A Poised Nuisance (Lithe Book 1) Read online

  Trigger Warning (sexual assault/mentions of rape) for the following chapters:

  Act I: three, six, seven, ten

  Act II: ten

  A Poised Nuisance

  Lithe, Volume 1

  iris rivers

  Published by iris rivers, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  A POISED NUISANCE

  First edition. April 13, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 iris rivers.

  ISBN: 978-1794777958

  Written by iris rivers.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  A Poised Nuisance (Lithe, #1)

  ACT I

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ACT II

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE AFTERMATH

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  For those who are lost.

  “It isn't enough that the bad guy is prevented from doing his bad deeds; he must suffer as much as possible. It is as if the existence of evil––or something that can be designated as evil––provides a safe haven for the good to engage in evil. It's a safe space to indulge in inflicting harm, to experience the sublime of suffering.” ––M.E. Thomas

  ACT I

  As Annabelle, Lillian, and Elizabeth once chanted: in blood and in misery shall the life of a brutish man find himself, their fallen men had never found peace.

  Know this: every Juilliard man who finds himself committing an act of violence against a woman shall find their blood on the floor before they choose their next victim.

  There is no mercy: only in blood and in misery shall we rise.

  —The Official Enchiridion of Lithe, published in 1929

  PROLOGUE

  March 2018

  It was a Saturday morning, the sun hidden behind a plethora of ashen clouds. Lara Blake sat restlessly in an uncomfortable chair, the cushion beneath her legs pushing into the thin material of her tights.

  She was sitting in the changing room of Juilliard’s auditorium, awaiting her call from the judges. The moment was quiet, perturbed. Lara felt anxious, but more than that, she felt euphoric. Her childhood had been filled with expectations for this very moment; Lara’s mother, Seo-Yun Blake, had ingrained the prospect of Juilliard into her mind, not allowing her to develop her own ideas, her own interests. Yet despite the forced aspiration, she still enjoyed it—the dancing, the theatrics, the intrigue.

  “Lara?”

  She stood, taking a shaky breath, and turned to face the others still remaining in the room, sizing up her competition. A few boys; a few girls. Some tall; some short. She wondered if they were nervous; wondered if, when they saw her stature, they felt intimidated, rattled.

  She hoped so.

  Lara left the room, walking onto the stage, allowing the light to blind her, suffocate her. It was where she belonged; it was where she wanted to be.

  “Your name?” said one of the judges.

  “I thought you knew that already,” said Lara, then nearly shut her eyes in regret. Lara was uncontrollably blunt, and, at times, discourteous. “Lara Blake,” she answered.

  “You may begin, Lara.”

  Lara twisted her back slowly, pulling its muscles, still feeling her mother’s nails dragging down her freckled skin—drawing blood but also fear, fear of what she would do next. She stood still as she waited for the music to begin.

  A violin swelled within the auditorium, and Lara moved in consonance with the delicate movement, allowing her body to be overwhelmed by the sounds, to be commandeered by the notes. She danced and danced, forgetting the three judges who sat watching her trained limbs.

  Lara finally finished the routine, her breathing slow and thick. She watched the judges’ mouths quirking as they discussed amongst themselves, the sound of dry whispers crowding the cold auditorium. Lara didn’t fidget; she didn’t smile. She simply bowed her head for a short second and stepped to the exit.

  She found no celebration in the waiting room. Her parents hadn’t bothered to come, unlike the few others remaining who clutched their parents’ hands until a desperate shade of white spread across their knuckles.

  A small smirk spread across her face, pulling the blood red of her lips. Lara knew she had done well, surely better than those remaining in the room.

  A voice sounded from beside her as she slipped off her ballet slippers, untying the knot and placing them inside her bag.

  “Kai?” said the man. Lara looked up at the boy who answered the call. He was a few inches taller than she, his limbs just as long; his skin dark, his face unblemished. The pain of looking away from his face was agonizing, but something—a foreboding; a warning—forced Lara to turn her head.

  The wooden door let out the noise of a dying bird as it closed, dragging the boy and his leader out with it.

  Lara finished lacing up a pair of high-top Converse—stained from years of use. She then stood, giving a mocking wave to the girl who sat behind her as she stretched out her limbs. She leaned toward the girl’s pale face, her brown hair, and said, “I hope you fall.” The girl’s jaw dropped. Lara laughed and walked out the door.

  Music began in the auditorium, marking the beginning of another’s routine. It was surely Kai, the boy she’d seen, which intrigued Lara. She imagined him to be a talented dancer—if his stature was anything like Lara’s—but she desperately hoped he wasn’t. Lara decidedly stepped to the curtain that hid the stage from her sight, careful to remain silent, and eased it away from the pole it was hooked to.

  There he was: Dancing, spinning across the stage with grace and confidence.

