Show Stealer

by Hayley Barker

  His words make me feel even worse.

  “It’s all our fault!” I cry. “He gave himself up for us! Oh my God!” I clutch Jack, desperately. “Kadir said they’re using him tomorrow, in the shows! We have to do something!”

  His face mirrors my own panicked thoughts. “What can we do? We don’t have any bargaining tools. We don’t have any power.”

  “Laura Minton must have power! She wants me to do a video about the circus, to support her campaign. I’m not doing it unless they get Ben out!”

  Rosie’s eyes widen further.

  “Laura Minton was here, in the slums?” she asks. “You spoke to her?”

  “Yeah, I spoke to her. I told her I’d do it, but I’m not going to now. Not until Ben’s out of that place! That’s what I said to Kadir.”

  Rosie looks even more worried than before. “Laura Minton and Kadir aren’t the sort of people you deliver ultimatums to, Hoshi. Laura Minton might be the leader of the country soon, and Kadir’s … well, Kadir’s Kadir. You can’t just tell them what to do!”

  “I’m not afraid of them!” I answer, ferociously. “They’ll have to find a way to break Ben out of there if they want me to do anything!”

  She winces. “When I said Kadir was a good man, I meant it, sort of. He’s good to his friends. He’s good to the people who respect his position, the people he commands. But he’s tough too, Hoshi – really tough on people who cross him.” She steps away from Greta and turns towards me, lowering her voice. “You must have heard those sounds last night. He was torturing those men, Hoshiko, for daring to cross him. They’ll be long dead by now. You need to be careful.”

  “What’s he going to do? Give us up? I don’t give a damn if he gives us up! Let’s turn ourselves in right now! They might let Ben go if we do!”

  “Why would they let him go?” Jack runs his fingers through his hair. “I told Ben I’d look after you two. What do you think Ben would want you to do, Hoshi? He’d want you to stay safe. That’s what he wants more than anything. You know that!”

  “Well, that’s just rubbish. That’s just you two – you and Ben with your sexist macho crap!”

  His head jerks back like I’ve hit him. I don’t care though. “I’m sorry, Jack, but it’s true! Greta and I are both tougher than Ben and you. We’ve seen things you couldn’t even imagine in your worst nightmares! We’d be far better off in there than Ben is! Ben’s soft. He’s soft and gentle and all the things I’m not. They’ll destroy him in there!”

  “Hoshi?” Greta pulls at my arm. “It’s OK. They won’t hurt Ben, I promise!” She smiles up at me. “When I blew out the candles, I wished for him to be safe. I wished that we’d all be together again. Laura said it would come true!”

  Her little face is so eager to make everything all right. She thinks she’s solved all our problems. God, I love her so much. I reach down and sweep her into my arms.

  “I think it’s going to take a bit more than blowing out a few candles to save him, Greta,” I sob. My eyes seek out Jack’s over her shoulder.

  “Silvio’s alive. Did you know that?”

  The colour drains from his face. I’ve told him a lot about Silvio.

  “No way. How did he survive that blast?”

  “Because he’s not human, that’s why, like I told you all along!”

  There’s a shocked silence.

  There were always rumours flying around at the Cirque about Silvio. Where did he come from? How did he have such power in the Cirque when, at the end of the day, he was just a Dreg, like the rest of us?

  People said his mother was a Pure; a rich girl who fell in love with a Dreg. They said she died and his grandparents had her lover – the father of Silvio, her child – killed.

  The family were very important, far too high up to ever publicly acknowledge who he was, but they didn’t totally turn their backs on him. The whole time he was in the Cirque, somebody, somewhere was pulling the strings, giving him control of the place; letting him do whatever he liked to the rest of us.

  Maybe they’re the reason he survived. Maybe they’ve lovingly nursed him back to health. Maybe not. Maybe I was just right all along and he’s the devil.

  The devil’s supposed to be immortal, isn’t he?

  Suddenly, the cardboard door of the shack is ripped away and five of Kadir’s men burst in. Not Sven, but some of the others. One of them grabs hold of Greta, wrenching her from me and pulling her roughly out of the door.

