“You look like you have something devious in mind,” Ignacio said.
A slow smile tugged her lips upward. “Always.”
Chapter 46
Ignacio
He and Esmeralda slipped into the menagerie through a small opening under the canvas. They didn’t want to risk being spotted within the mirrors that hung at the entrance. Gabriel had told him once that the mirrors were what kept the animals inside. Something within them—perhaps a soul-sucking god—sent currents in the air that the animals could sense and didn’tlike.
They ducked behind a stack of hay bales as a man in a turkey costume trotted by on the back of a zebra. Esmeralda’s boot squished into something soft and odiferous.
She winced. “Good thing Pilar lent me her shoes.”
Esmeralda peered over the bales. He joined her. A few elephants meandered about, their big ears flapping. Isadora the tigress lay sprawled out in her cage, her cubs wrestling over a colorful ball. There were wolves and alligators. Lions and antelope. And that menace of an ostrich was there too.
“Won’t these animals hurt the guests once we unleash them?” Ignacio whispered.
“Only one way to find out.” She grinned.
He scowled.
Her grin fell into an exasperated eye roll. “The lions are old. The tigress is rather sweet. The wolves are well trained. The only one to really watch for is Estefan, but he won’t hurt anyone terribly bad. A few thwacks to the rump is all. The carnival hands will go after them to try to put them back, but there aren’t enough of them, so they’ll need the guards’ help. That’s the whole point. To get the ratas away from the Fun House so we can go in.”
The man riding the zebra trotted by once more. Esmeralda and Ignacio darted behind another bale of hay. They were nose to nose. If he moved an inch closer, they would be mouth to mouth. Her beautiful eyes sparked in the low light. She had a smudge of dirt on the apple of her cheek. Without a second thought, he reached out and brushed it off with his thumb.
Her lips parted, and the expression on her face sent a jolt straight through his core.
He wanted to kiss those lips. To taste her.
He leaned in and so did she.
An explosion blasted outside the tent. Followed by another. And another.
Gabriel.
The two carnival hands in charge of watching over the menagerie ran out to investigate.
“That’s our cue,” Esmeralda said.
They hopped over the hay bales and ran for the entrance.
Ignacio grabbed a metal feed pail and threw it to her. She caught it just as he grabbed one for himself.
“Sorry for the intrusion, folks!” Esmeralda yelled as they ran past confused guests.
More fireworks fizzled to life outside.
Together, Ignacio and Esmeralda smashed the pails into every mirror they spotted. The entire tent rattled and rocked as if the mirrors were holding it up and not the massive beams. The animals startled and scurried into the center. The man on the zebra fell flat on his heinie. But the animals didn’t make a move to escape.
“They’re too frightened,” Ignacio said.
Esmeralda tore out a gleaming hairpin and shook it in theair.
“Estefan,” she yelled. “Come and get it, buddy!”
The ostrich’s head popped up and his beady eyes went large. He gave an awful hiss before barreling toward her. She flung the hairpin out of the entrance, and Estefan bolted through. The elephants, smart as they were, must have realized they were free to leave. They blared their trunks and rushed forward.
But Esmeralda was too busy laughing at the damn ostrich to notice she was in their direct path.
