Kreo is incredibly protective of this trailer, and I’m the only one who’s allowed inside when he’s not here, but that box? Complete mystery.

“You better eat up this time, Fishboy.” I kick the bottom of the cage bars and crouch down to peer inside. It’s sitting in the corner, its muscled blue back facing me. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

I throw the slab of raw fish into the cage. Kreo told me I was to watch it until it eats, but it flat out ignored the food this morning.

I slam my hand against the bars again, but it doesn’t flinch.

“You won’t get any food tomorrow if you don’t eat it.”

“I don’t like fish,” it says quietly.

Kreo found this thing near the sea. How can it not like fish?

“Well, there’s nothing else, so eat it or starve.” It continues to ignore me, and I have no patience tonight. “Kreo demands you finish all the fish.”