Chapter 17
“You won’t even see her,” Dario reminds me as we finish up our makeup. He grins at me through the mirror, the reflection of his reflection in my mirror making my head ache as my brain tries to process the image. “Just pretend she’s not there.”
Easy for him to say.
Since he went shopping with her, he’s been trying to convince me she’s not like other Omegas. That our experience with our dad doesn’t need to color every interaction I have with her.
He’s fighting a losing battle, but I’ve given up on trying to convince him of that. It won’t make a difference. Now I just ignore when he chatters on about her.
Except she’s going to be in the ring tonight watching our routine. And that makes me anxious. The idea of her eyes tracking my every move makes me feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.
Quinton and Matteo finish up their act to uproarious applause, and Dario and I slip into the ring. Jude is in the middle, announcing our act, but my eyes are trained on the Omega doctor who has upended our little family since her arrival a few weeks ago.
Alex doesn’t look the part of a doctor tonight, dressed in a cute and casual outfit that shows off some of her soft skin. It’s hard not to notice how pretty she is, how delicate and breakable she seems.
But it’s a trick of the designation—an evolutionary measure to trap Alphas into taking care of them.
She doesn’t notice that I’m staring at her, her eyes still wide in shock, staring at where Quinton and Matteo exited the tent.
“The Twisted Twins!” Jude says, jarring me out of my perusal of the Omega.
Dario does a swooping bow, and when he points to me, I mirror the movement. Audiences always want us to be in sync, to appear to be nothing more than extensions of one another.
I hate it in everyday life, but it makes sense for our act.
I hate our costumes. In addition to our tiny hot pants, our bodies are painted with glow-in-the-dark paint in twisted, swirling patterns.
The double Wheel of Death gets lowered down from the ceiling, and our backing track cuts on.
The Wheel of Death, a space frame with two circular tracks on either end, is where Dario and I always start our show. It’s an eye-catching spectacle and a great warm-up. I grab onto the frame and hoist myself onto the left side, and Dario mirrors me on the right.
And then it begins to move.
The wheel spins vertically, leaving Dario and me to move and jump, doing flips and tricks to stay on the wheel without falling. At one point, we’re on the same side, doing handstands facing each other, and Dario has the fucking idiotic idea to talk to me .
“Doc is watching,” he says, falling out of his handstand and doing a backflip. I grab the railings and swing myself into the center of the wheel, trying to escape his blathering. “She looks like she’s into it.”
I fight the urge to glance over at her, knowing that no matter what I see on her face, it’ll distract me.
“Shut up,” I hiss, pulling onto the beam between the two wheels and running to the other side. Dario laughs as he watches me escape, and we finish up our routine as the song pulls to a close. The wheel slowly comes to a stop, and we balance on top before performing front flips to dismount.
The next part of our act, the trapeze, is what people come to see us for. Netless, with the thinnest possible mat under the tent’s subfloor, many reviewers have called it “needlessly suicidal”.
They’re not wrong, honestly. I don’t think a Beta could survive a drop like this. It would be hard for us, even with our advanced Alpha healing.
Dario is the primary flyer, and I’m the catcher. This means his role is more dangerous than mine, and I have the heavier responsibility.
No pressure.
The track changes as we climb up our platforms into one with a seductive beat that sings about dancing in the dark. I unhook and swing out on my bar, getting used to the speed and feeling of flying through the air. After a few moments, I close my eyes as I flip down, my legs locked tightly.
And then the lights cut out.
The decorative swirls on our bodies are all that anyone can see, leaving the audience gasping as we go through the motions of our performance.
The beats of the song are counts in my head, and I know when to expect my brother to fling himself off his bar. We’ve done this so many times that sometimes it feels like he’s an extension of me, like it would be impossible to miss him.
Dario’s hands land in mine, and the lights flash on, showing the connection. Then they’re off again, and Dario is scrambling, standing on my bar and swinging us both. Our stage hand is on the opposite riser, Dario’s bar in hand, and he swings it out to us.
My brother does a flying leap and latches on, right as the lights kick back on, swinging himself up and over the bar to hang upside down, just like me.
We didn’t tell Jude we were swapping roles tonight. Let’s hope we get this right, or he’s going to be pissed when I’m out of commission for a few shows.
This change in routine has nothing to do with the Omega in attendance. Nothing whatsoever.