  She struggles with him but it’s no use: he’s a great big man and she’s a tiny girl.

  “Get off her!” I scream. “Get away from her!” but another of the men has grabbed me, twisting my arms behind my back. Two of the others are restraining Jack and another one has a rough hold of Rosie.

  “Stop!” My voice is hoarse. “Let her go! Stop!”

  Jack’s struggling, Rosie’s struggling, I’m struggling. We all are, but it’s no use.

  I flail around in the rough arms which hold me, all the while my eyes on the window, watching helplessly as the big man throws the little girl with white hair over his shoulder and carries her off into the darkness. Watching helplessly as he takes my Greta away from me.

  BEN

  Sean is still slumped on the floor, leaning against the entrance gate. As it slowly rises, he tips forward into the main corridor.

  At the other end of the short corridor, the wolves are smashing against the insubstantial gate which is all that’s separating them from Sean. It hasn’t started to lift yet.

  Sean’s alone out there. Alone and bleeding.

  Wolves rarely attack unless a person is visibly alone and vulnerable.

  Before I can change my mind again, I pull back the bolt and step out of my cell.

  I stand in front of Sean in the middle of the corridor, bracing myself. Facing the wolves.

  “What are you doing?” someone hisses, and then a chorus of frantic voices calls to me. “Get in! The gate’s going to open at any minute!”

  I look to the left. Leah’s clinging on to the bars of her cell.

  “You can’t stop them!” she cries. “They’ll kill you!”

  “Well, something’s got to,” I answer. I’d probably sound quite tough if my voice wasn’t shaking so much. “And I’d rather it was them than Silvio Sabatini! Anyway, wolves rarely attack people.” I glance back at Sean, lying on the floor listlessly. “Not unless they’re vulnerable.”

  Leah’s eyes cut from me to Emmanuel, in the cell opposite her. She raises her hands up in a questioning gesture. Even over the wolves, I can hear my heart thudding in my chest. After a moment, Emmanuel nods, curtly.

  Simultaneously, they stride out from their cells. The three of us stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the wolves’ path to Sean.

  Leah’s eyes meet mine. “Strength in numbers, right?”

  She’s right. They’re less likely to attack if there are more of us standing here, fronting them.

  And so we wait. Wait for the gate to raise. Wait for the wolves.

  I feel a little stronger than before, now there are three of us.

  “Don’t panic.” I raise my voice so they can hear me over the desperate wolves. “Don’t show fear. Stand your ground.”

  There’s the sound of another lock being pulled across. It’s Ravi, his face set with grim determination. Then another lock pulls back and another person joins us. Then another, and another.

  I feel a little hand in mine; Ezekiel has worked his way between me and Emmanuel.

  Emmanuel looks down at him. “No,” he says. “All kids back in the cells. Anyone over thirteen can stay.”

  Ezekiel frowns and folds his arms together, crossly.

  “No,” Emmanuel repeats.

  “What if we go to the back, near Sean?” Ezekiel says. “They won’t be able to get us but they’ll see that there’s more of us then.”

  He’s bright, this boy, bright and brave.

  Emmanuel looks down at him, sternly. After a few seconds, he nods.
“OK. Kids to the back.”

  “This is madness! You’re all mad!” A woman starts crying from inside one of the cells, a loud, hysterical wail. I recognize the sound from last night.

  “Maggie, stay in the cell if you like, but for God’s sake stop making that bloody noise!” Leah hisses. “Didn’t you hear what he said? Don’t show fear!”

  There’s a few loud, heaving intakes of breath from Maggie and then blissful silence. Finally, out of her cell, she appears: Maggie, the last one of us. A frail, emaciated-looking woman. She’s probably not much older than twenty, but she looks it. Her face is full of lines, taut and skeletal, her thin neck is scrawny and her skin hangs from her arms in drooping folds. She’s shaking and she gives a loud gasp now and then, but she’s out of her cell. She stands near the back, but she faces forward.

