in the business of doing charity work,” he says, and my stomach starts to disintegrate. “However, I do have an obvious issue with my lead aerialist, and maybe a second might put a bit of fear in her. Remind her there’s always someone waiting to take her spot.”
I start to point out that I’m not trying to take her job while she still wants it, and that I want her to train me—I want her to like me—but I bite my tongue because there’s a hint of possibility in his words.
The possibility that this might end in my favor.
I don’t want to screw it up trying to say the right thing.
“I won’t pay you a salary,” he says. “An internship, I can get behind. But the food and room? That’s going to cost you.”
Cost is a funny thing. People put so much importance on monetary value, haggling to the penny just to feel like they got a bargain.
But what about when the cost is loyalty? Trust? Morality?
People don’t bargain with morality. Sometimes they don’t even hesitate.
A good person would hesitate.
I wonder what it says about me that I don’t.
“What do you want?”
He doesn’t hesitate either. “I want the set list for Teatro della Notte’s new season. The music for the opening, the acts—even the theme that gets played in the lobby. I want all of it.”
Time goes still, and I feel like a bird frozen in flight.
Betray my parents and buy a place in Maison du Mystère as a trapeze artist. That’s his price.
“If you bring me all that, you’re in,” he says. “I’m at the Desert Garden Motel, room 104. But just so we’re clear, at six a.m. tomorrow, I’ll be getting into my truck, suitcase packed, and driving back to Arizona to meet the troupe. If you don’t show—if you’re even one minute late—the offer will no longer be on the table. You understand?”
My voice doesn’t shake. “I understand.”
* * *
I wish I could say it was hard to sneak into Dad’s office in the middle of the night.
I wish I could say it was hard to go through his filing cabinet until I found folder after folder stuffed thick with copies of the new set list.
I wish I could say it was hard to pack my duffel bag with my clothes and toiletries, and to leave a note on my bed that says I’m okay, and that I had to do it, and that I’ll call when I’m ready.
I wish I could say it was hard to close the front door to my house for what could be the last time for a long time, and to get into the taxi waiting by the curb, and to not have doubts or worries or a change of heart.
I wish I could say it was more difficult to do something so unforgivable to my parents.
But I can’t.
Because I feel like a stranger in this life. There’s nothing left for me here—just a wasteland of lies and disappointment and stolen dreams.
I can’t thrive in this place my parents have built. I won’t survive in it—not without the circus.
I had no other choice.
Running away to join Maison du Mystère was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The taxi pulls into the motel entrance, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires reverberating through the car. It’s velvety black outside, and the sky is lit up by the stars I so rarely get a chance to see. The motel rooms are spread across two floors, and the building is shaped like a giant square box. I spot room 104 and the massive black truck parked outside, shadowed in the early morning darkness.
My feet clomp heavily on the street, and I grip the box of stolen sheet music tightly to my stomach. I vaguely hear the taxi drive off behind me; I’m too busy staring at the metal beast in front of me. It’s not like I haven’t seen a truck before, but this feels so different. It’s like a sleeping monster—the kind you run into when you’re playing an MMORPG. The kind you are under no circumstances ever supposed to face alone.
God, I hope I know what I’m doing.
I take a breath of imaginary courage and walk across the pebbled road. I’ve only just set the box down and lifted my fist to knock on the motel door when Simon Tarbottle pulls the door open, the end of a cigarette still wedged in his fingers and the remnants of a smoke cloud floating