Page 42 of Depraved

Neon snorted. “You haven’t earned it yet.”

The atmosphere turned from uncomfortable to hostile. Their words flew like poison darts, each aimed at the other’s head. Onyx seemed angry. Neon seemed determined. It was a toxic combination.

I got up from my chair while they bickered. They didn’t even notice. With a deep breath, I stood straight—tail down, spine up. Shoulders and hips faced the same direction. My head erect and centered. I balanced my weight on the triangle of my feet. It was one of the first things they taught you in ballet, to equally distribute your weight with the least amount of energy. For any ballerina, balance should be as easy as breathing.

I closed my eyes, shutting their voices out. I extended one leg, straightening it behind me, supporting my body on the other leg, then lifted my arms.

And then I started dancing.

There was no music. Just the natural rhythm of my body guiding me, taking control. I twirled, my toes pointe.

Balance. Balance. Balance.

Every muscle worked its way through the rhythm.

Strength. Strength. Strength.

The jeans I wore made it difficult to execute each move perfectly, but that didn’t keep me from trying.

More and more, I lost myself to the dancing, my body light, like the air around me. My hands grasped the end of the table, and I lifted my leg behind me. With every ounce of strength and flexibility, I performed the perfect arabesque penché. Every muscle pulled as I extended my knee up behind and above me. It was a classic ballet move, but one of the hardest to perfect. If it wasn’t for the goddamn jeans, it would be a perfect one hundred and eighty-degree penché.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and a few drops trickled down my spine. My chest was tight as I focused on my breathing, trying to keep my heartrate steady. Slowly, I brought my leg down, exhaling as my foot finally touched the ground.

It felt good to dance again, even just for a few seconds. My body needed it to loosen up and shake off some of the stress it had endured the last few days. My mother might have been able to dictate my life, but not even her manipulative ways could make me fall out of love with dancing.

I opened my eyes and let out a breath. Onyx and Neon stared at me, slack-jawed and stunned. Even Neon, who seemed like she could never shut up, didn’t say a word. But it was the way Onyx looked at me that had me frozen to the spot. That intense blue-eyed stare seemed to look right through me. In awe. Like he had been entranced by the way I just danced.

I straightened, shyness flushing across my cheeks. “That is why I need to keep my weight in check.”

There were no arguments from either of them. Only silence. Then I noticed Onyx’s expression as he stared over my shoulder—something between “oh, fuck” and “we’re fucked.”

Neon, on the other hand, said the actual words as she stared behind me. “Oh, fuck.”

It was him. I knew it. I felt him behind me, a chill slowly spreading down my spine while it felt like a furnace had been turned on underneath my skin. There was no need to see him to be able to feel his presence. A man like Granite brought a sense of authority and power whenever he entered a room…just like he did now.

“Granite,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

“Your room. Now.”

“It’s not my room.”

Neon snapped her gaze to me. “Not the time, Swan Lake,” she warned softly. But even though fear was weighing heavy inside my gut, anger was knocking against my skull.

With a touch of his hand on my shoulder, my body shuddered. “Back to your room. Now.”

For a moment, it felt like I had a demon stuck inside me, desperate to get out. So I reacted—bravely, yet foolishly, it seemed.

As I spun around, I lifted my hand, ready to slap some fucking humanity into the man who seemed like nothing but a giant brick wall. But he saw it coming, grabbing my wrist, pushing my arm away from his face. To be honest, I was giving it all I had by pressing back, while he wasn’t even trying.

I bit my lip while staring up at him, and all he gave me was a half-grin. Green eyes beamed with amusement, yet his features remained hard, unreadable. Unlike Neon and Onyx, Granite gave me nothing—no pieces to put together in order to get a picture of the man he really was. Nothing about him was transparent or predictable. And I had a feeling no matter how hard he kept me—as Neon put it—Granite was an enigma I would never be able to figure out.

It only took two encounters with Neon, and I already knew she was a misfit hiding behind the safety of pretending to be a hard-ass. And both times she had shown me kindness.

Onyx was the young man constantly living in his big brother’s shadow. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t your normal sibling rivalry. It was something different. Onyx seemed so…trapped. Maybe he craved freedom…like me.

But Granite? I had nothing. No pieces. No puzzle. No way to figure him out.

Granite brought my arm down, his fingers clasped tightly around my wrist. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes.