Cold sweat clings to my body when I wake. The sheets that I lie in and my T-shirt and shorts are damp with it, and the air surrounding me sings with humidity. Suddenly, it's the dead of summer again.
I've kicked back my purple bed covers. A noisy fan works away in the corner of the room, though it's not aimed towards me. It's never aimed towards me. I hear the murmurs of a city that never sleeps through a window that shouldn't be open, and through the door, I hear murmurs.
My sheets feel strange, and my pillow isn't as velvety as normal. Sweat beads at my brow and gathers at my neck.
I twist over myself for the water bottle that I keep at my—
"Morning."
I jolt out of the bed, blinking wildly.
Gisa sits on her side of our room. She's perched atop her bed, one of her design notebooks resting on her lap as she sketches away on it with a pencil. Her vivid hair is tangled as it always is in the mornings, though mine looks no better. She grins at me, forgetting about her designs as she relaxes back on both of her hands.
Her wrist is fine. She doesn't say anything when I stare at it in shock.
"You're going down to Times Square today, right? And then you were going to have lunch with Kilorn at that stupid restaurant where he works?"
I continue staring at her dainty little wrist, still half-dangling off my mattress.
"What?"
Gee looks at me like I'm stupid. "Pickpocketing, then lunch with Kilorn. Right?"
I blink some more. The summer sun of July shines brightly through our shabby, not-so-functional curtains, illuminating every detail of our room so that there's no denying where I am.
Panic floods through me.
No. That's not possible.
"I don't know why you bother keeping these," Gisa comments, holding up a pair of my pointe shoes by their silken ribbons. With a glance, I see that the bottom drawer of my dresser has been pulled out onto the floor, leaving my hiding place of ballet-related items for anyone to see. "It's not like you were ever going to become anything, anyway."
In spite of the heat, shivers rake down my bare legs, and my hands cling to my sheets if only to have something to hold.
"But what about the Academy—"
"The Calore Dance Academy?" a new voice asks with a breathy laugh. At the threshold of my now-open door stands Cal, in an old black-hooded sweatshirt and a pair of loose jeans. He's out of place in my room, too tall for it, too perfect for it, even in his ragged ensemble. Cal crosses one of his booted feet over the other, looking down at me in my tangle of sheets. His bronze eyes glimmer with some sort of regret, but a crooked grin spreads onto his lips. "If you had wanted to dance so badly, then you shouldn't have chosen them."
Behind Cal, Mom passes through the living room, saying something to Dad. She has her hair drawn up into a ponytail and a bag slung over her shoulder. She looks tired, but if she feels it, she doesn't complain. Bree and Tramy clunk away in the kitchen, perhaps deciding what they should have for breakfast. The TV plays quietly.
"Mom?" I ask, loud enough so that she should hear me.
Gisa scoffs. "She can't. You know, considering that you haven't been home in two months."
Cal glares at the far wall of my room. I turn my head over my shoulder, only to find Diana Farley all but two feet from me atop the desk I share with Gisa. She sits criss cross-applesauce, buffing a long blade with a scrap of bloody red cloth. When she notices that I watch her, she smiles, showing off white teeth in a rare gesture. "What's up, sis?"
My skin feels slick, like it's made of water and could at any moment slip away from me. Billowing wafts of heat flow in through my bedroom window, which we never, ever keep open in the summer. Now it's gushing in, whipping as though it's the wind itself. Gee's notebook tumbles off her lap, smacks against the bedroom wall. My hair lifts away from my face, and my sheets snap, purple ghosts in their own rights.
"You could have had everything that you ever wanted," Cal says, starting forward from my door. He draws back his hood to reveal his full head of thick black hair. My contemporary teacher looks at me as though he's disappointed. "And you threw it away for what? This?" he asks, throwing an accusing hand towards Farley. "Is that really worth it? Does it really matter what my family does if it costs you everything that you ever wanted?"
Gee nods, apparently agreeing with Cal. "He's right," she says, still holding onto my pointe shoes. "You're risking everything for a cause that you still know nothing about." Her grip on the ribbons tightens until her knuckles are porcelain. "You're risking our family."
