Page 13 of Cuervo's Carnival
6
Paxton
“You want some of this?”I extend my arm out, offering Cillian a hit of the joint I just rolled.
He grunts with a dour expression, swatting his hands in front of him and declining my offer.
“Your loss.” I shrug, wrapping my lips around the fresh joint. I inhale the pungent smoke that nips at my lungs with the vapid promise of relief. My tolerance has become so heightened that I would need to smoke two full joints at a minimum to begin to feel any sort of true high. But lately, with the added stress of figuring out life outside of being a Reaper, I will indulge in the single joint. Even if it gives me a fleeting buzz, I’ll welcome it.
Exhaling a long stream of smoke, I glance down at Cillian’s hands resting on the railing near the ride we’ve been working on. His signature black-painted nails look camouflaged with the dirt that covers them. Pinching the rolled paper between my lips, I bring my equally dirty hands into view. The lotus tattoo on my left hand is practically nonexistent among the muck that covers it.
Holding the now-waning joint in my mouth, I try bringing my soiled hands to my jeans to clean them, but it is useless. The dirt that covers them feels like it’s inked on like my tattoos. This place has been abandoned for well over twenty years, and nature has most definitely done its job of taking over.
“It’s called a sink,” Cillian points out, noticing the failed attempt at cleaning my hands. I can tell by the way his chiseled features sink inward with his tense jaw that he has something on his mind.
“Sinks would imply we have running water, which we don’t,” I point out teasingly.
He shakes his head, not amused by my attempt to lighten his mood. “Just another fucking reason why bringing her here is a bad idea.”
I sigh, knowing he is right, but a life free of the Reapers’ grasp inevitably means a life on the run. Cillian and I have no college degrees or work experience. Other than a few random handy skills we learned from our last foster parents years ago, which makes a career in anything outside of being criminals, difficult.
There is our music that we are both decent at, but touring as The Midnight Dreary’s when we are trying to lay low probably wouldn’t be the best idea. So, an abandoned carnival is the perfect way to slip away from the Reapers’ radar, until we can formulate our next moves. At least here, we are far enough outside of the city and off the beaten path that no one would think to come looking for us.
We have been working nonstop trying to get this place as functional as possible so it can become a home base for the three of us. The goal is to be able to live and store whatever potential drugs or weapons we will inevitably start running here. But those are logistics that we will have Lola help us figure out when the time comes.
Cillian and I may have stumbled into being members of the club when we were two misfits—lost and looking to make a quick buck at any cost—but Lola was not only born into this life but meant for it. More than her father and brother even know.
On the outside, she may be beautiful, with her seductive stare, inked curves, and petite stature, but on the inside lies a strength that cannot be tamed. And little does her family know that the more you try to control a woman like her, the more vicious her bite becomes. Reaper blood is literally drenched in her DNA. She wasn’t meant to sit pretty; she was destined for chaos and created to win wars that others foolishly started when they underestimated her strength.
I take another hit before answering, “Calm down, Cil, I’m joking. I got that one sink somewhat up and running near the Amontillado’s Mortuary ride we got working.”
“Listen, I get that we need to lay low, but this…” He lifts his hands, emphasizing the decaying state of the carousel in front of us. “I just don’t see how this is it.” He raises his hands higher, driving home his point.
I redirect my gaze to the moss-covered beams of the ride. The marquee that hangs off the center round baring still reads, “Welcome to The Night’s Plutonian.” It’s impressive that there is even a little bit of the sign remaining, considering the intense gash toward the bottom of it.
What once was a main attraction when the carnival was running now looks like it survived the apocalypse. The once vibrantly painted horses that wrapped around the carousel are now chipped and rusting, and some have fallen off with their poles still attached. Thick weeds wrap around the center pole as dirt and fallen debris cover most of the platform, making it look just as haunted as it does abandoned.
I turn to Cillian, offering him what is left of the dwindling joint, and thankfully, he takes it.
“There you go. Loosen up a bit,” I say, bringing my hand to his tense shoulder, and rubbing it as he takes a long drag.
Cillian thinks I’m crazy for choosing here, of all places, to act as our hideaway. It’s not even the abandoned thing that he is stuck on, as much as he hates it. That, he can actually look past. It’s the history of this place that has him bothered.
A woman who worked here was savagely murdered behind one of the attractions shortly after The Night’s Plutonian opened. Her remains were found days later, scattered in the dense brush by one of the employee parking lots that wasn’t used often.
Since this was known as one of the town’s spooky thrill sites, no one thought the screams that happened that night were any different from the soundtracks they played to give the place an eerie ambiance.
Eventually, someone reported the woman missing. Investigators followed a literal trail of blood that seeped into the ground so deeply that it began to blend in with the unpaved paths encompassing this place. The park closed shortly after, and that was it. It was like it never existed. At first, teenagers and horror enthusiasts in surrounding towns would visit, but that ended quickly after more weird shit started happening that scared away even the most seasoned of ghost hunters. It’s become a no-man’s-land, and that’s what we need—a black hole to disappear to.
None of that deters me, anyway. I don’t believe in any of that shit—spirits and whatnot. I believe we are either alive or we are dead, that’s it. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. Cillian and Lola would disagree. Whereas Cil is apprehensive of spirits and places being potentially haunted, it intrigues Lo. Her imagination runs wild, thinking of what life was like before it stopped.
She has always been drawn to things that most would deem unworthy. It’s one of the first things—besides that smart-ass mouth she is always running and her undeniable beauty—that made us need her as we do. Lola Grimmrose is a soul beyond her years, always finding beauty in what most would deem ugly or finding value in what most would disparage.
We were broken when we met her, and she found a way to honor our scars, taking them on as her own. Something that no one other than Cillian and I were ever able to do for each other, until she came into the picture. It was lust at first sight, and holy fuck did it turn into something more primal, raw, and real than any of us could have ever imagined.
So, even with the disarray and overgrown fungi that practically swallows every inch of this place whole, I know our girl will be able to see past all of that and see it for what it can be. A fresh start, a hideaway, and our refuge.
Cillian takes a final drag before stomping out the remaining burnt paper on the ground, which blends in with the patch of dirt beneath our feet. Just as he twists his Vans into the ground, our phones go off at the same time.
