If you're looking for an adventure in the morally grey, and a crash course of the human condition, this is the story for you! What is good and evil? Where is that line drawn, and who decides that? Packed with humor, danger, feels, and awkward relati...
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"What did they rig?" Rachel found herself unable to stay quiet, and he let out a sigh with a half-smile.
"One of the trapezes."
"Wait, you mean those things you fly through the air on?" Rachel was horrified at the thought, but Tanner just shrugged.
"I didn't normally do the routine, though I'd done it a thousand times and it wasn't that complicated. Our normal guy said he couldn't stand and we were in the middle of a show. The acts were more thrilling with no safety net, and as skilled as I was, I didn't need one. If I didn't have the superstitious habit of keeping a knife on me at all times for luck, I'd likely be dead.
"The wire snapped and I fell in the air, but luckily for me I held onto the end of the trapeze long enough that I almost reached the wooden center pole. I had to propel myself hard enough that I could catch it with my knife. I was moving far too fast though, and I could only use it to slow me and shorten the fall. The knife tore into the wood from the force, but it ripped out of my hand halfway down.
"I landed on my feet from a much higher height than one can safely, and the audience was silent. We were in the middle of a show, and I had to stand up, despite the pain, and wave them off so they would applaud.
"I tore several muscles, sprained a few joints, and snapped a bone or two. It took me quite some time to fully recuperate, and even now the damage has never fully healed. I don't have full range of motion in my dominant arm after how I destroyed it to save my life. It works fine if I don't raise it above my shoulder, and I can carry and lift people at chest height, but I can't handle much pressure with my arm over my shoulder.
"I lost my ability to hold a person above me and toss them with my hand. Not only had they attempted to kill me, they had torn my means for living and my entire way of life away from me. So, when I got out of the hospital, I was blinded by my desire for vengeance.
"The rest of the people in the circus did tame stunts. Acrobatics and animal taming, nothing like throwing knives at people, and no one had half the muscle mass or agility that I did. They were all pretty easy to kill, I guess."
A shiver ran down Rachel's spine as Tanner said it in monotone, like telling her what the weather would be like this evening; dark, with a side of death.
"Lacy was only a kid though, barely sixteen. Even with their corpses on the ground, her being the only one left, and even the source of the attempt on my life, I couldn't bring myself to kill her. When it was over, I had killed ten people, the people who had been my family, my closest friends, and the people that should have protected me."
The crickets had all but died off weeks ago, and winter was only a breath away, so it was only the two of them in silence. Nothing she could think to say would mean anything, and her mind was stuck back on his story. She dared a glance at him and his eyes were on her, watching for her reaction, but she didn't know what she was supposed to feel. They sounded like they'd had it coming, but he'd also killed ten defenseless people. Vengeance wasn't the same as self-defense, and those had been people he was close to.