Yes. I am.
Shade stays away for the right reasons. I stay away because I'm scared to go home, too angry half the time to want to, and not because of any Scarlet Street Fighter law. It's a stupid excuse for staying away from East Harlem for so long and not the actual reason I don't want to return. It's not like Tiberias Calore couldn't find out where my family lives—Cal already knows, in fact—and regardless of what picture I paint of the relationship I have with them, the Calores will go for my family first if it ever comes to it.
"Just like what they did to my mom and sister," Farley says, reading my thoughts. Her blue eyes look haunted now, more than likely replaying the memory of her dead mother and sister lying in their beds. I realize that her cloth isn't red in nature, but white and stained with blood. She keeps on polishing her knife with it, only for red to get on the blade. "And you're okay with that?"
Cal shrugs, now at the side of my mattress. He sits down next to me, and my bed creaks under his weight. "And you're okay what you've done?"
The screams, the cowering bodies, the bodies, the glass. The fire. It echoes in my mind like a memory that hasn't happened yet.
Farley rolls her eyes at Cal, and her scarred mouth twists into a snarl. The two of them look about ready to fight all over again, tear this little bedroom in East Harlem apart.
"You're important to this cause, Mare," Farley argues, almost snapping at me. She reigns herself in when I flinch. "More important than you think. And besides. It's too late to back out now."
Cal's eyes bore into mine. "You're a Principal dancer, Mare. Not a terrorist."
"Enough," Gee says with this commanding voice that sounds more like a mix of Mom and Dad than herself. "Enough. Enough. Enough."
And then, her arm's going back with one of my pointe shoes, then coming forward again.
She throws my precious shoe like a quarterback would throw a football, and then it's flying towards my window, past me and Cal and for the window.
The sound of wood and fabric hitting my bedroom window sounds like the explosion of a thousand panes of glass.
It was a dream, of course.
But for one moment, one breath, I thought that none of it had ever happened. I thought that I was back home and that it was the dead of summer. I thought that Kilorn had yet to quit his job and throw what little of a life he had away. I thought that I had never allowed my sister to do something so incredibly stupid and sprain her sewing wrist because of it. I thought that I had never met Farley or Cal.
I thought that I had never auditioned, never became partners with Maven Calore. I thought that my pointe shoes met their end in the hollow space beneath my bedroom dresser.
And for that one moment, I wanted it back. I wanted Kilorn to quit his job and threaten to join the Scarlet Street Fighters, and I wanted to meet Diana Farley and bargain with her. I wanted Gee to sprain her wrist, and I wanted to meet Cal. I wanted to fall thirty feet onto a merciless wooden stage and bruise my tailbone, if only for a chance to dance for the Calore family, and in that one moment, I was willing to feel that terror again and again if meant that none of it had been a dream.
I was fine with all of the destruction that the Scarlet Street Fighters had brought about, even that of last night, if it meant that I hadn't been dreaming all this time.
It was the most selfish thought I've ever had.
I convince myself that my dream was the product of whatever Shade drugged me with and my thoughts were just as fictitious.
Shade's flatscreen drones on in the background, and sitting at one of his kitchen barstools, I do my best to ignore it along with everything else. I woke up about an hour ago with a refreshed body and an impossibly tired mind, and while a part of me at large pondered lying in bed for a while longer, I soon realized that it was past one in the afternoon. So I took a shower—after learning what I did before I fell asleep, I'm fairly certain that the rose-scented body wash that I used belongs to Diana Farley—and put back on yesterday's clothes before heading out for the kitchen.
September light streams in through the windows, filling Shade's apartment with a crisp fall ambiance. Other than the quiet TV playing one of the major news networks, the room is peaceful and still. Shade left me a note on the counter saying that he had gone out for groceries.
I'm not sure if that's code for something.
From the little news that I forced myself to watch and the articles on my phone that I forced myself to read, the situation downtown hasn't changed much. Calore Industries is in ruin, and everything south of the Brooklyn Bridge is shut down. Police still sweep Tiberias Calore's building, investigations at the national level are in full swing, and a press conference is scheduled to air in the next hour.
