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Chapter 11: You want me to hit you?

I looked sheepishly at the guard in front of me. So, maybe this hadn't been the best place to hide. That thought was only encouraged by Vivi, who was standing behind the guard, her hand covering her face. She probably thought I was stupid, which, to be honest, I was.

I was ready to put up a fight, but as soon as my fist shot out – I thought it would be better to not use my devil fruit powers yet, just in case he didn't know who I was – the guard clicked one side of a pair of handcuffs around my wrist. He turned me around to grab my other wrist and cuff it, while I felt my power drain away.

You gotta be kidding me. They had standard seastone handcuffs?! Or did he know who I was after all, and knew he had to use seastone? Well, either way, I was fucked.

"No, stop!" I heard Vivi say, and the grip on my arm slightly loosened.

I saw my chance to turn around, but I didn't get further. My energy was reduced to just enough to walk normally, run slowly maybe, but I stood no chance against this guard. Oh, how I hated seastone.

"This is a misunderstanding," Vivi continued.

The guard looked skeptically at her. "I don't see how this could be a misunderstanding, Your Highness. This street rat obviously doesn't belong inside the palace."

"Who're you calling a rat, cockroach?!" I yelled at him. Why was that the best I could come up with?

"No, please," Vivi send me a warning look, as if she thought I should just take the insult without complaining. "I invited him here. He's my friend."

"Your Highness, this is not the kind you want to be friends with. I'm sure your father would agree with me." The guard pushed me down the hallway. "It's for your own good. You can't trust scum like this. He might pretend to be your friend, but he's only here to steal from you, if not kidnap you or worse."

"That is not true!" Vivi followed us, and I decided to let her do the talking. It probably didn't matter what I said anyway, even if I felt like punching the man in the face.

"No?" The guard asked. "So he never casually tried to talk about valuable objects, the treasure in this palace, or anything?"

Vivi hesitated for just a moment, probably thinking of when I asked her about the treasure room.

"I thought so," the guard said, while giving me an extra push, urging me to walk faster.

I looked pleadingly at Vivi, and she looked unhappily back. "I'll get you out of this," she said barely audible, but I understood her and nodded. This didn't have to be the end, I had the princess on my side.

I woke up on a hard floor in a dark cell. My knees hurt, and when I looked at them, I saw they were slightly bleeding. I sighed. It had been quite a while since my narcolepsy had kicked in twice in one day. And apparently, this time it had been while the guard was still dragging my ass towards this cell. Which was great, really, because now I had no freaking idea where I was and how to get out.

I sat up and leaned against the wall. The walls of my cell had the same color as the walls of the palace, so I could still be inside the palace. I hoped I was, because it was probably harder to break out if this was a heavily guarded prison or the station of the city guards.

I stood up and cursed the seastone cuffs that were still keeping my wrists behind my back and draining my energy. Still, I could walk, so I walked towards the door, which had a tiny window with bars in it. I looked outside and saw that I was indeed still inside the palace, though I didn't recognize the exact spot. It was still kind of warm in here, however, so I suspected I wasn't on a lower ground floor, where it was usually a little colder. I also saw a guard standing next to the door, just outside my cell.

I walked back, trying to think of a way to escape. But I soon came to the conclusion that I couldn't do much on my own. The guard near the probably well-locked door, combined with the seastone handcuffs, brought my chances of escaping practically down to zero. But that didn't mean I was ready to give up on ever getting out of here. Izo still walked around somewhere, and if I didn't show up, he would probably come looking for me, right? And then he could break me out; I was sure he could defeat the guard within a second and take his keys from him.

Except Izo had said he wouldn't come to my rescue if I got myself caught. I groaned. So I would just have to trust Vivi. But what could she do? Apparently, the guards barely listened to her. So they probably wouldn't let me out if she just asked nicely. And she wouldn't fight for it either, she was a princess after all. Not that it would matter if she did fight, because she probably still wouldn't be able to take out the guard.

I sat down again. I just couldn't imagine being stuck inside a cell for the rest of my life. If they weren't going to execute me. Well, they wouldn't do that to a thief like me, probably. I might lose a hand or two, but I would still be alive. Unless they discovered who my father had been. But they wouldn't find out about that, right? I shook my head. I'd just have to wait patiently until someone came to free me. If I would still be here the next day, I could start to worry.

Time past and nothing happened. I tried to sit in ten different positions, suddenly having trouble finding a comfortable one on a hard floor like this, even though it wasn't so different from the one in my home. Well, my hands were still stuck behind my back, so that didn't improve my situation either. I also tried ten different positions of standing, and ten positions of lying down. Nothing felt comfortable, and I was bored out of my mind.

