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  Fletcher!

  21

  THE PAVILION

  HALF MOON THEATER

  NOVEMBER 4TH

  7:06 P.M.

  As the ceiling opened and a shower of glittery confetti and Mylar ALPHAS-emblazoned balloons rained down from above, Skye’s stomach thumped dangerously to the beat of the music blaring from hidden speakers. She wondered what the TV producers would do if one of their stars lost her lunch onstage.

  Devastation, betrayal, and embarrassment swirled through Skye like the sickening smoothie of hot sauce, raw egg, and pickle juice she’d once drunk on a slumber-party dare in the sixth grade. And just like at the slumber party, this combo was making her want to puke. The theme song to Shira’s show (Skye couldn’t possibly think of it as her show) was set on repeat and Skye danced feebly as she tried not to hurl.

  The song was a cheesy cover of the classic wedding hit “We Are Family”:

  We are family

  I got all my Alphas with me!

  We are family

  Kicking butt at the Academy!

  Skye’s eyes found Charlie’s, and her friend looked as unsure as Skye felt. Only Allie was putting on the perfect show, smiling wide and bobbing along to the music. Charlie’s deer-in-headlights face mirrored Skye’s insides perfectly.

  Just then, the muses standing on either side of the audience began walking toward the stage, signaling that those who wanted to should join them. Skye felt dizzy as the stage crowded with people. The first to find her was Thalia, the house muse for Jackie O. Thalia had always been there for them, like a big sister or a kindly camp counselor, providing an oasis of calm amidst the cutthroat competition of Alpha Academy.

  Skye let herself be enveloped by Thalia’s lanky basketball-player arms. It was a relief to be supported by someone else’s weight, someone she trusted—wait! Skye pulled away with a start, realizing that Thalia must have been in on the deception the whole time.

  “How could you go along with this?” she whisper-yelled, demanding an explanation from the serene, blond muse. “I thought you were all into honesty and ethics and stuff.”

  “Some Alphas are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,” Thalia recited in her usual melodic, mellow manner, her golden eyes twinkling under the stage lights. “Shakespeare.”

  Skye rolled her teal eyes. “If by greatness you mean total humiliation, then yeah.”

  “I knew you would win,” Thalia gushed, ignoring Skye’s pout, her own glossed lips curved in a serene smile. “I knew you girls had it. Once you absorb the shock, you’ll find fame suits you, Skye. You were born for this.” Thalia whispered these final words in Skye’s ear like a prophecy, then drifted off to hug Charlie and Allie, her platinum goddess dress flowing around her like she was the Oracle of Delphi.

  This kind of fame suits me like a too-small Chanel, Skye quipped inwardly as Thalia moved on. But even if Thalia had lied to them, it was hard to hate a walking, talking self-help manual. And she’d always been right before. Was it possible she was right this time, too? Skye doubted it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she’d been on national TV kissing Syd, eating onions—ohmuhgod—even fake-farting! And more recently, getting dissed by Taz after practically throwing herself at him in the middle of the desert. Her stomach churned with the humiliation of it all.

  She felt dizzy.

  She needed air.

  “Skye-high!” chirped the Russian-accented voice of her mother, former Bolshoi Ballet prima ballerina Natasha Flailenkoff. And suddenly, there she was, her black hair pulled back into a tight, low bun, sashaying toward Skye with the winglike sleeves of her white mohair sweater trailing dramatically behind her over a black unitard, her deep-set blue eyes moist and shining.

  “Our little TV star,” cried her father, his voice husky with emotion. He trailed behind Natasha, unbuttoning his gray jacket as he opened his arms to hug his only daughter. “We missed you.”

  “Mom, Dad!” Skye whirled around just as both her parents reached her, and the three of them collided in a Hamilton family hug that was tighter than spandex shorts on Jonah Hill.

  The moment Skye breathed in her mother’s Eau d’Issey and her father’s woodsy aftershave, she knew her battle to keep her composure was hopelessly lost. The tears came fast and furious, like the first moments of the Log Jam ride at Six Flags Great Adventure. She choked out a few hasty sobs and buried her face in her mom’s huge sweater, feeing instantly better. Just as fast as her crying jag had started, it faded away.

