Old habits die hard.

That's why the crime is too easy. I barely think about it. Instinct just tells me to do it and get the hell out of the Calores' skyscraper.

I come upon the sprawling lobby of the five-star hotel that the family lives above. I haven't been through the grand entrance since I brought Shade for brunch—the Calores have a private entry on Fifty-Seventh Street that we used last night.

I slow my walk, bring the newspaper up to my chest like a safety blanket. I look like a vagrant in my oversized sweatshirt, bedhead, and lack of shoes. The lobby bustles with the comings and goings of suited men who are in New York for business trips. Suitcase wheels roll across the polished floor, talk of Wall Street reverberates through the air, and forks clatter against plates as the businessmen leisurely enjoy their breakfasts.

I hold back a sneer as I slip behind a pillar and start my shoeless walk across the margins of the lobby. For all the money that the men have, they don't seem to be overly busy with work.

Avant-garde, gold and silver chairs wait around glass tables.

One of the tables, recently vacated, still possesses half-eaten breakfasts of bacon, eggs, and French toast upon pristine white plates. A black bill folder rests at the edge of the table, where a convenient and expensive fifty-dollar bill waits.

My hands shake, but not for the reason that they should. With a look around myself, I note that I haven't yet caught the attention of any businessmen.

They're no different than they are out on the streets. They're too busy, too self-absorbed to care that a thief is in their midst.

I would feel bad if the tip was smaller. The waitresses here must be loaded.

So I have no problem at all skirting the table, freeing one of my hands from the newspaper. It sweeps down over the table in a balletic movement.

I can't bring myself to feel regret over it, not when regret already fills me to the brim.

I don't notice the change block-by-block.

It isn't significant enough. It ebbs and flows as the glittering blue skyscrapers of Midtown transition into the elegant ivory-colored buildings of the Upper East Side. In time, East Harlem overtakes the UES. At 105th Street, my taxi takes a sharp turn right.

I barely remember haggling with the taxi driver, telling him that I know better than to pay twenty dollars for a fifty-block trip. In the end, I push myself out of the taxi with thirty-eight dollars. Even the sidewalk of East Harlem is different than the one lining Billionaires' Row.

The fire escape of the old brick building still looks about ready to fall off. Will's storefront looks as lonesome and grungy as ever. A tailpipe drags against First Avenue as a car older than me drives down it.

My lip quivers and my fists shake as I cross in front of Will's store. I don't look through the dirty glass to see if he's inside. I probably look deranged. The door to the apartment building comes fast enough. I fling it open, throwing myself towards the intercom. The red-brick, dirty antechamber fills with a buzzing ring when I slam my fist down on '4B | BARROW.'

The newspaper burns in my hand. I look around at the pathetic little mailboxes embedded into the wall to my right and the old, half-broken intercom system at my left. I stare down at the cement floor, barren of even a throw rug.

I don't have a key to the apartment anymore. I left it upstairs when I climbed out my bedroom window.

"Hello?"

My sister's voice chimes through the speaker. The simple two syllables sound different than her usual high-pitched, cheerful voice. They alone send a paralyzing jolt through me.

The jolt almost sends me turning around, fleeing across 105th Street.

"Hey, Gee."

As much as I try to make my voice clear and at ease, it matches Gee's in fear.

Sleep deprivation still plays with my head. Gisa doesn't say anything. I hear voices, but I don't know if they come from over the intercom or through the door and up the stairs.

"Can I come up, please? I—I wanted to come home."

The static buzzing carries the hidden meaning behind my words. The pitiful entryway's door clicks open, but Gisa still doesn't say anything. I don't wait for her to as I ease open the creaking door, pass through the threshold in my socks.

Cal's socks.

My feet pitter-patter up the narrow stairs, advancing onto the second floor. For everything that I am, my thighs feel impossibly tired, and I breathe hard as I wind around the stairwell.

The voices spiral down, too muffled and heated for me to comprehend.

Mom should be at work by now. Gisa should be in school by now. If they've managed to hold onto their jobs, Bree and Tramy should be out of the apartment by now.

