Circus Summer (Circus of Curiosities Book 1) (13 page)

            “What?” Ellis looks so shocked by that. I guess he knows as well as we do what that group is for. It’s for eliminating someone from the competition, maybe fatally. Almost certainly fatally, in fact, given the way it works. Ellis hesitates for a moment, like he might run for the door, but then turns to shake Banford and Zachary’s hands.

            He takes a small pendant from around his neck, handing it to Zachary. There’s a lot they aren’t saying. I guess, with the three of them all being on the football team, they’re actually pretty close.

            “If I don’t make it back…” he begins.

            “You will,” Zachary assures him.

            “If I don’t though, give it to my parents. I want them to know I did my best. And Banford? Make sure Cindy gets my football jersey.”

            Somehow, I expect all this not to have any effect on the big football player, but he shakes his head, actually looking emotional for once. “You can give it to her yourself when you get back.”

            Ellis has to go then, heading off with Dr. Dex out of the big top. I find myself wondering if we’ll see him again. Wondering which one of them we won’t. The rest of us have to get on with training, preparing for the main performances, but we move over to our trainers a little slower this time. It all feels a little more serious, when the stakes are so obvious.

            I find myself partnered with Zachary again, but today, our group is all working together. We work with Michael Nelson on knife throwing, aiming for pieces of fruit or balloons. That would probably have been fun, except that the targets are on top of each other’s heads. One slip, and it might not just be the group that has gone out that’s in danger. I’m so glad it’s Zachary I’m paired with. I don’t think I’d be able to bring myself to stand still with Banford throwing, like Sandy has to. He’s the kind of guy who might “miss” deliberately. Despite the fact that we’re competing for the same prize, I know Zachary won’t do that. I know I can trust him, and I hope he knows the same about me. All I have to do is concentrate on hitting the target.

            And I do. After working with the circus’ knife thrower before, it’s easy to pick off the targets without hurting Zachary. He seems to have a harder time of it, concentrating hard before each throw, but he doesn’t miss, either. It’s good to know that there’s someone in the Circus of Curiosities I can trust that much.

            I need to trust him again for the next act we all work on. Carlita Montalban brings in a pair of beautiful white stallions, one of which Zachary has to ride bareback. He looks like a natural at it, riding around and around a small platform in the center of the ring, where I stand waiting for him. I hold out my hands, ready, and he rides past, grasping them. I leap up at the exact moment our hands make contact, letting him pull me onto the back of the horse. At the speed we’re moving, if either of us gets it even slightly wrong, we could both be badly hurt.

             He pulls me up in front of him, and for a moment his arm is around my waist. I can feel him pressed tightly behind me, the movement of the stallion mixing with his breathing and the tightness of his grip on me so that part of me wishes we could just stay like that, but we have to perform the next part of the act. I raise myself so I’m standing on the horse’s back and then Zachary lifts me up. My feet find his shoulders, his hands gripping my ankles as I stand up tall. I stand on his shoulders while the horse continues to trot in a circle around the ring.

            Slowly, the horse comes to a stop and I hop down. Zachary jumps down next to me, and for a moment we’re so close, I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. If I turn around, it would be so easy to kiss him here. So very…

            “I’ll kill you both, you bastards!”

            I almost don’t want to turn to see what it is, but I know I have to. I look, and Sandy is having an all out fight with both Banford and the guy who was added to our group. What’s more, for the moment at least, she’s actually holding her own. She’s as big and strong as they are, and she obviously knows how to fight, kicking and punching, kneeing and moving back out of the way, but there are two of them. She must be pretty mad to try to fight two of them at once.

            “Stop that at once!” Carlita instructs, and the trainers move in quickly to separate them. When they do, the three of them stand there glaring at one another like they’d like nothing more than to start straight up again.

            “What was that about?” Carlita demands.

            Sandy points to the thin, intense looking guy. “
He
tried to feel me up when I was riding the horse, and
he
,” she points to Banford, “was throwing the knives at me, not the fruit. I had to duck half the time to avoid them.”

            “So why am I the one who got nicked?” Banford demands. “If anyone was throwing at someone, it’s you.”

            I think for a moment that they might start fighting again despite the trainers, but in that moment, Dr. Dex steps back into the tent. He has some trainers with him, and the recruits follow him in a bedraggled group. Three of them do, anyway. They all look pale and shocked. The dark haired girl is nowhere to be seen.

            Even Dr. Dex looks paler than usual. He looks around as though only just remembering the rest of us are there. “Training is over for tonight,” he declares. “Go home. Be with your families. Two days from now, we’ll start the performances.”

            Just like that, we start to disperse. Zachary and Banford go over to Ellis, and I follow, wanting to know what happened. Ellis sits in the stand, looking like he might collapse otherwise. Normally, Ellis is one of the better looking guys on the football team, handsome enough that his girlfriend Cindy is one of the prettiest cheerleaders. Now though, he looks ashen grey.

            Zachary helps him up, and we all head out of the tent. I think we might be heading home, but Zachary leads us down towards the beach.

            “What happened?” he asks Ellis once we get there.

            “They took us in a large van,” Ellis explains. “One of the motorized ones. There was Dr. Dex, a few trainers I hadn’t seen before, and us. They had these rifles and weapons… amazing looking things. Things that shot beams of light. Things that shot balls of flames. Things I don’t even know the military has. The kind of things the Invaders destroy.”

            Like just about everything else in the circus, but I don’t say that.

