Page 28 of Knife Thrower

The tumbler gives. Success.

I twist the knob and slip inside. The hardwood freezes my toes through my thin cotton socks. I pad across the floor, making less noise than a ghost. The mahogany desk waits in the center of the room, and I slide the drawers open, sifting through the usual contents. Tax returns. Bank statements. The same shoebox of gray pamphlets I found months ago. Nothing new. Nothing that buys my freedom.

Then I see it.

Tucked onto the bottom shelf of the bookcase, wedged tight between two leather-bound encyclopedias. A thick, black binder. It wasn’t there last week.

I pull it free, set it flat on the desk, and flip the vinyl cover open.

Pages of photographs stare up at me.

Dozens of children. They range from toddlers to teenagers, all wearing scratchy-looking, shapeless, identical clothing. Bleak institutional dresses. Stiff button-down shirts. They sit on wooden benches or stand in dirt yards. It looks like an orphanage, but the backdrop screams churchy stuff. Huge, rough-hewn wooden crosses hang on the walls behind them. Framed portraits of Jesus stare down, a crown of thorns bleeding into pale painted skin.

None of the children are smiling. They look hollowed out. Empty. Stripped down to the studs.

My stomach turns. I flip another page.

A wide shot fills the plastic sleeve. A gathering of men standing in front of a sprawling white building with a burned tree symbol painted on the siding. They’re wearing sharp suits and standing shoulder-to-shoulder, radiating an arrogant, untouchable authority.

My breath hitches. Raymond is in the second row, third from the left.

I drag a trembling finger down to the bottom margin. Tight, slanted handwriting spells out a caption in blue ink.

Sanctum of Ash quarterly meeting, Tennessee, 1999.

I pull the binder closer, squinting in the dim light slicing through the window blinds. The men’s faces sharpen.

A violent, jagged shiver races straight down my spine. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

It’s their eyes. The dead, flat, absolute void in their stares. Every single man in that photograph shares the exact same expression. It’s the look Raymond gets right before the lock clicks on my bedroom door. The look that means the monster is hungry, and I am the meal.

A heavy thud shakes the ceiling overhead, and my heart slams against my ribs.

The vacuum cleaner drags across the floorboards upstairs. My mother. Cleaning the carpets, polishing the silver, pretending the house isn’t rotting from the inside out.

Panic spikes, sharp and acidic in my throat. I shove the binder shut, snatch it off the desk and slide it perfectly back behind the encyclopedias, aligning the spine. I smooth the rug with my foot, slip out into the hallway, and pull the door shut.

The lock clicks into place, trapping the monster’s secrets in the dark.

11

COLE

Pastel yellow and mint-green streamers stretch across the cantina’s wooden beams, looking ridiculous against the rusted metal and oil drums of the carnival lot. Jonah hangs the final paper lantern, his massive, tree-trunk arms reaching the rafters without the aid of a ladder.

My eyes aren’t on the decorations. They remain pinned to the far end of the picnic table.

Sloane nurses a ceramic mug, steam curling past her high cheekbones. She’s wearing a faded black Henley, her pale blonde hair twisted into that severe, impenetrable knot at the base of her skull. We kissed three days ago. A devastating, world-tilting collision of mouths under the Big Top that nearly brought me to my knees.

Since then? Agony.

She doesn’t bolt after our shows anymore. She nods at me in the mornings. She holds my gaze when I spin my knives in the ring. But she hasn’t brought up a second date, and the suspense slowly peels the sanity straight from my brain. I'm a man made of chaos. Waiting makes my skin itch. I want to crowd into her space, drag her against my chest, and pick up exactly where we left off.

But I force my boots to stay rooted to the dirt. Rowe’s advice echoes in my skull. Let her come to me. Give her the control.

Hm. Maybe I should borrow some chains from Silas and Nova’s act.

Jonah claps his giant hands, the sound rivaling a thunderclap.