With both hands motioning at the same time, he makes the long bolts curl up like thread on a spool, and then he pushes the twin vortexes to the stage floor behind me, one beneath each end of the beam.
The churning, spitting circles of electricity crackle and spin, staying perfectly in place like a deadly web waiting to catch its prey.
Kaazu looks over at me with fanatical joy. “You see now, don’t you?”
Oh, I see. I fucking see.
“Like I said, it’s a fight of choices, since you made the wrong one by trying to flee from me. I own you, Jetta. And I’ll always be your master,” he says, his presence glittering with malevolence. “So you choose who falls to their death. You fight, and try to stay on solid ground if you can. But just know, whatever happens tonight will be entirely your fault.”
My breath comes in jagged gulps. Every inhale feels like glass is splintering in my lungs. This is so far beyond any level of fucked up showmanship that even I knew Kaazu was capable of.
This is like my own personal hell and he’s my Lucifer. No matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt. There’s no way I can stay in the center of this square and fight off all the troupers without tipping the beam. No fucking way.
“And if I step off the square?” I ask him, even though I already know the answer.
Kaazu grins. “Then you die. And so will both of them.”
“Ninja?”
My head snaps up to Freddie’s voice as he squints down at me past the stage lighting. His eyes are wide and wet with tears. He leans over the beam, making my heart jump in my throat.
I throw up my hands to stop him so he doesn’t fall off. “Don’t move!”
He freezes, and I tell myself to calm the fuck down. I can’t freak him out even more. “Just...you stay right there on the beam and don’t move, okay? Pretend you’re riding a pony. The beam is your horse, and the rope is your reins.”
He nods slowly, eyes wide with terror as he grips the rope tighter and straddles the beam.
“Good,” I praise.
“I wanna get down. I want my Mommy and Daddy,” he says, voice cracking past the low hum of music.
A rock the size of a fucking fist lodges in my throat. I have to swallow several times before I’m able to answer. “I’ll get them for you,” I promise him in as calm and comforting a tone as I can manage. “Just hold tight.”
“I’m scared.”
His bottom lip wobbles, and it takes everything inside of me not to rage or scream or cry.
“I know. You just hold onto that rope, and you don’t look down no matter what, alright? I’m gonna get you, but I need you to be a brave junior ninja right now, okay? Hold on tight and close your eyes.”
He nods, his little face scrunching up with innocent determination. “Okay, Ninja,” he says, nearly breaking my goddamn heart, and then he closes his eyes, his legs gripping the beam as best he can.
“Who knew you had such a soft spot, Jetta?” Kaazu says, drawing my eyes back down. “I enjoy seeing this side of you. It’s so...emotional,” he says, like this is all just fucking meaningless to him other than the fact that it creates more drama for his show.
“I’m going to kill you,” I growl, my rage becoming a physical thing. I can feel it elongating under my skin, like it’s growing its own body and wants to burst out of mine.
Kaazu just grins before turning back to the crowd. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
26
Jetta
The roar of applause is deafening.
It sounds like death.
Kaazu moves to stand on the side of the stage, and the white spotlight turns blue. The music stays just low enough to hear, more pulsing bass vibrations than anything else, and I’m stuck in the middle of a square, wondering how the fuck I’m going to win this.
I’ve been on stage thousands of times. I’ve performed every dance, routine, trick, and fight in every combination, with each and every one of these people who now surround me like sharks.
I have never, in all of those years, felt fear.
But I feel it now.
Kaazu is talking to the crowd, belittling me, cursing me, riling them up as he puts me down. I’m a rogue. A prey. A female who doesn’t know her place. I attacked them. I spat on the