chapter 14

Izzy stood onthe stage. The Star Maker flashed like the lights of Vegas. She was still vibrating with Blue Lenox’s energy. She was glittering. She was a goddess. She was the spirit of burlesque. The nervous adrenaline that had been flowing through her body since they arrived at the apartment had turned into helium and electricity.

She barely heard the hosts until Harrison said, “We’ve got a big surprise for you.”

The audience let out a dutiful oooh.

“I’m excited to announce the sponsor of the next challenge: USpin. With great video editing features and over a thousand appearance-enhancing filters, USpin is America’s hippest new social media platform.”

Fizz Bang soda was the official sponsor of the show, but every episode except the first one had an additional corporate sponsor. It was all part of the capitalist conspiracy, according to Arabella.

“Since Velveteen Crush came in first, you get to pick the dance for the next challenge based on one of USpin’s viral dance challenges,” Hallie said.

The audience cheered as though the cue card woman had a card reading Cheer or we will make you stay here forever.

Izzy caught her breath. The set felt huge. Even knowing it was a set, she felt like she was on TV with an audience of millions, a stage so high it disappeared from view until the cameras panned back.

“What’ll it be?” Harrison prompted.

“I have to ask my troupe; we make all our decisions together.” Izzy looked back at Tock, Axel, Arabella, and Sarah hugging each other and jumping up and down.

“No deliberation please,” the Prime Minister announced from his place on the judges’ dais. “Blue Lenox, choose!”

Behind her, Sarah said, “You got this.”

Izzy stared into the lights. Was Lillian watching the performance on a TV screen in a windowless room underneath the stage? I pick the waltz. Of course not. That wasn’t a USpin dance challenge. Izzy sought out the camera most likely to be focused on her face and winked.

“I think I know someone who’d love to dance the Zipper.”

“You’ve done it at weddings and class reunions,” Harrison said with wild enthusiasm. “The most popular USpin dance of all time. The Zipper!”

“And cut,” Bryant called.

Velveteen Crush raced downstairs to their greenroom all talking over each other, high from the win.

“You saved our ass,” Arabella said.

“You’re the golden thread, Blue.” Sarah threw her arms around Izzy.

“You crushed it!” Axel said.

“Should we go back to the apartment and debrief?” Tock asked.

Izzy needed a moment to think.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Izzy said. “Y’all go.”

A moment later, Izzy was alone. She stood in the center of the room, turning slowly, every detail of the furniture, the black TV screen, the abandoned cans of Fizz Bang felt hyperreal, like an HD photo. They’d made it through the first challenge. The greenroom grew silent as her friends’ voices faded from the hallway. Izzy shivered and put a sweatshirt over her costume. She should go, but she needed to process, just not with the team. She needed to take it all in. Her speech had worked. She’d reached the audience. When the show aired, she’d reach some kid in eastern Oregon who was like she’d been as a teen: young and scared and fierce. And she’d picked the Zipper to tease Lillian. Was that too much? Lillian wouldn’t be mad, would she? She hadn’t said anything that would break her promise to be discreet. She was just flirting. A little. On national TV.

Damn. What was she thinking? Her type was talented women with no interest in commitment who were bound to break her heart. In other words: Lillian. The archetypal talented, no-scones-in-the-morning woman. Why couldn’t Izzy be hot for one of the Portland-based tech crew? There was that handsome woman whose job seemed to be rolling and unrolling cables. But no. She wanted Lillian’s smile, blasé and incredulous at the same time. Does that really work on women?

Izzy shook her head to clear her thoughts. Time to go back to the Lynnwood Terrace. She grabbed her bag and stepped into the hall. How long had she been standing in the greenroom lost in her thoughts? The hall was eerily quiet, lit only by dim exit lights at either end of the hall. She paused.

The lights flickered.

Which way to the exit?

A second of darkness.

Shouldn’t there be a runner to escort her?

Then… What?! Everything went black. Izzy froze. She thought the building had been silent, but there’d been an HVAC system humming. She hadn’t noticed until it was gone. She held her hand in front of her face. She could see it. No. That was her mind filling in the silhouette.

Obviously, she wasn’t afraid of the dark. God, if Sarah thought that, she would have an emotional-exploration intervention. But every dark room was the trailer Izzy grew up in, those nights when Megan went off to sing at one of the clubs in Bend or Portland, leaving seven-year-old Izzy hiding in her bedroom. Megan hadn’t told her she had to keep the lights off when she was alone, but they’d lived in the middle of rangeland. Izzy had hated the dark, but turning the lights on felt like turning on a beacon. Any creepy people or coyotes out there? I’m over here. It hadn’t marked her, despite what Sarah might think. But that kind of thing came back to you when you were alone in a labyrinthine basement in the pitch dark.

Instinctively she fumbled for her phone, but the show forbade cell phones on the soundstage and in the greenrooms.

Were those footsteps?

No.

She’d just trace her way along the wall. The security lights had to come back on. That was a fire code.

A rhythmic tap, tap, tap from somewhere down the hall?

“Hello?”

No one answered.

They should have let the contestants carry phones, the kind for kids with only two numbers programmed in. Then she’d have a flashlight.

That was definitely a footstep.

“Hello?” Izzy’s voice echoed.

Why weren’t they answering? A staff member would call out, Power went out. Another contestant would call, Anyone else here?

Her heart pounded at the top of her throat.

Someone who didn’t answer didn’t want Izzy to know they were there.

She took a step in what she hoped was the right direction. Maybe she had heard a voice? Her own voice bounced off the walls. Another footstep. It was like the Dark Room in the Halloween maze back in Broken Bush, Joe Barton jumping out at the people walking through. She’d screamed and clutched her girlfriend, like all the girls clutched their friends, but Amber-Lynn had shoved her away with an elbow to the ribs. Not here. And she’d needed Amber-Lynn to hold her because of all those nights in the trailer alone.

Bad things did happen to people in dark basements. Stalker fans. Serial killers. People reported sensing something wrong before an attack, except women were taught not to trust that intuition, so they walked into the apartment or got in the car. Izzy wasn’t going to be that person. Better to overreact than to—

“Don’t move,” a calm voice said from somewhere behind her. “You’ll trip.”

And Izzy ran.

But the voice had bounced off the walls. It wasn’t behind her. Izzy collided with someone. Powerful arms closed around her. Izzy screamed.