INTO HIS HANDS

Celeste Finds Out

The break in happens on a Wednesday night.

I know because Zane comes for me at eleven.

Not three forty five.

Eleven.

He knocks once and when I open the door he is standing on the step with the specific quality of someone who has assessed a situation and arrived at a conclusion and the conclusion requires my immediate presence.

He says: get dressed. Come now.

I say: what happened.

He says: someone accessed the rigging room.

Cole is already there when we arrive.

The rigging room has been gone through.

Not ransacked. The specific careful version of searched by someone who knew exactly what they were looking for and looked for it methodically and tried to leave things as they found them.

They almost succeeded.

Cole says: the filing cabinet. Someone went through it.

I say: the documentation.

Cole says: not here. He says it quickly. I moved everything three days ago. He looks at Zane. After Celeste moved the timeline I moved every original to a secure location.

Zane says: good.

Cole says: they found the copies. He gestures at the cabinet. I left copies on purpose.

I say: as bait.

Cole says: if someone came looking I wanted to know they'd been here. He pulls out his phone. I also set up a camera.

Zane goes very still.

I say: you set up a camera.

Cole says: yes.

He shows us the footage.

Grainy. Dark. A figure moving through the rigging room with a torch. Methodical. Going directly to the filing cabinet. Taking the copies.

The figure turns briefly toward the camera.

Not long enough to be certain.

Long enough.

I say: I don't recognise him.

Cole says: I do. He zooms in. His name is David Hurst. Rigging consultant. Nine years with the Meridian company.

The rigging consultant.

The one whose access code was used for fourteen entries in the suspension housing.

He is here.

On my father's lot.

At eleven at night.

I say: she sent him here.

Cole says: that's my read.

I say: to get the evidence.

Cole says: to get what she thinks is the evidence. He looks at me. The originals are safe. The lawyer has copies. What he took tonight is worthless.

I say: she knows we have something.

Zane says: yes.

I say: which means she's scared.

Zane says: yes.

I say: good.

They both look at me.

I say: I want her scared. She spent six months being patient and deliberate and careful and it killed my father. She gets to be scared now.

The rigging room is very quiet.

Zane says: Cole. Morrison.

Cole says: calling him now.

He steps outside.

Just us.

The rigging room.

Eleven at night.

Zane crosses to me.

He stops directly in front of me.

Very close.

He says: Calloway.

I say: yes.

He says: are you okay.

I say: she sent someone onto my father's lot.

He says: yes.

I say: into his rigging room.

He says: yes.

I say: to steal evidence of what she did to his circus.

He says: yes.

Something happens in his expression.

The controlled neutrality dropping.

What is underneath is dark and specific and consuming.

He says: she is not going to touch anything else on this lot.

He says it quietly.

The specific quiet of someone making a permanent decision.

I say: Zane.

He says: no. He says it with the flat certainty. He says: she sent someone here tonight. She will send someone again. He looks at me with the dark eyes fully open. He says: she is not going to touch anything else.

I say: what are you going to do.

He says: everything available to me.

He says it simply.

Like it is obvious.

Like there was never any other option.

His hand finds my jaw.

The rough chalk white hand.

Warm.

His thumb against my cheekbone.

He says: go back to your trailer.

I say: no.

He says: Calloway.

I say: no. I look at him. Nobody goes anywhere alone after dark. Terms.

He looks at me.

I look at him.

He says: you're staying.

I say: I'm staying.

He says: the rigging room is a crime scene.

I say: then we stay outside the rigging room.

He says: Calloway.

I say: Wilder.

He looks at me with the dark eyes and something moves through his expression that is not the controlled neutrality and is not the almost smile and is something more specific than both.

He says: sit on the apron.

I say: fine.

We go to the big top.

The apron at eleven thirty at night.

The working lights off.

Just the emergency light above the entrance casting the specific low warm quality that makes the big top look different from how it looks during the day.

Different.

More itself.

He sits beside me on the apron mat.

His shoulder against mine.

Not the proximity of the framework or the session.

Simply beside me.

I say: she's going to make another move.