I felt like hours had past, though it was difficult to keep track of time in here. I started to doubt anyone would come to save me. It was me we were talking about, after all. No one really cared about me, not enough to endanger themselves to come to my rescue, at least. And to be honest, I felt really dumb for getting caught in the first place. Why had I ever thought a carpet was a good place to hide behind? My feet hadn't even been covered by it. I didn't even see a reason to rescue me myself, so why would others? If I wanted to get out, I probably had to do it on my own, somehow.

Suddenly, my ears picked up a sound from outside the door, and I started to listen carefully. There were two voices speaking softly with each other. Two male voices, though it took a lot of concentration to hear exactly what they were saying.

"… can go. I'll take it from here, yoi."

My heart skipped a beat. Was that…

I heard footsteps walk away, and hoped with all my heart that it was the guard from earlier who was walking away, not Marco. It stayed silent for a while, but I couldn't help but sitting up, trying to look less pathetic than I did before. Because if Marco would look at me, I wanted to look my best.

When the door opened, I even stood up, not wanting to show that I had already partly given up on getting out of here. I waited until the person who opened the door came into my vision, and couldn't help but smile when I saw that it was indeed Marco. "H-hey," I said nervously. Fuck, why was I so nervous all of a sudden? Was it just because I had realized I might have feelings for Marco?

Marco gave me his usual, slightly bored, look. "Hey," he said back, and I cursed my heart for beating so fast. I wouldn't admit it, but I had missed seeing and hearing Marco.

Marco walked into the cell and almost closed the door behind him, just leaving it ajar. He looked me over, crossed his arms before his chest, and leaned against the wall in front of me. "What a mess you've gotten yourself into."

I scratched the back of my head. "Yeah, I might have gotten a little too used to guards like you. I mean, guards that don't really want to arrest me or anything." I just couldn't tear my eyes away from his lips. Oh god, no, I definitely wouldn't mind kissing them at all! "So, are you here to free me?"

It was silent for a few seconds, until Marco spoke. "Vivi begged me to." He sighed. "But you gotta understand that I am not in a position where I can just do whatever I want or whatever I think is right, yoi."

"Yeah, you can't even leave the palace, right? Vivi told me." I took a step closer towards Marco, it was probably just a few inches, but it felt like a giant leap. I just wanted to be closer to him, I couldn't help it. "Why is that?"

Marco's face showed that he wasn't very happy with something. Whether that was my step closer to him, the fact that Vivi told me about him, or that I asked him about it, I didn't know, but I didn't dare taking another step, just in case. I didn't want to displease him. He just tolerated me, after all, for Vivi. He didn't like me, I had to remind myself.

"I can leave the palace if I want," Marco answered. "It would just mean I'd lose this job, and I don't want that." Marco pushed his body from the wall and took a step towards me.

I had to keep myself from letting out a sigh from relief, since at least he didn't mind us coming closer towards each other. I dared to move my foot another inch towards him. "I just don't understand. This job keeps you locked up here, you can't do what you feel is right, you don't like keeping Vivi inside the palace… Why do you want to keep this position? It seems to suck, if you ask me." God, what was I doing, questioning his life choices? Did I really want him to dislike me even more?

"It isn't that bad," Marco said, but he couldn't convince me. The way he said it sounded like he wasn't convinced himself either. "Again, I chose this job, so I would like to keep it, yoi. I could tolerate you as long as you kept a low profile. If I let you escape now… I could very well lose the job."

I nodded, because even if I didn't understand his choice for this job, I did respect that choice, and the fact that he wanted to keep it. "So you're gonna leave me here."

Marco looked straight into my eyes, and I couldn't look away, even if it made me really nervous. "You know the door is open since I came in here, right? You could have made a run for it already."

"Yeah, well, I don't know how you can live with that seastone around your neck every day, but I won't get far with these cuffs around my wrists."

Marco nodded, while still looking at me. "This ring around my neck is made of seastone and some other material. It makes us unable to use our devil fruit, but it doesn't drain our energy as much as those handcuffs do. Besides, I've learned to live with it."

He took two more steps towards me and suddenly stood very close to me. I had to remind myself to keep breathing, to act like everything was normal. I looked expectantly at him. I really wanted to kiss him. I knew I couldn't, because he probably didn't like me back, but I wanted to.

The corner of Marco's mouth curled up the slightest. "Turn around."

I blinked. Wait, what? Turn around? Why? I was too nervous to think straight and realize why he wanted me to turn around, but I did what he asked anyway.

I heard a 'click', and the next moment my hands were released. I felt my energy return the moment the handcuffs fell to the floor. I turned back towards Marco again and grinned. "So you are letting me go?"

"If I just let you go, I'll probably be the next to end up in this cell." Marco smiled. "But I just came in here to talk about your true intentions. You suddenly attacked me, I tried to fight back, but you knocked me out. When I woke up, you were gone." He shrugged. "You just hit me in a really nasty way, I guess. I'll probably get scolded, but I'll survive that."

