My head pounds. When I work up the nerve to crack my eyes open, I find myself in a bedroom. The bed is made underneath me, a small nightstand next to my head. There are no windows, just a single lamp on a dresser on the opposite wall. There’s one exit, the wood door closed, and a rocking chair takes up the additional space. It makes everything a bit cramped, like this room wasn’t supposed to exist.
It immediately gives me the creeps.
I sit up slowly, eyeing the glass of water on the nightstand. A clinking draws my attention to my ankle.
A padded cuff is locked on my leg, a chain snaking from it down over the foot of the bed. It rattles when I move, the links knocking against each other.
I’m so fucked.
I touch my head, convinced I must be cut open or have a lump the size of Alabama from the way it aches and pulses. But there’s nothing. Just a lack of oxygen to thank, I guess. I swing my legs over the bed, my toes touching a scratchy rug, and the chain falls to the floor.
I flinch.
Footsteps immediately pound overhead. I count out the seconds and make it to twelve before the door opens.
Mia steps into the space, looking around, then at me. She seems angry for some reason. I open my mouth, but she strides forward and smacks me. Her palm collides with my cheek, and my head whips to the side.
Blood fills my mouth.
I grab the cup of water and spit into it. A glob of saliva and blood immediately dissipates, turning the water pink.
“You disrespectful slut,” Mia says, leaning into me. She grabs me by my hair, cranking my head back. “After all I’ve done for you?”
I don’t answer. Can’t, really.
She releases me and backs up quickly, then goes to the dresser. She pulls items out, setting them on top of it. Her body blocks them.
“Get dressed,” she finally says, then leaves. The door slams behind her.
I rise and see what she’s given me, and my heart drops.
Pointe shoes, a black leotard. That’s it.
She can’t be serious.
Not with this chain around my leg anyway.
And then I notice the small key sitting beside the pointe shoes. I go for that first, fitting it into the padlock hole. It fits perfectly and clicks when I twist it. The padlock opens, and I yank the cuff off. I toss it in the corner and tuck the key in my sports bra… just in case.
Not sure a detail like that would get past her, but I’ve got to try. Right?
Right.
Anyway, currently I’m just trying to survive… and I think that means I need to go along with what she says. I check the door just to be sure, but it rattles in place. Locked .
So I quickly shed my clothes and pull on the leotard. It fits like a glove, softer than any of mine. Better quality maybe? And twice as expensive. Then the pointe shoes… which appear to be mine . The ones I painstakingly prepared a week ago, that I’ve been rehearsing in for Sleeping Beauty . They’re almost at the end of their life, but still have another few days in them.
My best guess anyway.
I sit back on the bed with my pointe shoes in my lap. I don’t relish the thought of trying to escape while wearing these. If it came to it, though, it would be better than barefoot.
I shudder. Cutting up the bottom of my feet is low on the list of things I want to endure. Although, that opinion might change when I find out what Mia wants from me.
The footsteps over my head sound again, and then my door unlocks. It swings inward, and Mia looks at the shoes in my lap. She makes a face. “Put them on.”
We stare at each other. She seems… the same. Her face, her hair, her posture. She hasn’t suddenly transformed into the wicked witch or an obsessive stalker. She just holds her tension in her mouth and jaw. Her lips press together, the muscles tense. Tendons stand out in her neck.
“How long have you thought about this?”
She motions to the shoes.
I slip one on, adjusting the ribbons.
“I thought we had gotten over our hump,” she finally says. “So I wasn’t planning on doing this at all…”
I put on the other shoe.
“Come with me,” she says.
I rise and follow her into the small, narrow hallway. There’s a tight spiral staircase that she scales quickly. I go up more slowly, carefully. I don’t have it in me to be frightened. I’m just tired and wary and disappointed in myself.
Why didn’t I see this in her?
I have no problem seeing Greyson’s demons—so why not hers?
There’s a trap door in the kitchen floor that’s been flipped open. As soon as I’m out, Mia closes it and slides a rug back into place. If she wanted to hide me down there from someone, anyone , I don’t think they’d find me.
“I inherited this cabin from my great-uncle. He bragged that he was involved in the underground railroad. My father always thought his uncle was a crackpot and he really kept women down there.” Mia shrugs. “He drank a lot. Smoked even more. So who knows what the truth is?”
Chills skate down my back.
