by J. M. Page
Unable to stomach the fact that she’d nearly hurt him, Celine kept her disobedient hand hidden behind her back, keeping her distance from Ben.
He flexed his hand a few times, making a fist and relaxing. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m fine, see?” he said, turning his hand over in front of her. “You don’t need to be so nervous.”
She nodded, feeling queasy. Was it her imagination, or was her hand misbehaving more and more?
Maybe she was just overthinking things. Maybe she just needed to relax and stop being so nervous, like Ben said.
After all, what was the worst that could happen?
He finds out you’re actually part robot and dissects you in front of the palace.
Not helpful, she chided herself.
“Come on, just a bit further,” Ben said, taking another corner.
He stopped at what appeared to be a plain patch of wall, no different from any other. He leaned forward, and pressed his palms to the stone.
With a nearly imperceptible movement, Ben slid the panel aside, just enough to look out to the space beyond.
“Come here,” he mouthed with a wave. There was no space on either side of him for Celine to see through the crack, so she crouched under him, his chest pressed to her back. The Prince’s warmth soaked into her and Celine resisted the urge to nestle in closer.
“See that guard?” he whispered, his lips pressed to her ear. Celine looked, then nodded.
“Wait for him to pass, and run as fast as you can in that direction.” He pointed, and Celine had to force herself to look. His warm breath on her neck made her want to close her eyes and lose herself to him.
Enough of that, focus.
“Don’t be seen,” he said. Celine turned, a sarcastic scowl plastered in place.
“Oh, really?”
He answered with a roguish smirk and a shrug. She clenched her teeth, trying to force herself to pay attention. She started to look around, mapping her route to stay hidden, when she realized they were looking at a spacecraft hangar. A massive one. Big enough to house the whole Terran Space Force, she’d wager.
“Is this…?”
Ben held his finger up to his lips again, giving her a silent ‘Shh’ with his nod.
Celine looked in awe at the hundreds, maybe thousands of crafts. Some small enough for only one man, others big enough for an army. The ships dwarfed some of the towering buildings she’d seen from her window and nothing had ever made her feel quite so insignificant.
“Over there,” Ben pointed to a row of smaller crafts in the far corner, “second from the wall, okay?”
Celine took a deep breath, getting a lungful of Ben’s earthy scent in the process. She nodded, emboldened by him. By the thrill and possibilities he promised.
“On my count… One…” He slid the panel open a little wider and Celine bounced on her toes. “Two…” Wider still, her pulse shot off like a rocket. She didn’t know what would happen if they were caught, but she was sure the punishment would be worse for her.
Still, the idea of going up there…
“Three!” he whispered, giving her an encouraging pat.
Celine took a deep breath and ran.
Chapter Eight
Ben
Ben held his breath until he was sure Celine was safely hidden in the shadow of his favorite ship. He waited for the next guard to cruise by before he made his break for it, sprinting with all his might to get to his ship. To get to Celine. It was hard to tell which was more appealing any more.
He kept to the darkness best he could, moving from one shadow to the next, just out of view of the guards. There had been restricted patrols since the grounding, but apparently his father doubled up on guards after Ben’s little stunt leaving the city.
Never mind. He could never regret it. Not when it had brought him here, now. His father could increase guards a hundred fold and he’d still find a way around them.
All he could think of was the way Celine looked at that stupid tapestry. He’d never even really noticed it before, but to her, it was the most incredible thing.
He got a lump in his throat just thinking he’d be there to witness her seeing the real thing for the first time. It was an honor that he got to be the one to show her. There was just something about her. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Something about her coy smiles and sharp mind that made him feel whole in a way he hadn’t since the Grounding took effect. No person had ever made him feel as complete as flying did, but Celine was getting dangerously close.
They’d barely spent any time together at all and he was already having these thoughts about her. He shuddered to think the kind of thoughts he’d be having after another day in her company. How much deeper could she sink her claws into him?
Ben didn’t think he’d ever protest. The speed with which his feelings for her developed was alarming, for sure. Frightening even. But it was also altogether exciting and new, and Ben was never one to shy away from an adventure because of little thing like fear.
He was nearly there. One more sprint and he’d be at her side again. Within arm’s reach. Close enough to inhale her sweet citrus scent.
Ben ducked out of the shadow just as a sweep of light moved his direction. He jumped back, heart in his throat, and flattened himself against the wall. Though it went against everything he wanted, he took a few steps backwards, away from Celine. He prayed she could stay silent.
One of the khaki-clad guards stopped his circuitous route and doubled back to shine another light right where he’d been a moment earlier. Ben hated to imagine what would happen if he was caught in the hangar. If those men from lunch found out the Prince didn’t think the rules applied to him.
It could spell chaos for the whole walled city. And he was risking it all for what? A girl?
The guard passed again and Ben let out a long breath.
He didn’t waste any time rushing to her side and the moment he was safely obscured from sight, she flung her arms around him in a tight embrace.
