“Not my style,” I said, and kissed him, long and slow and languid, like we didn’t have an audience, like I wasn’t about to walk away.
When we broke it off, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright. “Incorrigible,” he said, and shut the door between us. That was probably a good thing. It was the only way to keep me from telling Alice I was going to make my own way home before I jumped his bones, and I needed to get some sleep.
New experiences I didn’t know I was missing: riding a motorcycle while accompanied by more than a dozen cheering Aeslin mice.
Lyra was sound asleep when I came in through the window. I smiled at her, wistfully. It must have been nice to be that oblivious to how dangerous the world could really be. Then I tied a scarf around my head to hide my hair and crawled into bed.
I was out before my head hit the pillow.
Sasha clapped her hands. “All right, again, from the top, and this time I want to believe it! Five six seven eight!”
I revised my earlier thought about the risks of dancing. I was looking at a sprained ankle, a few pulled muscles, and maybe a homicide charge if Sasha didn’t relax before the end of the rehearsal.
The fourteen remaining dancers spun and leaped and flung ourselves into one another’s arms, moving with one unified goal: to remind the audience how much they loved us, and how much they wanted us to stay. Sasha was a hard taskmistress, but she was also an inspired choreographer, and every one of us knew how lucky we were to be working with her. All we wanted was to please her. Nothing was going to break our concentration—
Nothing but the sound of a body impacting the studio floor, followed by a wail of pain. Dancers stumbled to a halt around me. I caught myself on Anders’ arm, craning my neck to see who’d stumbled.
“Medic!” shouted Sasha.
The crowd parted and there was Jessica, splay-limbed on the floor, a line of blood running from her nose to her upper lip. She was glaring daggers at Reggie, the only other remaining dancer from her season. He looked alarmed and faintly mortified, like this was the last thing he’d been expecting when he came to this rehearsal.
“You dropped me on purpose!” she accused, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Now Reggie looked even more alarmed. “I didn’t, I swear I didn’t! I just—you jumped before the beat, and I wasn’t braced yet! I’m so sorry, Jessica, I didn’t mean to do it.”
“That’s a pretty major accusation,” said Sasha. “Are you going to be able to back it up?” The sympathy was gone from her voice. I remembered watching Jessica’s season while I prepared for my own. Nothing had ever been her fault. Somehow, every mistake she’d made had been something she could blame on someone else, even when she’d been alone on her side of the stage. Sasha apparently remembered that, too.
Jessica hesitated. “I was on the beat,” she said finally. “I’m sure of it.”
“Good thing we record everything, isn’t it?” Malena’s question was sweet enough that it could have been mistaken for genuine concern if she hadn’t been smirking. Jessica shot her a venomous look. Malena smiled back, and her expression was, if anything, sweeter than her question. “If there’s any question, for insurance purposes, I’m sure we’ll be able to see who was at fault.”
Jessica was saved from needing to answer by the appearance of the medical team, who swept through the group and surrounded her, already asking questions about what hurt, how badly, and whether she thought she could stand. Sasha rolled her eyes, turning away from the scene.
“Everyone, take fifteen,” she said. “We’ll either continue or start figuring out how to perform with one less girl.”
“What?” squawked Jessica.
“Miss, please be still,” said the medic who was taking her blood pressure.
Sasha ignored them. “Fifteen minutes, and then it’s back to work,” she said. “Now scatter.”
We scattered.
I found myself on the stage with Lyra, Anders, Pax, and Malena, who was becoming an unofficial fifth member of our group. I was fine with that, for obvious reasons. Lyra wasn’t quite as pleased.
“Doesn’t your season miss you?” she asked, putting her hand on Pax’s arm, as if to claim territory. “I mean, everyone else is mostly sticking with their own year.”
“Mac is more interested in keeping up with his ballet company than he is in being social, Emily and I never liked each other, and Troy is banging Lo. Turns out neither of them is into threesomes, which is cool by me, since I’m not into dudes who practice their remedial Spanish on me. He calls me ‘senorita’ one more time, he’s going to be short a couple of fingers.” Malena looked mildly at Lyra. “Do we have a problem?”