What kind of answer did he expect? I didn’t know what those two psychos had planned. I didn’t want to know. But I wouldlike to know where my underwear went. This dress was not very long.
“Right…” he paused to look around at the mirrored walls. “This ah… doesn’t look good.”
Did any of this look good? That wasn’t what bothered me. Austin’s demeanor was… calm, which was an odd reaction, to say the least.
“I’m sorry about your wife.” Although I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, I gave him a quick scan and added, “She didn’t deserve that.”
“No one deserves this.”
“Some people might.”
Austin turned and looked at me. “Do you deserve it?”
Yes.“Do you?” I asked back.
He didn’t respond. He just stared at me for a second before saying, “We should try and find a way out of here before they come back.”
“There’s nowhere to go.”
Austin’s brow rose. “Do you always give up this easily?”
What did I have to fight for?
“You know they’re going to fuck you, right?”
I figured. Our fucked-up feast tipped me off to that.
“That explains the costume change,” I muttered while tugging at the skirt of my dress.
“Really?” Austin said. “That’s all you have to say?”
What else was there to say? No? Stop? Let me go? Even if I wanted to fight, I highly doubted it would do any good.
“You act like a victim.” Austin got up and walked over to the left wall, where he began feeling along the seam of a mirror. “But you don’t smell like one.”
That was a weird thing to say. “What do you mean, I don’t smell like a victim?”
“Victims smell naive,” he said while moving to the next mirrored pane. “Like hope and sunshine wrapped in desperation.”
There was something about the way he said that which made me second-guess how safe I was around him. “How do you know this?”
“I’ve met a few victims in my life.” He paused what he was doing and looked over his shoulder at me. “You move like prey, but you smell like the aftermath.”
“And what do you smell like, Austin?” I stood up and took a step back. “You don’t seem very upset about your wife’s death.”
He stopped and turned around to face me. “You met her. Did you like her?”
“She was still your wife.” He should feel something.
“Look—”
A slow clap echoed down the corridor, cutting him off.
Austin and I turned as Felix stepped into view. His ringmaster’s coat and top hat were gone. Now he was in nothing but a pair of black pants. He might be a monster, but he looked like a god. Sconce light stretched across the lean muscles on his broad chest, highlighting a few silvery scars. Dark hair curled at his temples, making the grin on his mouth sharpen with cruelty.
It was wrong how I soaked up the sight of him, but I couldn’t stop looking, even when he bowed and spread his arms wide.
“Welcome to Act Three.”