“That was close,” she whispered, eyes shimmering with concern.
He gave her a squeeze of his own, reveling in the moment for as long as he’d let himself.
Yep, he was risking it all for a girl.
The access panel opened with a soft snick and Ben typed in his code to the keypad. The door of the craft opened with a hiss and the pair looked all around, waiting to see if anyone noticed.
After a moment passed, Ben ushered Celine through the door, following close behind. Once the door was closed and they were relatively safe, Ben let out a long sigh.
“Well, we got this far,” he said.
Celine looked around the small craft, eyes wide trying to soak everything in. She immediately ventured to the controls, running her fingers over the instruments, investigating different panels. Ben saw something in her eyes. A sharpness he hadn’t seen from many people before. She understood the workings of this machine though she’d never seen it or anything like it before.
“What do you say we take it for a spin?” he said, standing behind her in the cockpit.
The small craft could seat up to four people, but was made to be piloted solo without issue. It was fast, agile, and just plain fun to maneuver. Though Ben had sat at the controls of nearly every model in the Space Force, this was his favorite.
Celine snatched her hands back from the controls like she was afraid she’d done something wrong, and spun around to look at him.
“Are you crazy? What about the Grounding?” She might not have been around very long, but it seemed even Celine knew the severity of what he suggested.
He adopted a serious expression. “This is a special circumstance, I think. You’ve never seen the stars.”
Celine threw up her hands. “I’m sure there are thousands of people in this city that have never seen the stars.”
But only one of them saved my life, Ben thought, not quite ready to voice his suspicions out loud again. Every time he tried to broach
the subject of where she’d come from, Celine backed away and shut down. He couldn’t risk that happening now. Not when he was so eager to see her reaction to the heavens.
“Well then, consider yourself lucky,” he said, still trying — and failing — to keep up his neutral façade. A little grin broke through and Celine took in a sharp breath.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “A Prince is always serious.”
She narrowed her eyes, and he cracked another smile for reassurance. Celine’s shoulders relaxed and she peered out through the windscreen of the craft.
“But how are you going to get out?” she asked, eyeing the guards that zipped around the hangars on patrol. Most were on pedestrian hoverboards for ease of covering ground, others were on foot, for thoroughness. All were on high alert.
Ben slouched down into the pilot’s seat, cracked his knuckles, and gave her a mischievous grin.
“I’m going to create a diversion, of course.”
Celine opened her mouth to say something, but the words never came. Ben pulled up the control panel, typed in a long string of characters and commands, and somewhere on the complete opposite side of the hangar, lights came on and an altogether different ship shuddered to life.
He looked over his shoulder to find Celine frowning in confusion.
“Remote control,” he said with mock self-importance, “one of the perks of being royalty.”
The other ship’s sudden activity was enough to draw the attention of the guards, who now all filed over toward the offending craft. They swarmed the decoy, shouting orders and barking commands at the person who dared defy the Grounding. Only, they were shouting at the wrong ship, Ben chuckled at the thought.
He was pretty satisfied with his plan already before he looked back at Celine again. This time, she smiled, not a full-blown smile, but a hesitant ‘I can’t believe this might actually work’ smile. And that was enough to make Ben feel like the luckiest guy on the whole planet.
The guards were so focused on the decoy ship that they failed to notice Ben bringing their craft to life and opening the bay doors overhead. The doors were silent, opening to a great expanse of cloudy rust-colored sky.
He just had to get through the bay doors, close them, and hope no one saw them or followed them.
Easy, right?
The ship left the ground, hovering up and up a little higher, still hidden by some of the behemoth warships.
Celine gasped as the movement, her hand going to Ben’s shoulder for stability. He loved the warm pressure of her hand and the way she clung to him for support. But it wasn’t the time for that. She still looked shell-shocked, completely disbelieving that this was actually happening.
Ben settled his hand overtop hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You might wanna strap in,” he said. “We’re going to have to rush take-off and it might be a little rough.”
Her eyes went wide, twin pools of evergreen ambrosia, addicting and enthralling. He forced himself to look away while she did as he instructed.
“It’s safe though, right?” she asked, a quiver of fear in her voice.
Ben chuckled. “Do you trust me?”
Celine nodded slowly without hesitation, maybe thinking better of it, but admitting it all the same. She trusted him and that meant worlds to Ben. His chest felt tight and strained, like his heart was a rapidly-expanding balloon, ready to just explode forth from the pressure of all that swelling.
Under different circumstances, he might be concerned about that sensation, but in Celine’s presence, it felt normal. The same way she filled him with an unexplainable joy, anticipation, and that strange unidentified electric hum that seemed to accompany her presence. Knowing that she trusted him filled him with pride and excitement that he could hardly contain.
More eager than ever, he turned to Celine and said “Hold on.”
The ship lifted a little more, hovering higher, as high as he dared to without drawing the attention of the guards. He double-checked to make sure Celine was strapped in tight and then tilted back the controls in one fluid motion.
