Page 20 of Dance of Devils

The practice studio is utterly quiet as I begin my stretches. My back bends smoothly as I slide my hands down my calves, wrapping my fingers around the arches of my feet as I exhale.

And yet, despite the calming stretches, the deep breathing, and the blissfully quiet, empty studio, there’s nothing “calm” about my state of mind at all.

The easy answer would be that I was jumped last night. But the sad truth is, if it was “just” being jumped, that wouldn’t evenmake the top ten awful things that have ever happened to me, between my time spent living out of Pearl and my years in the foster care system.

Fuck. Maybe not even the top twenty.

If Kirhadn’tintervened, being gang-raped by those four assholes—or whatever else they had in mind—probablywouldhave been the worst moment of my life.

But that didn’t happen, becausehewas there.

He fought them off, brought me to his palatial home, and took care of me.

And cut your clothes off, and saw you almost naked and completely unconscious.

I try and shake those thoughts away, desperate for the calm Zen that stretching alone in the practice studio in the early morning usually brings.

But there’s no Zen to be found today.

Not with Kir Nikolayev and his devil eyes running amok through my thoughts.

Prying into the darkest recesses of my mind. Feasting on the secrets there.

The weirdest part is, I still feel the way I did when I was naked in that bed, trembling under his dark gaze with that slithering sensation in my core. It’s been like that ever since I stepped out of his car last night outside Val’s place. It was there when I woke up. When I took the subway to the theater.

And it’s still there now, tightening around my middle and consuming me from the inside out.

Eventually I manage to banish it to a corner of my mind as I stand from my stretches and move into a series of warmups.

When I’m dancing,everythingelse slips away.

The stench of neglect from broken homes. The empty feeling of having no one to hold me and tell me it’s going to be okay. The looming threat of a “foster brother” who you justknowis waiting for your eyes to close so he can put his fingers between your legs or grope your breasts.

When I move through the five positions of the feet and arms, or ease into a tendu, or nail a pirouette, it’s all I know. All I feel.

That’s why I’m okay with everything that’s going on right now. Pearl. Navigating the crazies at the early morning budget gym, or at the food bank, or the rare times I can find room in a women’s shelter. Taking my clothes off and writhing on a pole while monstrous men throw wrinkled dollar bills and yell all the disgusting things they want to do to me.

I do and endure all that fordance.

My greatest love in the world.

None of my friends knows that I’m shooting for a spot with theBallet Imperiya Korona. I don’t know why I haven’t told them yet—maybe because that adds more pressure that I don’t need, maybe because they’ll be the only thing I miss about New York if I get it and need to leave. But if they did know, and wanted to understand why I was so focused on getting into the company, I think I’d tell them that if ballet is my one great love, theBallet Imperiya Koronais my ultimate Prince Charming.

Val would mock merelentlesslyfor framing it like that. Milena, too. Naomi and Lyra would probably smile and nod, and at least make a show of understanding.

Evelina, though? She’d totally get it, if for no other reason than she’s the real-life version of every singing, dancing, talks-to-animals Disney princess. Ifanyonewould get a Prince Charming analogy, it’s her.

After a workout that leaves me breathless but grinning, I get to the slow and painful task of peeling off Kir’s bandages.

The wounds are going to mean questions from everyone today, and I don’t know what to tell them.

The scrapes on my knees aren’t that bad, and my tights will cover them anyway. My hands aren’t awful either: I can explain those marks with a lame “I tripped” excuse. The bruising on my hip and shoulder will be noticeable if anyone’s paying attention when we get changed at the end of the day. But I’ve learned, thanks to James, how to angle the marks away from any of my friends to avoid any conversations I don’t want to have.

The forehead is trickier, but I end up exchanging Kir’s bandage for a much smaller Band-Aid, using concealer on the bruising, and letting my hair fall over it.

After a shower, I head outside to meet up with everyone else as they arrive. When I step out into the alley behind the theater, my phone rings just as I notice that nobody’s here yet.

It’s Diego, Derrick’s lawyer.