“Owe,” I said, holding onto the bin as I lifted my foot. I plucked out a tiny shard of glass sticking out of my skin. “Watch out, Millie. I just stepped on some glass.”
“Ugh, seriously? Broken glass in here? You okay?” she asked, looking over to me as she reached for a few pairs of her shoes.
“Yeah,” I said, tossing the shard in a nearby trash can.
I reached back over to my bin and pulled out three pairs of brand-new pointe shoes. Next, I sat down on the little chair nearby and pulled the first one out of the bag. Wanting to try on the fit really quickly, I decided to slide on the shoe without any of the usual padding I wore in class.
I put the tip of the shoe on the floor and pressed my foot into it, and instantly, my big toe exploded in pain.
“Ah,” I cried out, trying to pull my foot out of my shoe, but it felt like my toenail was being ripped off.
“What’s wrong?” Millie asked.
“There’s something in this shoe,” I exclaimed as tears swelled in my eyes. “It hurts really badly.”
“Oh god, what do you need?” Millie asked, tossing her shoes aside and kneeling beside me.
“Pack mate, quickly,” I managed to squeak out. My big toe was throbbing, and the pain was growing worse and worse. My stomach felt queasy thinking about all the different things this could be.
I tried to wiggle my foot back out of the shoe, but that only made the pain worse. As another wave of nausea hit, I turned to the trashcan nearby and pulled it close to me, dry heaving into the bin.
“Ivy!” Lukas shouted from the entrance to the dancer’s lounge. “Where are you?”
“In here,” I croaked out with my face buried in the trash can.
Within a few seconds, Lukas appeared next to me, followed by half the company trying to see what was going on.
“Something’s in my shoe—it’s stabbed my toe, and I can’t take the shoe off,” I cried, setting the trash can down and burying my head into his shoulder. “It hurts so bad.”
I lifted my foot, and much to my horror, blood was soaking through the tip of the shoe.
“We’re going to the ER,” Lukas said, scooping me up in his arms. “I’m here, and you’ll be okay.” Turning to Millie, Lukas added. “Call us an ambulance.”
***
Demetrius
“We had to cut off her pointe shoe to get to the issue,” Ivy’s doctor said, standing before me, holding up a glass jar. “We found this two-inch shard wedged underneath her toenail. You should know there was a lot more glass in that shoe as well.”
“Dear god, someone did this to her,” I half-whispered, taking the jar from his hands. Turning to Preston, Isaac, and Lukas, I held up the jar. “Someone put glass in her shoe.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Isaac fumed, rushing over to me.
“Can we see her? How is she doing?” Preston asked, standing on the other side of me. Lukas stood behind us, listening in.
“She’s actually doing fine,” the doctor replied. “Once we got the shard out, we were able to quickly stop the bleeding. The team is analyzing the toe for any remaining glass left behind. You’ll be able to see her in a minute.”
I didn’t want to ask if she’d be able to dance or not—I just wanted her to be alright and in my arms, but fuck, I knew it was my job.
“What will her recovery time be?” I asked, swallowing that lump in my throat.
“She should be back on her feet tomorrow, though I’d have her avoid putting pressure on the tip for a few days,” the doctor said. “Assuming we didn’t miss any glass, she’ll be fine to resume everything by next week—she’ll just need to manage what pain she experiences. I’m going to go check on her, so please excuse me.”
The doctor walked away, leaving Isaac staring hard at me with a pissed-off expression on his face.
“Well, thank god she can still dance, right?”
Anger swelled inside me as my voice dropped to a low growl. “I don’t care about the dancing right now, but I know she will. She’s my mate too—I only care about her getting better and being safe, dammit!”
