Page 5 of Wounded Dance
I want the car to collapse around me, crush me into a cube to be tossed into a pit. This moment must end. It’s all come together. Blitz. Denham. Gabriella. My brother who isn’t my brother after all.
“Let me get this straight,” Blitz says. “You,” he says, pointing at Denham, “were her brother but now you’re not.”
“Half-brother,” Denham says. He’s still trying to get past Blitz to me. “And she didn’t know. I moved in when I was sixteen.”
Blitz’s voice is low and menacing. “She knew at some point, or you wouldn’t be telling her the truth now.”
Denham looks at Blitz. “Her dad made me keep the secret or I couldn’t move in. If I told, then Livia’s mother would know he had been unfaithful.”
Blitz lets out a rush of air. “So Livia, MY Livia, was seduced by you, when you were living there as her brother.”
Denham tries to look around Blitz again. “When I thought I was. But I’m not. Livia, tell me about the baby.”
Blitz won’t let it go. “And you didn’t think to tell her that little detail? When you weresleepingwith her?” He looks like he might punch Denham after all.
Denham gets increasingly agitated. “I loved her. I just wanted to protect her from what people would think.”
Blitz grips the door frame so hard his knuckles are white.
“Ithink,” Blitz says, then pauses. “No, Iknow, that you seduced a very young girl living in your house, by all accounts your half-sister. And you didn’t even prevent her from getting pregnant.”
“That is past,” Denham says. He’s done with Blitz. I can hear it in his voice. He tries to shoulder Blitz out of the way.
“Where is our baby, Livia?” Denham asks. “You’re Catholic, so I know you had it.” He leans down to get closer to my face. “WHERE IS OUR BABY?”
And that’s when Blitz slams his elbow against the back of Denham’s neck.
Denham crumples to the ground.
Chapter 4
“Blitz!” I cry. But I don’t try to get out of the car or help Denham. I can’t do that. My allegiance is with Blitz. It has to be.
My mind is a whirl. Denham isn’t my brother. My father was lied to. We all were.
It’s too much. I take great gulps of air while Blitz nudges Denham with his foot, waiting for him to come around. He’s out cold on the pavement by the door. Thankfully no one’s in the parking lot of the academy right now to see.
“How did you know where to hit him?” I ask Blitz.
Blitz barks out a sardonic laugh. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
I look down at Denham. The space over his eye is swelling a little where he hit the door of the car on the way down.
“The rest is too much for me right now,” I say. I’m barely holding it together. I have to get past this moment with Denham on the ground, and Blitz in an angry posture over him. I have to get away so I can sort all this out.
“I was supposed to be on some action TV show,” Blitz says. “Artists and Outlaws. We were dancers who fought crime. Dumbest premise on the face of the earth. We shot a pilot but nobody took it. I had to train in combat for it.”
This random conversation helps my mind settle. “I’m sorry the show didn’t happen.”
“I’m not,” Blitz says. “Probably would have destroyed my career.”
Denham shifts his arm and groans.
“Lover boy is back,” Blitz says. “What do you want me to do with him?”
“Move him out of the way so we can leave?” I say, more of a question than a suggestion.
“All right,” Blitz says. He bends down to drag Denham away from the car, but Denham shakes his head and rolls over.
