The Last Hope

by Krista Ritchie

  The mainwater is far in the distance. I only spy glimmering glass buildings that tower in the night, and electric lanterns swinging on the bows of ships. Casting a glow along gentler sea.

  Tomorrow, we’ll go farther into the city, but for now, we’re staying among the unruly waves. Hopefully the ocean drowns Gem’s wails and no one from the city can hear.

  We’re trying to blend in and be invisible. Not stand out and be questioned by the country’s Patrol.

  Please, no one find us.

  Please let us be safe through the night.

  Please.

  I shake, trying to forget the violent waters and being swept below. Tumbling with no control. Choking on briny sea. My throat is scratched raw.

  “Squeeze my hand,” Padgett coaches her sister, their voices carrying. Walls block my view of them.

  We’ve all split up in the driest parts of the house. Deeper inside, Court is with Gem. He’s been using a piece of steel that Padgett found washed up inside the dilapidated house. The metal is heated with an industrial lighter that Stork brought.

  He also packed a small supply of painkillers in a med kit, but the medicine doesn’t rid all the pain. I most definitely know this.

  My back is stinging madly. Like I’ve tripped on ice a thousand-and-one times. Away from most everybody, I’m tucked in a small alcove. What I imagine could’ve been a fancy wardrobe closet. With rich garments full of oceanic splendor. The picture almost makes me smile.

  I’m not all alone.

  With antiseptic and cotton balls, Stork lightly dabs at the cuts that rake down my back, from shoulder blades to hips. I sit between his legs in the tiny space.

  Moonlight from Rosaline brightens our surroundings, and I often look up at the starlit black night.

  Cloudless.

  Smokeless.

  A beauty made to revel in, but pain flares and I forget to be grateful for the sight.

  Court hasn’t had the chance to check on me yet. I all but shoved him toward Gem. She needs him more. My wounds feel shallow.

  Mykal wanted to be here beside me, but it’s better if he’s farther away. It’ll save him from experiencing the pain, and if he’s closer to Court, it’ll help keep them both agony-free. That way Gem has Court’s complete focus.

  Zimmer just left me a moment ago to wash bloodstains out of my ripped shirt. We didn’t bring a change of clothes. Even torn to shreds, I can fashion the fabric into a top, but the blood would catch unwanted attention.

  Before he left, he held my cheeks and he said, “You’re alive.”

  I’m alive. I managed a tearful smile. Not dying is a feat that I’ve come to appreciate.

  The memory drifts with the slap of a wave. Mist showering me and salting my skin. I’m alive, I repeat over and over to keep fear at bay.

  Stork wipes a biting slash near my hip. I wince into my kneecap and hold my legs closer to my breasts.

  “Sorry, dove. I’m almost done.” Still behind me, he gently strokes hair off the nape of my neck, his fingers trailing down my collar.

  That feels good.

  He repeats the soothing motion, and I find myself tilting my head. Allowing Stork more access to the soft flesh of my neck. He draws a feather-light line across my collarbone and then slowly … so … so slowly down the length of my arm.

  Until his fingers brush over my fingers that are death-clutching my legs.

  “Are you scared or are you in pain?” Stork breathes, just barely audible over the crashing waves.

  The question takes me aback. I’ve been with Court and Mykal for such a long time now. Boys who can feel what I feel. They jump to the whys first. Why am I afraid? Why am I in pain?

  I forgot what it’s like being around someone who doesn’t know my emotions for certain. “Mostly, I’m scared,” I admit, my voice raspy from gurgling salt water. “And I really don’t want to be.”

  I’ve never felt more like a chump.

  My cheeks burn, and before he speaks, I ask quickly, “What does the tattoo on my shoulder look like now?” I’ve tried to crane my neck behind me, but I can’t see the ink.

  “Half of a…” He sucks in a breath. “A squirrel?”

  My lips lift. “It’s an ugly fox,” I correct. “Is that all?” I’m about to peer over again, but he answers fast.

  “Yeah, your ink next to the fox will be a scar.” A gash must’ve run through the tattoo of Mal’s tree.

