Page 2

MASKS AND FACE PAINT

MILA

Pink flowers add a soft touch to the bold archway as we walk into the carnival. A variety of floral scents overwhelms my senses as I step through it with Patience, Violet, and Teal at my side. Flower petals carpet the grass, drawing a path into the madness.

Roses, carnations, allium, aster.

I know them all by heart since they’re the same flowers my parents use at the sister carnival they own.

I can still feel the stems rubbing my fingers raw from when I gathered them.

I can still smell the rich scent that lingered under my fingernails from mornings spent arranging bouquets before families filled the grounds.

The flowers bring back some of the better memories of my childhood. The kinder ones. The joy that’s possible in this place if you don’t look too closely.

I pause for a breath and close my eyes, inhaling the floral breeze. Remembering the carnival games and laughter. What it meant to roam free when the rest of the world has so many restrictions .

It was nice until it wasn’t, like so many things.

The same flowers that decorate the carnival became the ones atop her coffin, and now I can’t look at them without my lungs squeezing.

It’s disheartening how something beautiful can represent love and loss in equal measure.

How sadness can so easily wipe the fondness of a memory away.

Blinking my eyes open, I brush those thoughts from my mind.

Today is going to be a good day, in a different town, at a different carnival from the one I grew up with.

My roommates have continued walking, so I hurry up to match their pace. While to everyone else here, the traveling carnival is a welcome escape for the end of sophomore year, for me, it’s tarps, lights, and memories I’d rather not revisit.

“This is not what I was expecting.” Violet’s blue eyes widen as she takes in the field. “There’s a merry-go-round, popcorn stands…” Her neck arches back as she looks up. “A whole Ferris wheel.”

I shield my eyes from the sun as I follow her gaze to the top. “It’s a carnival.”

“A traveling carnival.” Violet pulls my attention as she sweeps her straight black hair off her shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess it is a pretty big production.” One I know from firsthand experience isn’t simple to put together.

Traveling carnivals like this one—similar to my family’s—move every summer instead of every few months. It’s a big task to tear it down, transport it, and assemble it over and over again. Which is why they tend to settle in one spot longer than smaller productions.

“At least there are no clowns.” Teal frowns, scanning the crowd. “There are no clowns, right?”

Her nose scrunches as she turns to me. Sunlight bounces off the many colors in her hair. Blue, pink, green. A stark contrast to her blonde roots.

“There’s always clowns.” My nose scrunches. “They’re probably on the opposite end of the grounds. So just try to avoid them.”

Teal frowns, her eyes darting to a line of tents in the distance.

Clowns never bothered me when I grew up surrounded by them. Masks and face paint were the least of my worries. People truly out to hide something tend to do so in plain sight.

Violet and Patience pause at a cotton candy stand, debating whether they should order that or popcorn. With the sun high in the sky, the fairgrounds are fairly empty. But as soon as night descends and the college students start to overwhelm the crowd, it will be busier.

Patience shifts closer, her white-blonde ponytail swaying with the movement. “I still can’t believe Bristal got a carnival for the summer.”

“Me either,” I admit.

Bristal isn’t the kind of town a carnival stands to make much money in. It’s small and isolated. My parents would have never chosen this spot or this town when the right plot of land outside a bigger city would draw bigger crowds.

“It figures, doesn’t it?” Patience’s face puckers, and my attention snaps back to her.

“What does?”

“There’s finally something interesting to do in Bristal for the summer that doesn’t involve Sigma House, and I’ll be leaving for my internship in a few weeks.”

“Sigma House isn’t the only entertainment in this town.”

She hitches an eyebrow, silently arguing her point .

“Fine,” I concede because she’s right.

Bristal is known for two things: our paper mill and the fraternity that rules Briar Academy: Sigma House. Known to anyone from here as Sigma Sin.

Their members are twisted, and their fraternity has bred everything from billionaire stockholders to presidents.

Sigma Sin hides in every corner of Bristal.

It fuels every business. But more than that, the influence of this single discreet fraternity runs through the veins of power in the country.

They’re feared for it. Revered for it. Worshipped for it.

And it’s why Patience Lancaster hates them.

Her older brother, Alex, pledged the fraternity in his freshman year just like his father and his father and his father.

