Chapter 11 – Jack
Chapter Eleven
Jack
“You look like a sugar plum fairy,” I told Luna the second she sat down in my car. She glared at me, and I laughed. “That’s literally the only ballet thing I know.”
“I’m not surprised.” She tsked.
“Are you saying I’m uncultured?” I teased her, because if she was, well, she was right. I cared deeply about certain kinds of art, tattooing people for a living, but most museums weren’t open at night.
“Possibly? But you did get these tickets, so . . .”
“They were given to me, actually.”
Luna blinked. “Who, and why?”
“Would you believe the Faithful wanted us to take a night out together?”
“Jack, no,” she gasped in horror. “What, just because you and Paco have hit a rough patch, you’ve got a death wish?”
“Nah.” I shrugged and downshifted. “Not for myself at least.”
“Jack!”
The truth was that while I’d woken up earlier in the evening with concerns, if Sam knew I was moonlighting at Fran’s, she surely knew where my apartment was, and who knew what else.
I wasn’t under any delusions about how safe my apartment was for me during the day, when I was dead as a doornail and vulnerable as hell.
So the tickets seemed safe enough, because there were a ton of easier ways to kill me than taking me out to ballet.
Luna groaned but she didn’t make me turn the car around, and it turned out Sam had given us amazingly good seats, fifth row. By the time we were that close to the stage, she was beaming, and all was forgiven.
And that was the real reason we were here. Not because I was wanted to do a single thing Sam wanted me to, or because I needed distractions from Paco—well, maybe—but mostly because I wanted to see Luna smile.
Anything I could do to convince her she belonged among humans was good for her.
“This close!” Luna hissed in excitement. “For Mayerling!” Her eyes bugged out of her head a little, like I should know what that meant.
I gave her a companionable shrug. “Okay?”
“Ugh,” she said, then stuck the tip of her tongue out at me. “You’ll see.”
I’d resisted the temptation to google anything ahead of time, more willing instead to let the experience wash over me. “Does that mean it’s good?” I asked, sounding droll.
She glared at me, then realized I was teasing, and laughed.
I found it easy enough to follow along—there was a prince of some sort who was deeply unhappy, until he found a woman who wanted to be unhappy with him, and I could all too readily sympathize with his plight.
It didn’t hurt that every single person on the stage was gorgeous and talented, and from our seats it was easy to appreciate both of those facts.
And then the prince finally had a dance with her and it was maybe one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
Both of the dancers were of course incredibly athletic, but their movements were evocative.
I could practically feel the emotions coming off of them, almost thick enough to feed from. I was both stunned and rapt.
“See?” Luna said quietly. I took a quick glance at her, but she was still staring at the stage.
“Yeah,” I whispered back.
It had a tragic ending, like good art often did, but there was a satisfaction in having been taken to another place. Even with the heavy sorrow, it was still a respite to be transported to a world where nothing that happened in this one mattered, no matter how briefly.
“That was amazing,” I said, after the final encore.
“Totally,” she said, after releasing a long sigh. “They’re not all like that, but this one is so good.”
“I’m not in any danger of becoming a ballet snob, never fear.
” I was standing behind her as we waited for our turn to go, and I saw her scanning the room, looking for danger, finding her exits.
“Feels weird, doesn’t it,” I said, and when she turned back to give me a puzzled look I went on. “The freedom.”
She licked her lips. “Yeah. It does.”
I’d been living with the stormfront of Rosalie on the edge of my horizon for so long, I didn’t know how to feel when I looked up and saw clear sky. “I’m not used to it either,” I confessed. “You don’t want that back though, do you?”
Luna frowned instantly. “Are you retracting your offer?”
“No. I’m a man of my word. I just keep hoping you’ll make better decisions is all.
” I shrugged as we finally walked for the stairs.
“Most ballet performances start during daylight hours at this latitude, you know.” I heard her snort one step ahead of me.
“Also, if this is really what you’re into, why don’t you do this now?
What’s stopping you?” I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her how she’d gotten trapped with Rosalie to begin with, although I assumed it was something gory and sad like me.
“You could open up a dance studio. Teach kids how to dance. I could shake Maya down for some cash to start it.”
She turned as we reached the top of the stairs and gave me a complicated look. “Don’t, Jack,” she pleaded, and as I inhaled to argue she said, “Just stop pushing. Please.”