Page 69 of Circus From Hell

He slips the key back around his neck and marches away whilst laughing to himself, ignoring my fists slamming against the metal. There’s no point screaming or shouting obscenities. He’s set on leaving me here.

And I guess I can’t blame him. I wanted to do the same to him, Arlo, and Micha for touching Karma.

But that doesn’t mean I deserve to be locked away like a dog.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ARLO

“Shit, shit, shit.”

My heart feels like it’s tearing as I watch Soren lower Karma onto the mattress in her small tent, and I keep muttering that word over and over. Snake cuddles into her neck, chittering a small, sad noise.

“Spiral thinks she’ll be okay.”

I look up at the big guy. “What do you think?”

He rubs the back of his head, and a slither of nervousness breaks through. I don’t know this man well enough, but I know that he’s pretty stern, and if he’s worried, then I should definitely be.

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “I have no idea what I’m dealing with here.”

I pace back and forth across the limited space, my head in my hands as I attempt to stop hyperventilating. I grab my phone from my back pocket, the device shaking in my trembling fingers, and I shoot off a text to my stepbrother. He’s going to kill me for sneaking out when he was so worried, but I don’t care right now. I need Micha.

“Sit down,” Soren orders, and his deep voice breaks through my incessant pacing. He’s sitting beside Karma’s mattress, arms resting on his knees. “You’re not doing yourself or Karma any good by wearing yourself out.”

I thread my fingers through my curls and groan, but he’s right. I drop beside him, letting my palm rest on her mattress, my finger scarcely touching the side of her bare arm.

She doesn’t have a pillow or blanket on her bed.

“Should we get her a blanket or something?”

“She’s technically dead, Blondie. I don’t think she feels the cold.”

Karma hasn’t moved an inch, and I wish she had a heart so I could put my ear to her chest and hear it beat to reassure myself. There’s really nothing to tell us if she’s still alive.

“How did you meet her?” Soren mutters after a few minutes of silence.

I laugh under my breath. “I saw her on a poster. I was transfixed. It seems she was too. She followed me and Micha home after the show.”

“I guess I’ll have to tamp down on my jealousy issues if she plans on keeping you boys around.”

“Yeah, you will,” I reply sternly. I’m possessive of Karma. Not of her body, but of her right to choose and her right to live how she pleases. She made it very clear that she likes the four of us, even if I don’t want Spiral to be a part of that four. “Micha and I aren’t going anywhere.”

“I don’t do well with sharing.”

“Then you best get used to it, even if it includes the clown.”

His fists clench. “Are you being serious? We can’t let that fucker anywhere near her again. Don’t you care about her?”

“Of course I do,” I whisper-shout. “But Karma isn’t like anyone else. What he did was… fucked-up, but what she does is fucked-up. She’s a cannibalistic, kleptomaniac, dead woman, for shit’s sake. Besides, if she wakes up, we don’t get to make decisions for her. She wouldn’t let us. It would be futile.”

“Well, I’m not letting him out of that cage. He can rot in there.”

I can’t argue with that. I’m not entirely opposed to the idea.

“What are you, Soren?”

He huffs a laugh. “That’s the million-dollar question. No one really knows. I don’t really know.”