If I Fall (8 page)

He spreads his arms, placating. “I was stalking you, of course. What about you?” he asks. “A bit of late night stargazing?”

I cross my arms. “Why are you
really
out here?”

He raises a finger, wiggling it back and forth as he says, “Ah, ah, ah. I answer a question when you answer a question. Why were you
really
in the cargo room?”

My lips are sealed; no more secrets shall pass them. I do not answer. I stare into his eyes, waiting for something to betray him—a flinch, a wink—but I see nothing there but amusement and curiosity.

He groans as he looks to the sky, squeezing his eyes shut. “Why must you be so aggravating?”

“I should ask you the same question,” I mumble.

“Well,” he says, ignoring me, “since I am above begging, I will leave the subject alone for now.” As he speaks, he walks languidly—closer and closer to where I stand until he is only a foot away.

He looks at me and then at the stars. Turning around, he gazes, seemingly transfixed, at the sky before he circles back to his starting point and looks down at me.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

His words take me by surprise. “What do you mean you do not understand?”

He sighs as though speaking to a child. “I do not understand your fascination with the stars, that’s all. You seemed absolutely mesmerized by them when I was watching you from the bench.”

I pull myself tighter against the rail. “You were watching me?”
How long exactly had he been sitting there?

“Do you not listen? I told you I was stalking you,” he says, another infamous smirk making its way onto that perfectly tan face.

A scowl creases my brow in what I am sure is an extremely unattractive expression. “Well, I must be getting back,” I say. I make to step by him, but he moves faster. My body is thrust back against the bars of the rail and his presses closer. His arms straddle my waist on either side, gripping the bar and butting up against my own hands. I feel the sudden warmth of his proximity and butterflies swarm in my stomach. A wave of annoyance at my reaction mixes with my frustration towards him.

“Please, don’t leave,” he breathes. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Air turns solid in my lungs. I feel those green eyes—so startlingly light—trying to find mine. Looking everywhere but at him, I simply nod. He takes a moment to back away. With a deep breath, I finally lift my gaze.

His back is turned to me now as he walks away, moving towards the bench. He takes off his morning coat and twirls it in his hand. Halfway to the bench, he stops and to my surprise, flops down on his back in the middle of the deck. I stare at him, tilting my head to the side like an inquisitive puppy.

He cranes around to look at me and then lies back down. He loosens his blue tie and unbuttons the top two buttons of his collar. Taking off his top hat, he places it on his stomach and pushes up his sleeves. An arm stretches out and pats the spot beside him. He must be joking! I cannot lie down there! I would be out in the open for anyone to see.

As though reading my mind, he says, “I don’t know why you found it necessary to hide behind that lifeboat. It is the middle of the night. No one will see us.”

Reluctantly, I walk over to where he lies. I stand there, my feet at his waist, and look down at him. He closes his eyes and drums his fingertips on the top of his hat.

“Lie down,” he murmurs.

“B-but it isn’t proper,” I say.

He opens one eye. “It isn’t proper
for a lady.
However, you are no longer a lady, correct?”

“I suppose … but—”

“No ‘buts’. Be a man,” he asserts, patting the space beside him a second time. The superior tone of his voice infuriates me and I sit to prove he is no better than me. I spread out on the deck, unfolding like an accordion, parallel to Mr. Laurence.

I turn my head to the side to see him. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips and I smile, too. Facing forward again, I look at the black expanse above us. It glitters with billions of tiny specks, each one a part of something so much larger than itself. The stunning beauty of it makes me grin.

“Wish upon a star, Vi,” he whispers.

I close my eyes. So many wishes, desires, wants, and needs burn beneath the purple expanse of my eyelids as I concentrate on the image of the blue star I have secluded from the rest. I wish … I wish my family was together again. I wish I could go back to my garden. I wish Father was here to tell me stories and whisper promises of better days. I wish there was no war. No Radicals. No hatred … No Marks.

I wish …

I feel him staring at me and look over. He is watching me, just as I thought. A smile spreads across his face.

“What?” I ask in a shaky laugh.

