The Madison Jennings Series Box Set

by Kiara Ashanti

  Two hours later, Maddie was convinced that waterboarding and fingernail pulling were easier forms of torture than what she had endured. The sales clerk had shown her everything from concealer to makeup for dates, dances, and “everyday teenage living.” The moment her mother relented and headed to the register, Maddie bolted from the store like a miner escaping a cave.

  Outside, Maddie took a deep breath of the fresh late-summer air. Even though it was still August, the air was infused with the woody smell of trees. She began checking out the other stores in the small retail strip. She walked past a Subway, card shop, and medical uniform store before she got to something interesting.

  The last business was a Russian ballet and dance school. The window extended from the ground to the top of what would be the ceiling inside the studio and continued down the whole storefront. Through the window, Maddie could see a large dance floor. A small boy stood in repose as if contemplating the world at large.

  Maddie leaned in to put her face against the window. The boy was petite and slim from the waist up, but his thighs bulged with muscle as he stretched back and forth to warm up. The sight brought back memories of a former life when Maddie used to stretch for gymnastics. Unaware of the voyeur, the boy started flowing in circles and figure eights in a slow dance. Maddie grinned as he moved from rotating at the waist to jumping into the air, oblivious to anyone who might be gawking at him. Memories of Maddie’s own dance lessons while taking gymnastics continued to simmer to the surface.

  “You used to love ballet.”

  Maddie glanced lightning quick at her mother to acknowledge she was there, then went back to watching the young dancer. He did not seem to be following a set practice routine. He just danced with movements so fluid, mother and daughter stood transfixed.

  “God, he’s like moving body art. And he looks like he’s just my age.”

  “You could have been that good.”

  “I don’t think so. I only liked it because the dancers could point their toes so perfect. It was great for gymnastics, but I cannot imagine what I see now.”

  “Let’s go inside.”

  Maddie shrugged and followed her mother into the studio. A bell rang as they walked through the door, but the dancing boy ignored it. He kept jumping, twirling, and spinning until his movements brought him close to the edge of the floor. He stopped cold in midspin when he, at last, noticed the two gawking at him from the entranceway.

  His face broke into a wolfish grin. “Hello. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, we just wanted to get some information.”

  “No problem,” he said and walked over to an intercom on the wall. Maddie did not bother to suppress her grin as she saw him execute the classic penguin waddle all dancers develop after years of holding the first position. She was about to speak when Tina beat her to the punch.

  “Happy Feet!”

  The outburst and Maddie’s answering giggle caused the young boy to pause with his finger poised over a black button. He looked at them with puzzlement.

  “Sorry. Just a nickname someone once threatened me with back when I was in dance,” explained Maddie.

  “Oh right. Penguins. Never heard that one before,” he said, though his tone indicated otherwise. A look of awkward embarrassment flashed on Tina’s face, but Maddie just stuck her tongue out at the boy. He answered in kind, then pushed the black button on the intercom. “Dad, you got customers up front.”

  A moment later, Maddie’s and her mother’s eyes bulged as a bear of a man, all of six foot four or five and chiseled, walked out from a back office. The muscle exuding from him belonged in an Ultimate Fighter cage match, not a ballet studio. He wore loose-fitting sweatpants that you expected to see on a guy in a steroid-fueled gym. Maddie was sure he wore them because no ballet tights in the world would ever fit him. Despite his intimidating size, he gave them a wide gregarious smile. Maddie noticed he did not walk so much as glide over the floor to them. He stopped at the edge of the dance floor and held out a massive hand.

  “Hello, I am Vaska Popov, and this,” he said, pointing to the young boy, “is my son, who I suspect rudely did not introduce himself. His name is Victor. How may I help you?”

  His accent was lilting as one would expect from someone who had been in the country for a long time. It took a moment for Tina to respond, but she finally awoke from her surprise and shook his hand. “We, that is me and my daughter, Madison, were just shopping when we saw your studio. We just wanted some information. What kind of dance do you teach?”

