Page 63 of Circus From Hell

Don’t eat the performers.

Don’t eat the performers.

Her heart-painted lips snarl, teeth baring in an attempted threat, and pure anger manifests across her face. She dives and takes me down to the grass. Snake scurries out of the way. Her hips straddle mine as she lands on top, scratching and reaching for the key. I fight back harder and tear her jumpsuit and skin with my nails.

My left hand catches her face, and she screams when my finger and nail dig into her eye. She grabs my wrist, but even with both of her hands, it’s not enough to stop me from penetrating her eye socket. I keep going, my nail breaking through. Blood leaks, something crunches and squelches, and she screams again.

I pull back as she scrambles away, covering her eye and hyperventilating on the floor.

Electricity thrums through my veins as I move onto my elbows. Blood covers her skin and drips down her face, mouth parted in pure fear as she stares at her shaking hands. Slowly, she turns to look at me, and I see the damage.

Her eye socket is covered in so much blood that I can’t see the eye anymore. I don’t know if it’s in there. It could be somewhere on the grass.

“My eye,” she whispers, fear constricting her throat. The sound of her rapid heartbeat, the smell of her terror—it’s too much.

Hunger takes over completely. It’s been too long since my last meal. My stomach has been living off arousal, but it needs more fear, more human.

I twist onto my hands and knees, panting and drooling and fighting against instinct. I grasp for the key and rip it off my neck, throwing it into the grass.

“Take it to Arlo,” I shout out against my gnawing stomach, hoping Snake is still here to hear me.

I focus on the smell and sound of anything but Moxie. The grass. The alcohol from Spiral’s tent. The steady heartbeat as Dolly appears from the unknown and crouches beside her friend. Moxie is shouting, but the sound fades to warped background noise, replaced with the whirring of electricity through my body, pounding in my ears.

Dolly drags Moxie away, and it takes everything I have to not chase after them and hunt them down. My fingers dig into the dirt as I twist them around the grass, latching onto it like it can hold me down.

Drool drips onto my hands, and my vision swirls in and out of focus.

“Karma?” Spiral calls out groggily behind me, but I don’t turn to look at him. I focus on a single piece of grass instead. “The fuck was all that noise? And what are you doing?” I can hear the drunken slurring between his words. He’s not had enough sleep to sober up yet. “I asked you a question, dead girl.”

“Jusssst leave,” I grit out, the smell of his flesh breaking the barrier of weed and whisky and worsening the hunger coiling around my stomach.

“Yeah, there’s no chance I’m doing that. Do you need to hunt? Is that it?”

“Yesss. So go away.”

“Why are you not hunting then? Normally you go ahead and do it.”

“I will hunt you if you don’t leave now.”

“Nah, I don’t think you will. I think you like me secretly.”

I force myself to stand, daring to look at him. His arms are crossed, and he’s staring at me like I’m entirely beneath him.

“You doing good there? You look a little hungry.”

“I’m going to eat you.”

He takes a step back, but he isn’t scared. “I’ll tell you what. If you find me, you can eat me.”

“That won’t be hard,” I snap, but I can’t stop my body from shivering at the thought of hunting and eating him.

“There’s a condition.” He steps into his tent, and it takes everything in me to stand still. When he pops back out, he’s holding something in his hand. A syringe. “If you take this, and you can still find me, I’ll not only let you eat me, but I’ll fight you as hard as I physically can. I’ll be delicious.”

Why is he offering himself up like this? Whatever’s in that syringe won’t stop me, and it certainly won’t kill me.

Those are rational thoughts, but I’m not having many of those right now. My vision is still blurring, and Spiral’s face and devious smirk double for a passing moment. I’ve not eaten someone in… How long has it been? Is this what happens when I skip a meal? It’s been so long since I started routinely hunting. Is this what would happen to me when Kreo didn’t bring me human meat?

I’m stealthy, lithe, practiced.