“Benjamin,” Ash whispered. “I found the hand!”

“No way! Is the ring on it?”

Ash peered through the glass.
“You bet. Time to get out of here.”

She could hear movement somewhere in the darkness. The strongman was still out there.

“Stop. Police.”

 Was he really a cop? If so, why would he take the hand, instead of just arresting the other performers? And if not, why would he say he was?

Ash wrapped one arm around the jar and wriggled out from under the podium. The smell was overpowering maybe the jar was leaking.

She’d lost her sense of where the exit was. She’d have to find one of the walls of the big top and slice through it. She could see bars in the darkness up ahead, part of a cage, can’t go that way. She turned right.

Maybe the strongman wasn’t the one who took the hand off the pedestal. But who else could? No-one was tall enough. The acrobats, perhaps, standing on one another’s shoulders?

More bars in front of her. Another cage?

No. The same one. She wasn’t surrounded by cages she was inside one. Why was there a giant cage in the big top?

Movement! Ash froze. She’d heard a scuffling sound. Her eyes searched the darkness.

Sniff. Sniff. Growl.

Ash turned around, slowly.

An enormous beast was behind her, snuffling and staring. She took in the golden fur, the pitiless eyes, the teeth as thick and sharp as wooden stakes.

A lion. She was in the lion cage.