The craft tilted with his guidance and then all at once, it shot upwards, past the bay doors, over the tops of buildings, higher and higher.
The force pushed them both back in their seats, but Ben was used to the sensation. He pushed the ship higher and higher still, even as it shuddered and groaned with the effort.
Warning bells rang and indicators pushed to the red, shaking and rattling. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw Celine’s grip on her armrest, fingertips bright white, knuckles tight. She was wondering now if she should’ve trusted him to do this. He could see it written in her body language, but he didn’t take it personally.
Ben knew how far he could push his ship. He’d gone to the brink and back a hundred times in training maneuvers. He didn’t want them to be seen and definitely didn’t want anyone to have a chance to follow them.
Midway through their ascent, Ben tapped a button and looked down below to see the bay doors closing, hopefully nobody any wiser to their absence.
Maybe, just maybe, they’d actually managed it.
The ship blared more warnings at him and Ben couldn’t help but be transported back to the last flight he took, before he crashed in the Wastelands. That wasn’t going to happen again. It couldn’t.
It was one thing to save his own skin, but now he had Celine to think about. Beautiful, innocent, curious Celine.
Higher and higher toward the clouds, they traveled, nearly to the top of the force field dome. Soon they’d be concealed by clouds and no one would have a prayer of finding them if they didn’t want to be found.
They passed through with a faint sizzle, static making the hairs on Ben’s arm stand up, and then everything around them was silent and orange.
Now was when Ben needed to concentrate the most. It would be too easy to let his guard down and think they were safe, but the clouds held their own danger. He learned that the hard way in flight school.
Without any visual cues, it was nearly impossible for a pilot to get his bearings. Flight did strange things to the human body, and it was easy to lose sight of which way was up or down or sideways. One could be completely positive they were banking to the left when in actuality they were level.
That kind of disorientation killed pilots. If they trusted biology rather than their instruments, the ship could go into an irrecoverable death spiral. He’d seen it happen twice in his class of recruits. When Ben expressed concern about the possibility, his instructor blacked out his entire windscreen and made him fly — quite literally — blind.
He’d never mistrusted his instruments again.
At the time, it seemed like over-kill, but Ben was thankful for it now. Now he had a new reason to be safe. A new pressure to fly flawlessly. He wouldn’t let any harm come to Celine. Not if he could help it.
So the Prince held his controls steady, keeping a watchful eye on all the instruments before him. The warning bells had long since stopped, though he knew they weren’t out of danger quite yet. He’d done this a million times, no need to second-guess himself now.
Ben looked over at the woman next to him, wondering with amusement, if it was actually possible for her eyes to get any wider. She leaned forward in her seat, still trying so hard, straining with all her might to see through the clouds.
“We’ll break through soon,” he said. Celine still gripped her armrests with white knuckle force, but now she was practically bouncing in her seat. No longer afraid, only excited. It warmed Ben’s heart.
He found himself straining to see, too. Something he hadn’t done in… Well, he couldn’t remember how long. He’d been pretty young on his first trip to space, and by the time he was a teenager, he’d been all over the galaxy.
Still, he had that same kind of thrilling anticipation about flying. That pure unadulterated joy that was written across her face. He’d lost that somewhere along the way, buried under the weight of politics and
bureaucracy.
“Aaaaaany minute now,” he teased her, an unquenchable smile plastered on his face.
She didn’t just make him remember the joy and excitement he’d once felt at flying. She made him relive it. Her energy was infectious and it was impossible for him to not be just as excited by her expression.
In other circumstances, it would feel silly to be straining to see the first glimmer of light through the clouds, but Celine didn’t make him feel silly. They were in this together, both longing for the same thing, no judgement and no posturing.
It was refreshing.
He glanced at the altimeter just in time to realize they were at the very edge of the clouds. The veil of orange parted, clouds billowing to the sides like a curtain caught in the breeze. And opening up before them, revealed at least, was a hazy swath of stars.
They weren’t free of the atmosphere yet, but free of the clouds, Celine got her very first look at the sky.
He wasted no time looking to Celine for her reaction.
She didn’t disappoint. Eyes wide, mouth open in awe, she gaped in pure wonder. She leaned forward, nearly pressing her nose to the windscreen, blinking fast.
Ben felt supremely proud of himself for giving her this thing, when she sat back in her seat and was suddenly wiping at tears, her face streaked with them.
The Prince frowned, taking her hand in his, wondering if he’d done something wrong. Wondering if maybe she wasn’t ready for this.
“What is it?” he asked, one eye on the controls, one eye on her.
Celine shook her head, sniffling and swiping at tears. His heart clenched painfully. Whatever it was, he wanted to make it better. He couldn’t explain the bone-deep need to stop her tears, but it was there, stronger than anything.
Then she started laughing, a soft chuckle at first, then a full-blown laugh.
Ben felt his eyebrows scrunch together in his confusion. “Are those… good tears?” he asked, still hesitant, not sure if he was helping or hurting.
