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JACK CROW
Jacksonville – Mississippi

"A good show, sir."
I nod in response, reaching out to the ticket booth and taking my ticket from the young woman behind the counter. I walk slowly, adjusting the strap of my backpack on my shoulder, lifting my head, and facing the enormous arch at the entra
nce.



CROW CIRCUS

I stare seriously at the glowing sign, shining brightly as people pass through the entrance, but I remain still.

"See that?"

The cheerful, booming voice of the old man beside me, who pats my shoulder, makes me laugh and turn my face toward him.

"It looks perfect, Dad."

I stretch out my arm, resting it on his shoulder, then turn my face back to the front, staring at the new circus sign that arrived this morning.

"This is beautiful, my son!"

He takes a deep breath, gazing proudly at the people coming in, smiling at every enchanted look he sees on their faces.

"This is pure magic. The magic of making everyone who passes through this arch feel like they’re stepping into a magical world."

My father turns his face to me, and I do the same, seeing his smile fully bloom as he looks at me with so much love.

"That’s what the circus is, Jack. A magical world."

He nods and tightens his grip on my shoulder.

"And one day, when you're my age, I hope I’ll be able to admire you standing beside your own children, showing them the magic of our world, just as my father showed me, and I showed you.

Because one thing we learn in our world is that it’s not the tent that makes the circus—it's the family inside it. Always the family."

He removes his hand from my shoulder and spreads his fingers across my chest, over my heart.

"You take care of the circus, and it takes care of you."

He smiles at me with warmth, spreading his arms and pointing toward the entrance.

"Because this is your home."

"Hey, man! You’re blocking the entrance."

The angry voice pulls me out of my memories. I turn my face toward the man leaning against a circus pillar with a bottle in his hand.

"Why was the rope cut..." I mutter to myself, suspicious.

"Something wrong?"

The loud voice of Dior, Amelia’s husband, comes from behind me.

"Someone cut the ropes..." I say as I stand up.

"I know."

I lock eyes with Dior as he stumbles away from the pillar and walks toward me. I grip the strap of my backpack tightly, staring at the man who used to eat at my table, who was loved by my father like one of his sons—and who, in the end, betrayed it all.

"I'm talking to you, idiot."

He stops a few steps away, hiccuping.

"Are you deaf? Either stop blocking the entrance and get your ass out of the way, or go in already."

"Just business, Jack!"

My fingers grip Dior’s arm tightly just as he lands another blow to my stomach.

I remember the look in his eyes—the pain in my chest when I saw his betrayal. A pain far worse than the knife he drove into my flesh.

"You looking for trouble, pal?" he growls, stepping forward. "What are you doing here..."

Your blood.

That’s what my mind answers as I stare at one of the reasons that brought me back home.

But I don’t say it. I just glare at him, my heart rotting with the hatred and bitterness of a betrayal that, for ten years, devoured every last trace of anything good that might’ve survived inside me.

What was left was the desire for vengeance—from the beggar found near the lakeside, stabbed and half-faced, his body shattered.

I refused to die.

I refused to close my eyes and accept death’s embrace—not before dragging them all with me into hell.

"Sorry, I was just mesmerized by the sign," I say humbly, lowering my voice as my eyes fall to the ground.

I pull the hood of my jacket over my head, feeling the tension in my body, my muscles coiled tight, aching to kill him right then and there. But I won’t.

I didn’t endure ten years of hell just to let revenge be so quick.

"I’m going in."

I show him my ticket and walk slowly, every nerve in my body burning with the effort not to turn around and end his life.

No. Not here.

Not when I came back to take back everything that’s mine and make my traitors taste the hell my vengeance will bring.

I’ve lived for this moment—for the day I would finally return home. And only God knows how hard I searched after I recovered.

I was found by an old woman on the banks of the Louisiana River. She nursed me back to health, along with her gypsy clan.

Eight months had passed before I could leave her bed and begin my search for the circus. But I found no trace.

Only when I reached Virginia did I hear they had moved to New Mexico. I also learned that after the last Crow died, Spook became the new circus owner by marrying my father’s widow.

