Lions and Tigers and Boys

by Tawny Stokes

  I caught Leander’s arm before he could go ambling over to their table. “Get me a sandwich and meet me back at the dorm.”

  He was about to say something, but it was promptly cut off when Nia spotted us and squealed, “Cai! Leander! You’re going to sit with us, right?”

  Everything Nia said was squealed loudly. She had one of those nasally voices that hit a few octaves higher than what a dog could hear. I didn’t think she was capable of talking quieter.

  “We’re stuck now, bro.” He waved and swaggered over to their table. I debated whether to duck out or not. But then followed along unhappily.

  I slid into one of the chairs, farthest away from Maggie. Her gaze still managed to penetrate me from across the table.

  “Hello, Cai,” she said.

  “Maggie.” I kept my eyes on the table and the French fries someone slid in front of me. I picked up a few, dipped them into the accompanying ketchup, and shoved them into my mouth. Anything to prevent me from having to talk. I could shovel them in all night if I had to.

  While Leander chatted away with Shelby and Nia about the upcoming term, I just kept my head down and concentrated on eating, while counting down the minutes until I could escape and head back to the dorm. I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I didn’t have anything to say to Maggie. I hoped that eventually we could be just friends, but so far that hadn’t worked out for us.

  “I saw you come in with that girl.” She gestured to Dani, who was still in the food line.

  “Yup. Her name is Dani.”

  She twirled a loose tendril of hair with her finger, her lips twitching into a smile. “She must’ve been mortified to make such a scene this morning.”

  “Yeah, I guess she was embarrassed, and I’m sure she doesn’t need the three of you to make it worse.”

  Shelby looked at me, wide-eyed and innocent. “What did I do?”

  Nia smirked.

  I stood, finished with trying to walk on eggshells and being nice. “I’m out of here. Lee, I’ll see you at the dorm.”

  “What are you all angry about? We’re just having a little fun,” Maggie said.

  “Fun for whom? ’Cause I’m pretty sure it’s not fun for her.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me the annoyed head-tilt. “You don’t like her, do you?”

  “No, I don’t like her!” I blurted, frustrated with the whole thing. “She’s really not my type.”

  Maggie smiled then, an evil one that sent a rush of shivers down my back. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at something over my shoulder. I turned in the direction of her gaze and spotted Dani and Anna standing next to a table behind us, both carrying food trays. The devastated look on Dani’s face told me she had heard every word. Especially what I had just blurted without thought.

  She set the tray down on the table, turned, and walked out of the cafeteria. Anna grabbed her tray and, carrying both, ran after her. “Dani? Wait up!”

  I turned back to look at Maggie. She just smiled at me, one eyebrow raised in amusement. She wanted me to know that she could destroy me in one fell swoop. That she barely had to lift a finger to ruin things around her. She’d wrecked that poor girl’s day as a warning to me. Don’t mess with me, or else.

  “You’re all a bunch of jerks, you know that?”

  “Hey,” Leander said, “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  I walked out of the cafeteria, not really sure what my intention was. I ended up outside, heading toward the dorms and spotted Dani standing alone on the steps outside her building. I didn’t know where Anna was. Rationally, I should’ve just kept going to my dorm, but her head came up, and we locked gazes. If I walked away now, I would be the biggest ass on the face of the Earth. And that would be saying something. So instead, I squared my shoulders and walked over to her. Her gaze dropped, and she jammed her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

  “Hey,” I said lamely.

  She didn’t say anything, just kicked at the bits of gravel on the stone steps.

  “I’m sorry you overheard that.” I rubbed a hand through my already unruly hair. “I don’t know why Maggie and her crew are so mean.”

  “Because they can be. Believe me, I’ve dealt with those type of girls my whole life.”

  I could hear the strength in her words. This wasn’t someone who was a victim. This was someone who had dealt with the bullies straight on. Maggie wasn’t going to be able to steamroll over her so easily. I liked that.

