Hurdles
HURDLES
Fionn
ONE MONTH LATER
The Uber pulls away, leaving me at the entrance of the fairgrounds. An unlit Silveria Circus sign hangs overhead. I make my way past rides and game booths and concession stands in various stages of construction. None of the workers look up, even though it’s closed for the day. Maybe some of them knew I was coming, or maybe they just don’t care. There’s a buzz that seems to linger in the autumn air, a charge of excitement. The relief of being at home, the first off-season show about to begin in just a few days. Magic and money to make. And as I near the small tarot reader tent and duck my head inside, scanning the table with its red cloth and the velvet drapes lining the walls, I wonder if the excitement is not so much in the air. Maybe it’s in me.
Of course it is, you bloody eejit. You’re about to fuck Rose. It’s a biological response, nothing more. Certainly nothing to be worried about.
I shake my head as though it might clear my thoughts, then leave the tarot booth. I head to the left of the big top, through the fairgrounds and the rides that are not yet ready for visitors, past the fun house and the Tilt-A-Whirl and the swing carousel. My steps quicken the closer I get to the area where the trailers and RVs are parked at the far end of the grounds. I pull my phone from my pocket and check it for the tenth time since landing at Midland airport just outside Odessa, opening my last message to Rose.
My flight was canceled but got the earlier option! I’ll be there by seven instead.
She still hasn’t responded.
I pocket my phone and hitch my backpack farther up my shoulder. I spot her RV at the far edge of the clearing, not far from a picket fence that skirts the grounds where other motor homes are parked. It seems like she’s one of the only full-time circus staff who doesn’t choose to spend the off-tour months living in the small, well-kept trailer park that’s part of the permanent circus grounds. Her home stands out from the beige and white and aluminum options that are parked in the clearing. The sides are custom painted with an ombre of pink and orange, a flock of sparrows in flight across the sunset colors. The lights are on. The blinds are drawn. And there’s a rhythmic sound coming from within.
I know that sound well.
It’s an Echelon Stride-6 folding treadmill. One I bought her as a goodbye present to help with her recovery. And she’s running. Hard.
She shouldn’t be going that fast. It’s only been a month since I took her cast off and she went on her way, meeting up with the troupe as they returned back to Texas. I frown as I approach the RV. A sudden burst of anxiety floods my veins as I tighten my hand into a fist and rap three times on the door.
The rhythm of the running footsteps doesn’t change.
I knock again.
I shift on my feet. Clear my throat. I wait, but there’s no change.
“ Rose ,” I yell on the third knock. “I knew you’d love that thing, but come open the door.”
No answer. She must be wearing headphones, so I grasp the door handle and start to pull it open. I only make it an inch or two when Rose is there, her hand braced against the edge of the door to keep it from opening and a wild, panicked look in her eyes.
But the sound of running doesn’t stop.
There’s someone else here.
“Doc,” she breathes, adjusting the belt of her robe, then pushing damp hair from her forehead. She’s cut it into a bob, the damp waves and curls skimming across the smooth column of her neck. Her eyes dart to the direction of the sound and back again. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you for another couple of hours.”
Dying, that’s what I’m doing. Clearly dying of total embarrassment.
“I, um. I’m sorry.” I run my hand through my hair and back away a step. My skin is burning. My heart thrashes against my ribs. My vision has narrowed as though nothing exists outside the things I wish I could unsee. Like the damp blotches on the purple silk from her wet hair. The blush in her cheeks. The distress in her mahogany eyes. “I texted, but … I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d have someone else here. I’ll leave.”
Fionn, you fucking fool. This isn’t a relationship. You said so yourself. What the hell did you expect? You have no right to be upset. Just go.
I flash a tight smile at Rose, but I can’t bear to see the pity in her eyes. So I turn away. I’ll get the fuck out of here and find the next flight home and lick my wounds with a bottle of bourbon and we’ll forget this moment ever happened. We’ll go back to being friends, no benefits . Or maybe just doctor and patient. Jesus fucking Christ—
“Doc, stop .” Rose’s delicate hand wraps around my forearm in a talon grip. Part of me wants to pull away and keep walking, but I don’t. Not when she whispers a single word, filling it with a desperate note. “ Please. ”
My brows tighten as I take in the way her gaze darts across our surroundings. She tugs on my arm, towing me toward her RV. I don’t argue, though I don’t exactly stride after her either. But she doesn’t give up. And she doesn’t let go. Not even when she opens the door, tossing me a wary glance over her shoulder.
I enter the RV. A shirtless man runs at a punishing pace on the treadmill that fills the narrow aisle between the sofa and the little dining table. His chest is covered with cheap tattoos. His skin glistens with sweat.