  I smile wider, thank the gods.

  Stork shifts and catches sight of my smile. “Least favorite tattoo?” he wonders.

  “Something like that.” I tell him the story about the Fast-Tracker tattooist who wanted our toes, more forthcoming about my life. By the time I finish, he has stood up and then sat back down. Facing me.

  Same snow-white hair, no new piercings, Stork just kept his sapphire earring for his Fast-Tracker disguise. It’s odd seeing him out of Earthen clothes, and the Fast-Tracker garb in Montbay is a washed ashore after a shipwreck look—but he wears frayed shorts with no signs of discomfort.

  His legs are parted again, and I fit between them. Not much room, his knees are bent on either side of my build.

  My breath hitches, nerves flapping. Especially alone in the night. But I’m more used to his limbs brushing my limbs now since he’d been sharing a bed with me and Zimmer for a month. And I try not to think about the morning I was nestled in his arms. Unintentionally. That was a little more than our limbs brushing.

  I keep my arms wrapped around myself and listen to the smack of sea against stone behind me. Sometimes I envision the water arching over the wall and drowning us, but I’ve already been under.

  I know the taste of an ocean, the feeling of water rushing down my lungs. I know what it’s like to be dragged so deep beneath that the world around me darkens.

  Knowing what drowning and near-dying feels like should bring me comfort. There’s less unknown in the sea. But I’m unsure if I could survive again.

  The waves crash—I flinch.

  Stork watches me, no smirk or mocking brow arch. His amusement is in short supply tonight.

  “Have you ever been scared?” I ask him. I try to envision something Stork could be afraid of, but I come up blank.

  “Once.” He pats at his waist where he’d usually find a flask. His pockets are empty. Ridges of his lean muscles peek through his tattered shirt, his skin clammy. Sweat soaks the armpits, and his face is pallid.

  He’s stopped drinking. A girl in my orphanage went through withdrawal, and she had awful sweats like him.

  I can’t tell if he’s quit purposefully or not. “Are you looking for your flask?”

  “Reflex.” He forces a half-smile. “I didn’t bring it with me.”

  Strange. I thought I saw his flask in the bag. We brought the lightest piece of luggage with us, and Stork and Court were in charge of packing necessities. So if it wasn’t Stork, then Court must’ve brought the flask.

  I try not to question why he would. He thinks so far ahead. I’m sure he has his reasons. Maybe he knew Stork would grow ill without it.

  “Why didn’t you want to pack it?” I ask.

  “I don’t need it.”

  My brows jump. “You haven’t gone without a sip since I met you.”

  He laughs. “That’s true. Terrible, but true.” He sighs out the laugh. “But this mission, it’s more important than my pain.” He flashes a brinier smile.

  His pain. So he is numbing something.

  “It’s not physical pain, is it?” I ask. He’s been in mourning, but I still don’t fully understand what that feels like or means.

  He takes a moment to think as though considering what he should or can tell me. He balances his elbow on his knee, in a position where he could so easily reach out and wrap his arms around my frame.

  Yet I’m balled up, and he’s hesitant. Space and history separating us.

  “I thought it’d stop hurting.” He laughs lightly, eyes reddening, and with a deeper breath, he tells me, “The a
dmirals. They weren’t just my superiors.” His gaze lifts to mine. “They raised me.”

  My mouth slowly falls open.

  He’s laughing again. “And I don’t know why I’m telling you. It makes no bloody difference. You can’t possibly understand. You lost the person who raised you and you were happy.” He edges back and kneels, about to push himself to a stance.

  “That’s not fair,” I spit back.

  I may not have mourned my mom—I may have known the exact day when she’d die so I wouldn’t be sad—but I still miss her. And I can imagine losing Mykal or Court and crumbling beneath the weight of their absence.

  Even thinking about their death is a punishment I can’t bear. He says I can’t possibly understand, but I can try to.

