The Immortal Circus: Act Two (7 page)

“What did you find out?”

Kingston pauses in the door, clearly surprised I’m awake at
this hour of the day. I would be surprised at myself too, if not for the whole
neighbor-being-a-yoga-addict thing. My head’s ringing, but not with the same
intensity as yesterday. It just feels like a hangover. I hope it’s just a
hangover.

“Nothing,” he says. He steps inside and lets the door close
behind him. He looks like he didn’t sleep at all.

“Nothing?”

He shrugs and moves over to the bed, sits down beside me.
Our fingers touch.

“We went over your contract line by line. Everything’s still
in order. Your powers are still under lock and key.”

“
Should
be.” I twine my fingers around his. He
reaches back. “Any chance you can tell me what those powers are?”

After that initial spark last night, I wasn’t able to summon
another flare up. Just a headache that threatened to tilt into a full-on
migraine had I not passed out soon after.

Kingston shakes his head.

“You know the rules,” he says. “You didn’t want to know
about them. So I can’t tell you.”

“Fuck the rules,” I retort, but I know what he’s saying is
concrete. He couldn’t tell me even if he wanted to. “What I don’t know could
kill you.”

He squeezes my fingers. That alone makes me feel a little
better; he’s not treating me like I’m dangerous, so maybe I’m not.

“Calm down,” he says. “You can’t kill me. Contractual impossibility,
remember?”

“Tell that to whoever killed Roman and Sabina,” I say
bitterly. All this time, I thought Lilith was the threat. What if it’s me? What
if these powers are dangerous to the ones I love?

“Their contracts were jeopardized,” he says. “You know that.
Mab went through everyone’s contracts and cleaned it all up. We’re safe.
Seriously. Whatever happened last night was a flare-up, a fluke. Perfectly
harmless.

Right,
I think. Because he didn’t feel what was going
on in my head, that insatiable desire to pull him so close we became one, the
need to rip him limb from limb to make him mine. I shake my head. If
that’s
not dangerous, I don’t know what is.

“You
aren’t
dangerous,” he says. He brushes a finger
under my chin and turns my face toward him. “And you
aren’t
going to
hurt me.” He leans over and kisses me. The desire from before is still there; I
can feel something deep in my chest, something stirring with energy. But now
that I know it’s there, I keep it locked up. At least I tell myself I can keep
it locked up.

“See?” he says when he leans back. “I’m not bacon.”

I roll my eyes.

“I’m going to prove it to you.” He reaches into his back
pocket and pulls something out.

“Are those
handcuffs?”
I ask. He grins devilishly.
They’re silver and covered in pink fur.

Kingston nods, his grin widening.

“Melody lent them to me,” he says.

I can’t imagine Mel owning
anything
with pink fur,
but I’ve no doubt those are, in fact, hers. Or Sara’s.

“You’re going to use these on me,” he says. He leans over
and nips the tip of my nose. “My bunk. 10 p.m. Body chocolate, champagne, and
these babies.”

I can’t help but giggle at how ridiculous this is.

“You’re responding to the threat of me being dangerous with
bondage?” I ask.

He nods.

“It’s about trust,” he says. The grin’s still there, but his
words are serious. “I trust you won’t hurt me in the throes of passion. And I
can’t think of any better way of proving that to you than by example.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“And you love me,” he says. He leans over and kisses me,
then hops off the bed.

“I’ve got to go help Mab interview concessionaires. See you
tonight.” He winks and then leaves, taking the fuzzy handcuffs with him.

For a while, I just sit there with a stupid grin on my face.
Clearly, he’s over the Austin thing. But then the giddiness starts to fade.
Because I’m still left with a bunch of questions. I’m still left with a
headache that’s threatening to tear me apart. But at least things are on the
mend. If Kingston’s not worried, I won’t let myself worry. But that doesn’t mean
I’m going to let myself forget.

Kingston wasn’t kidding about the body chocolate and
champagne. Or the handcuffs.

