Dancing With Danger

Will you be mine? Will you let me call myself yours?”

The woman’s kind eyes hardened. “That is exactly Armand’s way. He often turns to the corrupt officials to do his bidding.” She ripped off her mask, whirled, and spat on him, stepping on his neck with the sharp heel of her bejeweled boot.

“You break her neck, I break yours.”

And she did

No one knows of our...connection. So if someone comes for your throat, I’ll simply step aside and let them have at you, and it’d be what you deserve.”

As she flounced away, one knee-weakening truth became unerringly obvious.

He was in trouble.

No.

He...was in love.

Do you really think I’d trust a suicidal gangster to set things to right? Not bloody likely, I’ll take my chances down there, thank you.”

How could he leave the world she inhabited? It’d somehow become impossible. Unthinkable.

Damn her.

Damn her for making him feel more alive than he ever had, on the night he was supposed to die. For teaching him what hope felt like. For making him wonder what a future might be.

Damn her for changing everything. His plans. His mind.

His heart.

Damn her.

Damn her for making him feel more alive than he ever had, on the night he was supposed to die. For teaching him what hope felt like. For making him wonder what a future might be.

Damn her for changing everything. His plans. His mind.

His heart.

Did he feel altered somehow by their night together? Like it merited some sort of distinction. Like a change in the very map of the stars?

Why would he? Why would anyone?

What a novel thing that a human could connect with another in such a way...that they were made to do just this. To delight in it.

What a novel thing that a human could connect with another in such a way...that they were made to do just this. To delight in it.