Like Sheep
A/N: This is a very special thanks to my best friend EVER for helping me with life in general; being my soon-to-be cofounder of our club at school; and especially with helping me write my stories and giving me great ideas. Without her, I seriously wouldn't have these stories posted. At all. So all the people who love my stories….yeah, you have Morgan to thank.
Chapter Four
Amber groaned, rolling to her side and peering up at her assailant.
Peter's malicious blue eyes glared down at her, his face red with fury. He held a bat in his hand
and his bull-hook gleamed in the light from the tent's lamps.
"Peter…" Amber said, her eyes wide. "What are you doing?"
While his face could not hide his emotions, his voice was calm, "I should have known, really. It
seems so obvious now…. I should have realized you were one of those freaks. Did you honestly
think that once your girlfriend pulled her little stunt I wouldn't figure you out?"
"You were there?"
"I arrived just in time to see your freak show."
"We're not freaks," Amber said bravely. "We just have souls. Unlike you."
Peter sneered at her before surging forward and grabbing her by her hair and yanking her
upward. Amber screamed in agony and clutched at his hands, trying to get him to release her
from his grip.
"Peter! Stop!" she howled.
He ignored her and threw her against the wall. She slumped against it slightly with her back to
Peter and hurriedly looked over her shoulder at him.
"After all this circus has done for you," Peter continued, his anger beginning to show. "Everyone
loved you, you know that? And all the while you've been a sneaky, conniving bitch."
"And you've been a heartless monster!" Amber screamed.
He shoved her face into the wall and pressed himself against her. She forced the whimper that
threatened to escape her throat back down and tried to remain calm.
"Don't…..test….me, Elefanti," Peter growled.
A shiver ran through her at the way he said her nickname, just as it had earlier that day. He let
her go, moving backwards, and she fell backwards.
"Just tell me why, Amber. Why the hell do you value them more than us?" Peter shouted,
pointing his hand towards the elephants. Amber could see the bat laying a few feet away: Peter
must have dropped it when he grabbed her by her hair. She lunged for it in a desperate attempt
to protect herself. She had almost reached it when Peter's foot came up and kicked her in the
ribs, hard. Amber wheezed and clutched her side, halting her movements.
"W-w-why are you doing this?" Amber gasped around the searing pain in her chest. Please, please,
someone, come, she thought desperately. She hoped that Victoria, or Nathaniel, would come
looking for her and stop Peter before he ended up seriously hurting her.
He looked at her with a hard glint in his eyes. A slow, evil smile slowly spread across his face.
"I have an affinity for the theatrical, remember?"
Amber watched him warily as he came toward her again. Peter gripped her upper arm and
pulled her up again, and threw her across the room. The elephants shifted their feet and began
some low rumbling.
"Shut up!" Peter roared.
Amber looked up at him through pain-filled eyes. Sudesh broke away from his mother and
charged at Peter, giving an awkward trumpet. Peter looked at the baby with disgust and got out
his bull-hook. He struck Sudesh across the face and was getting ready for another swing,
ignoring Sudesh's pained whine. Amber could see blood drip from the cut on the baby's face, and
without considering the situation, threw herself at Peter.
"Leave him ALONE!" she screeched.
Peter, in a rage, brushed her off and began beating her with the wooden end of his bull-hook.
Sudesh gave a frightened trumpet and ducked behind his mother, and Amber tried to cover her
face with her hands.
"Stop it!" she begged. "Stop, please!"
"You stupid little bitch!" Peter snarled. "You dumb whore!"
Suddenly the blows were gone and Amber chanced a peek. Her arms were ripped away from her
face and Peter hit her once across the face with his bare hand. There was a scratch on his hand
that was bleeding profusely, and a bruise forming on his face from where her fist had hit him
when she had jumped him.
He hit her again in the face. "You love them so much, huh? Ready to sacrifice yourself for them?"
he roared. He stepped away from her and pulled a gun out from his pocket that Amber hadn't
been aware that he had had.
"Keep your eyes open, bitch," he told her before pointing the gun first at her, and then the
matriarch of the herd.
"Wait- WAIT!" Amber screamed. "No, Peter don't, please! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please don't
hurt them!"
Peter pulled the trigger and a bullet flew towards the matriarch. It didn't kill her, but wounded
her, and her shrill trumpets broke Amber's ear drums. The other elephants went into alarm and
began thundering around and their terrified cries joined the matriarch's. Peter aimed for the
eldest elephant again and this time she stopped moving and fell to the floor, taking a teenage
elephant with her.
"NO!" Amber screamed. She tackled Peter, who was caught off guard, and they toppled to the
ground.