“I’m gonna beat your record,” he declares with a crazed grin, his eyes latched to Rose.
“I should go—”
“No, wait .” Though I try to pull away, Rose refuses to relinquish my arm. She gives the guy a grimace of a smile and a thumbs-up. “Keep going, Chad. Maybe you’ll beat me, after all.”
When Chad gives her a double thumbs-up in reply, Rose tows me closer to the front of the vehicle, not letting me go until she seems certain I won’t try to push past her to leave. There’s a chittering sound of an animal, and a raccoon’s face suddenly appears from the driver’s seat.
“Is that … is that Barbara ?”
“Umm, yeah,” Rose says through a pinched smile. She blushes when I raise my brows in a wordless question. “When I left Hartford, I drove past your clinic and saw her trying to break in. She fell from the vent by the roof. She hurt her paw. I couldn’t just leave her to fend for herself.”
“So you took her …?”
“Pretty much.”
“A wild, rabid raccoon.”
Barbara hisses, but Rose doesn’t seem to take that as proof of my point. “She’s not rabid. She’s pretty talented, actually. Cheryl’s been training her with the poodles. She had her debut show last week.”
I open my mouth to say something, but my brain can’t seem to sort through the many questions I have fast enough to land on a single one. Chad, however, is ready to fill the void. “She has a pet raccoon ,” he declares from the treadmill. “Isn’t that badass?”
I let out an audible ugh and refocus my attention on Rose. “You really don’t have to explain, Rose. Well, more detail about the raccoon is probably warranted. But not about the guy. We never agreed to be exclusive.”
“Thanks for the reminder, you fucking clown. But I do have some standards,” she says as she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, her brows knitting together for the briefest moment before her expression smooths to a veneer of barely restrained fury. “Dudes with tattoos made with a Bic pen in their garage don’t fit the bill, ya know?”
“Then what the hell is going on?” A sinking feeling drops through my chest to simmer in my guts when Rose gnaws her lip. “Spit it out—”
“He should be dead ,” she hisses. “At least, that’s what Sloane told me when I texted her. I gave him double what she suggested.”
“What …?”
“I laced his churros with enough speed to choke a gorilla. He puked all over me and then started pacing around in circles so I brought him here and stuck him on the treadmill while I got cleaned up. I think he might’ve taken some other shit before I got to him. It didn’t take much convincing to get him to go for a little run, but then again I might have told a lie or two about letting him fuck me in the ass if he beat my nonexistent treadmill record.”
I blink at Rose, trying to process everything that just spilled out of her mouth. Churros. Speed. Gorilla. Ass fucking …? I shake my head and try to return to the medical part of her confession, though it’s a struggle. I finally land on, “You gave him amphetamines?”
Rose snorts. “ A lot of amphetamines.”
“… Why?”
“He deals ‘study drugs’ to local high school and college kids when he’s not beating up his girlfriend, so it didn’t seem like it’d be a stretch if he took a little too much and wound up dead. Fuck around and find out. I was just hoping the finding out part would come a little more easily.”
“And your plan now is … what … exactly?”
“I dunno,” she says with an irritated flick of her hand in my direction. “Maybe to make him run until his heart explodes in his chest and he bleeds from his eyeballs or some shit. I’m not a scientist.”
We turn toward the man. His pace is relentless. When we face each other once more, Rose juts her chin out and tightens her arms across her chest, determined not to balk beneath my cold and clinical stare.
“I don’t think he’s just going to magically die on your treadmill, Rose.”
“A girl can dream.”
“Aren’t you worried about what will happen if he does?”
“I had a great plan to ditch his body at the fishing hole off Loop Road. But I guess I’ll just have to wing it. Gransie seemed pretty confident it would work out anyway. But it’s a good thing you’re here just in time for ‘trouble whatsoever,’ right, Doc?”
I give her a flat glare and then grasp her shoulders just long enough to keep her rooted in one spot so I can slip past her. When I stop at the treadmill, Chad gives me a beaming grin despite the effort it takes to keep running. I should probably take his pulse, which I’m sure is past two hundred beats per minute, or at least point him in the direction of a hospital. Hippocratic oath and all that shit. But then, who am I to crush Rose’s dreams? It’s not like Chad is asking for medical assistance. And if Rose has gone to this much effort, the guy is surely no saint. I’m probably doing humanity more good than harm by just letting him live or die by the rules of natural selection.
I drag a hand down my face. Christ.
With a fleeting, suspicious glance toward Rose, I turn my attention back to the man before me. “How are you feeling, Chad? Ready to take a break?”
“Nah, bro.”
“In that case, how about we take this run to the great outdoors.”
“Yeah, man,” he says through panting breaths. “I’m ready to take on the fuckin’ world .”
