Trapped

24.

"Look Megan, I know we just found you and you probably just want to get away from here, but we have to go look for the others. They were supposed to open the suitcase while Angela and I distracted the clown, but we couldn't find him and when we got back the boys were gone too." I explained to her.

"The boys?" she asked with a perplexed tone, "haven't you found Erin yet?" She asked and I shook my head.

"We will explain everything later, we have to go now, I have a bad feeling that I can't shake," I said and started walking through the crowd of people. Megan had trouble keeping up at first but after a while she was able to walk at the same pace as me and Angela. She was most probably just stiff from having to stay in that uncomfortable position in the suitcase.
My eyes searched the crowd frantically, trying to find a familiar face, but there wasn't even one. After we searched the outside of the circus tent twice I decided that it was a good idea to go inside the tent. I went to the entrance and tried to walk in, but I was stopped by a guard who told me that we couldn't go in until the show started, which was an hour from then. I nodded and walked away, then I went to a secluded part behind the tent and the other two followed me.

"What are we going to do now?" Megan asked while I scanned the area to see if there were any people nearby.

"We are going to climb through the bottom," I said and pointed to the loose flap at the bottom of the tent. Then I bent down and lifted it up to see what was on the other side. It seemed to be where they stored all the equipment since there were things like diabolo's, ropes, hoola hoops and even unicycles lying around.

I looked back up at Angela and Megan and whispered that they should follow me. I lifted the flap again and crawled in through the tent. Soon after I was through Angela and Megan also crawled in and we searched the room. There were a few room dividers placed in such a way that it looked like we were in a regular storage room. There were blocks and ropes and even costumes filling up the room. Then suddenly there was a banging sound, a male scream and a deep throaty laugh. I followed the sound into another room and quickly hid behind some boxes close to the doorway, not even bothering to check if the other two were doing the same thing.

"Can you believe my luck, a strange girl steals one of my prisoners, but then I found three more to replace the blonde twat," a deep male voice said and laughed again.

"Please, I'll do anything, just don't hurt me," I heard Jeremy's voice beg. And the man laughed again.

"Don't worry, I'm not just going to hurt you. I'm going to do much more than that." He said and Jeremy squealed.

I peeked out from behind the boxes and saw that Jeremy was tied to a table and the clown from earlier was standing by his side. His back was turned towards us and it gave me an idea. I tried to search for Jason and Zac before I could think of a plan to get Jeremy out and I saw them on the opposite side of the room in a cage, but they were gagged and tied up. Then I started searching for the key to the cage. I spotted it hanging on a nail in the wall close to the cage.

Then I ducked behind the boxes again and started thinking. Once I had a plan formulated, I gestured to Megan and Angela to go back into the other room. The clown kept talking to Jeremy, making him beg for his life every time, but we didn't have much time before he started doing something. Once we were back in the storage room I explained my plan. Megan wasn't very fond of it, but after some persuasion she finally agreed to help. Then I went back into the room where the clown was. By then he had already started beating Jeremy with his fists and he was becoming more violent by the minute. He let out a high pitched psychotic chuckle when he picked up a sledgehammer from a crate in the corner. My eyes grew wide when he did so and I signaled for the other two to go ahead with the plan, but I was too late, because as I did the clown lifted the sledgehammer and brought it down hard on Jeremy's shinbone. I heard a crack when the hammer came into contact with Jeremy's leg and soon after Jeremy's pained scream filled my ears.
Jeremy's leg was surely broken after a hit like that and I flinched at the sight of his front leg.