Page 45 of Nemesis

I don’t look down, where I know the needles are still lodged in my flesh, buried deep beneath my nail beds. I don’t look because I’m floating. Spinning…

The cymbals crash with shrieks of pain, but my mouth stays shut, teeth ground tight. Silent tears pour down my cheeks like the delicate strings at the end of the reprieve.

Of course, there are no reprieves in ballet.

In fact, the space between movements is arguably the most difficult part—holding a pose through pangs of pain, sweat sliding down your face.

The reprieve ends.

The corps dancers run in from each wing to start the march once more.

Another searing pain burns beneath my nail, this time tearing through my ring finger.

“How’d you communicate with your father?”

The words barely register under the tuba’s bass notes. My teeth slice the soft flesh of my lower lip. We’re running out of fingers on my right hand.

CRASH.

I grind my teeth through the next explosion of cymbals, my head growing impossibly light.

Losing too much blood, my logical side supplies.

Fuck off, I fling back.

My head droops.

My sight warps.

Something hard and unrelenting smacks across my face, waking me.

We never reach Juliet’s soft, joyful solo. No, we pause the tape. We rewind the orchestra. The march starts again, angry and powerful.

I begin humming along, though I can only feel the vibrations of my voice. Every sound is warped and watery in the curves of my ears.

My legs twitch again. I want to waltz.

I want to waltz!

Apples and potatoes, my old teacher used to say. You swing up to the sky and pluck an apple from the tree, then down to the ground to pull your bounty up from its leafy roots.

I always thought Prokofiev would have liked that.

CRASH.

My blood flows like syrup, thick and hot and fast. The viscous solution drips from a different place this time, the needles left abandoned under my nails.

I’m not entirely sure what causes the new wave of pain.

A blade, maybe?

The sensation feels like hot glass melting down my neck, causing a guttural shriek to rattle my skull. I barely hear it.

“How were you communicating with your father, Annika?”

I giggle. The sound is ugly, crushed gravel beneath a boot.

That’s not my name.