Page 1 of Bound By Stars
Chapter One
Weslie
Twelve minutes to departure
I push my legs to move faster against the burn of acid in my muscles, past another wall of posters. They’ve been plastered all over the city for weeks.Unmatched luxury. Indestructible design. Unparalleled speed. The fastest ship in the universe!The ship I’m going to miss. I sprint harder, my duffel bag bouncing against my hip.
“Protocol requires that you notify your guardian before leaving the planet. Send notification now?” ILSA restates the question I didn’t answer the other five times since we snuck out of the house.
If she weren’t the whole reason I had won the ticket, I would leave the insistent bot on Earth.
“I’m seventeen. Old enough to travel alone. I’ll send a message from the ship,” I say more to myself than her. If I let Mom know I’m leaving, she’ll try to keep me here again. She lost the right to a goodbye when she hid my notification letter.
This experience could change my life—both of our lives—and she was just going to throw it away without giving me a choice. What the hell else has she kept from me?
Her words repeat in my head again.I know you don’t understand, but it’s too big a risk, Wesi.
When I round the last building, the transport station comes into view. Draped above the arched entrance, a banner flaps in the wind.TheBoundless: First voyage to Mars departing April 10, 2212.Today. Now.
I’m almost there. Don’t leave without me.
“Protocol requires that you notify your guar—”
“ILSA! Transport status!” I’d put her in silent mode if she weren’t the only one who could access the station updates. I push my legs to move faster.
“Still boarding. Protocol requires that you notify your guardian before leaving the planet. Send notification now?”
“No!” Inside the station gates, I desperately search for where to go. A huge sign above the far end of the platform readsEarther Boarding.The line is short. The last two people are about to scan their tickets.
I take off again, too focused on where I’m going to notice before I slam into a passing shoulder. Papers fly and a thick book smacks the ground, encircled in a cloud of dust.
My knees hit the dirt. I scramble to collect the loose pages. My attention shifts frantically back and forth between the ground and the platform.
The porter crosses his arms, waiting as the second-to-last person in line searches their bag.
I snatch up another paper. A hand-drawn map of the city and the trees that obscure my house. I think maybe the artist included the pitch of our roof.
Someone grabs hold of the edge of the drawing. “Do you mind? You’re crinkling them.”
I look up, following a slender arm to wide shoulders, a long neck, and dark eyes, inches away. Deep brown with bursts of gold in the center surrounded by long, pale lashes. The sack slung from his body is all Earther, but his clothes scream Elysian. I’m lucky he’s not having me detained.
“Last call for Earther boarding!” The porter is roping off the entrance.
My gaze flicks down to the mess around me, pages dusted with copper slowly shifting away in the breeze, then back to the entrance.
The porter turns away, climbing the steps.
I shove the pages toward the long-limbed boy. “I’m really sorry.” I release them before he has a grip and run without looking back to see them fall to the ground again. “Wait!”
The porter pauses and squints at us from midway up the steps.
ILSA keeps pace with me. “Protocol requires—”
“Relax, ILSA!”
“Yes, Weslie.”
The sound of her powering down stops me in my tracks. “You have to be kidding me!”
