“Can you move?” I ask, ignoring her words. “I can only stop time for a few minutes. You have to hurry.”
She nods. “I’ll send another Transporter in my place.”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Serenity,” she says.
“Good-bye, Serenity.”
It takes a few seconds before she vanishes, face tight in a grimace, hand pressed to her wound. I take a deep breath and swing my fist in the direction of where she just lay, as time resumes.
“Where the hell did she go?” Ender barks.
“She’s gone.”
The words hang between us.
Ender’s eyes flick to the blood on my palm, where I helped contain her wound, then to the space where the Transporter should be. His face tightens as he studies me.
“Gone how?” he asks.
Another explosion rocks the far end of the hall. Smoke pours from a ruptured pipe, lighting a fuse. Someone approaches him, but he puts up an illusion of a wall behind him, keeping them out so we can speak.
“She transported out,” I say.
Ender studies me for a beat too long. Then he turns, barking orders. “Contain the east side and lock down the exits.”
The recruits move immediately, following their squad leaders. True to her word, Serenity sent another Transporter to collect her allies. The rebels are all gone. Except for one who passed out from the fight and was missed by the Transporter. The second he stirs, cuffs are snapped around his wrist, and he is injected with a drug.
The emergency lights start blaring as the fire catches on.
Ender calls for back-up and medics while we step outside, getting as far from the burning factory as we can.
Ender steps close to me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body and sense his tightly leashed fury.
“You froze when she went down,” he says. His calculating eyes are studying me. “You hesitated, and she got away.”
My pulse spikes. “I reacted as soon as she fell. I was going to knock her out so we could question her, but she vanished.”
“Hm.”
That is all he says, and his lack of words unnerves me. My heart beats like a drum in my chest.
I hunt for a new topic to distract him.
“You’re hurt,” I whisper, fingers grazing the small cut beneath his cheek. Compared to the injuries the others suffered, it is nothing. Flint’s arm looks broken, and Rigel is being dragged away on a stretcher.
I fret over Ender like he sustained a life-altering wound, all in the hopes of distracting him from his line of questioning.
“We have to get you checked,” I say. “Where are the medics?”
“Stop that.” He swats away my hand. His words are a rough bark when he next speaks. “Don’t coddle me in public.”
“In private, then?” I ask.
I’m not sure what I’m doing by flirting with him. All I know is that he needs to forget what hethinkshe saw. Ender grunts, brushing past me, not dignifying my comment with a response.
His eyes glide back to me. “You’re with me.”
