A week into my freshman year of high school, I mutilated my stepfather, Chris Roberts, when he assaulted me. At just fifteen years old, I was sentenced to a state mental institution in Massachusetts to serve my sentence. My mother was convinced I was crazy, and society branded me a killer.

But the thing is, I don’t know how it happened or why my stepfather did what he did.
How the ax appeared in my bedroom at just the right moment. Or why that haunting music started playing.

Three years later, on my eighteenth birthday, I’m released and return to Stockbridge, a town I’m convinced is drenched in evil. Girls vanish every Halloween without a trace, and the arrival of the Circle of Freaks and their haunted carnival always seems deliberate—like pieces in a puzzle I’m determined to solve.

My fragile reality unravels when I meet Draco and the Circle of Freaks. He’s darkness incarnate, a man whose hate and lust feel as intoxicating as they are terrifying. And somehow, I can’t stay away.

As I delve deeper into Draco’s world, I become more receptive to the idea that his sins are actually my own and that the love I’ve been longing for has been waiting for me all along.