Space Cadets

Colin was exhausted. After a few sleepless nights and the nightmare he had to follow around all day, his body was about ready to shut down. He was a bit zoned out, standing with the other guards while everyone had dinner. James was talking to another man, smiling at Colin when he approached them.

“You look frazzled,” he chuckled. “I get it. Shopping is exhausting.”

“Shopping,” Colin grumbled. “Yeah.”

“Have you met Kieran?” he asked, gesturing to the other man standing with him. “He’s assigned to Bianca. I’ve got Jocelyn.”

“Hi Kieran,” Colin said dully.

“Is he always like this?” Kieran asked James.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “You should tell us about yourself, Colin. He and I chatted while the girls shopped together, but we’ve hardly seen you since you got here. Doesn’t Eliza spent time with her sisters?”

“Guess not,” Colin said, casting a glance towards her. She looked terribly bored, picking at her food.

“Do you come from military background?” Kieran asked. “I served in the royal army.”

“Not quite,” Colin said. “I started out in local law enforcement, worked my way up to the Galactic Intelligence. I did a lot of undercover work with the cartels. I guess they felt like that my success in the field would be put to good use here.”

Kieran and James both looked surprised by his answer. Surprised and impressed.

“They pulled you from undercover work to do this?” James asked. “Seems a lot more boring.”

“It has its moments,” Colin said, resisting a grimace from the memory of that afternoon. “Besides, I could use the boost on my record.”

He decided against admitting that in this case, he was in it for the money. A little bit of frustration was a small price to pay for the comfort of his family. He wished he could contact them, but sending them cash every month was something too.

As James and Kieran continued their conversation, Colin’s gaze drifted back to the table. Everyone seemed content, making conversation. Jocelyn and Bianca kept looking towards their guards, whispering to each other and giggling. The only person who looked miserable was Eliza. She seemed uncomfortable in her dress, and her face had gone pale from whatever the young man next to her was talking about. Whatever he was saying, she wasn’t impressed. She caught Colin’s gaze, giving him an annoyed look before turning back to the one she was sitting with. Frankly, Colin felt like he could relate there. He was too exhausted to talk to anyone, too. He straightened himself out and excused himself, swiftly moving by Eliza’s side and bending down to speak to her in a low tone. She seemed surprised, but didn’t jerk away.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked. “If you feel sick, I can escort you to your room.”

Eliza practically leaped at the opportunity.

“Excuse me,” she said to the rest of the table. “I’m feeling a little light headed. I think I’ll be taking an early night.”

Everyone gave her their well wishes, but quickly moved on and went back to their conversations. Colin stepped back to let Eliza pass, following behind her. As they passed the other guards, James decided to make a cheeky comment.

“We can see those undercover skills coming in handy,” he said.

Colin shot him a warning look before following Eliza out. She walked quickly, taking pins out of her hair as she went.

“That Tobert is the worst,” she grumbled.

“I thought I was the worst,” Colin said.

“You’re worse than the worst.”

“Oh good, I was worried for a second.”

“I don’t know how they expect me to do this every night,” she said. “Formality is just so boring.”

“Some people like it,” Colin shrugged.

“For the record, this doesn’t change anything,” she said. “Just because you can read a room and get me out of a situation doesn’t mean I’m going to thank you for it.”

“I wasn’t looking for thanks,” Colin said. “It’s my job to protect you, and you looked like you wanted to die.”

She just scoffed, walking in silence the rest of the way to her room. She glanced over her shoulder at him a couple times, quickly looking away again.

“Whatever you want to say, go ahead,” Colin told her.

“What did that other guard mean about undercover work?” she asked. “Was that supposed to be a dirty joke? Because I won’t tolerate that sort of thing for a second.”

“N-no,” Colin stammered. “James was just being stupid. It was a dumb comment about the undercover work I did before I came here.”

“Huh,” she said. “I assumed you were military.”

