Chaos Choreography
Page 50
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“What the hell is going on here?” I asked.
Pax didn’t answer.
We had to get back to our partners before they noticed anything amiss. After a few more moments of staring at the empty basement, we’d returned to our respective rehearsal rooms and done our best to make it seem like nothing was wrong. That was where my Valerie persona gave me a thin advantage. I’d been treating her like someone completely distinct from myself for so long that all I had to do was shove my own concerns to the background and let her have the wheel. Valerie didn’t care about dead people. Valerie just wanted to dance.
Our group number for the week was a lyrical jazz number, where Lyra floated like a leaf and the rest of us struggled to get our legs to bend in places that didn’t usually come with joints. I left Valerie in charge, allowing her to follow the steps while I tried to puzzle through the situation. Two dead dancers, and no outcry, not even from their former roommates. I could see Jessica not caring that Poppy had never come to collect her things, but Reggie? He and Chaz had been pretty close. And what about the other eliminated dancers? Someone needed to check their social media accounts. If they’d gone completely silent, we’d know they were gone.
But first I had to survive rehearsal. Our choreographer was a punk rock Tinker Bell that I suspected of being a succubus, although I didn’t have any proof. Artie would have known in a second—Lilu always recognize their own kind—but as that would have required getting him out of his basement and bringing him to a rehearsal space full of sweaty females, it was never going to happen.
(None of my cousins are exactly what I’d call “normal.” Cousin Artie was the winner of our private weirdness armada, being a reclusive half-incubus comic book nerd with a supposedly secret crush on our telepathic cousin Sarah. I say “supposedly” because everybody in the family knew he was in love with her—everyone except Sarah, who somehow managed to be as oblivious as he was. For a couple of really smart people, they could be remarkably dense sometimes.)
The thing about working with anyone who can be described using the phrase “punk rock Tinker Bell” is that they’ll work you to death while exhorting you to “dig a little deeper” and “reach your true potential.” Sasha was the sort of natural disaster every dancer dreams of working with, right up until they get the opportunity. After an afternoon in her studio, I was exhausted, and my dreams were a lot more focused on the idea of smothering her with a pillow. Not to death. Just into a peaceful unconsciousness from which she’d wake in a year or two.
Rehearsal finished at seven o’clock, and we dragged ourselves out to the town cars, where we collapsed like so many boneless puppies. I wound up with Lyra half in my lap. She had more experience with the steps Sasha was drilling into our heads, but that just meant she’d been expected to master more, faster, while the rest of us were forgiven for our occasional bouts of clumsiness.
I needed to go see Dominic. My legs felt like they’d been hollowed out and filled with cicadas in place of the bones. The thought of running across the rooftops of Los Angeles made my stomach flip.
“Is she a robot?” asked Anders. He’d allowed his head to flop backward, apparently lacking the strength to hold it up any longer. “You can tell me. She’s an alien robot, here to soften us up for the invasion. Let’s destroy her.”
“I don’t think she’s a robot,” said Pax.
“But she doesn’t sweat. Have you noticed that? She throws us around like we’re toys, and she never sweats. I think she’s a robot.”
“You’re a robot,” said Lyra.
We all fell quiet, considering her words with the seriousness that only comes naturally to the truly exhausted.
“Nah,” said Anders finally. “But Jessica’s probably a robot.”
The argument about whether Sasha or Jessica—or both—were robots occupied us all the way back to the apartments, where we rolled out of the town car and slouched dolefully toward the stairs. Halfway there, Lyra perked up.
“Dibs on the shower,” she said, and broke into a run.
Lyra was the first to reach the apartment, with the rest of us close on her heels, clamoring about our need to use the shower before she did. She unlocked the door, and the four of us virtually fell inside, where we stopped, all of us, and stared at the woman sitting on our living room couch. She was writing in a leather-bound journal, looking utterly relaxed.
She wouldn’t have looked out of place in the new edition of Tomb Raider: early twenties, with short, ragged blonde hair, cut-offs, and a tank top. Tattoos covered the exposed skin on the left side of her body, wrapping around her collarbone and running partway up her neck. The family resemblance between her and me was unmistakable, even with my wig.
