Audition (North Security 4)

I stroke down the length of his lifeline. “Long. Deep. You’ll live a long time.”

“If you’re going to curse me, couldn’t you do it with locusts instead?”

Too intimate. His hand feels abruptly intimate, as if I’m cradling some more sensitive part of him—his heart, maybe. “It’s not a curse.”

“For someone who’s been trying to die his whole life, it is.”

I turn our hands so that he’s holding mine. My palm is up. I push his thumb across my lifeline. “Short,” I tell him. “It doesn’t always mean you’ll die early. It could mean struggle or illness. It could mean nothing, but my mamere always told me to live while I could.”

“What a load of bullshit,” he murmurs, and I realize how close we’re standing. I can feel his breath on my forehead. His thumb presses over my lifeline, as if he can smudge away the promise it holds. “No wonder you’re always so damn serious.”

I don’t always agree with things Mamere says. Sometimes I even resent them, but it’s different when I do it. Hearing him insult us raises my hackles. “Excuse me for wanting to live.”

“Then you’ll let me protect you.”

Somewhere behind me there was a lure and a hook. Now I’m already out of the water. Because of course he’s right. If I’m so determined to stay alive, then I should take every precaution.

“I’ll keep the window closed.”

“Oh, good. No murderer shark has ever gotten past one of those.”

I throw up my hands, breaking contac

t with him. “What do you suggest? Do you want to sleep out on the fire escape?”

“As tempting as the offer is, I have a better idea. You’re coming with me.”

“This is my apartment.”

“This is a rat-infested firetrap of a building that should be condemned. I wouldn’t leave you here even if you weren’t in danger. You’re coming even if I have to carry you out.”

There’s the expected annoyance at his high-handed manner, but even more than that, there’s relief. It rushes over me in a heady elixir. I’m drunk on it. I don’t like boiling over the restaurant’s oven when I’m trying to sleep. I don’t like averting my eyes when strangers use the bathroom while I shower. A dancer in the corps de ballet doesn’t make very much money. Living in New Orleans isn’t cheap. And some of what I make goes to mamere. It would be so easy to rely on this man, such sweet relief to sink into that quicksand once again.

CHAPTER THREE

Ballet originated in Italy in the 15th century. At the time, it was illegal for women to dance in public, so they couldn’t join the ballet.

Josh, five years earlier

There’s a distinctive sound to the human body on impact.

Someone must be fighting inside the warehouse. Not surprising, considering it’s owned by Caleb Lewis. Then again, there are no sounds of pain. No grunts of exertion. The sounds I do hear, the scuffs and the thuds, are almost rhythmic. Training, then. A thug with a makeshift punching bag.

Metal glints off the warehouse. Cajun spices saturate the humid air. The community has done a decent job of recreating their Louisiana origin after Hurricane Katrina drove them out. Unfortunately the coast is a great deal more porous over the Texas state line. That means easier access in the Gulf to drugs and guns and human cargo. Caleb might only have been a small-time criminal, had Mother Nature not decimated his home. Is he dealing with Russia? North Korea? Either way he’s in way over his head. Only a matter of time before he winds up shot in the back. I can join him or I can snitch on him. Not exactly great choices.

I’m doing a little reconnaissance on his properties.

I open the door, expecting to see a couple of rough-hewn bastards fighting or training. They might even take a swing at me. We’re all a bunch of army bastards, more comfortable using our fists than our words.

Instead I’m struck by the sight of a body in motion, but not in violence.

She’s dancing. Grace. Strength. And completely inappropriate to this place—desire. It’s nothing so base as tits and ass, though I’m sure hers are lovely. No, it’s the sweep of her calf and the indent at her waist. The lift of her chin.

I could not be more shocked if I had been punched. Or shot.

It feels a little bit like being dunked in lava, watching her dance. I’m immobile in the doorframe of the warehouse. My sanity is one step behind me, utterly gone. I’m seeing visions. She can’t be real. I don’t even want her to be real. This kind of beauty doesn’t belong in the goddamn gutter. A pale pink leotard against the dinge-dark hollow. Satin ballet shoes pushing into the dirt. Slowly, very slowly, my sluggish mind searches the perimeter. Alone. We’re alone. If anyone had wanted to shoot me, they’d have had plenty of time. An eternity while I’d been staring.

Her spin slows, like a top that’s run out of momentum. Dark eyes meet mine. Surprise. A flash of something else—anger. She drops to flat feet. No longer a goddess, a blur. She becomes a woman. “No,” she says. Then again, “No,” with such force I glance behind me in case someone’s charging at her wielding a knife. The shipyard is empty. It’s only my company she’s objecting to.