Free Turning Pointe by Katherine Locke Page B

hit us going
so fast that we rolled down an embankment into a guardrail that went through the
side of our rental car. Zed and I both ended up in intensive care. They tell me
they’ll have to do a procedure to remove the tiny lifeless body from me. I
couldn’t hold on to it.
    “I don’t know,” Mom says, her shoulders dropping when I ask if
I can see Zed. She wipes tears off her face. “His family came in last night and
they won’t talk to us.”
    I need him, I think and then shrink into myself, guilt filling
empty spaces in my body. He needs me. We can’t do this alone.
    It’s three days before I convince a nurse to take me in a
wheelchair up to the ICU, where Zed’s recovering. I wheel myself into his room
and his dad springs off the chair, looking around anxiously.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers. “Mrs. Harrow—she doesn’t
want to see you.”
    I can’t pay attention to his words. Zed’s face is as bruised as
my entire body, and there’s a tube down his throat. The left side of his jaw is
wired shut, the metal poking through bandages. Machines beep next to him the way
Johan would stand next to us and count off the beats for variations. I roll up
next to Zed, slip my fingers into his cold hand and touch his cheek like we used
to do.
    “Zed,” I whisper.
    “Alyona,” says his dad nervously. “You can’t be in here. He’s
recovering.”
    For years, Zed was safe and I was safe and nothing bad ever
happened. On a bridge in Amsterdam, I danced with him from one island to
another. I asked him to stay with me, and he did. He never broke a promise to
me, even when he asked me to let him lead that dance. I grip his hand too
tightly, but he’s not letting go either. Though the machines continue to beep
like a metronome next to him, his fingers lace with mine.
    I take a deep breath and lay my head on his arm. I run my
fingers over his hospital gown and close my eyes. His heart beats against my
palm. Steady. Strong. Quiet. Somewhere beneath the bruises and the bleeding,
Zed’s still telling me to trust him. He’s still telling me to let go. He’ll
catch my hand. Whatever’s to come, he’ll catch my hand.
    We’re still dancing.
    * * * * *
    Look for SECOND POSITION , the next
book in the DISTRICT BALLET COMPANY series, available
now from Katherine Locke and Carina Press.
    To purchase and read more books by Katherine Locke, please
visit her website here http://www.katherinelockebooks.com .
    Coming soon from Carina Press and Katherine
Locke
    Four years ago, a car accident ended
Zedekiah Harrow’s ballet career and sent Philadelphia Ballet principal
dancer Alyona Miller spinning toward the breakdown that suspended her own.
What they lost on the side of the road that day can never be replaced, and
grief is always harshest under a spotlight...
    Read on for a sneak preview of SECOND POSITION, the next book
in Katherine Locke’s DISTRICT BALLET COMPANY series.

Zed
    Some things you’ll never erase from your memory. In front of me, the ice-blond braid swinging on a primly dressed woman’s back makes me sway on the spot. I know that braid, and it doesn’t belong here. Not where I am. Anywhere but here, here where it brings with it a tide of memories I’ve worked hard to bury. Images, bright and sharp and very red, slam around in my head, and I curl my fingers into my palm, hard. The pain pushes the memories back where they belong.
    My first thought is, It can’t be her.
    My second thought is, Oh , God , please don’t let her see me walk.
    It might not be her. Lots of women have blond hair, and a lot of women dye their hair to get her particular shade of gold. Three people between us, and I can’t see her profile. I study her neck, her shoulders, the way she stands. I’m almost positive it is her. A certain unmistakable, accidental grace to the way her hands shake when she unsnaps her wallet.
    “Small tea, one orange tea bag, one vanilla. I’ll pay for both.”
    Her tea order hasn’t changed in