Once (16 page)

I climbed onto the bench beside him, wrapping my arms around his neck, our tangled bodies hidden beneath the bridge. His head fell back as I kissed him, the warmth of his tongue spurring me on. I nodded yes, guiding his fingers to my waist as he untucked my shirt. His cold hands pressed against my stomach, the touch stealing the breath from my body.

The boat floated on in the cool, dark tunnel. Water lapped at the bottom of the stone bridge. His hands wandered over my back as he pulled me closer to him, pressing his chest to mine. I rested my chin on his shoulder. He was saying something, each word muffled. I couldn't make it out until his mouth was right next to my ear, his lips tickling my skin. “I don't care what happens, Eve,” he repeated. “This isn't something I can just walk away from. Not this time. I won't.”

I stared at him, our noses nearly touching. I brought my hands to his face, wishing the City was deserted, that there were no soldiers patrolling the City center, no footsteps above us on the bridge, that we could drift into the open canal, his arms wrapped around me. “I know,” I whispered, kissing him softly as we glided toward the end of the tunnel. “Nothing matters more than this.”

I settled back down in my seat. He took his position on the stern, the five feet between us seeming so much further now. I pulled my cap back on as the light hit me. Slowly, the gondola drifted out of the dark, the oar dipping below the still surface of the canal.

“Can we go to the tunnels?” I asked, when we were far enough away from the bridge that no one could hear us. “I want to see where you've been spending your time, who all these people are.”

Two soldiers strode by, their guns slung across their backs. Caleb pulled his cap down over his eyes. He grabbed the oar, pushing us farther out into the water. We were both quiet until they passed. “We can go there tonight,” he said softly. “Meet me in the gardens after we dock. But first I have to tell you something.” He rested his knee on the narrow bench in front of him, studying me. He smiled, his eyes so bright they looked like they were lit from within.

The boat pulled up beside the stone stairs. Caleb glanced at the cluster of people still lingering by the edge of the bridge, enjoying the last thirty minutes before curfew.

“I've fallen in love with you,” he whispered, kneeling to kiss the top of my hand. He stayed there for a moment, smiling up at me, before helping me from the boat.

I started up the stone steps, every inch of me humming with a new energy. I wanted to scream it then—
I love you I love you I love you
—to grab his hand and run away from the Palace, these people, that bridge.

“Good night, Miss,” he said loudly, as though I were any other stranger. “I hope you enjoyed your evening.”

The woman who had greeted me was still standing beneath the overhang. I walked toward her, but not before turning back, my eyes wet. “I love you, too,” I mouthed. It didn't seem stupid, or foolish, or wrong. I'd said something I'd always known, the admission sending me into the happiest, irreversible free fall.

His face broke into a smile. He studied me, not taking his eyes off mine, as he pushed off the dock and glided away.

IT TOOK NEARLY A HALF HOUR TO REACH THE AIRPLANE
hangar. Caleb cut across the Outlands, through old neighborhoods waiting to be restored, the houses sitting with windows broken, sand piled up in their doorways. I trailed thirty feet behind him, keeping my head down, disappearing in the clusters of people rushing home to make curfew.

As I walked I replayed that moment: his eyes looking up at me, the whispered words only I could hear. I carried it inside me now, nestled somewhere inside my heart, a small, silent thing that we alone shared.

Finally the land opened up before us. Rusted, abandoned planes sat on the pavement. Metal carts were strewn everywhere, some empty and bent, others piled with suitcases and crumpled, sun-scorched clothing. A metal sign above the building read
McCARRAN AIRPORT
.

Caleb hooked a right. I followed him across the sandy parking lot, turning back every now and then to check for soldiers. The airport was empty. A few faded playing cards blew past, somersaulting in the wind. He disappeared into a long stone building and I followed behind, waiting a few minutes before going in.

