Page 1 of Ruinous Need

LISETTE

PROLOGUE

Three years ago…

The music chills me.

After spending my years dancing to pretty Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev melodies, Stravinsky is confronting.

Grinding. Screeching. Stomping.

The kind of melody that makes you want to rip your hair out from the roots and scratch your nails deep into your skin.

The vibrations from the orchestra became a physical presence in the room at rehearsals, putting everyone in a bad mood. And starving ballerinas are in a bad mood to begin with.

The Rite of Spring is not your typical ballet performance.

It’s disturbing enough that there were riots when it premiered.

My debut performance as a professional ballerina would be this brutal and depressing contemporary performance — a world away from tulle skirts and pointe shoes. It wasn’t how I’d imagined it.

I didn’t understand why I was the right choice for the role. Not at first.

But as the lights come up on opening night, it clicks into place.The story feels real.

The pain lying dormant inside me comes alive, a deep well of agony I can draw from in the finale.

That experience sets me apart from the other dancers.

Ballet hurts, but it doesn’t cause the soul-crushing pain that I know so well. A hurt that drives me on, that makes me dance like I want to leave my body and become someone else.

I am the Chosen One. L’élue.

Under the spotlight. On the stage.

The moment I begin the sacrificial dance, Danse sacrale, everything fades away. The spotlight leaves me alone in a pool of harsh light.

My feet don’t just dance, they untether me from the stage. From the world.

Goosebumps break across my skin, and my nipples tighten beneath the thin red dress that marks me as separate from the rest of the company.

There’s nothing pretty about this dance, but it is captivating.

Not a single person in this room can tear their eyes away. I can’t see the audience through the bright lights of the stage, but I know it to be true. I feel it in every muscle as I extend and leap, every step of my bare feet against the black wooden stage.

The dark, insistent music moves through my muscles.

I keep dancing until I die.

The Chosen One, sacrificed to an old god.

When I look up, panting with exertion, icy blue eyes are staring back at me from the audience. Though the audience rise to their feet in a standing ovation, the grand old performance hall feels sub-zero.