FULL NOVELXO Stolen Heir: Chapter 4
NESSA
I’ve barely been to any nightclubs before. Actually, I’m not even old enough to get inside. Serena gives me her sister’s expired ID, which really looks nothing like me, except that we both have brown hair. Luckily, the bouncer gives it only a cursory glance before waving us in.
As soon as we’re through the door, it’s like we’ve stepped into another world. The light is dim and flickering, the music pounds against my skin with palpable force. I know this place just opened, but it has a sort of old-school imperialist look, like it was made for British colonialists exported to India. The dark wood and weathered silver sconces and the deep green velvet look like they came out of an old library.
I kind of love it. I only wish I’d brought a change of clothes like the other girls did, because they look as sexy and cool as every other person in this place, while I just . . . don’t.
I don’t even know what to order when we head over to the bar. I get the same thing as Serena, which turns out to be a watermelon martini with a twist of lime peel floating in the glass.
Even the bartender is insanely hot. I feel like the employees must all moonlight as models, because every last one of them looks like they get their exercise walking up and down runways.
Serena’s loving it. She’s leaning her elbows on the bar, grinning up at the bartender, asking him how many girls’ numbers he gets every night.
“Not enough,” he says, winking. “I’ve definitely got room for one more in my phone.”
I take a sip of my drink. It’s sickly sweet, but I can still taste the bite of alcohol underneath. It makes me gag a little. I don’t know how my brother drinks whiskey straight—it all kinda tastes like paint thinner to me.
I don’t want to get too tipsy, so I set my drink back down on the bar, looking around the club.
I love people watching.
If I could just sit in the corner, totally invisible, and watch people walk by all night long, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I like trying to guess who’s a couple and who’s not, who’s celebrating their last day of exams and who came here with workmates. I love seeing people’s gestures and expressions, the way they dance and talk and laugh.
I don’t like attention myself. So, when I see a man leaning up against a pillar next to the dance floor, staring right at me, his gaze hits me like a slap. I drop my eyes, pretending to be super interested in my own fingernails, until I think he’s probably moved on to something else.
When I glance up again, he’s still staring. He’s tall, slimly built, with hair so blond it’s almost white. He’s sharp-featured and pale. He looks like he hasn’t eaten or slept in a long time, cheeks hollow and dark smudges under his eyes. He’s quite beautiful—like a starving angel. But there’s no kindness or friendliness in his face.
I turn all the way around back to the bar, grabbing my drink once more. I make conversation with Marnie, determined not to look over at the strange man anymore.
Once we’ve all finished our drinks, it’s time to dance. You’d think we’d get sick of it with all the practicing we do, but dancing at the club is completely different. There’s no technique to it. It’s the only time you can just flail around without having to think about it at all.
The more we dance, the sillier we get. We do the Humpty Dance and the Cabbage Patch, then the Renegade and the Triangle. Marnie tries to convince the DJ to play Lizzo, but he says he’s not allowed, he has to stick to the setlist.
In her bid to continue flirting with the hunky bartender, Serena goes back for several more drinks, until she’s too loopy to dance anymore. Marnie and I bring her water, and we all crowd into a booth to rest for a minute.
“So are you gonna tell me why you were so upset earlier?” Serena demands, lounging in the corner of the booth.
“Oh,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s stupid. I thought I’d be credited for the dances I choreographed for Bliss.”
“Why aren’t you credited?” Marnie asks. She’s tall, skinny, and black, with a cute little gap in her front teeth. She’s a great artist, and sometimes works on the sets as well as dancing in the corps.
“I don’t know. Probably Jackson changed most of what I did,” I say.
“No, he didn’t,” Marnie says, shaking her head. “I just watched the duet last night. It’s the same as how you made it.”
“Oh.”
Now I feel worse than ever. Is my work really that bad that Jackson thought I simply didn’t deserve credit? But if that’s the case, why did he even use it in the show?
“He’s stealing from you,” Serena says, shaking her head in disgust. “He’s such an asshole.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Marnie asks me.
“What can I do? He’s a god in the dance world,” I say, grimacing. “I’m nobody.”
Marnie makes a sympathetic face. She knows it’s true.
Serena is more fiery.
“That’s bullshit! You can’t let him get away with that.”
“What am I going to do?” I say. “Report him to the Supreme Court of Ballet? There’s not exactly a higher power here.”
“Well, you know those nasty green smoothies he keeps in the fridge?” Serena says. “You could drop a couple laxatives in there. At the very least.”
