Damn, that girl did something to me. Just being around her, helping her out, made me feel less guilty about my past, made that weight of shame feel less heavy. And when I was around her, distracted by her smell, the almost smile she gave me, I didn’t hear that grating voice telling me I was unworthy.

She silenced the noise and I wanted to know why.

Even that unknown dancer, who had worked some kind of sweet juju on my body, hadn’t silenced that voice completely. Not like Aly did. That thought alone had me thinking I’d call Ironside and cancel the performance. Why see a faceless woman who probably only cared about the cash when I could get the same release from Aly without even touching her? Besides, I wanted Aly more. As surprising as that realization had been to me when it hit me, it was true.

Even being at the studio, a place I knew she’d be, made my head quiet, kept that voice mute. I walked inside, frowning at the empty classroom, the lack of student noise and followed the only sound I heard: Aly’s laughter.

She was talking to someone I couldn’t see, but the second voice was lower, didn’t sound as clear and I stopped outside of Leann’s office to listen, noticing the screen in front of Aly showed an open Skype window and the smiling face of some jackass I didn’t know looking at Aly like he wanted a bite of her. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, putting all that stupid kanji art work on his shoulder and down his chest on display.

“I can’t wait, gorgeous,” he told Aly. The guy was, I guess what girls would think was good looking. I wasn’t sure, looked a little too much like a pretty boy to me. I remembered seeing him around Leann’s studio a few months back when my cousin hosted some sort of mini-camp. Guy acted like he was the shit.

Whatever he was, Aly seemed to like him. Go figure.

“I’ve missed you,” that jackass told Aly, leaning toward his webcam with a smirk on his face that made him look like a punk. “I’ve missed you a lot, gorgeous.”

“Wi, cheri, I bet you have.”

I didn’t want to listen. It made sense to me when I really thought about it. They had a lot in common, they both were decent dancers, they both enjoyed that shit a hell of a lot more than I did. And Aly was sweet, beautiful when she wasn’t putting off that “back off” vibe.

Of course she’d be into someone like him.

She’s not for you, that voice whispered as I walked out of the studio and I let that feeling seep into my skull, hating that I didn’t fight back, feeling like a coward when I let it run its mouth over and over. So much for Aly quieting that voice. You don’t deserve her.

“No shit,” I said, climbing into my car with no thoughts about practicing. I couldn’t do it. It was stupid. Aly didn’t need me. She had that asshole to hold her, dance around the studio like they were fucking with their clothes on.

She doesn’t want you.

“Yeah, I got that.”

When the voice’s whisper grew louder, that tone bit harder, I cranked up my stereo, letting that thudding bass drown out any thoughts beyond my foot on the gas as I moved down the interstate. I didn’t want to think about Aly or that punk she flirted with on Leann’s PC. And when my cell chirped with a text from her, I didn’t reply. I wouldn’t.

I stopped at the red light once I took the exit, my head bobbing to old school Mystikal telling folks to shake their asses, and stared at her text for the entire circulation of the light.

You’re late, slacker!

Even over a text she managed to be bossy and funny at the same time, a fact that pissed me off. I was going to toss my cell on the empty seat next to me, but deleted her message and pulled up Ironside’s last text to send him a new one. My single focus was on keeping Aly out of my head.

Am I still getting my performance? I texted, holding my breath a little until he replied, not caring that the voice kept nagging me, not caring that it felt almost wrong to want the unknown dancer now. It felt like I was somehow stepping out on Aly. That made no damn sense.

And then, when his reply came, I decided I didn’t care about what seemed right or what made sense to me.

Yeah, man. No problem.

My breath came out easy, relieved even though my chest felt tight, even though that voice in my head kept silent.

10 April, 2015

Leann wanted to host a fundraiser. Jambalaya sale, $12 a plate and a car wash with the students doing all the dirty work. Just a little something that would bring in sales and help fund her recital budge. Carl had scheduled me for a double shift that I couldn’t get out of so it was late, very late when I got back to my apartment. The fundraiser had long since finished but Leann was still there, barking orders at Tristian and Ransom as they returned tables back to the storage room next to my front door.

“Sorry, Aly,” Tristian had apologized, when he and Ransom blocked the path to my door with a long card table. “I’ll get Mom. Somebody put all the chairs in the way and we can’t get the table in. Let me go see what she wants us to do.”

“I can wait.” I’d been tired, hungry and to be honest, didn’t mind that Tristian ran off, leaving Ransom inside that tiny storage room holding one end of the table. “I can help you,” I’d told him, moving my head over the top of the table.

“I got it.”

Same tone that he’d been using since that horrible accident on the lake. It was deep and impassive, as though he’d been taken over by an android who’d offer the blandest, most evasive communication possible. That sound broke my heart.

Stuck with that large table and larger boy blocking my door, I sat on the steps with my purse swinging from my fingers, and looked up at the sky, unaccountably self-conscious with him so close to me.

But, I couldn’t take the silence or the feel of indifference that radiated from him. When someone is hurt, it’s human nature to want to help. And that night, Ransom’s silence had seemed like an unbearable wound.

The sky was dark and peppered around the few spindly clouds were four stars brighter than the rest, twinkling in a square.

“Pegasus,” I said, to fill up the silence.

A quick glance to see if he heard me and Ransom followed my nod to stare up at the sky. He didn’t say a thing.

“My grann told me once that Pegasus brought renewal wherever he ran. He was a mammoth, guarding the skies, giving the earth a new start, something to look forward to.”

When I didn’t hear even a low grunt of acknowledgement, I glanced over my shoulder to find Ransom watching me.

“Pegasus is charging above us,” I said, looking back up at the constellation.

It seemed like a minute, maybe two, before Ransom said anything. “Hydra is bigger, fiercer. Pegasus isn’t charging. He’s fleeing.”

Present

Ransom Riley-Hale had swagger. It wasn’t something I noticed very often because, being honest here, nobody really gets the definition of “swagger” quite right. It wasn’t the way he carried himself or how the dip of his chin made me think no one could pull off flirting like Ransom. It wasn’t even how those black eyes of his sometimes looked right through you, like he saw people deeper, could claim to know the filthiest secrets you tried to keep from the world. It wasn’t any of those individual things that had my attention focused directly on him. It was everything—the skill it took to make the world think he was perfectly himself. The strength in his body, the power in a single look that could make any woman desperate to know everything about him and too cowardly to make the attempt.