Kilorn's old apartment door passes in a flash. Another set of stairs falls behind me. On shaky legs, I make a turn around the banister. I slow down as I start my final ascension to the fourth floor of Will Whistle's tenement.

My family's apartment is the first one at the top of the stairwell. Our door is just past the landing.

I flinch as I listen to it swing open, sucking all of the air out of the hallway, stairwell, and my lungs. Halfway up the last flight of stairs, I pause, knuckles turning white against the hand railing.

"I—I will call her later, Daniel."

Mom's panicked, stuttering voice rings out above me. She sounds about ready to cry.

"Now, I'm—I'm already late for work. I already—already told you that she's coming home tonight. Please don't call her. She's already—already working."

I imagine her light, dainty footsteps backing away from the door as Dad's wheelchair rolls across the wooden floorboards. Other sets of footsteps mix in with the melee, sounding like old, rundown work boots.

"Working?" Dad hisses the word like it's made of acid that needs to be spat off his tongue. "You mean dancing? With that boy?" The wheels stop turning against the wood. "That rich boy who's never worked a day in his life and who's been sticking his tongue down my daughter's throat?"

I swallow, my mouth feeling dry and dirty. Mom and Dad can't see me. I could still turn around.

But my body remains still, as motionless as the Central Park Reservoir in the dead of winter.

"Daniel," Mom pleads. "I told you—"

"The newspaper told me, Ruth," Dad returns with a hoarse laugh. "I got to see my daughter printed in The New York Times, kissing a boy that I've never met before, wearing diamonds and gold that I know she can't afford to buy herself."

His voice, not particularly loud, is somehow reserved and disgusted at the same time.

"You—you've known for over a week, Ruth. So has our other daughter, God knows how she managed to keep her mouth shut about it."

"I just wanted to give her time," Mom whispers, her words falling down the stairs to greet me. "She doesn't trust any of us. She wasn't planning on coming home until I told her that she had to. She just needs—needed time."

As though he's shifting on his feet, Dad's wheels scroll back and forth along the floor. "You know she wouldn't have told you if you hadn't guessed. Considering how long she's been away, Mare doesn't seem to have any problem keeping her life in Midtown. She even has a new family."

"They're not her family," Mom murmurs. But she won't call them by their name, and her own syllables drip with uncertainty.

Warm, stinging tears begin to pool within my eyes. They push at my lashes as my mouth turns down. My grip turns vicelike on the railing, red-painted nails digging into the dusty wood.

Another set of footsteps pads against the wood, coming from inside of our apartment. The steps bear the click of fashion boots.

"Dad. Mare's—"

Dad cuts Gee off.

"Of course they're her family," he spits this time, rage filling the air. "They gave her a place to live, buy her things, and take her to their parties. All that family had to do was make her dance and throw some jewels on her to make her one of them. And Mare likes being part of their family, doesn't she? Otherwise, she would've come home by now."

Dad's words are of an angry man who can't do anything about anything.

I peer up towards the top of the stairs, where my family's faint shadows linger along the wall. Two that might as well be twins tower above another that shifts between them. Only Shade and I are missing from the shadow family.

"Dad—"

"Not now, Gee."

Seething bitterness laces Dad's words.

"She has spent her entire life glaring up at Billionaire's Row from East Harlem. She has spent her entire life stealing from and mocking families like theirs. A kid just like that boy she's dating did this to me." Dad pauses, and I imagine that he gestures to his chair, to his paralyzed legs. "Don't tell me that they're different, Ruth. Don't tell me that."

I bite my lip hard, stopping only when it feels like I'm about to draw blood. My hand trembles against the rail the same way that Dad's voice trembles against the air. His words keep sucking the air out of my lungs, ripping tears from my eyes that escape from my lashes and flood down my cheeks.

They are different.

"He's spent his entire life in that glass tower that his family built from the rest of Manhattan's blood. He's looked down on East Harlem from that penthouse; spent his nights at those high society parties drinking and dancing; living in a sanitized, glittering world where pain can be washed away with wine. As far as I know, he holds absolutely no interest in meeting Mare's family, though apparently, he doesn't have a problem sticking his silver tongue down my daughter's throat. Don't tell me that boy cares about anything at all, Ruth."