She breaks down in giggles, definitely more than a little drunk.
Her helpless laughter makes me laugh, and Marnie too. Soon we’re all snorting and giggling until tears run down our cheek.
“Knock it off!” Marnie says. “You’re gonna get us all kicked out.”
“No way,” Serena says. “That bartender and me are like this now.”
She tries to hold up her first and second finger intertwined, but she’s too uncoordinated to make anything but a peace sign. Which makes Marnie and me laugh all the harder.
“I better get you home, you idiot,” Marnie says to her.
Marnie and Serena share a flat over on Magnolia Ave. It’s only a five-minute Uber ride away.
“You wanna share a car?” Marnie asks me.
“I’ve got to go the other way,” I say. “I left my Jeep at the studio.”
“You can’t walk alone,” Serena says, trying to compose herself and be serious for a second.
“It’s only a couple of blocks,” I assure her.
I’ve only had the one drink, so I figure I’m good to walk back to Lake City Ballet.
We part ways at the door, Marnie helping to support Serena while they wait for their Uber, and me heading off down Roscoe Street.
Even though it’s late, Chicago is too busy a city for the streets to ever be truly empty. Plenty of cars are driving by, and the roads are lit by the high rises and the old-fashioned street-lamps. A couple of teenagers on skateboards zip past me, shouting something I can’t make out.
However, as I turn down Greenview, the sidewalks become more deserted. It’s chilly. I wrap my arms around myself, walking quickly. My purse bounces against my hip. I’ve got the strap slung across my body so nobody will try to grab it. I wonder if I should take out my keys—I have a little canister of pepper spray attached to my keychain, just in case. It’s six years old, though, so who knows if it still works.
I don’t know why I’m feeling paranoid all of a sudden. My skin feels prickly and stretched, and my heart rate is picking up more than the brisk walk deserves.
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I hear footsteps behind me. They seem a little too quick, like the person is trying to catch up to me.
Pausing at the corner of Greenview and Henderson, I sneak a glance over my shoulder.
There’s definitely a man about a hundred yards back. He’s wearing a sweatshirt, hands stuffed in the pockets and hood pulled up. His head is down so I can’t see his face.
He’s probably just headed home, the same as me. Still, I cross the road and start walking even faster. I don’t want to keep looking back to see if he’s gaining on me. I feel the urge to start running.
I see Lake City Ballet up ahead, with my white Jeep still parked out front. The rest of the lot is deserted. Everybody’s long since gone home.
I slip my hand into my purse, feeling for my keys as I walk. I want to have them ready to open the car door. I feel my phone, my Chapstick, a coin . . . no keys though. What the hell? It’s not even a large purse.
The dance studio is locked and dark.
I know the door code. All the dancers know it, since we’re allowed to come practice whenever we like.
When I’m a half-block away, I break into a run. I sprint toward the studio, uncertain whether the pounding footsteps I hear are my own, or somebody following me.
I reach the door, madly trying to punch in the code: 1905. The year Anna Pavlova first performed “The Dying Swan.” Jackson is a little obsessed.
My fingers fumble over the keypad and I punch the numbers in wrong twice in a row, before the lock finally clicks, and I can pull the door open.
I shove it closed behind me, turning the latch and pressing my forehead against the glass, peering out into the darkness. My heart is racing, and my hands are sweaty on the handle. I expect to see some maniac charging toward me, brandishing a knife.
Instead I see . . . nothing at all.
There’s nobody on the sidewalk. Nobody following me. The guy in the hoodie probably turned down another street without me even noticing.
I’m such an idiot. I’ve always had a wild imagination, for better or for worse. When I was little I had the craziest nightmares, and I was always sure they were real, no matter how impossible it might be for my sister to turn into a tiger, or to find a dozen severed heads in our fridge.
I sink down to the floor, looking through my purse for my keys once more. There they are—in the little side pocket where they always reside. I was just too panicked to feel them.
I check my phone as well. No texts or messages from my parents, even though it’s after midnight.
It’s funny. They’re so overprotective. But they’re also so busy that they haven’t even noticed I’m gone.
Oh well. I’m at the studio, and I’m the furthest thing from tired after I had ten thousand volts of adrenaline running through my veins. I might as well practice a while.
So I head upstairs to my favorite room. It’s the smallest of the studios. The floor is so springy it’s almost like dancing on a trampoline.
I strip off my jeans and sweater, leaving only the leotard underneath. Then I set my phone into the dock and find my favorite playlist. It starts with “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. I warm up on the barre as the lilting piano intro begins.