SWNOVELS Chapter 5
Juliet
I’m so exhausted from hunger and the adrenaline rush of fighting our way out of the circus that everything feels surreal. I only smoked pot a handful of times in college—even then, I didn’t like losing control—but I remember what being high felt like.
It was like this.
Like you’re floating above your body.
Like your head is full of swarming bees.
Like your mouth isn’t working quite right and stupid things are hilarious and even horrible food tastes like a culinary revelation.
“This burger,” I mutter for at least the tenth time, moaning as I sit cross-legged on one of the double beds in our motel room, chewing the gritty meat and only slightly melted cheese. “I love this burger.”
Ford grunts and takes another big bite of his second turkey sandwich. He elected to eat at the small table by the window, the better to keep crumbs out of his bed. “Keep it up and you’re going to make me jealous.”
Swiping a bit of ketchup off the corner of my mouth and sucking it from my fingertip, I nod. “You should be. It’s so good.”
“It’s from a gas station. It’s a gas station burger.”
“A gas station where a grill master plies his noble trade and flames k**s a frozen burger patty to life like a sleeping princess under a blanket of cheese.”
He rumbles, a sound somewhere between a growl and a purr, that I suppose is his laugh now. His laugh didn’t use to sound like that—rusty and slow—but nothing is the way it used to be, a fact Ford proves when he says, “You’re funny.”
“You never thought I was funny before. Not even close,” I counter around another bite of heaven burger. “You thought I was an inane, annoying, no good, spoiled brat.”
“And you thought I was a dumb bully.”
“You were a bully,” I say. “I never thought you were dumb.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be,” he says, again showing this new, vulnerable side of him that’s so at odds with his terrifying exterior.
The man behind the desk in the lobby visibly shrank when Ford stepped into the room. He didn’t have to say a word or make a single threatening gesture; his size and the darkness behind his eyes are enough to make people instinctively steer clear.
“I was just angry all the time,” he says. “My mom and her cronies made sure I stayed that way. They made it seem so unfair that you were going to rule the pack, even though you were five years younger than I was and didn’t have a wolf.”
“I’m also Hammer’s biological daughter,” I say. “That trumps the claim of a step kid, you know that now, and you knew it then.”
“My mom said it was a precedent not a rule,” he counters. “And that everyone wanted me in charge. That they were afraid you wouldn’t be able to protect us and would put the pack in danger. They made sure I saw you as this selfish brat who cared more about acquiring money and power for herself than the welfare of our people.”
I chew for a moment, doing my best not to get distracted by the flavor explosion on my tongue. After I swallow, I ask, “So, I’m assuming your mom is dead? She wouldn’t have let Hammer sell her precious baby boy if she weren’t.”
He glances down at the open bag of cheddar chips on the table. “She died three days before I was sold. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry you’re sad about that,” I say. “I would say I’m sorry she’s dead, but I’m not. She was an evil bitch. She told me I was the reason my mom died in childbirth, because I started smoking on the way out and hurt her too badly for her to heal in her weakened state.”
He shakes his head with a soft curse. “She wasn’t great to most people. Or me, really. I used to think she believed I was this natural leader, and that’s why she pushed so hard. But I was just a pawn in her own power game.” He looks up. “I’m sorry. I had no idea she said shit like that to you.”
“You say that so often now,” I say, smiling around my last bite.
“Say what?”
“Sorry.” I laugh as I lick my fingertips. “It’s weird. I don’t think I ever heard you say it before.”
“A grown-up knows when to apologize,” he says, watching me clean myself like an animal. “But I only say it when I really mean it, and I don’t apologize for the same thing more than once, so don’t get used to it.”
I c**k my head, studying him, still unable to reconcile the different parts of this new creature Ford has become.
Maybe I’ll have an easier time after I’ve slept.
Either way, “I’m glad I don’t have to kill you, I guess,” I say.
His lips curve. “Yeah, me, too. You make a better friend than an enemy.” He lifts a hand, adding before I can respond, “I know, we’re not friends, you’re putting up with me for now, but no promises, etcetera. I know the drill.”
I grunt and scoot lower in the bed, pulling the covers up around my chin. “Good.”
“I’ll wake you at six tonight, that should give us time to talk,” he says, but I’m already floating away on a cloud of happy calories.
It’s been so long since I’ve had enough food, since I stopped eating because I was too stuffed to fit in another bite, not because the tiny bowl I was given was empty. I’m probably going to be sick later from all the grease and meat I’m not used to eating, but for now, I’m in heaven.
I sink into a deep, dreamless sleep for what I sense is a long time.
When I become aware that I’m dreaming, my thoughts are so much clearer, and my body doesn’t ache the way it did before. But I’m still not rested enough to get out of the dream.
It’s something that started not long after I was sold. I’d come out of sleep enough to realize I was dreaming, but my body was too exhausted to obey my brain’s demands to wake up. For a time, that meant being stuck in violent, bloody nightmares with no way out.
Eventually, I learned to control the dreams a little, to navigate within them until I was able to open my eyes. Paloma says it’s called lucid dreaming and some people think there’s power in it. Power to tell the future or discover secrets lost to the past.
