King of the Mountain (Witchfire 2)

Chapter 14 - Secrets Unearthed

───── Piper ─────

I cast one final look behind me.

The new moon, veiled by cloud cover, shed no light on the school. Solar lanterns resisted the darkness, marking pathways between the most important buildings, but those self-sufficient soldiers of light could do only that; the enemy was too strong, and darkness swallowed everything beyond their reach. There would be no respite from its hunger until the cavalry of dawn arrived.

Satisfied that no one was awake—or at least, not awake and outside of their dorms, where they could see me wandering about after hours—I inserted the High Pack's master key into the library door. The click of the lock releasing was agonisingly loud, but the hinges were well-oiled and the door shut behind me without incriminating noise.

Bookshelves and beanbags materialised in the garish green light of an exit sign. It was too dark to make them out their finer details, but they swum in the shallows of my mind, dredged up from memory to fill in the blanks.

Milo was already here, nestled in a cosy alcove constructed from bean bags, chairs and tables, roofed with a doona he must have dragged all the way from his dorm. Curled around his laptop, he looked, I realised with a wry smile, more comfortable than I had ever felt in my entire life.

"Hello," I said, to warn him of my approach.

He didn't respond, and I soon realised that it was because he hadn't heard me, the combined result of earphones and a thick orange beanie that was pulled down over his eyebrows.

I kicked over a chair, compromising the structural integrity of his blanket fort. The doona sagged and Milo yelped, flailing rather than fighting his way free. When he finally emerged, it was red-cheeked and huffing. The indignant surprise in his chestnut eyes was magnified by the round-rimmed glasses he wore, pushed as far up the bridge of his nose as they could go.

As usual, I found myself both endeared and saddened by the sight. More human than werewolf because of a watered down bloodline, Milo lacked our clean bill of health. He was the only student on campus that needed glasses to see, and he also couldn't heal as quickly as the rest of us.

"What the hell," he complained, taking his earbuds out one at a time and then setting them down on his keyboard. He'd earned the first half of that laptop by hacking firewalls for student clientele. After bemoaning community service, I'd wrangled him a part-time job in the IT department instead, where pay cheques were regular and from a reputable source... most of the time. "Do you have any idea how long this took me to build?"

I rolled my eyes and crouched down to his level. "Considering all the classes you don't attend, I'm sure there'll be plenty of time to make a new one."

"Actually, no," Milo countered. "I spend class time productively, thank you, working on all the top secret projects you assign me."

"I've only given you one task this semester. Stop exaggerating." I heard the shift in my tone as I remembered my purpose for being here. "Speaking of top secret projects, you mentioned in that email this morning that you found something...?"

"I found a lot of stuff, actually." Milo looked positively smug. "The Swan Hill Academy firewalls had me stumped for a while, but I finally found a way through this morning."

"Brilliant," I said, extending my hand for a fist bump. But even while we celebrated his achievement, I felt tension returning to my mind and muscles. Secrets had been unearthed, and it was time for me to examine them.

"Can I have the data on a USB?" I asked. I would rather read the controversial information alone, in the librarian's office. It was the only way to gain privacy, as I relied upon a text-to-speech program to verbalise written content.

Milo shrugged. "Sure, give me a second."

He concentrated, clicked, and then after a moment of off-tune humming, he deposited an orange USB in my outstretched hand. I thanked Milo for his efforts and stood up, making a mental note to reward him properly for his services later. I could look into ordering some new headphones for him, I mused as I walked away, recalling the grimy state of his earbuds. Whatever I decided to get, I wanted the gift to be meaningful, something that he would use and appreciate the practicality of. He deserved that from me, especially after how hard he'd worked on this project.

When I reached the office, I shut the door behind me and settled into the wheelie-chair. At the click of a wireless mouse, the machinery hummed to life and a generic login screen with a picture of a daffodil in the background appeared. I entered the password that Milo had specified and inserted the USB.

A window flickered into existence. It asked if I would like to access the contents of the USB. Of course I want to access its contents, I thought testily. Why else would I have put the USB in? To see whether it fits?

With an indignant huff, I took the action required of me to view what was inside the folder. For a moment, the curser transformed into that spinning loading symbol that inspired hate worldwide. Then it disappeared, and the file manifested.

Finally, some answers.

Without a moment's hesitation, I double-clicked on the file titled 'Ivy Thatcher'.