Sure enough, a good hundred blue-clear bottles lined up in neat rows. Not a single slender neck contains a ring.
She grabs me by the arm. “You can win a new iPhone.”
Along with large plush animals and a new video game system, there’s a pristine white tech box. Sometimes I hate being the cynical one. “That only means it’s impossible to win. The box is probably empty.”
“Come on,” she says, wheedling. “It’s only five dollars.”
Ten rings for a dollar or five dollars for a bucket, the sign says. I refrain from pointing out the number of buckets that they’d need to sell to pay for a new phone. Instead I reach into my pocket and slap down two wrinkled five-dollar bills.
“Yes.” Maisie claps her hands together, eyes narrowed on the bottles. “I’ll get the next one.”
A hardened-looking man swipes the money from the weathered wooden counter and drops an overfull tin bucket. It’s heaped high with thick red plastic rings. Some of them slip down the side like melting ice cream in the sun.
I grab a ring and toss it like a miniature frisbee. It bounces off the pouting lip of one bottle onto another. Predictably it slides through a gap and falls to the ground, along with hundreds of other rings.
Maisie tosses two in the time it takes mine to land, one which goes wide. The other bounces so hard it flies over the end of the rows.
She whoops, uncowed by the misses. “Watch me,” she says.
“I’m watching,” I lie, keeping my voice casual.
I toss a few more rings alongside her for good measure.
And then when the next crowd of people come by, I’m gone. I let them move me like a wave in the ocean. I’m just a body in a sea of so many, connected—and then apart.
I’m deeper in the fairgrounds now.
There are more rides here. One is a large pirate’s boat that gets swung in a giant circle, upside down, around an axis shaped like a shark.
Someone I knew from school stands in line, arm slung around his girlfriend.
I nod to them both, though it’s more a question than a greeting.
“I saw them go that way,” he says, gesturing with his chin.
His girlfriend makes a face at me. She thinks her boyfriend and I hooked up once, which technically we did. It was an awkward moment that went absolutely nowhere. I don’t know how to be sexy, or be normal for that matter, no matter what the gossip mill says.
“Thanks,” I say, heading sideways.
It takes me through a couple of rides, behind them both. There are thick wires back here. Large steel plates that cover electrical equipment. I wonder how they got enough power outlets running to an old farm before realizing they must bring it themselves. Generators or something like that.
The sound comes from behind them. I’m walking through a row of beige trailers, the kind they used at the elementary school for overflow classes—until enrollment dropped low enough that they sold them to FEMA after a hurricane.
The music fades away. It sounds muted now, like an almost-forgotten dream.
A sharp cry makes the hair on my arms stand up.
It’s cut off, but I catch the general direction. I take off running, kicking up dust behind me.
I round the corner in time to see Kyle land a kick to Travis’s side.
“What the fuck,” I say, not stopping as I turn the corner. I push straight into Kyle, taking him by surprise.
He’s taller than me and outweighs me by a good seventy-five pounds, most of it muscle. It sets him back only a few inches before he stands tall, a twinkle in his eye.
I swear to God, sometimes I think he does this just to bait me.
“Hey, Sienna. Welcome to the fucking circus.”
“Let him go,” I say, trying not to look at Travis. And failing. His clothes are covered in dirt and something dark, probably blood. That part’s pretty normal, unfortunately.
The part that chills me is his face, which is smeared in something white and thick and greasy. There’s a rainbow-colored wig of curly hair on his head. A red circle nose has rolled off to the side.
Kyle’s two friends are holding him down on either side. They have names, of course, but I prefer to call them Asshole #1 and Asshole #2. Like this is a backward small-town Dr. Seuss book with Kyle as the insouciant Cat in the Hat.
“What the hell did you do to him?”
Kyle grins. “I thought he should get the full circus experience. And let’s face it, he’s always been a clown.”
I learned not to telegraph my movements a long time ago. Ironically, Kyle is the one who taught me that. That’s how I take him by surprise.
My fist comes up and slams into his jaw.
He stumbles back.
Green eyes flash with danger. And then it passes, leaving only that terrible joviality. That’s part of the game we play. He only takes out his anger on Travis.
“Let him go now.”
“Or what?” Kyle asks with genuine curiosity. “It’s a nice right hook, but it’s only going to get you so far.” He nods toward Asshole #2. “That one has had his jaw broken so many times I don’t even think he’d feel it.”
“Let’s find out,” I say, heading toward him.
I’m almost to him when I feel Kyle’s hands wrap around my waist and haul me back. I flail back, trying to hit him, but I can’t see from behind me.
Asshole #2 decides to leave Travis to his buddy and stand up, heading toward me.
“We don’t hit girls,” Kyle says.
His hands tighten on me—protectively, I think. Which is strange. I don’t have time to process that thought, because Asshole #2 smiles in a way that says he absolutely hits girls. And enjoys it.
Maybe I should be more wary of that. Maybe I should know better, but I’ve spent too long beating my wings against the chicken wire of the universe’s screen door to stop now.
“Then stop me,” Asshole #2 says.
“She’s mine,” Kyle says, reeling us both back. “You know that.”
Asshole #2 lifts an eyebrow that’s cut through with a scar. He’s full of scars, more reformed flesh than original. Schoolyard fights have turned into bar fights. They only ever seem to make him stronger. “I know you get first dibs, but what then? What happens when you finally stop teasing her and actually fuck her? You think I’m not gonna get my turn?”
My stomach turns over, but I force the memories back. This is no time for a mental breakdown.
I bump my ass back against Kyle. It’s enough to startle him, the contact of my backside to his front. He lets go, and I drop down in time to avoid Asshole #2’s punch. In the periphery of my vision, I see Travis scramble up and run toward the far end of the alley, but a chain-link fence on wheels stops his escape. As does Asshole #1’s fist in the back of his T-shirt.
All a hundred and twenty pounds of me gets directed at the back of Asshole #2’s knee. It’s enough to make him drop—hard. He grunts and then turns around, faster than I would have expected. He’s on me in a blink, his hand around my throat, stealing my air. I pull and scratch at his arm. It has no effect.
Kyle yanks at his other shoulder, but it’s no use.
That’s the problem with having violent minions who are stronger than you.
You never really control them.
CHAPTER TWO