Pax didn’t answer.
We had to get back to our partners before they noticed anything amiss. After a few more moments of staring at the empty basement, we’d returned to our respective rehearsal rooms and done our best to make it seem like nothing was wrong. That was where my Valerie persona gave me a thin advantage. I’d been treating her like someone completely distinct from myself for so long that all I had to do was shove my own concerns to the background and let her have the wheel. Valerie didn’t care about dead people. Valerie just wanted to dance.
Our group number for the week was a lyrical jazz number, where Lyra floated like a leaf and the rest of us struggled to get our legs to bend in places that didn’t usually come with joints. I left Valerie in charge, allowing her to follow the steps while I tried to puzzle through the situation. Two dead dancers, and no outcry, not even from their former roommates. I could see Jessica not caring that Poppy had never come to collect her things, but Reggie? He and Chaz had been pretty close. And what about the other eliminated dancers? Someone needed to check their social media accounts. If they’d gone completely silent, we’d know they were gone.
But first I had to survive rehearsal. Our choreographer was a punk rock Tinker Bell that I suspected of being a succubus, although I didn’t have any proof. Artie would have known in a second—Lilu always recognize their own kind—but as that would have required getting him out of his basement and bringing him to a rehearsal space full of sweaty females, it was never going to happen.
(None of my cousins are exactly what I’d call “normal.” Cousin Artie was the winner of our private weirdness armada, being a reclusive half-incubus comic book nerd with a supposedly secret crush on our telepathic cousin Sarah. I say “supposedly” because everybody in the family knew he was in love with her—everyone except Sarah, who somehow managed to be as oblivious as he was. For a couple of really smart people, they could be remarkably dense sometimes.)
The thing about working with anyone who can be described using the phrase “punk rock Tinker Bell” is that they’ll work you to death while exhorting you to “dig a little deeper” and “reach your true potential.” Sasha was the sort of natural disaster every dancer dreams of working with, right up until they get the opportunity. After an afternoon in her studio, I was exhausted, and my dreams were a lot more focused on the idea of smothering her with a pillow. Not to death. Just into a peaceful unconsciousness from which she’d wake in a year or two.
Rehearsal finished at seven o’clock, and we dragged ourselves out to the town cars, where we collapsed like so many boneless puppies. I wound up with Lyra half in my lap. She had more experience with the steps Sasha was drilling into our heads, but that just meant she’d been expected to master more, faster, while the rest of us were forgiven for our occasional bouts of clumsiness.
I needed to go see Dominic. My legs felt like they’d been hollowed out and filled with cicadas in place of the bones. The thought of running across the rooftops of Los Angeles made my stomach flip.
“Is she a robot?” asked Anders. He’d allowed his head to flop backward, apparently lacking the strength to hold it up any longer. “You can tell me. She’s an alien robot, here to soften us up for the invasion. Let’s destroy her.”
“I don’t think she’s a robot,” said Pax.
“But she doesn’t sweat. Have you noticed that? She throws us around like we’re toys, and she never sweats. I think she’s a robot.”
“You’re a robot,” said Lyra.
We all fell quiet, considering her words with the seriousness that only comes naturally to the truly exhausted.
“Nah,” said Anders finally. “But Jessica’s probably a robot.”
The argument about whether Sasha or Jessica—or both—were robots occupied us all the way back to the apartments, where we rolled out of the town car and slouched dolefully toward the stairs. Halfway there, Lyra perked up.
“Dibs on the shower,” she said, and broke into a run.
Lyra was the first to reach the apartment, with the rest of us close on her heels, clamoring about our need to use the shower before she did. She unlocked the door, and the four of us virtually fell inside, where we stopped, all of us, and stared at the woman sitting on our living room couch. She was writing in a leather-bound journal, looking utterly relaxed.
She wouldn’t have looked out of place in the new edition of Tomb Raider: early twenties, with short, ragged blonde hair, cut-offs, and a tank top. Tattoos covered the exposed skin on the left side of her body, wrapping around her collarbone and running partway up her neck. The family resemblance between her and me was unmistakable, even with my wig.
