stage, someone grabbed my arm. “Um...sir? You can’t
go up there!”
I turned and glared...but it was just one of the ushers.
She shrank back and the fear on her face made me
stop. What the fuck are you doing, Angelo? You’re
acting crazy!
But I couldn’t help it. Something had taken control of
me.
I took a breath and tried to speak calmly. “The dancers.
I gotta speak to one of them. Where are they?”
The usher blinked. “They’ll be in their dressing rooms by
now,” she said uncertainly. “But the public’s not—”
I nodded and turned away from the stage, heading for
the nearest exit like a good boy. But as soon as I hit the
hallway, I peeled off and headed straight for a door
marked No Admittance.
I didn’t get where I was by following the fucking rules.
I thundered down a flight of stairs and emerged into a
hallway. I knew I was in the right place: there were
women in stage make-up chatting and laughing, but
most of them were already in their street clothes. Shit!
They’re leaving!
“Are you supposed to be back here?” asked a voice
behind me.
I turned and found one of the dancers looking up at me.
I hadn’t figured on how small they’d be, up close. The
top of her head was only up to my shoulder. She was
pretty enough, with long chestnut-colored hair hanging
in tresses down her back. But she wasn’t her.
“I’m looking for one of the dancers,” I told her. “The
one with the platinum-blonde hair.”
“Irina? She left already.”
Shit! But at least I had a name. Irina. I gave the dancer
my best smile. “Are you all in a ballet…”—shit, what was
the word—”team?” Maybe I could find out where they
were dancing next and get a ticket.
“Ballet company,” she said. “No, we’re—Wait, how did
you come to the ballet and you don’t even know which
company you’re seeing?”
I ran my hand up the back of my still-soaking hair. “I
kinda stumbled in.”
She gave me a doubtful look. “Yeah. I can tell. We’re
students from Fenbrook Academy.”
I’d vaguely heard of it. Some upscale performing arts
place. That TV star, Jasmine Kane, went there. “So I
can find her there? What’s her last name?”
The dancer gave me a what the fuck look and stepped
back, and I realized how stalkerish I sounded. It
probably didn’t help that I loomed over her, my
shoulders almost brushing the sides of the narrow
hallway. You moron! But I was out of my element, here.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone after a
woman: usually, I just showed up at a party and they’d
start sidling up to me, all big-eyed and breathy, hot for
the whole criminal thing. I’d take them to my
apartment, ride them hard and then have trouble
remembering their names the next morning.
This was different.
I took a deep breath and put out my hands in a show of
peace. “I’d just really like to run into her again.”
For a second, the dancer’s face seemed to soften and I
thought she was going to help me. Then she quickly
shook her head.
Shit! I’d blown it. The dancer shifted from foot to foot: I
was standing between her and the exit, blocking her. I
thought about staying there, making her tell me...but I
wasn’t going to start scaring women just to get my way.
With a sigh, I stepped out of her way and leaned back
against the wall, rainwater trickling down my neck as it
was squeezed out of my hair. What the fuck was wrong
with me? I didn’t even know this Irina, hadn’t so much
as spoken to her, but my heart was pounding.
The dancer walked past me. A few seconds later, I
heard the door at the end of the hallway open and night
air flood in. I waited for the door to close, but it didn’t.
Then, “Hey!”
I looked round at her.
“If you really want to meet her, she’ll be dancing in
Central Park tomorrow. Noon.”
It felt like my whole chest lifted. “Thank you!” I wanted
to shower the girl with flowers, or chocolate, or fucking
Rolexes.
“Yeah, well...I’ll be there too. So don’t turn out to be an
asshole,” And she was gone, the door banging shut
behind her.
In the sudden silence, reality started to set in. What the
hell am I doing? I felt like I’d been temporarily
possessed: why was I down in the basement of a
theater, chasing after a ballet dancer? I didn’t have time
for this. I had territory to protect, deals to make.
So why did the thought of seeing her again make a grin
tug at the corners of my mouth: the first time I
remembered smiling in a long time?
Irina, I thought. I’ll see you tomorrow.
2
Irina
It was so cold that our breath hung in the air: a trail of
tiny white clouds that marked where we’d danced before
another dancer’s outstretched arm or leg whipped them
away. We were dancing to a section of La Sylphide that
was fast and energetic - because energetic is what you
need when you’re in a leotard and the temperature’s
close to freezing.
Rachel, my roommate, was shivering. She gave me a
what the hell did you talk me into look as she leapt past
me and I gave her a sympathetic smile. But the truth
was, the cold didn’t bother me all that much. Maybe it’s
because even New York in February is nothing
compared to Moscow.
Or maybe it’s because I’ve started to welcome the cold.
Instead of fighting and shivering and trying to keep it
out, I want it to soak through my clothes and my skin
and into my bones.
If I was entirely numb, I couldn’t feel anything at all.
The past—the bad stuff—disappeared. And dancing took
so much concentration that it stopped me thinking about
the horror of my future. Between the two, I could
almost imagine I was free.
I leapt up onto a park bench, my shoes crunching in the
frost. Then I stepped up onto the arm, balanced on one
foot and began to tip forward towards fourth arabesque,
my other leg rising into the air behind me. I was making
the most of it because I knew we wouldn’t be able to
dance for long: I was going to lose feeling in my feet
pretty soon. Plus, the string quartet who provided the
music were freezing, too.
I extended my arms and let my upper body sink a little
further into the freezing air. It almost hurt to breathe it
in, the air was so icy. I reveled in it.
Dancing’s always been my escape. When I was a kid,
ballet classes let me pretend I was just like any of the
other little girls, right up until the time I had to get back
into the armor-plated limo. When things started to get
dangerous, around the time I was twelve or thirteen,
and I was first sent to stay with my uncle’s house for a
few days, I danced around the big, echoey hallways and
kidded myself I was really in some famous dance
school. And when the violence ripped my parents away
from me and I had to go to live with my uncle
permanently, dancing became my last-ditch plan to get
to America.
I’d thought, that day I stepped off the plane, that I’d
finally escaped. I was that naive.
I arched my back, pointed my toe...and that’s when I
saw him.
The crowd was big despite the cold, maybe a hundred
people. The charity music and ballet performances had
been running for a few years, now, and they’d become
a thing—we were even in the tourist guides. But it