I try a few things, some of them work with the music and some don’t. Anya guides me, helps me with my transitions from one move to the next. She’s the only person whose ever been able to see my failings and help me correct them. I’ve never known a dancer quite like Anya; one so spectacular with technique and teaching while also being so beautiful on the floor herself.
I wish I could dance with her now.
We’ll dance together again one day.
“That was cool, you’re a really good dancer,” Stella says as she suddenly appears in the doorway, arms folded. “They force you to dance, don’t they? Like their singer?” She nods toward Murphy, referring to the O’Shea family’s talent slave.
“Yeah,” I reply simply as Murphy shoots to his feet and marches across the room to Stella.
Anya leans back against the mirrored wall behind her, crossing her arms and glancing down and away. She knows better than to get involved in a conversation like this with Murphy and Stella, but it’s clear it bothers her to stay out of it.
Stella lets her arms fall to her sides as Murphy approaches her. She looks up at him, raising her eyebrows in challenge and cocking her head to the side. “What? Am I not allowed to talk to people? Ask questions?”
Murphy grabs her elbow, turning her, trying to nudge her out of the room. “I expect you to talk to the right people, not to a fucking talent slave. You’re my wife. You’re above him.”
Stella jerks her arm away from his grip. “I might as well be a slave. You don’t let me leave. I get scolded for talking to anyone or asking questions. You leave me alone half the time and won’t tell me what you’re off doing.”
I lock my fingers together on top of my head and spin away, pacing the floor while I wait for Murphy to blow. When I turn back around, I see Murphy grab her chin, yanking her head up to look at him.
My hands smack against my sides and I stomp toward them. Anya pushes off the mirror and shuffles in front of my path, holding up a hand to catch me on the chest before I haul off and knock Murphy on his ass for manhandling his woman like that. Anya gives me an admonishing look before whipping around to face them.
“Murphy,” Anya pulls her shoulders back and puts on the Queen Mikhailov voice she’s adopted to cope with her current position, “you’re in my home and I ask that you find a way to use your words to convey your intent with your wife rather than your hands.”
She’s so fucking perfect.
I couldn’t be more proud of her, though I know Murphy frightens her.
His shoulders stiffen and he stretches his neck from side to side before slowly loosening his grip on Stella’s jaw, letting his hand slip down her shoulder, her arm, before releasing her all together. He slowly turns and faces Anya behind him. “Apologies, lass. She tests my patience.”
“Something for you to work on, then? I don’t imagine your wife desires to be treated like a slave.”
Murphy smirks and something strange slips in Stella’s expression. “She might,” Murphy muses. “We’ll let you two get back to it.” Murphy spins to face Stella, twirling his finger. She spins to leave and he slaps her butt, making her jump before ushering her out of the dance studio.
What a fucking pair.
A moment later, Kostya appears and there’s a long, still moment where we all just look at each other. Then Anya moves, jerking her head to indicate she wants us to follow her, and we do, to the stereo in the corner.
“Are you still in this with us, Kostya?” she asks him in a hushed tone. “The quarterly meeting is right around the corner. I need to…We need to know. Do we really have a chance of escaping?”
Kostya glances behind him. “Yes, but it is risky.”
Anya shrugs her shoulders. “It’s riskier not to try. I can’t risk my baby being raised as one of them, with or without me.”
Kostya nods. “I know. I understand. I have a plan.”
“You really think it will work?” I ask.
“No choice. It must work,” Kostya says.
I reach out to grip his arm, making sure he has my attention. “Hey, your ass will be on the line if this fails. Are you sure about this?” I realize after I’ve said it that I’m giving him an out. I don’t want to give him an out. We need him to make this work.
His eyes meet mine. “Yes. I made promise to Nikolai,” he assures me in his broken English and thick Russian accent. “If you stay, they will kill her eventually. I hear things you don’t. I owe Nikolai for our friendship.”
Anya is a blur, lurching forward and throwing her arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”
A tiny smile appears on Kostya’s face, but it disappears just as quickly. He gently unwraps her and pushes her back. “There is a camera in here. This will look suspicious. I just came to tell you I have plan. We must leave after you dance, before the board meeting.” He nods at me. “It is the only time we can leave without being followed.”
Anya looks at me, then back to Kostya. “Then that’s when we’ll do it.”
“You will have baby by then?” Kostya asks glancing at her ever-growing belly.
“I should. He’s due the week before.” Her eyes widen as she considers something. “Will they let me hold my baby while I’m hosting? Oh, God. Why didn’t I think of that before? They wouldn’t make me give him to someone else, would they? I couldn’t. I won’t. What if they want Renata or Cordelia to watch him?”
I press my palm to the small of her back as she rises to a panic.
“No worry,” Kostya says in a hurry. His eyebrows furrow with concern and it’s directed at her as he steps forward to touch her elbow softly. “They will let you keep him. Mother is important first year…they all know this. After that is what I worry about.”
“What if he can’t stay quiet when we try to leave?”
“It will be okay. It won’t matter once we are off manor grounds.”
She nods, his assurance seeming to calm her. Anya has come to trust Kostya, someone I never in a million years would’ve thought could be on our side. If Anya trusts him, then so do I. It’s not like we have much choice.
Kostya quickly tells us his plan and then excuses himself, worried about what this looks like on the security cameras, though we don’t really know if Murphy is keeping a watch on those. Regardless, it’s not worth the risk of looking suspicious.
With a plan in motion, the only thing left for us to do is prepare for the performance. Everything must look as it normally would. I have to dance as I would if I were dancing for my life—the way that Anya had danced for Nikolai all these years. She’ll never have to again, because she has me now and her turn to dance for them is over. Now it’s my turn, and I will readily take that burden from her, now and forever more.