(This is heavily inspired by Star-fire taking the teen titans to that carnival and also the last few chapters in Renegades, its a book)

Apparently we weren’t acting like a team. Whatever that means.

Just because we don’t spend every waking second glued at each other’s hips doesn’t mean we hate one another. It means we like out own personal space. But the agency thinks we need to bond, become friends. Since we’re going to be spending the next 6 months together, it’s not like I’m already sharing a room with one of them or anything.

I don’t know whether the minibus ride is loud or not, I put in my headphones and was listening to music. I’m pretty sure Maisie did the same, her whole thing is sound so she almost always has her headphones on. She does it because it calms her down. I do it because it gives me an excuse not to talk to people.

Once we step off we are greeted by obnoxiously loud music and blinding colourful lights. I grimace at the sight. One of the agents sets out our rules, I don’t actually know their name. I don’t know any of their names no one ever tells us and it’s always a different agent. This one tells us that we will each be given £100 to spend on games and food, we should avoid talking to anyone who isn’t in the program and we have to be back at the minibus by 11:30. I check my watch and it is currently 8:17. I don’t know how I’m going to survive this.

Callum and Maisie have already walked off together, making polite conversation. Liam wanders behind them staring at his feet. Amity is still standing beside me, I know her the best because she’s my roommate. But then again we’ve only shared the same room for 3 nights. Actually I don’t even know her last name.

She smiles at me, a lopsided one and it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. I walk to catch up with the others. I can hear her footsteps trailing after me.

I’ve never been to a carnival before, but I got the essence of it. Rides and game stalls and ridiculously over prized food. But this is… better then I was expecting. Sure there are a bunch of screaming children running about everywhere, but they’re happy. That’s cool I guess.

We take our tickets from a lady standing in a booth and head inside.

“Soooooo… what do you guys wanna do first?” Callum asks. He’s wearing black jeans and a Rolling Stones shirt, I don’t know if he actually likes the band or if he’s just wearing it for the sake of it.

“I wanna try one of dance machines.” Maisie says, of course the girl with the super hearing wants to find the dance machine. That’s not a bad thing just kind of obvious. “If that’s okay with you guys?” She adds.

We all give mummers of agreement.

It take awhile for us to find the dance machine, lucky the queue isn’t to long. It’s one of the ones where you have to challenge someone else and whoever gets more points win. Although if we did go up against Maisie I doubt any of us could win. So when she asks who wants to do it with her none of us are to eggar to volunteer.

She looks between us for a few seconds, before her eyes land on Callum and she gives him her best begging smile. He caves, laughs and steps onto the other lit up floor.

“You guys can find something else if you want.” Maisie says over her shoulder. “We’re gonna be a while.”

Amity and Liam walk off somewhere I follow behind them.

“I’m quite hungry you guys wanna get something to eat.” Amity says her combat trousers complement the grass floor and her golden chains stick out on her black shirt. Her platinum hair is being blown about by the end and the edges stick to her forehead.

“Yea I could grab some food.” Liam replies he’s got his hands shoved into the pockets of his aviator jacket and a Yankee baseball cap sits on his head, a short black ponytail stick out of the back. She turns his head and hums in surprise, “I didn’t know pizza trucks were a thing?” Of course we all immediately start walking to the pizza truck.

We get one big pepperoni pizza to share but Amity takes of hers and gives it to me and Liam because she thinks it make the pizza spicy. We fall into polite conversation as we eat. Mainly about what we think we’ve actually been brought to the base for, none of us buy the ‘honing our skills bullshit’ that we’ve been told.

But we can’t figure out any connections that could tie us together. Maisie has super hearing, Callum can turn invisible, Liam can glimpse into the future (he has already warned us that he can’t do it on command), Amity can change her appearance( remember that short blond hair, yea yesterday it was ginger and down to her waist) and I can talk to the dead. Also only one of can fight, Callum’s parents are in the army so he can hold his own, but the rest of us only started training a few days and we have all been knocked on your asses by the instructor more then once.

We leave a few slices for Callum and Maisie and start playing some trivial fair games, throwing darts at balloons, throwing rings over bottles, throwing baseballs at cardboard cutouts of clown faces. They all seem to involve throwing if that wasn’t obvious, and not being the most athletic person to ever live I’m pretty horrific at most of them. But Liam gets us enough tickets to buy a stuffed animal at the prize booth, a giraffe to be exact. Time passed quickly, now it’s 10:52 and we only have half an hour or so left.

We decide to ride the Ferris wheel.