It’s a nice idea, I guess, but all I ever encounter in my dreams are replays of my string of miserable Friday nights.
As usual, I become aware that I’m dreaming just as I’m shoved out into the circus ring, where an obstacle course has been set up to make it harder for the champion of the fights to kill me. It helps draw out the chase for the audience. There are tunnels and ladders and several small, shed-like buildings decorated to look like the main street of an old Wild West town, offering places to hide.
The story tonight is The Prairie Girl and the Perverted Preacher. The audience has been told that I’m an innocent, Bible-loving girl, waiting to marry my sweetheart when he comes back from the war. The man hunting me is the lascivious preacher whose proposal I turned down, a twisted man determined to have me at any cost—even if that means murdering the woman he professes to love so she can’t find happiness with another.
The crowd eats this story up, but not in the way the average crowd would. These monsters are always on the preacher’s side, eager to see innocence defiled by a creep in a white collar.
They giggle and “ooooo” in excitement as I run to the last shed in the line and tuck myself into the shadow behind it. I ignore them and concentrate on controlling the dream. If I focus, I’ll be able to change things as we go along and keep the worst from happening. I’ll be able to give my attacker shriveled arms like a T. rex or transform the ladder into an escalator that lifts me into the sky.
I just have to block out the bloodthirsty jeers from the audience and the sound of the metal gate creaking as tonight’s fight champion is let into the ring.
I close my eyes, withdrawing as deep into myself as I can, but I’m still keenly aware of the heavy footsteps thudding into the sawdust and the deep voice that rumbles, “Come on, Clara Mae. Give yourself to me. Pleasure your preacher and I’ll let you live, baby girl.”
I shrink closer to the shed’s faded boards, trembling.
This really happened once. A man pretended he’d spare me if I sucked his c**k in front of the audience. And even though I knew it wouldn’t work, even though I knew he was getting paid to spill my b***d, not simply humiliate me, I’d done it.
I couldn’t help it. I’ve gotten good at blocking out the nightmare of the ring six and a half days a week, but come Friday afternoon, the terror starts creeping in. Sometimes, I’m such a wreck by ten o’clock that Gorey has to call three handlers to carry me into the tent. I thrash and writhe and scream like a wounded animal because, spoiler alert: being ripped apart while you’re still alive isn’t something that gets easier with time or repetition.
It only gets more horrific.
So, I did it. I sucked a repulsive stranger’s c**k onstage, letting him fist his hand in my hair and violate my mouth until tears streamed down my face. And as soon as he was finished, he’d slashed my arm with his claws, cutting so deep, it hung flopping at my side as I ran away with the salty taste of his come still in my mouth.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the dream hunter calls. “I’ve got something fat and juicy for you, baby.”
A dream. He’s just a dream.
I’m in control. We’re in my mind, not his.
I open my eyes and do my best to slow my breathing, but it’s no use. I’m already panting, practically hyperventilating with fear, and the footsteps are getting closer. If I don’t run now, I’ll be trapped.
Heart galloping, I shoot out of the shadows, sprinting for the ladder at the opposite end of the ring. At the top is the platform where the trapeze artists perform earlier in the night. I’m a fast climber and more big, beefy men are afraid of heights than you’d think.
In real life, that means sometimes a handler has to come out and threaten to shoot me off the platform if I don’t come down, but in a dream, I can stay up there as long as I want. I can nap in safety until I’m rested enough to wake up in real life and everything will be fine.
But I don’t make it to the ladder, let alone the platform.
Just as I’m about to clear the line of fake Old West buildings, the preacher steps out from behind the saloon. He’s a f*****g giant, easily nine feet tall with rippling muscles and a Cheshire cat smile filled with razor sharp teeth. I skid to a stop, my bare feet kicking up sawdust as I fight to reverse my trajectory.
I can’t let him catch me. He’s going to kill me. I can see it in that smile.
He isn’t going to leave me broken but breathing like all the rest. He’s going to snuff me out once and for all. This time, the audience will leave with my teeth and fingernails as souvenirs and my bones will be buried in an unmarked grave deep in the wilderness, where I’ll never be found.
“No! Help!” I scream. “Help me, please!”
The audience cheers the preacher on, and my soul shrivels inside me. I saw violence, ugliness, and prejudice as a kid, but I never dreamt there were so many people in the world like this. More than anything, I wish I could go back to a time before I knew there were thousands of souls on earth that could happily watch a woman hunted to the death while tossing back popcorn and beer.
It isn’t just evil. It’s gleefully evil, a fact they prove when they laugh as the preacher pops out in front of me again at the opposite end of the set and yells, “Boo!”
I full-body flinch and scream again, tears streaming down my face and sobs hitching in my chest. I try to turn around again, but his hand is already around my throat, lifting me off the ground like a doll plucked from a toy box. I dig my nails into his fingers, but he only laughs, baring his razor-sharp teeth as he pulls me closer to his mouth.
“No!” I shout so loud it leaves my throat raw. “No, no, please!”
I’m still screaming when I jolt awake in a dimly lit room to find big arms wrapped around me in real life, too, and my terror becomes something bigger than I can handle.