Page 3 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

“Go the fuck to sleep, Adrian,” Aggie mutters.

“I’m trying, but as stated, I had a nightmare. Don’t you even want to know what it was about?”

“Fuck. No.”

Tatiana giggles from somewhere in the dark.

We all fall silent again.

I lay back down, tangling my fingers together on my stomach as I breathe. I count heartbeats, one two, one two, and try to let the sound of the surf lull me back to sleep, but it doesn’t work. The urge to pee finally becomes non-negotiable, so with a huff, I push to my feet.

I don’t bother with a light, by this time, we already know where to go.

Like a house you have lived in for years, that you can navigate completely in the dark.

Tonight is one of those brutal, biting nights where the air stings my skin the second I leave the shelter. Damp sand and more rain. Even the moon doesn’t have the decency to come out; it’s just a deeper slate of grey above me. I walk the familiar path to our bathroom area, seeing just enough to not trip and fall.

Turns out, for me, that isn’t always the case.

Halfway there, my foot catches on something, and I stumble, slamming chest-first into a solid wall that is very much not a tree. I flinch, launching back and letting out a small yelp. A hand curls around my wrist, steadying me, and the very second I catch his scent, I know who it is.

Ace.

I try to yank free. He doesn’t let go.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. His voice is low, splintered. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I can only see the outline of him, almost like a lone stranger in the dark. I finally manage to get my wrist free, and take two steps back, wrapping my arms around myself. My heart is doing silly flip-flops in my chest, because it clearly hasn’t gotten the memo that we don’t like him anymore.

Who am I kidding, it knows damn well we do.

“What do you want?” I mutter, keeping my voice low so the others won’t hear.

He lets his hand drop. “You keep avoiding me. How long are you going to do that for?”

I cross my arms tighter. “Yeah, imagine not talking to the man who lied to you from the second you met him. Crazy.”

He stands there, not moving, shadows cutting his face at strange angles. “You going to hate me forever, or are you going to give me a chance to fucking explain?”

There’s a pause, the kind where your brain goes haywire with all the responses it wants to spit out, and none of them make sense, so you just stand there, breathing in the same rain-dampened air, as the man you wanted to trust turns all his focus on you.

“Explain what, exactly? That you were just following orders? That you’re the good guy in all of this? Fuck off, Ace.”

“I never wanted—”

I cut him off. “Did you, or did you not, take money to make sure we ended up somewhere nobody would ever find us? Did you work with my father to fucking sell his own daughter, and ensure she got delivered in one piece?”

He lets out a long, ragged breath. “It ain’t that fuckin’ simple.”

I want to laugh, but I’m too tired. “That’s what they always say.” My voice is low, but it doesn’t shake. “It’s always not what you think, I had no choice. You can save your sob story, all right?”

I try to push past him again because it’s starting to drizzle and I’m not about to have this conversation while my bladder is actively rebelling. He lets me go this time. As I brush by, he calls after me. “You can hate me all you want, but you don’t know what your father is capable of and if you want the truth, I’m willing to give it.”

I freeze, my foot stepping into a muddy puddle that makes all the rage inside me bubble up.

“Don’t pretend like you care,” I snap.

His voice, now just above a whisper, is so damned painful it almost splits me open. “I do. That’s the fucking problem.”