Page 15 of Dance with the Devil

That’s fine.Fine. We’ll get out of here, then worry about finding some good samaritan to lend us their phones. Wait. Do I know Damien’s number? Shit. He told me that, when he was akid, they didn’t have cell phones like we did when I was one. He knows the phone numbers by heart of everyone he’s in constant contact with, but me?

I think there’s a six in it. Maybe a four?

Fuck.

That’s fine. I’ll walk. I have my shoes. I just have to make it to the East End of Springfield, and there’s bound to be a Dragonfly who’ll trip over themselves to deliver me to my brother?—

“Not like it matters,” Cross adds. “I tried busting down the door. It looks like glass, but that shit won’t break.”

What? No. Glass breaks. Everyone knows that. Glass breaks, and I’m not sure what he tried, but I’m desperate.

I get up.

“I’m gonna try. I’m a ballerina, right? A dancer. Maybe… maybe I can do it.”

I flex my right leg, cursing when pain radiates up it.

“Genevieve,” he hisses out on a breath at the same time as I notice the red marks covering the entire side of my leg. “Your leg.”

Well, that explains the burning sensation. “Road rash,” I grit out once the pain subsides enough that I can. “Must’ve been when I hit the ground.”

A muscle ticks in his cheek. “I’m so fucking sorry. I?—”

Nope. I hold up my hand. “Unless you want to confess that the last six weeks have been some kind of long con, that you knew who I was from the beginning, and that you’re working with one of my brother’s enemies to trap me down here, I don’t want to hear it.”

Cross frowns. “Butterfly? How hard did you hit your head in the crash?”

I exhale. Until his visibly confused reaction, I wasn’t sure if there was a grain of truth in my wild accusation. I mean, technically that would explain a lot of things. His insistence thatwe keep our relationship casual, only friends, while also being there whenever I need him. It could be that Cross is a good guy who doesn’t want to take advantage of me, or he could be a villain hiding in plain sight.

I want so badly to believe that he’s on my side, but after tonight…

I shake my head. “My head’s fine. My leg hurts like a bitch, but unless it gets infected, it’ll heal.”

“Unless you break it by kicking that thick glass door.”

True, but it’s worth the risk?—

—and I believe that up until the moment I rear back with my left leg and mule kick the glass and absolutely nothing happens except I feel the impact of the kick as a painful vibration that reaches all the way up to my hip.

Cross is smart enough not to say ‘I told you so’, or to point out that anyone on the other side of the camera would’ve probably gotten a kick out of seeing my failed one. He just stands there patiently, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion he must have while I was still unconscious.

“We’re stuck here,” I say after a moment.

“Yes.”

Why isn’t he freaking out? He can’t have anything to do with this…. right? “You don’t get it, Cross. We’retrapped.”

“I know, butterfly.”

Then why doesn’t hecare? If he’s not involved, then he’s an innocent bystander, because?—

“Cross… this is all my fault.”

Okay. My words coupled with my rising panic, that definitely shakes him up a little. Losing that annoyingly calm look on his face, he frowns. “What?”

“My fault,” I repeat. “Whoever did this… they had to be targeting me.”

His expression goes back to that deceptively calm one from before. Right. He already guessed that, didn’t he?

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