  “Well, I’m sorry anyway. For them.” I swallowed. “And for what I said.”

  “Apology accepted.” She looked up and gave me a shy grin. It was then I noticed she had slight dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. And my gut clenched.

  I nodded. “Okay, good.” I tipped my head to her. “I’ll be off then.” I turned and headed over to my dorm building. I’ll be off then. Wow, how lame, Cai.

  I had a sense that she watched me the whole way. Not even the crunch of the gravel beneath my shoes could distract me from that sensation fluttering over my back. When I reached the steps of the building, I chanced a look over my shoulder, and sure enough, her gaze was on me. It snapped down to the ground the second she realized I was looking back at her.

  And it was in the moment I knew I was in deep trouble. This girl liked me. And, unfortunately, I liked her back.

  Chapter Five

  Dani

  Nerves zipped through me as I entered the studio alone for my first balance class. I set my bag down and immediately went to the floor with everyone else to do a pre-class stretch. Stretching was the lifeblood of all sport-related activities—dance, running, acrobatics, soccer. If you were moving your body in weird ways or pushing it hard, you needed to stretch those muscles to make them work the way you needed them to. And in this class and every subsequent one, I was going to make my body do remarkable and amazing things.

  There were about twenty students already there, a mix of freshmen and sophomores. Unfortunately Maggie and her minion Nia were in this class. So far, she was ignoring me, and I hoped that would be the case the entire semester. She was not a problem I needed. My focus had to be on my discipline, on perfecting my balance, not on how to walk softly through a minefield of Maggie traps destined to blow my world apart.

  I spread my legs into a straddle and flattened my torso onto the floor. This was one of my favorite stretches, as it really worked on the lower back. I was rewarded with a whole bunch of snapping and popping sounds when my spine repositioned. As I turned my head slightly to the left, I saw Cai walk into the studio. My belly instantly flip-flopped.

  He wore a form-fitting dark blue tank top and baggy knee-length shorts. He wasn’t football player big, but he was strong-looking with wide shoulders and trim arms that were cut sharp with muscles. He looked lean but powerful, and I imagined he could do a one armed push-up with little difficulty. He looked a bit like Eddie Redmayne, but with fewer freckles and redder, wilder hair.

  His gaze flicked to me briefly, then he strode across the floor and found a spot to toss his bag on the opposite side from where I was. I tried not to make a big deal out of it. He was just sitting with the other sophomores. It wasn’t like he was avoiding me altogether.

  I sat up and tried to catch his gaze, but he was talking with the boy stretching next to him. It was probably a good thing, because I needed to focus. I didn’t come to this school to chase a boy. I came to be the best high-wire act the world had ever seen. I came to make my mother proud.

  Suddenly the lights flickered overhead. We all looked up to the ceiling to see our instructor Miss Gisele balancing on one of the high wires. She smiled and waved. “Bonjour mes beautés.”

  She walked easily across the wire, and it hardly even moved. She then stopped, bent backward, and did a walkover. When she was upright again, she went onto her toes and did a pirouette. I gaped in awe. After another wave, she let herself drop from the wire and landed in the net beneath it. She was weightless. Like a fai
ry dancing on a flower petal. That’s what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be.

  “Welcome to OZ,” she said, her voice thickly accented. We all got to our feet. “In my class, you will learn to find balance. Not only here,” she held out her arms to her sides, “but in here.” She tapped her head, then her heart, then her stomach.

  “Once we have all found our balance together, you will split up into your chosen discipline. As the dean mentioned, those who have chosen the wire will have the magnifique opportunity to perform at the end-of-year gala. You will have to work hard to earn this honor.”

  I rubbed a hand over my stomach. Although it was churning something fierce, I was ready for this opportunity.

  “Now.” She swept her arm toward the two thin balance beams in the corner of the big studio. “Line up, and let’s see what you are made of.”