A total of twelve people have died. Eight died either during the Scarlet Street Fighter attack or shortly after, and four more security guards have passed away since then. From my understanding, none of the other guests were seriously hurt—or killed—though more than a few need some stitches.
I remember the raining, flying, exploding shards of glass in Calore Industries.
"Are you reconsidering your role as a Street Fighter, princess?"
I glance up from the island counter that I've been staring at for too long.
One of the TikTok dancers is here. It's the one with the dyed platinum hair that spikes up in a dozen directions. He lounges on the long couch in the living room, laptop on his lap and a half-eaten banana resting on a paper plate at his side. Every so often, he'll glance at me or the TV screen but otherwise keeps his focus on whatever's on his computer. I'm not sure why exactly he's in Shade's apartment, only that now, he has his undivided attention affixed on me.
Tyton Jesper draws out his long legs in front of him, stretching like somewhat of a cat.
His grey eyes are certainly of a cat's, and the way he watches me is of one as well.
"Don't call me that," I mutter, unable to reaffirm what he's said.
Tyton just chuckles. "Why not? That's how they treat you, isn't it?"
He's referring to the Academy, obviously. I live in an upscale apartment for free, have a maid service, and get paid handsomely to stand on my toes and spin around myself. Or that's how Tyton would explain it, anyway. The events of last night are another story altogether, between the paparazzi, the constant stream of socialites wanting my attention, and . . . Cal. He stole me away from his brother and pulled me out onto the floor like I was some kind of Cinderella. And as though I hadn't gotten enough attention already, he made sure that every last soul saw the two of us dancing.
He staged a freaking photo op.
"I hope you realize what a unique position you're in," Tyton continues in the midst of taking a bite of his banana. "You're best friends with Maven Calore, see Elara Merandus on a regular basis, have the attention of Tiberias Calore, dance and sleep in a building that the Calores own, and . . ." He finishes off his banana, tossing the peel back onto his plate. He holds up a finger to indicate that he'll finish his sentence as soon as he's done chewing.
I roll my eyes at the TikTok dancer.
"You definitely have some strings to pull when it comes to Cal."
He's not wrong. Not when Cal's been pulling strings for me since the day I auditioned.
"I'm not justifying the dead guards or the man who straight-up flew off one of those marble bridges. I'm not. But look at what happened to Tristan. Farley had to give herself the best possible chance of escape, and she did what she had to do."
"What about the falling glass?" I ask. It's a miracle that nobody died from the thousands of panes that the Scarlet Street Fighters shattered.
"It was a calculated risk meant to incite chaos, further offering the Street Fighters a chance at escape."
Tyton sighs when I don't respond.
"It's bad, you know."
"What's bad?" I ask.
Tyton snorts. "You know."
I scoff right back at him. But yes, I know.
Farley shared one little tale about Tiberias Calore and how he killed her mother and sister. But aside from the anecdote, Farley's explanations of who the Calores are and what they do were vague and obscure. She told me about how the Calores run Manhattan through the police and city hall, how they manipulate and blackmail the rest of Wall Street to get what they want. But that's all.
It's worse. Somehow, I know it's worse. That this criminal underworld of Tiberias Calore's that he hides so masterfully extends deeper than I know.
He has a city of eight-and-a-half million under his thumb.
Something's going on that I have yet to find out about.
I keep wondering what the drive is. They're bribing cops and city officials to turn their heads and yet I don't know why. Diana Farley's father was hired to investigate the Calores for a reason, and when he got too close to some truth, he was punished. But what was that truth that was so dire to hide that his family was killed over it?
"Someday, she'll tell you everything, princess," Tyton says, smirking as he calls me that again. "For now, you have to have patience in her scheme, because we're playing a very, very long game. You have to have trust that this is all for a good cause."
This has all been in the works for years. They've been plotting against the Calores for nearly half a decade, and last night was the first movement in the final act.
And I am nothing more than a cog in their machine.
I swallow, still sickened by everything that I saw inside of Calore Industries, even as I force myself to recall Farley's story.