  Kai. The name tasted bitter on Lara’s tongue as she mouthed it, the vowels acidic against the movement of her lips. He was good—he was better than good—and that scared Lara. Terrified her.

  She snapped the curtain back in place, turning her back to his routine. Standing there, her nails digging into the bronze of her hands as if each imprint on her palm could pull the disquietude from her slight body, she pleaded for his ruination.

  Her eyes fell shut slowly, carefully. Lara’s mother would hurt her if she did not find a place in Juilliard’s dance program—if another person stole her awaiting slot.

  Lara rushed home, hiding herself in her bedroom. She woke the next morning with dried blood across her palms, crescent moons engraved into her soft skin.

  SHE WAS PUT ON THE wait list.

  Lara Blake, daughter made prodigy, was put on the wait list.

  She stared at the email on her screen, thinking only one thing: My mother is going to kill me. She’s going to slit my throat and watch as the blood seeps down to the threads of my leotard.

  Lara decided, with her own self-preservation in mind, to not tell her, not until the official acceptance came in.

  Acceptance—not rejection, because Lara refused to believe that she had failed, that the one thing her mother had worked so hard
to construct had simply diminished the moment her toes met the stage of Juilliard’s. She was talented, and despite Kai’s similar talent, it was enough.

  “Lara?” her mother said, shocking her.

  Lara shut her laptop and turned to face Seo-Yun. “Yes?”

  “I heard the results are in,” she said.

  Lara shook her head, smoothing her features. “You must’ve heard wrong,” she said. “I haven’t got an email.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We already know you were accepted,” she said. She took a few steps away from Lara, then: “I will accept nothing else, Lara.”

  “We?”

  “Your father and I.”

  And, as if on cue, her father walked down the wooden stairs of their penthouse, his wrinkled face grim.

  Lara refrained from jumping out of her seat. “You’re back,” she said, more to herself than to him. Her father, Michael Blake, was an absent man. He was not one for family—he had made that very clear the day Lara began to understand the workings of their household. He occupied himself with his corporate business, leaving for trips and returning home for only a few days a month. He was an elite man with a recognizable social status, and to Michael, keeping that position was more important than maintaining his role as a father. At the end of the day, it all came down to money, and to Michael, money was power.

  To Lara, power was everything. So, despite his detachment, Lara understood him. She wished she didn’t, but the similarities they shared were too uncanny to ignore. They were both blunt in ways Seo-Yun was not, and argumentative in ways Seo-Yun wished she could be.

  He nodded, not bothering to glance in Lara’s direction. “I am,” he said, moving quickly to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door, pulling a bottle of water from the second shelf.

  “Do you want to get dinner? Tonight?”

  Michael turned to face his daughter’s hopeful face. “Lara, I’m very busy.”

  Seo-Yun stood behind Lara, dragging her pointed nails down her scarred back. Lara straightened her posture. “Your father does not have time for such things,” she said, marking Lara’s skin. “You know that.”

  “Of course,” she answered. “I just thought—”

  “I have a meeting,” Michael interjected. The elevator doors closed slowly as he left, looking down at his phone.

  “Don’t embarrass your father like that.”

  “Like what?”

  Seo-Yun followed Michael’s lead, exiting the room, refusing to answer. Lara was left in the silence of their kitchen, feeling small drops of blood drag down her back where her mother’s fingers had been. It was all too familiar—her mother’s blatant ignorance toward her daughter; her father’s absent mind. For a brief moment, she wondered how her parents had fallen in love—but the thought was silly. How could two people fall in love when there was no love to reciprocate?

  Lara had heard dull, vacant stories of how her parents had found each other. Michael had been in Seoul for a two-week business trip when he met Seo-Yun at a charity event. Apparently, from what Lara had overheard from Michael’s business partners, it had been love at first sight.

  But over the years, the love had soured—faded into an abyss of shadows and dreams––and when Lara was born, their spark had died completely.

  To this day, it had never been reborn.

  Her mother had never even bothered to introduce Lara to their Korean heritage, just as Michael had never bothered to explain his own lineage. But it was not Michael’s family she cared about—he was a white man with little to no interest in his past life besides riches and glory—it was Seo-Yun’s. Lara craved the touch of her culture, but Seo-Yun had completely erased that part of their identity. She was either too entranced by Michael to care, or the ways of American society had completely whitewashed her to the point where Lara was sure Seo-Yun wanted nothing to do with her past.

  There were days in Lara’s dejected childhood where she’d begged her mother to take her to their home country. She longed to learn her mother tongue, embrace her hidden heritage. There were times where she’d asked Michael too. But he’d only laugh and ignore Lara’s pleas, whisking himself into his office and staying there for hours a day.

  How was it that a white man had the pleasure of visiting her native land, but Lara—who was half-Korean—didn’t? It was unfair, to deny Lara the only key to her past.

