Chapter 4 Vespera
four
Vespera
I'm eight years old again, standing in the wings of Franklin Community Theater, my red dress itching where Mom safety-pinned the hem an hour before curtain.
"You're going to be amazing, little star," she whispers, her jasmine perfume wrapping around me like armor.
Her hands smooth my unruly hair one more time—I notice they're shaking slightly, the way they've been shaking a lot lately.
Her omega scent calm and steady despite the chaos backstage, though there's something underneath it I don't have words for yet.
Something that smells like sadness. "Remember what we practiced.
Big breath, chin up, and sing like you're telling the whole world a secret. "
She winces, her hand going to her neck for just a second before she catches herself. I've seen her do that more and more—touch her neck like something hurts there, though she always smiles and says it's nothing when I ask.
The lights beyond the curtain glow like magic. The audience settling, programs rustling, whispers dying down. Three hundred people out there, and I'm about to walk onto that stage and sing "Tomorrow" like my life depends on it.
"But what if I forget the words?" My eight-year-old self asks, even though I know them backward and forward, even though I've been singing them in my sleep.
"Then you make new ones up," Mom says, her green eyes—exactly like mine—sparkling with mischief. "The audience doesn't know what Annie's supposed to sing. They only know what you choose to give them."
The stage manager calls places, and Mom gives me one last hug. "Own that stage, Vespera. It's yours the moment you step onto it."
I walk out, the lights blinding, the audience a breathing darkness beyond the footlights. The music starts, and I open my mouth to sing—
But what comes out is a scream, because I'm not eight anymore.
I'm eighteen and burning with fever, and Mom's been gone for years, and my throat bears the marks of Alphas who think they own me.
The red dress becomes blood on my hands from clawing at Dorian's face.
The audience becomes three sets of golden eyes, watching, waiting, hunting.
"The sun'll come out tomorrow," I sing-sob in my childhood bedroom, the words twisted into something desperate. "Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun."
Except there won't be. There's only Columbus in three days, if I survive that long.
I wake fully, sheets soaked with sweat, throat raw from singing or screaming or both.
The late afternoon sun streams through my window, casting long shadows across the collection of playbills Dad's framed on my wall.
Proof that I existed before Northwood. Evidence that I was someone before they tried to make me nothing.
The memory lingers—Mom's shaking hands, the way she touched her neck like it hurt. I was too young to understand then. But now, with three marks burning on my own throat, with rejection sickness eating me alive, I wonder.
Was she sick too? Is that why she left?
Dad never talks about it. But the pieces are there if I look for them—the way he goes quiet when omegas and bonding come up in conversation. The way he looked at my marks with something that might have been recognition.
Annie at Franklin Community Theater, age 8.
Our Town at Franklin High, age 16—Emily Webb, the girl who only understood life's value after death.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, senior year—Helena, chasing love that didn't want her.
How fucking prophetic.
I force myself out of bed, legs shaking but steadier than yesterday. Three days until Columbus. Three days to get strong enough to work eighteen-hour days. Three days to rebuild myself into someone who can disappear into roles instead of disappearing into death.
My suitcase sits open on the floor, half-packed with leotards and tights, character shoes and leg warmers.
The uniform of someone who transforms for a living.
I add more—black clothing for tech work, since the work-study position will probably have me running lights or moving sets when I'm not on stage.
My lucky warm-up shirt, soft from a hundred washes.
The small notebook where I write down character observations, filled with everything except notes from the past year. Northwood doesn't get to come with me.
Except it does. The marks on my neck throb in time with my heartbeat, reminding me that I can pack all I want, but I can't leave behind what they carved into my skin.
Dad knocks softly. "You up, sweetheart? I've got news from Marcus."
"Come in."
He enters carrying a folder and his laptop, settling on my desk chair with the careful movements of someone trying not to spook a wild animal. "Marcus sent over the summer intensive schedule. Thought you might want to look it over."
I take the folder, scanning the contents.
Six weeks of intensive training. Voice and movement every morning at 7 AM.
Scene study. Audition technique. Stage combat.
Shakespeare workshop. And at the end, a showcase for industry professionals—agents, casting directors, people who could change everything if they like what they see.
"There's more," Dad says, pulling up something on his laptop. "They're doing Medea as the summer production. He thinks you'd be perfect for the title role."
Medea. The woman who loved too much and destroyed everything when that love betrayed her. Who killed what she created rather than let it be taken from her.
"That's... a choice," I manage.
"It's a powerful role," Dad says carefully. "The kind that gets noticed. The kind that launches careers."
"The kind where a woman burns everything down rather than submit."
He looks at me then, really looks at me. He catalogs the weight I've lost, the fever still burning in my eyes, the way I unconsciously touch the marks on my neck.
"Sometimes burning it all down is the only choice they leave you," he says quietly.
We sit in silence for a moment, both of us thinking about women who leave, who run, who choose destruction over captivity.
"Mom would have loved seeing me play Medea," I say, surprising myself.
Dad's face does something complicated. "She would have. She always said you had the kind of talent that could make people uncomfortable. The kind that shows them truths they don't want to see."
"Is that why she left?" The question escapes before I can stop it.
"Your mother left because..." he starts, then stops, running his hand through his hair. "She left for her own reasons. That's all I know for certain."
It's not an answer, but it's more than he's ever given me before.
"I'm not her," I say, though I'm not sure if I'm trying to convince him or myself.
"No," Dad agrees. "You're not. You're you."
"How do you know I won't run too?"
"Because you're still here. Because you're packing for Columbus instead of packing to disappear. Because even with those marks on your neck and that fever burning you up, you're planning your next performance instead of your escape."
He stands, heading for the door, then pauses. "She would have been proud of you, Vespera. For fighting. For refusing to let them win. For choosing your art over their demands."
After he leaves, I return to packing, each item a small act of defiance.
My makeup kit, filled with everything needed to become someone else.
My rehearsal journal, pages ready to be filled with new characters, new stories, new versions of myself that have nothing to do with biology or bonds or boys who think they own me.
At the bottom of my drawer, I find it—the program from that first performance when I was eight.
Mom had saved it, pressed it into a scrapbook with a photo of us backstage.
Her arms around me, both of us glowing with post-performance adrenaline.
On the back, in her handwriting: "My little star, burning bright. May you always own your stage."
I trace the words, feeling them like a blessing and a curse. She knew, even then. Knew I had something special. And she left anyway.
But I'm not leaving. I'm going to Columbus, yes, but not to run. To train. To get stronger. To become someone who can return to Northwood and face them without breaking.
The marks throb again, and this time I welcome the pain. It reminds me what I survived. What I rejected. What I chose to lose rather than surrender.
I fold Mom's program carefully and place it in my suitcase, between the leotards and the character shoes. A talisman. A reminder. A promise to the girl who sang at eight and the woman who ran at thirty-something and the eighteen-year-old caught between them.
The sun is setting, painting my room gold and red like stage lights. Tomorrow I'll be stronger. In three days I'll be in Columbus. In six weeks I'll perform Medea with such fury that the audience will understand exactly what happens when you corner someone who has nothing left to lose.
"The sun'll come out tomorrow," I whisper, the lyrics twisted into threat instead of promise.
And if it doesn't? If the fever takes me before Columbus? If the rejection finally wins?
Then at least I'll die as myself.
The girl who sang. The woman who said no. Someone who owned her stage until the very last curtain call.
That has to be enough.