Fire and Ice

Chapter 19 † Kayleigh

I walk out of the simulator room and check the time. 1455 hours. Damn. I have a long time to go without running in to Graff. I hear footsteps behind me and quickly duck around the next turn. Two hops have me up the wall and grabbing the grate for the air vent. I yank, hard, and slide in, shutting it quietly behind me.

"Kayleigh!" Ender's voice calls out, the top of his head appearing in the hallway below the grate. Oops. He turns in circle, scanning. I crawl back into the grate toward the library to get everything ready for the meeting.

"Kayleigh?" Ender calls again, farther away than before. I hear footsteps echoing through the corridors headed away from me. I turn my back and keep moving.

≈≈≈

Ender walks in to our bunk room after dinner and flops on to my bed.

"Make yourself at home, Ender," I quip, smiling from my desk.

"As though he doesn't already?" Tom snickers. Ender sits up and looks at us.

"Something wrong?" Bean asks as he and Alai pull their desk chairs over to my bunk.

"No?" Ender says. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Yes, actually."

"Good. We wouldn't've believed if you'd gone with the first answer," I cut in. He releases his nose and smiles at me, causing my heart to flutter just a bit as I struggle to maintain my composure.

"Kayleigh needs to meet with us tomorrow. At lunch." My heart stopped. What's going on?

"You sure she didn't mean just you?" Fly scoffs.

"Positive," Ender replies. "I think she wants to talk about what we're going to do."

"Do about what?" Bean inquires, leaning forward in his seat.

"About the war." Everyone stopped dead. "We're not winning. We're at a stalemate. We've been trying to hold out hope... but it's true. The adults want us to keep trying but I'm tired of fighting." Truth rang in his words. No one said anything for a minute. Two. Three. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

"We probably shouldn't talk about it here," Alai whispered. "After what happened yesterday, we never know who has our rooms bugged." I nod quietly.

"We'll just have to see what happens tomorrow."

[][][]

Breakfast takes what feels like three hours. I sit and eat with the others, listening as they laugh and joke about math. Space. Home. I can't help but wonder what we're going to talk about at lunch and my mind keeps drifting to the battle yesterday. To Kayleigh.

I sit.

And sit.

Listening without hearing the conversation.

I check my watch. 0830 hours. We sat down at 0815. I sigh and get up to dispose of my tray, and realize that this is the first full meal I've consumed on Eros.

†††

I double check to make sure all security cameras are down. A small green light blinks in the corner of my glasses, indicating that there are no other bugs of any kind inside the library.

I sit down at the computer terminal and plug my suit in, masking my footsteps as I go. I connect the chip filled with information I pulled from the formic databases during the battle to my suit as well.

I check the time. 0845 hours. Enough time to try and figure out who sent those emails. Before I begin, I shoot a quick message to Graff.

CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD AND CHECK YOUR SENT MAIL.