I didn’t know how much time passed this way. I just leaned into the numbness.
It was a relief after everything I’d tried and failed to do. Even thinking about failure just made me laugh and twirl the pain away.
It was a strange sensation to be so out of breath, delirious and giggling. I waved at the musicians, more carefree than I’d ever been in my entire life. Yet a tingling awareness slowly grew beneath it as an hour passed, maybe more. Like a deep river of emotions just beneath the surface. The undercurrent didn’t scare me from here, but when I peered down into it, it twisted and raged with a new emotion that I thought might be terror...
Because I couldn’t stop dancing.
Not “I don’t want to,” because for some reason, I still desperately wanted to dance, but...
I...can’t...stop.
My feet didn’t listen to me.
My arms burned as I swung them about, but it was the shaking in my thigh muscles that told me my legs were about to give out, even as I grinned at another partner and laughed wildly at nothing.
My smile hurt my face.
I skated right across the surface of those emotions now, close enough to feel the bite of fear, because though I’d changed to a more trancelike twirl that mostly involved a slow spin, my feet danced me directly toward an enormous troll.
“Brynn,” a voice said from thin air.
That’s weird.I smiled at how air could talk now. How odd.
“Brynn,” the voice said again, but this time it came from Soren’s mouth.
Oh, I’m imagining Soren now. Lovely.
“I really liked you, you know.” I danced toward him, grabbing his hands and wrapping them around me.
He choked slightly, and I felt it in my head. Why did I feel it in my head? Oh, because I’d pressed my cheek into his chest.
“You liked me?” he murmured. “Past tense?”
“Grammar nerd,” I teased back. Weird way to flirt, but he was flirting, right? Of course he was. He was coming from my imagination, and it turned out that I didn’t hate him. I actually really,reallyliked him... “You’re really good-looking too,” I told him, since he wasn’t real. “It’s annoying because it’s so distracting.”
He coughed now and pulled back a bit. “As much as I’m enjoying this... Brynn, did you drink the wine?”
“Did I drink the wine?” I repeated dumbly, unable to remember for some reason. A memory of red liquid in a glass crossed my vision. “Oh, yeah, I did.” I laughed at the abrupt change in his expression, reaching out to try to smooth the wrinkles on his brow. “You look like you’re worried about little old me,” I teased, shaking my head at the thought.
He pulled his hand back, but I could’ve sworn I heard him say, “More than you know.”
Then my feet decided they wanted to leap like a ballerina. I’dalwayswanted to be a ballerina, but Mom and Dad had cancelled my lessons after the teacher said I’d have to repeat the beginner level a second year. Too expensive. I giggled. What did “expensive” even mean?
I vaulted away from Soren’s reaching arms, straight toward that troll again—toward the troll’s knee, technically. It looked down at my approach with a glob of something by its tusks that looked like drool, and while part of me giggled at the thought of seeing a troll drool—troll drool, that totally rhymed, right?—the other part, where I’d somehow buried my emotions, began to panic.
“I can’t... can’t stop...” I managed to say, and I thought hands brushed my waist, but I couldn’t tell because I was twirling again.
The troll’s hand lowered, reaching for me.
I spun exuberantly even as I choked out, “No!”
Iron wrapped around my waist, catching me and yanking me back from the troll’s greedy fingers just in time.
No, not iron... Arms.
Warm, strong arms.
“Brynn Donovan, stop dancing.” His whisper tickled my ear.
