Page 24 of Roma King
“No.”
“Acrobats?”
“No.”
“Cotton candy?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
“Then what’s the big deal. A second ago you were chomping at the bit, ready to charge down there, just the three of us, without a flashlight, to take on a violent criminal. Now you’re practically running away from the prospect of a stupid, very lame fairground attraction.”
Sarah grinds to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk, teetering a little on her skyscraper heels. Her lips are parted slightly, her skin pale and covered with a sheen of sweat. She looks suddenly ill.
“God, Sarah. Are you okay?”
She swallows, looking back the way we’ve come, and for a moment it looks like she is about to rip her heels off and start sprinting back toward the car. “I’m not afraid of fairgrounds, Zara, butthatis no regular fair ground. I can’t believe I didn’t realize…”
“You’ve been there before?”
A hard light glitters in her normally soft, warm eyes. “A long, long time ago. It was above ground back then. It’s…it’s a dangerous place, Zara. Nothing good will come of it if we go down there.”
She’s terrified. I’ve never seen her look so frightened. I’ve definitely never heard her voice tremble with panic. “How can you possibly know it’s the same fair?”
She shakes her head, her hand moving to the sun pendant around her neck. She pulls on it, as if the damn thing is choking her. “Because thereisonly one.Thatis the Midnight Fair.”
10
PASHA
SHELTA
Isit in the Mustang, watching people race down Cross street, considering my options. Option number one: I start the engine, bail out of the parking lot, tires squealing, rubber burning, as I abandon this entire stupid plan and I go home, where Shelta and my other family members can’t lay the guilt on so thick that I feel like I’m being smothered by it.
Option number two: I can go down there, tell my mother to go fuck herself, refuse to speak to anyone, and then walk away. I can leave, and I can never go back.
Option number three: I can go down there, and I can try and make peace with Shelta, as Patrin suggested. I can try and think of a way to get Sam and Jamus out of the hot water they currently find themselves up to their necks in, boiling to death, and then I can get the fuck out of dodge. I can tell them that I’m done, I don’t want anything else to do with the clan, and that they should all seriously lose my number.
I fidget in the driver’s seat, uncomfortable and ill at ease. Being this close to the fair is making me feel really fucking weird. There was once a time when I couldn’t have comprehended walking away from my family. Not even for a second. I hated being sent away to school when I was a child, and then as a teenager, too, and I was always so damn desperate to make it back to thevitsa.
Things were different by the time I found myself banished. Being cast out for your crimes is one of the most shameful, terrifying prospects for any member of a Roma family, but life within the Rivin camp had already been tarnished for me by then. When I realized that I was being sent away, that it was really, truly happening, and for such a long period of time, too…I was actuallyrelieved.
I try not to think about the night that I stabbed my uncle. I try to suppress the vivid, stark memories of the knife in my hand, and the string of profanity that spilled from his mouth as he looked down at his own stomach and realized what I’d done. I don’t feel any guilt. I don’t feel ashamed of what I did. The only true emotion I experience whenever I relive that night is regret. Regret that I didn’t do it sooner. Regret that I didn’t drag it out, and make the bastard suffer.
My mother’s face is still burned into my mind, searing itself into the backs of my eyelids every time I close them. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past three years picking apart her reaction. On the surface of it, her panic and hysteria had come across as if she was worried about me. She’d hurried me, wanting to get me out of the encampment as quickly as possible, while it was still pitch black and everyone else was still fast asleep in theirvardosand campers. She’d told me to keep my mouth shut, to not breathe a word of what had happened to anyone. She’d told me that if anyone directly asked me what had happened to Uncle Lazlo, I was to deny even being at the camp that night, and she’d told me to say that I knew nothing of what had transpired.
All of it, the money she’d thrust into my hand, the fact that she’d taken the knife and promised to dispose of it, her constant reassurances that no one would ever find out what had happened to Lazlo—it had seemed like she wanted to keep me out of trouble. That she was concerned about me and wanted to protect me.
Very quickly, I’d learned the truth of the matter. She’d pretended to be worried about me, when all she’d really cared about was my standing within the clan. My father was king for five short years before he died of a heart attack. I was fifteen when he keeled over at the dinner table, clutching his chest, lips turning blue, flopping around and gasping for air like a fish out of water. I’d watched him puke all over himself as he died, and no one had been able to do a thing to save him.
From then on, as mother to the next heir to the Roma throne, Shelta held the ultimate position of power within our community. Until I turned twenty-one and found myself a wife, I couldn’t be crowned, and essentially,shewas the one ruling over the entire clan. When I eventually celebrated my coming of age, she was far from sad when I didn’t seem interested in gettingAA married right away. She defended my decision not to marry and have a family—highlyunusual for a member of any Romavitsa—and told everyone I was waiting for the perfect Roma girl before I chose to accept my role as king.
Very convenient for her. Very convenient for me. I didn’t care about the power that came with that title. Didn’t give a shit about it, and, frankly didn’t want it, even back then.
My actions that night threatened every luxury, and every comfort, and every modicum of respect and adoration my mother had become accustomed to, and she wasn’t about to let anything threatenthat. So she secreted me out. She gave me money. She told me to act surprised when news of Lazlo’s death traveled like wildfire around the camp the next morning. And all of it soshewouldn’t be disgraced and have to hand over the keys to the kingdom.
There was just one problem: Lazlo hadn’t died. Or at least, the fucker was still alive in the morning when everyone had gathered around his blood-soaked body and tried to save what was left of him. Plenty of time for him to tell everyone who was responsible for his injuries. And plenty of time for my mother to change her tune and demand that I be brought to justice, regardless of our blood connection.
It had been a mess.