His grin widens. The green of his eyes penetrates me. I stare harder, noticing the outer ring of blue and the speckles of silver reflected in the moonlight. He turns away, shaking his head as he continues to smile.

I laugh again. “What are you smiling at? Tell me.”

“You really love it, don’t you?” he says. I look away, knowing we are verging on something personal. “Gazing at the stars. In all of our encounters you appear so tense, as though you have a hundred different things on your mind, but when you look at the stars,” he pauses, “your face glows with this unexplainable radiance. It is as though the world just melts away. All of your worries, your fears: gone.”

As he speaks, I cannot help gawking. It is as though someone has crawled inside my mind and is telling me all of the feelings I could never explain. He looks back at me with a timid smile. Our eyes meet, a new connection I hadn’t experienced before.

I clear my throat and break eye contact. “My father and I used to lie in my garden together every night and look at the stars. He told the most wonderful stories about the constellations. We would sit out there for hours, making up stories and listening to each other breathe.” I pause. “It’s odd, isn’t it? How comforting the sound of someone breathing beside you can be?”

He does not speak for a while, as though lost in his own thoughts. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

We lie in silence, listening to each other’s steady breathing. His low voice cuts through the quiet, but this time it is as smooth as velvet, melding into the silence without disturbing it.

“I should like to create a story,” he whispers, almost to himself, before looking over with a devilish grin. “Would you make one up with me?”

He does not wait for an answer, merely jumps into his tale. “It is about a girl and a boy,” he says, “who meet in the most unusual circumstances.” He raises his hand and begins to outline the shapes of a boy and a girl, connecting the stars one by one. The images come to life in my head. The faint outline formed by the stars and Mr. Laurence’s probing finger supply the base as I fill in the finer details with a little imagination.

“What sort of circumstances?” I ask, playing along, though I am sure I already know the ending.

“You see, the girl was a criminal, a thief. She stole a loaf of bread from a crazed storeowner who chased her with a pickaxe!”

I smile. “You have a wild imagination. A pickaxe, honestly?”

“Oh, yes. The largest pickaxe in the world. The girl ran as hard as she could, but the man was gaining on her. She was sure she was going to die when a handsome, intelligent, humorous, brave boy came out of nowhere. Naturally, the boy saved the girl from the crazed pickaxe-wielding storeowner.”

“Naturally,” I murmur.

“The girl and the boy met again on numerous other occasions, but she was a very secretive girl. He began making ridiculous assumptions in his head. Perhaps she is a prostitute, he thought—”

I gasp, appalled. “Of course she’s not!”

Mr. Laurence looks to me with a lopsided smile. “He came to the conclusion that none of his assumptions fit this girl. She was special, he knew that, and he knew that he would do anything to discover her secrets.”

“Anything besides begging,” I say, smirking.

He laughs. “But of course.”

“And how does this story end?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “It is ‘To Be Continued … ‘”

I sit up suddenly and turn to look at him. “No happy ending? You are an awful storyteller.”

With a hand pressed to his chest, he opens his mouth in mock bewilderment as he sits up straight. “Dear me,” he says. “That cuts deep, Vi. My heart may be eternally bruised from such an affront. You cannot possibly judge my abilities when I have not even finished.”

I cross my arms. “Very well. Finish,” I declare.

He crosses his arms, mimicking me, and I hastily drop my arms to my sides. “I cannot finish when I do not yet know the ending,” he says, “though I can assure you the girl will tell the boy all there is to know about her very soon.”

Don’t count on it.

“As for the rest,” he sighs, lying back down and tucking his hands under his head, “well, I suppose it all depends on the fate of the stars.” He winks at me and closes his eyes. I shake my head in bewilderment and laugh. If nothing else, he never fails to surprise me. He is just so aggravatingly impudent and arrogant and … and yet, when I am in his company, it is as though the war and everything else disappears.

I lie back down, feeling the warmth radiating from his fingertips resting only centimeters away from my hand. How easy it would be to just close that space …

A door bangs shut. We are both on our feet within seconds. I whip my head around, my hair flying in my face. My hair! My hat! I am ruined! Two shadowy figures move towards us, swaying and walking clumsily, pawing at one another to keep upright as they giggle.

