"They'll find you and they'll take you away. They'll lock you up and they'll experiment on you and it won't matter why you did what you did, just that you did it."

"I can't believe you guys made it." Christian said. Thankfully he had the trailer to himself because even though theirs was the largest, four adults in its main seating compartment was really all that was comfortable. He smiled sheepishly as he handed over a few clean towels. When Drew had contacted Christian a month ago telling him they would be in Europe this wasn't quite the reunion he had expected.

Drew accepted a towel and held it to his nose. Christian checked the faucet. No water as usual so he grabbed another towel and soaked it with water from their gallon jug. Amanda, who took care of most of the laundry, was going to be pissed.

Drew exchanged towels with a nod while Christian saw to Brett and Kyle. The four of them had all competed on the BMX circuit together when Christian was still living in the U.S. The only difference had been that they were winning competitions and Christian wasn't. So while the three of them had stayed, Christian had left to see if he could fare better in the as yet unsaturated extreme sports world of Europe. Unfortunately for him, or fortunately as it turned out for Circus Gehlhaar, Europe did not yet have enough interest in bicycle tricks or skateboarding to support a real competition circuit.

"I'm sorry about Kurt. He got jumped a couple of months ago so now he's kind of…" Christian let his voice trail off and filled the silence by passing out the rest of their clean towels.

He was still trying to make sense of the last few minutes. The idea of Kurt beating up on his friends was nearly impossible to imagine and he still wasn't exactly sure what had happened. He couldn't imagine Kurt doing such a thing without provocation but at the same time he couldn't see Drew, Kyle, or Brett, the three mellowest guys in the world, provoking him.

"We're roommates," Christian said, suddenly filled with the need to defend Kurt's actions. "Kurt's a good guy, really. You'd like him if you'd met him in different…" But at a look from Drew, Christian let his voice trail off again.

He sat down with his eyes closed. "Dude, I'm really sorry about what happened. Like I said, some people beat him up pretty bad and then," Christian paused wondering how to explain everything else that happened to Kurt that summer, having to leave the circus, disappearing and then reappearing before anyone actually knew he was missing, those scars that everyone refused to talk about. How could he explain what he couldn't even understand? "I just think he's kind of nervous now, about people, because he looks different, you know?" Christian finished at last. But it sounded inadequate even to him.

"Hey, it's cool dude," Drew said rubbing his nose. "He scared me more than anything. He's a pretty crappy fighter. Still, I nearly pissed myself. I thought that was a costume."

Christian managed a strained laugh.

"So you caught the show at least?" Christian asked, desperate to change the subject to anything but Kurt.

"The show rocked," Kyle said, "I can't believe that was the last one."

"I can," Christian said, he listened to the party still going on outside the trailer, oblivious to what had happened, proof that he wasn't the only one glad the tour was over. "Dude, we played that show so many times I used to dream about it."

"Like dream about it in a good way, or dream about screwing it up?" Drew asked.

"Just that I was doing it. I'd hit the pillow and I'd be on stage again like, 'dude! I already did this twice today! I need a break.'" Christian laughed and was relieved when his friends laughed too. "So what are you guys up to?"

"We're taking a break from the Transworld Europe Extreme tour," Brett said with a flourish. He shrugged. "It's been pretty good. We're not competing, it's more like a goodwill thing between American and European companies."

Christian nodded. "When I came out here a couple years ago I was trying to get in on the ground floor with that but there weren't enough riders."

"There are now," Drew said, "you should come back."

"Can't," Christian said, "I wasn't winning remember. All my sponsors dropped me."

"That was then," Drew said, "I bet it would be different now."

"What do you mean?" Christian asked.

"He means you're pulling some sick tricks," Kyle said. "Dude, I'm afraid to even try half the things you did out there tonight."

Christian smiled in spite of himself. "Really?"

"Yeah," Drew said, "throwing yourself over the handlebars and flipping the bike over so you land back on the seat? How do you do that?"

Christian's smile widened. "I worked really hard on that," he said.

"It was cool."

"So, you think I'd start winning contests if I came back to the states?" Christian asked, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He looked around the trailer. It was finally feeling like home to him. Then again, he'd always hated the way he'd run away from the BMX competition circuit with his tail between his legs. What if he could go back and be triumphant? Would it be worth leaving this place?

"You totally would," Drew said. Kyle and Brett nodded in agreement.

"Check it out, I've got a clothing sponsorship from a German company that's interested in getting into the American market. You could come with us and meet the rep. You speak German. They'd love you," Kyle said.

"Oh," Christian was suddenly flustered, "I've got to think about it. I've got a pretty good gig here."

"Well, you should at least come with us for a little while," Drew said. "I mean, you said you're done with the show right?"

Christian scratched his head. It would be cool to have the four of them together again even if for just a little while. And the image of himself on the winners platform was almost intoxicating, a dream come true. "Well," he said, "we do have to be in Hamburg in Germany in about a week, but yeah, I'll think about that." But even as he said it, he was nodding his head yes.


