Circus of Death - Candace Wondrak Page 0,11

closed the distance between us, nearly making me stumble back as he leaned his head over mine and whispered, “I am the Ringmaster here. You would do well not to speak to me like that again.” A whispered threat, his honey-coated words now dripping venom.

It was then I knew, and I knew it without a doubt: Nigel was no more than the devil himself in a fancy outfit, a man who whispered promises into your ear, only to trick you when you finally gave into him. A liar, a deceiver, a trickster through and through with an eternal, handsome face that would haunt every dream you’d have from now until the end of time itself.

My heart, strange as it was, still felt like it beat in my chest, and I could not look at Nigel, not when he towered over me, not when he sounded like he wanted to tear me apart, just as Trey had done.

This could not be happening, but it was. It was happening, and even though it was hard for my mind to wrap around it, I needed to calm myself. There had to be a way out of here.

And if there wasn’t… if there wasn’t, I was completely fucked.

Nigel pulled himself away from me, those eyes staring right through me. “A part of you still fights it. Dear Thana, it doesn’t matter if you fight me, or this place. We are not your enemy.” He lifted a hand, gesturing to the world outside. “The place beyond the boundaries is your enemy. Do you think I chose you because you were loved out there? Do you think I chose you because you had the potential to change the world?”

The more he spoke, the more I felt like I wanted to cry. He was basically saying no one loved me out there, that my life, should I have lived it on my own, done what I’d wanted… it wouldn’t have mattered. I would’ve just been a drop in the bucket that was earth, just like everybody else, and that hurt, cut me like a knife to the heart.

No one wanted to hear they weren’t special.

“No,” he answered himself, shaking his head slightly. “I chose you because you were no one, you had nothing. Here, you can find everything you need, everything you’ve ever wanted. Here you can find love and acceptance.” Nigel paused, sighing softly before he added, “Here you can have a family.”

I shook my head, not wanting to accept his words, feeling tears start to prick the edges of my vision. I pushed past him, running through the circus, seeing, for the first time, the other performers. They’d gathered near the tents, watching Nigel speak to me, watching him tell me that the life I’d known was gone forever.

That I was dead. I was dead, trapped here forever like them, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I ran. I didn’t know where I was running to, but I ran. I ran so hard and so far, but in the end, it was pointless. In the end, I only found myself at the back of the circus, where the smaller tents were, where, I assumed, the still-living and breathing customers weren’t allowed… where we lived.

In fucking tents.

How the fuck were people supposed to live like this? I knew I might not have had much, but at least I had TV, the internet, books and all that shit. Things I could do and occupy my time with. Now… now I was stuck at this freakshow of a circus, probably be forced to perform, though I had no idea what the hell I’d do.

I wasn’t a performer. I didn’t have any special talents. I was just me.

And that was the issue. I was me, and so I was now here, stuck for eternity. Dead. Deader than a damned doornail. As dead as someone could get.

My legs made it to the back of the tents, to where the circus gave way to a field, and I stumbled, falling to my hands and knees, feeling the tears start to trickle down my cheeks, unstoppable in their path. I didn’t cry often, but I think I deserved it this time. It wasn’t every day you were told you were dead, and that you’d have to spend the rest of your life stuck with the people who’d killed you.

Beyond that, too, being told by a stranger that no one loved me out there… it hurt. It hurt, because I knew