Page 127 of Executing Malice

His brows furrow like he’s not sure he heard me properly over the clanging and commotion.

“Ditch?”

I gesture in the general direction of where Old Miller’s Bridge separates the good people of Jefferson from ... the others.

“It’s where people who don’t conform to the rules get sent. It’s where the criminals live, according to Jefferson.”

Dante continues to watch me with confusion, and I realize I started the conversation in the middle of my thoughts.

“The Ditch runs the festival. So, every year, we come to a place we’re not wanted to get entertained by people who hate us.”

Dante rubs a hand under his face. “Good grief.”

I nod, lips pulling into a line. “Yup. This could all turn into a red Halloween if they decide to kill us all.”

“Well, better get some cotton candy before I go.”

Both of us chuckling, we step into line for tickets.

The woman in the wooden booth stares straight into my eyes when we approach. Hers, darker than Dante’s and circled by thick, black liner drill straight into my soul. I feel a shudder course through me.

“Two?” she barks in a voice dragged through hot coals, sooty and rough.

Dante pulls out his wallet and hands over several bills that she doesn’t accept. Her entire focus is on me. On my face. She’s searching every line like she’s painting me to memory. There’s a growing knot between her wide, protruding eyes.

She has to be in her late fifties with a wild mane of black curls pulled back from her withered face by a silk scarf. Scarlet lipstick bleeds through the cracks around her pursed lips.

But it’s the way her long, gem studded fingers curl around a deck of cards that has me swallowing audibly.

“No charge, but you,” she stabs a finger at me, “I see a dark aura in your future. You come see me later.”

Two wristbands are slapped on the table.

I don’t reach for them, but Dante does. And still, he leaves the money. He nudges me away from the booth and the woman watching me like I stole something.

I’m vaguely aware of the man behind us taking our place and being charged.

“But you didn’t charge them,” he argues.

To which the woman replies, “I like them. I don’t like you. Twenty dollars.”

“You okay?” Dante touches my lower back lightly.

I nod, rubbing a hand down my arm littered with goosebumps. “She was a little intense. That’s all.”

He presses a kiss to my temple. “It’s probably part of the show. She was holding tarot cards. Most likely, she wants you to come to her tent later so she can tell you your fortune for a fee.”

Most likely, he’s right. But something about the way she demanded I meet her later ... Obviously, she wants to sell me something, but it still takes several minutes to shake the chill scuttling down my spine. One thing is for sure, I will not be going anywhere near her tent. In fact, there is no place I will be avoiding more.

Thoughts of the woman fade as Dante and I walk through the maze of machines and bodies, our fingers tightly interlocked.

The crowd consists of families with children. The little ones scream and run between our legs, fingers sticky, faces colored with delight and flashing lights. Some wear painted masks. A few are tangled in their costumes, causing a world of fury as their parents try to dislodge them.

“Still want kids?” I tease Dante while we watch a princess scream at a decibel level that could shatter glass because her cotton candy slipped off the cardboard cone.

Her mom stares at her with a mixture of exhaustion and barely restrained patience while the eight-year-old stomps her glittery shoes and throws down her plastic crown and bag of popcorn. The mother’s lips turn down when the bag flips open and upends half the contents.

“We are going home!” the mother snarls.