Kurt sat in Wolfgang and Maria's trailer squeezing his eyes shut and wishing that it were possible for a person to, by sheer force of will, to melt or shatter into a million pieces. He wanted to simply hide in his bunk in the dark forever, but since Christian shared his trailer and he was there with his friends who he'd attacked a few minutes ago, that wasn't possible. So he just sat there, his winding and unwinding his tail around one of legs of the chair he was sitting in and waited.

"What were you thinking?" Wolfgang asked.

Kurt opened his eyes and looked from where Wolfgang was pacing across to where Maria stood with her arms fold across her chest. She looked stern, but also concerned. Wolfgang looked livid, almost hysterical. Kurt shrank back. He wanted to say he wasn't thinking, that he had made a mistake, but that wasn't really true. He had made a mistake yes, but he had been thinking, he'd just been thinking the wrong things. "I don't know," he said.

"You can't beat up members of the audience." Wolfgang said.

"I know," Kurt said.

"Then why were you doing it?"

Kurt shook his head again and rubbed the palm of his hand where the beads of his rosary had cut into it and made him bleed. "I don't know," he said at last.

Wolfgang whirled away from him, running his hands through his hair. "You can't do things like that Kurt. You can't draw attention to yourself that way."

"But… But what if I thought they might hurt me?" Kurt asked.

"But they weren't going to hurt you. They were looking for Christian." Wolfgang said.

Without thinking, Kurt pulled his feet in beneath him so he was perched in the chair instead of sitting in it. "But I didn't know that," Kurt tried to explain. "I thought they were saying something different. I thought they…"

Wolfgang spun back around. "Don't you understand that that doesn't matter?" He asked Kurt, leaning in so close that Kurt felt pinned to the chair, feeling nearly as threatened as he had just a few minutes before in the tree. "They'll find you and they'll take you away Kurt. They'll lock you up and they'll experiment on you and it won't matter why you did what you did, just that you did it."

"Wolfgang…" Maria tried to interrupt.

Kurt was speechless. He had no idea what Wolfgang was talking about. He didn't know what to think about what had happened on the path and he certainly couldn't even begin to figure it out here, with Wolfgang screaming things that made even less sense at him. "I …" he began but there wasn't anything he could think of to say. He just wanted to get out of there.

"No listen Kurt, you've got to promise me you'll be more careful," Wolfgang said.

"But I…"

"Promise!" Wolfgang shouted shoving Kurt's chair back against the wall.

Kurt shook his head in surprise, too shocked by Wolfgang's behavior to say anything.

"Wolfgang stop it!" Maria yelled. She grabbed him by the arm, pulling him away. They struggled a moment and the motion caused the chair Kurt had been perched in to topple to the ground. He landed lightly on his feet, not sure what was even happening anymore, but ready to defend Maria if necessarily since it appeared that Wolfgang had apparently gone mad.

"Enough!" Maria shouted at her fiancé. "Enough of this."

Wolfgang seemed to deflate where he was standing, his and Maria's arms still locked together. "I know what I'm talking about," he said in a low voice, "I know what I'm talking about because I've seen it happen."

Maria shook her head. "You think you saw it happen," she said. Kurt watched her brush a tear from Wolfgang's cheek.

Kurt took a few steps towards the door. He didn't understand what was happening but it didn't seem like he was needed any longer, the conversation had turned inward and didn't include him.

"Kurt, I know what I'm talking about," Wolfgang said suddenly. Kurt stopped with his hand on the doorknob of their trailer, feeling caught. "They'll come for you if you're not careful. They'll come and they'll take you away."

Closing his hand tighter around the knob Kurt asked, "who?"

"Nobody," Maria said. "Nobody's coming for anyone. Stop it Wolfgang. Enough."

Kurt looked from Maria to Wolfgang and back again. What were they talking about? "Who's going to come for me?" Kurt asked again.

Wolfgang looked like he wanted to speak but was oddly silent. Maria gave him a long look, mouthed the word "no" and turned away, walking back into the depths of the trailer where their sleeping area was. Wolfgang shook his head.

"Nobody," he said. "It's just crazy stories, urban legends. Go back to your trailer Kurt. If you see Christian, tell him I want to talk to him." Wolfgang turned away.

"Wolfgang?" Kurt asked.

"Forget it," Wolfgang said without turning back, "you can go. Just be more careful okay?"

Kurt nodded. He released the catch to the door and flung it open. Once outside he took great gulps of air as though he'd been suffocating inside of Wolfgang's trailer. He leaned against it with his eyes closed and let himself slide down the cool metal into a sitting position on the ground next to it. Without thinking his hand strayed to his pocket and he withdrew his rosary, wrapping the beads comfortingly around his hand as he tried not to think about how the world seemed to have gone mad and thanked God that the argument raging inside the trailer was in a language he didn't speak.