Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

But if . . .

Dorothy shook her head, pushing the thought away. It couldn’t be Ash, she told herself again. But she didn’t know what else to think. Who else would’ve been able to fly the time machine?

The EM felt suddenly huge and obvious inside her cloak. She had the sense that anyone glancing at her would know that she’d taken it. She had to get out of here.

She wove through the Cirkus Freaks and hurried to the back of the garage. She reached for the door—

Behind her: the click of a gun.

Dorothy felt her heart plummet.

She dropped her hand from the door and turned to see Eliza standing behind her, pistol raised.

“Old friend,” Eliza said, a vicious grin on her face. “What brings you back here?”

9

Nerves pricked the back of Dorothy’s neck. Her mouth filled with the taste of something sour.

She and Eliza hadn’t always hated one another. Or, at least she hadn’t always hated Eliza. In fact, there’d been a time when Dorothy had hoped Eliza could become something of an ally to her, maybe even a friend. It seemed silly now, but they had been the only two women in the Black Cirkus. Dorothy always thought they should have had each other’s backs.

But she’d dismissed such notions months and months ago. Eliza was vicious and cruel and seemed to only want power and more power. And, for reasons that Dorothy had never fully understood, Eliza despised her.

Dorothy pressed her lips together, thinking fast. Despite all of this, there had to be something she could say, some way to get Eliza to see reason.

Her eyes flicked past Eliza’s head. The rest of the Cirkus was still gathered near the far wall of windows, watching the time machine grow smaller and smaller in the night sky. They hadn’t noticed the commotion going on near the back door. There was still time to get out of this.

“Eliza,” Dorothy said, slowly lifting her hands to show that she was unarmed and therefore not a threat to her. “You don’t have to do this. You could pretend that you never saw me.”

The corner of Eliza’s mouth twitched. “And why on earth would I do that, little Fox?”

Dorothy opened her mouth but found that she couldn’t come up with an answer. She had no money, no power, nothing to bribe the other girl with.

Eliza, smirking, seemed to realize this at the exact same moment that Dorothy did. She turned and called, over her shoulder, “Mac! Seems we’ve had an old friend drop in on us.”

Dorothy felt a muscle in her jaw tighten as Mac Murphy turned, his eyes lighting with glee at the sight of her. She checked to make sure that the stolen EM was well hidden in her cloak. It was. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Mac took his time making his way to the back of the garage. He’d been shot in the leg not long ago—by Chandra, Dorothy knew now—and, though he no longer needed to use crutches to get around, he still walked with a bit of a limp, his knee not quite bending the way it was supposed to.

He used that disability to his advantage, taking his time and walking slowly across the garage, making her wait. The Cirkus Freaks who’d been distracted by the time machine now turned their attention to Dorothy, curious, she was sure, to see what terrible things Mac had planned for her.

She forced herself to hold her chin high, to keep her shoulders back. Whatever he wanted from her, she would face it head-on.

“Quinn,” Mac said, grinning delightedly. “I figured you’d be halfway to the Center by now.”

It was a cruel jab. Mac had allies working the borders that separated the Center states from the Western Territories, but he had to know that Dorothy didn’t have such resources. Without a time machine, she was trapped here.

She refused to give him the satisfaction of pointing this out. “And miss seeing your smiling face,” she said, through a tight smile of her own. “Not likely.”

Mac laughed, a deep rumble in his belly that almost seemed genuine. “I should have killed you days ago,” he said when he’d finished, wiping a tear from his cheek with his thumb. “But I have to admit, I would’ve missed these moments together.”

The Cirkus Freaks were gathering in a loose circle around them, blocking the doors, making sure there wasn’t a way for her to escape. She felt a nerve near her eye twitch as she marked the few exits, all of which had been blocked. Blast.

Mac pulled a gun from his waistband and let it dangle, lazily, from one hand. Dorothy knew he meant it as a threat, and so she refused to look at it.

“So why did you?” Mac asked, raising an eyebrow. “Come back, I mean.”

The exotic matter seemed to bulge beneath her cloak, announcing to the entire Black Cirkus what she’d done. She searched her brain for a good lie and came up blank.

“I—I had nowhere else to go.” Her voice cracked a little as the words left her mouth, betraying how true they were.

Mac chewed the inside of his cheek. “That so? You expect me to believe you plan on being a faithful ally once more?” He glanced toward the back windows. “I don’t need you to fly my machine anymore. So what use are you to me? You’ve already proven, more than once, that you can’t be trusted.”

Dorothy’s stomach turned over. There was no arguing with that. “What are you going to do with me?”

His smile widened, showing off two rows of cracked, nicotine-stained teeth.

“I have a few ideas,” he said. To the Freaks, he added, “Take her upstairs. I’ll be up to join you shortly.”

Dorothy felt sick as they climbed the stairs, the slow shuffle of their feet over carpet the only sound in the halls. Something musty-smelling rose up from the floor, making her nose twitch. She didn’t think she’d ever get over the smell of