Dad doesn't know. He doesn't understand.

"That boy doesn't care about our daughter. She's just a young, pretty, and thin ballet dancer to him. That family doesn't care about her, either. They'll throw her out of their glass tower the day she tears something in her knee or breaks her ankle. She doesn't have money. She wasn't born into their world. She doesn't have anything to offer them. Ballet dancing is all that she's good for. And when they cast her out, she won't have any family at all."

I hear Gisa whimpering in the background. "Dad, please—"

"Has she even bothered telling her boyfriend about me, Ruth? Do you know?"

Dad says Mom's name over and over again.

Mom's silence is indication enough that she doesn't know.

Dad delivers a dark laugh. "Of course she hasn't told him what they did to me. My daughter probably says nothing about me. I guess that there isn't much to say when she holds the Calores' company."

"Daniel," Mom pleads. "It's not like they're actually going to stay together."

Dad's words are a slap to my tear-stained face.

But Mom's feel like a punch to the gut, a blow that breaks my ribs.

"Do you honestly think that I like what's going on with Mare any more than you do? I know exactly who she works for, and it makes me sick. I know that the Calores don't care about anything aside from money and power, and I hate that boy as much as you do. Everything that she's doing makes me sick. Our daughter should still be in school. She should still live with us.

But I can't tell her any of those things if I want to have a relationship with her. She has her money, her own apartment—she doesn't need us for anything. But she's still my daughter, so I have to bite my tongue and pretend like I don't care that she goes to those disgusting parties or works for that family or has a rich boyfriend.

She and Maven aren't compatible. They're just young and stupid kids, but it's not like that family would ever let them be more than girlfriend and boyfriend. Our daughter—she's a high school dropout from East Harlem. She got arrested when she was fourteen. I know that they'll throw her away. He'll throw her away. So you can ask her as many questions as you want when she comes over tonight, but—"

"We should get going," one of my brothers mutters. I can't tell if it's Bree or Tramy.

"She shouldn't come home," Dad says. "And you can tell her that when you call her. She doesn't need to come home."

I'm too numb to turn my back and head down the stairs. I watch passively as Bree and Tramy begin to move, as their work boots tap against the wood, heading for the stairs.

Mom's late for work. Bree and Tramy are late for work. Gee is late for school.

And I was late, too.

Dad is the only one right on time.

My grasp on the railing is a tether that keeps me from falling right down the stairs.

"Guys, wait," Gisa says, but her words fall on deaf ears. Bree and Tramy advance around the banister above me, turning down the stairs.

My eyes fall upon their shoes first. Bree wears a pair of russet boots with brown laces, and Tramy's are black and scuffed with dirt. Their tall figures wear matching black work pants that contain an obscene number of pockets. Bree wears a black and blue flannel over his sweatshirt. Tramy wears a brown jacket. They both sport uncombed hair, but Bree also has the beginnings of a scruffy beard around his mouth that I don't like at all.

My eldest brother already wears a frown, but his lips part as his eyes land on me.

"Mare."

Maybe he whispers my name or doesn't say it at all. I see my brother's mouth forming the sound, though. I stand there mutely, letting Bree and Tramy rubberneck my oversized sweatshirt. Gisa winds around the banister too, and Mom follows. She brings a hand to her mouth as though she's assessing the damage.

Everything that I was planning on saying to my family slips from my mind and falls out of my gaping, silent mouth. It's not like it matters anyway.

It's only the sound of Dad's wheelchair moving along the wood that shakes me from my paralysis.

I turn around myself, my too-big socks slipping against the stairs.

Dad becomes a fear that will become real the moment I look him in the eyes.

Two steps fall behind me. They fall fast in blurred movements, fast enough that I nearly lose my balance. I fling myself around the rail, stumbling down the hallway.

So much for being a ballet dancer.

They never cared.

They still don't. They'll take my money, though. Whether I was a pickpocket or ballerina, they've never had a problem with that.

I pay their rent.

They never cared that dancing was the only thing that I ever loved, that I was ever good at.

"Mare," my sister's voice calls, whimpering. Her footsteps sound far away. Two heavier sets follow her.

