Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 494. | What You Sow (by Sub Urban)
Henry’s POV
I stroked over the sign and chuckled.
I let go of a long breath.
Just seeing his traces everywhere made me relax a bit, though it also intensified the NEED to find him instantly.
"We aren’t in hell; we are in a space. He did it again; he saved us all."
Mrs. Howard was still pulling at the white beard attached to her face, which was long enough to touch the ground.
"The same thing he did with these rat people?"
"Yes, like with the zombies. I don’t know why a circus, but we are safe here."
Safetynet for the twins, an upholstered ground in the pool, and the fire around the rings didn’t feel hot.
"Where is he? He has to come and remove that!" She pulled on the beard again, grimacing in pain.
"I don’t know, but I will find him."
"And Ren?" Mrs. Howard asked.
Ren had instantly crawled under the little table between the four-seater he sat at after Omar had yelled for everyone to stay seated.
He was holding onto the table leg, no matter how much the staff sergeant had tried to pull him out when the plain tilted.
All the while Danny’s mom, who was busy pulling her son back to the seat he knelt on to stare and call for Kenny unnecessarily, the doctor who wanted to go to Dr. Lawrence, Jordan’s parents, Harry, and one of the twins were elevated into the air when the plane suddenly lost height.
And Kenny...
I clenched my fist, remembering the feeling of a bone cracking.
I think I broke his wrist.
FUCK.
I couldn’t control my strength because I had a feeling he would somehow disappear from my sight, even though I knew he would never teleport away by himself, and that fact also forced me to hold onto him in case I had to forcefully teleport him out of there.
I didn’t want to bring him out using the shadowy energy—using something that could harm him, but everything was better than him staying inside a plane rushing towards the ground.
I had made two shields, attaching crystal beams from shield 1 to shield 2, then to the body of the airplane.
It was tricky, because the crystals again tended to form into spheres, but it worked.
The shields would only lessen the impact, but nobody knew what the result would be or if the impact was enough for it to explode nevertheless.
I had waited as long as I could, but a short moment before the first shield would come into contact with the ground, when the staff sergeant pulled Mrs. Howard away from Kenny to hug her, I let the acid spread, intending to bring us both back home.
However, I woke up here, and I woke up without him.
"Ren is alright, eating snacks, posing as a pantomime."
A flicker of worry and relief crossed her face, but then she glanced away, spotting something before grabbing the steel bars with renewed anger.
"YOU OLD MAN, HOW DARE YOU!"
I turned around and spotted the staff sergeant across from us inside a little ice cream stand.
Kids with smudged faces ordered some, and he made their orders with a big smile on his face.
"COME HERE THIS INSTANT AND HELP ME!!" Mrs. Howard bellowed in sheer shock at his audacity.
"Some people are under control, maybe by Kenny," I mumbled.
Not everyone.
"HE WANTS THE OLD MAN TO SERVE ICE CREAM TO A BUNCH OF BRATS??"
Danny, but not Omar or Jordan.
Mrs. Howard, but not the staff sergeant.
Kitty, Henrietta, and I.
"Everyone who has upgraded can move by themselves," I realized.
But that could mean that Kenny hadn’t intended for us to move in the first place, just that he wasn’t able to stop us.
"I have to search for Kenny." I turned around to go back.
"WAIT! Open the wagon! And use that darn power of yours for that." She pointed at the beard with closed eyes, as if she couldn’t face this kind of hair.
"I don’t have my powers." Kenny’s place, Kenny’s rules, although it seemed that he operated the circus unconsciously.
She clutched two bars and rattled them like an impatient toddler.
"GET ME OUT!!"
"Every time I damage circus inventory, my position gets reset." I prepared her for my disappearance, then grabbed her steel bars and bent them apart.
As I thought, darkness engulfed me.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" The voice now sounded more familiar to me.
"MAY I PRESENT TO YOU, THE ALMIGHTY... HMMM, IS IT A LION? IS IT A WOLF? IS IT A MONSTER? WHATEVER IT IS, WE ARE PRESENTING HIM EXCLUSIVELY TO YOU! In addition, we have... an ordinary tiger."
Yes, it was Mr. Lawrence, speaking through the speaker just like on the airplane.
Drums rolled, lights blinded, a whip, a "JUMP!", a push, the rings of fire, and me landing in the pool of planes.
This time I didn’t immediately stand up but rummaged through the paper planes, searching for a clue to Kenny’s whereabouts.
The motif on the drawings didn’t change, but they weren’t all from that sunny afternoon inside Mrs. Howard’s office.
Some of me outside, some of me smiling, some of me sleeping, eating, laughing...
It was as if he had added new drawings, just as he had promised; instead of a trunk, he gave me a pool of them.
I clenched my jaw to stop myself from screaming.
I stepped out of the pool, closed my eyes, and took a long, deep breath.
Blending out all the noise around me, I opened my eyes again.
I looked around.
Ren was sipping juice and watching the performance around him with amazement; Danny called for me while trying to get down from the unicycle without falling; Henrietta had vomited all over herself while spinning; this time both of the twins fell into the safety net;
Kitty again clutched the platform, not daring to jump down and through the rings of fire.
I eventually jumped out of the small red and white barricade surrounding the circus ring.
I stepped closer to the audience and took in every one of the faces.
And with a bit of time, I recognized a few of them that weren’t smudged.
After looking through the large audience, I left the tent again, passing the spectators on the hay path outside.
A little clown playing the violin to encourage customers to enter was at the entrance of the tent, and I heard Mrs. Howard hurl insults.
"ARE YOU STILL DISTRIBUTING ICE CREAM, YOU STUBBORN MULE!"
A man on long stilts bypassed me, giving me a flyer, and this time I took it.
On the flyer, there was a woman grinning at me, her upper body covered by hands, her eyes, ears, and heart uncovered, with hands hovering shortly before the mentioned spots.
This motif, I knew from Kenny’s stories, but more prominently from the tattoo on his back.
Just that, on his back, the woman was covered by the hands.
I clutched the paper and looked up to the man on stilts, but he was already gone.
It was night, the stars shining brightly, big firs all around the circus area; this was inside the woods.
I turned onto the dirt path horizontally to the huge tent I had just come from, full of wagons and vendors, including Mrs. Howard and the staff sergeant.
Instead of left, I turned right first, walking around the spectators, some smudged, some not.
There was food; there were souvenirs of every artist, even a little Henrietta with a few knives inserted in her upper body; there was an empty space between two wagons with mirrors that showed distorted reflections.
I saw a girl with a long, thick brown braid and followed her to the mirrors.
In between spectators, I spotted my distorted reflection in one of the mirrors.
Black lipstick, my hair was combed back, and on top were two little combs with two fluffy ears attached.
Not a lion, neither a wolf, a monster for sure, but a puppy first and foremost.
Feeling my heart scream out for Kenny yet again, I noticed movement on my side.
My hand shot out to the girl with the braid beside me, who just wanted to leave, grabbing her by the neck.
I chuckled, looking at her confused face.
From the audience inside the circus tent, which had under them some of the Four Hundred, teachers, students from his class, and his prior caretaker—people I had either seen myself or seen while stalking him back then.
And now Elisa.
He had sucked in everyone he had ever known into this space.
