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Rose pulls me toward her and moves my hands with hers as we dance. Everyone seems to know something that I don't.

As we dance to the music, she spins me around, but something doesn't feel right.

Dagger comes back into the room and says, "Claude is just taking a shower, and then he'll be back to train." "Yeah, that's fine. We're busy anyway," says Gwen.

When Rose smiles at Dagger and he smiles back, it's so cute. I'm sad.

"Oh. "When I went to the doctor, I forgot to tell you how far I am," she says. I ask, "How far are you?"

"Two months," she says with a smile.

"I'm going to be an aunt!" I squeal with joy. She gives me a hug and says, "I know." Then we dance to the music together.

"Why are you wasting time? Get to training!" When Claude yells, I jump a little.

I ask, "Where is Melissa?" He walks by me with a blank face and says, "Dead." "Claude you can't just say things like that," Rose tells him.

Turning around, Claude walks over to me. He says to me, "I killed Melissa. If you don't believe me, go look at her body all messed up in a body bag."

"He's joking. I saw her leave in her car," Dagger says as he goes over to Rose.

Claude is sad. "Like always, you ruined my fun," he scowls at Dagger. When Claude's hair is wet, he looks great.

"Okay, enough with the jokes, let's train," says Gwen.

"I told you to stop lying," I say to him in a whisper. "I didn't do it, and I can prove it. Sometimes I don't want to tell you the truth because I don't want you to—" He stops, moves back, and tilts his head to the side.

"Then again, you didn't care that I 'killed' Dagger," he says in a whisper.

A few times, I blink. It's so fucking crazy of me to agree with him.

He puts his hand behind me and pulls my hair to tilt my head up. He puts his face close to mine and puts his free hand under my skirt. "You are really interesting, Doll," he teases as he kisses my ear. I did what he did and shut my eyes.

The way he holds my hair turns me on, and I know I'm crazy.

"How do I know that you are telling the truth?" I ask, and I'm about to cough, but I hold it in. He says, "I know you told me not to lie, but I'm just having fun."

"But..." He floats his hand between my legs without touching me. "I will kill anyone who tries to please you besides me."

I give him a frown. "Touch me," I cry out. "If I touch that, you'll bend over and my dick will go deep into your stomach," he says, and I feel like I'm going to pass out.

"What's the matter?"

"You are Ana's replacement because you are the only talented person here. While I look for another trapeze artist, you will take her place."

I say, "We have a show tomorrow, so I should probably get going." "Not dressed like that, you don't have any underwear on, and you'll be in the air. If someone looks between your legs and sees you without underwear, their head will be on my wall," he says.

I say, "You're the one who took them off." He slaps me in the face, but instead of how I usually react, I start to laugh. He moves his mouth close to my ear.

"Then go put on another pair, because Melissa will die in about seven hours."I'm flying through the air on a swing. "Bend your legs, bring them up to your chest, and swing them over the pole. Then let go. You should fall back and swing toward me so I can grab your hands," Diego says.

I do as I'm told and put my legs over the pole. Then I let go and fall back, feeling my heart pound as I swing toward Diego and reach out for them.

They grab my hands, and I unhook my legs from the bar, which makes me swing even lower toward the net while Diego holds my hands.

"Grab the other bar, but put your legs over it first and don't grab it with your hands," they tell me, and Rose, who isn't acting, helps me get to the other swing since she isn't on it.

Diego lets go of the swing as it gets close to me, and I grab it and swing my legs over the bar.

"This is so much fun!" I yell at Diego.

He says, "This is why I do it, because it is so exciting."

We both fall into the net after a few more tricks. "Is there any trick that you can't do?" Rose wants to give me a hug when I get off the computer.

"That was so much fun," I gasp.

I reach for my bottle of water and drink it all.

Rose goes over to Dagger, who is grinning and holding a hose.

She pouts when he sprays her with the hose. "Don't, Dagger, don't wet me." he keeps doing it. He points it at Diego and sprays him and the others with it. "Fucker, give it to me."

Diego runs after him, but Rose beats him to the hose and sprays me with water. "You whore," I tell you. The water stops coming out of the hose, and when we look in the direction of the tap, we see Claude standing there.

"And you say that I ruin the fun," Dagger says.

"This isn't training, get back to it," Claude says with a scowl.

Camila rolls her eyes and says, "Good thing I don't need training to work at the box office."

Rose says, "Maybe he's always in a bad mood because he's the oldest." I say, "That's funny, I don't even know how old he is."

I've never thought about it, but he looks to be at least in the middle of his 20s.

"Wait. Really?" Rose wonders. "Dead serious," I tell them. "He's thirty-six," she tells him.

The floor with my smacks. "No way! "He looks like he's twenty!" "Face surgery? I don't know," she shrugs.

"No, it would be obvious if he had surgery," I tell them. "Maybe he's a vampire," she says as a joke.

Dagger says, "He isn't pale, so he can't be a vampire." "Self-tanning," I tell them.

"I don't know, but I want his face routine so that when I'm his age, I'll still look young," she says. Dagger asks, "What if he's lying about his age?"

"I don't know, it's been thirteen years since he bought this Circus. He looked like an adult then, so I don't think he's lying about his age."

"He got started when he was twenty-three?" I ask. She says, "I told him that this Circus has been around for decades when he bought it."

"He used to be a regular performer. His family used to own this circus, but they all died in a tent fire. Twenty years ago, when he was just a performer, the original big top burned down. I think he was one of the trick performers, maybe trapeze? I don't know, but he went to get food for everyone and when he got back, the big top was on the ground and smoke was coming out of it."

"Do you mean he also lost his family?"

She agrees. "He lost all of his friends, family, and everything else that was important to him. I think that's why he wanted us, because we all understood a different part of his pain."

"But he didn't really own it until more than seven years later because he was only 16 at the time."

"How do you know everything you do?" I ask.

"I can't stop reading mystery stories in newspapers. That one was four pages long and was called "The Story of Claude Desdemona."," she says.

"People kept blaming him for it, he was questioned by the police, and that was the last time anyone saw him cry. They had evidence and all that to show he didn't do it, and eventually everyone forgot about it until they went to Seattle to where the tent used to be. It is now a scary story to tell kids."

"Claude thinks he's cursed," says Dagger.

"Why on earth would you believe that crap?"