  “Mom,” Maddie growled low in her throat.

  “Oh right. Ballet, of course. I meant what else, er, tell us about your classes.”

  Vaska half-turned and swept his arm out toward the dance floor. “Yes. We teach ballet, Russian ballet of course. Best type of ballet there is. But we also teach some modern dance, contemporary, and for exercise people. I have a few girls, well, they are young women, training here. There is no disrespect to them, but they are young girls to an old man like me.” A hearty laugh followed his self-admonishment.

  “Who teaches the ballet classes?” asked Tina.

  The question caused the large man to transition from a cheek-breaking smile to a wolfish grin. “I do, of course.”

  “You?” said Maddie. Disbelief saturated the one-word response.

  Vaska smiled and floated back two steps to the dance floor. He brought his nose down to touch his knee. It was a perfect stretch. Maddie would have bet money someone his size could never have done that. He pulled himself upright, moved into the third position, then moved three steps to jump into a grand jeté.

  Maddie stared in disbelief. She flung her hand out, hitting her mother’s thigh. “Get out!”

  The bear of a man had transformed into a prancing jaguar. As his spread-out legs touched the floor, he hopped and moved into a battement en rond, leaping high into the air and turning a full five hundred forty degrees before coming back down to earth. He landed and leaned down on one knee with his arms spread out one behind the other. He stared at Maddie and her mom, green eyes sparkling in amusement. He straightened out, then executed a deep bow. “Not bad for the large man, yes?”

  Tina clapped in delight. “Yes! Very good for someone built like a linebacker. If someone told me you could do that, I would not have believed it.”

  “I had good instructors and worked hard. I provide the same here at my school. I teach well and require hard work from students. Come to the office, and I will give you more information. Perhaps the little one and her mother will take classes.” He gestured toward the back of the studio, where he had emerged from a few minutes earlier.

  Maddie followed a step behind the two adults but was already closing the doors in her mind. Yeah right. He and his little son may be able to dance, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting me into a tutu.

  Vaska’s office was a cluttered mix of papers, dance magazines, trophies, and pictures. He eased behind his desk to sit and gestured to them both to do the same.

  “So, what type of dance are you interested in?”

  “Madison took ballet when she was much younger. What do you think, Maddie? You willing to give it another go?”

  “Um, ballet’s a bit girly for me.”

  Vaska’s face went stone-still as his wide smile narrowed to a hard line. “Are you saying I’m girly man, young one?”

  Maddie’s pulse skipped a beat. “No, that’s not what I meant . . . if you are, I’m not saying you are, you know, but if you . . . oh damn. Mom, help.”

  Vaska broke into a reverberating laugh. “I kid you, young one. Is joke, yes?”

  Maddie rolled her eyes more to hide her relief at her inadvertent faux pas than any annoyance on her part. She turned to look at the hanging pictures on the wall opposite Vaska’s desk. In one, Vaska held aloft a whipcord-thin woman with striking auburn hair. Next to that hung a picture of Vaska and the woman sharing a picnic. A much younger Vaska had his arm around the woman’s shoulders. “She’s beautiful,
” began Maddie, but then her train of thought was arrested by a tattoo halfway showing under the short sleeve of the shirt Vaska was wearing. A sliver of the bottom half could be seen. It was a series of circles, like would be used on a shooting target, but it had a blue background.

  Now Maddie’s heart skipped a beat for different reasons. Her head whipped up to stare at Vaska.

  “That is my wife, Sasha. She is still best dancer I have ever seen or knew. She could have been world famous but stayed with a brute like me. She was a good woman and excellent wife.”

  Maddie glided over into the empty chair. “No one who dances like you could be a brute, no matter how athletic they are,” said Maddie, soft and comforting. Her tone immediately made Tina narrow her eyes. Maddie’s abrupt change in demeanor had sent an alert through Tina’s parental warning center.

