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That’s when I see her in my rearview. Only she’s not alone. She’s pressed against the opposite side of the building by a behemoth of a trucker, near where there are full showers and vending machines to dispense soap and deodorant.
I make U-turn, then drive until I pull up right beside them.
“Ah, darling, don’t be like that. I can take you anywhere you need to go—”
“Come on, Nikki,” I say in a hard voice.
The trucker’s head jerks around, and there is instant recognition.
“Clive.” I nod to the forty-something year old trucker who’s trying to pick up an underage girl.
“M-Mathias.” He drops the tree trunks he calls arms, which are caging Nikki in.
“Come on, Nicolette,” I say, turning back to the car, not giving him the dignity of more of my attention.
After opening the passenger side door, I wait until she’s settled into the front seat. Then I close the door with a hard snap before heading back to my side.
“I’ll be sure to let Rita-Ann know what you were getting up to when I see her.” I throw him a wave, determined to ruin this motherfucker’s life. “I figure she deserves to know why your sorry ass got fired.”
I pull off, watching through my rearview as he rips the John Deere hat off his head and stomps it into the ground.
“You, okay?” I ask, heading not in the direction of the city center, but in the direction of the Shelby Estate.
“Yeah, I just needed a ride out of town,” she mumbles, looking out the window.
“You know what he wanted for that ride.”
She lifts one shoulder in response, and I feel sick.
“Listen. I have somewhere you can crash tonight. It’s totally safe. No one is going to bother you. If you still want to leave tomorrow, you can. After hitting you with my car, I need to make sure you don’t have any internal injuries, anyway.”
“I’m fine. Where are you taking me?” She’s finally realized we aren’t going back to the city center but likely resigned about her limited options. I assume she’s willing to go with the devil she knows.
“My home.”
ChapterTwo
Nikki (six years ago)
His eyes looklike liquid mercury. At least that’s what I remember mercury looking like when I convinced Daddy to send me to regular school that one time. I’ve never seen it in a person before.
He’s probably the most beautiful being I’ve seen in my whole life, and that’s including Bacca, the white tiger we had in the Russo Circus. The only thing marring his beauty is the barest hint of a scar slicing through his left eyebrow. It’s pencil-mark thin, barely noticeable except when the light hits it.
I know I’m a dang fool for listening to him. For trusting him. He could be likeAmerican Psychocrazy; he’s dressed like him in that fancy suit. I’m probably going to be chopped up into a million bits by morning, but not without a fight. He gave me two weapons.
Wait a minute. He probably just gave them to me so I’d lower my defenses. Then he plied myself with all that delicious and heavy food so my reflexes would be slow.
Ugh. Dumb-ditty-dumb-dumb.
Daddy ain’t been gone a month, and I’m already making bad moves.You think you’re grown, but you’re not. You need to make it down there to my people. My people, not your mom’s. They’ll look after you, he urged me as he lay dying from the cancer eating him from the inside out.
I did what he said after things got rough with the circus, with him no longer there to intimidate people with his large, imposing figure; the vultures started circling now that I am almost grown. So, I came down here and checked out my father’s side. Seeing the Loves, I knew I’d never fit in with the big boisterous family. There were so many of them, making up more than half the population of Shelby-Love. Some are staid conservative Christians, the other side criminals, with some in the middle who seem to not gravitate to either side. Still, none of them are like me—different, raised almost feral in the circus/carnival circuit. None of them were raised in a circus by a sometimes trapeze artist, other times lion tamer. I’d stick out like a sore thumb just like Daddy and Mommy did, which is why they left—or tried to after their families split them apart, took my older sisters, and tried to lock them up away and keep them from each other at Bryce Hospital, a place where they stuck eccentric folks like my parents.
After watching the Loves for nearly a week and running out of the little money I had left over after having to slip away before even getting my last check, and with nowhere to stay, I decided it was time to go back and take my chances with the folks I’ve known all my life. Until Mathias—what an epic name—hit me with his sleek black BMW.
“Here we are,” he says, way too casually for my liking, as he pulls up to the yellow cottage-style home. It looks like it’s right out of a fairy tale and already has me looking for the witch that’s gonna try to eat me. I look at the little house long and hard, not sure if this is my salvation for the night or if he’s going to drag out killing me over days or have me locked up here like that movie where that girl’s dad had her in a room for years after making folks think she ran away.
Still, there’s never been a lock I couldn’t pick or a box I couldn’t contort my body enough to squeeze out of. Daddy saw to that, making sure I was the most versatile kid on the circuit.