  I close my eyes for a second. Vivid pictures flash in my mind: snapping jaws, lunging paws, teeth sinking into flesh.

  I push the thought away. This will work. This has to work.

  When the second gate begins to rise, not one Dreg remains in their cell. The wolves lunge towards us. A streaming, rolling mass of fur.

  “Stand your ground,” I repeat. “Don’t show fear.”

  They stop short. They stare at us. Their hackles rise and they strain forward.

  We face each other, one pack to another.

  HOSHIKO

  Once Greta’s disappeared, the men drag me, kicking and screaming, along the winding paths of the slums to Kadir’s.

  There he is, sitting on his throne in the flickering candlelight. Bojo’s already settled comfortably on his lap, munching away contentedly on another banana. Fickle bloody monkey.

  “What have you done?” I scream. “Where is she?”

  He smiles, patronizingly. “Calm down, there’s really no need for all these theatrics. She’s safe. For now.”

  “What do you mean, for now? Where have you taken her? Why have you taken her?”

  “Stop. Breathe. How about you gather yourself together for a moment and listen to what I have to say?” he asks, in the same irritating tone. “Do you think you can do that?”

  I glare at him. “Where is she?”

  “When you are prepared to listen with composure, then I will talk to you.”

  I concentrate on breathing, in and out.

  “Now, are you feeling a bit calmer?”

  I nod, frantically.

  “Please—” He gestures towards the chairs, still in the middle of the room from our meeting. I step forward and perch impatiently on the end of one of the chairs.

  “Do you know how old I was when I seized control of these slums?” he says, quietly. “Seventeen. How did a seventeen-year-old kid come from nothing to rule over the whole place? I saw an opportunity, that’s how. An opportunity to fill a vacuum, and that’s what I did.

  “My parents were weak: weak and downtrodden – born victims. They just accepted whatever life threw at them, like pretty much everyone you see out there. I was the youngest of six brothers, still might be, who knows? Maybe some of them are dead by now, maybe they’ve spawned a few more. They never had time for me, any of them. My brothers used me as a punchbag, day after day after day. What did my parents do? I hear you ask. What protection did my doting mother and father offer me? None, that’s what. They didn’t even notice, or didn’t even care – I’m not sure which. I was a nuisance to them, that’s all, just another mouth to feed.

  “As soon as I could, I hit the road. Left the shitty little slum I came from and made my way here, to the biggest, shittiest slum of them all. They used to say the streets of London were paved with gold, did you know that?”

  I stare at him, willing him to stop talking, willing him to get to the bit where he tells me where Greta is.

  “There was no gold here when I arrived, though, just mountains and mountains of rubbish, gangs fighting on them like dogs.

  “There was a need, you understand, a need for leadership. A need for guidance. A need for regulation.

  “What made me any different, you might wonder, from everyone else? I’ll tell you, shall I? Determination, that’s all. Determination and strength. Not physical strength, mental strength. I’m strong…” He taps his temple with one hand. “Strong in here. I see what needs to be done and I do it. I don’t beat around the bush, don’t arse about first, I get things done. I came, I saw and I conquered.”

  I’m going to burst in a minute but I know if I interrupt him, he’ll drag this out even more.

  “Now, as you know, I have been very generous to you and your friends. I have provided you with a home, with nourishment, guaranteed you protection in the slums and put my own neck on the line to ensure you get it. I have actively defended you from harm. I asked only one thing of you, Hoshiko, one little thing, and you have refused to do it. Does that seem fair to you?”

  “I didn’t refuse! I said I’d do it as soon as you got Ben out!”

  His brow furrows. “You were not in the position to attempt negotiations or make demands. You were indebted to us, and besides, you should have been as keen as I am to help Ms Minton out.”

  I can’t be quiet any more.

  “Where’s Greta?”

  “Do you know what, Hoshiko, something about you reminds me of myself. You’ve got balls, more balls than most men I’ve met in my life.” He pauses. It’s the longest pause of my life. “Greta is being held, somewhere not far from here. As soon as you deliver what I have asked, she will be released without further harm.”