Except, something went wrong. Something no one outside Sigma House will talk about. All anyone knows is that Alex’s initiation landed him in Montgomery Psychiatric Ward. Broken, scarred, and utterly silent for the past two years.

I’ve accompanied Patience a few times when she’s gone to visit Alex at Montgomery. He doesn’t speak—doesn’t so much as look anyone in the eyes. So I guess I can’t blame her for hating the House that put him there, even if they do throw the best parties in town.

“Why are they here?” Patience’s eyes narrow on Declan Pierce and Kole Christiansen cutting through the crowd.

Nothing riles her up like the Sigma Sin Kings of Hell, even if they were two of Alex’s best friends growing up.

“You know why they’re here.” I nudge her arm. “Kole is Violet’s boyfriend now. You’re going to have to play nice.”

“I’ll play nice when they pay for what they did to my brother. ”

“Patience—”

She storms away before I can finish. The back of her ponytail bounces as she disappears into the crowd.

Worry mars Violet’s face as she follows my gaze, but it fades as Kole slips his arms around her. He leans down to whisper in Violet’s ear, while Declan weaves around a pole, aiming for Teal.

Unlike Kole and Violet, who can’t keep their hands off each other, Declan and Teal’s relationship is more like an ongoing, unpredictable battle. One that has been shifting lately, as they sneak around and secretly spend more time together.

“Short on people to torture tonight, Declan?” Teal glares up at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

He grins. “You know I’d rather torture you.”

“The only way you could bother me is if I actually cared about the ridiculous things that come out of your mouth. Don’t flatter yourself. You and your words mean nothing to me.” Delight flares in her vicious glare.

“Is that what you tell yourself, Tealene?” Declan props an arm on a post, towering over her.

“It’s the truth.”

He hums with more interest than irritation.

There was a time Declan and Teal couldn’t be in the same room together. But one look at them and I understand what’s been bothering Patience lately. I doubt she’s missed what’s going on between them.

“I’m going to go find Patience.” I point my thumb over my shoulder, taking a step back.

Teal snaps her gaze off Declan like she just realized they aren’t alone.

“I’ll find you later. ”

Teal nods, but Violet is too wrapped in whatever Kole is whispering in her ear to notice as I turn away from them.

As if there isn’t already enough tension in our shared dorm room with Violet dating Kole. If something starts between Declan and Teal, I don’t know if anything will be able to thaw the cold war brewing between Patience and my other roommates.

I weave through the crowd, which is getting thicker as it fills with college students. It takes me longer than I expect to find Patience. And when I do, she’s standing outside the trapeze tent.

She glances to the other side of me when I stop beside her.

“Don’t worry, they didn’t follow me.”

Patience nods, focusing back on the tent in front of us. “It’s incredible.”

It is. No matter what memories stir when I’m here, nothing dulls the spectacle of the carnival.

“So this is your big secret? You grew up with a traveling carnival.” Patience’s brown eyes cut in my direction. “This is why you won’t talk about your family? I thought maybe your parents were serial killers or something.”

“You think everyone is a serial killer.”

“Because there are more of them out there than people realize.” She scoffs like it’s obvious. “But seriously… when you said you spent your childhood traveling, I thought you meant in an RV.”

The tent flaps open to usher people in, and we step forward.

“It’s not like I hid this on purpose. I said I traveled, and you assumed something easier to explain, so I let it go. I know what people think of this place. I’ve been called a freak for every reason you can imagine growing up. ”

With each new town came new hordes of teenagers with unoriginal insults.

Circus freak.

Carnival girl.

It got worse when puberty hit, and my curves filled out my next-to-nothing sequined outfits. Their insults became nastier.

Freak and girl became slut and whore .

That was the only benefit of being homeschooled and constantly moving. The next town might not be any better, but at least the faces changed.

I brush my fingers down my right side, pausing at the lump hidden beneath my shorts. Reminding myself of the blade I keep secretly strapped there. A simple comfort that soothes me now.

I escaped this world.

I’m in control.

Patience sticks to my side as we push our way into the tent.

“Well, for the record, I think it’s amazing. I’ve barely been outside Bristal. Much less traveled with a carnival. So if anyone was mean, they were probably just jealous. Screw them.” She slows when we reach a bottleneck of people trying to get into the tent. “Where are your parents now?”