“I wanted to take this time to work on your technique,” she continues. She gestures to the living room; the center is now cleared of most of the furniture. The couch is shoved up against the wall, the side tables piled on top of it. The coffee table is knocked over, belly up, and the thick rug rolled on top of it.
“Fifth position.”
I raise my eyebrow. “You want me to… dance…?”
“Yes,” she says, impatient. “Go on. Take your position.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “And if I don’t want to dance?”
Her eyebrow tics, then smooths. “Then I’ll make sure you never dance for anyone. Ever again.” Her gaze goes to the corner, where a rubber mallet leans against the wall.
“You’d break my leg?”
She lifts her shoulder. “I don’t want to resort to that, Violet. But you either dance for CPB or you dance for no one.”
I shudder and inch forward.
She nods and pushes a button on a stereo on the floor, up against a wall. The music that comes out isn’t Sleeping Beauty —it’s Giselle .
I cringe.
“Oh, did you think you were going to get off easy? Dance a piece you know so well?” She glowers at me. “I know you snuck away to learn this with Shawn Meridian, Violet. I know you are transfixed by his work. That’s why I brought him to you.” She comes forward and grabs my hands, both of them, pulling me toward her.
It’s the last place I want to be.
Her grip is tight, though. “That was my gift. But you still want to leave me.”
“I already told you—that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Lies! ” she shrieks, throwing my hands back at me.
I curl them into my stomach and stagger away.
She marches over to the wall and snatches the mallet, hefting it over her shoulder. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Violet.”
“I don’t remember what happened,” I snap at her, sick of this. “Okay? I don’t know what happened that day.”
She shakes her head and restarts the music. “Dance .”
Reluctantly, I take my place in the center of the room. I begin. It’s not as fresh in my head, even though Shawn showed me the video earlier. Even though muscle memory guided me through it so recently. My mind has warped some of his choreography. Muscle memory can get things wrong, especially since I only learned it once.
She slams the bottom of the mallet into the floor like a metronome. The wood is rough when I rise onto pointe. It grabs at my shoes, slows down my spins.
“Stop,” Mia says. “There. Your hip.”
She comes forward, and I repeat the move. She puts her hand on my thigh, adjusting it. I ignore the way my skin crawls, her palm on my bare leg.
Then she steps back. “Okay, good. Again.”
On and on. She dissects every little part, until sweat rolls down my back and I’m panting for breath. Hours, it feels like. I don’t know how long we actually go.
Inevitably, I stumble and fall. I hit the floor hard and stay there, trying to catch my breath. Mia has taken a seat on a kitchen chair she dragged in, and she doesn’t try to get me to stand or continue on. Although I fear she will.
“When were you going to tell me you were leaving CPB?”
“I’ve got questions, too, you know.” I twist to sit more comfortably, pulling my leg up to my chest and wrapping my arms around it.
“Ask.” She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I’ve never known her to smoke, but I don’t say anything as she plucks one out and sticks it between her lips. She lights it, then exhales smoke. “Go on, Violet, ask me.”
“Have you been following me?”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “After you decided to take me up on my offer to see the Vermont doctor, of course I followed you. I had to be sure you weren’t doing more harm than good.”
“And the break-ins?”
“No. Although I do suspect your ex, Jack. He’s an odd duck, is he not? Possessive, angry.” She laughs. “Funny, seeing as how you’re currently dating someone a step above.”
Two people. Her following me. Him trying to actively ruin my life.
“You didn’t have anything to do with those articles?”
“The first one, I did.” She lifts a shoulder. “Your mother called me in a panic at the hospital. It was when you were in surgery. She told me the whole fucking story. And then the senator’s boy just walked? After hurting you—and potentially ending your career? He’s lucky he didn’t do more lasting damage. He should’ve been arrested.”
Mia taps ash from the end of her cigarette, letting it fall to the floor. There were too many loopholes in the case against Greyson. There was time between him leaving the scene—where no one saw him except me and his passenger—and the police showing up at his house.
There was no solid proof that he was drunk driving.
“I meant what I said, though. That you had a community behind you. I hoped they would’ve added more, but… oh, well. Nothing I could do about it without getting my hands dirty.”
“They’re dirty now,” I say.
She frowns. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“You tell me what you learned that would make you want to leave CPB. Leave me . And then we’ll discuss what our options are.” She leans forward, staring down at me. “Think about it, Violet. Your memory can’t be that hazy. You only lost a day. But you lost the night I’ve most wanted to forget.”