  “Don’t cry, Minka,” her mother said, using her daughter’s Russian pet name and squeezing Skye’s shaking hands in her ring-encrusted ones, her diamond tennis bracelet falling against Skye’s wrist. “You did it! You were one of the last Alphas standing. You should be proud.” Her mother’s sculpted features softened into a reassuring smile.

  “But how could they film me for TV without my knowledge? Isn’t that illegal?” Skye squeaked, ignoring her parents’ loving words. Maybe if she could erase half of what she’d done in front of the cameras, she could be proud. For now, she was still more shaken than a virgin mango-tini.

  Skye’s dad pulled a folded piece of paper out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “After you left for Alpha Academy, they informed us that it was a TV show. We were shocked that it happened without you knowing, but the admission papers had a clause specifying Brazille Industries’ right to all video taken on the island, so legal recourse was out…”

  “Oh,” Skye said in a small voice. “Guess I should have read what I was signing.”

  “But then,” Skye’s mom continued breathlessly, “we saw the show. The island looked so incredible, and you were learning so much. We didn’t want to pull you out of all that.”

  “We had Sleeves fan clubs making pilgrimages to Body Alive!” her father said, his gray eyes twinkling with pride. “Mom’s studio enrollment has quadrupled. Every little girl in the country wants to be the next Skye Hamilton.”

  Fan clubs? The next Skye Hamilton?

  Skye shot a doubting look at her parents. They couldn’t possibly be serious. Could they?

  “Your mother and I are so proud of you, and of what you’ve become. You’re a household name.”

  Skye blinked hard and shook her head, barely able to process what her father was saying. Of its own accord, her dancer’s body formed a deep plié and wound up in a curtsey, as if she were bowing after a performance of Swan Lake. Had Alphas actually been Skye’s best performance yet? It was starting to seem that way.

  Maybe it made some sort of sense. After all, everyone loved an underdog. Skye had started at Alpha Academy as a big fish from a small pond, the best dancer in Westchester. That was before she’d had to compete with the best dancers on Earth, every single one of them better and more disciplined than she was. She’d been knocked off her pedestal early, and through sheer will had managed to pull herself back up.

  She nodded slowly, reframing her time at the Academy in less mortifying terms. She’d gotten tougher, improved her craft, and—maybe most important of all—learned to balance ballet and boys.

  “I guess I can see how it would make for a fun TV show,” Skye said cautiously, the theme music blaring above the stage reaching a crescendo. “We’ve all grown up a little.”

  “Girls everywhere look up to you, Skye. After you hurt your ankle, you were determined to get better. And you did! You got better than Triple. The HAD slipper worked,” her mother whispered. Natasha smiled, raising her eyebrows knowingly.

  My HAD slipper! Skye felt another lurching sensation in her stomach. What if some producer had tossed the precious slipper away, not realizing it was Skye’s good luck charm and a family heirloom? The slipper had gotten her mother the prima ballerina spot in the Bolshoi Ballet, and she’d entrusted it to Skye once her daughter had been admitted into the Academy.

  But just as Skye was about to flee the stage and go find it, Natasha opened her purse and pulled out the soft pin
k toe shoe. “They gave us a tour of the dorms. I thought you might want to see this again.”

  “Thanks,” Skye managed, taking the slipper and putting it to her nose. The lavender-scented slips of paper she’d carefully written her hopes and dreams (HADs) on still had some herbal essence left in them. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what her HADs had been, other than the most important:

  Survive Alpha Academy. Be the last girl standing.

  Check and check.

  Maybe her parents were right to be proud. Skye straightened her posture and took a deep breath, shoving the purple toe shoe into the cargo pocket of her Wilderness Girl shorts. She’d figure out what her new HADs would be once she got home.

  For now, there was one more person she needed to see.

  “Can I meet back up with you in a few minutes?” she asked her parents. They nodded, already sucked into a conversation with Thalia and a few other muses.