They don't love you.

Of all people, I hear Evangeline Samos's voice jeering at me in my head.

If they loved you, they'd just be happy that you're happy. They wouldn't care who you work for.

Still misstepping, I fly down another set of stairs.

October finally decides to make some wind.

It hits my pores sharply, biting my skin. I swear it wasn't cold in Midtown.

But maybe it's just warmer outside of the Calores' penthouse, and maybe I just missed the bitter chill of East Harlem as I was heading inside my apartment.

I charge down First Avenue, ignoring my siblings' pleads. I can't bother standing around waiting for a taxi. Taxis don't hang around East Harlem looking for business. The subway line nine blocks south and a block west will take me back to Midtown.

Even the locals, the people who have been watching me sullenly creep around our neighborhood for ten years, look the other way when I pass them.

"Mare."

I spend all of one second looking down at the broken sidewalks, and when I look back up, Tramy's managed to get in front of me.

Gisa takes my left side, and Bree takes my right. It stops me from running into the street.

Not that it's particularly threatening, but I put up a quivering hand. "Get out of my way."

I stare at my brother's chest, the place where his heart beats beneath his layers of clothes.

Tramy holds his ground, but he doesn't open his mouth. I doubt he knows what to say.

"Mare," Gisa whispers, putting her hand on my back like a mother would. I dimly note her stylish display of checkered pants and a turtleneck. "You know—"

I push her hand off me, sidestepping between Bree and Tramy.

But my brothers know my tricks well, and they've readjusted their formation in an instant to corner me again.

"He's so jaded, Mare. You know that."

My bones and blood squirm beneath my skin. I have to get out. Off this block, out of this neighborhood, and out of my body.

"He just doesn't understand."

Understand what? His daughter being happy?

I can just imagine Evangeline's ear-to-ear grin.

I find enough rage inside of me to connect eyes with Gisa. "Understand what?"

Her face falls fast enough. She doesn't have an answer. And somehow, for all that my sister is, I don't think that she understands, either. The longer that I look at her, the more empty her eyes seem. The deeper I stare, the more layers of my sister fall away, and I realize that she hates the Calores just as much as Mom and Dad do.

She knows I see it, too.

I can practically feel Bree and Tramy's questions that wait inside of their mouths, on the tips of their tongues. They want to tear Maven apart.

"Don't call me," I say slowly. "Don't come to Midtown." My gaze drops away from Gisa. "I'm sure your company can send somebody else to finish my dresses. You'll have to find another commission."

Bree and Tramy step apart, cleaving a path for me. It heads straight south.

"Since you obviously don't need it, I won't send money anymore. I won't call." I hold up my hands as I turn around myself one last time, backing away as I face my siblings. "I won't come back to East Harlem."

I smile bitterly at the three. A block away in the background, I see Mom emerge from our apartment. We're too far away to really make eye contact, but she stares in my direction anyway.

"The Calores gave me more than Mom and Dad ever did," I say.

I'm not talking about the money. Of course Mom and Dad could never give me the money, the jewels, the social status.

The Calores let me dance.

"They're more of a family to me than you ever were."

A block away, Mom stays in place. It makes it easier to turn my back again.

Nobody stops me as I begin my walk south towards the subway. Back to Midtown.

"I'm fine."

I hiss the words to myself in a whisper as I wobble out of the service elevator.

"It's fine."

I managed to get in through the side door. It's not like I have my Academy ID on me, but one of the maids took pity on me when I knocked on the door. She spared me from the doorman—damn the Calores for having doormen—and let me use the back service elevator. No questions asked.

I lurch around a corner, breaths still heavy.

"Oh my god."

I whimper the words to myself as I try to get myself under control.

An odd sensation overwhelms me. It leaves me shaking and heaving for air, but I feel too numb to cry any more. I've felt that way since the moment I turned my back on my family.

My legs felt weightless and my head felt heavy on my way to the subway. I thought my knees were going to give out when I had to go down the stairs. On my four-mile subway descent from East Harlem to Midtown, I drew Cal's hood over my head and tucked my knees under my chin.

I've taken Cal's socks one-hundred blocks up and down Manhattan this morning.

