CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BUNNY
Broken capillaries blotch my neck, hugging the cool toned bruises of strong hands and peppering around the bite mark in the center of my throat, making me a little self-conscious.
I bring a hand up to it, tenderly tracing the pads of my fingers along the bruising while gliding my eyes over the people paying no attention to me.
I’m okay. I told him that, too. It’s, like, a semi-permanent collar I want him to keep freshening up. Just as… I don’t know. I guess a reminder of how much I’m wanted, how possessive he is of me of all people.
I also wanted him to feel content enough to not worry about me, so he’d go do what he needed to with Cash and Xene.
I have something I want to do. Alone.
It’s hot today. It’s always hot. But the torridity pressing against my skin while making my way to the south end of the park feels different.
There’s a wild drive in my heart, in turn, making the air stickier to breathe.
It’s compact in my lungs and tensing my scalp, and the people floating around for rides and games are aiding in my claustrophobia.
But I feel awake. Alive. More than I ever have since the day I woke up confused in the trailer.
Having sex with Razor gave me the push I needed. As if the ache I walk with today is reinforcing my spine.
I don’t know how long this will last, though. And I’m not sure if my body will become dependent on his to remain tenacious.
Passing the tent hosting an active game of ring toss, I veer around the family waiting for their turn and scan the last of the tents with parted curtains.
There’s only one that doesn’t have people coming and going.
It catches my eye, so I move closer, reading the blackletter font written on the A-Frame.
Odder Than an Oddity.
I pick up the pace, until I’m prying the black velvet curtains out of the way and slipping inside.
The same odor in the office knots my stomach, raking over the large shelving unit packed with jars full of small animals and bones submerged in liquid. There are reptiles and birds and… puppies.
What the fuck?
Why would someone do that? Why is this even here?
My heart migrates up my throat, getting caught in the tightness that’s burning my eyes. I rip away before I can see any more, walking around the shelves and passing a packed display of a variety of teeth and bones, and rabbit feet hanging from wooden pegs by chains.
They say a rabbit’s foot brings you luck. Maybe that’s why I’m curiously stopping to look at the preserved white fur, my forefinger shakily running over the softness.
“You a’right there, mate?”
The masculine Australian accent startles me, my jolting heart lurching my body into a one-eighty with a mute yip. Obviously, someone works in here. I don’t know why my nerves are shot like I was caught doing something I shouldn’t.
“Yes, uh, s-sorry,” I respond, gaping at the tall man standing a few feet across from me.
He has one hand in his pocket, the cast of his arm pinning his tailored jacket just enough to see the leather harness strapped to his black button up.
“No worries,” he hums, his gelled, sandy blonde hair collecting the orange hue of the lights illuminating the shelves next to him. “You in for some luck, aye?”
“W-what?”
“Rabbit foot,” he points behind me, offering a lazy grin.
“Oh, uh,-“ I look over my shoulder, taking a steady breath that closes my eyes for a moment “-no. I was actually wanting to ask you about something.”
When I look back to him—he’s closer, his honey eyes content with my awkwardness.
“Ask. I don’t bite.” He flicks down to my throat, pointing out the marks I wear today.
Is he flir… Um, oh… Oh, no.
No. Right? No. He’s well in his late thirties and has rings on each finger, surely that’s a wedding band or, like, a fricking, uh… I don’t know, I’m scared now.
“I was, um…”
He nods patiently, slowly getting closer with intrigue relaxing his face.
Picking at the hem of my shorts, I drop his eye contact to look around. “I was wondering if anyone brings you strange things… or asks you for strange things.”
“Strange?” He stops a foot away, cracking a dimpled grin and visually perusing the oddities. “This not strange enough for you, Bunny?”
Not expecting my name out of his mouth, perplexion tightens my face, encouraging a big ache to throb across my forehead. “You know me? How? Why?”
He laughs, the sound gentle and lingering in the back of his throat. “We fancy the same schedule.”
I’ve never seen him. But if I’ve learned anything the past week, my anxiety has made me oblivious to mostly everything.
Or he’s lying to me, too.
A spark of anger turns my head hot, my cheeks sizzling over the idea that I can’t even trust a stranger. “Uh, never mind. Sorry to bother you.”
Turning away from him, I start to walk toward the curtains, but a warm grip is anchoring around my wrist, putting me in a halt.
It’s light. But alarming.
My defensive eyes snap back to him and he lets me go, roaming my face and posture with concern.
“What’s the drama?”
“I can’t trust anyone. That’s my drama.”
His lips thin with his eyes, like he’s vicariously feeling my frustration. “You didn’t trust the mouth that did that to you?”
Why does he care?
“Have a good day.” I try to leave again, but he’s grabbing my arm and moving out in front of me.
Adrenaline bangs on my heart, inducing a rush of fight-or-flight that pulses my entire head.
“Let me show you something, he insists, and gestures toward the back while leaning down, so that I can see the reverence in his eyes.