I followed them down the road, surviving as a cargo handler, working for truckers at gas stations in exchange for food and rides to New Mexico.

And once I got there, I was thrown into hell again—when I found out the circus owner’s wife had taken her own life. She shot herself in the head, and two weeks after her death, Spook left on a tour across Europe.

I screamed.

I cursed my life—and him—for stealing everything from me: my family, my home.

With no documents and no money, I was nothing but a miserable vagrant, forced to fight to survive.

And I survived for this day. Vengeance was the only thing that kept me alive.

It was vengeance that made me work twenty hours a day in a metal shop, an axe in my hand, never stopping.

It was vengeance that gave me focus, that got me up in the morning, that kept me eating.

It was vengeance that led me into the dark world of underground fighting—battling to the death.

It was vengeance that turned me into a hired killer, doing whatever it took to survive.

And it was vengeance that made me gather all my savings, board a bus, and come to Jacksonville after hearing rumors that the Crow Circus had returned to North America after its grand European tour.

I glance around, walking quietly past the booths and tents, analyzing everything.

I recognize a few faces—and others I don’t. They must be new.

I see the themed rides: the giant Ferris wheel, the carousel, the shooting booths.

Then my eyes fix on a path between two tents. It’s empty. I head that way and cross through.

The darkness helps me move unseen past the circus workers hauling the Globe of Death in a trailer.

Everything is nostalgic—the smell of sweets, popcorn, trampled earth—and I recall every step I once took alongside my father between these tents.

But I’m not that boy anymore.

There’s nothing left of him inside me.

What remains is something dead. Lifeless. A shadow driven only by vengeance and bloodlust.

It’s not just my body that changed, with scars and tattoos—what I became outside is only a reflection of what I became inside.

I lean against a platform, gazing toward a tent in the distance, where a soft sound of Creedence plays.

I step forward once I confirm the way is clear. My hand stretches out to pull the flap aside, and I enter as I approach.

"What the hell?! What does a man have to do to not be bothered in this damn place?!"

The angry voice—one I hadn’t heard in years—shouts from inside.

I smile, stepping farther in, staring at Fredo’s shadow cast against the back of the tent, divided by a stretched bamboo screen.

"I said I don’t want to see any damn face until it’s time to get on stage!"

He growls, his hands waving in the air.

"Not even if it’s an old friend?" I ask softly, taking the backpack off my shoulder and tossing it to the floor.

I hear a stool crash to the ground as his breath catches and his shadow shifts slowly.

"I must be dead. That’s the only reason I’d be hearing a ghost talking to me..."

"Depends," I say, watching his hand grip the divider as his breathing quickens. "If you drank Baba’s cheap vodka, maybe you could..."

I fall silent as I see the small man—who has the biggest heart I’ve ever known—take a step forward, revealing his body. His face is painted, and he’s wearing his clown costume, looking at me with tear-filled red eyes.

"Hello, my friend," I say to him, pulling back the hood from my head and raising my face, looking directly at him.

Fredo scans my face with watery eyes, taking in the scars along the side of my cheek. His mouth falls slightly open, and he exhales through his lips, letting the brush in his hand fall to the ground.

"Jack..." he murmurs, stunned.

My left knee is already touching the floor when he walks toward me with his arms open.

"Oh my God, Jack, you're alive..." he says hoarsely, his arms wrapping around me tightly as he sniffs quietly.

I close my eyes as I receive his embrace, swallowed by the damned longing I felt for my home—for the family that was stolen from me. Fredo takes a step back, holding my face in his hands.

"Alive." He laughs through his tears. "You’re alive, you son of a bitch! After making me cry, drinking like a rotten skunk, eaten up by the pain of losing my brother... And now you show up here, alive... God, you bastard, you're alive!"

I laugh with him, nodding my head up and down, my hand lifting and pressing flat against his face.

"I came back home, my brother," I whisper, letting my gaze linger on his face. "I came back to reclaim my home and everything that was stolen from me."

Fredo blinks, confused, staring at me, his gaze slowly locking onto the s
cars across my face.