He says: yes.

I say: what kind.

He says: I don't know yet. He says it honestly. But a woman who spent six months calibrating a bolt does not sit still when she feels cornered.

I say: she'll come after the performance.

He says: possibly.

I say: or the circus itself.

He says: possibly.

I say: or me.

He is very still.

He says: no.

I say: it's a possibility.

He says: no.

He says it with something underneath that is not the flat certainty of a professional assessment.

Something older than that.

Something that has been there since the third morning when the indifference stopped being available and has been building since and is now here in the emergency light of the big top at eleven thirty at night.

I say: Zane.

He says: yes.

I say: you just said no like it was a fact rather than a preference.

He says: it is a fact.

I say: how.

He says: because I'm not going to let it happen. He says it simply. The way he says everything that is true and decided. He says: she touched the rigging of this circus. She sent someone to the rigging room tonight. He looks at me with the dark eyes. She is not going to touch you.

I look at him.

He looks back.

The emergency light.

The empty big top.

Eleven thirty at night.

His shoulder against mine.

I say: you can't guarantee that.

He says: watch me.

He says it with the dark eyes and the jaw and the chalk on his hands and the whole specific consuming reality of Zane Wilder having decided something about my safety and meaning it in the specific way that the Nox built and the Stellara has been focusing.

The dark beast.

Fully present.

My heart does the large specific thing.

I say: that's very possessive.

He says: yes.

I say: you're not going to apologise.

He says: no.

I say: it should probably alarm me.

He says: probably.

I say: it doesn't.

He says: no.

He looks at me with the dark eyes from very close.

He says: Calloway.

I say: yes.

He says: I'm going to need you to stay very close to the lot from here.

I say: the terms.

He says: new terms. He says it with the flat certainty. He says: you don't go anywhere without telling me first.

I say: that's different from the original terms.

He says: yes.

I say: significantly more restrictive.

He says: yes.

I say: Zane.

He says: yes.

I say: you're doing the thing where you make decisions about my life without consulting me.

He says: I'm informing you of a decision I've made about your safety.

I say: same thing.

He says: not quite.

I say: explain the difference.

He says: the difference is that I'm telling you. He holds my gaze. Not assuming. Telling. He pauses. And asking you to agree.

I say: that's still you deciding.

He says: yes. He says it without apology. He says: some things I'm going to decide. He looks at me steadily. Your safety is one of them.

The big top is quiet.

I say: and if I disagree.

He says: then we discuss it.

I say: and if we still disagree.

He says: then I check the rigging more often.

I stare at him.

He looks back with complete seriousness.

I say: that's not a compromise.

He says: it's a parallel action.

I say: Zane Wilder.

He says: yes.

I say: you are the most infuriating specific person.

He says: yes.

The corner of his mouth.

Full second.

Full second and a half.

I look at the big top.

He looks at me looking at the big top.

I say: fine.

He says: yes.

I say: I tell you where I'm going.

He says: yes.

I say: and you stop checking the rigging at two in the morning.

He says: the anchors.

I say: are fine.

He says: they need.

I say: Zane.

He says: yes.

I say: sleep.

He says: after the north anchor.

I say: the north anchor was checked yesterday.

He says: it was checked at three forty five yesterday. He says it with the complete flat certainty. It's been approximately twenty hours.

I stare at him.

He picks up his clipboard.

He stands up.

He looks down at me on the mat.

He says: go back to your trailer.

I say: the terms.

He says: I'll walk you.

He holds out his hand.

Not the session version.

Not the wrist wrap version.

Just his hand.

Chalk white. Rough. Warm.

I take it.

He pulls me up from the mat.

He does not let go.

We walk back across the lot in the dark with his rough warm hand around mine and Morrison somewhere on his way and Cole in the rigging room with his camera footage and Celeste Voss scared enough to send someone to the lot at night.

I say: Zane.

He says: yes.

I say: watch me.

He says: always.

He says it with the dark eyes straight ahead and my hand in his and the lot dark around us.

Always.

Not a promise.

A fact.

The most consuming fact available.