Last, if I didn’t even have it in me to lay it on my friends, or if not, just tell them to back off, I was dealing with my own issues, and instead, it felt like I was losing them, and it was me who was making that happen…

Then I wouldn’t (and didn’t) have the ability to boss up and do something with what I was creating in the studio.

So that was me all around.

Hattie Yates.

Failed dancer.

Failed daughter.

Failed friend.

Failed artist.

But really freaking good loner.

I parked at the back of the house where my and three other apartments were and let myself in the back door, thinking at least I had this.

My pad.

A weird, funky space, part of a big, old home broken in chunks. But the landlords wanted to make it cool, so they did, with up and down steps, insets in the walls to put knickknacks, interesting lighting, creamy white walls and beautifully refinished floors.

Mine was on the first level.

Living room and kitchen up front, a step up to the kitchen from the living room. A wall that was open, seeing as it was made up of open-backed shelves. Shelves in which there was a doorway with three steps down to delineate my bedroom area. That back area had a walk-in closet and biggish bath, which, no other word for it, was divine. And the only other room, what I was in now, a side area at the back that had a washer, dryer and some storage.

As décor, I’d gone with white and cream in furniture with dove-gray curtains. Some navy-and-cream throw rugs. Black-and-white art or photos in white frames.

I added to this only shocks of color here and there. In some pictures, one with a frame that was geranium pink.

Turquoise. Sky blue. Lime green. More pink.

And my prize possession, a loud beanbag in primary colors that was covered in a print of flowers that I used as a beanbag as well as an ottoman.

My funky little me space. Small. Light. Bright. Interesting.

All things that were not me.

With ease born of practice in that small, dark room lit only slightly by the waning sunlight of a Denver summer night, light that was coming through the single narrow window, I went up the three steps that should lead me to my living room/kitchen.

And stopped dead when I got there.

Illuminated by the big wicker-globe-covered hanging fixtures, sitting back in my comfy, creamy armchair with his feet on my flowery beanbag, was Brett “Cisco” Rappaport.

The man who, a few months back, had kidnapped Evie, Ryn, Pepper and me—my friends, but also fellow dancers (except now Evie had quit and gone full time as an engineering student and computer tech).

Then he went on to kidnap Ryn again some weeks later.