sight of my face in the mirror.
There are sickly bruises all over my face in yellow and green hues. Some of my skin looks swollen, my blond hair is greasy, and I have a beard. A beard! I’ve always been clean-shaven. Every day, Master Kaazu makes me shave. It’s part of my given visage. Kaazu’s going to be furious if he sees this beard. I need to shave soon, I need to—
Wait a minute.
I look around the room as my brain tries to catch up. Where am I? What happened? Did Jetta and I sneak alcohol again after a show and get wasted? But that doesn’t seem right, because I feel fine, no hangover or anything.
With a frown, running a flustered hand through my hair as my mind reels, trying to catch up, trying to—
I freeze at the sight of my hand in the mirror, my eyes hooking onto the scars crisscrossing the back of it. I bring both palms in front of me, my brows furrowing as I take in the white and pink lines.
Fragments. Flashes. My mind pings over and over again, like a phone just got hooked up and old messages are starting to flood in.
I remember Kaazu making me wear gloves lined in shards of glass and being forced to perform all night while wearing them. I remember blood dripping down my arms and soaking into my costume.
I glance down at my stomach, lifting my shirt up to see more bruises along my ribs. These were broken at one point. My leg too. Possibly an ankle or two. My face was so swollen I had trouble seeing. I was unable to breathe through my nose. All of my punishments come racing back.
Like when I was forced to stand for two days without any break, not even to lean against anything. Or when he dressed Trish up to look like Jetta and then beat the hell out of her while I watched. He had the troupers beat me bloody, in both their animal forms and their human, and then he healed me with potions and let them do it all over again.
I was kept in a near state of agony bordering on unconsciousness since the night Jetta ran away. But despite that, and despite the fact that I look terrible, I feel…good. Better than good, actually. Which is even more confusing.
Kaazu knew right away that I was at least partly responsible for helping Jetta escape. It infuriated him, and he made sure I was punished for it over and over again.
I wished for death many times, which is exactly why he denied it. His favorite punishment was electrocuting me in small increments every time I fell asleep. Over and over again, I would literally get jolted awake.
That was how I finally figured out that he used his cane as a conduit—I grabbed it from him once. It was an automatic reaction when I was forced awake to lightning-hot pain. I only had it out of his grasp for a few seconds, but I realized right then that he couldn’t use his power without it. He stopped waking me up after that and just let the troupers deal with me. They weren’t any less cruel.
I stand here, stuck in front of the mirror, my eyes trailing over every single fading bruise and pale scar. My mind is like a wave, with all the memories of these past several weeks crashing over me.
I don’t even notice that I’m shaking until I hear a voice.
“Cliff?”
Slowly, like I’m underwater, I turn my head, and I see her.
She’s standing in the doorway of the bathroom, watching me quietly. Her hair is longer than I remember. The dual tones are hanging down over her shoulders in stark contrast. She’s wearing a pair of simple black jeans and a short-sleeved gray t-shirt, showing off her tattoos and pale skin.
My eyes squeeze shut.
I see her on stage. Beaten. Battered. Outnumbered. While I was up on the beam, unable to get to her. It was my own personal hell, worse than all of the physical punishments Kaazu meted out.
Because I knew she was going to die for me, when all I ever wanted was for her to live.
“Cliff?” she says again, and her voice is so quiet, so perfect, that my eyes burn like fire.
I feel a cool hand curl over the fist I hadn’t realized I’d made. Gently, she peels back my fingers until she can slip hers through.
My aching, wet eyes open, my body