  Skye patted her pocket, a smile playing on her lips, and began to move through the crowd, her steps long and graceful again now that she wasn’t in danger of shock-vomming all over the stage.

  Her eyes scanned the audience dancing in the aisles, searching for the Brazille brothers. At last she spotted Taz, giving an interview to a perky brunette woman who waved an E! Entertainment microphone under his chiseled chin. A cameraman stood nearby, recording Taz’s impressions of the show. Of my show, Skye thought, laughing at how weird the phrase sounded in her brain.

  “I had no idea!” Taz was saying. “I was just as shocked as the girls were. My mom’s always been a pretty good lia—uh, secret keeper, but this time she took it to a whole new level. Wait, is this live? Can you edit that last part?” Taz’s arctic-blue eyes flirt-pleaded with the E! reporter.

  “No problem, Taz. As long you answer one more question everyone’s dying to know the answer to: What’s going to happen between you and Skye now that that the show’s over?”

  Great question!

  Skye’s breath caught in her throat as she waited for Taz to formulate a sound bite for the camera. But then she exhaled, realizing she didn’t need to wait for Taz to decide. Skye already knew in her gut what she wanted.

  “Uh, I guess we’ll find out,” Taz stammered, his face turning red. Skye wondered if he was feeling guilty about leaving her and running onto the peanut plane, or if it was the fact that now Skye was every bit as much of a celeb as he was?

  Doesn’t matter, Skye decided, unconsciously shaking her head to push the questions out of her mind.

  When Taz’s interview was over, Skye leapt up the three stairs that still separated her from the darkest-haired, bluest-eyed Brazille boy.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling neutrally.

  “Hey yourself,” Taz answered, his blush still lingering on his cheeks as if he’d just been shoveling snow. Still cute, Skye sighed inwardly.

  “So… you had no idea? About the show?” Skye steadied herself, placing one hand on a smooth white seatback and balancing on both toes. She wondered how long it had been since she’d practiced an actual ballet routine.

  “None. No way. I can’t believe it,” Taz grinned. “I hear you three are world-famous now.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that one,” Skye grinned, getting ready to drop a little guilt-bomb on the conversation. “I wonder what the audience thought of you and Mel leaving us on that mountain in the desert.”

  “That was”—Taz paused and lowered his voice to a whisper—-“totally accidental. I’m not, you know, that guy.”

  “Not usually, you mean,” Skye said lightly. The two feet between them still vibrated with a certain unfinished something. But she needed to figure out her next steps by herself. On her own. No strings attached.

  If it was meant to be with Taz, they’d have a whole lifetime to find out. For now, she reassured herself, she wanted to live her life as Skye Solo, not Taz-manian Skye.

  Taz grinned back. “Not usually. Yeah. And it’ll never happen again.”

  “I’m sure it won’t,” she nodded. She leaned up toward him and pecked him quickly on the cheek, first checking to see if any cameras were pointed their way. This was one farewell kiss she wanted to keep private. “Keep in touch, okay?” she whispered.

  “That’s it?” Taz asked, his thick eyebrows shooting into the air like two sides of a shocked parenthesis. “Should I text you?”

  “Probably not,” Skye shrugged. “I just want to dance and de-Alphatize for a while.”

  “Cool,” Taz smiled, reaching out a strong hand and putting it gently on Skye’s toned shoulder. “Good luck. Not that you need it.”

  “You too,” Skye grinned, waving goodbye for now.

  Having finished her Taz-manian interlude, Skye pirouetted her way across the aisles to join the gaggle of bun-heads she’d spotted. Tweety, Prue, and Sadie grabbed her in a noisy four-way hug, shrieking with excitement and bubbling over with Alphas gossip.

  “You did it, girl!” yelled Prue. “If it couldn’t be me, I’m glad it was you.”

  “Mimi’s totally taking all the credit,” winked Sadie, her red hair tucked up into the classic ballerina bun they all wore during rehearsals. “I heard she taped the Tyra show yesterday, billed as Alpha Academy’s genius choreographer.”

