Chapter 7

Seven

We don't hang around. The longer you stick around a crime scene, the higher your chances are of being caught, and we've already lingered here too long. The woman in my arms barely weighs anything at all, her body frail and injured. Despite the fact that a strong wind could blow her away, there is a cruel curl to her lips as she watches the sad excuse for a man writhe on the floor. Even though she spared him, she enjoys his pain, but who wouldn't when that person caused you so much agony and torment in the first place? I can't blame her for her smile, even if I think she should go further. I think she should rip his dick off and shove it down his throat. The injuries we can see are bad, but what about the ones we can't?

She's covered in so much blood, I wonder how she was able to be coherent for this. How had she been able to crawl to Club in the attic? We all heard the slow sound of shuffling and the grunts of pain that came from her mouth. Seeing the true extent of her injuries, I hate the bastard for making her crawl, even if it's a necessary part of the process. We have to make sure she wants it. Still, she should have died up there. We made it just in time. A few minutes later and whatever that bastard had been about to do to her would have killed her.

Even as we finish and gather our things, her eyes close and she slumps in my arms, out cold. Her injuries have finally become too insistent.

Club closes up the house while the rest of us head outside, our masks still firmly in place. We don't bother trying to hide her identity. No one would recognize her in her current state. Her face is stained red, and her body is broken and beaten. One of her legs is probably broken if the lump on the side of her calf is anything to go by, no doubt the bone sticking through. Her eyes are damn near swollen shut, and the rest of her face is just as bad. She breathes with a ragged rasp, her broken ribs digging into her sides. How badly is she injured, and how is she still holding on?

Though her eyes are closed now, I know they are a beautiful, cool gray color, unusual and bright against her dark hair. Without the injuries to her face, I know she'll be beautiful, but even with them, she's striking. She's also a fighter through and through. She may have thought she was going to die there, but she has the soul of a warrior, and she clearly has no idea how she called us.

"She doesn't seem to know about the card," I point out as we climb into the waiting black Dodge. It has a stolen license plate on the back that'll be changed out the next time we drive it. It's enough to remain obscure and unknown so someone doesn't come looking. That's the best we can hope for. By the time anyone thinks to look, the cirque will be gone and they'll be none the wiser. It's something we have done many times before.

"It was clutched in her hand," Heart says, peering at me through his mask. "She held it in her hand even as she crawled through the attic."

"Ah, yes. How you made her suffer," I sneer as I settle in the back seat with her in my arms. There isn't enough room for her to spread out, so I keep her nestled against me, her legs stretched out to touch Club on the other side.

I can feel Heart's frown rather than see it behind his mask as he turns from the front seat and scoffs. "She had to want it," he counters. "You know that."

"Yeah, I know that," I grumble, still not happy about it. With the severity of her injuries, I don't understand how she did it, let alone how Heart could let her.

Diamond is driving, his mask firmly in place to make sure no one can identify us. He glances in the rearview mirror every so often, as if to make sure she's still in my arms. He's the ringmaster for a reason, always making sure we're not being followed. Heart can't be trusted with anything except to do the unexpected and to make something bleed. Diamond keeps him in check, but I don't think Club and I could do the same. It's what makes Heart the perfect trapeze artist. He doesn't value his life, so he lets it hang in the balance high above the crowd without a net to catch him if he slips. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Club is the opposite. Ever careful and aware of the risks he takes, Club is a broody asshole none of us enjoy dealing with when he gets in one of his moods. The sword swallower would sooner gut us than let us make him uncomfortable, but luckily for him, we're a family. We take care of each other, just as we take care of our entire family back at the cirque.

As for me, I'm hardly anything to talk about. I'm good with animals, a talent that chased me from my home as a child and led me to Cirque Obscurum. My foster parents had been rich but not kind. They fostered purely for free labor, putting us kids to work in their mansion. Like most of the wealthy, they caged everything they didn't understand, including animals—monkeys, exotic birds, big cats. I'd been there for a year when chaos erupted. An escaped tiger faced me down in the kitchens, the beast starving and beaten. My foster parents thought it would make a darling pet and had forgotten that wild beasts don't belong in cages. I was twelve when I looked into the tiger's eyes and felt a kinship I'd never experienced with humans. We were both frail and underfed, and in our similarities, we found a common enemy.

I climbed onto that tiger's back, and we escaped together, leaving a trail of blood in our wake. I named her Freedom. She waits for me back at the cirque like a beacon calling me home. She's my ever-present companion, along with these weirdos.

"She spared his life," Heart comments, shaking his head. "I would have killed the fucker."

"Why do you think she did that?" Club asks. His distrust is so thick, I can hear it in his question. He rarely leaves room for uncertainty, but we hardly know this woman. We only know that she called us and we came.

"Perhaps she wasn't ready to be as much of a monster as he was," I comment, shrugging. It's a noble thought that one could avoid being a monster. For many at the cirque, that's the only option we have left.

Club's eyes flash. "Then she is too soft for this," he says. "Look at her. She won't make it in the cirque. She may not even survive her injuries."

"No," Diamond interjects despite focusing on the road. He keeps his speed slow and steady so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement. If we get pulled over, that's it. We'll have to kill the cops, and then where would we be? "Look at her scars."

Frowning, I look down at her. Her clothing is ripped, but it mostly covers her. I don't focus on that now. Instead, I look at her skin where fresh and old blood coats it. Beneath the rusty color, I see raised marks that would normally be hidden by current fashions. When I find one, I find more, one after the other, like puzzle pieces clicking into place. Some of them are clearly cuts, the lines straight and even. Some of them are large burns that someone could mistake for touching a hot pan if not for the sheer number of them. There are small, puckered, circle scars clearly caused by the end of a lit cigarette and smaller ones that look like she was stabbed with a pen.

"Holy shit," I murmur, realizing just how many there are, all of them layered on top of each other until she's a patchwork of scars.

Diamond nods. "She's survived worse. I wouldn't doubt her."

Club sighs. "She may be finished mentally. What if she checks out?"

"Only time will tell," Diamond answers, his eyes on the road. "We'll stand with her until her choice is made."

We all become quiet then, each of us remembering our own choice and the moment we sold our soul to Cirque Obscurum. It was the moment we claimed our freedom and admitted we were monsters.