Chaos Choreography (InCryptid, #5)(10)
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous, after . . . everything?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. Dominic and I had left New York—and he’d left the Covenant of St. George—after a Covenant strike team had arrived with the intention of checking his work and starting their purge. They’d found out about me, and hence that my family line hadn’t died out after all; they’d learned that Dominic was keeping secrets, including my existence, from the organization he was supposed to be loyal to.
In the end, the only way we’d been able to escape with our lives was by having my telepathic cousin Sarah rewrite their memories, turning me into a Price imposter and Dominic into a power-mad traitor. As far as the Covenant team was concerned, both Dominic and his self-made “Price” had died in the gunfight that ended their assignment in the States.
(It had been a neat solution, but it wasn’t without its costs. Sarah had never used her telepathy that way before, and the backlash hurt her. Badly. She’s been recovering with my grandparents in Ohio ever since. For a while, we’d been afraid she was never going to be fully herself again. That fear had proved unfounded—she’s definitely still Sarah, if less cocky and confident in her own abilities than she used to be—but it was a terrifying experience, and not one that I’m in any hurry to repeat.)
“What would the benefits be?” asked Dominic. “If you danced again, and won, would it make you restart your dance career?”
I blew out a slow breath. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought I was done with that part of my life, but I also feel like . . . if I don’t do this, I’ll always be asking myself ‘what if,’ you know? What if I’d gone back? What if I’d danced so well that they gave me a second chance at the big stage?”
“Are you good enough?” He held up a hand before I could squawk indignantly. “You’re the finest dancer I’ve ever known, but when we met, you were dancing for three hours a day. I haven’t seen you practice your footwork in weeks. Will you be able to meet your own standards on the floor?”
“Yes,” I said. This, at least, I could say with certainty. “I haven’t been doing my dance practice, but the rest of my physical conditioning is still good. I’d have to vary my daily exercise routines, and really focus on my feet and hips between now and the show. That’s no big deal. I’m in better shape than most dancers can even dream of—and dancers are by and large a healthy lot that spends a lot of time in motion.”
“And your Valerie identity, it’s still sound?”
“No one’s managed to blow it yet,” I said. “I’d have to unpack my wigs, and see about getting a few new ones, since the old ones have been in storage since my last competition. But Verity Price has never danced professionally, and we use so much makeup when I’m Valerie that she and I don’t even have the same complexion. I’d basically have to pull my wig off and announce myself.” It was all very Scooby-Doo. A wig and some makeup and nobody knew my name. But it worked, and that was what mattered.
Dominic nodded. “Valerie Pryor, of course, is not married to me.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I called you my boyfriend when I was talking to Adrian. I didn’t want to have to explain to him why I didn’t send him an invitation to the wedding. Not that he would have come, and not that there was actually a wedding, but you know what I mean.”
“Miraculously enough, I do know what you mean,” said Dominic. “Your approach to the English language is like a virus, and after long exposure, I’ve contracted a great deal of it. I may, by this point, be incurably afflicted.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. Dominic laughed before sobering, sitting up a little straighter in the bed. He shouldn’t have been capable of looking that grave while half-naked, but somehow, he managed it.
“Do you want this?” he asked.
I hesitated before saying, “Yes. Maybe it’s selfish and maybe it’s stupid, but . . . yes. I do.”
“Then that means you must do the show, unless someone can raise a truly novel and valid argument against it,” he said.
I blinked.
Dominic continued, “I know you. I love you, but that doesn’t preclude understanding what a gloriously stubborn creature you are. If you don’t do this, you’ll forever be wondering whether you made the right choice when you became a fulltime monster negotiator rather than staying on the stage. The universe doesn’t offer this manner of opportunity to just anyone, and I’d rather not watch you abuse yourself with ‘what-ifs’ when the chance to answer them all is right in front of you.”
“If I win, I get a year’s free rent on a studio apartment in New York,” I said. “Is that safe?”
“There’s been no Covenant movement in that direction. New York is a large city. You would be living as a redhead. I could bleach my hair and take a job at the Freakshow. I’m sure Ryan would enjoy the challenge of teaching me how to make a proper martini,” said Dominic. “We would make it work.”
The imagine of Ryan—the Freakshow’s tanuki bartender, a tall, friendly, half-Japanese man with a waheela girlfriend and a perpetually sunny disposition—teaching Dominic to make cocktails was almost enough to make me start laughing. “You think so?”