10. Dance For Me
Dance For Me
Summer
The air carries the faint scent of old wood and something sweeter buried beneath layers of dust; the ghost of perfume that refuses to disappear completely.
Heavy curtains frame tall windows, drawn almost closed against the daylight, leaving thin ribbons of pale light stretched across polished floorboards scarred by years of use.
My gaze moves slowly across the room.
A leather armchair sits in one corner beside a small drinks cabinet, a crystal decanter still resting neatly on its tray as though someone only stepped away. A record player stands against the opposite wall, its lid closed, several vinyl sleeves stacked carefully beside it.
The silence feels occupied. Like someone else should be here.
Then my eyes find the brass pole rising from the middle of the room.
My breath catches.
It stretches from polished floorboards to ceiling, catching what little light filters through the curtains.
Unlike everything around it, it gleams. Fingerprints have long since been polished away, but the brass still shines with the kind of care that only comes from someone cleaning it over and over again.
My pulse pounds harder against my ribs with every passing second, panic spreading slowly beneath my skin because the longer the silence stretches, the more convinced I become that whatever happens next is going to be worse than anything my imagination has managed to invent.
I should run.
The thought crashes into me so suddenly my body almost reacts before my mind does. Turn. Reach the door. Try. Even if he shoots me. Even if I never make it that far. Anything has to be better than standing here waiting.
But I don't move.
I can't.
My feet feel rooted to the floor beneath the weight of his attention alone, every instinct screaming that the second I do the wrong thing, he'll punish me for it.
His hand settles between my shoulder blades.
The gentle pressure is enough to force me forward, each reluctant step carrying me further into a room that feels less like a room and more like somewhere preserved in time.
The air has disappeared around me, sucked away into memories I don't understand. I can feel them pressing against my skin even though I don't know what they are.
"Dance."
The word barely registers.
I stop walking.
My brow furrows—confusion cutting clean through the panic for the briefest second. My eyes flick instinctively toward the brass pole and then back to the floor, my stomach tightening so violently it almost hurts.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat.
"I... I can't."
It's little more than a whisper, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognize it as my own. It's the truth. I've never danced around a pole. I wouldn't even know where to begin at the best of times, let alone in this strange room locked under the eyes of the devil.
A quiet laugh leaves him. The sound sends ice through my veins.
"You misunderstand," he says, almost amused. "That wasn't a request."
I hear the gun before I see it. Metal sliding against leather.
My breath catches somewhere behind my ribs as he lifts it, the cold muzzle settling against the side of my head with such practiced ease it feels routine.
Familiar. My entire body locks so completely I can hear my own heartbeat thundering inside my ears, each pulse crashing harder than the last until it feels impossible that my chest can contain it.
"Dance."
My legs move before I've made the decision to obey.
They carry me toward the pole in slow, uneven steps, every part of me burning with humiliation before I've even done anything.
I stop in front of it, wrapping my arms tightly across my chest as though I can somehow make myself smaller, disappear beneath my own skin.
My fingers dig into my sides hard enough to ache, the broken ones tingling, my shoulders curling in on themselves while heat creeps relentlessly across my face.
I have never felt so exposed.
I don't even know what he wants from me.
I just know that whatever I do next will be wrong.
"DANCE!" The shout tears through the room so violently I flinch. Spit leaves his mouth with the force of it, the sound crashing into me hard enough that my ears ring. Every muscle in my body locks.
For a beat, I can't breathe.
I force my fingers around the brass immediately, the metal so cold it burns against my palm, grounding me enough to stop my knees from giving way beneath me. My heart pounds so hard it feels violent, every beat threatening to crack my ribs apart.
I move.
One slow step carrying me around the pole, then another, my feet whispering across the polished floorboards.
"Jesus Christ," Donnie mutters with a laugh. "He said dance, princess. Not go for a fucking walk."
Heat floods my face.
I shoot him a look before I can stop myself, equal parts humiliation and hatred, but it disappears the second Jackson shifts his weight.
Don't.
Don't make him angry.
My grip tightens around the pole until my knuckles ache.
I close my eyes for half a second, trying to remember something—anything—I've seen before. A film. A music video. Women laughing around chrome poles while men threw money and tucked it into their underwear.