  Everyone rushed to the beams and made a line. One at a time, each student went across, doing flips, or walkovers, or turns, or a combination of steps. A couple of students fell off the beam after doing some complicated move. On the other beam, I watched as Maggie did two flawless walkovers, then two perfect pirouettes. Of course she was perfect. I don’t know why I expected anything different. Miss Gisele smiled at her when she dismounted, and patted her shoulder as she walked past.

  When it was my turn, I decided to do something simple. The class was about balance. So, I walked across the beam without any wobble. I didn’t use my arms to center myself, just simply put one foot, heel to toe, in front of me, and walked. It may have been the lamest thing to do, but it felt right to me.

  When I reached the end and did a flip off—I had to at least do something dramatic—Miss Gisele beamed at me. “Yes. That is how you do it.” She patted me on the arm. “What is your name, chere?”

  “Dani Gale.”

  “Excellent, Dani. Merci.”

  As I walked around to get back in line, I caught Cai’s gaze. He gave me a big smile that nearly melted my entire body. I had the urge to fan my face, because I was sure it was red, and not from exertion.

  But it didn’t take much for that heat to vanish when I also caught someone else looking at me. Maggie’s glare was glacial.

  …

  After that first class, the next couple of weeks seemed to zoom by, but I barely noticed as I was too busy with all my classes. Although the school was primarily a circus-arts program, we still had to take all the other school subjects required of any normal student to graduate with a high school diploma, plus training. I hadn’t had time to do much of anything else but work. On the weekends, I basically stayed on campus, going for a few runs around the gorgeous grounds. I even found a path that took me out to the animal enclosure where they kept the tiger, Ozzy, and lion, Loki. I loved watching them play and run around like kittens.

  I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to Cai in that time. We smiled at each other in class, passing each other in the halls, but never got a chance to spend time together. Although I had to admit I wasn’t 100 percent sure he even wanted to. I had to remind myself that just because he was nice to me, didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to be more than acquaintances. He’d said so himself that I wasn’t his type, whatever that was.

  Some weeknights and on the weekends, there were activities for the students like movies in the school’s theater and game night in the cafeteria where there was always a heated round of D&D or Monopoly to get involved in. Some of the students had cars and went into the town of Emerald Valley, which was only fifteen minutes away, but I had yet to be brave enough to venture there, plus I didn’t know anyone with a car. I told my dad next time he came to visit to bring my bicycle. At least then I could escape if I wanted to.

  Some nights, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t tired. In fact, I was exhausted. And I had been properly humiliated not once, not twice, but three times. That amount of mortification can take a lot out of a person. I’d been tempted to text my dad and tell him to come get me. His disappointment and anger would’ve been tolerable compared to what I had just gone through. But I resisted. I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to let my mom down. Besides, Anna had talked me off the ledge with plenty of chocolate from her secret stash and lots of hugs.

  So tonight, although I’d been on the go since four a.m., and my eyes were heavy and sore, I couldn’t fall asleep. Every time I closed them, an image of Cai’s face would pop up in my mind. His eyes would sparkle at me. Then that sparkle turned to flame. It had scared me, so I jolted awake, gripping at the covers.

  Turning onto my side, I watched Anna. She was a deep sleeper who burrowed under blankets. All I could make out was a lump of pink, like a tiny pink hedgehog, rising and falling, twitching every so often. Why couldn’t I sleep like that?

  Throwing my covers off, I slid out of bed, putting my slippers on. The hardwood floor was cold under my feet regardless. Actually the whole room was freezing. I reached for my hoodie I tossed on the floor earlier and put it on, zipping it up to my chin. If it was this cold now in the early fall, I shuddered to think about how dastardly bitter it was going to be in the winter with everything covered in snow.

  Standing, I walked to the window and looked out. Our room faced east, away from the school and toward the woods. It was pitch black outside, like it was in the country beyond the houses and streetlamps, except for a slice of bright moonlight cutting a path across the grass at the edge of the tree line. I was thinking how magical it seemed when movement just on the edge of it made me flinch.