“Apparently a lot of people are making that assumption,” Colin said. “I used to fight against drug cartels through sting operations. I’d pretend to be an interested client, usually under the cover of some millionaire trying to throw wild parties.”

“And they’d fall for that?”

Colin paused, looking at her. She seemed genuinely interested for a moment. He waited a moment to see if she’d make a snarky remark, but she seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, shifting awkwardly. “Most of the time. When that big of an offer is on the table, they get too sloppy to do background checks. They’re too interested in the money. It makes the sting operation move a lot smoother for us, though we still got caught in a few shootouts. We’re trained to shut those down pretty quickly, though. The worst was when we went after Jerome Barre-“

“Jerome Barre,” she repeated. “I was reading about him. He’s one of the biggest drug lords in Zenix.”

“He was,” Colin corrected. “Now he’s rotting in prison. It was one of the biggest operations we ever did. Besides shutting down the business, we ended up rescuing a lot of young people from the pimps. It was a success in a lot of ways.”

She paused and chewed on her bottom lip, hovering in the doorway of her room. It looked like she wanted to ask more, but didn’t want to break her tough attitude towards Colin.

“I’m going to bed,” she finally said. “You can leave now. Tell the other guard to keep his comments to himself.”

“Understood,” Colin sighed, giving her a lazy salute. “Only my fair lady is allowed to give me snark. Yes ma’am.”

For a split second, Colin thought Eliza might crack a smile. She quickly closed the door on him, though.

Colin finally managed to beat James to bed that night, getting a few hours of sleep before he had to be back on his post in the early morning. He waited outside Eliza’s door for a little bit, but she never came out. As it started to near time for breakfast, he knocked on the door.

“Eliza?” he called. “Your family is supposed to be at breakfast in about ten minutes.”

No answer. Colin knocked again. Once again, no answer. No one telling him to fuck off, either. He furrowed his brow, slowly cracking the door open and peeking inside. The grand room was tidy, and the bed made. Colin cursed under his breath, realizing Eliza wasn’t in there. She must’ve snuck out before he showed up.

Colin stood in the middle of the room, looking around for clues. He immediately spotted the window, which was left open a crack, with a folded piece of paper to keep it from closing. He rolled his eyes, speaking loudly so whoever might have been hiding would hear him.

“Woe is me,” he said dramatically. “Young Miss Rothschild has escaped in the night. Maybe she was kidnapped. Or maybe, she’s sitting on the ledge outside the window. And she left the paper in the window so it wouldn’t close all the way, because the window will lock her out if it closes. And once I leave to search the palace for her, she’ll crawl back inside and run off in the other direction. But I’m sure she’d never do that.”

He moved towards the window, peeking outside and seeing that as expected, she was sitting there. Fully dressed with her bag in hand and a scowl on her face.

“I’m good at my job,” Colin told her. “Are you going to come inside now?”

“No,” she said firmly.

“Fine,” Colin shrugged. “So if my finger slips and...”

He reached down and plucked the folded paper from its spot. Eliza’s eyes widened as the window shut, locking in place so she was stuck on the ledge. She glared at Colin and pounded her fist on the window.

“Let me in,” she demanded, voice muffled by the window.

“Sorry, what?” Colin asked, pretending he couldn’t hear her. “What do you need?”

“Open the window,” she snapped. “Or I’m telling my father you locked me out of my own room.”

“Fine,” Colin shrugged. “Then I’ll tell him where we went yesterday.”

Her face turned red.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Colin suggested. “I’ll let you in, but you have to go to breakfast with your family. And then if you want to skip out on the rest of your schedule, I’ll take you into town. How’s that?”

She wasn’t happy about it.

“Fine,” she huffed.

Colin smiled and opened the window back up for her. He offered her a hand to help her back in, but she just swatted it away. Once she was inside, she gave Colin a swift smack on the back of the head.

“I deserved that,” he winced.

“You did.”