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“I had a daughter.” She clears her throat. “Her name was June. I loved her more than my own life. She died in a car accident. Since she’s been gone, I’ve spent every single day entirely numb. Surviving. Waiting for a blade to slip so I could stop breathing.” She lifts her chin. “I don’t want to be numb anymore. I crave revenge. I want to kill him.”
Elias nods once. A slow, absolute promise of butchery.
He shifts his gaze to Silas.
“Uncover everything you can on Raymond. Addresses. Bank records. IRS irregularities. Daily routines. I want his entire life mapped out and sitting on my desk by nightfall.”
Silas’s fingers fly across his keyboard, pulling up secure search frames.
“Consider it done.”
Elias stands.
“Pack up the rigs. Tear down the Big Top. Get the carnival ready to move. We go hunting.”
The meeting dissolves into a chaotic blur of motion. Chairs scrape back. Heavy boots pound against the floorboards.
I follow Sloane out the metal door. The morning sun cuts harsh angles across the dirt lot. We turn down an empty row between two massive steel supply trailers. The corrugated metal walls rise high on both sides, casting us in deep shadow.
I stop walking.
Sloane is practically vibrating. The chaotic, manic energy rolling off her skin is so unusual for the cold, detached knife catcher I met days ago. Her chest heaves. Her pupils eclipse the blue of her irises, leaving nothing but black hunger.
I step into her space, closing the distance until the toes of my boots bump hers.
“You alright?”
She gulps. Her throat bobs hard.
“I’m turned on.” Her confession hits me like a physical punch to the gut. “The thought of killing Raymond. The thought of carving pieces out of him. It makes me wet.”
A guttural groan tears straight out of my lungs.
I grab the back of her neck, twist my fingers deep into her pale blonde hair, tilting her head back, and smash my mouth against hers. She tastes like bloodlust. She opens for me instantly, and her tongue sliding against mine. Her hands grip my waist, her nails digging half-moons through my dark shirt.
I tear my mouth away, gasping for oxygen.
“Let me fuck you against the trailer.”
Sloane doesn’t hesitate.
She turns her back to me and shoves the waistband of her gray sweatpants down, dragging her cotton underwear with them. The clothes pool around her ankles in the dirt. She kicks off her boots and steps out of the fabric, kicking it aside as well. Then she steps forward, bracing her palms flat against the cold, corrugated metal siding of the supply rig. She spreads her feet shoulder-width apart, arching her lower back, presenting her bare ass to me in the shadow of the carnival lot.
My blood turns to fire.
I step up right behind her and bring my hand down, landing a sharp, stinging slap directly against her pale cheek.
A jagged gasp escapes her lips, and her hips jerk backward, pressing her wet heat directly against the denim covering my groin.
“Are you sure you want it like this?”
Sloane turns her head. She looks at me over her bare shoulder, her eyes burning with feral, unfiltered lust.
“I trust you.”
I drag my zipper down, and my cock springs out, heavy, rigid, and weeping slick fluid down the tip. I spit a thick wad of saliva directly onto my palm, then I rub the moisture over the head of my dick, coating the sensitive skin, creating a crude, messy slip.
I grab her hips, locking my fingers deep into her soft flesh, and guide the blunt tip to her entrance.