  “You said was?” asked Maddie.

  “Yes, my Sasha died a few years ago, two years after opening this dance studio. It was her dream, which made it my dream. I have poured my heart into the studio to help fill the world with dancing feet.”

  “Wow, you must have really loved her. That is so romantic.” Now Tina’s eyes bulged. The word romantic was an alien concept to her daughter. “If you don’t mind me asking,” began Maddie, a coyness in her words, “did working on the studio help with, you know, easing the pain?”

  Vaska tilted his head and brought one hand up to his chin in consideration. Maddie screamed inside. She could now see his arm better.

  “Yes, yes it did. To dance right and well, one must be focused. It helped me and my son to remember her as he learned to dance and I taught others to dance and love dance as my Sasha did.”

  Maddie nodded in acknowledgment of his answer, but her eyes focused on the remnants of the tattoo. The circles and blue color had faded. The fading could have been because of age, but Maddie could see the ink in the image was also obscured by an attempt to cover the tattoo with a different one. Maddie could still make out the faded remnants of the top half of the circle: It was a black bat. An uninformed person might think it was the Bat-Signal of comic book fame.

  Maddie was not uninformed.

  Maddie picked up a brochure, opened it, and turned to her mother. “You know, Mom, I think I might want to join. You know, just a few classes. Please don’t make a big deal about it, but, um yeah, I want to take some classes.” She turned to Vaska. “But only if you are teaching me, Mr. Popov.”

  Tina’s eyes burned a hole into Maddie as she tried to discover what game she was playing. Without looking at Vaska, Tina asked, “Do your students have to perform a dance recital?”

  “Yes and no,” said Vaska. His eyes were moving side to side like a ping-pong ball. He could tell some subtext was going on between mother and daughter. “Our younger students have a recital each quarter, but they are not required to participate. Our teen dancers and adult students perform a community show twice a year. But again, it is voluntary.”

  “OK, Madison Jennings. You can take classes if you agree to be in a community recital—”

  “Performance,” Vaska interrupted.

  Tina waved the distinction away with a flick of her wrist. “Whatever. You have to be in a community performance—with proper dance attire.”

  Maddie saw the test a mile away. She began her expected response with a grimace. “God, Mom, really! You’re taking what little fun this idea has and ruining it.”

  “No performance, no classes.”

  “Coming in here was your idea,” Maddie huffed. “Fine, I’ll be in some stupid community show for homeless people and old ladies. But I’m still not wearing some tutu and tights.”

  Tina considered her daughter for a moment longer, then shook her head. “OK, Mr. Popov. It looks like you have a new student. I promise you may live to regret it.”

  “Ha! I doubt she is worse than my young son. Boys,” Vaska said as he raised his fist and knocked it against the side of his head, “have heads like coconuts. Empty ones.”

  Tina leaned over to Maddie and mimicked the dance instructor’s gesture against Maddie’s head. “Plenty of empty space up here too.”

  “Ha-ha, Mom. You’re a regular comedian—a failing and starving one, but a comedian nonetheless. Mr. Popov, you think I could start off with a few private lessons? I remember a little from when I was a kid, but I’d feel better if I could have some one-on-one lessons first.”

  “Da! This is no problem. It is normally extra, but I will give a discount for new customer gift, yes?”

  Maddie smiled and continued doing so the entire time it took her mother to fill out the paperwork and pay for the lessons. On the way home, she did her best to contain her excitement. She could feel her mother glancing at her during the entire trip. Tina said nothing, but suspicion filled her eyes. Maddie was happy to let her speculate. She was even happy—though she would never tell her mother—to perform in some dippy show months from now. The body art on her teacher made anything she would have to do in the future worth it.

  More than worth it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Consciousness filtered into reality a bit at a time. Blackness, followed by gray nothingness, followed by a sharp shaft of golden light rammed into her head, forcing a groan to bubble up then burst out of Michelle’s mouth.

