Animal Tamer (Seven Sins Carnival #3)

1. Rowe

ROWE

The Thistlewood town sign has a bible verse painted under the welcome. White letters on a blue board. A smear of bird shit across the word mercy.

Logan slows the truck when we pass it. His fire-scarred hands clamp the wheel so hard that the old leather cover squeaks.

“Want me to hit it?” he asks, and I know he means it.

Caesar shifts in the trailer behind us, one deep chuff rattling through the metal walls as the lion resettles his massive weight.

“No,” I reply, struggling to keep my voice even.

“Didn’t ask if it’s smart.”

“I know.”

A muscle ticks in Logan’s jaw as he clenches his teeth.

His eyes stay on the road, but I can see the pulse in his neck beating violently.

We roll through Thistlewood, a spread of clapboard houses, gas stations, churches, and late-summer weeds pushing through cracked sidewalks.

Every porch has a flag. Every church has a sign.

My inner arms burn, the scars there making themselves known.

I tuck my hands under my thighs and watch the road split toward the fairgrounds. A water tower rises over the tree line with THISTLEWOOD stamped across the tank in flaking green paint.

Samuel Harlan was born here. He learned to sing hymns here. Learned how to smile at church ladies and shake hands with farmers and hold babies in the fellowship hall before he found a place where boys and girls had no last names, no records, no doors that locked from the inside.

Logan turns into the fairgrounds, the massive truck shifting as the suspension works to keep us level.

“Breathe, Rowe.”

I look at him. Though we're not completely identical, my twin knows me almost as well as I know myself.

The carnival is already being erected, the Big Top half up, red-and-cream stripes rippling in the wind. Elias stands near the main entrance with his cane planted in the dirt, Jules beside him, arms crossed while she argues with Jerry about something like she has owned the place for years.

Silas weaves through the chaos with a tablet in one hand and a headset hooked over one ear.

Nova walks backward in front of him, her auburn hair tangling around her freckled face, one hand resting on her barely-there baby bump.

Teddy trails behind them, reading some documents that keep flapping in the wind.

Logan parks the animal trailer, and I'm out before the truck fully stops moving.

I open the back and climb in to greet Caesar in the first enclosure.

As soon as I'm close enough, the tawny beast presses his massive skull against my sternum, and I plant both hands in the mane behind his ears and hold on.

He smells of hay and animal musk, and his warmth seeps into me. My arms stop shaking.

“Good boy.” The words are raspy. “Good.”

He exhales, hot breath hitting my collarbone, and I stand there a moment longer than necessary.

Brutus is in the second enclosure, and he's in a mood. The brown bear has been irritable since Missouri. He sits with his back to me when I enter, which is theater. Brutus has never been unaware of anyone in his vicinity in his life.

“Don't be dramatic.”

He snorts, the sound dismissive.

I crouch and wait. Two minutes, maybe three, and the enormous head swings around, small dark eyes finding me, and then he shuffles sideways and sits close enough that his shoulder presses against my arm.

I scratch behind his ear, and he makes a sound like a broken radiator.

The monkeys are louder. They're always loud.

Pip and Squeak and the youngest, Peanut, who came to us out of a collapsed exotic animal operation in Tennessee, have been shrieking at each other for what sounds like the entirety of the drive.

Pip has a biscuit she stole from somewhere in the truck cab, and both Squeak and Peanut want it.

“Pip.” I hold out my hand. The capuchin looks at me. Looks at the biscuit. Looks at me again with an expression of profound personal insult, then drops the biscuit into my palm so I can break it into three even pieces.

Squeak takes his portion and retreats to the highest corner of the enclosure. Peanut eats his immediately. Pip examines hers for a long moment, then drops her shoulders before eating it.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

She chatters once and looks away.

Cleopatra is next. The zebra has a gentle disposition that would surprise most people.

She lets me run a hand along her neck, checking the muscle for road tension.

Then I check her legs for swelling from the hours of standing.

Her emotional support pony is in the enclosure next to her, also just fine.

Done here, I hop out and head to Rome's trailer just as Lucy hops out of the truck's cab. Rome likes her, so she's usually the one driving him between locations.

“How's he doing?” I ask her when she smiles at me. She keeps a careful distance—everyone except my brothers does.

“Just fine,” she says, wiping her palms over her worn jeans. “I'm gonna find a cold drink. You got this, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I reply, already moving to the back. I don't like anyone else taking care of my menagerie.

Rome gets his own trailer because Rome does not share space. He's fifty-two years old, half-blind in one eye, and has opinions about everything. When he hears me unhook the access panel, his trunk lifts and swings in my direction. He makes a sound so low it vibrates in my chest.

“I know,” I say. “Me too.”

He reaches his trunk through the safety gap and touches my wrist, brushing against my scars. If it were anyone but one of my animals, I'd protest.

I stay until the elephant’s breathing settles. Until I can feel my jaw unclench. Thistlewood is outside this trailer. And Samuel Harlan is somewhere in this small town right now. He doesn't know we're here yet. By the time he does, it'll be too late.

I check Rome's water. Then go back and check Cleopatra's hay net.

Count Peanut's food pellets by weight, because he has a tendency to cache them and then eat them all at once and make himself sick, and that can't happen now.

I examine the pads of Caesar's paws, inspect the faint scratch on Brutus's left shoulder where he caught himself on the trailer gate yesterday, apply ointment.

The opening show is tonight.

I've never needed the crowd. The lights and the applause and the collective intake of breath when Caesar walks into the ring... All of that is for them, the audience. What I need is the work. The routine. The small acts of care that my animals trust, that ground me in the present.

I leave the trailer door open, letting the afternoon air move through.

Logan is waiting for me with two cups of coffee from the staff area. He holds one out without speaking. His eyes move over my face the way they've done since we were boys.

“I'm alright,” I tell him. I'm not sure if I mean it.

“I don't think any of us will ever be alright, brother,” he murmurs, uncharacteristically pensive. Logan's default setting tends to be chaotic violence.

I take a sip of my coffee, pondering. “Do you think what we're doing will help? The night terrors, the…” I don't finish. I don't have to—he knows I'm talking about the way I can't stand to be touched.

Logan grunts. “Fuck if I know. But it sure isn't hurting.” He rolls his lips together, hesitating before he speaks. “Want me to find a woman tonight? So you can watch?”

My hand clenches around the mug, and I can feel my cheeks flushing. Even though my brothers have been doing this for me since we discovered willing women—fucking in front of me so I can jerk off and release some tension, involved, but not touching—it still makes me feel defective.

“Maybe,” I say noncommittally. “I'll see how I feel after the show.”

Logan gives me the illusion of privacy by looking at Cole throw knives at Jonah's feet while the bigger man carries heavy boxes out of the equipment trailer. “Fair enough,” he replies after a moment. “Find me if you decide. I'll be where the pussy is at, and I don't mean Caesar.”

I snort. “You're an idiot.”

But he's my idiot.