They were murdered in their beds in the dead of night, nothing more than two innocent casualties in a war that nobody asked for. Blood drenched their sheets, and that's what Farley saw when she got home from her high school track meet. Because of that single job that her father took, because of some secret that he got too close to, her entire life was changed for good. And she'll never get that back.
I swallow again, this time for my fear, and I decide which side I'm choosing.
Even if I'm ruined because of it.
The press conference airs, and sitting on Shade's couch between Tyton and Shade, who, no, did not return with any groceries, I watch it.
Tiberias Calore, Elara Merandus, Cal, Maven, Anabel Lerolan, and Dane Davidson—among other important investigators and agents—stand crowded together behind a wooden podium emblazoned with the NYPD crest. The Calores have all discarded their black-tie gala wear for simpler dress clothes, save for Anabel, who remains in her fiery pantsuit looking as regal as ever, albeit exhausted. But none of them received the luxury of sleep last night as I did, and I remind myself that Anabel's brother was one of the targets. Still, Tiberias Calore and Cal look to be the worst off, their faces drawn despite the cameras aimed right at them.
I see anger and frustration in the lines of their expressions.
No stage face can hide what happened last night.
The media wall at their backs is blue and peppered with more NYPD crests and text. I hear murmurs from journalists off-camera as Dane Davidson goes over the events of last night as they were reported to him.
First came the power outage. Then came the shots. Then came the flickering of lights.
And then came the chaos.
I don't need to hear his story again. Not when I saw it with my own eyes, felt it and heard it.
The police managed to lose the photographs that they had taken of Farley and Kilorn while they were in custody, and I find that little hiccup too convenient to have been an accident on somebody's part. Something happened to them along the way from one place to another, and now the NYPD is left with nothing more than a couple of police sketches that don't actually resemble the two Scarlet Street Fighters. They'll flash across the TV screen every few minutes, only paper and pencil and the images of a random guy and a lady with a scar at her jawline.
Tiberias Calore can declare his vengeance on the Scarlet Street Fighters as many times as he likes on live TV, but it doesn't change the fact that the police and FBI are already hitting dead ends.
Nobody knows anything, and we're nearly eighteen hours out from the attack.
Nobody knows how they got inside the building.
Nobody knows how the Street Fighters hacked into Calore Industries' lighting and security systems.
Nobody knows where the grenade came from, and nobody knows how the glass railings were shattered.
Nobody knows how every last one of them escaped.
At this point, all anybody can say is this: they're a group of highly-coordinated and well-connected terrorists, and this attack has undoubtedly been in the works for months.
Ellyn Macanthos, Reynald Iral, and Belicos Lerolan were all business associates of Tiberias Calore. Ptolemus Samos, of course, is the heir to his family's steel corporation. The Scarlet Street Fighter attack wasn't done in vain or a means to merely scare the high society of Manhattan. It was a strategic move to weaken Tiberias Calore's dynasty. Even if I can't help but think that what happened last night was like taking an icepick to a glacier.
"What's that?" my brother asks, gesturing at the butter-colored handkerchief that I hold between my fingers. After holding onto it so close last night, I've become a little attached to it.
"I don't know," I tell him, turning over the piece of mascara-stained fabric in my hand. Somebody handed it to Maven last night to offer me, and I don't know who. It's beautifully stitched and the kind of thing that Gee would go nuts over, with its fine seams and embroidery of a tiny golden songbird in flight at its center. Two calligraphed letters rest in the corner near the hem.
CJ.
"CJ?" Tyton asks, reading the font himself. He raises a brow. "Like Coriane Jacos?"
His tone is disinterested, but his comparison is not wrong.
"Oh." The syllable flops out of my mouth.
Coriane Jacos, as in Cal's mother.
As in the woman who died a mysterious, tragic, and dark death nearly twenty years ago.
It doesn't take any time at all for me to remember the what-I-thought-was a pocket square sticking out from Cal's tux during the gala. It was butter-yellow, a replica shade of what I hold in my hands now. And I don't forget how he was there, sitting on the lip of the couch chair as I broke down crying. He was the one closest to Maven, the only one that could've discreetly handed his brother a handkerchief.
To offer me, because Cal knew that even then, I would never accept it if I knew that it was his.