I force myself into a slow turn instead, letting one foot cross over the other as I awkwardly pull myself into an unsteady spin. The room tilts around me. My stomach rolls. The last few days crash over me all at once—the fear, the exhaustion, the grief—and my balance disappears with it.
My foot slips. The world lurches. A gasp catches in my throat as I stumble, my shoulder clipping the pole before both hands clamp around it hard enough to stop me hitting the floor.
Silence.
I drag myself upright, shame burning hotter than the ache spreading through my palms.
"Music," Jackson says without taking his eyes off me.
I know he isn't speaking to me. Behind him, I hear Donnie unlock his phone.
A second later a heavy bassline floods the room—piercing electronic beats rattling through the speakers on his cell. Jackson's expression darkens immediately.
"What the fuck is this?"
Donnie looks up.
"...Music."
"It's noise."
"You said—"
"I said music."
Donnie opens his mouth to respond but Jackson strides past him before he starts the sentence, crossing to the record player tucked neatly beside the drinks cabinet. His fingers move with practiced familiarity, lifting the lid before lowering the needle onto waiting vinyl.
A soft crackle fills the room.
Then the slow, smoky swell of a jazz vocal rolls through the speakers, rich brass and velvet vocals wrapping themselves around the silence like cigarette smoke.
And then, everything changes.
Jackson closes his eyes for the briefest moment, and for the first time, I notice his posture relax.
"There," he says quietly. "Now dance."
I let my eyes drift closed. I stop trying to hear my own heartbeat and listen instead.
The music isn't loud. It rolls gently through the room, the sound of slow brass instruments wrapping around me until the silence inside my head begins to loosen.
I let the melody settle beneath my skin, following it instead of fighting it, and somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the humiliation, a memory slips quietly to the surface.
A night in the street with Constance and Adelaide.
It was raining and the three of us raced down our street long before we were old enough to care who was watching.
Adelaide grabbing hold of an old telegraph pole and spinning until she nearly threw herself into the road, Constance laughing so hard she could barely stand before wrapping both arms around the washing line in her garden and declaring herself a professional dancer.
Your turn, Summer.
I remember rolling my eyes. I remember giving in.
The cold rain soaking through my clothes while we spun ourselves dizzy, collapsing into wet grass afterward because none of us could stop laughing long enough to stand back up. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it. Small. Fragile.
My fingers loosen around the brass, no longer clinging to it for balance but letting it guide me instead.
One slow step becomes another. My body begins to follow the music without thinking, my feet tracing quiet circles across the floorboards as the melody carries me somewhere far beyond these four walls.
For a few precious seconds, I can almost pretend.
Pretend I'm home. Pretend the rain is cold against my face.
Pretend Adelaide is laughing beside me while Constance shouts that she's going to be sick from spinning so much.
Pretend there isn't a man standing behind me with a gun tucked into his waistband.
Pretend I haven't been stolen. Pretend I'm still eighteen years old with my whole life stretched out in front of me.
My eyes stay closed. They have to, because the second I open them, this room will still be here.
And so will he.
One second the music is carrying me somewhere else, somewhere rain-soaked and carefree, and the next I walk straight into something solid enough to stop me dead.
My breath catches. My eyes fly open.
He's standing so close I don't know how he got there without me hearing him. My pulse stutters as I instinctively recoil, but there's nowhere to go. He follows immediately, one step forcing another from me until my back collides with the brass pole hard enough to rattle through my spine.
The cold metal bites between my shoulder blades.
"No..."
The word barely escapes before I twist sideways, trying to slip past him, but he catches me with frightening ease. His hand closes around both of my wrists, swallowing them whole, and before I can wrench free he drives them up above my head, pinning them against the pole.
The brass digs into my skin. I buck instinctively, every muscle straining against his grip, my fingers curling uselessly as I fight for even an inch of movement. It doesn't matter. His hold doesn't shift. Doesn't tighten. It doesn't need to. I can't move him.
My breathing comes fast and uneven, each breath shallower than the last as panic climbs back into my throat. Jackson doesn't seem to notice. Or maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn't care.
He stands impossibly still, his head tipping ever so slightly to one side, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. His eyes move over my face as though he's searching for something hidden beneath it, something only he can see.
I don't recognize the expression looking back at me. I think that's what frightens me most.
"Donnie."
He never looks away.
"Leave us."