Page 96 of Bound By Stars

Asha jogs to the buffet, smoothing her pink hair, apologizing as she grabs a plate. “I’ll be quick!” she assures the porters.

“Jupe.” Skye snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Why are you still sitting here? You’re miserable. She’s miserable. Go fix it.”

I take a long breath, hold it, and let it go. “Weslie doesn’t seem—”

“Believe me, she’s miserable.”

Asha approaches the table, grinning over her plate of greens. “Who’s miserable?”

“Weslie.” Skye sits back in her chair.

“Definitely.” Asha nods.

I stand. “Do you know where she is?”

Asha gnaws on her bottom lip and then scrunches her face. “I think she was meeting her Earther friend in the escape pod bay at three.”

I check the time. 3:01. My heart sinks. I imagine Weslie, tongue-tied and blushing. Reve leaning in, pulling her close. Do I even stand a chance against the guy? He’s taller, more muscular, and recklessly self-assured like he’s got nothing to lose. I look between them. “I’m too late.”

“No way.” Asha throws her plate on the table, shoving me out the doors to the base of the grand staircase. The minute hand on the clock ticks another minute past the hour. “You have to let her know you’re still an option.”

Skye waves me on. “Hurry!”

I take the stairs two at a time, running the straightaway at the top and cutting left, toward the back of the ship. A sharp right takes me down the hall to my family’s quarters. I keep my eyes on our door, willing my parents not to make an appearance. Midway there, I cut left, running up the incline.

Past the last living quarters where the doors are all labeledcrew only, I cut around the final corner. The pod bay door is in sight. A little farther. What if she… My feet slow. No. I can’t think. I just have to get there.

I collide with the door, catching myself with my hands braced against thick metal. The auto-open is disabled. Hitting the button on the wall, I step up to the door again, but nothing happens. It’s sealed. Through the little round window in the center, the bay looks empty. If Weslie’s inside, she’s around the bend and out of sight.

I slam my palm into the door control again. Still nothing. Did she see me coming? Hack the system and lock me out? Or maybe she wanted privacy. I stumble back from the window, my chest suddenly too heavy.

The ship lurches under my feet, knocking me on my back. A rumbling boom echoes through the hall, followed by a chorus of squealing metal. I cover my head with my arms. The floor shakes under my body, rattling my bones. Another explosion jolts the ship. I squeeze my eyes shut.

Behind my eyelids, I see Andi. She was waving as she walked through the passage, making faces at me where I was perched in the main hub. I looked away. I was mad at her that day for breaking our plans for a last-minute meeting. It was starting to be more like that the older she got. Less time for me. More time with Mom and her tutors. I didn’t look back until the first explosion went off, rattling the hub’s outer wall. Her face was pale, terrified. Her full blue eyes glued to mine like she was passing me a lifetime’s worth of words in one final glance until the flames ripped through the clear tunnel.

Debris slammed into the glass, and I ducked. When I dared to look again, the passageway was gone. No flames. No Andi. Fragments floated through the air. People screamed and yelled, but the sounds were slow and far away. A gradual thudding beat over every other sound. My fists throbbed. My chest ached. My throat burned. She wouldn’t have even been in that passage if she hadn’t been searching for me.

My hearing came back all at once, like time had stopped the moment she died and then finally started up again. It was loud. Too loud.

But I was the one screaming, yelling, pounding on the glass.

I open my eyes. My ears fill with a high-pitched, brain-splitting ring. Red lights flash around me. I pull myself up, holding onto the pod bay door.

Outside the window, the view is impossible. Debris, torn metal, space. Open space. The entire bay blown to fragments. Pods gone. Nothing left. Nothing to recover.

Weslie.

I’m peeled off the door. Multiple sets of hands pass me down the hall.

It’s not possible. Not again. The destruction. It’s a memory. That’s all. I have to look again. See the pod bay locked, but still intact. Weslie stuck on the other side. I’m pushed from one porter to another down the hall, fighting and throwing them off. Running back, I slam into the small window. Only managing a glimpse before the porters, shouting directions I can’t hear, drag me away. But I didn’t imagine it. The bay is gone.

I’m shoved back down the hall, passed along until the final porter takes me by the shoulders. “Are you hurt?” He checks me over.

I shake my head slowly. Maybe Wes wasn’t there.

“Looks like you’re uninjured,” the porter says.

I stare back down the hall at the sealed door. Maybe she changed her mind. She could be in the library or the gym. Maybe she was locked out, too.

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