Page 100 of Bound By Stars
Slow down, Weslie. First things first, you have to get out of here.
I scan the space. Exposed pipes run along the walls and low ceiling, painted to blend in. The style of the room a strange blend of sublevels and first class. More Earth than Elysium.
A heavy wooden desk sits in the center of the room, strewn with papers, a slender brass lamp, and a miniature, hovering holomap of theBoundless, rotating in slow circles. On the corner of the table sits a small carved wooden box. I rush across the room, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I twist my linked hands around my body and fumble with the lid.
One of the porters catches my shoulder. A pale woman in a navy blue beanie with a white star emblem on her forehead. She unlatches one of my wrists.
I duck out of her hold, slamming into a broad chest.
The second porter, a man with olive-brown skin and long black hair that hangs over half his face, shoves me back into her arms. “Keep a better grip on her.”
“I got her,” she says through her teeth.
He drags a wooden chair to the side of the room, placing it under the middle of three portholes.
“This is bullshit. I didn’tdoanything!”
The beanie-clad woman drags me across the room and throws me into the chair. “Save it for the captain.”
The man easily pulls my freed left hand over my head and slams it into the cold metal wall, while the woman digs her fingers deep into my other arm and drags her nails through my flesh.
I swallow the scream tearing through my throat.
They lock my cuffs again, binding me to a wide pipe. Wrists crossed over my head. They leave me there, contorted, armrest digging into my ribs and shoulder stretching in its socket.
Chest heaving with sharp breaths, I tilt forward as far as the restraints will allow and peer out the open doorway. Two others stand in the hall. One in a porter’s vest. The other in a navy blazer and captain’s hat. Nazari.
The porter lowers his head, whispering so I can barely make out some of his words. “She…unplanned variable…maybe…should aband—”
“It has to be now.” Nazari shakes his head. Even with his back turned, I can hear him clearly. “Less than ten hours until we’re out of the dead zone.”
Waving the porter off, Captain Nazari enters. With his hands folded behind his back, he marches around his desk and past the hovering map of the ship. A piece on top blinks red. The escape pod bay. He settles in the high-backed leather chair. “Our records show you’ve been spending a fair amount of time in the escape pod bay. Why?”
“It’s quiet,” I say through a quick exhale. The arm of the chair cuts between my ribs. “A few letters from a deadbeat father that never made it to me don’t make me a terrorist. You have no eviden—”
“You have a relationship with one of my crew. Reve Moreno. Is he also working with the E.F.E.?” He swipes the tablet on his desk and throws the image up on the wall.
A life-size photo of Reve and me lying on the pod bay floor, his hand around my waist, his head blocking most of my face, kissing me.
Bile rises in my throat. My breaths are coming too fast. I’m holding back sobs, but they’re choking me faster than I can suck in air. Swallowing it all back, I let out a long, steadying breath. “Was anyone hurt…in the explosion?”
“We’re still assessing the damage and security footage.” He taps the screen and leans back in his chair. The image disappears. “How many of your father’s associates are aboard my ship?”
“Like I told you before, I haven’t spoken to my father in years. Not since he abandoned us for Mars.” The words come out as a whisper.
“What has he told you about his accomplices in his communications from Mars?”
I shake my head. “I never got any messages.”
He leans forward, touching his chin to his steepled hands. “Weslie, treason is a dire offense, especially during interplanetary travel. You will be processed when we get to Mars. If you help me, and I can apprehend the rest of the E.F.E. members before anything serious were to happen, you could get off with as little as banishment from space travel and would be sent back to your life on Earth.”
“I had nothing to do with this.”
He stands and moves around to the front of the desk. “Just give me names, Ms. Fleet.”
“I don’t know!”
He grabs the arms of my chair, boxing me in. His scent, cologne mixed with grease and fresh plastic, fills my nose. “Cut the act. There are lives at stake on this ship.” Lowering his voice to a whisper, his tone softens as he speaks close to my ear. “Weslie, please, what did Sam tell you?”