  “Without further harm? What do you mean? What have you done to her?”

  “I am not a cruel man, despite what people will tell you. I never use violence for the sake of it and I do not seek trouble out. Hoshiko, this doesn’t have to be difficult. You make the film. You get Greta back. I promise you, she will be free the moment you produce something suitably impactful and, unlike you, I don’t go back on my promises.”

  “I told you: get Ben out of the circus and I’ll do anything you ask!”

  “There you go again. You told me. You told me. You still don’t seem to understand! I control things around here. Me, not you. I tell you what to do. With all due respect, your boyfriend really is not my problem, and there’s a lot more at stake here than him. He’ll be fine anyway; I’m sure his mother is behind the scenes somewhere, protecting him from afar.”

  Maybe he’s right. Ben’s mother won’t let Silvio actually harm him in there, will she? But if I make that video, how am I ever going to get him out? I’ll have no leverage at all then and, despite what Rosie seems to think, this man is never going to help me just out of the goodness of his heart. Everything he’s done so far has been a calculated gamble – so I’m in his debt and he can get something in return.

  Even after all the things he’s seen, even after all the things I’ve told him, Ben’s still never really been able to comprehend what it is to live in an institution like the Cirque. Nobody could. Not unless they’ve lived it, day in, day out. Not unless they’ve felt the continual anguish of looking around at their friends and family every night and wondering which of them is going to be the next one to die a horrific death. Not unless they’ve feared that death but found themselves craving it too – knowing it’s the only hope they ever have of getting out of there – the only means of sweet relief there is. Not unless they’ve been dressed up, paraded out there and forced to smile and shine for an audience who’d love to see them fall.

  Even if they don’t physically hurt Ben, he won’t cope in there. His heart is too big for that place; all he has inside him is compassion. It will break him, being in there.

  I have to get him out.

  But Greta’s my baby sister. She’s always been my baby sister.

  “You shouldn’t have to think this hard about it, Hoshiko. I’m running out of patience.”

  “What if I refuse to make the film until you return Greta to me?”

  Kadir’s voice is soft but his mouth has a cruel curve to it and his eyes are a
s sharp as needles as he carefully and slowly enunciates every word. “Then you are more foolish than I thought.”

  Last night, this man had two men tortured and killed for defying his orders, and today he’s kidnapped my little Greta. What will he do to her if I don’t follow his exact commands?

  “Just tell me what you want me to do and when,” I say. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

  He nods. “That’s more like it. Now, you just keep being sensible and nobody needs to get hurt. It’s late now; nothing else is going to happen tonight. Let’s both get a good night’s sleep and I’ll be in touch in the morning. Make sure you’re up bright and early – Laura Minton is keen to get this done.”

  A good night’s sleep. Does he actually think that’s possible?

  “Can’t Greta come back with me now?” I ask. “Please. I’ve learnt my lesson. I promise, I’ll do what you and Laura want anyway.”

  He laughs. “Nice try. Don’t look so worried; Greta’s my insurance policy, that’s all. You keep being sensible like this and I won’t have to hurt her at all.”

  I’ve never had murderous thoughts before, not even for Silvio, but I’m having them now: graphic, violent ones. I can’t stay in the same room with this man any more.

  “I’ll be waiting,” I say as I turn and leave. And I repeat what I said before. “I’ll do anything you want as long as you don’t hurt Greta.”

  Once I’m outside, I lean against a wall, taking deep breaths.

  The two people I love more than anybody else in the world are in danger and hurting and alone, and it’s all my fault. It’s all because of me. I’m going to lose them. I’m going to lose Ben and Greta. It’s like Amina all over again.

  And then I stop trying to hold it all in and I drop down on the path and I clutch my stomach and I cry and I cry and I cry.

  BEN

  The wolves’ yellow eyes are narrowed and the hair on all of their necks has risen up. Their lips are curled back, revealing sharp, fanged teeth, and there’s a collective sound emanating from them – a low, rumbling growl.