  I rubbed at my eyes, thinking maybe they were blurry from exhaustion. But when I looked back, I could plainly see a shape slinking across the grass in the swath of moonlight. Pressing my nose to the glass, I squinted to see a tiger stalking over the yard and into the thick copse of trees. Wow, they let Ozzy just walk around like that? Seemed dangerous to me. Dangerous and curiously appealing, as it was like watching Cai’s painting come to life. And the fact that it then reminded me of Cai again.

  Heart racing, I turned from the window and crossed the room in a second flat. I flung open the door, forgetting completely to care about being quiet and rushed out into the dark, empty corridor. I ran down the worn runner in the middle of the hall to the stairs, then took them two at a time. On the fifth stair, a loose thread from my slipper latched itself around a rusty old nail sticking out from one of the steps, tripping me up.

  But instead of falling head over ass, something remarkable happened. I grabbed the railing and pushed myself up like I would on the balance beam, then landed feet first on the thin railing. Like a surfer catching a gnarly wave, I slid down the rest of the way on the banister. When I reached the end, I did a front flip and nailed the landing. I fully admit to lifting my arms in the air like an Olympic gymnast after a perfect routine. That was the cool part.

  The uncool part was the foot I also landed on. The foot belonging to Maggie West, my future nemesis and, apparently, dorm C’s nightly hall monitor.

  Eyebrows raised, she peered down at my foot on hers. “Do you mind?”

  I quickly snatched my foot back. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

  “Obviously. You were too busy doing stupid flips off the railing.” She then glanced down at the clipboard she was hugging to her chest. “You are,” she searched the list as if she didn’t know my name, “Danielle Gale, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure you know who I am. We have several classes together.”

  She gave me an empty look, her eyebrows up in question. Like she didn’t know what the heck I was on about.

  “We talked out on the quad? You embarrassed me all over again about tripping over Cai in the morning assembly? You glare at me during all our classes together?”

  She just stared right through me, to be honest. As if I didn’t even register as a blip on her social radar. “You know you’re supposed to be in bed, right?”

  “Ah, yes, I suppose so.”

  “And you did realize that being out of your room at this time of night is against the rules
, right?”

  “Um.”

  She continued on without really taking a breath. “And I’m very sure by now, considering your infraction earlier, you know that Dean Vasilev hates when her students break the rules, right?”

  I snorted. “What are you going to do, Severus, take ten points from Gryffindor?”

  She eyed me intensely. There were those eye-daggers again. They were definitely lethal weapons. I wondered what else she had in her arsenal. The devastating eye-roll?

  All of a sudden, a stream of heat rushed over me like a tsunami. It was overpowering, and I had to take a step back in retreat. Did the furnace suddenly burst? My hair blew back by some unseen wind. It also raised Maggie’s. Like ice-blond tentacles undulating around her head, reminding me a lot of a statue of Medusa I saw once in a museum. Maggie’s jaw was clenched, and I swore I could hear her teeth grinding. Good lord, was she the source? As quickly as it surged over me, it vanished. I looked down, surveying the damage. My body was soaked in sweat; my T-shirt under my hoodie stuck to my skin like a wet Band-Aid. My bangs were actually plastered to my forehead. Dumbfounded, I blinked at her.

  “Too bad it wasn’t just a matter of points.” She gave me her saccharine grin, then marked something on her clipboard. “Have a good night, Danielle.”

  The last thing I needed was another infraction on my file. That would give me two strikes. One more, and I’d be out. I was definitely on a roll, and classes had just started. If I kept at it, I’d be gone before Christmas.

  “Wait,” I called before she could finish her stealthy sweep of the dorm.

  She paused and lifted her brow at me again. “What?”

  “Isn’t there some way we can forget this little thing ever happened?”

  “I don’t think so.” She smirked.

  Cringing, knowing I was going to regret it, I said, “I could owe you a favor.”