  Skye grinned, overwhelmed by how ah-mazing it was to be back with her fellow dancers. “I can’t wait to see Mimi,” she said sarcastically. “Or maybe I can.”

  “I was on Tyra, too,” someone said behind her. Skye knew that voice. Perfect pitch. Perfect tone. TV-ready.

  Triple!

  Skye whirled around and found herself staring at Trip’s high cheekbones, gorgeous catlike eyes, and flawless blowout. “Yo, Sleeves. You did it. You’re welcome.” Triple’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched ironically. She was wearing a strapless white tulip dress that seemed to float over her gorgeous figure. Next to Trip, Skye felt like a dowdy postal worker. But she didn’t care. She opened her arms wide and gave Triple the bear hug to end all bear hugs, even though Trip hated to be touched. After all, if not for Triple, Skye’s dancing would never have improved. And she would have never won the regatta race.

  “Thanks, Trip,” Skye grinned as Triple shook her off. “You were my ultimate inspiration.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Trip eye-rolled, her full lips pout-smiling in spite of having lost. “I live to serve. Luckily, for whatever reason, I got a lot of airtime. I just inked a deal for a spin-off show—Triple’s House of Pain. It’s a makeover show for Betas, where I turn them from losers into… well, into me.”

  Ha! Skye nodded, making a mental note to warn all her friends back in Westchester not to audition, but knowing she’d never miss an episode. “Congrats. Sounds Trip-tastic.”

  “And what are you going to do now, Skye?” Prue interrupted. “I mean, you can kind of do whatever you want now.”

  “First, I’m going to change out of these clothes,” Skye joked. “And then, we’ll see. I’ll go wherever my toe shoes take me…”

  “Um, Sleeves?” Triple interrupted. She never did have much patience for other people talking, Skye remembered. “I was kind of watching you and Taz before. Are you guys…?”

  “Taz is officially single,” laughed Skye. “Trip, you should go talk to him. My sloppy seconds are like most people’s firsts.”

  Her former frenemy executed a classic Trip hair-flip-disdainful-snort combo, and all the bun-heads cracked up as she flounced away.

  Even though she was in a crowded room with cameras everywhere, Skye realized, she hadn’t felt so free in months. Skye reached for the ballet slipper in her pocket, her fingers worrying the shoe’s frayed satin edge as she sealed her next HAD in her mind:

  Embrace whatever comes next. You’ve earned it.

  22

  THE PAVILION

  HALF MOON THEATER

  NOVEMBER 4TH

  7:15 P.M.

  “Don’t forget to pack all my Alphas clothes from the closet marked Allie A!” Allie yelled to the departing backs
of her parents. Felicia and Fred Abbott had spent fifteen minutes gushing to Allie about her newfound acting talent, then another ten telling her how amazed they were that the Wilderness Girls made a nature warrior out of their little germaphobe. Now they were headed to Jackie O to pack up her stuff, and she promised to meet them in front of the Pavilion after she said goodbye to the O’s.

  Allie stood at the edge of the stage, wondering if the Purell corporation would make her their official spokesperson after all the free advertising she’d given them, when she saw Mel’s face break through the crowd.

  A familiar flutter of butterflies shot through her stomach the way it always did when she saw Mel’s lantern jaw, intense green eyes, and thatch of floppy white-blond hair, but when he put his arms around her, the flutter suddenly died out. Allie felt… nothing. Nothing but an intense urge to get away from him.

  Mel smiled. “I missed you.”

  Allie tried to think of something sweet to say back, but no words came. She smile-nodded, buying time as she tried to figure out how her heart could be in direct opposition to her eyes. Mel was so cute. He dressed so well. And they’d been through so much together, especially since the PAP crash.

  But the disappointing facts were suddenly all too obvious: No matter how cute Mel might be, Allie just didn’t respect him anymore. Not after what he did on the plateau.

  She pursed her rosebud lips, and gave her heart one last chance to embrace the handsome Brazille boy in front of her. But no matter how much her head knew the harmony to this love song, Allie’s heart refused to sing the Mel-ody.