The worst part of this whole thing is how well he's treated the following day.

He feels like he hasn't eaten in forever. It's probably been about two days, maybe even three. At least last night they gave him a few bottles of water, though it kinda tastes like crap.

But in the morning, he's let out of the truck. They give him a full breakfast—a few pancakes and sausage links, which he gobbles up despite himself. They let him have a shower inside a surprisingly nice apartment room in a train car. And then they give him a change of clothes.

He's coasting, at this point. He's not doing much himself; things are being done to and for him. And he's thankful for this. He has some serious crap he needs to sort out in his head.

The whole thing is ridiculous. He meets the rest of the freaks, and the non-freak employees, and they act like he's always been there. They're not exactly friendly or welcoming, but they give him what he needs and don't give him trouble.

It doesn't stop him from feeling like he's being held against his will, because he is. But it makes him feel—even though he knows he has no reason to—like his misgivings are unjustified and he should quit whining.

He hates that.

He's allowed to wander around the site—near a town, but by a forest—while they set everything up, which he also hates. There's no supervision (although he has no doubt that if he were to try running, somebody would give chase), and it's like that man is already confident that Shawn is here to stay.

He hates that too. Because so far it's looking like he's right.

There are, according to the handful of people he's asked, ninety-two people traveling in this show. He's had at least a brief conversation with almost a third of them so far, and he's asked almost every single one he's talked to what the man's name is.

What's really freaking him out is that he can never remember their answers.

The show begins at noon and is set to continue until after dark. Shawn isn't sure that his attention span will last that long, but he tells himself that he's just going to dedicate the entire time to learning all he can about the show and all its members.

Really, it's more like a carnival setup. There are various tents and stages set up, and one tightrope stretched between two platforms, complete with trapezes. There are all kinds of acts going on. Food is being sold—cotton candy, pizza, funnel cakes, pretzels, popcorn, all the classic carnival food. Shawn wonders if he could get some.

He doesn't try, though. He just melts into the crowd and begins the process of watching every act, one by one.

There aren't just people here; they've got animals, too. The first act he sees is a lion tamer; nothing he's not seen before at the circus. He notices that the man's hands are shaking, but aside from that he doesn't seem nervous at all. Shawn wonders if it's a symptom of some kind of disorder.

Next is a sword swallower, which he watches in fascination, as he's never seen such an act before. Nothing remarkable stands out to him about this man (except for the fact that he's got a freaking hilt sticking out of his mouth).

By the end of the second hour he's seen all the acts, and he finally wanders over to the funnel cake stand to see if he can get one. When he leans in to the portly woman behind the counter and starts to say, "Am I allowed to…?" she interrupts—not unkindly—by saying, "Of course, Arashk. Just one moment."

He's startled. "What did you just call me?"

She looks up. "Arashk."

"Right." He pauses, and adds, "That's not my name."

Even as he speaks, her head swivels around as a sudden explosion of applause breaks out from the audience surrounding the stage nearest them. It's pretty obvious she didn't hear what he said as she smiles and holds out a plate to him. "Enjoy," she says—he can't hear it over the clapping and shouting, but he can read lips adequately.

He finds a bench and sits down to eat in total silence and solitude. That's what he needs right now, but unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't seem to agree with him.

A young blonde woman sits on the other end of the bench when he's been sitting there for half an hour and the paper plate next to him is threatening to blow away in the wind. He glances up, and on seeing that she's just a carnival-goer, looks back down at his lap—at the pants he's wearing that aren't his. They're khakis, pretty plain. His shirt is a crisp white button-down—or at least it was, it's already got dust all over it. He hasn't seen his Nikes since he's been here. They gave him new shoes—he can't even really identify them, they're just weird. They sort of remind him of slippers, they're just a bit sturdier.

"Hi," a voice says, and he looks over at the woman across the bench from him, having forgotten about her. She offers a friendly smile and then looks down at her phone.

His eyes lock in on the phone.

He could ask to borrow it. He could look up the SBPD's number—because God knows he doesn't have it memorized—and call them right now. Nobody is looking. He could call, tell them it's a delicate situation, they could track the phone and that odd man would be none the wiser.

It's a theory, anyway. A series of images flash across his mind, of some goon catching a glimpse of him on a phone, of that man hearing about it, of Gus prone on his living room floor and Juliet's beautiful eyes shut forever...

He can't.

Not yet.

"Hey," he says softly, giving one nod.

She doesn't notice his hesitation; she's too immersed in the text she is currently typing. She's rather petite, and when her head is bowed forward and a veil of hair falls between Shawn and her face, he is seized by a sudden longing to hold Jules in his arms. She must be missing him. She must be worried sick.

His feelings towards the strange and thus far nameless man, which were previously a resentment in the back of his mind, suddenly intensify into a deep and burning hatred. He's taken him away from his friends. Jules will be worried to the point of distraction. Gus will have nothing but pharmaceuticals (he will be especially miserable). Lassiter won't let it show, but he'll be concerned too… And Dad…

The woman looks back up at him, and the illusion is broken. Her face doesn't resemble Juliet's at all. (She's not bad-looking, but Shawn finds himself aching to see Jules' beautiful smile.)

"You here with someone?" she asks conversationally.

"Nah," he says, lacking the energy to elaborate at all with some ridiculous cover story.

"That right?"

"That's right," he says, and if it weren't so loud he's sure she would have heard the tiredness in his voice.

"I'm not either actually. I live nearby and I was bored. Wasn't expecting to not be the only one though."

He nods. "Yeah, pretty much the same situation with me."

"I thought that must be it."

She falls silent, and Shawn is thankful for that, but she doesn't leave. He wishes she would. He just wants to be alone.

A few minutes pass, and the woman stands back up. She just offers a little smile as a goodbye and then wanders off to watch a contortionist's act.

He goes to glance at his watch, but he doesn't even have that anymore. He leans his head back, silently wishing he had asked the woman for the time when he had the chance.

He looks around, going through his mental inventory of all the members of the show. He's been able to assign simple descriptions to most of them—neat freak, wallflower, confident, in love with his job. There's a lot of overlap, of course, but he's seen something unique, even something small, in nearly all of them.

He decides to get up and try to conclude something about the ones who are still just faces in the crowd to him. He may be tired, and quite frankly miserable, but he's far from giving up. Knowledge is the first step to victory.

Besides, it's ages since he's been to a carnival.


Well here it is, the next installment. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter or what it does to the pacing, but combining it with the next one would have been too long and too much, and there isn't any other good stopping point. Let me know what you think, if you're looking forward to the next, if this one killed the momentum, etc.