Girl on a Wire Read Online Free Page B

confusion rose around me. In the crush, someone got close enough that I felt the heat of breath. I sensed that it wasn’t Remy, and stepped back.
    “Stay away from my daughter,” my father called, from nearby.
    “Turn them back on!” A voice boomed out. Thurston’s.
    The lights popped on again, brighter than before. Thurston stalked through the mass of performers to the middle of the ring. “What a lovely welcome for our newest members,” he said, soaked with sarcasm.
    Behind him, my father clutched Sam’s bicep. My cousin’s face had a long gash across the right cheek that oozed a thick line of deep red. One of his eyes was pinched shut. He wore a cocky smile that must have been painful.
    Remy was several feet away, pressing his shoulder into Novio’s chest. Staying between him and Thurston. And, more importantly, between him and Sam. Novio’s face was also going Technicolor with bruises.
    “I see the rumors about how well the Maroni and Garcia clans get along are true,” Thurston said. “And since we have members of both right here, I may as well say this. As it currently stands, the finale belongs to the Garcias. But now I have Emil Maroni to fit into the order.” I resisted checking Dad’s reaction. “And it’s hard for me to imagine where else to put him. There’s the matter of Jules to decide too.”
    Our wire act was rare in that it wasn’t a large-scale family affair, but just the two of us, and typically each walking solo at different spots in the show. Thurston hadn’t mentioned Mom because horse acts never got the grand finale.
    Novio said, “You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t end the show with a rope walker.”
    We did not walk on ropes.
    Thurston ignored his outburst. “The day after tomorrow, our wire walkers and our trapeze artists will perform before the final dress rehearsal. Whoever impresses me most will get the finale, the runner-up will get the plum placement right beforehand, and last place closes the first act. Everyone wins, so no more fighting. Figure out how to get along.”
    My father nodded, regally. “Maronis have never minded proving ourselves.”
    Novio shrugged off Remy. Thurston took their silence as agreement, smiling as he headed back to the dais. I was about to start toward Dad when I glanced down and spotted it.
    There, at my feet, lay a red rose, with a stem clipped to the length of a finger.
    I bent and picked it up. The thorns were covered by some kind of rough gray string or cord wound around the stem. Odd. An even odder feeling passed through me when I touched it . . . like a shiver, but on the inside. I straightened and looked around for a secret admirer—or any kind of admirer—but all I found was Remy shaking his head at me.
    “Julieta,” my father called, “let’s go home.”
    I kept the mystery rose with me as we left the big top, but it hardly made me feel better about the disastrous evening. Neither did my final look back, where Remy was still watching me. He raised his hand in a wave good-bye, and I couldn’t read his expression. All I could tell was that it lingered on the flower.
    I was sure it wasn’t from him.

three
----
    Sam and I followed a couple steps behind my mom and dad on the journey from the big top back to the RV. We passed the long trailers that housed the men and women of the work crew, and the shouts of laughter ringing from doors open to admit cool air made me even more aware of our outsider status. Would we ever be at home here? I wasn’t so sure anymore. After the fight and blackout, the night felt unfamiliar and alive with threats.
    “What did he say to you?” I asked Sam.
    Sam said, “That we shouldn’t be here. And that we’d better not be here to try and steal his family’s spotlight, since that’s what the Maroni voodoo is all about. I hope we do take the finale. Jackass.”
    “What Maroni voodoo? They’re crazy,” I said.
    “You wanted to come here,” my dad said, startling me. I hadn’t realized