Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 6

Early the next morning, I'm out of the apartment door, hopping down the stairwell. Trying my hardest to focus on the ugly floral patterned carpet as I descend to the first floor, blocking out my sister's teary eyelashes and Mom, who didn't bother to hide her moans that ran far into the night.

However cowardly, it was a good decision to drop off Gisa at home yesterday and miss the first waves of my family's panic. Though I'm not particularly thankful for meeting Cal, either; his hand around my wrist haunted my dreams.

Mom said it was bad, confirming my suspicions.

Coward. I should've been there, at my knees and prepared to plead for forgiveness.

My face is greeted with already muggy and sweltering air, despite the sun having barely risen.

My profession isn't lawful, but for the years I've been at pickpocketing, there isn't a block of Manhattan I haven't seen. With the city ever-changing, I doubt I'll ever grow tired of it.

But if I do, there happen to be another four boroughs to explore.

Down the street from the apartment, two men bicker outside of Will's rival grocery store, and I turn my head down, pretending not to notice as I make for Midtown. Today's a walking day.

I slap my weathered and shoelace-fraying Converse against the pavement, heading towards the safer and more expensive parts of town, away from my family and away from that bar Cal was loitering outside of. There's nothing worth stealing in East Harlem, as I've said before.

Even with my yellow T-shirt and my thinnest pair of blue jeans, forgoing the red sweatshirt, I've decided each day for the past week and a half that I'm over July. Its damp heat that boils the dumpsters in alleyways, the way that the air shimmers as though everything's just an illusion, everything. I'm over it. Hair clinging to my neck, I tie the brown into a tail that reaches halfway down my back and continue my walk, unsure of the areas I'll hit today.

After my long night yesterday, I went into Will's shop and dumped out the contents of my purse. Every last one of the credit cards was frozen, the watches weren't as nice as I had initially thought, and the diamond bracelet was a knockoff. Will told me that although I might have clever hands, my eyes needed quite a bit of work.

I snarled at him, still pissed about Farley, stormed up to the apartment, and counted through the money at the dinner table. The rest of my family was blessedly asleep.

From all the wallets . . . a thousand dollars. Nothing to Farley, but a lot to my family. I'll give it to them in bits and pieces so they don't get too suspicious about where I've been.

If I return to Midtown, Times Square will just be full of sweaty bodies, and though I could make another thousand on Wall Street, that place is dangerous, and I'm not willing to test my luck again. Though I would've returned last night—however foolishly—if there had been any chance of amassing enough money to make Farley an offer. Yet Wall Street was a ghost town for the rest of the day, so I heard.

Diana Farley. The whisper of her name hits me, a brick in the head. I need to know more about her, about them, but not knowing where to start, I kick at the pebble at my feet.

And continue the long walk downtown.

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I mean to go upstairs and check on Kilorn.

But I find myself staring at Will's shop window, at a poster I've never seen before.

It's anything but brightly colored. Black and white, a photograph of a dancer standing en pointe. Her shoulders are back, her head tilted down toward the shadowed floor, hands neatly crossed behind her back, and she wears a white dress that reaches for her shins. The dancer is light in the darkness of the vignette photograph.

At the bottom there's text. An advertisement for the Manhattan Dance Academy, the bigshot owners of it with the name I can never remember.

I stare at the pointe shoes on the glossy paper, perfectly arched by the dancer's feet who use them. A cruel joke publishing the new season of auditions in this part of town, it has to be.

Nobody from around here, even if they had the talent, could afford to dance at the Academy. It used to be a dream of mine to try out for its summer intensives, but I soon learned that the scholarships to the school are rarely given. I never had a chance.

I've heard stories about the studios at the Academy, entire walls made of glass.

While its main bravado is ballet—the professional dancers hold performances at the grand opera houses and theatres of Manhattan throughout the year—its world-class teachers also train in the other dancing styles I was familiar with.

It's not as though it matters.

The bell to the grocery store chimes, and Will Whistle exits. "Begone, loiterer!" he chides jokingly, coming to lean against the glass. Vaguely, I wonder how long I've been watching the poster, willing it to go away. "What? You want to work there?"

I shake my head, still in admiration for the ballerina's arch in her foot. "I'm not good enough or rich enough to study dance at the Manhattan Dance Academy, Will."

He laughs, slapping the paper with a wrinkled hand.

I turn to him with crossed arms, hardly appreciative. "What?" I snap.

"That's the point, Miss Barrow! Did you even bother to read the words? It's not an advertisement for auditioning; it's for a job cleaning their facilities. Maybe you should go back to school, girly."

I blink as if to clear my vision. Will's not wrong.

It's an ad for a lowly cleaner's job, spruced up with a pretty ballet dancer.

"Oh," I murmur, and in anger of myself, I rip the poster off Will's glass.

Will says something about damaging his property, but my self-loathing drowns him out a thousand times over. Stupid, stupid, stupid for ever thinking that they'd put up a sign for dancers in this neighborhood. They probably don't even hold open auditions, and certainly wouldn't take dancers from dingy places like East Harlem.

Cleaners, now that makes sense. People in these parts will work for any amount of money—no matter how depressing the work is.

Stupid. I've been calling myself that a lot lately.

I'm suddenly inside, and the steps creak beneath me as my shoes pound against them, no longer interested in checking in on Kilorn.

Gisa and Mom are out of the apartment looking for medical supplies, undoubtedly, and Tramy and Bree are stuffed away in their bedroom.

The poster is slippery beneath my warm hands. And I don't know why I bother to hang onto at all, but soon enough I'm stuffing it under my bed with the rest of my forgotten dreams.

But I tear the plastic bin from under my bed. Hundreds of dollars worth of shoes, all half-used, just sitting in here. Accomplishing nothing.

That incessant voice in my head whispers at me to throw them all away, to at last move on. At last.

Instead, I pull my pointe shoes on and scale the fire escape.

Up and up I go, the street becoming just a little smaller as I run up the flights of stairs.

I hit the cement on top of the roof.

And I dance.

I dance until the sun dips below the horizon, and shadows bleed into the city. I dance until tears stream down my face, and I remember how it felt to live.

And I'm going to take that job if only to spite the world.