Chapter Seventeen
Morals, Mercy and Murder
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Blake Amherst
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She was looking at me like I'd grown a third eye. Totally shocked and a little disgusted. Maybe I had grown the eye. Why was she looking at me like that? I used my fingers to brush my fringe off my face and subtly made sure I had nothing out of the ordinary growing. Or maybe it was just the fact that I was looking at her... because she really hated me. Damn. No, I mean, this was good. I was going to forget about her, right? Grow some balls, Blake, you're no idiot. Why the hell would you crush on some pipsqueak who hated your guts? Concentrate on the lesson.
Oh, shit yeah. The lesson. I was already late. I strolled over to the group, looking anywhere but at Leah, and grinned casually, as if I had absolutely no issues with the ink-haired pixie who was probably turning her nose up at me right at this moment.
"Alright guys, sorry 'bout the delay. Let's get started, yeah?" I pasted a calm, unfazed expression to my face. These guys would eat me alive if they saw anything but confidence. Darcy was a talented kid but was known to chew people out when unwanted mistakes were made. She had a sharp tongue and an icy attitude. Sean was openly bi, swinging both ways, and he followed nothing but a direct and exact order. He knew how to get around and out of doing things he didn't like which made it difficult to teach him routines. But he was quick, limber and a perfectionist. He was the best technical dancer I had in the group.
Wedge, who I was feeling a little irritable towards at the moment, was strong and at the same time incredibly flexible and nimble. I'd watched him do some complicated lifts in one of his classes and couldn't wait to work with him. But he had a loud confidence... and he was obviously partnered with the girl who was scooping out half of my brain to make room for herself.
And then there was Leah. I had a feeling she was going to make these sessions hard on me. Hell, her just being here and hating me was going to be difficult. In Greg's session, she had managed to turn a popping movement into something smooth and delicate. She was small, I would guess flexible, and owned an expressive face that would help get the message of the dance across to anyone watching. But I knew I was going to have the biggest troubles with her.
"Most of you know that I will be doing a contemporary piece. Contemporary tells a story so you will need to use the things you have learnt in your acting classes. The music that I have based the routine on is 'Howl' by Florence and the Machine. I don't know if many of you have heard it but the story is that of a girl who feels like she has been turned feral by the love and passion she feels for a man and turns beast-like when he is gone."
Darce smiled approvingly and nodded her head. Wedge and Sean looked a little unsure and I wasn't looking at Leah.
"This does mean that the guys will be more of a support to the girls but I'm expecting you to make the audience still want to watch you. I'm expecting this to be perfect." I flicked a glance back at Paul with a smirk. He'd told me not to put pressure onto my group as they were younger and less experienced. But these were a group of tough-nuts that would eat me up if I didn't push them to exhaustion.
"Oh, we'll be perfect," Sean said slowly, drawing out his words to give them a sarcastic edge. "As long as our teacher is." He winked at me. Sometimes Sean worried me.
"Okay, I'll get into it," I said, completely ignoring his comment. "Darce, if I could get you up here to help me give a slight example of a few of the simpler moves. We'll get to the hard stuff once this is perfected."
