Night fell over the carnival, and with the cover of darkness over the streets, Reese and Luca were able to slip out of the crumbling shop they’d been hiding in.

  “Why is it so decayed in there?” Reese asked.

  “The magic is fading, they pull it from the edges of the carnival first, leaving Lyonell’s tent the last one standing. Eventually, it’ll all look like this.” Luca gestured around them.

  When Reese looked, she saw that every building around them was in the same state of disrepair as the one they’d been hiding in.

  Magic kept this place alive.”

  Reese wondered if it was what was keeping her alive too. And what would happen to her if she wasn’t inside Lyonell’s tent when it was the only thing left.

  “You need to get out of here, now,” Luca said.

  “Not without you.” Reese shook her head.

  “You aren’t going to make it out of here with me. I’ll never make it past the gates.” Luca shook his head.

  “Why not?” Reese asked.

  “I’m bound to this place until the curse is broken. That means it’s me or him, one of us has to die,” he said.

  “It will be him.” She insisted.

  If she said it enough times, if she kept believing it, maybe that’s how it would end up.

  If she fought hard enough, she would be able to write this chapter on her own, and she could disregard the outline that had been written for her.

  “We need to get out of the open, I’m getting you to the gate, then you need to leave,” Luca said.

  “Not without you.” Reese glared at him.

  “You will leave without me. This isn’t your fight, stay out of it.” He glared right back.

  “Lyonell made it my fight when he locked me in here.” Reese elbowed her way around him and out into the street.

  “At least try to keep out of sight.” Luca hissed.

  “I can’t hear you.” She plugged her ears and spun around to face him as she walked backwards.

  “Reese!”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “What was that?”

  Luca crossed his arms and followed her into the street with a scowl as cold as steel.

  Reese turned around and started walking forward before she tripped.

  They would need to find a good place to watch Lyonell’s tent from while it was still dark. Then, they would only have to wait for the right time.

  Reese hoped they wouldn’t have to wait long.

  She was already starting to lose track of how long she’d been trapped in the carnival.

  She didn’t even know if time passed the same inside of it.

  It could have been days or weeks for her and months or years for her family.

  Part of her wondered if they were looking for her.

  If they missed her at all.

  If her father was angry at her for disobeying him.

  And if he was; would he ever forgive her?

  Would she ever see him again?

  It would be alright if he was angry so long as she had more time with him.

  If Lyonell had taken that from her, she would do more than just kill him. She would hunt him down in the afterlife and make him suffer forever.

  He’d already taken enough time away from Reese and her family. If he had wasted the rest of the time they had together on some false murder charges...

  She didn’t want to think about the person she would become then.

  She had never met her mother, but she could imagine with enough rage, she could become worse than the man-eating siren that had borne her. Much worse.

  With her mother’s charm and trickery paired with her father’s cunning mind and quick temper, it was a wonder Reese hadn’t already turned into a monster.

  Perhaps patience was part of her gift.

  The calm seas had raised her and prepared her to weather the tough storms she would have to face.

  Lyonell was a lot like a storm. In the beginning he was big and scary, he held all the power that Reese would never be able to grasp.

  But once she’d analyzed it; it was nothing more than wind and rain.

  Lyonell was nothing more than bluffs and anger.

  He could be weathered.

  Or he could be destroyed.

  He wasn’t so like a storm that he was invincible. He may be immortal, but that didn’t make him invulnerable. There were ways to hurt him, kill him even. Reese just had to take her time and wait for the right moment.

  It would have been preferable if she didn’t have Luca trying to send her away the entire time.

  Reese’s revenge was mostly for herself, but it was also partly for Luca.

  He had been stuck in the carnival much longer than she had. Lyonell had wronged him far more times, and far worse, than he had her. Luca needed Lyonell dead, and Reese had just enough bottled-up anger to get it done.

  She had never killed anyone before, but she knew she was a storm of her own.

  She would bring lightning and hail down on Lyonell. Her wind would rip his tent to shreds, and when she was done, there would be nothing left of the carnival, nothing left of him. His mark on the world would be wiped from existence.

  Reese wouldn’t trick herself into thinking it would be done in a heartbeat, but it would be done.

  One brick at a time, one piece of canvas at a time, she would destroy everything Lyonell had built, and with it, all the hateful lies he had told Luca.

  Lyonell may have convinced Luca that their mother’s death was his fault, and that everything after had been too, but Luca would be the one that survived.

  Lyonell could believe and spread whatever lies he concocted in his head, but at the end of the day, he would be buried six feet below the ground, and Luca would be the one living and breathing.