Inside, the shadowy planes towered above me,
AMERICAN AIRLINES
printed on their sides in red and blue letters. I'd only seen planes in children's books before, had heard the Teachers reference the flights that went from one coast to the other. “
Pssst
,” Caleb's voice called out from the darkness. He was hiding behind a short metal staircase on wheels. I went to him. Keeping close to the wall, we started toward the back of the hangar, his arm around my shoulder.

“So this is where you come every day …,” I said, looking up at the massive planes, over a hundred and fifty feet long. Their metal wings were lined with rust, the white paint bubbling up in places.

“Some days. The construction is on hold now, but a week ago there were nearly fifty people here each morning.” We walked toward a door on the back wall. “Citizens come from all across the Outlands to take shifts, on top of the work they're expected to do in the City center. The regime has been running demolition a half mile east of here. During the day it's so loud you can barely hear yourself think, but it covers up the drilling or hammering sounds.”

Caleb knocked five times on the door. A man with a full beard stuck his head out, a red bandana tied around his head. Sweat soaked the front of his T-shirt. “Aren't you supposed to have a hot date tonight?” he asked. Then he noticed me standing behind Caleb and a smile curled on his lips. “Ahhhhh … you must be the lovely Eve!” He made a big spectacle of bowing, dropping one hand to the floor.

“What a welcome,” I said, bowing back. He hadn't called me Genevieve, and I immediately loved him for it.

“This is Harper,” Caleb said. “He's been overseeing the dig while I've been at other sites.”

Harper opened the door just enough for us to squeeze in. Lanterns lit the small room. Two others, a man and a woman in their thirties, stood at a table, hovering over a large sheet of paper. They looked up when I came in, their eyes cold.

“I haven't been outside since one o'clock,” Harper went on. He was a shorter man with a gut that hung over his belt, his gray T-shirt two sizes too small. “Can you see the stars tonight? The moon?” His light gray eyes darted from Caleb to me.

“I didn't look up,” I said, a little apologetically. I'd been too focused on keeping my eyes hidden, the cap pulled down over my forehead.

Harper wiped the sweat from his brow. “She didn't look up!” he teased. “The one thing that's hard about this City is the lights. Makes it difficult to see the constellations. You can get a good view from the Outlands though.”

“Harper can tell direction by the stars. That's how he got to the City originally,” Caleb put in. He rested his hand on my back as he spoke, his thumb grazing my spine. “What's that thing you always say, old man?”

Harper threw his head back and laughed. “Old man yourself,” he grumbled, landing his fist into Caleb's arm. Then he looked at me, pointing at the ceiling for emphasis. “There are millions of stars, each one shining and burning out at the same time. They die like everything else—you have to appreciate them before they're gone.”

“I won't forget,” I said.

The wide office was empty except for the table and a stack of boxes. A hole nearly three feet across gaped open in the floor. I stood there, waiting for the other two to speak, but they were still perched over the paper, their faces half-lit by the lanterns. “No progress with the collapse?” Caleb asked them.

The man was tall and thin with cracked glasses. He wore the same uniform shirt as I did, except the sleeves had been ripped off. He shook his head. “I told you, I'm not discussing this in front of her.”

Caleb opened his mouth to say something but I interrupted. “I have a name,” I said, surprised at the sound of my own voice. The man kept his eyes on the paper, studying sketches of different buildings throughout the City, notes scribbled next to them in blue ink.

“We are all well aware,” the woman said, glaring at me. Her blond hair was rolled into thin dreadlocks, her pants spotted with mud. “You're Princess Genevieve.”

“That's not fair,” Caleb jumped in. “I told you, you can trust her. She's no more the King's family than I am.” My stomach tensed as I remembered this afternoon. I hadn't pulled away when he'd hugged me, had felt close to him when we'd spoken of my mother. A sinking part of me wondered if maybe I
was
guilty of something.

The couple returned to the sketches. “Give 'em time,” Harper whispered, patting Caleb on the back. Then he looked at me. “If Caleb says I can trust you, then I trust you. I don't need any more proof.”

