Breaking apart and putting yourself back together.
Finding strength in the places where you were weakest.
My blades rest in their sheaths at my back—not props, not stage weapons, but the real things. The same blades that have taken lives, that have kept me alive, that have become extensions of my body over years of survival.
They're part of the story too.
Part of me.
The music hasn't started yet.
The silence stretches—pregnant, anticipatory, the held breath before the first note changes everything.
One-two-three-four.
My toe taps against the stage floor.
One-two-three-four.
The counting helps.
Grounds me.
Reminds me that I'm here, that this is real, that everything I've worked for comes down to the next few minutes.
In the front row, barely visible through the glare of the spotlight, I can make out four figures.
My pack.
Sage's pink hair is unmistakable, even in the dim lighting of the audience. Beside him, Blaze's golden strands catch what little light reaches them, and Jett's teal-blue is a darker shadow in the darkness. And at the end—Kai. Still and watchful, those dark gold eyes fixed on me with an intensity I can feel even at this distance.
They came.
They're all here.
Watching me.
Believing in me.
The thought makes something flutter in my chest—hope or fear or something in between.
Further back, at the judge's table, sits the woman who holds my future in her hands.
Violet Martinez.
Chair of the International Alliance of Contemporary Dance Excellence. Former prima ballerina. Legend in the dance world. The woman who can grant me freedom with a single signature.
She's elegant even in stillness—posture perfect, silver hair swept into an immaculate chignon, watching me with the assessing gaze of someone who's seen thousands of performances and forgotten most of them.
Don't be forgettable.
Don't be average.
Be the thing she remembers when she's old and gray and looking back on a lifetime of dancers.
The first note hits.
And Imove.
