Chapter 52 The Midnight Pivot
You cannot outrun a shadow and you definitely cannot out-dance a fracture.
I am sitting on the edge of the bathtub in the Kensington flat, my teeth clamped onto a rolled up washcloth as Caspian unwraps the tape from my foot. The silence in the bathroom is deafening, punctuated only by the wet shlick of the adhesive pulling away from my swollen skin. My foot looks like a bruised plum, angry, dark, and twice the size it should be.
"You are shaking, Zora," Caspian says, his voice barely a whisper. He does not look up. He is kneeling on the cold tile, his hands steady as he dips a sponge into a bowl of ice water.
"I am fine," I grunt through the cloth. I spit it out and take a ragged breath. "It is just the cold."
"It is not the cold. It is the fact that Halloway just handed us a death sentence," he says, finally looking up. His eyes are dark, rimmed with an exhaustion that makes him look older than twenty. "Triple tours? Grand jetés? She knows you cannot land those. She is giving us a fair way to fail so she does not look like she is taking my father's money."
"Then we are done," I say, leaning my head back against the cold tile wall. "I cannot do the traditional piece, Cas. I tried to mark it in my head on the way home. My body just says no."
Caspian stands up, wiping his hands on a towel. He leans against the sink, staring at our reflection in the steamed up mirror. "We are not doing the traditional piece. We are going to perfect the Riot. Every stomp, every floor slide, every lift that keeps you off that foot."
"She said if we do not do the ballet, we are out. Escorted to the airport, remember?"
"She said we had to perform for the evaluation," he clarifies, a sharp, dangerous spark returning to his gaze. "But the Vanguard board is not the only set of eyes in London. Greg has a contact, a curator for the South Bank Arts Festival. They are hosting a gala tomorrow night. No judges, just donors and company directors."
"You want to crash a gala?" I ask, a dry laugh escaping my throat. "With a broken foot?"
"I want to show them what they are trying to kill," he says, stepping toward me and taking my face in his hands. "If we dance at the Vanguard, Arthur wins. He bought the judges. But he cannot buy a whole festival audience. If we go viral there, Halloway will not be able to cut us without looking like a fool."
"It is a gamble, Cas. A huge one."
"Everything since the Bronx has been a gamble," he murmurs, leaning down to press his forehead against mine. "I am not losing you to a plane ticket back to the Flats. I am not letting him win."
He kisses me, a slow, desperate thing that tastes like the salt of my own tears. I melt into him, my fingers tangling in the damp fabric of his shirt. For a second, the pain in my foot is just a background noise to the frantic pounding of my heart.
"I love you," I whisper against his lips.
"Then trust me," he says. "We go back to Shoreditch tonight. We work until the sun comes up. And tomorrow, we show London what a Janitor and a Prince can really do."
I look down at my foot, then back at the boy who gave up a kingdom to keep me on my toes. I do not tell him that the six weeks the nurse mentioned is screaming in the back of my mind. I do not tell him that every step feels like my bone is turning into glass.
I just nod. "Let us get the tape."
We leave the flat under the cover of the 2:00 AM fog, two shadows slipping into the London night. But as we hail a cab, I catch a glimpse of a black sedan parked a block away. Its lights are off, but the driver's side window is rolled down just an inch.
Someone is watching. And in this city, the watchers never have good news.
"Cas, do not look now," I whisper as we slide into the cab. "But I think your father's money is already following us."
Caspian does not look. He just grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. "Let them follow. They are about to get a front row seat to the end of the Thorne Empire."
As the cab pulls away, I look back. The sedan does not move, but the red glow of a cigarette ember illuminates the driver's face for a split second.
It is not a Thorne lawyer. It is Soren.
The hook is set, and the line is pulling tight. We are headed for a warehouse in the dark, and we are not alone.