  Stork pauses on one knee. “Nothing in life has ever been fair. You were raised on a planet that treats death like a celebration. I was raised on one that treats death like despair. The funny thing is, right now, I can’t tell you which is worse.” He lifts his brows at me.

  “I’m sorry you lost your parents,” I say, a knot in my scratchy throat. “I really am, and I know my words probably mean so little, but I feel terrible that I had a hand in their deaths.”

  I owe them.

  I owe them so much more than I can give.

  He takes a seat again, but he holds his legs like me, only with a looser clutch. “They weren’t my parents.”

  I frown. “They raised you—”

  “They never called me their son.”

  I bristle, eyes narrowing.

  He shakes his head at the sign of my protective glare. “Don’t hate them.” He’s told me that handfuls of times. Don’t hate them. “And the trade wasn’t your choice.”

  But they still died to free us from the brig.

  All this time, Stork has been around Court, Mykal, and me knowing that we’re the very reason the people who raised him are gone. They could’ve been alive instead of us.

  I’m sure he wishes that.

  Stork eyes my nose and lip piercings and the green-and-blue strands of my hair. His smile gradually rises. “It fits you—”

  I startle at a rough wave, rumbling the stone beneath us. And I huff at myself, mad that I startled in the first place.

  “I wish I had a way to help you,” Stork says. “So you can be unafraid.”

  To be unafraid of death. I thought I had mastered that. But then I learned I was human. Then I learned about lifebloods. It feels almost like an insurmountable fear now. And more than anything, I hate that my death won’t be kind.

  If I die, I tear out a piece of Court’s soul. Of Mykal’s soul.

  “Sometimes I think I’ll always fear, even if it’s just a little bit,” I tell Stork. “And I’ll just have to figure out how to focus on what makes me less scared. But it’s hard here.”

  “When you’re on a planet where everyone wants to kill you, yeah, I wonder why?” He flashes a smile that settles my pulse.

  I hear Gem screaming louder, and the swish-swash of the sea silences her sobbing, and this time, I’m grateful for the rush of the waves.

  Stork is quiet again, and I wonder if he knows what I’m about to ask.

  We’ve made it to Saltare-1. He has to tell me about Earth. He promised. And after talking to Nia before we left and hearing how she was born on the Lucretzia, a disparaging thought has hounded my mind.

  And so finally I ask, “Is Earth gone?”

  His forehead crinkles with the spike of his brows. “We’re on an op to protect Earth. If there was no Earth, why would we be here?”

  “For laughs.”

  He actually laughs, light sparkling his eyes. “Bloody hell, I want to live in your head.”

  “I’m not a chump,” I defend hotly.

  He smiles more. “It wasn’t a slight.”

  I simmer down. My arms slacken around my legs. “What about Earth then?”

  Stork frowns up at the stars, thinking for a long while. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”

  I have so many questions about the planet. All we’ve learned about has been an Earth from the past, and the Earth of 3525 could be so different.

  A question barrels in front of all the others. Are there trees on Earth? I mean to ask for Mykal, and I open my mouth and I waver uneasily.

  If Stork says no, then I’d crush Mykal’s spirits for the rest of the mission. I can’t do that.

  I find another one. “Are there cars?” I wonder.

  He cocks his head. “For you to drive?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’d like to drive a human car.”

  He looks me down and up, as though picturing me driving a human car. Thankfully he doesn’t laugh like it’s silly. He’s smiling. “I want to see that.”

  “So there are?”

  “No and yes; they’re not cars like from Saltare-3.” He explains, “Your cars are on the ground. Cars on Earth are in the air.”

  “Flying cars?” I like the sound of that.

  He eyes my rising lips. “We call them aerovans. And there aren’t many of them.” He pauses and grimaces. “There aren’t many…” He rubs his forehead. Struggling. His face contorts in a series of tormented emotions.

  “It’s all right.”

  He lets out a signature brisk laugh that fades solemnly. “No, it’s not.” His throat bobs. “… there aren’t many people left.”

  I listen closely.

  “Earth has gone through six World Wars, three Armageddons, including famine and pestilence. Seven catastrophic natural disasters and four interstellar conflicts. Humans have suffered, but they’ve endured.”

