My skirt is now hitched up over my hips, but I don’t care about that, at least I’m still wearing my knickers. Besides, I’m practically dressed as a nun given the state of undress the rest of the crowd has been in over the course of the night. With every spin, the warehouse rushes by, the flames in the oil drums blurring within the darkness. Heat radiates around me, my movement parting the air with purpose.
I allow the dance to take over, my soul speaks through my limbs and the movements I make with my body. Heat pervades the air alongside a desperate kind of longing. I’ve longed for the Breakers’ return. Deep down inside, all I’ve ever wanted is for them to come back into my life, to beg for forgiveness, to allow me the opportunity to beg for theirs. I’ve never wanted to fix what was broken more than I do now. This need I have for them, the friendship I yearn for, the love that breaks my heart, is all encompassing. Hate and fear still bubbles within my chest. The concoction makes me feel ill, confused, uncertain about everything.
I love them.
I fucking hate them.
I want them.
I never ever want to see them again.
Too many conflicting emotions bleed into my dance steps until the only thing I can grasp hold of is the need to save myself from something that I might never recover from and the absolute determination to keep Lena safe from harm.
So I keep moving, spinning, jerking my body with every last ounce of strength I have left. Tap merges with ballet and contemporary. I even throw in some hip-hop just because I can. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, the lack of food and the flood of adrenaline a dangerous cocktail that will make me crash and burn the second I stop moving. But I keep dancing until I’m not conscious of my moves, until the dance truly and completely takes over.
I feel powerful. Strong.
Maybe it’s foolish to believe that my talent will get me out of trouble. Maybe it’s just prolonging the inevitable, but I have to try. I have to hope that Zayn, that the Breakers will be reminded of who I am, who I was to them. I dance with every last part of my soul, every last drop of energy as anger and love burns inside my chest. I grab hold of those feelings with gritted teeth and clawed fingers and don’t let go. We all have a demon within us, just like Hozier sings. My demons have been eating away at me for three fucking years. It’s time to set them free.
Bending backwards in an arch, my palms nearing the edge of the table between York and Dax, I flip over, landing on my feet between them. The air zings with energy, and I’m very aware that every single pair of eyes in this warehouse are on me now. Even the topless women in the cage are gawking at me. That’s where I head next. Striding over to the cage unaccosted, I step into the space and nod. I see something within them, a respect that comes from a love of dance. These women might remove their clothes for money, hell, some of them probably even spread their legs for it. But right now, all six of them acknowledge what this is. They see something in me too.
The need to fight.
To be seen as something other than a sexual object. None of us want to be lusted over and discarded like trash the minute these arseholes are done with us.
No more.
The women surround me, small smiles pulling up their lips.
“Get it, girl,” a tall blonde says to me before she spins away from me in impossibly high heels and towards the edge of the cage. The rest of the women follow suit and like caged animals finally given freedom, really fucking let loose. Pride fills me as I watch them move with purpose, resolve, and a proverbial fuck you to all these bastards watching us.
I don’t know them, but that doesn’t matter. I understand them in this moment, just like they understand me. Right here and now, we’re bonded by our anger, by our love of dance, by our need to be fucking seen.
Standing in the centre of the cage, my chest heaving, my bare feet tacky from the not yet dried blood, I glare at my Breakers with curled fists and fierce determination. All four of them are hidden in the shadows, their expressions unseen from this distance, but I know I’ve hit them where it hurts. I fucking know it.
A feral, animalistic feeling blooms inside of me. Something as dark as the violence that had bled into the canvas beneath my feet just minutes before. I feed off of it. I let it fill me up and with the last remains of my energy, I let it all out. Hozier sings about internal strength, a fire that burns within us all. He sings about the demons we fight inside of us, about controlling them. But tonight I’m not controlling anything. Tonight, I’m showing my strength.
Tonight, that’s what I give them, my fire.
Every. Last. Fucking. Drop.
4
Pen
My hands and knees slam onto the bloodied canvas, my chest heaves as I draw in precious oxygen. I’m shaking all over. My teeth chatter and sweat pours from my skin. The soles of my feet are raw, blistered from dancing barefoot. I’m spent. Every last ounce of energy is gone, and blackness threatens to take over.
I don’t want to faint. I don’t want to be that vulnerable, so I give myself a moment to breathe as my head drops between my shoulders and my hair falls over my face. All I can hear are my laboured breaths as I suck precious oxygen in and out of my lungs, drawing on it so that I don’t fall into darkness. Then, slowly, as I sit back on my haunches with my head still lowered, other sounds trickle in. Someone close by begins to clap. I peer to the side, not lifting my head, but looking through the curtain of hair that falls over my face. A pair of shiny, black shoes approach me as I try to steady my thundering heart. They’re buffed to perfection and sit beneath a pair of dark grey suit trousers, coming to stop directly beside me. Beyond them I see the strippers walk out of the cage leaving me alone with this man and it’s definitely a man given the size of his feet and the clothes he’s wearing.
“That was quite incredible. You are an outstanding dancer,” a deep male voice says to me, proving my point.
This man has an accent. I’m no expert, but it sounds Russian or eastern European with the way his lips wrap around the w making it sound more like a v. I don’t respond to his compliment, focusing instead on getting my pulse back to a less dangerous beat and trying not to succumb to the black spots threatening my vision. He slowly lowers himself into a crouch beside me and I see a white shirt rolled up to the elbows to reveal tan skin and dark hair covering thick forearms.
“Look at me, piękna tancerka,” he says, lifting my chin with his finger. There’s something in the tone of his voice that sends warning bells ringing. I listen to my gut, it’s never wrong. This man is dangerous, but then again, what man isn’t? All the men in my life are dangerous. I’m used to the predators. Can smell them a mile off.
I peer at him through my messy strands of hair, some of which are sticking to my forehead with sweat. He’s wearing a mask, but it isn’t much of one. Just a thin length of red silk wrapped around his eyes with holes cut into the material so he can see. There’s really no effort to hide his identity and that only makes me more wary of him, not less. He’s older than I expected, maybe in his early fifties with dark hair smoothed off his face in a sharp style that greys around the sides of his temple. A short, clipped beard covers the lower half of his face, wrapping around plump pink lips and teeth so white and straight they must have been paid for. He’s handsome, there’s no denying that, but I can see the truth of who he is deep in the dark recesses of his cobalt eyes.