I’m taking a sip of water when we hear the bikes fire up in the back. The Brothers ride in, in a loud rumble of smoke.
Maya bumps me with her hip. “I need to see your fire routine.”
I swipe my mouth. I never know how to take Maya since I know she and Killian are so close. “Sure.”
“You know…” she begins to say, and my eyes follow hers to Killian. But before she can say any more, I interfere.
“Oh, he is that bad…”
“What?” she asks, confused, but with a smile on her face.
“You were going to say that Killian is not that bad of a person?”
Maya pauses, her eyebrows shooting up, and then a loud laugh breaks out of her. “Oh no, he is definitely bad. In fact, he’s the worst. He thinks that flashing that pretty smile will deter the fact that he’s evil.” She turns around as she walks away, but not before saying, “Don’t mistake those sinfully good looks for a good man, Showstopper. The glistening teeth that sit behind that grin are the very same that rips flesh from bone…”
I massage my temples and watch as she bounces toward Killian, stepping up into his wheel. “STARGAZING” by Travis Scott is playing loudly over the bikes, and once again, Killian is watching me. Even as Maya passes him and hops onto her swing, his eyes are on me. Finally, he revs his engine and rides it up the plank and onto the wheel. I exhale and scurry out of the tent through the main entrance. Usually we enter and exit through the back because the main entrance is basically another tent, only half the size of the main one. In this one, there’s a bar, a food stall where you can buy candied corn, hot food and such, and then a small alleyway that leads to the bathrooms. I continue through to the main entrance, passing a couple of the Six Demons. We’re set up in some secluded area behind suburbia, trees line the paddock, which lead to our buses that are hidden behind the tents. I guess we are granted with some sort of road access while we travel, allowing our vehicles and trailers into whatever country we’re in.
I make my way to our bus and push open the door, needing a quick shower before I go back to the tent and figure out what the hell I’m going to do about this fire routine.
Once I’m out of the shower, I open up my camera, clutching the towel in my hand and open Instagram. I flip it onto selfie mode and snap a photo of me purposely rolling my eyes. Moving it to my stories, I write the words PLAYING WITH FIRE over top of it and throw on a filter. Scrolling through my newsfeed, I click on a photo of Perse and King that she took. He’s grumpy as shit and she’s smiling with her teeth on full display. Her arm is hooked around his neck and her hands are around his cheeks, trying to get him to smile like you would a kid.
It’s so cute. I double click it and then click on her profile.
I laugh when I see the photos she has. Some of me, a lot of her and King, and some of her and The Brothers. I click on one with her and Kill. I don’t know why, but before I could analyze why I did it, I was already there and distracted. Killian is on his bike, wearing ripped designer jeans, a white shirt that has the words MOTHER FUCKER on it. And then in smaller writing, is says read that again. I snicker. Killian is terrifyingly confident, and probably rightly so. When I read through the comments, his username sticks out.
@killiancornelii My thumb hovers over his username.
I toss my phone onto my bed and get dressed instead, not wanting to go onto his page. I’m not touching that right now, and anyway, why the hell should I care.
Changing into a tight leather crop top and tight little booty shorts that show my ass hanging out the bottom, I continue to rifle through my suitcase.
I need something else edgy.
Tearing off the leather crop top but leaving on the shorts, I find the perfect top. It’s actually copper gold and is made from metal. The front fans out over my breasts like wings. There’s a dip in the middle that is lined with diamonds before it cuts off as a crop. The back is simple, clipping around my body. It’s revealing, and not something you could wear anywhere else except here, or maybe at a festival. Clipping it up, I find my black snake cuff that curls around my lower leg and comes up to my knee. I’ve always wanted to wear it since I bought it when Perse and I went shopping after Christmas, and now I can. Throwing on some ankle boots, I tie my hair back in a bun and leave my face free of makeup. No point getting show ready for practice, but I do need to practice in the outfit I will be wearing during the first show in a couple of days.