Huffing another breath, I throw a look over my shoulder. The maids might talk to each other, but they don't talk to the ballerinas. But the last thing that I need is one of the other girls seeing me like this.

I approach my door on shaky footing. I don't know why I'm here. I only came because it feels familiar and safe, despite the fact that I'm going to have to get on my hands and knees and scour the hallway for a lost bobby pin to break into my own apartment. It's not like there's any shortage of bobby pins at the Academy.

It feels like home.

I guess it is home.

My hand goes to my mouth to stifle another whine. No tears accompany it.

If I were smart, I'd be back at the Calores' penthouse. I left last night's outfit, my phone, and my purse there. A knot tightens in my stomach when I think about how the Scarlet Street Fighters' little microphone is still tucked inside of my purse. It's not like Elara would have reason to rummage through it, but—

I sob again when my hand connects with my door handle, only to find that it twists open. I can already imagine what awaits me inside.

The little hallway that leads to my living room and kitchen is illuminated by Midtown's crystalline light. I find it funny how the wind doesn't blow outside. Maybe it's the big buildings.

Somebody dragged one of my kitchen chairs into the hallway. My dress dangles on a hanger off the chair's back. My heels wait below the dress. Black velvet boxes of varying sizes rest on the chair's seat along with my purse and phone. I guess that the Calores want me to keep all of things that they bought me.

Another twinge of bitterness licks across my spine.

I drop to my knees, taking my purse in my hands. I pull open the top zipper, pull open another zipper inside, and release a breath of distressed air when I lay eyes on my hidden microphone.

Then, my lips press together hard when I glimpse the college-ruled notebook paper folded between two of the jewelry boxes. I take it in my hands, reading the neat, half-cursive scrawl.

Hey,

I feel like the stupidest guy in the world for forgetting. I thought that you were worried about something else. I'm sorry. I'll get down on my knees and apologize when I see you. Mom shouldn't have let them put us in the paper. I hope everything went okay at home. We'll fix it if it didn't. Call me.

Love you,

M.

Just like I thought. He thought my panic was Scarlet Street Fighter-related.

Maven almost coaxes a smile out of me, but I flinch at the last part. It isn't "I love you," but it's close.

But it can't mean that much if he could write it on a piece of notebook paper. I nod reassuringly to myself. Maven probably didn't think anything of it when he wrote his little letter.

Still, I feel restless in my body. I have to keep moving, let myself forget that I'm trapped inside of myself.

They don't love you.

Evangeline's grating voice makes another appearance inside of my ears. I must be going insane.

I have to get out.

I don't know what I have to get out of, but I know that I need to escape.

My last name mocks me. It doesn't feel like it's my name anymore.

With a huff, I head down my hallway to change clothes.

"Excuse me," I say, smiling again as I sidestep a college kid with his nose buried a little too deep into a book.

He paces in front of the red-stoned building, walking in zigzags, pushing up his glasses with his index finger each time they slip too far down his nose.

I pass evergreen shrubs planted in massive cement pots, pass through columns of reddish-tan columns constructed of smooth bricks. My backpack weighs me down a little, but I still find myself skipping on my feet towards the Bobst Library's glossy revolving doors.

My newly-bought light purple high-top Vans, straight-cut jeans, and NYU sweatshirt give me the college look. Julian's gift is a runner-up to Cal's sweatshirt. It's baggy and keeps me just warm enough for the autumn weather. The vivid purple looks good on me.

My lanyard swings between my fingers, bearing my college ID. I'll have to be careful to hide it when I get back to Midtown.

I push through the glass doors, watching my reflection as I circle around. A pair of black-framed glasses with a round, almost circle-like shape, peers back at me. The temples are made of faux gold wires that match the fake nose ring attached to my left nostril.

I was just going to buy the glasses at the little tourist-trap stand I came across on my way to the subway. Then I saw the nose ring. Then I saw the cutest light purple high-top Vans in a storefront window just before I was ready to head down the subway steps. I finally threw my old Converse away.

Julian's next paper is due soon. I have quite a bit of work to do on that.

I keep peering at my reflection.

Mareena Titanos smirks back at me.