My heart is still pounding and my skin is still sticky from
chocolate, but then he runs a finger down my stomach and the remaining syrup
vanishes, my whole body clean in an instant. He, I’m pleased to note, doesn’t
do the same for himself. I roll on top of him and stare down, a smile on my
face. He’s grinning like a schoolboy. His hair is a tangle and his breathing is
heavy. He puts a hand on the back of my leg. His touch is fire.

“You’re amazing,” he says. His eyes slide over my skin, and
for the first time all day I finally feel like I belong in this show of sex and
intrigue. No layers of old-lady shawls. Just a strand of chunky necklaces
around my neck and others scattered on the black satin sheets.

“You too,” I say, then lean over and lick a stray bit of
chocolate from his chest. He practically purrs under my touch.

He’s grinning when I sit up. The handcuffs dangle from his
headboard. After the chocolate came out, they were deemed unnecessary. My head
is swimming from sex and champagne, and for the first time all day the headache
is dulled, barely a throb in the corner of my consciousness.

“That proves it,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

He chuckles.

“You aren’t dangerous. Well, except for your nails.” He
raises his eyebrows and looks down at his chest, to the long red marks raked
there.

I chuckle and scratch him again. A small drip of blood
appears. The sight of it makes my heart leap.

“Ouch,” he says. A second later he flips me over and
crouches above me, his hips pressed against mine. “Don’t make me punish you for
bad behavior,” he warns playfully.

“Please do,” I start to say, but then he’s kissing me and
the desire to talk is gone. I close my eyes and arch myself to him and let the
movement take over. But in the back of my mind, I’m acutely aware of the cut on
his chest and that vanished drip of blood.

The linoleum is red beneath my knees, red and flowing,
and I know it should be white. And cold. Linoleum should be cold. Not warm like
this. Not wet.

But it’s not the floor that’s bleeding—no. That’s the
girl in the corner, the girl I can only stare at. She’s quiet. She’s not
moving. Not anymore. Her shirt is red. Red, like the floor.

“I thought you were dead,” he says. I look up and there’s
the guy. I know him. Somehow. We played video games in his living room. We went
to the same college. His name flutters around my head on silent wings, but I
can’t catch it. Slicked brown hair, blue eyes, muscular frame. “After your
sister died.”

Except I know he’s not saying “died.” I see his other
words.

“… was murdered.”

I look at the girl in the corner. Her brown hair is
curled, but you can’t tell—not under the blood matting it down.

Claire.

Her name is Claire.

“I thought you were—”

But then someone snorts and rolls over, and I’m back in bed,
staring wide-eyed at the dark wall. My heart is racing in my chest, louder than
drums or blood in my ears. Kingston settles behind me.

“I have a sister,” I say to the darkness. “Claire.”

I’m out the door a minute later.

The night is cold and clear, the grounds dark. Empty. I
don’t know what time it is and I don’t care. No one’s awake.

I need to run. I need to scream. So I break into a sprint
and head to the edge of the field and do just that.

I can’t get her face out of my head. The dead brown eyes and
matted hair, the red pooling in the hollow of her neck.
Claire, Claire
—her
name is a bloody mantra in my head. It echoes around me and I swear I hear a
thousand voices calling the name:
Claire, Claire.

The memory of her existence crashes down on me. It squeezes
my chest and I fall to my knees. Hair comes out in chunks as I rip at my scalp,
my eyes so tightly shut my brain hurts, or maybe that’s the memory. I scream.
Choke. I roll on the grass and dig my fingers into my naked flesh and try to
rip myself apart. I’m bleeding. I can taste the iron. But I feel nothing,
nothing. No pain. Just the weight, the suffocation.

I had a sister.

And she’s dead.

She was murdered.

Someone murdered my sister.

The chains twist tighter and I can’t make a sound anymore,
can barely breathe a groan. Hers isn’t the only face in my mind now. There’s
Sabina and Roman and Paul and Penelope, the countless bodies sprawled and
burning across the tent grounds as the Summer Fey attacked. All these people
dying around me. All these murders.

I thought I was safe. I thought I was safe, but I’m not.
People are dying and I don’t know why and it hurts, it hurts. It pulls every
breath from my lungs as the darkness closes in and I lie on the edge of the
field. I hear footsteps.
My eyes flutter as the darkness closes in.…

The light is blinding. It burns
with fire and starlight. It fills me. Burns me. Empties me with hunger.

