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“Aiden, give me your belt,” I instructed when the tattooed man turned back to stare at me. His pierced brow arched in both concern and annoyance. Over his shoulder, I could see Kace still bouncing in place, staring intently into the eyes of the nearest clown.
“What the fuck, B?” he hissed. “This isn’t the goddamn time—”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I rolled my eyes. “Aiden, you’re the last man in this entire world I would touch. I’ll even put Heath above you.” I jabbed my thumb in Heath’s direction, who grinned as if he’d won the lottery.
Aiden’s eyes flared. “Then what—?”
“Belt. Now.” I held out my hand until, with a disgruntled hiss, Aiden removed it from his waist and placed it in my hand. I then turned towards Heath.
“Oh. Sexy games. I love sexy—” I grabbed his shoulders, spun him around, and then forced his hands behind his back. “Kinky. I like it.” I wrapped the belt around his wrists, tightening the leather until he let out a hiss of pain.
“I don’t trust you.” When I released him, he turned to face me, that damn grin still in place though his eyes were impassive orbs. “At all. So until you can give me a reason to, you’ll be—”
“Your prisoner,” Heath finished, looking as cool and unruffled as always. “I think I get the gist.”
I moved until I was toe-to-toe with him, the knife burning a hole in my pocket. “You move when I tell you to move. You speak when I tell you to speak. You—”
“I get it.” Something dark flashed in Heath’s eyes, there and gone too quickly for me to decipher the meaning of. I didn’t know if I necessarily feared him, but there was something innately lethal and dangerous about the meticulously groomed man standing before me. “I haven’t given you many reasons to trust me—”
“You haven’t given meanyreason to trust you,” I interrupted vehemently. Grabbing his upper arm, I moved towards where Kace and the others stood.
Aiden whistled under his breath, and I heard Tanner mutter, “Hot damn,” to the others.
A tiny smirk pulled up my lips, though that smile fell when I stepped through the main entrance and into the theme park.
If I’d thought the exterior was terrifying, the inside proved to be worse. Everything was decorated with hideous, distorted clowns—pasty faces, disheveled red afros, and vibrant paint on their cheeks and around their eyes.
A shudder worked its way through me as I spun in a circle, my eyes devouring every macabre sight.
We appeared to be in a section that consisted of kiddie rides and games you could play to win prizes. Immediately to my right were numerous stalls, each one depicting a different clown in various degrees of decay. The first one showed red-painted lips lifted upwards into a wide smile, beady, pinprick black eyes, and crazy red hair. The very last one had blood gushing from the clown’s mouth and empty eye sockets, numerous wounds decorating its pastel face. Its yellow, billowy suit was in tatters, and bruises decorated its neck and left eye.
“My god. That’s horrifying,” I whispered.
“Tell me about it,” Aiden murmured.
But he wasn’t looking in the same direction as me. Instead, he was staring at a merry-go-round, though instead of animals, clowns in various positions were connected to golden poles that moved up and down as the ride spun. Some were bent over slightly, as if their backs were made to be sat on, while others were on their hands and knees. Each clown wore a different color, though the majority of them had the same painted white face and red, bushy hair.
“Tanner, you okay, man?” Beau rasped. We all spun to see Tanner’s face had drained of all color, sweat dotting his forehead. His hands trembled by his sides as he stared at the various clowns with abject horror etched across his face.
“Tanner?” I whispered, taking a step closer to him.
He rubbed a hand down his face. “I’m all right,” he said unconvincingly. “I’m just…um… I just don’t like clowns.” From the way his voice trembled, I could tell it went beyond simply not liking them. The man was positively terrified.
“It’s okay, Tanner. It’s going to be okay.” My words sounded false, even to my own ears, bursting with promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. Still, I hated seeing him so distressed, his shoulders bunched to his ears and his face devoid of any color. He normally had healthy, tan skin with a slight golden hue, but just then, he could’ve been a ghost.
Though maybe a ghost wasn’t a completely inaccurate comparison, considering where we were.
“Let’s move quickly and get through here as fast as we can,” Aiden told us. He peered into the distance, where I could dimly see a wooden coaster and a towering Ferris wheel. “I’m assuming there’s an exit near the back of the park.”
Tanner nodded. “There is. Next to the Ferris wheel.”
“Okay.” Aiden nodded, his jaw clenching. “Okay. Okay.” He tightened his hands around the straps of his backpack. “We should get moving.”
I gave Tanner’s hand a quick squeeze. “You okay?” I kept my voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear.
With his free hand, he ran his fingers through his golden blond hair. Lines of stress marred his handsome face, though I could tell he was trying to put on a brave face. For my benefit? Or his own?
“I’m fine. It’s just…”