Amber beat him as hard as she could, her small fists hitting any place that she could, all the
while she could feel tears threatening to boil over.
"You asshole, do you know what you've done? Do you have ANY IDEA? How could you, how
COULD YOU? I hope you burn in hell, you bastard!" Amber cried.
Peter swung up his arm that held the bull-hook and successfully knocked her off of him. He
straddled her then, peering furiously at her from one swollen eye. Amber struggled relentlessly
beneath him and he wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth with a wince.
"You're going to pay for that, you ungrateful bitch," he said quietly. He then moved his hands
and grabbed some spare rope that lie beside them near the elephant enclosure. In the
background Amber could hear the elephants' continued shrieks, and she could see the teenage
elephant struggle under their dead leader in an effort to stand.
Peter bound Amber's hands together and when he was sure they were tied securely, he laid his
gun and bull-hook to his right and ripped open Amber's circus costume easily. She stared at him,
wide eyed, disbelieving about what he was going to do.
He chuckled without humor. "I'm not going to rape you, insolent whore. But, since you love our
big friends over here so much, I figured I'd give you a little…..reminder of them, to carry with you
always."
He brushed her hair aside from her collar bone, pausing long enough to sniff her hair deeply. He
smirked. "Mmmm, strawberry," he crooned. Amber shivered.
Peter reached beside him and grabbed the bull-hook and pointed it's sharp end at her.
"This is going to hurt….just…a….little," Peter warned her with a malicious smirk, punctuating his
last words by pressing the bull-hook into her chest till blood began to drip slowly.
Amber shut her eyes, trying to endure the pain as best as she could. She howled as the blade
sunk deeper and then began to move. Peter's hand was relatively steady and Amber didn't move
for fear that he would do something worse to her if she caused him to mess up his "artwork". It
was agonizing to feel the blade moving through her skin, deep enough to start a river of blood to
run down her chest. She began to feel dizzy, but knew she couldn't lose consciousness. She
needed to be able to protect the remaining elephants, especially Sudesh. She couldn't let Peter
get the best of her.
He finally ended it, his hands covered in blood. Her blood. But he wasn't done. Amber moaned as
Peter clambered off of her, chuckling to himself.
"You look so helpless….so beautifully helpless," he told her in a pensive tone, as if he were
recalling a dream rather than cutting her spirit away. She looked up at him through watery eyes
and a few tears leaked out of the corners of her lids.
"Go to hell," she told him.
This angered him further and he pointed his gun at her again. But he hesitated. His eyes darted
to the tent's opening, his eyes narrowing as he saw someone come through the tent's opening.
Nathaniel's eyes went wide as he took in Amber, lying on the floor, covered in blood with her
dress ripped open to reveal her ghastly collarbone where the outline of an elephant had been
carved.
"Peter," Nathaniel gasped, "what have you done?"
Peter shrugged. "Leave, Nathaniel. Elefanti and I are having a discussion."
When Nathaniel did not move, Peter grew angry yet again.
"I said leave, Nathaniel!" he shouted. "Or do you wish to witness this?"
Peter pointed his gun at the elephants and began firing at random. Their frenzied trumpets filled
the air, and Amber managed to picker herself up, her head light from loss of blood, and grabbed
the bat. She swung at Peter, but had little strength in her swing. It hit him in the shoulder, but
he quickly grasped it and beat her face.
The pain was terrible, and Amber turned her face so that he only hit her right side and
something in her face snapped. The beating took only a few seconds before Nathaniel had pulled
Peter off of his friend and threw him away. Amber had time to only see Peter point his gun again,
and heard the shots before she blacked out.
She woke later to find gentle, shaking hands lifting her face and Victoria's face swam before her
vision.
"Amber," Victoria whispered, tears choking her voice. "Amber, we're going to get you to the
hospital. W-who did this to you?"
She lifted her head, feeling dizzy and nauseous. Amber looked past Victoria, and saw several
large heaps of grey skin, lying, unmoving, on the ground.
"Wait-," Amber began, "where are they? The elephants, where are they?"
"That can wait till later," Victoria tried, but Amber interrupted her.
"Tell me what happened!" she demanded.
"The elephants….the remaining elephants, were taken by Petrofsky. The police couldn't get to
them in time since they were getting the other animals and controlling the audience… They fell
into a frenzy after the police arrived, and they wouldn't stop screaming… I'm so sorry, Amber. I'm
so, so sorry…."
Amber laid her head back on the ground. All she had done had been for nothing. She didn't
know what had happened to Nathaniel, or Peter, but at that moment all she wanted to do was
sleep.