Chapter 12 Target on My Back
I wake up to the sound of a phone buzzing. It is not mine. It is Caspian's. He is still asleep in the armchair, his long frame cramped and uncomfortable. I reach over and grab the phone from the nightstand, my fingers trembling. It is a text from Sloane.
Check the news, Prince. Your janitor friend just became the most hated person in the city. Good luck getting her on stage now.
My heart drops into my stomach. I open the browser on his phone and type in my name. The screen flickers, and the headline at the top of the City Press makes the room spin.
Academy Scandal: Scholarship Student Accused of Theft and Extortion. Is Zora Vane a Talented Dancer or a Professional Con Artist?
Below the headline is a photo of me under the desk in Arthur Thorne's office. It is grainy, taken from a hidden security camera I never saw. Next to it is a shot of the thumb drive. The article claims I broke into the estate to steal trade secrets to blackmail the Board. It says I am a troubled girl from the Flats trying to buy my way into a world where I don't belong.
I am not a dancer anymore. I am a fugitive.
"Caspian," I whisper, my voice cracking. I shake his shoulder, and he jolts awake, his eyes snapping to mine. "Look. Look what he did."
He takes the phone, his face pale as he reads the lies. "He's framing you. Zoe, he's making it look like the deal was a payoff for silence. He's protecting himself by destroying you."
"I have to go," I say, trying to swing my bandaged leg off the bed. "If I stay here, they'll find me. I'll be in a cell before I can even explain."
The door to the dorm room bursts open with a violent bang. It is Coach Elias. He looks pale, his eyes darting between me and Caspian. He is panting, his tie crooked.
"Zora, get your things," he says, his voice shaking. "The Board is here. They've locked down the main entrances, and they brought the police. Arthur Thorne isn't playing games anymore."
Caspian bolts upright, stepping between me and the door. "What? Coach, wait. We have the deal. He signed a paper dropping the suit!"
"There's no time for waiting!" Elias snaps, grabbing a duffel bag from the closet and throwing it at me. "Arthur didn't just sign that paper to drop the suit, Zoe. He signed it so he could frame you for a felony. He is telling them you forced him to sign it at knifepoint. He has turned the narrative. The public already hates you. The news stations are calling you a parasite."
"Knifepoint?" I scream, clutching my crutches. "I am on crutches. I can barely stand, let alone jump him with a knife!"
"It doesn't matter what the truth is if you are in a holding cell," Elias says, his voice urgent. He grabs my crutches and shoves them into my hands. "He has the money, the lawyers, and the police on his speed dial. Right now, your truth is a fairy tale. You have to get out of here. Now."
"And the Gala?" I ask, my heart breaking. All those hours of dancing until my feet bled, all the nights spent scrubbing these very floors. "Does he get to take that too?"
Elias looks at the clock. "The Gala is in twelve hours. If you aren't in that building when the curtain rises, Sloane goes on. The Board will announce that you were dismissed for character issues. And if you are in the building, you will likely be arrested the moment you step into the light. Arthur has stationed private security at every wing."
Caspian grabs his bag, his face set in a mask of pure defiance. He looks at me, his hand reaching for mine. "Then we make sure they can't catch us until the music starts. If we are going to be criminals, we might as well be the best ones they have ever seen."
"Zoe, we need to disappear for the next ten hours," Caspian says, pulling me toward the door. "Somewhere he can't find us. Somewhere that doesn't exist on his map."
We head for the hallway, moving as quietly as possible. The Academy feels different now. The glass walls feel like a cage. As we reach the stairwell, a loud, booming voice echoes from the floor below.
"Search every room! She's in this building! Check the practice studios and the dorms!"
It is the police. They are closer than we thought. I can hear the heavy thud of boots on the stairs.
"The back exit," Elias whispers, pointing toward the service elevator. "Go. I'll try to stall them at the main desk."
We scramble down the back stairs. Every landing feels like a trap. Every creak of the floorboards sounds like a siren. We burst into the kitchen, sprinting past the confused morning staff who are just starting the breakfast prep. They stare at us, eyes wide, as the Academy's star and the janitor girl fly past the industrial ovens.
We reach the loading dock just as a large white laundry truck is idling, its exhaust puffing into the chilly morning air.
A figure steps out from behind a stack of crates. He is wearing a paint stained hoodie and looks like he hasn't slept in days. It is Jax.
"I heard the news on the scanner," he says with a grim smile, tossing a look at Caspian before focusing on me. "Figured you might need a ride that doesn't have a school logo on it. The city is crawling with cruisers, Z."
"Jax, how did you get past the gates?" I ask, breathless.
"Security is too busy looking at the front doors and checking IDs," he grins, tossing me a spare jacket to cover my Academy shirt. "The van is in the alley, hidden behind the trash bins. Let's go."
"Not to the Flats, Jax," I say, the plan forming in my mind. "We are going to the one place Arthur Thorne would never think to look. The one place he thinks he has already destroyed. He thinks he buried the Vane legacy a year ago. He is wrong."
"Where's that?" Jax asks as we pile into the back of the rusted van.
"Lumi's old dance studio," I say, feeling the hard edges of the thumb drive in my pocket. "The one he had condemned after the crash. Nobody goes near that block. It is a ghost town. It is the perfect place for a ghost like me."
"Perfect," Jax says, slamming the doors shut and locking them. "Because right now, you need to be ghosts. If they can't see you, they can't catch you."
I lean my head against the cold metal wall of the van, the vibration of the engine rattling my teeth.
My ankle is screaming. My name is ruined. My mother is probably waking up to the news that her daughter is a criminal and a con artist. But as I look at the signed paper in my hand, I realise Arthur made a mistake. He thinks he has won because he controlled the headline.
He thinks he has broken me. He doesn't realise that when you have already lost everything once, you stop being afraid of the fall. I have ten hours to find a way onto that stage, and I am going to make sure that when the curtain rises, it is his world that burns, not mine. He wanted a story. I will give him one.
"Caspian," I whisper as the van hits a pothole, sending a jolt of pain through my foot. "The routine. We have to change the ending."
"Change it how?" he asks, sitting close to me in the dark.
"No more dolls," I say, looking down at my bandaged foot. "If I am going to jail, I am going to give them something they can never forget. I am going to show them exactly what Arthur Thorne tried to kill. I am going to show them the crash. Every shattered piece of it."
Caspian nods, a dark, dangerous spark in his gold eyes. "Then we practice in the dark.”