  Basking in the loneliness of her home, Lara pulled her phone from the pocket of her cargo pants. She was uncomfortable in the isolation, in the unknown. So, with little else to do, she opened Instagram and found herself scrolling to the explore page, carefully typing Juilliard into the search bar. A location came up. She pressed it.

  Thousands of photos were under the location, most of current students, some of future students. The sight of the latter squeezed Lara’s heart, jealousy rising in her stomach. She clicked on a few, sneering at the smiles they wore while holding their acceptance letters.

  And then she saw it: him. The boy in the waiting room; the boy who’d danced after Lara. Kai.

  He’d posted a photo of himself and who Lara assumed was his sister, their hands both grasping Juilliard’s letter of acceptance. The sister laughed, while Kai smirked—barely a smile.

  Lara scrolled through the comments.

  Congrats!

  Yayyyy.

  Ahhhh, so proud of you <3

  She felt her fingers tremble, the phone slipping from her hands. He had done it.

  Kai had been accepted.

  All she could think was he had been admitted, he had been chosen, and she hadn’t. Suddenly all of her failures became astronomical; all of her aspirations seemed insurmountable.

  She felt her breaths go from calm to labored; saw the color of wrath and savagery flash beneath her eyelids like a humming lullaby.

  Lara did not know this boy—Kai Reeves as his Instagram username said—but she knew enough. She knew that, although one-sided, he’d won the war.

  And no one who’d beaten Lara Blake had come out alive.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Murder is born of love, and love attains the greatest intensity in murder.” ––Octave

  September 2019

  The bell tower was ringing.

  Lara had heard it ring before, but it was louder today, the sound vibrating across her skin, her bones. It seemed to strengthen as she neared Juilliard’s auditorium.

  The sun was out, surprisingly, and it satisfied her need for touch—the warmth spreading across her skin felt like a suffocating hug. Her booted feet stomped through the streets, sidestepping citizens and tourists alike, all engrossed in their own minds—their own worlds. She wondered what they were thinking, what they were doing on their cell phones. Texting a friend? Scrolling through Twitter?

  It was a startling thought—the realization that no one was alone in the world, that overflowing brains surrounded each person, thinking and whispering different things; no one but their own conscious able to discern the mumblings and epiphanies traveling through their skull.

  Lara watched the students surrounding her as she pulled open the auditorium door, feeling cold air rush out from beyond. The room was filled with her classmates—some loud, gregarious; others timid, silent. She stepped up to where they all rested on the stage. Most dancers sat, slipping on their ballet shoes.

  “Hi, Lara,” said a boy behind her.

  She turned, unfamiliar with the voice, and raised her eyebrows. “Do I know you?”

  His face fell as he took a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “No, sorry. I just—”

  Lara walked away before he could finish. She sat on the cold stage, reaching into her small bag for her ballet slippers. They were worn, dirty—similar to those of her classmates.

  “Hurry up, you guys,” said their program’s professor—Madame Dunne, a high-heeled French lady with the nimbleness of an eighteen-year-old but the graying hair of a sixty-year-old. “We were meant to begin five minutes ago.”

  Kai was sitting
to the right of Lara, she realized, and he was pulling off his Converse to change into his slippers. Lara nearly dropped her shoes when she saw the soles of his feet. A long, veiny scar ran from the top to the bottom of both—protruded and ugly, an obvious wound from his past.

  From Lara’s past.

  She knew it would leave a mark, a scar, but did not expect it to be so large, so painful looking.

  The defacement satisfied Lara—a visible trophy of her success. It was freshman year when she had blemished his skin—tarnished his foot. An audition had opened up for a small role operated by Juilliard’s opera program; the singers had a performance in two months and needed a dancer—specifically one from the ballet program—to dance in the foreground, dramatizing their performance. Naturally, Dunne encouraged all of her students to audition.

  Lara and Kai had both strived for the role.

  Lara knew—everyone knew—that one of them would get the role, but she needed it, she so desperately needed it that if she somehow lost and Kai won the role instead, Lara was sure her mother would never speak to her again. Her defeat would be the end of their relationship—their weak, broken thread of a relationship.

  She would have done anything to get the role—anything. Even if it meant hurting Kai; even if it meant tearing open his skin. He could handle it. Even bloody and battered, he could handle it.

  So, on the day of the audition, with her mother in mind, Lara had taken the subway to a Target near Juilliard’s dorms. She’d stepped inside, the fluorescent lights blinding her, and moved swiftly to the home section—to the vases. She’d picked a clear one and shattered it, right then and there. A worker ran over asking what happened and if she was hurt, and Lara had shoved some pieces in her hoodie’s pocket, apologized, and left, the glass weighing down her pocket as she ran.

  Back at Juilliard—back in the audition room in which she had first seen Kai—Lara’s thoughts had been muddled with both despair and determination. Kai was not there—he had received a phone call just moments before and stepped out of the room, his tone changing as he answered it.