I press the emergency stop button on the treadmill and Chad stumbles before jumping onto the foot rails. Disappointed that he didn’t fall on his face, I turn and hold open the door of the RV. “Great. Do a few laps of the grounds or whatever. We’ll catch up.”
“You sure?”
“I’m a doctor, I never lie.”
Rose barks a laugh behind me. I shoot her a glare over my shoulder and she throws her hands up in surrender.
Turning my attention back to Chad, I grab his wrist and tug him toward the open door. His pulse thrums like hummingbird wings beneath my fingertips. “We’ll come find you. Promise.”
Chad gives me a thumbs-up, his go-to move, I guess, then steps out into the clearing. With a deep breath of cool evening air, he raises his fists above his head. “Fuckin’ eh, clown town.”
“Fuckin’ eh,” Rose mutters beside me.
And then Chad takes off running at full speed.
“He’s pretty quick,” I say. We watch him sprint in a wide circle, then he shifts his trajectory toward the white picket fence that surrounds the fairgrounds.
“Give a man a shit ton of drugs and the promise of ass fucking, and he’ll do anything. Even knit doilies.” Rose pivots a slow turn on her heel to pin me with a sardonic grin, a devious gleam flickering in her eyes. “Oh wait, you started that hobby with neither of those two motivators.”
“I already told you, I thought the Suture Sisters was a fight club. And it’s called crochet , not knitting.”
“My bad.”
We turn our attention back to Chad as he picks up speed. His naked back glistens in the dim light. His legs and arms pump at an almost inhuman pace. His strides lengthen as he nears the fence.
“Not sure hurdles are a great idea,” I say, scratching my stubble.
“He’s committed now.”
Chad lets out a whoop of determination as he barrels toward his target.
… And then one foot catches on a rock.
He pitches forward at the fence, his startled shout spooking a flock of starlings.
“That’s—”
He comes down hard on the pointed ends of the pickets. A visceral cry of pain is sliced short. The setting sun illuminates a pulsing mist of blood. His body jerks and twitches.
“—not good …”
A garbled, liquid breath sputters from his lungs. Chad’s body convulses, then goes limp, his head suspended from a picket and the rest of his body hanging against the bloodstained slats.
We stand unmoving in a long moment of shocked silence.
Rose reaches forward and starts to pull the door closed. “Well … maybe hurdles were a stretch.”
“ Rose ,” I hiss, pushing the door open. She doesn’t let go of the handle and pulls back with equal determination. “I am a doctor . I have to go help him.”
“Help him to what, exactly? Un-die? Good luck with that.”
“He could still be alive. Call 911.”
“Hard pass.”
“You do realize that someone is going to find him and they could very well notice that his tracks lead straight back to your RV, right?”
Rose heaves a lengthy sigh and relinquishes her hold on the door handle. Before I can slip past her, she blocks my path with her hand braced against the frame. “Just don’t try too hard, Doc. He’s still a piece of shit.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I say with a roll of my eyes. I pull her hand from the doorway and lead the way down the steps. None of the circus performers or crew are out in the clearing. We jog toward the fence where Chad’s body is draped, slowing as we draw closer. And though I listen for any sounds of life, nothing comes. I guess it should come as no surprise when we finally take in the extent of the damage. The pointed end of the picket is lodged deep in his throat. I’m guessing he severed his spinal column. I check for a pulse anyway, even though I know I’m not going to find one next to the gaping wound and the wooden stake that obstructs his airway. Blood pours in a thick rivulet down the picket, shimmering in the dim light.
“Yeah. He’s definitely dead,” I say as I lift my hand from his neck.
“Is that your professional diagnosis?” Rose leans over the fence to take a closer look at his open, unseeing eyes and the crimson stream that drips from his slack mouth. She seems to quickly regret her efforts to overcome her squeamishness and clears her throat in a failed attempt to hide a gagging cough as she steps back. “I thought the blood-drool was a pretty good clue, personally.”
“Call 911, smartass.”
“You first.”
I roll my eyes and withdraw my phone, but I don’t dial 911. Not when Rose is watching me with her enormous eyes, a current of worry buzzing through their mahogany hues. I sigh and lower the device to my side.
“What’s going on?” I ask, gesturing toward Chad’s body. Rose doesn’t look his way.
“I started it.”
“I figured. Why?”
“You could probably take a guess. Or did you miss the part where I said he was a piece of shit?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I hold her gaze steady as Rose’s head tilts, but the blush in her cheeks makes me think she knows exactly what I’m getting at. “I meant, why are you doing this ? You clearly can’t stomach the gore—”
“I can too—”
“—and you’re hunting down these men you have seemingly no connection with. But you don’t seem to have much experience doing it.”
Rose crosses her arms.
