Page 16 of Carnival’s Playground

"I slapped a temporary bypass on the auxiliary lead at four in the goddamn morning just to keep the work lights alive while we shoveled mud," I snap, leaning in close with my flashlight. "It was an emergency patch in the dark, not a full rebuild, and we never stress-tested it under full circuit draw."

The beam cuts through the lingering smoke, illuminating the slaughter inside. The main connector is charred black, the nylon housing warped and fused into the wire bundle.

"The storm water seeped past the rear seal during the squall," I explain, tracing the blackened line back to the junction. "Sitting idle at dawn, it held. But the second you guys threw the full load on it to test the midway lights, the fog rigs, and the extra juice we’re gonna need for this two-week extension, the damp shorted the bypass and cooked the whole damn lead."

"So she’s dead?" Petey creeps a few inches closer, eyes wide.

"She’s choking on her own guts," I say, grabbing a pair of heavy pliers and ripping the melted mess free with a savage twist. "Needs a fresh harness splice and a clean junction block before she catches fire for real. If this line is fried, I need to know what else down the line got scorched."

Fast, light footsteps hit the gravel outside, and every nerve along my spine snaps to attention. I do not need to look toward the door to know that smell. Rain, engine oil, and sweet vanilla. Avery steps inside with her arms crossed over her chest, dirt smudged across her jaw, and asks who turned off half the backstage power. She looks exhausted, irritable, and so fucking gorgeous it hits me right in the chest like a slug.

"North unit choked," I tell her, holding up the blackened, molten cluster of wires. "Emergency splice from this morning couldn't handle the full grid draw with the storm moisture inside the casing."

Avery wrinkles her nose, leaning down until her shoulder brushes against mine. The contact shoots straight down my arm. "Looks like roadkill left on an engine block. Can you patch it before the doors open?"

"Depends on what we’ve got left in the bins." I glance up at Dutch. "Tell me we have spare heavy-gauge connectors and heat shrink in the trailer, or I'm gonna have to start stripping parts off my Harley."

"We’ve got some," Dutch grunts, rubbing his grizzled jaw. "Not a whole lot after what the storm chewed through last night, but there should be a bin in the prop trailer."

"Then we make it work." I dump my tool roll out onto the concrete floor, the steel wrenches clattering loud in the quiet shed. "Petey, haul ass over to the prop trailer. Grab every spare four-pin connector, heavy-duty toggle, and spool of ten-gauge wire you can find. Move!"

"On it!" Petey scrambles out the door like a shot.

Avery doesn't waste a second. She drops to a crouch beside me, already rolling her flannel sleeves past her elbows, revealing lean, corded forearms and grease-stained skin. "What do you need me to pull?"

"You know the draw on the haunt path better than anyone," I say, holding her gaze. "I need to drop forty percent of the load off this box so it doesn't grenade itself the second the crowd hits the gates. What can we dump onto the south generator without tripping its breaker?"

"I don't need to look at a chart," she says, her dark eyes flashing with sharp focus. "Give me five minutes and a grease pencil."

"Make it three," Dutch groans, checking his watch like it was ticking down a bomb. "Gates open in three hours, and if the haunt walk is pitch black, the city inspector's gonna pull our expanded permit before we even run the first night of the extension."

"Keep your shirt on, Dutch," Avery fires back. She snatches a notepad from her back pocket, dropping to one knee to scribble furiously against her leg. "We can throw the graveyard strobes and the primary fog compressor onto the south unit if we cut the auxiliary path uplights and run them off standard battery packs. Just shift the main stage spots over to the concession panel." I take the paper from her fingers, our knuckles brushing, the heat between us crackling louder than the fried generator. "You pulled that out of your head in thirty seconds?"

"Don't look so shocked, nomad," she retorts, a faint, wicked smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Some of us actually know how our show works."

"I'm not shocked, spitfire," I rumble, my voice dropping low enough that Dutch can't catch the gravel in it. "I'm damn impressed. Big difference."

A flicker of raw heat flares in her dark eyes, caught off guard by the honesty, before she covers it with that razor-sharp armor of hers. "Save the sweet talk for when the lights actually turn on, Carnival."

"Deal."

Petey comes skidding back into the shed, dumping a rusty metal toolbox full of tangled wiring and half-used connectors onto the concrete. "Found 'em. Buried under the clown props."

"Good. Avery, take Petey and reroute those auxiliary stage leads to the south junction right now. Dutch, kill the east sub-panel feed so I don't get two hundred and twenty volts straight through my chest while I'm stripping this harness."

"Copy," Dutch grunts, hustling toward the exterior cutoff.

Avery grabs Petey by the collar of his jacket, hauling him toward the door. "Come on, Petey, let's rewire the midway before he manages to electrocute himself."

"I heard that!" I shout after her.

"You were meant to!" her voice echoes back, full of fight.

I shake my head, a harsh grin tearing across my mouth despite the pressure, and dive into the guts of the machine. For the next forty minutes, my entire universe shrinks down to the bite of wire strippers, the scrape of emery cloth cleaning corroded copper terminals, and the sharp hiss of a butane torch shrinking heavy-duty waterproof tubing over the fresh splices. Sweat drips off my chin, stinging my eyes, my knuckles bloody from scraping against the tight steel housing, but the rhythm is steady. Controlled. Twelve years of running and wrenching on broken-down iron taught me how to keep metal alive on borrowed time.

Dutch steps back inside just as I torque the final terminal bolt tight. "How are we looking?"

"Ready to find out if I know what the hell I'm doing." I wipe my greasy hands on a rag, slide the side panel back into place, and secure the wing nuts. "Give me power. Slow."