Page 111 of Pas de Trois
I would happily choose to be on the run forever so long as I was running with Ezra. And so, I don’t have much to complain about at the moment because I’m alive and there’s hope.
Though I’m still captive in Oslo, I have Kostya to keep me company. I have an entire warehouse to myself. I’ve managed to make a nice little temporary home here. But the best part is that I have the space to dance—I was finally healthy enough to get back to it after a few months and it’s how I spend most of my days.
I finish slipping on my broken-in, scuffed-up pointe shoes, wrapping and tying the ribbon securely around my ankle. I rise from the concrete floor of the main level of the warehouse and tug down a bit on my cotton shorts to adjust them.
It’s late afternoon and the sun shines in from the row of square windows at the top of the high wall, near the ceiling. There are no ground-level windows, only the ones high up above, out of reach. The windows slice the orange sun glow so that it casts down across the concrete floor in stripes of alternating sunlight and gray stone.
I pull my long, dark hair up and away from the off-shoulder gray sweatshirt I have on, twisting and tying it into a messy bun on the top of my head. I place my wireless earbuds in my ears and bend down to my laptop on the floor, tapping play on the music I selected and turning the volume all the way up.
I only have one full-length mirror in the warehouse, which is to say that I don’t have any mirrors to watch myself dance. But it doesn’t matter to me now the way it used to. I don’t care so much now about my movements being perfect and precise. I only want to dance what I feel, like Ezra taught me. I rise to my toes and bring my arms up high above my head, then bring them down the sides of my body, lowering them slowly as my feet begin to move.
I spin on the top of my toes in a pirouette, twirling around over and over before stepping out of the turn gracefully. I listen to the mood of the music and I follow it. The way I dance now is a fusion of ballet and contemporary style, the best of my world and the best of Ezra’s. As I move, I find myself drifting, floating through movement with my eyes closed. Gradually, my movement morphs into the routine, our routine—the performance Ezra and I danced for Nikolai on stage in Nobility Hall.
As I move, I mark the leaps and lifts that required his hands on me. He would move me with such strength and effortless grace—each lift and spin that he would have been part of forces a bubble of sadness to rise in my chest. With the somber music playing through my earbuds, tears begin to fall.
But I don’t stop dancing.
This is what Ezra taught me—how to move through the emotion, how to follow my feelings instead of the steps. My dancing becomes dramatic, wide sweeping arms and legs, erratic and desperate turning and falling and rising.
Thud.
The music crests and reaches a crescendo and I’m lost in it. I’m lost in the memory of his hands on me, his green eyes tracking my every move and feeding me fuel to live.
Thud.
Crash.
I spin and dip out of the turn, tumbling to the floor and rolling over, coming up on my knees—
I freeze.
Armed men burst through the front door while I was dancing and are coming toward me, guns raised. I rip my earbuds out and lift my hands, drawing back to sit on my heels as I look at the men dressed in all black with wide eyes.
“That’s Anya,” one of them shouts, and I hear the click of a man’s dress shoes from behind the throng of at least a dozen men.
They’ve found me.
Oh, God…
The four families have found me, and they’ve come to kill me.
I’m a statue in my panic, dropping my terrified eyes to the floor.
“Clear the warehouse,” someone says, and the crowd of men thins out as half of them sweep outward, away from the center of the clear open space where I kneel.
I focus on my breaths as terror grips me and I count.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
One. Two. Three—
They lower their weapons.
The few men remaining part and my eyes lock onto a man’s feet coming toward me from a distance, the click of his heels echoing in the warehouse. His footsteps stop in the center of the floor, but my eyes are glued to his feet.
Something in my soul pulses, causing my heart to skip a beat, and suddenly, I’m nervous. My hands tremble where I hold them above my bowed head, but it’s not from fear, it’s from…it’s from a familiar, prickling awareness. My eyes draw a line up his pressed navy slacks, skimming across his tailored suit jacket, glancing over his white shirt and blue tie, his chin, his lips, his vibrant green eyes…
Oh, my God.
