Page 18 of Dance with the Devil

I give him a half-smile. “You should talk to my old ballet teacher. Madame Durand would tell you in great detail how I quit on her to pursue my own career in dance.”

“This Madame Durand live in Springfield?” Cross asks, a dark look flashing across his features.

“Last I checked, her studio is still on the East End. Why?”

“Now I have even more motivation to get us both out of here. So you can show her how much of a fucking amazing dancer you are, and she can kiss your ass.”

I laugh. It’s more of a huffing sound than anything, hot air that escapes me because we’re still careful to keep our voices low in case someone is listening in on us, but I laugh for the first time since I realized

Cross’s expression softens. He turns his head, just quick enough for his lips to brush against the palm of my hand, before he’s pulling back, out of my reach.

He rests on his heels, gaze roving over my face. “Know what? You’re right, butterfly. No glass jar is gonna hold you. We’ll get out of here.”

I hope he’s right.

Considering I know I was full of complete shit when I told him the same thing, I doubt it—but it’s only day three. I haven’t lost my hope yet.

At least, notallof it.

We’re not alone. I know that much. As if the cameras seemingly tracking our every move aren’t enough to figure that out, I hear footsteps over our head sometimes. They travel down the hall, purposely avoiding our cell.

I know there are more down here, too. If you jam your face up against the glass, angling your head just right, you can kinda see the dip in the cinderblock next to us, plus the reflection on the thick glass door.

There’s a keypad out there, too. It explains why the glass door keeping us trapped in here doesn’t have any visible locks on it. Our first ‘night’ in the cell, before I broke down and sobbed, Cross holding me tight and telling me we just had to make it through until the next morning, we searched every inch of the room.

My first impression was of the toilet and the sink. Cross was the one who pointed out the cameras. On closer inspection, there’s a small vent near the ceiling—providing us fresh air so we don’t eventually suffocate—and the glass door is on some slidingmechanism. I broke the nails on each of my pointer finger, trying to see if the mechanism had some give to it until I had to admit that we were well and truly trapped in here.

But that leads us to have even more questions:

Who trapped us? Why?

And how many other people are down here?

Three days in, and we still don’t have an answer to the ones that matter.

We tried screaming to see if that caught anyone’s attention. The footsteps make me think that, despite the thick glass and the dense cinderblock, the room isn’t soundproofed; I can confirm that the whole damn square seems to echo when I finally gave in to Mother Nature and squatted over the toilet. Cross turned his back; as gentlemanly Sinner, he gave me privacy after I confessed I had to pee but I didn’t want to do it with an audience. Poor guy. He thought I meant him, not the cameras, and when I quickly corrected him, he stood with his back to me, trying his best to block both cameras.

But no matter how loud we screamed or as often as we got up and kicked the glass just to make us feel better, the response was the same:silence.

No one has come for us. If there are other prisoners in this unfamiliar place, they’re keeping quiet. If they’re as hungry and uncomfortable as we are, I get it.

Leaning up against Cross after he joins me on the cot again, resting my head on his shoulder, for the first time in my life, Genevieve Libellula has absolutely nothing to say.

SEVEN

EAT

GENEVIEVE

Ismell garlic.

At first, I think I’m imagining it. When the hunger finally seemed to fade a little a couple of hours ago, I knew that was a bad sign. My body has started to accept that I won’t be eating soon, and instead of giving me signals to grab some food, it’s probably starting to catabolize my muscles for fuel. Then I caught a whiff of garlic, and convinced myself that my nose was playing tricks on me.

I didn’t ask Cross if he smelled it, too. He’s already so worried about me. If I admit that my senses are failing and there’s nothing he can do about it… no. I ignored it, even as my stomach rumbled, and sat on the cot, preserving my energy.

And that’s when I heard the footsteps.

Cross cocks his head. “They’re getting closer, aren’t they?”

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