“Where do you think Maisie and Callum have gone off to?” I ask, I’m looking out of the window and I can’t see them on the dance machine anymore.

“Probably making out.” Says Liam.

Amity looks startled, “but they’ve only known each other a few days!”

“Nah,” says Liam using his hand to swat the air. “They both did a summer camp thing last year for kids with abilities, for the past three nights all Callum has been talking about is how happy he is that he found her again. Hasn’t Maisie told you guys that?”

“She doesn’t sleep in our room.” I say Amity continues for me.

“I think it’s something to do with her hearing, like she needs dead silence to sleep.”

“Good” says Liam, “when they wanna get all lovey dovey in her room instead of kicking me out of mine.” He laughs.

I hope he’s not suggesting that their gonna have sex or anything. If they did it would put the whole team dynamic at risk.

By the time our teammates dating life has been thoroughly discussed the Ferris Wheel has come to a stop and we are all stepping off of the platform and back on to the wet grass.

A cold chill passes down my spine and arms, my breath is stolen from my throat and I can’t breath. I look around frantically for the ghost (all of those things are paranormal indications). Instead my eyes find a very concerned Amity and Liam.

“You okay there Cleo?” Liam reaches out to touch my arm but I flinch away, he immediately retracts his hands and holds them up in surrender. “Got it, I’m not touching you.”

“Is this a ghost thing?” Asks Amity, she’s looking around. As if she could actually see the ghosts. Her voice is muffled.

I spot a figure moving behind them I push my way forward and no one reaches out to stop me. I stand in the centre of the carnival and watch as the ghost of a mother and daughter elephant pass through the stalls.

Travelling elephant circus.

Apparently they didn’t treat their animals very well. Good thing they don’t have them anymore.

They pass in front of me, unaware to their single audience member. I don’t feel cold anymore I feel warm, I feel their love for each other. How happy they are that they can stay together even in this life. How happy they are. How peaceful.

They disappear from my view and suddenly the noises of families and fun blasts through my ears and colourful lights blind me.

Suddenly a hand holds out a packet of tissues towards me. I hadn’t realised that I had started crying. I take the tissues with a muttered thanks and dry my eyes.

“You okay?” Asks Amity.

“Yes” I actually feel better then I have in a really long time. Maybe people were right when they said love was the most powerful thing in the world.

“Your eyes like glossed over, I thought you’d be possessed of something.” Liam laughs, as if possession is a funny thing.

“No it’s wasn’t a poltergeist, just animal spirits, they’re generally quiet docile.”

“Animal spirit?”

“Pretty sure this used to be a travelling elephant circus, some of the elephants souls must have tethered to something that they still carry around.”

It’s a pretty simple explanation I think but both Amity and Liam’s faces look like I’ve just spoken gibberish.

“Whatever lets just go back to the bus.” A say walking between them.

“But we’ve still got like half an hour left.” Reasons Liam slightly jogging to catch up with me.

I turn to face him, “okay, is there anything else you want to do.” He shakes his head, “Amity?” She’s done as well she says. “Well the lets find Callum and Maisie and go back to the bus.”

It doesn’t take long to find them both, just needed to look in the most obvious make out spots. They were in the third one we checked. Behind all the food stalls. They had their arms wrapped around each other and their tongues shoved down one another throats. It was a disgusting display of attraction.

They started apart very quickly once we made ourselves known. After fixing each other’s hair and Maisie tucking her tie dye shirt back into her shorts we finally started heading back to the bus.

We arrived with 17 minutes to spare. The bus ride was less awkward then it was there. Maisie and Amity launched into a conversation about the best type of coffee brand, occasionally asking for my opinion which I gave. Callum was giving Liam tips on fighting and proper stance, while Liam kept on cracking jokes and getting occupied by something else, he wasn’t listening at all.

As we drove by the carnival I felt cold again, I looked out of the window to see two transparent elephants walking together through the tents and running through unaware people.

“You good Cleo?” Liam had once again stopped listening to Callum and had turned to face me his arms holding on to the top of seat.

“I’m fine.”

“You put cinnamon in your coffee! That’s absolutely rank!” The appalled voice of Maisie rings out through the car. Immediately followed by Amity who was trying to defend her coffee making habits. Liam smiles at me before he pretends to listen to Callum again.

Honestly I was kind of dreading this whole team bonding thing, I think we all were. But maybe these guys aren’t so bad. I mean sure the situation we are all in is hella shady but we can all be in a shady situation together.

It’s a happy bus ride back.