The Circus Crown

Chapter 1-2

When he wasn’t on the road, his nightly ritual took about forty-five minutes. More so when he had to prepare for his weekly injection, which involved filling a syringe, cleaning a spot on his thigh, and then sticking himself. He accomplished that annoying task first in order to get it out of the way.

After, Dakota took his pills—two for the M.S., a sedative for the shaking, and a multivitamin—he brushed and flossed his teeth, washed his face with cold water, and stripped down to a T-shirt and boxers. He double-checked to ensure that his door was locked before turning on the lucid-dreaming talisman. He felt worn-out from two missions in a row. Exhaustion overcame him much easier now.

In a perfect world, he would take care of himself better. Eat right. Sleep well. And always take his medicine on time. But concealing his disease meant that occasionally he had to bend the rules, hiding his pills, acting like the tremors were just nervousness or fatigue. Lying, even to Ken.

But at least tonight he would get a good rest and some much-needed one-on-one time with Gage. Even the thought made him smile. He had so many things to relate from the trip.

Dakota settled into bed and closed his eyes.

Just as he began to fall asleep, a loud noise of smashed glass, followed by voices, broke into his consciousness. He sat up with a start and looked around in confusion. At first, Dakota thought that perhaps someone had dropped a bowl or something downstairs. But the crashing continued, and it sounded right outside his bedroom window.

Careful, Dakota peered out through the blinds and down toward the culprits. It was a crew of people, dressed head to toe in black, who seemed to be breaking into the house next door. Nothing unnatural. Just a run of the mill burglary. And the owners were off on vacation in California, last time he checked. He could go back to bed.

But didn’t they have kids?

Fuck, they did. Two little ones. Staying behind with an aunt. Something the robbers probably didn’t know or anticipate. The kind of scenario that got innocent people killed.

Adelaide would be angry, he thought, sliding his feet into an oversized pair of boots. He didn’t bother with pants. Time was of the essence. Dakota did, however, take off the dreaming crystal, add a hallucination one, and grab a pistol off of his dresser. He made sure it was loaded before climbing out a different window, and onto a low-hanging roof.

Getting down without a lot of noise wasn’t the easiest task in the world. He had to take his time, and in the end, he jumped off to avoid announcing his presence. Thankfully, the back yard was a grassy hill, and it cushioned his fall. With green stains on his knees and shins, Dakota slowly approached the house, where one of the burglars was still waiting to crawl through a window. He rushed behind the guy, grabbed him by his mess of brown hair, and shoved the barrel of his gun into his cheek. “You have just made a really stupid move, jackass. Call your friends, or they’ll come running after I shoot you.”

He talked a big game, but really, one against at least four or five was bad odds. And never mind that he’d already taken his sedating pills or that Dakota had been ordered to keep things quiet. Confronting them was probably a terrible move. Shooting one would be an even worse call, since everyone in the damn town would hear it, and he certainly didn’t have a license to carry. But the thieves picked the wrong house.

“Guys!” the frightened man nearly squeaked.

“What is it?” said one, peaking his head out of the window. “Oh, fuck.”

They were kids. Late teens or early twenties. Faces drawn. White. Greasy, matted hair. On closer inspection, their attire was all ripped and worn. If they weren’t homeless, they certainly looked extremely poor. Like, can’t afford to take a shower every day, or the water’s been shut off—poor.

But everyone in this town barely scraped by. The house being robbed had to be the nicest one for miles, and that was only because both of the adults were managers over at the mine. A few lost paychecks, and they would be on the street, just like all the other people here. Except for the talisman wielders, of course. But they barely existed as inhabitants. More like ghosts.

Regardless, their neighbors didn’t deserve to have their house ransacked, let alone their kids put in danger. No matter how downtrodden and desperate this group might be. They had no right. Dakota could see them raiding an empty mansion somewhere or robbing a bank in such a way that no one got hurt, but this? No. No, he couldn’t allow it. What good were all his efforts to save innocent people if he didn’t do it when danger knocked next door?

He took a step back, dragging his hostage with him. “Get all of your douchebag buddies out of there, right now!”

The man inside the house raised his hands, which contained no weapon of any kind. In fact, it appeared as though they’d broken the window with stones from under the porch. Perhaps they didn’t have any weapons at all. “Dude, is this your house?! No one’s supposed to be home!”

Dakota snarled in the robber’s direction. Not only did the situation piss him off, but he was losing valuable sleep time, which he needed both for his health and his love life. “Come out here now,” he emphasized the words as though they were separate sentences. “Or I will shoot your friend and then you and then the others. Don’t f*****g test me.”

Horrified, the guy quickly scrambled over the broken glass, cutting his hands as he did so. When he came into full view, he half-turned and called into the house. “Jeremy! Kevin! Get out here!”

“Who are you?” asked the teen with the gun in his face.

“Neighborhood watch. Shut the f**k up,” was his reply. That silenced both of them. Dakota waited until the other two presented themselves and exited the house before speaking again. “What the f**k were you planning to do with the kids in that house? And how the hell did you come upon the conclusion that the place was empty?!”

“What?” his hostage answered for them. “There ain’t no kids in that house. There ain’t nobody in that f*****g house. You think we’d be stupid enough to do that?!”

One of the newcomers chimed in. “And we’re not no murderers, neither.”

The first person to climb out of the window actually gave a real answer. About time. “No, man. Dude, okay. The family has kids, but they’re not here. We’re—we’re friends with the babysitter online. That’s how we knew they wouldn’t be here. She posted about it. She—she f*****g posted about it. That the house gave her the creeps so the kids are stayin’ over at her place ‘til the owners get back. That’s how we knew, I swear.”

“Is that true?” he asked his hostage after jostling him slightly and digging the barrel further into his cheek. “Lie to me, and you’re dead.”

“Every word, sir,” the teenager stammered. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Don’t hurt him!” cried one of the group members.

Looking into their eyes, Dakota had a rare change of heart. They really were young, and it looked like their lives were less than ideal, if not awful. They seemed hungry. Sickly. And if they really knew the house was empty, then they hadn’t satisfied his basic rules for killing. Besides, the youth in their faces, and maybe the desperation, too, reminded him of Ken. These kids probably had almost nothing in common with her, but he couldn’t help but feel paternal.

Releasing the teen, he kicked him in the ass as a humorous way to return the guy to his friends. “Get the f**k out of here. I’m calling the police. And if I find out you came back, or you broke into a different house, you best believe that I’ll find each and every one of you. Understood?”

There was a round of nods and even a “Yes, sir.”