31. Karma
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KARMA
Adistant feminine scream jerks me awake.
My eyes connect with Spiral’s across the room. They are wide, concerned, staring back at me like he’s been waiting for me to wake.
“What wassss that?” I ask quickly, standing up from the floor and stepping away from the three sleeping men.
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel needy for human flesh or dick. I feel… slightly normal? I could eat, I could fuck, but it’s not an overwhelming desperation that makes my legs buckle beneath me.
“Dolly,” Spiral rasps out, tugging at the rope around his neck and trying to get free. He has his jumpsuit pulled up over his legs, the arms tied around his waist.
I approach him and stop, staring down at him on his knees.
“It’s Dolly. Don’t just stand there. Let me go. I need to help her.”
I look at the exit of the tent. It’s still dark, but there’s a faint light that suggests the sun is close to rising. I pass a glance at the men on the floor in an awkward, unconscious tangle of limbs. I’m going against all three of them by letting Spiral go, but Dolly has never harmed me.
Am I gaining morals?
I pull off his muzzle and untie the rope, expecting him to lash out any second. Instead, he grabs my hand and tugs me after him. I’m significantly quicker, so I barely feel like I’m running as I follow. I don’t miss the fact he doesn’t let go of my hand as he dashes outside.
The stars are still bright in the sky, the colour somewhere between the disappearing black and the lightening blue.
There’s another high-pitched scream, and it forces Spiral to barrel on quicker.
“How do you know that’s Dolly?”
“I’ve only ever heard Dolly scream once. If she’s screaming, it’s bad news.”
“It’s coming from the forest.”
I try to pull my hand away from his, but he doesn’t let me, squeezing it tightly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters as we break through the treeline, and the surrounding forest immediately darkens.
I hear the distant yelling of male voices.
I drag Spiral in that direction, and my heightened sight allows me to see the group of people before he does.
“There!” I whisper-shout, pointing to a clearing, deeper in the woods, but I root my feet to the floor when he tries to pull me. I don’t recognise the other voices I can hear, and I’m not supposed to let the general public see me.
“Come on,” he spits, pulling at me and slipping out of my hand when I don’t follow. His eyes plead in a way I’ve never seen. “Karma, please. I-I care about Dolly.”
“Like a girlfriend?”
He shakes his head. “Like a creepy little sister. Stepsister.”
The concern in his eyes is the reason I follow him into the clearing, and I’m glad I did.
Dolly is in the middle, her black-painted lips downturned and icy blue eyes scanning the vicinity for help. She’s surrounded by five men, each with various weapons such as great big knives or baseball bats, shouting mockery at the clown.
“Creepy bitch!”
“Go back to wherever the hell you came from!”
“Fucking skank looks like she’s going to cry.”
This isn’t uncommon. People love the circus, but some hate the performers. I’ve never veered from the tent except to hunt in the shadows, so this is my first time encountering true civilian dickheads.
Spiral picks up a rock and throws it at the back of the closest guy’s head.
“Get away from her!”
They all turn slowly to look at us, the one previously attacked rubbing the back of his head and snarling.
“Look. More circus freaks. Another clown and—” The man looks my naked body up and down. “What are you supposed to be? Some freaky zombie-jester?”
The group starts collectively laughing, but I don’t understand why. I’m not a jester. What’s the joke?
Dolly doesn’t move, frozen on the spot between them despite their focus on me and Spiral.
They all act tough, but the one furthest on the left can’t control his fear.
His heart rate speeds up every time he looks at me until it’s racing a mile a minute.
Maybe he’s realised that I’m not wearing makeup or wielding special effects.
The sound and smell of his fear are like a punch to the gut. That savage lack of control I thought I was getting a hold on smashes into me with full force. My long tongue creeps out, saliva dripping from my lips.
“I think she’s got a crush on you!” one of them shouts, but the fearful one is watching me like he knows he’s about to die.
I dart forward, teeth bared, and jump high, barrelling him to the ground. I rip the flesh from his neck, devouring him as the screams and yells of his friends beside me fuel my desperate hunger. Blood sprays to coat my face, and I know he’ll bleed out soon.
Still chewing his flesh, I grab his friend’s leg as he tries to run, tripping him up and crawling over his body. I snatch the machete from his hand and drive it into his back. I catch a glimpse of Spiral impressively managing to shove one man’s head to the ground as he stabs another in the chest.
Four down.
One more.
