Chapter 19 The Weight of the Riot
The roar of the crowd follows us into the wings, but it is no longer the sound of an audience. It is the sound of a mob. I can hear the splintering of wood and the panicked shouts of the elite as the people from the Flats surge forward.
Caspian's hand is a vise around mine, pulling me through the maze of velvet curtains and heavy ropes. We are not looking for a bow. We are looking for an exit.
"Zoe! Caspian! Over here!"
Jax is standing by the stage door, holding it open just wide enough for us to slip through. His face is flushed with adrenaline. "The van is running in the alley, but the police are blocking the main gate. We have to go through the basement tunnels."
"Wait," I gasp, my breath coming in ragged hitches. The lidocaine is still holding the pain at bay, but my head is spinning from the rush. "Caspian, your father. He is right there. If you leave now—"
Caspian stops and turns to me. His black shirt is soaked with sweat, and his eyes are fiercer than I have ever seen them. "If I stay, I am a prisoner, Zoe. If I leave, I am a man. Let's go."
We fly down the service stairs, the sound of the riot fading into a low, vibrating hum above us. We burst into the alleyway just as a police cruiser screeches around the corner, its blue and red lights painting the brick walls in violent flashes.
"Get in! Get in!" Jax yells, sliding the van door open.
We dive into the back, hitting the metal floor hard. Jax slams the door and floors it, the tires screaming as he fishtails out of the narrow alley. I scramble to the small window, watching the Academy shrink in the distance.
The cold glass and steel building is surrounded by flashing lights. It looks like a fortress under siege.
"We did it," I whisper, leaning my head against the vibrating wall. "Everyone saw it. They can't delete that video from five hundred phones."
"They saw it," Caspian says, sitting opposite me. He looks at his hands, which are shaking. "But my father, he is not going to let this go. He is going to say the video was a deepfake. He is going to say you hacked the system to frame him."
"Let him say it," I snap, my anger flaring up to shield me from the fear. "The metadata is on that drive. The dates match the hospital records. He can lie to the press, but he can not lie to a judge."
"He is the judge, Zoe," Caspian says quietly. "That is what you don't understand about people like him. He doesn't just use the law. He owns it."
The silence that follows is heavy. The enemies part of our story is over, but the lovers part feels like it is being born in a war zone. I look at him, the golden boy who just threw away a billion dollar inheritance for a girl who smells like woodsmoke and sweat.
"Why did you do it?" I ask. "You could have stayed in the tech booth. You could have said you didn't know what was on the drive."
Caspian moves from his side of the van to mine. The space is cramped, forced proximity in its purest form. He sits so close that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin.
"Because I have been dancing his choreography my whole life," he says, his voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp. "Tonight was the first time I felt like I was actually moving. With you."
He reaches out, his fingers brushing a stray lock of hair away from my soot stained forehead. His touch is hesitant, like he is afraid I will break. I do not pull away. For the first time, I do not feel like a debt collector or a janitor. I just feel like a girl who is tired of being alone.
"We are going to be looking over our shoulders for a long time, Caspian," I whisper.
"Then we will look together," he replies.
"Hey, sorry to ruin the moment," Jax calls out from the front, "but we have a problem. I am checking the news on my phone. Arthur Thorne just went live from the Academy steps."
I scramble toward the front. "What is he saying?"
Jax hands me the phone. Arthur is standing there, looking remarkably calm for a man whose secrets have just been broadcast to the world. He has a handkerchief pressed to a small cut on his forehead and he looks like a grieving father.
"My son is missing," Arthur tells the cameras, his voice cracking with fake emotion. "We believe he was coerced by this girl, Zora Vane, under the threat of violence. I am offering a fifty thousand dollar reward for any information that leads to the safe recovery of my son and the arrest of his kidnapper."
"Kidnapper?" I scream at the screen. "I was on stage dancing with him!"
"He is playing the abducted heir card," Caspian says, his jaw tightening. "He is making it so that if the police find us, they shoot first and ask questions later. He wants me rescued so he can lock me in a private ward and tell the world I have been brainwashed."
"And the Gala money?" I ask, my heart sinking. "The prize for the winner?"
"Madam Sterling declared you the winner on the live stream," Jax says, "but the Academy's accounts were frozen ten minutes ago by a legal inquiry from Thorne's firm. The money is in limbo, Z. You can not touch a cent of it."
I sink back onto the floor of the van. The adrenaline is finally wearing off, and the lidocaine is fading. The first sharp stabs of pain begin to radiate from my ankle, a reminder that the miracle was only temporary.
Lumi. The surgery. The debt. It is all still there. I did not win. I just made the enemy angry.
"We can not go to the Flats," Jax says, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "They will be watching your mom's place. They will be watching the gym."
"Where do we go?" I ask.
"There is an old shipyard on the south side of the river," Caspian says. "My grandfather owned it before the Thorne Group bought it out. It has been abandoned for years, but the power still works, and nobody looks at the old records. It is a ghost property."
"Do it," I say to Jax.
I look at Caspian. He looks exhausted, but his gaze is steady. He reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it. This is not the rags to riches ending I dreamed of. This is the wrong side of the tracks reality.
But as the van speeds toward the dark river, I realise something. Arthur Thorne thinks he has trapped us. He thinks that by taking the money and the reputation, he has taken our power.
He does not realise that a dancer who has nothing left to lose is the most dangerous thing in the world.
"Jax," I say, looking at the city lights reflecting off the water. "Do you still have those spray cans in the back?"
"Always, Z. Why?"
"Because if we are going to be ghosts," I say, a dark smile touching my lips, "we might as well leave some marks on the walls."
The war for Lumi's future just moved out of the Academy and into the streets. And this time, we are not dancing by the rules.