“I’m going.” I picked up the backpack and stood, moving to kiss him briefly before I said, “But I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I know it whenever you’re away,” he said. “Be astonishing, Verity. Be the amazing, impossible, infuriating woman I married, and steal the show from all those other dancers.”
“Remember to vote for me,” I said, and stepped onto the edge of the roof, and off, and fell.
The Be-Well Motel was a rare thing for the area: a freestanding building with nothing directly connecting to the structure. Below me, the alley used for storage and employee parking beckoned like a dangerous asphalt river. If I fell that far, I’d never dance again, but I’d make an attractive smear on the pavement until the infrequent Southern California rains washed me away.
That wasn’t going to happen. When I’d fallen far enough to gather the momentum I needed, I grabbed the ledge of the building and braced my feet against the brick, pushing off as hard as I could. The muscles in my thighs bunched and released, launching me across the alley toward my target: the billboard we’d so carefully positioned ourselves behind. For a moment, I hung weightless and suspended in space, my mind stretching out that fraction of a second until it felt like a year. Then gravity remembered our unfinished business and yanked me down, pulling me in a hard arc toward the back of the billboard.
I put out my hands, bracing for impact just before my palms struck the metal trellis. The jolt echoed all the way up to my shoulders, but there wasn’t time to dwell on that: dwelling would lead to more plummeting, and plummeting was not in the plan. Instead, I gripped tight and swung myself up, hooking a foot on the higher part of the lattice. Then I pulled, and flipped myself up to grab the next row of pipes.
Hand over hand and foot over foot, I climbed to the top of the billboard and paused, looking back at the Be-Well. Dominic’s silhouette at the roof’s edge made me want to turn back, wrap my arms around him, and never let him go. I pushed the impulse down. We were here because we both knew what we had to do, and I’d learned my lessons well from watching my grandmother’s endless quest to find my grandfather and bring him home: love is great, but it can be a poison. Sometimes you have to step away, or you’ll never be able to break free.
I turned to the front of the billboard, looking out over the city. Then I jumped. It was a long trip back to the studio housing, and I was planning to enjoy every moment of it.
It took me a little over forty-five minutes to run along the rooftops, fire escapes, and other available supports and make my way back to the apartments. I checked my time before pulling my wig out of the bag and positioning it on my head. By the time the season was over or I got eliminated, whichever came first, I was going to be dealing with some stellar chafing. Anything for dance.
There was no one visible outside the building. I counted windows until I found ours, and then shinnied my way up the drainpipe to my bedroom. Lyra was long since asleep, her body a flawless curl beneath her blankets. Holding a finger to my mouth in a silent shush, I opened my backpack and let out the three Aeslin who would be secretly living with us.
They scampered to the pillow, waved their forepaws in the closest thing they were currently allowed to a “hail,” and vanished behind the bed. I ducked into the bathroom and wiped away the grime from my journey before coming back out and crawling into my own bed. The pillow was a psalm to sleep. The mattress was a benediction. I closed my eyes, and sank instantly down into sleep—
—only to be jerked out what felt like seconds later by the sound of someone blasting an air horn in the central courtyard. I sat bolt upright, one hand going for the gun that wasn’t under my pillow. Good thing, too: I might have had an unfortunate accident. My eyes were filled with grit. I wiped it away.
Lyra was also sitting up in her bed, looking groggy and displeased. “They’re going to be filming when we emerge,” she said. “Only reason they’d do the air horn. How’s my hair?”
“Sheepdog-like,” I said. “How’s my face?”
“You were drooling in your sleep,” she said. “Wonder Twin powers?”
“Activate,” I agreed, and shoved my blanket off my legs as Lyra jumped out of her bed. Twenty seconds later, we were crammed into the bathroom, doing the best we could in what we knew was an artificially limited amount of time. Lyra handed me a brush, and I stood behind her, smoothing her hair, while she washed her face and applied a quick layer of “neutral” makeup. Then we switched positions, her brushing and braiding my wig while I slapped on lip gloss and foundation. The camera’s eye was eternally unforgiving, and it would know if we came outside unprepared.
“Nice wig,” said Lyra.
“Thanks.” She was one of the few who knew that America had never seen my real hair. “It’s new.”
“I figured. You ready?”