Cora rolled her eyes. “We’re not.” Not yet. Give it a few days at the rate everything’s moving.
No! Bad! No!
She wanted to whack her head on the wood of her boxcar’s siding to knock the thoughts out of her head. But she refrained from doing it. No reason to start off the first day in a void looking entirely insane. Better to wait a week.
“Then what is it between you two?” Aaron looked her over studiously. “Nobody’s ever known Simon to take a real interest in a girl. And he’s never even had a flicker of lust for someone in the Family.”
“I’ve got a piece of him inside me”—she corrected herself quickly as she realized how terrible that sounded—“his seity, I mean. He’s only attracted to me because of that. It’s not real.” It was probably the truth. Simon was a monster. His interest in her was purely physical, and if it wasn’t, it was a forced side-effect. That was all.
It felt like an excuse, but she’d use any port in a storm.
“And what about you?” Aaron pressed. Either he didn’t notice how standoffish she was on the subject, or he didn’t care. She guessed it was probably the latter.
“To be perfectly blunt, Aaron?” She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back against the door. “That’s none of your business. If you’ve just come to pester me about Simon, please go away.”
“No, no. That’s not why we’re here. We were just worried, that’s all.” It was Jack’s turn to hit Aaron, in the form of a full shove that sent the skinnier man staggering. Aaron muttered and straightened out his jacket. “He’s jealous. When Simon stormed after you and Clown, we were just hoping you were okay.”
“I’m all right. Clown isn’t.” She almost gagged at the memory. That image was going to haunt her for a while. “He’s mincemeat right now. Simon spouted something about how it was his right to take me to my stage for the first time, or some nonsense, and lost his temper.”
The two men groaned.
“Clown! Why? Why be that stupid?” Aaron put his hand over his face.
“Wait. What? I just assumed Simon was making it up.” She furrowed her brow.
“No, there’s a tradition.” Aaron shook his head and paced. “Why would Clown do that? He knows better. He doesn’t usually piss Simon off like that, either. What’s going on?” He looked at her like she honestly had the answer.
She shrugged. “I don’t know how any of this shit works. Nobody gave me the manual for living in a man-eating murder-circus. All I have to go off is what you lunatics tell me.”
Jack chuckled. “We really should write a manual someday.” He shrugged. “But Simon didn’t hurt you?”
“No. I really don’t think he plans on hurting me.” That much she believed. Simon was a lot of things to her, but he hadn’t been overtly violent. Yanking her around on strings was one thing, but he wasn’t trying to cause her pain. He had his opportunity to turn her into one of his dolls several times but currently seemed unwilling to do so.
Yes, fine, he had shot her that one time. But she could understand why he had done it, even if she didn’t agree with the choice.
“Um. Well, we wanted to tell you one other thing. There’s a party tonight. We wanted to make sure you knew about it and see if you wanted to come.” Jack smiled hopefully.
“To celebrate the Inversion?” She looked up at the black void overhead. She couldn’t imagine anyone being happy about it.
Aaron stopped pacing. “No, to celebrate you.”
She blinked, surprised. Nobody had thrown her a party since she had turned twenty-one. She stammered for a moment. “I. Uh. I guess I have to go, don’t I?” She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and scratched her scalp. “Really? A party for me?”
“Of course. You’re our new Contortionist. We’re a whole Family for the first time in thirty-eight years. It’s as good of a reason as any to throw a party.” Jack stepped closer to the bottom of the stairs. “And we’re all so happy you’re here, Cora. You’re going to be great.”
She smiled shyly and looked away. She wasn’t used to praise. She was rarely the center of attention, and she never knew what to do when she was. The few times she’d had her photos featured in an art gallery, she’d always had to be dragged to her own premieres by Trent or Emily. Usually with a lot of whining involved.
Trent. Emily. Lisa. Her friends. The pang of their loss stabbed at her unexpectedly. It was the same kind of grief she felt after her dad died.
I miss them.
I guess that’s a new thing I have to deal with.
Her friends, her mom, her work—it was all gone. Swept away. This was her new life, and these could be her new friends. She could find meaning here. She could find happiness if she tried.
She tried not to scoff out loud. Her? Happy? When the hell had that ever been the case? Issues with depression had plagued her ever since she was little. Her illness had only put the nail in that casket. But her Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome was gone. She wasn’t in constant pain. Maybe, just maybe, this was a chance at something new.
A new life.
Finally, she answered. “Sure. It sounds like fun.”
“Fantastic!” Aaron clapped his hands in excitement. “I’ll bring some ’shine. I’ll turn you on to it sooner or later, toots.” He smirked. “I’ll turn you on eventually, too.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You realize I’m not going to fuck you, right, Aaron?”
“Not tonight, sure.” He grinned. “But we live a long time, and we don’t have much else to do around here, do we?”
“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I can knit a whole lot of socks before I get that bored.” She enjoyed teasing him. He didn’t seem to take her rejections personally, and she appreciated that. She liked the banter.
Aaron gripped his chest in pain, as if he had been shot. He doubled over with a dramatic grunt of pain. “God. Jack, I think she’s killed me.”
Jack laughed. “Oh, get over yourself, conman.”
“Me?” Aaron straightened back up. “Get over myself? Pah! Never. I—”
“Oh, boys? Head’s up!”
She hadn’t seen Simon approach. She ducked reflexively as something came hurtling toward them. Whatever he had kicked smacked Jack in the face. He staggered and caught it. Looking down, he yelped and dropped the object. It landed in the grass with a wet thump.
It was Clown.
Or part of him, anyway.
His head stared up at them, eyes glassy and empty, mouth agape like a dead fish.
Cora put her hand over her mouth and fought the urge to be sick. Simon was howling in laughter—doubled over in hysterics. She shot him a withering stare. “You’re a fucking psychopath.”
When Simon finally stopped laughing enough to speak, he could barely breathe between his words. “Get it? Heads?” He snickered. “I crack myself up.” He waved at them all dismissively. “My humor is wasted on you plebes.”
Aaron went to open his mouth to say something. Judging by his expression, it wasn’t going to be nice.
Simon’s humor snapped like it had never been there. Like the flick of a switch, he was fuming. His face was twisted not in laughter, but rage. With the twitch of fingers, Aaron let out a pained gurgle, his body twisting oddly. She didn’t need to see the strings to know what happened. “Do I need to eviscerate you twice in one week, old boy?”