“I appreciate that,” Caleb said, grasping Harper's arm. “Harper was the one who started building the tunnels out of the City. He realized we could use the flood channels as a starting point. Parts of them have collapsed or are too unstable, mostly from all the King's demolitions. We're constantly digging through rubble, or finding parts of them blocked off. We've nearly gotten under the wall on this one, but then we hit a whole section that had collapsed.”

Harper hiked up his belt. “It's too dense to dig through. We need to figure out an alternate route through the flood channels. Without maps of the drainage system we're just feeling our way in the dark.”

“This is the entrance to the first tunnel,” Caleb said, gesturing to the hole. Behind us, the couple hovered over their work. “We try to keep the hangar the way it was when we found it, just in case any troops come through. The rubble is taken out at the end of the night, a little at a time, and then the construction starts again the next evening—or at least it used to.”

“Where are the other two tunnels being built?” I asked. “Who's working on those?” The man and woman raised their heads at the sound of my voice.

“Please don't answer that,” the man said, his voice flat. He smoothed down the paper with both hands.

Every muscle in my body tensed. “You know I was an orphan,” I said. “Up until a few days ago, I believed both my parents were dead. I'm not some spy. I have friends who are still locked up in those Schools—”

“You sat in that parade, didn't you?” the man with the cracked glasses interrupted. I could see my shadow in his lenses, a black figure against orange lantern light. “Were you not on that stage, in front of all the City's residents, that stupid grin on your face? Tell me that wasn't you.”

Caleb stepped forward, raising his hand to shield me from the man's accusations. “Enough, Curtis. We're not going into this again, not now.”

But I ducked under his arm, unable to stop myself. “You don't know me,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I leveled my finger at his face. “Have you been in the Schools? Please, since you seem to know so much, tell me what it's like there.” The man stepped back, but his eyes were still locked on mine, refusing to look away.

We could have stayed like that for hours, staring each other down, but Caleb took my arm, pulling me away. “Let's get out of here,” he whispered. He gave Harper a little half salute, and then we were back in the hangar, the door clicking shut behind us. “I shouldn't have brought you here. Curtis and Jo have been good to me since I've arrived—they were the ones who found me a place to stay, who backed me when the others were unsure about letting me lead the digs. They're not usually like that. They've just seen what can happen to dissidents who are discovered.”

“I hate the way they looked at me,” I muttered. We moved through the silent warehouse, under the rusted bellies of planes.

When we reached the door Caleb stopped, resting his palm on the side of my face. “I know,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine. “I'm sorry. They may never completely trust you. But I do—that's what matters.”

We stayed there for a moment, his breath warming my skin, his thumb grazing my cheek. “I know” was all I could manage. The tears were hot in my eyes. Here we were, miles from the dugout, from Califia, and there was still no place for us. We were bouncing between worlds, he in mine, I in his, but we'd never be able to truly be together in either one.

Caleb looked down at his watch, its glass face split in two. “You can take the second street parallel to the main strip. Turn through the old Hawaiian marketplace to get back. It's empty at this time of night.” He looked into my eyes. “Don't worry, Eve,” he added. “Please don't worry about them. I'll see you tomorrow night.”

I pressed my lips to his, feeling his fingertips against my skin. I held them there, wanting the awful, uneasy feeling to subside, wishing we could be back on the dock, those three words floating between us. “Tomorrow night,” I repeated as Caleb slipped another folded map into my pocket. He kissed me good-bye—my fingers, my hands, my cheeks and brow. I stayed there for just a moment. The rest of the world seemed far away.

But when I started across the City, alone but for the sound of my footsteps, Curtis and Jo's words returned. I found myself arguing my case to an imaginary room, explaining away my place in the Palace—something even I wasn't completely certain of. It wasn't until I passed the wide fountain, its surface glassy and still, that I thought of Charles. I saw his face in the conservatory that afternoon as he pointed to the glass dome, describing all his plans for the restoration.