Page 42 of Carnival’s Playground

"He knows every inch of our electrical setup," Avery gasps, clutching my forearm. Her nails dig in hard enough to bruise. "He knows the breaker thresholds, the generator overrides, and the blind spots in the security perimeter because he installed half of them himself."

"And he knows how Dutch runs his crew," Renn adds, shutting the laptop screen halfway. "He's using his insider knowledge to maximize damage and evade detection."

"Where does Fenn live, Dutch?" I demand, stepping toward the old man. "Give me an address."

"He had a trailer parked out near the old gravel quarry outside town," Dutch gruffly answers. His voice sounds hollow, defeated in a way I've never heard before. "I don't know if he's still there, but that's where he used to hole up."

"I'm calling Sheriff Caffey right now to pull a search warrant for that quarry," Renn decisively announces, already unclipping her radio. "We'll roll three units out there immediately."

"What about tonight's show, Dutch?" Petey nervously asks. "The gates are scheduled to open in four hours. Do we shut it down?"

Dutch stands there in the dim light of the trailer, his jaw working furiously, the weight of the entire carnival resting squarely on his broad, aging shoulders. For a long moment, he doesn't answer, and I can see the exhaustion and betrayal warring across his face.

"No," Dutch decides, slamming his fist onto the table with a deafening crack. "We don't shut down. If we cancel another show, the city pulls our extended permit, the bank forecloses on my haulers, and Grady wins. We open those damn gates."

"We open with doubled security," Renn states. "I'm posting two deputies at the main entrance, two on the midway, and I want Wyatt and Avery running continuous technical sweeps backstage."

"Consider it done," I tell her, my voice hard as iron.

Renn grabs her gear and charges out the door to coordinate the raid on the quarry, while Dutch and Petey head off to brief Frank and the rest of the crew on the new threat.

The trailer goes dead silent. Avery leans back against the counter, her arms crossed tight over her chest, staring down at the floor with a stormy, haunted look in her green eyes. Her breathing's gone shallow, and I can see her fighting to hold it together.

"Talk to me, spitfire," I softly say, stepping into her space and resting my hands on the counter on either side of her hips.

"He was our friend, Wyatt," she whispers, her voice cracking with raw betrayal. "Grady ate dinner at our mess tables for four years. He helped me rewire the sound board when the storm hit in Austin. He laughed with us, drank with us, and now he's trying to drop Marcy from the rafters and burn this place to the ground."

"Betrayal from the inside cuts the deepest," I gently tell her, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I've seen it happen in motorcycle clubs. A brother gets greedy, gets cut loose, and turns into a rabid dog trying to tear down the whole house."

"How do you deal with it?" she asks, looking up at me with raw, aching vulnerability. "How do you stop it from turning you completely cold?"

"You find people who are actually loyal," I answer, my fingers sliding down to cradle the warm line of her jaw. "You find people who stand in the fire with you instead of throwing matches. People like you."

A faint, bittersweet smile touches her lips. "You really aren't going to leave when this circus packs up, are you?"

"I told you before, Avery," I fiercely swear, leaning down until my breath warms her skin. My voice drops lower, rougher, more honest than I've been with anyone in years. "I'm done running. Wherever you go, that's where I'm planting my boots. You're stuck with me."

"Good," she whispers, reaching up to grip the lapels of my leather cut. "Because if you tried to ride off now, I'd probably shoot your back tire out."

"I'd expect nothing less, spitfire," I chuckle, leaning down to press a slow, deep kiss against her parted lips.

We hold onto each other in the quiet trailer for three long minutes, drawing strength from the heat between us, steeling ourselves for the fight ahead. Tonight, Grady Fenn is going to try to finish what he started, and Avery and I are going to make damn sure he pays for every single inch of dirt he stepped on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

AVERY

By four o'clock in the afternoon, the Grimlight Reveals lot feels less like a traveling circus and more like an armed military outpost. The autumn wind whips through the midway, carrying the sharp scent of fried funnel cake batter mixed with the bitter tang of diesel smoke and tension so thick you could slice it with a hunting knife. "Petey, run the primary fog line diagnostic one more time," I instruct, standing near the entrance of the haunt maze with my heavy metal clipboard clamped under my arm. My hands won't stop shaking, so I grip the clipboard tighter.

"Avery, I've already tested the pressure valves three separate times," Petey grumbles, wiping machine grease across his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

"I don't care if you've tested them ten times, Petey," I snap, refusing to budge an inch. "Grady Fenn knows the pneumatic flow rates on these machines just as well as I do. If there's a single loose fitting, I want to find it before six hundred screaming guests walk through those black canvas curtains."

"Paranoia is a wonderful personality trait on you," Petey mutters, but he reaches down and twists the manual purge valve anyway. The machine hisses violently, spewing a thick, dense cloud of white fog across the wooden planks, running smooth and steady. "See? Perfect," he announces, dusting his hands off.

"Keep it that way," I tell him, checking the box on my sheet. My stomach's in knots, and I can't shake the feeling that we're missing something. Heavy boot steps crunch on the gravel behind me, and Carnival ducks beneath the wooden archway of the haunt maze. He carries a fifty-foot coil of braided steel cable over his broad shoulder, his leather cut open over a faded gray thermal shirt, sweat glistening along his hard collarbone despite the freezing October breeze. "How are the generator lines looking on the south corridor?" I ask, stepping into his space.

"Clean as a whistle," he reports, dropping the heavy steel coil onto a wooden pallet with a loud, metallic clatter. "Frank and I torqued down every single distribution lug, double-grounded the auxiliary chassis, and locked the master panels with hardened steel padlocks. Grady isn't popping those boxes without a plasma torch."