Freakshow (23 page)

I dropped to the ground and instinctively curled up to put my hands over my head. With my lack of pain, I’d learned long ago to protect the most vulnerable spots.

“Stupid cunt,” somebody spat in a guttural voice. “Nosy fucking bitch.”

I could count three of them, all men and all swift and brutal. They kicked and punched me with such force that I couldn’t move, I could only huddle in a ball and hope they didn’t break any bones.

I tried to protest, to beg them to stop, but they wouldn’t slow down. A thick work boot hit the side of my head and I started to see stars exploding at the side of my vision.

I squeezed my eyes shut and started to lose consciousness. All at once the assault ceased, the fists and boots no longer hit me and I uncurled my body.

I heard growling, harsh animal sounds and the screams of the men who had just been attacking me. I heard ripping and crunching, and their cries fading in the distance as they ran.

I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t move beyond my own shallow breaths. I didn’t hurt, but my body betrayed me.

I tried to cry out, but couldn’t make a sound.

I felt a great tongue licking my face, hot breath on my flesh, and heard a growling whine deep in the throat of some beast. I tried to open my eyes, forced them open, and all at once I was staring straight into a wolf’s glowing golden ones.

He was massive, covered with silken black fur and had intelligence burning in his gaze.

He licked me again and I groaned. I closed my eyes again and felt a healing energy flow through me. I connected mentally with the cool, damp earth and seemed to feel it working on knitting my injuries back together.

I opened my eyes again and saw a faint blue glow cocooning my body. The wolf stepped back and sniffed the air around me, he whined and gnashed his teeth.

“It’s okay,” I told him in a weak voice, “I’ve done it before.”

And I had, several times. The first had been after being hit by a truck when I was a little girl. My mother’s people had always been connected to the natural arts, witches and midwives in the old days.

As I’d lain in my mother’s arms that day, my little body broken and twisted, my Grandma had hobbled out of the house and ordered my mom to set me on the ground.

Even then I’d known, I’d felt it. I’d pushed my hand out of my mom’s sweater and touched the driveway, the earth, and drawn on some ancient power I’d felt in my moment of need.

By the time I’d gotten to the hospital, they’d been astounded by my apparent recovery. Within hours, I had seemed completely healed.

It had happened a few more times over the years, but I’d never needed it with this level of desperation, not since the truck accident.

After a time, the blue light faded back into my body and I felt as though I could move. I stood on shaky legs and immediately swayed and almost fell again. I reached out and found myself holding onto the wolf who had rushed to stand next to me.

I buried my fingers in his thick fur and did a quick assessment on my body to find any breaks or fractures.

I moved my legs, feet, arms, hands, and found nothing. A quick prodding of my midsection indicated a single rib had been fractured. I could feel it grind as I inhaled, every time my chest expanded, the rib protested wildly with a loud crack. I was thankful I couldn’t feel it.

I would be fine though, they hadn’t done any major damage as far as I could tell, and I would heal fast after drawing from the earth. I’d had more broken ribs than I could remember, and as long as I didn’t cough up blood, I’d recover.

I looked at the wolf, and it all came crashing into me. I’d been attacked, and then I’d been saved by a wolf.

“A mother fucking wolf,” I said under my breath. He looked at me, blinked a couple times and pushed up against me.

Using the wolf as a brace, I limped slowly back to my trailer, careful not to fall down or I might not make it back up. I stood in front of the trailer, closed my eyes, knelt to touch the earth, and drew one last surge of energy from the ground beneath me, as I always had, and opened them again.

The wolf made a low noise in the back of his throat. I looked down and said, “I’m safe now, you can go.”

He licked my hand, stared at me for a moment, turned and ran silently into the night. A few moments later I thought I heard a howl, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t even bet on the fact that I’d even seen a wolf, it all could have been one mass hallucination brought on by the stress of the attack.

I opened the front door and dragged myself up the narrow stairs, locked the door and moved down the hallway to my bedroom. I pulled my off shoes, stripped as carefully as I could, not wanting to do any more damage than had already been done, and fell into a dreamless slumber.

*****

“L
iv! Wake up!” Rose’s voice penetrated my throbbing head. It wasn’t painful, but I knew things weren’t quite right, I could hear blood rushing in my ears with each beat of my heart. “Liv, are you okay? Oh my god, wake up!”

I felt Rose slap me gently and I fluttered my eyes, the light was too bright though, so I snapped them shut again.

“What time is it?” I asked. “Am I late for rehearsal?” I tried to sit up but found my ribcage constricted and my arm wouldn’t support my weight.

“Who did this?” Rose asked.

“What?” I asked and forced my eyes open. I noticed the bruising on my arm and said, “Oh, Orion did this yesterday.”

“What the fuck?” Rose exclaimed. “He beat the shit out of you?”

“What? No, just the arm.”

“Have you looked at yourself? Did you go see Cai?”

I rubbed my eyes and it all came back to me, sneaking over to see Cairo and getting jumped, the wolf. “Shit,” I said, “I was attacked. I did go to see Cai and three guys attacked me. But a wolf saved me.”

“A wolf? Who was it? Did you get a look? Are you sure?”

“No, nothing. It was dark and they were wearing hoodies and gloves. They didn’t say much. And yes, I swear it was a motherfucking wolf.”

“Any accent?” Rose asked slowly.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Do you mean Alexi? He was too hammered to beat the shit out of anyone last night.”

“Why would you say Alexi? Is he involved somehow?”

“You know as much as I do,” I said and felt tears sting the back of my eyes, “this is so confusing Rose, sometimes I wish I could pack up and head back to BC.”

“Why don’t you? Why don’t we? We could catch a Greyhound back and get an apartment together.”

