Page 25 of Smoke and Mirrors
I ground my teeth so hard against the stabbing fire in my legs, I expected to not have any left in my jaws if I lived through this. Taking a few deep breaths, I leaned into the hell wracking my body and did a few more tricks across the stage. I couldn’t think or hear anything through my brain screaming at me to stop this.
Every step felt like my legs being cut off all over again, but I pushed through. The audience had to notice me struggling at this point. I couldn’t complete my act and pretend like everything was totally fine. My body could barely handle one or the other but not both.
Time escaped me. I had no idea if seconds or minutes passed when I reached my breaking point. My vision began clouding and I felt cold all over, despite being covered in sweat. But I had to do my finale. I had to. I couldn’t let my girl down.
I stuck one leg out in front of me, preparing to throw it over my head for my final series of backflips. Throwing what little strength I had into my standing leg, I pushed off. That fraction-of-a-second moment of levitating in the air felt so peaceful. My pain briefly disappeared before the darkness swallowed me.
13
MELODY
Iknew right away something was terribly wrong.
Connor changed up his routine right at the beginning, and seemed more off-balance and uncoordinated than usual. My nails cut into my palms as I watched him, wishing I could read his face.
“Nigel,” I grabbed the arm of the carnival manager as he tried to walk by, obviously very busy, “something’s wrong with Connor.”
He paused, turning to look at the stage from behind the curtain with me.
“Damn right. He’s wobbling like a baby giraffe.” He looked at me expectantly. “Something you want to tell me, Mel?”
I swallowed, debating frantically in my head if I should tell him. Connor would be furious. He had too much damn pride and never wanted to let anyone know he was hurting, including me. But he and Nigel had a close professional relationship. They were both ex military and Nigel was one of the few good people in the carnival business. If anyone should know besides me, it would have to be him.
“He’s been dealing with really bad pain in his legs for a few days,” I admitted. “Medication has helped but it doesn’t go away when it wears off. He took some an hour ago but… it doesn’t look like it’s working now.”
Nigel’s eyes fixated on Connor, who looked moments away from toppling over.
“What the hell are you doing, boy?” he muttered to himself.
The crowd gasped as he narrowly landed a shaky somersault and vaulted a few steps to maintain his balance.
“Shit. He’s going to fucking kill himself.” Nigel placed a hand on my arm. “You keep watching him. I’m calling an ambulance.”
The weight of those words didn’t hit me until he had already gone. Panic squeezed around my heart as my eyes locked onto Connor, looking more dazed and unsteady with each passing second.
“Come on, babe. Just stop,” I pleaded. “Fuck the show, justpleasestop putting yourself through this.”
I grabbed the curtain to physically stop myself from running out onto the stage. He seemed determined to see this through to the end.
“Oh no,” I whispered. He was preparing for a backflip.
From the moment he kicked his leg out, I knew he wouldn’t make the landing. My heart stopped. He was in the air, and then he was falling.
A scream rang out so loud, it hurt my ears. My legs acted on their own but it still felt like swimming through mud to reach him. I couldn’t go fast enough. Only an eternity later, when I kneeled over his lifeless body laying on the stage, did I realize the screaming came from me.
“Connor! Connor!”
I yelled his name over and over as if that would wake him up. Chaos swirled around in my peripheral vision, but my focus remained on him. I didn’t touch him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a memory surfaced of a CPR class I took. Never touch someone who hit their head. It could make a neck injury worse.
Oh God, Connor!Life was unfair enough to him with taking his legs away. If he became paralyzed or brain dead, God or whoever had a sick sense of humor.
Someone grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away from him, then a bunch of people in dark blue uniforms swarmed in like ants to surround him.
“No! Get away!” I screamed, pushing and fighting against whoever touched me. “Don’t move him, he hit his head!”
“Mel, shh!” Strong arms crushed me to a chest covered in tattoos. “They’re the EMTs. They’ll take care of him,steluta.” Hands stroked my hair in an effort to be soothing. This person smelled like leather, cloves, and smoke.
My brain couldn’t even register who this person was. I just struggled to get a glimpse of Connor as he was lifted onto a stretcher. So many voices, so many people. But he was the only one that mattered. I couldn’t lose him, not yet.
