Page 13 of Carnival’s Playground

"You nervous?" I ask, tightening the wire with a pair of pliers until the metal bites deep into the timber.

"Nervous we’re gonna run out of duct tape and luck," she replies, looking out toward the dark silhouette of the big top. "Nervous about payroll stretching until it snaps. Nervous Petey's gonna blow himself to kingdom come trying to daisy-chain extension cords through standing water."

"Petey's too stubborn to die that easy," I tease.

A short, breathless laugh breaks out of her, real and unfiltered. "Jesus, Carnival. That's dark, even for a nomad."

"Truth usually is." I drop the pliers into my back pocket and step closer to her, the space between us shrinking until I can smell the rain, the iron, and the sweet, sharp scent of her skin. "You worried about anything that doesn't come with a price tag?"

She looks up at me, her chest rising and falling beneath her soaked canvas work jacket. The sharp banter drops away, leaving behind a raw, guarded vulnerability that makes my pulse kick hard against my ribs.

"I don't let myself worry about things I can't control," she murmurs, her voice dropping low. "What about you? You ever worry about anything?"

"I don't stay in one place long enough to let things catch up with me," I admit. The words are supposed to sound careless, the standard creed of a guy who lives on two wheels with no rearview mirror, but between her and me, they land like a lead weight.

Avery doesn't flinch. She just holds my gaze, her eyes searching mine in the shadows beneath the dripping tarp. "You planning on running when the original week was supposed to end?"

The question hangs between us, heavy and dangerous. My hands twitch with the sudden, violent urge to reach out, to wrap my fingers in that wet braid and pull her against my chest until neither one of us can breathe. For twelve years, leaving has been my default setting. The only rule that kept me alive. But standing here in the Texas muck with this sharp-tongued, fearless woman, running feels a hell of a lot more like losing.

"Two more weeks," I tell her, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. "I’m not going anywhere."

A tense, electric quiet settles over us, thick enough to choke on. She doesn't back away. She just looks at me, her lips slightly parted, the cold drizzle forgotten. Something massive and unnamable shifts in the space between our chests, cracking wide open. Avery swallows hard, breaking the trance, and clears her throat as she turns back toward the path. "Well. Two more weeks means this haunt walk better scare the living shit out of every mark in this county, or none of this mud was worth it."

"Copy that," I say, letting out a breath that feels like fire. "Where do you want the fog machine stationed once I pull the guts out of it and rebuild the pump?"

"Right at the base of the scarecrow," she directs, pointing a dirt-caked finger toward the brush. "Make the mist roll out through the straw so it looks like the bastard’s breathing."

We spend the next hour locking down the final stretch of the walk, dialing in the angles, trading jabs and sharp grins as the sky slowly bleeds from pitch-black to bruised purple. By five-thirty in the morning, the first gray light of dawn is cutting through the cloud cover, turning the puddles on the gravel into dull sheets of lead. The haunt walk is solid—meaner, tighter, and far more lethal than it was before the storm hit.

Heavy boots crunch on the gravel behind us. Dutch walks up, smelling of diesel and cheap gas-station coffee, looking haggard as hell but visibly relieved as he takes in the secured path.

"Flatbed's unloaded at the depot," Dutch grunts, shifting his clipboard. "Frank and Petey are sitting outside the lumberyard gate right now waiting for the seven o'clock opening bell. We've got fresh posts and wiring coming in before eight."

"Haunt walk's locked down," Avery declares, wiping a smear of red mud from her forehead.

"Good." Dutch nods at her. "Because the wardrobe trailer’s a disaster zone. The wind peeled back the roof hatch on the secondary trailer… half the main-act costume racks got soaked to the bone. If we don't get them dried, steamed, and sorted before noon, the mold’s gonna ruin two grand worth of velvet and silk."

"I'm on it," Avery says without hesitation, rolling her shoulders. She turns toward me, those dark eyes flashing with their usual wicked fire. "You think you can handle that north generator by yourself, nomad, or do you need me to hold your tools for you?"

"Get to the costumes, spitfire," I teasingly order, my mouth twitching into a grin. "I'll have the power grid humming before you finish untangling the feathers."

She shoots me one last lingering, charged look over her shoulder before taking off toward the wardrobe trailer, her boots slapping against the damp ground. I watch her walk away until she disappears around the corner of the main tent, my chest tight with a strange, heavy warmth that has no business being there. Turning on my heel, I grab my heavy tool roll and head north toward the groaning generator shed, the cold morning air hitting my face as the full weight of the next two weeks settles into my bones.

For the first time in my life, sticking around doesn't feel like a trap. It feels like a fight I’m ready to bleed for.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AVERY

The wardrobe trailer smells like wet velvet and mildew, which is about the worst combination I can think of with the extended run ahead of us, full haunted attractions every single night through Halloween. I flip on the trailer's overhead light and groan loud enough that Millie, our seamstress, pokes her head out from behind a rack of soaked capes.

"Tell me it's not as bad as it smells," Millie pleads, holding a dripping witch costume away from her body like it might bite.

"It's worse than it smells," I answer, lifting the hem of a torn ringmaster jacket, watching water pour out of the sleeve like I'm wringing out a sponge. "The storm got in through that gap by the vent. Everything on this side's soaked clean through."

"We've got two more weeks of shows," Millie mumbles, sighing like she's hoping saying it out loud will magically fix things.

"I know," I count the ruined pieces fast in my head, seventeen costumes total, maybe more once I check the back racks, and half of them need more than a good drying, they need actual repair. "Grab every fan we've got. I'll start sorting what's salvageable from what's trash."