I can barely see her through the light.

She doesn’t see me.

She never saw me.

Only Claire saw me watching, but she’s too young to
understand. To know what our mother does. Who our mother is.

Mom is on the sofa. There’s a needle beside her and a
rubber tube curled at her feet like a snake. Her eyes are glazed. They’re
reflecting the TV like glass. Like light on glass. And the light—the light—it’s
brighter than the static. Louder.

And I know. I know that tomorrow she’ll come out of her
haze and she’ll yell at me. Beat me. And then I’ll hide the bruises, or the
cuts if she has a weapon, and I’ll go to work and then go to class, because
college is the only way I’m getting the hell out of here. But Claire? Claire? I
have to help her too. I can’t make her run. I’m responsible. She’s too young.

The light, the light.

“You don’t want to see this.” I turn toward the voice,
and Mab is there. She floats in the corner of the living room, glowing magenta.
Her hair is a dark halo tinged with rubies, and her eyes flash green. Her dress
is snakeskin and cobwebs, and when I see her, the light fades. A little.
Although the edges grow brighter. “You locked this away for a reason.”

“I’m—” and I can’t speak. I look over to my mom and know
she’s still alive even though her chest barely moves. She’s no longer a mother.
Mommy, Mom, why can’t I find you?

“You have to accept this, Vivienne,” Mab says, and now
she’s floating beside me. Her presence is electric. Her presence makes the
light flare. “Your past is locked away. You do not want to see what resides
there.”

“I can’t,” I say. I watch the television’s reflection in
the glass of my mother’s eyes. Static. Static. So much static and light.

“You must,” she says. Her words are soothing. A coo. “Let
it go.”

Then I see a face in the doorway. Peeking around the
corner. Claire. She’s young, so young. So innocent. She doesn’t deserve this.

“I have to save her,” I say.

“You have a very strange view on saving,” the woman
beside me says, though I’ve forgotten who she is.
Claire, Claire. I have to
save you.

I step over to Claire and kneel at her side.

“We have to go,” I say. I’m crying. Why am I crying? The
light, the light. It tells me we must run. We have to get out of here, now.
Now. Before Dad gets home. Before Dad hurts her again.

“I’m scared,” Claire says, but I pet her head like a
kitten, and she closes her eyes—and the light, the light. It’s static. She
flickers.

“I’ll save you,” I say.

But she flickers again, and now she’s not white. She’s
red. And there are wounds in her chest, and the carpet is linoleum, and the
light above is flickering, dying. And she’s dead. There’s red on my hands and
red on the floor and red on my jeans and the light, the light makes it glow.
The world glows red, burns white.

Who did this? Who did this?

My fingers are clawing her chest, trying to stop the
blood flowing against the floor.

I scream.

I scream.

And the light screams too. It screams, but it doesn’t
burn the world away. It just illuminates the blood.

I wake and wonder where the hell I am.

I’m shivering with early morning cold, and I realize I’m
outside. That much is certain. The sky is a clear blue dome above me; the sun
is barely past the horizon. The air is alive with birdsong. Memories of last
night filter through in a pleasant haze: the chocolate and champagne, the
tingle of Kingston’s kisses. I sigh, content, but something twists memory.
Something says I shouldn’t be this blissed.

I feel good. Ridiculously good.

I drag a hand through my hair and watch the wisp of clouds
trail above me. My hair is sticky. Kingston must have missed some of the
chocolate.

The ground beneath me is muddy, and for the life of me I
can’t remember why I came out here. Maybe I was sleepwalking?

I sigh. I should get up. Get coffee. I close my eyes and run
a hand down my stomach, and it’s slick with chocolate too. Slick and sticky. I
raise a finger to my lips. Slick and sticky and sweet. I lick my fingers. My
heart thuds happily in my chest. I drop my hand to my stomach and swirl the
chocolate drizzled there. I should really get moving, especially since I’m
outside naked. Someone might find me. The last thing I want to do is explain
away Kingston’s chocolate.