“We gonna do this today, or…” Lee said from beside her, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.
Kat bit her lip. The aromas of delicious, toasted vegetables and warm bread drifted over on a heavenly cloud. But that cloudturned murky with the gentle roaring of chatter also drifting outward.
She knew she’d have to face the rest of the Academy eventually. But maybe they could delay the motions of normalcy a few more days…
“Tomorrow?” Lee asked, lightly.
“Tomorrow is good.” Kat nodded, grateful when Lee was the first to turn, pivoting them around and up the stairs to the Hideaway. She didn’t complain when Lee disappeared, only to return with several bags of apple-sweet-potato chips, his high-end energy bars, and a couple of fresh green juices.
In lieu of gorging themselves with the other cadets in the Canteen, they spent a rather quiet and enjoyable dinner period, watching the crowd from overhead. Out of sight. Out of earshot. And, if they should stay so lucky, out of mind.
“Have you heard anything from Levy?” she asked carefully, staring at the sweet potato chip in her hand. She didn’t know the circumstances surrounding how Lee had come to learn of her quitting the program, only that he had spoken with her personally the night of their return. “I wonder when the transports are arriving.”
But Lee shook his head. “I haven’t.”
“I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
“I hope any of us do.” Lee frowned.
She peered down into the sea of round tables, the carefree cadets chatting and gossiping over peas and the latest raid missions. As if everything was normal.
As if everything could ever go back to normal.
“It’ll get easier,” Lee said. Although it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than her as he turned his back wholly to the Canteen below.
“And our probation?” she asked.
Lee ground his teeth at her reminder. “It’ll pass. As for the cadets,” he said, guessing correctly at the petty rooted fear there, “we just have to give them something else to talk about.”
“Yeah…” Easier said than done.
Lee didn’t protest when she suggested they find a quiet corner down here in the Hideaway to finish their mission reports.
“We still have the weekend to recover before we resume trainings next week,” she said, brightly, attempting his positive spin as they started back up through the Heptagon to grab their holoblocks.
“You haven’t been keeping up with your messages, have you?” Lee asked, his words pausing her mid-step.
“I’ve been a little spotty. Why?” Despite the lightness in Lee’s tone and in his face, she could feel her whole body tensing. Had something else happened? Had something slipped through the cracks that was about to tip her world off its axis once more?
“It’s Laser Rounds this weekend.”
CHAPTER 4: LEE
CHEERING ECHOED through the stairways, the timbres vibrating through the tips of his fingers, as Lee hastened down through the Heptagon the following morning. The Gammas would be up soon. He’d have to head down to the Spectrum to take his place before long. But first he had somewhere he needed to be.
Lee turned off the stairs when he reached the central skywalk, taking up a spot just inside the main hangar doors to wait.
A transport had arrived only this morning, unannounced. But he’d known, the moment he learned of it, what it was for. Or rather for whom.
He nodded towards the hangar manager who monitored the commercial ship. It should be any minute now.
“Lee.”
He looked up at the low, cloudy voice, the tone like rolling rain, as Levy stepped out from the skywalk.
“Hi,” he said. And for a second he just stared at her. The picture was all wrong. Her lavender hands hung by her side, muted beside the grey-weave of her hoodie and olive pants. She carried a single duffle under her arm, which, catching himself, Lee promptly offloaded from her.
“Figured you wouldn’t get much of a sendoff,” he said, tucking her bag under his arm. The duffle was light in his hands. His and Kat’s would probably be the same when they eventually left the Academy.
