Chaos Choreography (16 page)

He didn't say anything.

Brenna appeared with the hat from which we'd draw our “random” dance assignments. Someone hit the theater lights, recreating the diffuse theatrical lighting that accompanied the shows, and it was time to get back to work, no matter how much I didn't want to. If I was going to find out what was going on, I was going to have to play by their rules.

Anders and I drew the quickstep, which meant a lot of hopping and running and incredibly rapid footwork, all performed while trying to recall Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in their heyday. We were going to be dancing to “Candyman” by Christina Aguilera, doing a Tarzan-and-Jane concept routine, and since it was a dance built on energy and precision rather than complicated tricks or lift sequences, our choreographer didn't need to modify it much to accommodate our skill levels. We spent the first two hours of the day warming up, learning the basic
steps, and getting a feel for the piece. It was pleasantly non-hectic—something I knew wouldn't last when we hit lunch and got our group routine assignments.

“Anyone mind if I duck out to powder my nose?” I asked.

Anders, who was currently flat on his back on the studio floor, breathing heavily, waved me off. Our choreographer flashed me a grin.

“Just hurry back, we're about to start learning the fast part,” he said.

“Can't wait,” I said, and slipped out of the room.

As soon as the door was shut behind me, my posture changed. Valerie was a dancer. She was graceful and loose and always ready to turn a simple motion into something profound. Verity—the real me—was all those things, but first and foremost, Verity was a hunter. Where Valerie walked like the whole room was hers to claim and conquer, Verity slunk, compact and poised to strike. Valerie posed. Verity attacked.

Sliding from one identity into the other was more difficult than usual, because I was on Valerie's territory. The back halls of the Crier Theater belonged to her, especially in the middle of the day. Anyone could come out of a room and catch me outside my rehearsal and walking oddly. I couldn't think about that right now. All my attention was on stripping myself back down to my training, and finding out what the hell was going on.

There was no smell of decay wafting up from the basement. I hesitated for a moment before I flicked on the light and started down the stairs. Halfway down, I froze.

The bodies were gone.

The floor was clean, all traces of blood washed away. The place would probably have lit up like Christmas morning under a black light, but the naked eye found nothing wrong. There was a scuff from behind me, like someone coming to a stop. I whipped around, falling into a combat stance, and relaxed as I saw who it was.

“Pax,” I said. “You scared me.”

“I scared you?” he demanded. “You just looked at me like you were going to rip my larynx out with your bare hands. I need my larynx. Those things take forever to grow back.” He looked past me to the floor, expression going from surprised to grim. “I figured you'd come here eventually. I've been checking every ten minutes or so.”

“That must be making Lyra super happy,” I said.

“Between the so-called vomiting last night and now this, she thinks I have food poisoning. I'm a ‘trooper.'” He grimaced. “The door was cracked when I passed it to start rehearsal, and I realized I couldn't smell any blood. I checked the room as soon as I could get away, and found it like this.”

“
No
blood?” I turned back to the empty basement. “They can't have cleaned it that completely.”

“I'm telling you; my nose doesn't lie. There's no blood in this room. Before you ask, no, I didn't smell any blood on anyone last night, or on Adrian and Lindy this morning. Either they've got the best cleaning crew in the business, or they weren't involved.”

Slowly, I sank into a sitting position on the stairs, holding onto the rail with one hand for balance as I looked down at the spotless concrete floor. There was no blood. There were no bodies. If not for Pax being as confused as I was and the pictures in my phone, I might have taken it for a very vivid, very terrible dream.

“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.

She raised her head. We picked ourselves up off the floor. I started to open my mouth and froze, unsure what I was supposed to call her. “Grandma” wasn't going to go over very well with my companions, or be something that I could readily explain.

Fortunately, she solved the problem for me. “I was wondering when you'd get home,” she said, and stood. “Sorry to break in like this, but the security guys were starting to give me the stink-eye for sitting on the curb. I had to come over the wall or risk being arrested.”

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Anders, pushing himself forward, putting himself between her and the rest of us. I don't think protecting Pax was the goal, not from the way he positioned himself directly in front of Lyra, but he was gallant enough to stick an arm across my chest, barring me from the potentially dangerous intruder.

Well, not “potentially dangerous.” She was my grandmother. She was
definitely
dangerous.

Alice grinned. It was a wry, lopsided thing. My grin would look like that if it ever got dragged down a hundred miles of bad road, and through more than fifty years of fruitlessly searching for my one true love. I'd pass, if I had the choice. No one should have to smile like that.

“I'm her sister,” she said. “My name's Elle.”

“You have a sister?” said Lyra, head whipping around as I suddenly became a lot more interesting than an intruder in our living room.

“You have a punk rock sister who picks locks?” demanded Anders.

Pax didn't say anything. He was the only one from my season who knew about my family, and when I glanced
back at him, I could see him running through the possible candidates for the role of “Elle.” He reached his conclusion while I watched, turning white.

“Oh,” he said.

“Okay, break it up.” I ducked under Anders' arm. “Nice to see you, ‘Elle,' but what are you doing here? You know my contract doesn't allow unmonitored contact with my family while I'm on the show.” Thank God there weren't cameras in our apartments. Adrian would have filmed us twenty-four/seven if he'd been able to get away with it, but he didn't want to pay the insurance fees for putting cameras in our kitchens. That, and we were dancers: many of us had a tendency to wander around completely nude. None of that footage could be used, or even kept, for fear of a pornography charge.

“Sorry, Val, but I got thrown out of my latest apartment,” said Alice, calm as anything. She raised an eyebrow, daring me to challenge her. “There were noise complaints from the neighbors.”

“Loud music?” guessed Lyra.

“Gunfire,” said Alice.

Lyra didn't say anything.

“So I figured you've got room, right? There's a whole bunch of empty apartments downstairs. No one's even going to notice that I'm here.” She turned and flashed her most winsome smile at my roommates.

It's weird. Grandma Alice is a heavily tattooed dimension-hopping marauder who regularly carries grenades clipped to the belt of her cut-off jeans, but for some reason, people
want
to like her. Lyra and Anders smiled back immediately. Pax, who was still pale and wide-eyed, did not. He also didn't run out of the room, which would have been a perfectly reasonable reaction under the circumstances.