Page 94 of Circus From Hell

I hate my new stepmum.

I hate myself.

But I don’t hate my stepbrother.

I sneak into Arlo’s bedroom, gently releasing the handle so it doesn’t snap loudly and alert our parents. They can’t know I sneak in here.

Arlo’s bright hair is peeking out from behind his bed. He’s curled up and rocking with his head in his knees.

I’ve not known Arlo for long, but he’s sensitive. My dad has never been nice, but he’s been brutal against Arlo since he showed up four months ago and announced he had married Nancy. Nancy doesn’t care that my father beats her son; she doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything.

He’s only one and a half years younger than me—fifteen—but he can’t cope. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard my father yelling and Arlo screaming in pain. I always find him in the same spot behind his bed.

It’s six o’clock, and normally, we’d be forced to sit and eat dinner in silence. But plans have changed. I heard my dad opening the door and inviting people inside, and we never have people over. Nancy’s housewife voice was loud and bright to replace its usual monotone symphony. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were all saying, but I had to check on Arlo.

I’ve come to care for him, even if he’s nervous around me.

“Where does it hurt?”

He raises his head, sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. I see the blood on the corner of his cheek and the red mark surrounding it that will form into a nasty bruise to match the fading ones on his arms.

“Shit,” I mutter. There’s nothing I can do for that. I have no ice.

“How was school today, Micha?” He’s trying to distract me from it. He doesn’t make eye contact.

“It’s the summer holidays, Pipsqueak. I’ve finished school now.”

“Oh.”

Arlo doesn’t go to school. He doesn’t go to the doctor or have any friends. He’s not allowed to leave the house.

I don’t even think anyone outside this household knows he exists.

Arlo’s been here with his mother since she eloped with my dad. His clothes have always hung from him like they’re oversized, but they seem looser in recent weeks. And he’s always been shy, nervous, to himself, but I catch his gaze fading in and out of focus, his head sometimes lolling to the side.

I think it has something to do with my father and stepmother watching him as he eats. They don’t pay attention to the amount of food leaving my plate, only Arlo’s. It’s his one meal of the day, and they’re fixated on it.

My dad has always hated me. Ever since Mum passed, he’s taken his frustration out on me. Since Arlo turned up, he doesn’t bother.

That doesn’t make the nightmares any easier or the horrors of the things he’d force me to watch as a child any duller.

The sight of clowns still makes me shiver.

“Arlo!” Nancy shouts from the bottom of the stairs, and we both snap to look at the closed bedroom door like it’s going to slam open any minute. My heart beats harder as my mind whirls with possibilities. Why does she want him when those strangers are down there?

When I turn back to Arlo, his eyes reflect my fear tenfold, and tears brim at the waterline. We’re never called downstairs at this time.

He doesn’t look away from me, and I don’t look away from him. I crave to be around him constantly, to protect him and reassure him, but he’s my stepbrother. I know the way I feel is wrong. It’s a feeling I’ve never understood or experienced so strongly with anyone else, and my father would lay his hands on me if he knew.

The day Mum passed from a stroke was the day the light behind his eyes died. Six years of dwelling and torment, of training me to be a ‘bigger man’, of forcing me to take beatings and watch snuff films to prepare me for the ‘real world’.

Clowns will always haunt me. The first film he showed me was of three clowns brutally murdering a man with an ice pick. I was ten.

I’m not soft—Dad’s plan worked, I guess—but I’m soft for Arlo.

“It’ll be okay,” I whisper, taking a gamble and tucking a long curl behind his ear.

“Then why do you look so scared, Micha?”