I climb up on my bar, moving my body to get momentum. While Dario flew to a song about dancing in the dark, mine tells the story of what happens after the darkness wins.
Eyes are on me, and I can feel their pressure like a brand, but somehow, I know without a doubt that two of them are hers.
My feet slip under her attention, and I can hear the gasps of the crowd as I scramble to maintain my balance.
And hers.
Somehow, over the music, over the noise of the crowd, over the roaring in my ears, I can hear the fearful little sound she makes.
And knowing that she fears for me, that she’s worried something may happen to me, settles me. I’m not going to read into that right now.
I retain my balance, wait for the music and Dario’s cue, and I leap, flipping and twisting in the air to grasp his wrists and swing beneath him.
It’s definitely my imagination when I hear a small noise of relief from thirty feet below me. There’s no way my ears picked up on that.
We flip off the bar, back to my platform, and stand back to back, arms up high. The crowd goes wild, and as we prep for our joint tightrope routine, Dario grins widely at me, leaning close to whisper in my ear.
“Keep showing off, I think it’s working.”
I’m feeling rejuvenated after the ice bath, which I’ve come to look forward to but would never admit, and dressed in a pair of track pants when I hear laughter coming from the big top.
“Oh, are we partying?” Dario calls out, skipping ahead of me into the tent.
In the middle of the ring is Jude, holding a bottle of water tightly around the neck as he glares at Alex. She’s got a coy smile on her face, and her head is cocked to the side.
“Absolutely not!” he growls, shaking his head. “No fucking way.”
“Oh, come on, boss,” Quinton says, taking a drag from a joint and holding it out to the Omega.
She shakes her head and waves it off. “Not this time. Can’t be stoned if one of you fucks a dare up,” she says, dismissing him. “And come on, Jude. You picked dare.”
This time? Did they toke up together? Does the good doctor get high ?
“Well, I wouldn’t have if I had known you’d dare me to let them throw knives at me!”
Dario and I make it to the center of the ring, where Jude, Alex, Matteo, and Quinton are sprawled on the floor. All of them are drinking beer, except for Jude, which is no surprise, and the doctor, who has a bottle of cola in her hand.
“Oh, are we playing truth or dare? Without me? It’s my favorite game, you know,” Dario says, skipping into the middle of the ring before flopping down on the ground. I’m about to turn to leave when he locks eyes with me. “I dare you to stay, brother.”
I stifle my groan. I’m going to look like a douche if I bail, so even though I would prefer not to socialize with the Omega, I grab a stool and sit on the edge of the group. Attention falls back on Jude.
“I’ll use rubber knives,” Matteo says. “You won’t get hurt.” He leans into Quinton’s side. The Alpha tilts his head so it rests on top of the Beta’s. That kind of casual affection is foreign to me. I don’t know if I could ever be that comfortable with anyone other than Dario.
“The wheel will break,” Jude says, switching gears and trying a different tactic. “I’m too fucking heavy for it.”
Jude is a big guy, for sure, but those wheels are built solid. There is no way he’d break it.
Eventually, after much cajoling, he lets Matteo strap him in and turn the wheel on at a very slow speed. Quickly, our showrunner’s face turns green, and Matteo throws two knives, which are very much not rubber, at him.
“Motherfucker!” Jude shouts when they sink into the wood. “You lied!”
Matteo is laughing so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes. “Of course, I lied. Rubber knives wouldn’t work for the trick.” He unlatches Jude after shutting the wheel off, who stumbles around, hand over his mouth.
“I’m gonna be fucking sick.”
Alex hops to her feet and sprints out of the tent, coming back just seconds later with her medical bag. She pulls a pill out and holds it out to Jude. “This will help the nausea.” He takes it from her, a softness I’ve never seen before flashing in his eyes.
Matteo grins and throws himself back down beside Quinton. “Okay, my turn,” the Beta says, looking at Alex. “Dr. Alex Shields. Truth… or dare?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and wrinkles her nose. I hate when she does that nose thing. It’s cute, and I don’t want to find her cute. “I don’t want anything thrown at me, so I guess truth.”
“Why did you really join the circus?”
The Omega turns deathly pale, and her eyes widen. “I changed my mind, I want dare.”
“You can’t change your mind,” I scoff. “That’s against the rules.”
“You weren’t here when we made the rules,” Quinton says, throwing a glare at me. “She can change if she wants to.”
I roll my eyes but don’t bother saying anything else. I won’t win this.