I kissed each of them one more time—quick and fierce—then turned toward the stage door.
My phone buzzed. Stephanie:Ready to kill it?
Me:Ready to fucking slay.
I walked through the stage door and into my future.
forty-five
Vespera
TheNorthwoodWinterShowcasehas never been this packed.
Every seat in Morrison Auditorium is filled—faculty in the front rows, students crammed into the balcony, and scattered throughout the audience, the people who actually matter. Industry professionals. Critics. Scouts.
Vivian Strasberg is in the fourth row, I saw her arrive twenty minutes ago with Diana Marchand from Broadway Collective. They're here to see the full production of Hedda Gabler—Northwood's prestige winter show, always a crowd-pleaser with professional potential.
But they're going to see me instead.
"Five minutes to places, Ms. Levine." The stage manager—a nervous sophomore who keeps checking her clipboard like it contains the secrets of the universe—hovers near the wings. "Act Four opens in five."
"I know." My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
I'm playing Hedda Tesman. The role I auditioned for, earned, perfected over three months of rehearsal. A woman trapped in a conventional marriage, suffocating under societal expectations, who chooses destruction over submission.
Appropriate, really.
The first three acts went perfectly. I've had the audience in my hand since my first entrance—Hedda's bored disdain for her husband Tesman, her cruel manipulation of Thea, her dangerous fascination with Løvborg. Every moment calculated to show a woman
desperately trying to control something, anything, in a life that's controlling her.
But Act Four is different. Act Four is where Hedda makes her final choice.
The pack is somewhere in the audience. I felt them arrive through the bonds—Dorian's possessive heat, Oakley's nervous warmth, Corvus's calculating presence. They're here to watch me perform, to see the Omega they claimed succeeding despite their best efforts to break me.
They have no idea what I'm about to do.
Eleanor Ashworth is here too. Front row, center. She made sure I knew she was coming, sent a formal RSVP to the theater department like this was a fucking wedding. Her ice-blue eyes—so much like her son's—have been tracking my every move since curtain.
She thinks I'm going to fail. Thinks the pressure will break me. Thinks I'll prove I was never good enough for Northwood, for her son, for any of this.
She's wrong.
"You're going to kill it," Stephanie says, appearing beside me. She's been running lights all night, crafting cues that make Hedda's drawing room feel like a beautiful prison. "Act Four isyour best work. I've watched you rehearse this fifty times. It's perfect."
"It has to be more than perfect." I watch the curtain, waiting for my entrance cue. "It has to be transcendent."
"It will be." She squeezes my shoulder. "Because you're not playing Hedda anymore. You are Hedda."
She's right. For three acts, I've been Hedda Tesman—bored, cruel, desperate for control. Now comes the final act. The one where everything falls apart. Where Hedda realizes she's cornered and makes her choice.
The stage manager gives me the signal. I take my position.
Act Four. Hedda's last stand.
I enter the drawing room set—all period furniture and tasteful oppression. Tesman is there, worried about the manuscript. Thea is devastated. Judge Brack thinks he has me cornered.
And Hedda? Hedda is done performing.
