I shrug. “If we have to. I thought we’d go for a conversation first.”
She pauses for a moment. “We at least need to have a plan. We can dress Grayson up as a clown and send him in for an audition. I bet you’d look great with a red nose.”
“No one is going to fall for it, Lace,” Colt says. “No games, not with the vamps running this show.”
Silence stretches and folds over itself. I curl forward, hunching like I’ll somehow shrink and avoid this stress.
Why would bringing up Jrue mean anything to Grayson?
Why would it shut him down the way it did? It’s not like it matters. If I’ve accepted it, then so should he.
We’re going our separate ways when this is done—we have our lives to get back to. His to start, mine to endure.
“Our best bet is to wait for the show to start, so the vampires are occupied. Then right before the shaman goes in for his act, we’ll corner him.” Colt nods decisively. “He’ll have no choice but speak with us.”
“And what? Force him to give us the cure?” Lacey asks.
“Money opens doors. We’ll pay him for it and he’ll make the trade. I have money to give. Hopefully it’s enough.”
I sigh, frustration flexing my muscles. “I doubt he’s going to want to accept anything from us if we corner him in his trailer.”
“He might if we flash him the cash.” Colt’s insistence comes from a business standpoint where deals are made by who offers the highest dollar amount.
But hell. I don’t want him paying for anything.
There’s got to be a better way to isolate the shaman and get the cure.
Another few hours pass and we hit the spot where the circus is thirty minutes to midnight. It feels heavy.
Appropriate.
The countdown has always been loud in my head and now it’s unbearable, ticking away with every second lost. We park the cara few streets over from the field cordoned off for those massive tents.
A glimpse of the big top is enough to have me gripping the door and fighting the urge to wrench it open and run.
My heart jumps into my throat and stays there, more comfortable closer to escape than it is in my chest.
Colt cuts the engine and I freeze. The potion has calmed the physical ailments from the bite—the pain and throbbing and blistering heat. It doesn’t help the rest of it.
Grayson meets my gaze, his glittering gold, before he opens the door and makes for the woods, into the dark and desperate for the escape.
Sensation scrapes against my heart, too similar to regret for my taste.
His heavy footfalls lead the way and I follow, the four of us making little sound as we cut along the side of the road. The asphalt crumbles off into a deep gully filled with knotted weeds and the flotsam that accumulates after a storm.
The underlying scents of gasoline and popcorn mingle in the air.
I keep my senses on high alert and my nerves bite at my next glimpse of the big top. The tip of the red-and-black tent sears into the night like it’s trying to reach the stars.
The field has been transformed into a small city with maze-like alleys between smaller tents. Trailers and canvas yurts perch on the outskirts of the circus closest to the tree line. The entire center of the field is dominated by the main tent.
Despite the hour, the field is packed, cars parked at dangerous angles in whatever spot they found. People laugh, shriek, and devour pink clouds of cotton candy, unaware of the real monsters waiting in the wings.
We keep to the tree line now, avoiding the rows of cars.
Air leaves my lungs in a rush.
“How are we going to know which trailer belongs to the shaman?” I stage whisper.