“I think you already know.” I raise my eyebrow. “I think you know a lot more than you’re saying. I’ve tried to remember, but it’s gone. So please, tell me.”
Suddenly Mia is in front of me, brushing my hair away from my forehead. I don’t move, can’t even breathe, as her fingertips probe my scar.
Greyson makes me forget I even have one. His gaze doesn’t stray up to it, he doesn’t pay it extra attention, or any at all. He thinks I’m beautiful. But he’s not here, and Mia is.
“Did Shawn have you convinced?” she whispers, pressing her nose to my hairline. “Did he give you a two-minute spiel and offer to whisk you away? You can’t fall for his bullshit, Violet. Not this time.”
Giselle is a tragedy. Sleeping Beauty almost is, too. Two girls tricked by people who think they know better. Giselle dies because of it. Aurora falls asleep for a hundred years and wakes up in a new world.
Who pays a lesser price?
Which of them is better off?
“He didn’t convince me of anything,” I say. “What happened that night?”
Giselle danced with the man she fell in love with and saved him from dying. What’s more powerful than that? Being kissed awake by a prince?
“You confronted me,” she moans. “I don’t know what he said to you, or if he said it again. He knew you weren’t going to be cast as Giselle. But he didn’t see your talent like I did. Didn’t think it was something that could just burst out of you. You told me he said you needed time .”
I try not to rear back, but I must make some motion, because she twitches. She twists my hair between her fingers. Not pulling, just staring at the blonde strands.
“I came to Rose Hill to see you,” she says faintly. “I waited outside the studio. And you yelled… I’ve never seen you so mad. So hurt. At me . But was I so delusional to think that you’d make it so far, so fast? True, raw talent like yours is rare. I had to nurture it. And you! I nurtured you, made you into who you were. And you just wanted to leave me to go be one of his soloists.” She scoffs, pounding her chest with her fist. “I make prima ballerinas. Not him.”
“You scared me,” I guess. “That night? Was I frightened?”
By the way she sucks in a breath, I know I’m right. I can almost see it, too. What a reality check. To be told by a choreographer that I so admired that my director was leading me astray. Filling my head with fantasies, when all I needed was to work harder . I know how angry I’d be at Mia.
If I’m only good enough to be a principal dancer at Crown Point Ballet, of course I would never leave her. I’d never get a contract as a principal anywhere else. And a few years of being the best, of getting the roles I wanted… Yeah, I can see how she could’ve manipulated me.
It hits my ego, too.
I can’t help but begrudge the fact that I have to learn this twice.
“You ran to your car. Sped out into the road, and that stupid boy hit you,” she spits. Her eyes are wild.
This is escalating. I scramble for something to ease her—and give her what she wants.
“I’m going to stay with you.” My stomach turns. I take her hand and thread my fingers with hers. “Please don’t make me dance as Giselle again. I want to be Aurora for you.”
A tear rolls down Mia’s cheek. It falls off her jaw and lands on my chest. “You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that.”
It’s all a lie .
She releases me and straightens, dragging the chair with her back into the kitchen. I watch her from the floor as she opens the fridge and pulls out containers, pours a glass of water. I see her take a vial from her pocket and let a few drops fall into the water. She mixes it with her finger, then comes back to me.
Is it a test?
She offers me the water first, her eyes large as I bring it to my mouth.
I don’t think I can get out of drinking this.
“Is that food?” I ask, lowering the glass slightly.
She nods. “But you’re dehydrated. Drink up.”
I close my eyes and nod, then take a sip. It doesn’t taste any different. There’s just a hint of sweet aftertaste. She hands me the container second. Cut up chicken, broccoli, and yellow rice with a plastic spoon shoved into it. I eat quickly, practically shoveling it into my mouth. Any faster and I’ll be sick… but maybe the food can slow whatever drug she gave me.
Might be wishful thinking.
My stomach turns, and I brace my hand on the floor. “What was in the water?”
“Something to help you sleep,” she says. “It’s late. You need rest.”
I nod. My inhibitions are fading like I’ve drank too much liquor. My tongue feels thick, my eyes sluggish.
“Oh, and Violet? If you tell anyone what happened, I’m going to gut your senator’s son boyfriend and paint your skin with his blood. Okay?”
It’s the last thing I hear.