“As far as I can tell, you’re seizing opportunity as it comes and you’re getting away with it by sheer luck. It’s a fucking miracle that Eric Donovan didn’t wash up somewhere with staples in his eyelids.”
She snorts. “That was pretty cool.”
“Rose,” I say, taking a step closer. “Why are you doing this? Why are you risking getting caught? Why—”
“Because not everyone gets that chance, Fionn,” she snaps. Sudden tears well in her eyes, but she blinks them away, hiding them beneath a simmering rage. “Not everyone is strong enough or lives long enough to fight back.”
We stare at each other, Rose with her arms crossed, me with the phone still clutched in my hand, thoughts of calling 911 drifting further from my mind. “I’ve been in their shoes. My folks were such a fucking mess that I spent most of my childhood with my Gran until she died. And then back I went to that fucking shithole. A piece of shit dad, in and out of jail. A mom so broken she couldn’t look after me. I was about to repeat the same cycle as the hell I lived in. I was only fifteen when my first boyfriend hit me.” Rose’s gaze drops to the ground, and she shakes her head, her arms falling to her sides. When she looks up at me once more, it’s not just the pain of inescapable memories that I see in her eyes. It’s not just determination. It’s a plea. “I got out. I took my chance and ran away. But it’s not enough to just be one of the lucky ones. Not when men like Matt or Eric or Chad will just find a next victim. Someone new to belittle and torture and sometimes even kill. Women like Lucy, or Naomi, or Chad’s girlfriend, Sienna? They need more than just an open door. They need a broken cage. How can I say no when they ask for my help?”
My shoulders fall. I press my eyes closed. Lower my head. Help , she says from memory, her voice untarnished by time. And she’s asking for my help now.
“The Sparrow. That’s what the women call you,” I say, and she nods.
“Have you ever heard of Giulia Tofana?” she asks. I shake my head when I open my eyes and meet her unwavering stare. “She was an Italian woman in the seventeenth century. She made a poison from arsenic and belladonna. As the story goes, she disguised it as face cream, so all a woman would have to do is come to her asking for Aqua Tofana. Many of those women were just like Lucy. And I thought I could be just like Giulia. For a while, I guess I was. But sometimes …” she says, turning her gaze from mine, her eyes glassy as they fix to the horizon, “sometimes you fuck up. You make a mistake. And when I fucked up, it cost the wrong person their life.”
She raises her left wrist to me. I’ve seen the small flower tattooed there before, the initials V.R. beside it. When she finally meets my eyes, they’re filled with pain. With loss and guilt. I might not have all the pieces. But my imagination fills in the blanks with vivid detail. And suddenly the picture that once seemed so disjointed comes into view.
Her determination to overcome her squeamish nature. Her apparent lack of fear for the consequences she might face. Even her declaration every time I call her out. I started it , she always says. She’s determined to never place the blame on the women who have asked for her help. She will not put the responsibility of the killing on them. And she’s punishing herself, too. For fucking up. For losing someone she never meant to hurt.
I don’t press Rose for more details. I just reel her in to an embrace. It doesn’t matter how tightly I hold on to her, the ache in my chest doesn’t subside. I know the kinds of pain she’s felt. I’ve endured similar suffering, the kind that scars you in a way that never fully heals. But, somehow, it’s worse being powerless to take those wounds from Rose than it is living them myself.
After a long moment, I take her shoulders and back her away just far enough that I can lower my head and look into her eyes. “I need you to go back to the RV,” I say, already knowing I’ll be met with her resistance.
“No, Fionn. I started it—”
“No, you didn’t.” Rose shakes her head, but I stay locked on her shining eyes. “You finished it. And I’m helping you. But I need you to go back to the RV and stay there. I’m going to call the ambulance. The police are going to come. And they’re going to find exactly what this is—a stupid piece of shit who died in a dumbass accident.”
Rose gives me a watery huff of a laugh and shakes her head again. “I don’t want to leave you to clean up my mess.”
“And I will not leave you to do this alone. You and me, Rose, we came from a similar hell. And I want to help you. But the only way I can do that is to make sure you’re safe. Over there.” I point to the RV. Rose looks toward it, but I can still feel her hesitation. “Lights off. Don’t come out unless someone knocks. You were asleep and you didn’t see a thing.”
With a kiss to her temple, I turn Rose’s shoulders and push her in the direction of the motor home.
She takes two steps toward the RV and stops to face me with a weary, worried smile. “Thank you for your help, Fionn.”
I nod once. Her smile brightens. And then she turns away, walking back to the RV in the dusky evening light.
No one ever asked me for help the way she did that first time we met. And I realize now, as she steps into the motor home and turns off the lights, that no one has thanked me for it either.
Not until Rose.