The clown groans, clutching his shoulder while greasepaint streaks across the floor beneath him.
My vision darkens around the edges.
This room, the costumes, the music, the lights, all of it built around turning terror into entertainment.
Something inside me fractures as violence detonates inside me.
I cross the room before he can crawl away.
He looks up at me sprawled on the floor below stuttering circus lights, blood soaking through the ruined shoulder of his costume while fear finally destroys the last of whatever performance he was hiding behind.
“You fucking bitch,” he breathes.
“I’m going to make sure fear is the last living thing inside you before I kill you,” I seethe.
I take hold of the front of his clown suit and throw him backward into the wall, portraits tumble from their hooks and onto the floor. Then I clutch him by his wig and kick his legs out from under him. He crashes onto the ground and lets out a guttural scream. Synthetic curls are in my hand, and I toss them to the side while he thrashes on the concrete floor.
The bells sewn into his costume chime, I fucking hate that sound.
“Reap.” Tyler’s voice rumbles quietly at my side, not trying to stop me.
Tyler easily captures the clown’s wrist before he can reach for anything else. His grasp is brutal and controlled, pinning the man down.
Trying to stop the part of me unraveling without extinguishing it completely.
The clown sobs now, “I didn’t touch her!”
All I can see is the girl on the swing and the way he laughed.
Before I fully process what I’m doing, I lift my knife and it strikes the floor next to his throat with a deafeningclink.
He’s motionless as a strangled sound lodges in his throat.
I lean over him, breathing hard enough my lungs ache, my face inches from his.
“You hurt her.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore.
“You would’ve kept hurting her!”
His entire body twitches.
Tyler stays behind me, one hand still crushing the clown’s wrist into the floor while his Glock remains on him in case he tries something stupid.
But the clown isn’t fighting anymore, he’s begging, and something about that splits me open from the inside out.
Suddenly, the room feels too bright and too loud.
The smiling clown murals expand across the walls like they are mocking us.
The monitor glows behind me. Barbaric people behind their screens being fed.
I snap.
My hand wraps around the clown’s painted collar and I drag him across the concrete.
He screams and claws at me with his good hand, but I don’t stop, I feel the numbness taking over.
The swing chains creak while the jester girl gawks at me with wide horrified eyes.
