This talent isn’t nothing. They’re eating out of her hand, and she just started.
“We’re going to talk about energetic blockages. But not in the way you might think.”
I brace for the nonsense. Chakras. Crystals. Faux-spiritual garbage.
“The body remembers.” Jordan radiates authenticity, her gait slow as she crosses the stage. She’s nothing like the woman in her streams. She understands. She’s lived. “Even when the mind wants to forget.”
She begins the story.
And every soul in the room listens, enraptured.
“When I was younger, I was put in a box. Not literally, of course. I could have easily fought my way out of that.” A laugh ripples through the room. She could ask anything of the huddle of bodies. Anything. “Instead, I was given a costume. A role. Someone else’s version of me.”
This should have been a boring, mystic, mumbo-jumbo lecture I could half-sleep through. But if this is the opening line, I was clearly mistaken. My back tightens.
My muscles tense.
I’m in dangerous territory.
“I’m wearing a costume now too.” Her gloved hand drifts up, tracing the chokehold neckline and the sharp lines of the dress. My dress. “Not my usual style, is it?”
The audience chuckles again. Heads shake. They know her from her blog. The earth-toned drapery, the crystals, the goddess posing in sunshine.
Jordan smiles. “That’s the thing about costumes.” A new current—bright and wicked—enters her voice. “They’re cages or keys. They trap us, or,” she spins, the silk arcing out, a black flare slicing the air like wings, “they transform us.”
The greedy crowd leans in.
So do I. I can’t stop myself.
I see the teeth behind her smile. This isn’t about the dress, not really. It’s about me. About the way I pressed her into these clothes, how I meant them as a collar, as proof she’s mine.
And now she’s flexing those chains right in front of everyone.
This is not the woman who smacked the bottom of a trash can and shouted about auras and energies at the top of her lungs, even if that was just a ploy to escape.
She’s magnetic. And a menace.
Jordan whirls, swaggering across the stage. “When someone wants to box you in, when they try to dictate how you show up, you only get two choices.” One finger stabs the air. “Reject it. Tear it off. Refuse.” Another finger. “Or take it. Seize it. Twist it into power they never intended to give you.”
They’re fixated on her, some scribbling notes, some breathless. They think she’s clever.
She is. Just not for the reasons they believe.
She prowls before them, every stride a claim. “I chose the second path.” Her electric eyes find mine, glinting with a dare. “I took what was supposed to imprison me and found freedominside it. Because no one can lock you down if you won’t let them.”
The audience erupts. The applause crashes and rolls.
Background noise. All my focus stays on Jordan. On the way she stands and the flush in her skin. The mastery of her words.
Worse than rebelling outright, she outsmarted me.
Obeyed every order. Put on the dress that marked her as other in this crowd. Used it as a prop in her unrehearsed speech.
Hot, jagged fury pulses through my chest.
I’ve spent years outmaneuvering threats.
Men with blades and guns. Rivals who believe money can buy immunity. Enemies who weaponize the fact that they’ve got nothing left to lose. I know how these threats work. I can counter them.
