I nearly choked on my drink as I laughed. “That’s fair. Besides, performers make the big bucks.”
She lit up at the sound of that but then went back to picking at her food. I shifted, watching her grow more uncomfortable by the second.
I’m really fucking this up.
“Daze, I…” She hesitated, chewing the corner of her mouth.
“You don’t have to decide right this second.” I attempted a sympathetic smile. “We’re in town for the next three days. Think about it, but don’t let Revel be the reason you walk away.”
There was a long beat of silence that seemed to stretch on forever.
Finally, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?” Excitement shot through my system, though I tried to tamp it down. “You’ll think about it?”
“I’ll talk to Hallow.” She smiled shyly. “But only because you asked.”
I couldn’t fight the grin working its way across my face, but I didn’t want her to think I was insane. Maybe I was a little crazy for thinking this plan would work, but it was out of my hands now.
Arina’s fate with the circus was officially up to the ringleader.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ARINA
One kind gesture and I was considering joining the circus?
I've lost my mind.
Still, Daze didn’t stop smiling as we followed the sidewalk back to the convention center, and I tried to latch onto his excitement. If optimism was contagious, I would have asked him to lick me or spit in my mouth.
“So, we’re going to talk to Hallow right now?” I asked to fill the silence. There were too many unspoken questions hovering in the air between us. Too much tension. Conversation helped take the edge off my nerves, but anxiety still bubbled beneath my skin.
He nodded, the vibrant hues of his hair glinting in the sunlight. “Yep. We just have to find them first.”
“Find them?” I tossed him a curious glance.
Part of me wished Daze and I could stay at the little restaurant forever. Responsibilities and threats didn’t seem to exist there. Only good food, better company, and overly-perfumed waitresses were allowed.
For a moment, all the stress and worry had faded away, and I’d relaxed into a delusional calmness that I knew wouldn’t last very long.
This was insane.
Just add it to the list of crazy shit I’d done in the last twenty-four hours. I’d possibly murdered my father, run away from home, hitchhiked on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle, stowed away on a trailer…
It was already a lot, but something told me I was just getting started. If the ringleader welcomed me into the troupe, I expected a very colorful, hectic crash course as the group prepared for their show here in Dallas.
Will they expect me to walk on a tightrope? Ride a unicycle? Fly through the air on the trapeze?
I shuddered at the thought. Surely not.
If they asked me to perform on the spot, I was out.
I can’t even juggle.
“If there’s one thing you should know about Hallow, it’s that they hide every second they’re not on stage,” Daze answered with a smirk. “You won’t catch them out and about or hitting the cities we stop in. Outside of our performances, you probably won’t see them at all.”
“You keep sayingthem. Is Hallow one person or two?” I asked, worried I’d misinterpreted things.