  I try to picture Earth and I see a desolate war-torn wasteland. “How many people are there?”

  “There used to be billions of humans in the world.” Stork searches the stone walls like he can find liquor, but he continues on without a drink. “Now, there are only two thousand left. One thousand are currently registered in the fleet and another thousand are still on Earth. That’s it.”

  I’m stunned cold.

  Two thousand people.

  There were more than two thousand on the Romulus alone.

  There were a little under two thousand just at the start of StarDust.

  Two thousand people.

  The whole human race.

  “Are you sure that’s it?” I ask.

  “Unfortunately, yeah.” He nods. “Some have sought refuge on other planets, but those are few. Maybe another hundred, if that.”

  Two thousand lives. A people who are uncertain of death. Who weep over the ones they love and selflessly sacrifice all they are for all their people are.

  “So it’s even more important,” I realize. “To save Earth.”

  He gapes, wordless for a moment. “I thought … I thought you’d see it the other way. So did the admirals.” He frowns deeper. “There aren’t a lot of people left. Easier to just throw your hands up and let Saltarians take Earth and watch the human race die out. That’s what Court would do.”

  “You underestimate him,” I say out of defense, but I share Court’s emotions, and I do know there is a cold part of him that could prove Stork right.

  Stork thinks this over. “Maybe…”

  “Does Earth have oceans?” I wonder.

  “Just one,” he tells me. “There used to be more. But waters rose and the islands and landmasses started sinking underneath. Now there’s just a single continent: Gaia. One land. One ocean. One people.”

  It sounds more unified than Saltarians, who’ve divided themselves upon five different planets. “What else?” I ask.

  He thinks for a second before speaking. “Our armor and clothing—the tunics and linen skirts,” he explains. “Humans didn’t always wear them. There was a time when our style was a lot like the Saltarians’. Pants and boots and even heavy armored vests for war. But when Saltarians were banished from Earth, humans tried to cling to the things that reminded them of the times before. So they began to adopt styles from the ancient eras, and after more c
enturies, it evolved and stuck.”

  I try to imagine humans from the Lucretzia in ripped shorts. It’s a fuzzy picture, but I do have a good view of Stork in a pair.

  We drift closer, knees knocking together. “Do you think I’ll like it? Earth?” I ask.

  “I hope so.” His words are filled with a tender conviction, and I almost don’t hear them over the growing waves.

  Our eyes latch. Heat blossoms everywhere, but neither of us looks away. I take the opportunity to trace the lines of his jaw and the sculpted arc of his nose. Light bathes him like the moon knows he’s beautiful. But even more than that, he’s bared more for me than I ever thought he would.

  In his vulnerability, I feel compelled toward him. He has an unflinching responsibility and a heavy burden that he can’t share with anyone.

  We’re not lifebloods.

  We’re not linked.

  But I’ve begun to empathize with his impossible situation. Head and heart scream at me to run in his direction, even when I try and stumble away.

  He leans forward, just enough that our knees thread and his hand rises up to brush a flyaway hair behind my ear.

  An unnamed sentiment swells so big inside of me, and when he turns to look at me, it’s as if our lips find each other before our eyes do.

  His mouth deepens the blazing kiss, and his hand cups my cheek.

  Inhibitions releasing, my hands roam.

  Three off-kilter pulses thump my veins, and I try not to waver. I’m not hurting Court or Mykal, I remind myself, but Stork pauses as I hesitate.

  “Is this okay for you?” he whispers.

  Yes. Gods, yes. But why is it so hard to give him the satisfaction and make my emotions plain and clear? Maybe because it’s taken me this long to admit them …

  “I want you … I mean I want to,” I murmur. I’m messing this up.

  “Franny,” he whispers against my lips. “I want you too.” His soft lips press back to mine. I breathe into the kiss like I’m ripping through restraints, only feeling my body against his body and this emotion—gods, this emotion—that explodes with every thump, thump, thump of my heart.