“Yeah. I cut myself all the time, then.” He’s watching my fingers run over his, and I don’t think he’s breathing.
I can feel him wanting to say yes. He knows the act would be so much more exciting if we did this. For us, and for the audience.
“Now you’re a man. You don’t cut yourself anymore, and you won’t cut me.” I realize how close we’re standing to teach other. I get that fluttering, weak feeling in my belly and leg muscles again.
He turns his hands over so my fingertips are stroking his palms. “Why do you want me to hurl knives at you, Ryah?”
I don’t really have a logical answer to that. I can just feel how amazing it would be. “There are a few moments in the show when the audience gets so quiet and still that it feels like the air has been charged with electricity. When Pamela is twisting and turning high above the arena. When Elke and Anouk and I are standing atop our cantering horses. When you first take out your knives. But it’s all over so quickly. Imagine how long we could draw the tension out if you were throwing knives at me. Imagine if you were blindfolded. Imagine if the knives were on fire—”
Cale bursts out laughing. “Sparkle, you’re crazy!”
I grin up at him. “Well, yeah. But the good kind, right?”
He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks deeply into my eyes. “Definitely the good kind.”
My mouth suddenly feels dry, and my tongue darts out to lick my lips. Not knowing how to deal with him being this close to me, I hurry on. “Most of all, I want to do it because it will be the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done. I want to fill my life with wonderful things. Don’t you?”
Cale just stares at me for a full minute. I hold my breath. He has to say yes. He’s as daring and crazy as I am, deep down.
“If I so much as draw one drop of blood, we are never, ever trying this again. Do you understand me?”
I squeal and throw my arms around Cale’s neck, hugging him with all the strength in my arms. He disentangles me from his grasp.
“Ryah! You need to listen to me. One drop of blood and we call it off for good. I mean it.”
“Yes, ringmaster,” I say, but I’m brimming over with too much excitement to stop myself from beaming up at him.
He squeezes my waist, and then lets me go. “All right, crazy girl. Though I don’t know who of us is crazier right now. Probably me.”
I clasp my hands together and look around. “Where shall we start?”
“You want to start now? Right now?”
“Of course now!”
Cale gives me an exasperated look, but his mouth is glimmering with amusement. “Let’s finish the horses. Then we’ll go to the tent.”
I hurry through the feeding and the brushing of the horses. The night is warm, and so we leave their rugs off them. Then I grab Cale’s hand and half drag, half bounce along at his side as we head toward the big top.
Inside, the tent is in darkness, and Cale switches on a couple of the overhead spotlights. He looks around and nods at the far side of the tent. “Go and stand in front of that board.”
I hurry over the straw and brace my back against the wood. It’s the reverse side of one of the props for the show.
He examines me critically as he takes two knives from his holsters. “Try a T-pose. And don’t move. Obviously.”
He holds the blades with a practiced grip, the muscles of his forearms flexing. I don’t reply, because I know Cale would interpret it as moving and I don’t want to spook him. On the inside I’m vibrating with excitement and I want to concentrate on keeping as still as possible.
Cale takes deep breath, lets it out heavily, and mutters, “You have no idea how far out of my comfort zone I am right now.”
Silence falls around us. I keep my eyes fixed on Cale as he raises a knife up over his shoulder by the blade, and then hurls it right at me.
It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to flinch, not to make a peep, not to even look like I’m afraid. Because I am. I’m petrified. I have complete confidence in Cale’s skills, but my body is still screaming at me, What the hell are you doing! A man is hurling knives at you! Move, idiot!
The blade hits the board by my head and sinks into the wood. I let out my breath slowly, forcing myself not to look at it. Cale changes a knife into his throwing hand, raises it, and throws. One by one, the knives thud into the board around me. I feel rather than see them. Either side of my head. By my knees. And lastly, one above my head. Five altogether, although I know he carries six.
Cale straightens up. I turn and look at where the knives have landed. They’re all a foot away from my body. If I speak right away I know my voice will shake, so I clear my throat and take a breath. “Well, that’s not going to thrill anyone.”
He strides over to me and yanks his knives from the board. “Give me a chance to get my nerve up. I’m hurling knives at you.”
Cale takes up position again. He takes a knife by the blade between his thumb and forefinger, and then raises his eyebrows in a you ready? expression. I nod.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. As steady as a metronome.
This time they land closer, and I can feel the whisper of air as the blades bite into the wood. I smile up at Cale when he comes over, my arms still stretched wide. “That was amazing. Let’s go again. Even closer this time.”
His eyes don’t leave my face as he gathers each of his knives, wresting them from the board one by one. When he reaches down to my legs, a shiver goes through me, as if he’s touched me. A long, slow touch that caresses my skin.
When he straightens, he’s standing close to me as he slides each knife into its holster. My heartrate seems to double. Is it my heightened awareness because of the danger, or is there something different about Cale suddenly? Different in the way he’s looking at me?
“All right,” he murmurs, and goes back to his mark.
This time, the knives hit the wood so close to my body that I can’t move for fear of slicing myself. Jesus bippity. I think he’s got his nerve up.
As he wrests the knives from the board, I realize he’s drawn the sixth knife from the holster each time, only to put it back again without throwing it.
“What are you saving the last knife for?” I ask him.
“To gut myself with if I accidentally hurt you.”
I laugh, but it dies on my lips when I realize he’s not joking.
He throws three more rounds, and then calls it a night. As we step out of the tent and into the cool evening air, neither of us say anything. I want to put into words the excitement and pleasure I feel. My gratitude that he wants to try this with me. I don’t really know how to express it. Thanks for throwing knives at me seems deficient and silly.
While I’m still trying to find the words, Cale turns away and heads for his caravan, calling without looking back, “Night, sparkle.”
I watch him unbuckling his holster and walking up the steps. The door closes behind him, and I realize I’ve lost my chance to find out how he’s feeling about what we’ve just done.
Chapter Ten
Cale
There’s electricity crackling through my body as I lie in the dark. I can’t remember ever feeling like this, as if I’m hooked up to the mains. I can still feel the cool steel against my fingers and see Ryah’s eyes as she watched me so trustingly. I relive each throw, each satisfying bite of blade into the wood. The vibrant beauty in Ryah’s face. I feel like I could run to the moon and back, and then pull Ryah out of bed and ask her to do it all over again.