“Vi!”

I turn. Fear of being discovered sends trembles up and down my body. Goosebumps rise on my arms. Mr. Laurence stands before me, his coat already back on and his tie tightened. A hand reaches out towards me. I take one more glance behind me at the approaching figures and without any more thought, put my pale hand in his tan one. His tight grip shocks me as he pulls me after him.

We run across the deck together, hand in hand, towards a door. Without hesitation, Mr. Laurence steps inside and continues running down the hall. We come to a corner and just as we are about to round it, he turns back against me, pinning my back against the wall. His hand still holds mine; his other is flat against the wall next to my head. His breathing is short. I suck in sweet air, happy for the oxygen in my lungs. His eyes dart excitedly, radiating with adrenaline.

“I finally understand your love of secrets,” he whispers between panting. Hot breath caresses my face. “It is exciting, isn’t it? Does a bloody good job of getting one’s heart hammering!” He smiles and I cannot help but smile back.

He inclines his head to the corner, pressing his body closer. “There is a man around the corner,” he whispers before taking another peek, “and he isn’t leaving.”

My blood pumps even faster. That man cannot see me. No one can see me, not with my hair hanging down around my face. I lean my head back and close my eyes, preparing to wait.

“I suppose we will just have to go past him,” Mr. Laurence says casually. My eyes snap open. I open my mouth to argue, but he holds one warm finger to my lips and I am instantly quieted. Taking his hand out of my own, I am temporarily wounded before he reaches up and takes off his hat. In one fluid motion, he places it atop my head. “I owe you one, anyway,” he says with a grin.

I take it off and wrap my hair up, securing the curls against my head. Quickly, I put the hat back on. I peek out from under the brim at him.

“Well,” I whisper, “how do I look?”

He reaches out a hand, catching a flyaway curl and tucking it beneath the top hat. My face burns bright red and I lower my gaze in embarrassment. “Like an extremely feminine man,” he says seriously.

I scowl, pursing my lips. He chuckles under his breath and pushes me out into the open hallway. He follows after me in his relaxed gait, hands tucked in pockets. We walk down the hallway, moving closer and closer to the man. I twitch, the urge to run screaming in my heart and in the tips of my toes. The man wears a dark suit with an elegant tail coat. His stiff collar brushes up against his chin. As we walk by, he fixes a cold glare on us. I shiver, but Mr. Laurence is positively serene.

“Good night, sir,” he says.

The man snorts. “Good night,” he scoffs. “Not when we have disgusting leeches running amuck on the ship,” he mumbles under his breath.

Mr. Laurence pauses beside me. He turns back to the man, his brow furrowed. “Leeches?” he inquires.

“Indeed. Apparently, several Marked snuck onto the
Celtic,
some in steerage, others hiding in the boiler room. A group of men was assembled to hunt them down, including myself.” He spits each word, biting the ending syllable off of each one with his rage.

I feel the blood drain from my face. I am frozen where I stand, my violet eyes wide as saucers. They know. They know we are on the ship. They know and they are hunting us down.
Dela.
Have they found her yet? My knees knock together as I struggle to keep standing. This isn’t happening! My legs give out beneath me, but Mr. Laurence’s arms sweep under me before I can connect with the ground. I lean against him, needing his strength to keep me from tumbling into hysterics.

“Vi?” he whispers in my ear, alarm shadowing his face. I cannot answer. He wraps one of my arms over his shoulders and begins walking around the next corner. He shouts over his shoulder. “No worries! Lad simply had a bit too much to drink. Nothing a bit of sleep cannot cure! Good luck with your endeavor!”

The man calls after us, pumping his clenched fist in the air. “We will get them! Every last one of those wretched leeches! We have already killed two found in steerage; it is not long before we find the others! Long live the Radicals!”

Two already caught. Not long before…

My knees give way again and I collapse to the floor.

“Elvira?”
His
voice—it sounds so far away. I am lifted, two strong arms holding me against a warm chest. Shock and fear overpower my will. My eyes flutter shut as I slip under.

I wish …

The weight of the man’s words press down on me even in sleep.