35. Karma
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KARMA
“What happened to Moxie’s eye, Karma?”
Kreo sits on his wheely chair beside his desk, arms folded and eyes intense.
My nails dig into the edge of the metal table; it takes everything in me not to dart my eyes to the clown in the corner of the room.
Spiral is picking something in his nail, pretending I don’t exist, playing the act for Kreo.
But he can’t keep his eyes from me, and it makes me nervous.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Come on, child. I saw it this morning. It’s a good thing I have some spare prosthetics around here.
It looked like claw marks.” He nods at my pointed green and pink nails.
“I attached those as an aid for hunting, and I let you choose the colours as a treat. I’m disappointed to see how you’re using them. ”
Kreo trained me to feel a negative response when he reprimands me. It’s how he controlled me for so long. I find it hard to ignore that instinctual feeling despite how badly Moxie deserved it.
“Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I need to ask Moxie?”
So she hasn’t told him what’s been happening yet? Probably because she knows Kreo wouldn’t believe her without hard proof. And Dolly…
Dolly would be proof. She was always watching, lurking.
For Moxie.
I’m so fucking stupid. How didn’t I see it? Dolly’s always around, but this was intentional. Kreo would believe Dolly if she finally had something to say all these years later.
Let’s hope Spiral and I saving her in the forest was enough to convince her to shut her mouth.
“I didn’t do it.”
“Spiral, did you see anything?”
The room tenses as Spiral straightens and looks between us.
Eventually, he huffs. “This freak has done nothing but sleep and hunt.”
I ignore the pang in my chest; he’s just pretending.
“Manners, Spiral,” Kreo sighs. “Fine, but when I find out what happened, I’ll be upset to learn if you’re lying to me, Karma. Do you understand?” I nod quickly. “Good. Spiral, you can leave now.”
Kreo turns around to move something on his desk, and Spiral slowly walks to the exit. He stares at me like he’s trying to communicate that he didn’t mean what he called me, that we’re in this together.
When he leaves, I wait for Kreo to turn back around.
“How has everything been since I left? Have you fed well?”
“Yessss.”
“Good.” He grabs a small brown book and a pen from the table. “Is there anything you want to tell me about your week?”
I stare at the little book, unblinking. Spiral told me the answers to the unknown could be in there. The answers to whether I can die, to what I am, to what I could be.
“Karma?”
My name snaps me out of it.
“No,” I say quickly, and he looks deflated.
“Very well.” He turns to his desk, grabbing his goggles and slipping them over his head, and I know that means he’s moving on.
“But I wanted to talk to you about sssomething.”
“Hmm?” He’s too focused on what looks like snake skin across his desk and a needle with green thread. His hunched back is to me, and I know I’ve lost his interest.
I feel the weight of the collar around my neck. I feel the stretch of my stitched smile as I purse my lips. They’re reminders that I belong to Kreo right now, when what I didn’t realise I wanted was to belong to myself.
“I—”
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the finale? Lights on in an hour. Best performance tonight, Karma. As usual.”
My parted lips, ready to ask for permission to leave the circus, close at his sudden dismissal. Maybe the guys were right. Maybe Kreo doesn’t care for me as much as I thought he did. Maybe those diaries really are all he cares about.
They told me not to tell him. He didn’t even give me the chance.
Silently, I slip out of the room. I’m not sure he notices.
As soon as I pass through the exit flaps, a firm arm around my wrist drags me outside, and my chest is shoved against another’s.
“Are you okay, dead girl?”
“I’m fine,” I sigh, looking into those hollow eyes I’ve become so accustomed to. Spiral grabs my waist and grinds his hard double cocks against my stomach.
“I’m sad to be leaving,” he whispers in my ear. “But I can’t wait to fuck you whenever I want.”
“What about Dolly?” I say in a last-minute attempt to convince either myself or Spiral to stay. Am I scared? Of the unknown world? Maybe.
“Dolly will survive without me. She has Moxie.”
“What about your clowns?”
“Besides Dolly, they mean nothing to me. Not like you do.” He kisses me with enough force to prove that point. “You need to get into your finale outfit.” I grimace, and Spiral laughs. “I know you hate it, but we can’t have Kreo suspect anything.”
“You know I hate it?”
