it was true.
My shoulders slumped, and I let it all out. I cried for the first time in what felt like forever, pure hopelessness taking over. I hated feeling this way, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop the emotions inside from dominating me every which way. It was just too much. Too much, too fast, and too unbelievable.
I was fucking dead.
Through my tears, I looked at my hands, still feeling quite alive. I wasn’t super pale, like vampires were in the movies. My heart still beat in my chest. I didn’t feel dead at all, but the memory of that tiger, of Trey, biting into me, filling me with pain before ripping out my throat was still vivid in my mind.
I heard footsteps on the grass behind me, and I hurriedly wiped away my tears, not wanting to cry in front of anyone here. I didn’t get a good, long look at everyone else, but I was pretty sure I was the youngest one here. The last thing I wanted to be known for around here was for being a crybaby.
Suck it up, buttercup. This was the hand life dealt you, so deal with it. Get up, dust off your knees, and try to make the best of it.
That’s what I tried telling myself, but actually doing it and simply trying to make myself feel better by telling myself that were two different things.
The footsteps grew louder, and I braced myself for whatever else would come. I assumed it was Nigel, since none of the others had dared to approach me, all deciding to hide away while I was given the news of my fate.
But it wasn’t Nigel. It was, actually, the one person I would rather it not be.
Trey.
I sat on my knees, refusing to look at him, even as he sat beside me, giving me a tiny, uneasy smile. His brown hair looked almost auburn in the sun, his eyes seeming just as flecked with gold as I remembered—and now I knew why. He was a fucking tiger.
“Hey,” he said, sitting on his ass, wrapping his muscular arms around his knees as he looked at me. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you right now, but—”
Damn it. I wanted to ignore him, but I couldn’t.
Turning my head towards him, I frowned. “You’re right,” I cut in. “Your apology doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t care. You…” My voice tripped up, my breakdown still too recent to have a heavy conversation like this. “You killed me. You turned into a fucking tiger and you killed me.” How was I supposed to sit there and pretend everything was okay?
Trey bit his lower lip, looking like he wanted to apologize again, but he didn’t. All he said was, “I know, and I know you’ll probably hate me for a while, but in time, you’ll get used to it. Hell, I never thought I would, but here I am.”
Here he was, a killer and a tiger, somehow.
I glared at him, unable to stop myself. It would help if he wasn’t so freaking attractive. Don’t know what the hell was wrong with me, why I’d still be attracted to the man who’d killed me, but I was. My body wanted to lean towards his, to feel those muscled arms wrapping around my body and his voice cooing in my ear that everything would be okay.
It was crazy. I didn’t know him. I shouldn’t want those things, especially after what he did to me.
“How could you do that?” I asked, not even talking about the shifting into a tiger thing. “How could you kill me? How could everyone else just watch?” No one lifted a finger to save me, to get me out of there, to stop Trey from using his tiger form to tear into me. What a way to go.
Yeah, I guess I was still having a hard time adjusting to the thought of being stuck here for all eternity. If I was dead and I could never leave this place… none of it made sense. The circus wasn’t a permanent staple outside of town; it traveled.
And if it traveled, did that mean we packed up and moved? Or did the circus just magically appear at its next destination? I had so many questions about this, but really, all I wanted to do was scream and shut down, block out the rest of the world and huddle in my own bubble,