Page 44 of The Last Hope
Mykal and Court go quiet, but their heads whip around. Concern cramps their limbs, but I start to concentrate elsewhere and their senses drift further and further away. Becoming faint.
I’m staring at silver-laced open-toed footwear, up higher to a pair of muscular thighs that peek beneath a leather skirt. Blondish hairs on chalky skin.
Stop looking.
Higher, against better judgment, I ogle the leather strap across an armor-less chest. A sword sheathed across a broad back and a leather band twisted along a chiseled bicep, spiraling down a strong forearm.
I lived my Fast-Tracker life with simple pleasures: the laughs of a few long-gone friends, the rush and high of drugs, the heat of tangling up in limbs, the rumble while behind a Purple Coach wheel, and the marvelous tales that my mom whispered at night.
I was told I could not attend school.
I could not be a person of influence.
I could not become old.
But I basked in the grandeur of stories. All sorts of whimsical tales. I don’t believe fairy tales are real. They live in the air after they’re told from ear to ear and on pages in old Influential storybooks.
My mom spoke of knights and queens.So regal,she said,they stand tall and proud, my little Franny.She’d brush my nose with her nose. I smiled as she whispered,All the people in the faraway lands revere the queen and her knights.
Why?I asked.
Because they’re good and just.
I can’t say the body I bumped into is good or just, but hisposture is straight with purpose and pride. Stork Kickfall refuses to budge and let me through, a black leather satchel in his left hand and a squared bottle of amber liquor in his right.
I arch a brow at him, but a sweat breaks beneath my armpits. Since I barely sense Court or Mykal, this has to be real sweat building.My sweat.
Why am I hot? I try to subtly waft my putrid-smelling StarDust shirt.
All I know for sure is that I’m far from afraid, and I wish my eyes would stop traveling all around Stork and his knightly body—gods,I wish I wouldn’t call him knightly. My mom would be mortified. Namely if she found out he wasn’t good-hearted.
Hopefully her spirit has better things to do than watch me tumble face-first through the extra life I’ve been granted.
His pink lips hike up. My roaming gaze has triggered his amusement.
I simmer. Mad at myself, at first.
Curiosity glitters in his blue eyes. He dips his head, his breath warming my cheek. “My advice,” he tells me, “if you want to go on a scavenger hunt around the ship, bring a map. There are people who’ve lived here for five years, and they still get lost belowdecks.”
“Perfect,” I say in my finest Influential voice. “I’d like a map, please.” I outstretch a palm. “And thank you.” I expect a warty roll of the eyes. Like Court would do.
But he’s certainly not Court.
And he certainly doesn’t care whether I’m proper or not.
Stork smiles with a curt laugh. As though I’m an amusingchild.He raises the bag and bottle. “My hands are full, dove. Perhaps later.” We lock eyes.
For a long beat.
He asks, “Are you moving?”
I’d much rather annoy him than entertain any of his irritating desires. But I also have plans of my own. Lofty plans that I refuse to botch. Like prying my way toward more answers.
I cross my arms. “Will you make me move?”
“Like I said before, my hands are full.”
“If they weren’t?”
