Once

by Anna Carey

Page 31

  “I have a present for you,” I said, unable to stop from smiling. I kneeled down and unzipped my boot, handing the roll of papers to him.

  Jo helped Curtis spread them out on the floor. “Are these what I think they are?” she asked, flipping through the pages.

  “Where did you find them?” Curtis pulled one from the bottom of the stack, tracing his fingers over the sketches. He glanced sideways at Jo, his face breaking into a smile. He covered his mouth as if trying to hide it. “I don’t believe this. ”

  “I think what you mean to say is ‘Thank you,’” I corrected. Harper let out a little laugh and winked at me in approval.

  “That’s where the collapse is,” Jo whispered, pointing to a spot on the map. She moved her finger across to the other side. “We need to access this tunnel to the east. All this time we’ve been thinking we should keep digging north. ”

  A pot was boiling on a hot plate next to the refrigerator, the steam filling the air with a strong, spicy scent. Harper moved around the makeshift kitchen, taking another jug and emptying it into glasses for Caleb and me. “You did good,” he whispered, handing me one.

  “Eve stole them from Charles Harris’s office,” Caleb added, as if that provided some greater understanding.

  Even Jo laughed. “The Charles Harris? The King’s Head of Development?”

  I nodded, taking a sip of the drink. It tasted similar to the beer they made in Califia. “I brought them to you as soon as I could. ” I stared at Curtis, waiting for him to respond—to say thank you, to apologize, anything—but he kept his eyes on the papers, studying the new route. It was a long while before he even looked up.

  We were all watching him. He glanced around the room and shrugged. “You’re the King’s daughter,” he said, adjusting his glasses on his nose. “What do you expect?”

  Jo looked up at me, her eyes rimmed with thick black eyeliner. “We made a mistake. ” She glanced sideways at Curtis. “It’s hard to know who to trust. We just lost some of our own because of leaked information. ”

  Harper sat down beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “That’s their code for ‘sorry,’” he whispered. He took another swig of his drink.

  “With the new plans, it can’t be more than a week off,” Caleb offered. He kneeled down beside Curtis and traced the distance to the wall. “I’ve already alerted Moss to let him know that construction will move forward tomorrow. He’s contacting the Trail. ”

  “I can get thirty workers by the afternoon,” Jo said, looking at her watch. Her blond dreadlocks were tied back with a strip of red fabric. “I’ll get the contacts coming off the night shifts. ”

  “Curtis, I’ll trust you to run construction while I’m at the other site tomorrow morning,” Caleb added. Curtis rolled up the papers and tucked them in his knapsack. He nodded, his eyes moving from Caleb to me.

  “Which means,” Harper said, jumping up from the mattress, “instead of commiserating, we should be celebrating. ” He went over to a stereo on the dresser and popped in a disc like the ones I’d seen at School. The room filled with low music, a silly song with a man speaking the lyrics. He did the mash, it played. He did the Monster Mash. The Monster Mash. It was a graveyard smash!

  Caleb laughed. “What is this, Harper?” he asked.

  Harper kicked a few crumpled shirts out of the way to clear a dance floor. “This is the only CD I have that works. Halloween songs or not, it’s still music. ”

  Harper spun around, his beer sloshing in the glass as he pulled Jo along in his wake. She sidestepped some crumpled newspapers, laughing the whole way. I sat on the mattress, watching as Caleb joined in, halfheartedly shaking his hips, to Harper’s delight. “Woohoo!” Harper yelled. “Atta boy!”

  It took me a moment to realize Curtis had sat down beside me. “I doubted you,” he said, so low I could barely hear it over the music. “We’ve been working on that tunnel for the last three months and because of you, we just might finish. ” He offered his hand. “You’re one of us now. ”

  I took it in my own. “I always was,” I said. “The King may be my father, but I’ve been in the wild, the Schools. I know what he’s done. ”

  The music filled the small room. Curtis was quiet for a moment, considering what I’d said. “It just takes me a long time to trust someone. Most people in the Outlands don’t even know my real name. ”

  “Enough of your yapping!” Harper interrupted us. He grabbed my arm, pulling me up from the floor. He twirled me once, quickly, his limbs loose from all the beer. “Let’s enjoy ourselves for one night. Come on, Curtis—on your feet, man! Otherwise I’ll do it—I will,” he threatened, grabbing the straps of his robe, ready to open it.

  Curtis held up his hands in surrender. He joined in, shuffling awkwardly around the cramped room. Caleb took my hand, spun me around, and dipped me so fast my stomach felt light. His green eyes met mine, our faces just inches apart as we stayed there for a second, listening to the silly chorus.

  He leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

  He smiled at me, the same smile I’d seen so many times before. I loved every part of him. The smell of his skin, the scar on his cheek, the feel of his fingers pressing into my back. The way he could tell what I was thinking just by looking at me.

  “Yes,” I said finally, my skin hot beneath his hand. “I thought you’d never ask. ”

  twenty-six

  CALEB’S HANDS WERE COVERING MY EYES, HIS PALMS SWEATY against my skin. I held onto his wrists, loving the way his arms felt around me, his feet on either side of mine, his steps guiding me forward. We were inside, that much I could tell, but I didn’t know where. “Now?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low. “Not yet,” he whispered in my ear. I shuffled along in darkness.

  Soon, he stopped, turning me to the right. Then he dropped his hands. “All right,” he whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Now you can look. ”

  I opened my eyes. We were in another airplane hangar, much bigger than the one where the tunnel entrance was hidden. Airplanes sat in rows, some large, some smaller, all lit up by the moonlight streaming in through the hangar’s windows. “This is where you’ve been living?” I asked, looking at the plane above us.

  He grabbed a metal staircase and dragged it over, its rusted wheels squeaking and groaning with each turn. “Harper found it for me—he thinks I’ll be safer here. It’s on the other side of the airport from where we were yesterday. ” He gestured at the steps. “After you. ”

  I started up the metal stairs, dwarfed by the plane. It was so much bigger when you stood right beside it, with wings ten people could lie across. I remembered the day we’d read about a plane crash in Lord of the Flies. Teacher Agnes had told us about the planes that flew over oceans and continents, how crashes were rare but deadly. We’d made her tell us everything—about the “flight attendants” who rolled carts down the aisles, serving drinks and miniature meals, about the televisions nestled in the back of each seat. That afternoon Pip and I had lain on the grass, staring up at the sky, wondering what it was like to touch the clouds.