  The early morning sunlight streaming through cracked windows felt like yellow shards of glass cutting into her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut as tight as a vise grip to ward off the pain. The gambit worked but forced her to squirm on the littered floor. Disgust rolled through her like a wave when she considered the nasty things on which she lay.

  She opened her eyes, willing to brave the screwdriver twisting into her head to avoid accidentally rolling on a discarded needle.

  “Hey, guys,” Michelle croaked.

  An empty echo answered her pitiful query. Gingerly, she pushed herself into a sitting position. She looked around the dilapidated cabin. The empty space looked pixelated through her drug-addled eyes. Everything looked like a user-built structure in a Minecraft game and forced a giggle out of her.

  It did not last long when she realized she didn’t have a clue about her location. All she remembered was partying with two totally scuzzy but funny guys. As she looked around the cabin, they were nowhere to be found.

  “Assholes. Fucking left me.”

  Michelle gave herself a once-over, then got to her feet and hobbled to the door. She took a moment to steady herself as the doorknob split into three doorknobs and a wave of vertigo washed over her. Then the door suddenly swung open, sending her backward and to the ground.

  “Fuck!” she screamed, then scrambled backward from the long-haired figure staring down at her.

  A slim blonde gave her a look then zig-zagged in the opposite direction. The stranger moved from one side of the cabin to the other as she kicked trash, dirt, and empty beer cans aside.

  Michelle wiped dirt off her hands then forced herself to her feet, oblivious to the fact she had just dirtied her hands all over again. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Party house,” said the blonde with a lilt.

  “Yeah, I get that. But where is the party house. I came with two assholes last night that left me here.”

  “That wasn’t cool.”

  “No shit. What are you looking for?”

  The second the query left Michelle’s mouth, the slight blonde kicked aside a random pile of leaves in the corner, revealing a small black case. The blonde flashed a grin as she snatched the case from the ground.

  Curious, Michelle waddled over to see what the fuss was about. As she got closer, she could see that the “blonde” was not a girl, but in fact a teenage boy. She expected him to hide what he was holding, but he kept smiling as he unzipped the case. It revealed a spoon, several needles, and packets of white powder.

  “Want some? Best way to get rid of that hangover.”

  “Hell yeah,” Michelle said without hesitation.

  Minutes later, Michelle felt the s
weet prick of a sharp, slim metal pushing into her arm. Her heart fluttered in anticipation of the sweet warmth to follow. When the heat came, it was not warm. It was searing, a liquid lava burning through her sending her into black oblivion.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “This is a WTVA breaking local news alert. I’m Scott Austin. We’ll get you back to your morning drive-time programming in a bit. The Park County Sheriff Department is reporting that the body of Michelle Anderson has been found. Details are still coming in, but we can report that police are not calling her death suspicious. Michelle’s family has been notified and requested the police to release this information, because they believe her death to be the result of an overdose. Michelle’s mother released a statement saying in part, ‘We hope our family tragedy can serve as a lesson to others.’ This is the fifth overdose death in recent weeks, leading to fears that a bad batch of drugs is being sold on the street—”

  Maddie slapped at the radio button to cut it off. “Bad batch? I didn’t know there was a ‘good’ batch of drugs.”

  “Madison, what have I told you about having empathy? This girl was someone’s daughter, sister, or friend. And now she’s gone. Don’t be so flippant or judgmental. You’re not old enough to be that way.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Mom. The words just sounded stupid to me. I hope they find the dealers and fry their asses.”

  The profanity earned her an immediate slap on the thigh. “I agree, but watch your language.”

  There was nothing more to say as they pulled up in front of the school.

  “Madelynne . . . and I can’t believe I have to say this,” her mother began, heaviness in her voice. “Don’t get into any trouble, please. Stay away from that boy. Don’t make things worse. If you get kicked out of school, we’ll just put you into another one. So make it work.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Maddie replied with a deep sigh as she exited the car.