The leader of the group takes a tentative step back when I look up and make direct eye contact.
The baseball bat slips from his hand to the dirt floor, and he twists on his heel to run, but I’m too fast. I land on his back, reaching around to use my dagger-shaped nails.
I tear out his eyes and destroy his face as he screams and wails.
He falls back, and I wrap my arm around his neck, suffocating him as he scratches and fights.
“I am not a jester,” I spit into his ear, watching as my strong arms cave in his neck, blocking off his airway and severing some vital connections. He goes limp on top of me, and I shove him away into the pile of bodies. All five of them are sprawled on or around each other like a sea of carcasses.
Spiral holds Dolly by the face, his hands covered in blood and smearing across her paper-white skin. Their black and white look is nearly identical.
I don’t want to interrupt what seems like a private moment, so I drag all the bodies into a messy pile and sit on them like a throne. I snap off a finger and nibble it as I listen to their conversation.
“Fuck, Doll, are you sure you’re okay? What are you doing out here?”
She nods once, her black, bow-clad curls bouncing, and opens her palm to reveal a cigarette.
“You know damn well you’re not allowed to smoke, Doll.”
I blurt out an exasperated laugh, and he narrows his eyes on me.
“Ssspiral, you are a hypocrite.”
“Shut that mouth before I shut it for you,” he warns.
“Just because you don’t use your voice box doesn’t mean you need to cause yourself any more damage.
Promise me you won’t do it again?” Her chest deflates as she huffs and reluctantly nods.
“And stay away from Moxie. She’s up to no good at the moment. ”
“She’s taking control of the circusss,” I add, but Spiral doesn’t look surprised.
“I’ll set her straight. Let her have a few days of leadership.
Maybe she’ll stop whining then.” He tugs Dolly into a hug.
“Please be careful,” he whispers, forgetting I have incredible hearing.
“The public may hate us, but they don’t understand us.
” He pulls back and presses his forehead to hers. “Now go.”
She slips past him, and I don’t miss the subtle look in my direction. Not malice, not hate—maybe respect? I did save her life, after all.
“Thank you for coming,” Spiral says quietly as he sits beside me on the pile. I suck off the last of the juices from the finger bone before flicking it deeper into the forest. “That’s disgusting.”
“Can you go five seconds without insulting me?”
He tilts his head. “You didn’t hiss once then.”
“Those boys make me talk a lot. I’m getting used to it.”
“Kreo will be proud.”
“I don’t care about making Kreo proud anymore.”
Spiral doesn’t look like he believes me. “Are you sure? I know you’re not wearing your collar, but I thought you would still give a shit about the guy who literally created you.”
“I do. I just—” I shake my head, my bells echoing around the trees. “I didn’t realise how trapped I wassss. I love Kreo, but I love those boys too. I don’t want to choose.”
“You haven’t put your collar back on.”
“Because none of them are offended by the fact my head can be taken off.”
“I was never offended by that.”
I mindlessly smear my fingers through the blood across the spine beside me. The red liquid moves easily and brings me a sense of comfort.
“Then why do I offend you?”
“Because I thought you took away my only chance of being cured, but it turns out you are the cure.” I tear my stare away from the blood and force myself to look into his dark eyes.
“The pain stops when I’m inside of you. I don’t know why, or why Kreo could never figure out what’s wrong with me, but I’m becoming as reliant on your pussy as I am on weed and whisky. ”
“Where is the pain the worst?”
He grabs my wrist and places my blood-covered hand to his forehead. “Here.” He drags it down to stop on his chest. “Here.” He moves it up to the back of his head. “And here. But it echoes everywhere, Karma. There’s no escaping.”
“Until me.”
“Until you.”
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop hating Spiral—it feels like it’s ingrained in me—but I can understand that pain. The ache I felt before Kreo allowed me to hunt was unbearable, like I would die without my fix.
I pull my hand from his grasp and push him to lie down across the corpses. His fingers dig into my waist on instinct as I straddle his hips, and I lean forward with my palms flat against his chest.
“Beg me to take the pain away.”
He groans loudly as I rock back and forth, my bare pussy grinding against his cocks hardening beneath his jumpsuit. “Don’t make me beg, Karma. Don’t make me lose the last of my dignity.”
“I had to untie you and take off your muzzle,” I whisper in his ear. “There’s no dignity left. Now beg for the pain to ssstop.”
“Please, dead girl. Let me fuck you. Take away my pain.”