My grin grew. "Thank you. I owe you so much." It cost me all my willpower to not kiss him right there.

Marco averted his eyes, a slight smile on his face. "Just… maybe it's not a very good idea to come back here. To the palace, I mean, yoi."

My smile faded. "But… Vivi. I can't do that to her." That, and I really didn't want to stop seeing Marco. "You know what? I'll wait a week, and I'll sneak into her room via the balcony. And I'll be extra careful, I promise." I looked pleadingly at him. If he decided I shouldn't come anymore, then at least I knew for sure that he didn't like me.

Marco seemed to be hesitating. "But if you get caught again…"

"You can make sure that you're the one on princess-duty, right?" I interrupted him. "You can make sure nobody else sees me."

Marco looked into my eyes again, and I couldn't help but notice how close we still were. Marco sighed. "Fine. In exactly one week, around four o'clock."

My grin returned immediately. "Alright, see you then!" I had to tear myself from that spot in front of Marco, because I had to leave at some point and I felt like this was my cue.

However, Marco put a hand on my shoulder to stop me, almost making my heart stop at the same time, because he was touching me. "Ace, make it believable."

"What?" I said most unintelligently. When he pointed at his jaw, I realized what he was talking about. "You want me to hit you?"

"No one's gonna believe me if I don't have a scratch, yoi," Marco explained, shrugging. "Just… don't break anything."

I really didn't want to hit him. He was so kind to me, and in return I had to hit him?! But I understood I had to, if I didn't want him to get fired or even locked up. I bolded my fist and shot him an apologetic look while I hit him on his jaw.

Marco's head snapped back, making him stumble backwards, until his head hit the wall behind him. He groaned and let himself slide down the wall until he sat on the floor.

I looked worriedly at him. "Are you okay?" Maybe I had hit him a little too hard.

"I'm fine, yoi." Marco said, while bringing his hand up to his head. "Go. I'll see you in a week."

I nodded and pulled the door further open and stepped outside. The hallway was empty, but I had no idea which way I had to go. Left or right? My gut said right, but I had learned from experience that my gut wasn't always correct when it came to things like direction.

I was about to turn around to ask Marco, when I heard a sound coming from my left. "This way!" I heard a whisper. I looked around, but didn't see anyone. Or did that statue just move? No, I must have imagined it.

"Fucking hell, Ace, hurry up!" the whisper continued, and now I saw a hand calling for me from behind the statue. It was followed by an impatiently looking Izo.

I started to jog towards him, meanwhile keeping an eye on my surroundings, because I really wasn't going to let myself get caught a second time. When I reached Izo, I looked at him. "You were here the whole time? If you knew where I was, why didn't you help me escape?" I whispered a little angrily.

I followed him while he made his way through the palace. "Ace, I'm a man of my word. If I say I'm not going to save you, I'm not going to save you."

"Gee thanks," I muttered. "You're so reliable."

"Besides, I had to check if that guard was really as much on our side as you claimed," Izo continued. By now, we had reached a part of the palace that I thought I recognized.

"He's not on our side, he's on my side," I clarified. I didn't think Marco would approve of Izo and his reasons to be here.

Izo chuckled. "Sure."

Suddenly he stopped and held out his arm to stop me as well. Instinctively, I kept as quiet as possible, and after a second or two, we heard shouting from the direction we had come from. We looked at each other and immediately started to run twice as fast. Within no time we had reached the east wing of the building again, and we tried to get out unnoticed, but from the corner of my eye I saw another guard who had seen us. He started his chase, but I had already lifted Izo from the ground and jumped through the window.

It was dark outside, which made it easier for us to hurry towards the outer wall, and before the guards could follow us outside and see where we were, I had already jumped up and landed on top of the high wall.

Apparently, Izo thought that was a good moment to talk. "Ace, that blond guard…"

"Not now," I interrupted him, and jumped down again.

We kept running for the rest of the way until we reached my tower – our tower, since recently. As soon as I was inside, I stopped to get some air back into my lungs. Izo, however, was already halfway up the stairs. "You know that if you stop in front of an open door, passing guards will still be able to see you, right?"

"Nah, it'll be fine," I answered. "They won't find us here."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not so sure about that." Izo was also breathing heavily. "Come one, let's go to my floor."

I didn't want to attract any attention to the fact that this tower was magically protected against the government, so I did what he said, and followed him up. We sat down on top of the stairs, and finally really regained our breath.

"So, about that guard," Izo began again. "The one who let you out of that cell, was that the guard you have a crush on, the guard you were talking about last time?"

I nodded. "Yeah, that's him. I told you I could trust him."

When Izo didn't say anything back, I looked up at him. It was only when I saw the shit-eating grin on his face, that I realized what I had just admitted. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and looked away, my face turning red again. "I fucking hate you."

TBC~

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