Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,108
little doll. Never allowed to think or do.
But there was some comfort in believing that even dolls can be precious to some people. Now I’m just a doll without an owner, broken and discarded.
I laugh again, because it feels good, and Denim glances down at me with troubled eyes.
Maybe that is the secret I’ve been missing all this time. I should have just embraced the crazy years ago. It’s only a body, only a mind, only a soul. Why do I care so much?
Why does anybody bother with something as exhausting as caring?
We stop in one of the curtained sections behind the tent where the girls often fix their face paint and Denim puts me down—clothes and all—into a bath, which brings on another fit of giggles.
When he turns and gives me his back, I assume he wants me to remove the clothes, and so I do. No point in fighting over my modesty when it’s about to be ripped away in a few minutes. I can already hear the crowd waiting outside.
“You need to wash yourself,” he calls to me without turning his head.
Why would I wash myself for someone who’s about to pin me down and cover me in blood and guts?
“I’m done,” I tell him.
He grabs a sheet from the side and holds it up for me, averting his eyes, and then leads me through to the backstage area.
There, Maxim stands in all his glory, his head and bare chest covered in crimson paint, black horns stuck to the top of his head. He smiles widely when he notices me entering, his teeth looking even more yellow against his black-painted lips.
My stomach rolls as my skin crawls.
“There she is,” he says, holding his arms out to embrace me. I’m stiff as a board when his fat arms wrap around my body before pulling me under his arm. “My Pyrite. Come, meet the men willing to fight and die just to sample you.”
He turns around to face the lineup and takes a step away from me, holding his hands up in my direction. “The girl who will become your ticket to Utopia.”
I burst out laughing. Maxim knows nothing about Utopia, much less how to go about getting anyone there.
Should I tell them?
Burst their little bubble?
Maybe then they would not be so eager to get inside a ring and kill each other.
It is tempting, however sense tells me Maxim would just think of some other bribe, or come up with some far worse plan—likely one that involved my death in a more painful way than drowning.
That sobers me up quickly.
I stare along the line of men, each one with a circus pup at his side, but I get no time to look properly in the semidarkness before Maxim is dragging me out into the ring.
Spotlights blind me and sand sticks to my wet feet as we make our way to the center of the tent. The crowd goes wild. Wilder than I’ve ever heard. They only stop when Maxim starts his usual performance.
I stare at him as he addresses the tent, wishing I had a knife in my hand so I could shove it clean into his throat. That brings on another giggle.
What would Baron think of his sweet little girl then? The one who wouldn’t even hurt a fly?
Perhaps I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I think I would enjoy hurting Maxim, though.
The sound of one of the circus pups pulls me out of my thoughts, and I turn around to take in the man who he’s introducing. “Pulled this one from the coal pits at Narrow Crag. Look at the size of his arms!” The boy slaps the bigger man, who grits his teeth but keeps his eyes straight ahead.
The boy is correct. The man does have big arms. He’s also covered in coal dust, except for the bald head which keeps reflecting the spotlight as it moves across us.
Men move through the crowd, taking bets on coal-pit man, and Maxim steps forward. “Any last words?”
Coal-pit man looks along the line of men, eyes settling on the largest one at the end. “I’m coming for you first.”
The crowd hoots and cheers, and in my head I keep saying the same thing over and over again.
Don’t let it be him.
Scout is next. My handsome little man. He’ll love this—the chance to be center stage for once. He takes a step in front of the large man who stands behind him, inhales deeply, and then pauses.
He’s going for theatrical effect—god