Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 25

"Humor me: how in the world did you end up working as a maid at the Calore Dance Academy?"

Arrested in place at the door, I stare after Will as he crouches behind the counter and opens one of its larger cabinets. The clicking of a combination lock sounds throughout the air, and soon enough Will's tossing a manila folder onto the counter. Though he probably has dozens of cases, I can't help but remember the folder he handed Farley all those weeks ago.

Will busies himself with removing the file's papers, all blurred and black and white from the door. He glances over his shoulder towards me for a moment. "Well?" he asks. "Your parents don't seem to know that you work there at all, and the reports on that nasty fall only mention you walked in with an advertisement the day before."

I don't bother asking what reports he speaks of. "It was pure-chance," I grumble. My throat has that parched feeling, like I took a nap for three hours with my mouth wide open.

"The fall or how you got the job?"

"You were there when I ripped that ad off your storefront."

"To this day I question what idiot had the balls to vandalize my property."

I would laugh if it were just me and Will chatting it up like old pals. But I'm too focused on my words. I tell him as little as I dare to, leaving Cal's name off the table and our meeting at the GrAveyard nonexistent. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, and more importantly, what he doesn't know won't hurt me.

My stomach continues to churn, and I keep my arms firmly crossed, but I say anyway, "You knew it was an advertisement for the Manhattan Dance Academy. You're just asking to see what I'll say."

"Clever girl. Now come look." He finishes, laying out the papers in six columns and two rows.

This man . . . this man . . . he knew what I was getting myself into the moment I took that poster from his window and stormed up to my apartment. He let me run away from everything to live out this dream, kept his mouth shut when my parents undoubtedly asked after me. Even tonight, he knew full well where this conversation would go in the end, shepherding it like the trickster he is. He puts Cal's manipulation to shame.

My feet stay anchored in place, utterly petrified. I don't register the new song that comes on the radio, placid as the air around me is. Even my pounding heart goes a little numb along with the rest of my body. I only see Will's face, his sharp chin angled down at the papers, his hands braced along the counter's edges, and his eyes insisting that I don't walk out the door.

"I'm not ruining what I have there." Shaking my head slowly to make a point, I settle one of my hands on my hip, the other in a fist set against my mouth. "The law's going to get to the Street Fighters long before they get to the Calores."

"Don't be turning all cynical on me," Will scolds, shaking his head right back. "I wouldn't bother telling you any of this if I thought you could stomach working for a corrupt family. You might have a nice little salary and a pretty little loft to live in, but at the end of the day, you're not one of them—no matter how hard you try, you never will be, nor will you want to be."

My gut clenches, and air catches in my throat. I can't say he's wrong. Any building as big as the ones downtown possess some degree of corruption, have stolen something from the little man. For all my life, I've seen Midtown and Wall Street as nothing more than an outlet for pickpocketing, a haven for wealth and fortune. Those skyscrapers and billboards reminded me for the longest time of what I wasn't born into and what I wasn't lucky enough to have. I've never bought off Fifth Avenue or seen Central Park from the high rises of Billionaires' Row. The similarities I share with the other ballerinas at the Academy extend no further than our pointe shoes and leotards.