#scenebreak
It went like this: Farmer-C and K-pop made the calls while I drove us to the studio. The sun was already setting, but we covered all the windows with shades obviously made for just such a purpose.
Tango changed the codes on the security system so even her mom couldn’t barge in. “I’ll sleep in her bed tonight and she’ll forgive me. She knows how much I need this.”
The crew arrived one by one and in pairs. Woody and Ephraim arrived together, earlier conflict apparently resolved. If only I could be so fortunate. I met them at the door. “I am a complete and total douchebag and I’m sincerely sorry for all my douche-y behavior to both of you.”
They stared at me for a moment, then exchanged a glance and Woody pointed at the dance floor with his chin. Ephraim nodded and walked away, muttering, “Racist.”
I sighed. Really?
Woody, though, actually chuckled. “That’s just his way of saying hello.” He leaned with his elbows on the bar. I joined him. “What you did for Tango, the chances you took?” He stared at me, but his eyes didn’t burn through my soul. “That was pretty stand up.” Was he actually making peace? “I still don’t like you, but I’m willing to give you a chance for the sake of the crew. Just don’t try to hug me, okay?”
I nodded. “I appreciate the chance.”
He stared at his hands a moment. Dude had the whole “brooding” thing nailed. “Look. Those cameras?”
“You don’t need—”
“Shut up and let me talk.”
I shut up and let him talk.
He moved closer. “Have you mentioned them to anyone?”
I shook my head and forced myself to avoid explaining why K-pop had told me about them.
“Good. I get why K-pop told you about them. I talked to him. We’re cool.” He looked me square in the eye. “Please don’t tell anyone about them and don’t ask why I have them. K-pop can vouch that I’m not a peeping Tom. I told him everything. I don’t want to tell you because I still don’t trust you.”
“I won’t say a word. I won’t ask K-pop. I trust you.”
His eyes flicked back and forth while he studied my eyes one at a time. He nodded and left.
Deep breath. Good times.
Tango played more of her Middle Eastern downtempo stuff. Once the whole crew arrived, we made a circle in the middle of the dance floor. I’d been told what to expect. Kinda. The details were fuzzy.
“We ready to throw down?” Tango asked.
Everyone responded affirmatively.
“Y’all okay with Foxtrot joining us?”
I held my breath.
More affirmative responses. Some were even enthusiastic, which really helped.
She held up her cell. The music stopped.
“Okay, then.” She tapped the screen. “Dance.”
Music assaulted the room, music to rattle the bones of the white hairs who would dance there years later. Decades. The overhead lights cut out and the club lights came on. The world devolved into a chaos of flashing, strobing images and spitting lasers.
The crew danced through the space, slowly at first but filled with the promise of much, much more. I tried out the rhythm, not accustomed to simply moving without the benefit of patterns or choreography. In my old world, we actually gave it a name: freestyling, as if the name somehow captured it and tamed it. But the crew, my new friends, they just moved to the music and filled the space with their bodies and their emotion.
I threw down my material, but it was too choreographed. Too controlled.
Tango danced up to me. “It’s like tahn-go. Just do what the music tells you, what your heart tells you.”
She spun away from me as the music changed.
Farmer-C appeared in front of me.
He didn’t touch me, but he challenged me, rocking from foot to foot. His whole body beat an aggressive rhythm I matched. Then I switched so I was on the opposite beat, and he grinned. We danced facing each other, circling. Then he was gone.
In a flash of light, K-pop was there. He grabbed my hands and threw me into some of the swing moves I’d taught him, but more aggressive, more angry. We danced faster than the music. It felt off beat at first: spin one way, then the other, roll in, roll out, spin again about three times. Then I stopped listening and just followed so I could keep up. He spun me faster and faster, and by the time he released me, I was starting to let go.
Then Juicy took my hands. She placed them on her hips and ground us low and slow, chest to chest, her hands on my shoulders to control me. She forced me away from the music and completely out of rhythm. Slower. . . slower. . . It drove me insane, dancing off time. She grinned as I fought to lead her back on time. She shook her head and kept control.
Damn it! How do you dance to music if you’re not dancing to the music? The whole point is to let the music move you.
Oh.
It all made sense.
The music. The lights. The anger.
I stopped fighting Juicy. She smiled as the tension drained away from my body. She found the rhythm again and we just rocked to the beat. No patterns. No choreography. Just moving to the beat. She pulled away from me, but held my arms, keeping me from doing anything other than rocking to the rhythm. With the flashing lights and trance-inducing, hardcore music it felt like meditation.
She released me. “Be the music, Ethan,” she said, and I only knew it because I could read her lips. I found the music. I found the beat. . . just the beat.
I closed my eyes and followed the music, felt it in my heart and my gut and my spleen. Was the music louder now? Clearer? It was as if I’d opened my ears and heard rhythms I’d never noticed before. The music moved me, pushed me around the floor, made me jump and spin. I bounced up and down like a pogo stick.
And then I felt it. I felt the anger at that dead guy’s parents, at my dad for rolling over for them. I spun like a dervish around the floor. I wanted to pound on Warren and Twist. The music threw me into a handspring that landed me on my ass. I shadow boxed, I twisted, I shouted at the top of my lungs and raged against the machine.
All around me, my friends thrashed to the music. All different, but moving in perfect rhythm with the music that filled us. Alone. . . but together, and the music danced us all.
twenty
He had one last chance. Endgame. All the cards were on the table. One final gamble to have Katy to himself and get rid of Fox at the same time. He checked his gear: a gun in his belt and another strapped to his ankle, two sets of handcuffs at his waist with a few more in the car. He had a cooler of Katy’s favorite foods, a picnic blanket and a bottle of wine.
He climbed behind the wheel and grabbed his tablet. After a second thought, he dropped the tablet onto the seat. He knew exactly where all the pieces were on the board. It would be his game this time. His rules. His victory. Magic was all well and good, but even the old witch couldn’t stop a bullet to her brain.
“Today is a good day to kill.”