The combative frenzy blistering my skin has me hesitating, pivoting on my heel to watch where he’s walking off to. But my paralysis is short lived. The suppressed need for clarity has me working my way through the rest of the shelving units, closely monitoring where he’s going.
He slips through black curtains, getting swallowed in noxious orange before the velvet fabric sways back together. I’m still following him… just slowing down to take in the entire back wall of hanging vertebrae.
That… Those are… “Oh, my God,” I inhale.
Is it legal to have and, you know… sell human spines? And whose are they? How does one acquire an entire wall of spinal cords? They’re all completely intact from connection plate to the tailbone… like they were chemically cooked away from meat.
My intuition punches me in the gut, blaring an alarm in my head that something’s not right, that this man isn’t wanting to “show me something.” All the rational and irrational thoughts of what he could do to me and get away with drill through the insistent beep rippling my skin.
I stop, staring at the curtains he vanished through, becoming too lightheaded to see clearly.
He knows my name and schedule. If he wanted to hurt me or stuff my hair into a voodoo doll, he would have already. Right?
Do not go in there.
“Bunny?” he calls out.
Ohhh, shit.
What if he really does want to show me something? What if it’s a pivotal piece that finally smacks me into getting into those files?
Opening my lips to say something, a hand comes over my mouth. The immediate pressure snuffs my yelp, my head getting yanked back and my boots stumbling backward to support my dragging weight.
My eyes water, trying to pry the hand away with a sob tenting my chest. But they’re a lot stronger than me. I’m disappearing down an aisle of skulls before I can muster the courage to scream.
My spine hits the sturdy wood, and I rapidly blink away the glaze over my sight, sharply inhaling through my nose and forcing myself to look at the person that either saved me or has worse plans.
The brown lip gloss and wide, paranoid eyes puncture the terror and drain me with relief, her hand pinned firm against my mouth.
Duse shakes her head, using the horror on her face to keep me quiet.
“Bunny?” he calls out again, his voice clear.
Bending down to see through shelves, Duse grabs my hand, slowly prying her other palm from my lips and gesturing to the opposite end we came from.
This is quickly starting to feel like life or death, so her refusing to break her attention from him jumpstarts the shakes of fear, trying to steadily follow her motion without doing something stupid like falling or knocking something over.
There are antlers and hooves sticking out each way, and my breaths sound too loud in my head, creating this circulating angst of getting caught.
I squeeze her hand tighter, curling my quivering lips in and looking out the corner of my eye to her side stepping, her laser focus still directed at the spot we’re walking away from.
She squeezes me back, giving me the reassurance I need to turn the corner and aim for the exit.
Once we’re in clear shot of an escape, she’s ripping my arm out of socket and dragging me through the curtains.
I wince, visoring my eyes against the flash-bang of sun. She doesn’t stop. She starts running faster, pulling me through the multiplied bodies and past the screams rushing off the running rides, until she’s drifting us to a stop next to a Dippin’ Dots stand and shooting her wrath at me.
“What is wrong with you?! You don’t go near that tent, Bun!”
Grasping at congested air, my heart beats against my sternum, widely staring at the vexation she’s never directed at me. “W-why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Stop asking questions you’re not ready to hear the answer to,” she seethes.
“What do you mean?!” My shoulders stiffen, my jaw innately clenching shut. But that’s the old me. The pathetic me. And I’m so tired of her. I’m tired of everyone tiptoeing around a real answer and me just accepting it. “How did you even know I was in there?”
She wipes the sweat from her forehead, breathing harshly and looking around, before snapping back down to me.
“I followed you. Okay? I saw you go in, figured I’d give you a minute to change your mind, but you didn’t come back out.
Do you realize how screwed I am, Bunny?” She bends down, jabbing tense fingers into her own chest and glaring at me.
Confused, like always, my brows furrow and my palms turn up. “What does that have to do with you? Do you watch me a lot? What is going on here?!”
“No,” her face tenses. “I saw your neck when you left. I figured you were goin’ to your tent, and I was gonna ask if you were okay. Don’t switch this shit to me.” Vaulting straight with a huff, she wipes down her face, giving me a moment to process. “I have to tell Raze, babe.”
This burdening me with more questions than I can even ask is digging a blade into my lungs, manifesting invasive needles in my eyes. “Why?”
She slaps her palms to her thighs, rolling her shoulders with the movement of her head, like the answer should be obvious. But it’s not.
I shake my head, letting my disappointment drip down my cheeks as I move around her. “I’m so tired of this.”
“Bun, wait,” she sighs.
I really wish I could say she’s just looking out for me. But if she had my back, she’d give me straight answers instead of dangling carrots and yanking them away when I get close.
Pun intended. Get it? Bunny.
Sorry, that was lame.
Wiping my wet face, I leave her in the spot she’s still watching me from, going through my usual routine of constricting dread the entire walk back to what I know, and then I slip into my dark tent.
I’m on the schedule for tonight. Even though everyone just wants to see me in the Globe of Death now. So, I have to somehow push all this stuff to the back of my mind and dance the maggots away.