He tilts his head curiously. “Of course I do. I watched you for a long time, Karma. I studied your reactions when you weren’t looking. I’d sneak into your tent and watch you sleep before bed. And it was always you in the back of my mind.”
The thought sends a thrill of excitement through me. I would have hated to find out Spiral was in my tent before, but now he can wake me up with a double stuffing.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, dead girl. We’ve got a show.” He sneaks in a kiss before skipping off, shouting commands at the other clowns when he steps into the dressing area.
As I start walking to my tent to get changed, I hear a familiar chittering in the grass. Claws sink into my leg and climb up my body.
“Finally,” I whisper when Snake nuzzles into my neck. “I was starting to worry about you.”
He hisses in a friendly greeting, and I let him hitch a ride back to my tent.
He jumps onto the vanity so I can get changed into a horrendously sparkly pink jumpsuit.
I can see Moxie wearing something like this, but not me.
Kreo knows I don’t like it, but he wants all the stops pulled when it comes to finales.
They’re nothing special to the performers, happening before we leave a town every few weeks.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be sssticking around if I leave, will you?” Snake stares at me blankly like he doesn’t understand. I sigh and sit on my mattress, slumping my head into my hands. “We’re leaving. I think. I guess. Would you come with us, Sssnake?”
He jumps onto the floor and climbs up my knee. He nods his little head up and down, and I smile softly at him. My little companion. The only true friend I’ve had in here. I’m not ready to leave him yet, so that makes me happy.
“You meet the boysss at the trailer, okay? They’re leaving regardless.”
Snake isn’t oblivious to the internal war raging in my mind. He rubs his head against my knee comfortingly.
I hear the distant call of Kreo announcing that the show is starting from the big tent, and the voltage pumping through me fires that bit faster.
I’ll be on in an hour, then Spiral and I will have half an hour to sneak away with the boys before the grand finale. That’s when Kreo will notice if we’re missing.
If…
Why am I still debating?
Because I still don’t know the truth.
Those diaries. I need to see those diaries.
And after my exit will be the perfect chance.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our wonderful silk contortionist! Give her a hand!” Kreo shouts into the microphone from the floor beneath me as I spin down the fabric to land in the splits.
The crowd does exactly as they’re told, screaming and cheering, and I ignore the itchiness of my sparkly outfit reflecting the lights to look at the sea of faces.
This could be the last time I ever experience this, and that makes me smile.
Truly smile.
I hate performing.
Kreo is occupied with announcing the fire-eaters as I do a combination of cartwheels and walkovers off the stage.
The moment I’m out of the limelight and back into the darkness, my whole body relaxes.
I can hear the distant voice of Moxie commanding the clowns, preparing them for the grand finale of the show.
Spiral will be with them, figuring out his getaway.
It’s hard being stealthy in this outfit—the sequins brush up against my legs with every step forward—but everyone’s too busy with the show to see me sneaking through the flaps of Kreo’s tent. It’s light enough that I’m not forced to rely on my shining eyes to see the way.
There’s a row of small, brown, leather books across the back tent wall.
Something chirps in a cage. Teeth rattle against metal bars.
There are many animals in here, confined to small spaces and experiments, and it makes me think of Soren.
Guilt at the sight of these creatures is something I never thought I’d experience.
Spiral will be looking for me any moment. He’ll be expecting me at the exit so we can make our way over to the trailer together, where the rest of the guys will be waiting.
But I need to do this.
The air swirls with tension as I reach up for the first book labelled ‘Karma’.
My fingers don’t tremble like a human’s would when they sense something dangerous is approaching, but I feel the unfamiliar notion of anxiety twisting deep in my stomach.
It’s a feeling I’m becoming more aware of, but I can’t say I enjoy it.
I pull back the leather-bound cover to reveal the first light brown page marked with thick ink.
It’s alive. It worked. It’s well and truly alive.
My creation doesn’t speak, doesn’t attack. It’s a simple thing, waiting and listening. It appears I have finally succeeded. I have finally cracked the code to resurrecting human life without the chaos that came before.
This success is monumental, and I am eager to watch how my creation grows.
So far, it is docile. It has yet to move from the table, but it does sit up straight and watch me.
Two hours have passed since my machine sent life into its vessel, and I have yet to hear it make a noise, but it mimics my expressions and tracks me with bright green eyes. So bright. I wonder how they’ll last.
I will study it. Keep a very close eye on it.