“Well, first off I still haven’t gotten a single penny from the Cirque. My bank account is empty.”

“There’s more than that though, isn’t there?” my friend asked, seeing deep into my heart.

“There is, you know it. It’s Cairo, I can’t leave him. He needs me. Whatever mess he’s caught up in, he needs me more than ever.”

“I’m just scared you’ll get dragged into something over your head. Be careful, Liv, just because you can’t feel pain doesn’t mean you are invincible. These bruises are testament to that.”

I sat up and managed to roll off my bed to my feet. I winced when my ribs cracked against my breath, not out of pain but out of instinct to protect them. “I hear you loud and clear there,” I replied, “but I assure you, I’m healing faster than it looks. I’ll be right as rain soon enough. Do you think we could go get something to eat?”

“It’s only seven, I’m sure we can still get a good breakfast.”

“What are we waiting for then?” I said and forced myself to sound cheerful.

A short hour later, my stomach was full, coffee was racing through my veins, and I was ready to face the day. I fixed a neutral mask on my face and went to find Orion for practice. We managed to get through it without once bringing up Cara’s murder, my injuries or Cairo being off limits.

I decided to let it go for now, until I healed a little more and until Orion let his guard down and I could see Cai again. I needed to find out if Orion was behind my attack last night, did he despise me and fear me enough to want me dead? If so, why?

And I had to figure out who had a trained wolf in the Cirque. It had to be Alexi, part of his animal act...or maybe a new hire, somebody with one of those huge dog and pony shows. Had I dreamt it was a wolf? Perhaps it was just a big dog after all.

Above everything, I just hoped it wasn’t long before I was with Cairo, my blood burned for his touch and my body ached to feel him next to me. I wondered if he felt it too.

W
e packed up and moved the Cirque down the coast to Portland a few days after I was attacked. The lead detective in the murder investigation had protested, but ultimately there had been no reason to keep us behind. There was nothing that could be proven against any one of us, so they had to let us go.

I took his card though, Detective Smythe, just in case I did find something that would implicate somebody implicitly.

I still hadn’t seen Cairo, he was apparently being heavily guarded by Orion and his crew, to keep him away from me. That was the rumour anyhow.

By then I’d come to understand some of what Orion and I were fighting for. It was possession of Cairo. Orion had some quality that made people jump at his command, somehow I was mostly immune to his dark forces, and through me, Cairo tasted some freedom to defy his father. I didn’t know how or why it worked like that, but somehow Cai and I together were stronger.

I knew Orion wanted Cairo to stay away from me so he wouldn’t question his father’s intentions. I also knew he wanted me close because of my ability to defy him. I’d had that strange ability to feel nothing, and that translated to feeling none of Orion’s dominance completely. I was a puzzle he wanted to solve, a puzzle that threatened his very status.

That being said, I was as edgy as fuck around the Cirque without Cairo by my side. Although I didn’t want to believe Orion was behind the attack, in the quiet moments I spent in my trailer, my mind definitely wandered there. I trusted that he wouldn’t do anything to harm me outright himself, but any time I left the trailer, I made sure I had Rose or one of the girls with me, everyone else was a suspect.

I had learned that Orion would do anything to protect his perfect public image and exert his absolute control, threatening either of these had definitely put me on his radar and potentially in danger. But would he have actually taken it so far as to order my attack?

We still rehearsed the act every day at ten, and he informed me that once we got to Portland we would be performing four nights a week. He’d given me time to heal without acknowledging my injuries. He was crafty like that...or was it guilt?

He also must have noticed my uncanny recovery times. I wondered if he picked up on the deep connection I had to energies deep in the planet, that I could draw on them to assist me in times of desperate need.

I hoped he hadn’t picked up on that, it wasn’t something I shared with anyone and it might make him even more suspicious of me.

Once we settled in Portland, I helped set everything up. The Cirque encampment was arranged in essentially the same configuration in every city, so the first night I snuck to Cairo’s RV to see if I could catch him unguarded. He hadn’t returned any of my texts and seemed to have disappeared off social media.

His RV wasn’t in its usual spot though, and after a few minutes of looking, I still couldn’t find it. Orion’s was right where it should be, so I hung around for a short time hoping to see Cai visiting his dad.

His sisters came and went, but there was no sign of Orion or Cairo.

Dejected, I started back for my little trailer, I was starting to think of it as home now that I’d been living there for a few weeks.

“Liv,” I heard my name being called from behind me. I turned and saw Cairo’s sister, Paris, coming my way.

“Where’s Cai?” I asked. I didn’t feel like making small talk or playing nice. “What has your father done to him?”

“He has to stay with us,” Paris replied. “He’s inside right now. Would you like to come see him?”

“Oh god, yes,” I said, “please.”

“He’s been so down since all of this started. One of us has to be with him at all times. I know all Cai’s thinking about is you though. Father took his laptop and his phone, and he’s cut off our wifi. Cai’s been going nuts trying to figure out a way to see you.”

“I’m sorry to say this, but your dad is a psycho,” I said and followed Paris.

“He’s just doing what he thinks is best for us, for the family and the business, especially given the legal problems right now. He’s also trying to protect you in his strange way,” Paris said. “I know to you it may look extreme, but you have to understand that in this kind of lifestyle, there has always been a distinct, ‘us versus them’ mentality. It’s changing with us younger folks, but in the older generations, it’s still part of their blood.”

“So your father hates me because he sees me as one of
them
?”

“He doesn’t hate you, and you are most definitely not one of them. You are an unknown. But he is very threatened by you and Cairo. We can all see what’s going on, the chemistry between you two is almost embarrassing,” Paris said and glanced at me, “I mean it’s cute and I’m happy for you two, but it’s not going to happen if father has anything to do with it.”