            Ellis continues. “They took us to a patch of woodland and gave us rifles too. Dr. Dex said that it was to test us to see who could stay in the circus. He said something about anyone who gets to the Center having to overcome a lot of obstacles there, and about having to work together. He said that we could wait in the van if we wanted, but then we’d be out. I… I couldn’t do that.”

            “What did you see?” Banford asks impatiently.

            Ellis’ eyes widen as he remembers. “We didn’t get much of a warning before they came out.” He gulps reflexively. “Dr. Dex and his trainers were already firing at them, but there were so many, and they just kept coming.”

            “They?” I ask. “What were they?”

            “People, but not people,” Ellis says, and he looks like he might throw up. “They were alive, but it’s like they were crazy, mindless and rabid. Soulless. They were like animals, their skins torn with cuts, and they had this sick green slime on them, covering them. Coming out of them when we shot them. Changing them as they came. Some of them had claws, or strange scales, or…” he stops for a moment or two, breathing deeply. “They got Kelsy, the girl who came with us. They grabbed her and… and they just tore her to pieces. She screamed… she screamed so much. They ate her alive.”

            No wonder he looks pale. I’m not feeling too well just hearing about it. What if Dr. Dex had decided to pick me? What if he’d decided that I wasn’t doing well enough and needed to prove my place? That poor girl.

             “What were they?” I ask. “What could they have been?”

            “Mutants,” Zachary says. “They’re mutants. They look like people. Maybe they even started off as people, but they aren’t anymore. They’ve been taken by the Invaders.”

            I’ve never seen the Invaders. My brother must have by now. That’s who he went off to war to fight.

            Zachary keeps going. “If they’re mindless though, then they’re the rejects. The ones the Invaders didn’t take over successfully. They tried, and something went wrong, and things like that are left over afterwards. No longer human, their souls taken… a shell of themselves, like a zombie, but not dead.”

            “So that’s what they’re fighting in the war?” I ask. “Why don’t we all know?”

            “Maybe they don’t want to cause a panic,” Zachary guesses. “Maybe they’re too busy fighting.”

            “So how do you know?” Banford asks. It’s a good question.

            Zachary shrugs. “I just… know. I guess my grandfather must have told me, or something. I know he fought. I know Mom and Dad hated it when he told me stories about what he’d seen.”

            “Listen,” Ellis says. “I don’t feel too great. When I was fighting them… well, I guess one of them must have snagged me a little. I need to get home.” He shakes his head. “I need to get to Cindy’s. Banford, can you help me?”

            Banford looks a little alarmed that Ellis has asked that, but he nods. “Sure.”

Chapter
15

A
fter Banford leaves with Ellis, Zachary reaches out for my hand, leading me further from the circus, out towards the cliffs that tower above us on the beach, so that we can shelter beneath them. We stand there, staring out over the darkening ocean, and I can’t help feeling so close to him then, even though I know I shouldn’t let myself feel that.

            “Do you see how dangerous this is now, Leela?” Zachary asks. “I know about your mother, but there’s so much more at stake than just a show.”

            His eyes bore into mine, the intensity of them impossible to ignore. He pulls me tight to him, stroking my hair. I hold him just as tightly. I want to feel something safe right then. I want to feel protected. I want to feel warm and safe in a world that is not. After what Ellis has seen, I need to feel that. Without thinking about it, I slide my hands under Zachary’s shirt, feeling the smoothness of his skin and the ridges of the tight, hard muscles there.

            I’ve never done this with someone before, but with Zachary, it just feels natural. I’m surprised by how warm his skin feels against mine, and how good he smells. There’s something masculine about the way he smells this close to me, but there’s also something about him that reminds me of the sea air. I want to kiss him, and not just his lips. I want to kiss every inch of that beautiful skin. I’ve imagined it so many times when I’ve seen him at school with other girls. I want it so badly right then.

            My hands continue to drift over his body, moving around to the front, to his chest, resting over his heart. I want to keep going, just touching him like that, but Zachary grabs my hands from under his shirt, lifting them over my head so that I feel almost helpless in his grip.

            “God, I can’t fight this,” Zachary says, pushing me back against the rock of the cliff face, his mouth slamming unto mine. It’s a deep, passionate kiss, filled with need, where Zachary kisses like it might be the only chance we get. He takes control of my mouth with that kiss, holding me, pinning me there while I surrender to him more than willingly. I’ve spent the past few days trusting him with my life. I can trust him with this kiss.

            We kiss, and we keep kissing, his lips moving hungrily against mine. Zachary, is an expert kisser, drawing it out, his lips soft and hard against mine, his sweet tongue teasing my lips open, then delving in to tangle with mine, making me want more from him, kissing me until I can barely think. We kiss for what feels like hours, our hands exploring each other, while we’re press tight together, but can’t be more than a minute or two.

            “Leela? Leela, are you there?” Thomas’ voice carries down to the beach and I pull out of Zachary’s grip, tearing my lips from his. He lets me. I know he could hold me if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.

            “Thomas…he’s here. I have to go.” Even I don’t quite believe it when I say it. Maybe it’s the way that I don’t make any real move to leave.

            Zachary turns me back to him just long enough to kiss me again, softly this time. Gently, his fingers brushing over my face while he does it. I kiss him back the same way, but even as I do it, I realize that I’ve forgotten to ask him what I was going to earlier, about Dr. Dex. I should be doing that, not kissing him.

            He pulls back. “I know you’re set on continuing on with the Circus, but if it comes down to having to fight you, having to eliminate you so I move forward; I don’t think I could do it. Please Leela, we’re no longer training anymore. The competition begins in two days, and I don’t want to see you hurt or killed. I… I wouldn’t be able to keep going if that happened.”