Page 98 of Fighting With Light

37

Aelia

I sip my coffee,enjoying the ocean breeze against my skin. We’ve had an amazing few days with each other, but our time is coming to an end and I can sense change in the air. My stomach has been in knots since I woke up this morning. I sobbed in the shower as quietly as I could because it was the only place to hide from Liam and let it out. Though, based on how he looked at me when I opened the bathroom door, I’m not so sure he didn’t hear everything.

“Are you excited to surf?” Liam asks, his eyes bright with excitement.

I nod and take another sip of coffee, then reach for my water.

“You should eat something before we get on the water. I don’t need you passing out and drowning on me.”

“I won’t,” I mumble around the glass of water.

He drops his fork and looks at me. “Are you okay?”

I reach for a pupusa and nod.

“But you would tell me if you’re not, right?” he asks carefully.

“Yeah,” I rasp. Even though it’s a lie because I am not okay right now. Not at all.

“Do you want to go rock climbing again, too?” Liam asks.

“Yeah, sure, sounds fun.”

He grins at me and runs his hand through his hair.

“What?” I ask him.

“I love how adventurous you are. You haven’t hesitated once.”

“Who doesn’t like a little adrenaline rush?” I ask him, a slow smile spreading across my face.

“Amen to that,” hesays.

“Okay, I’m ready when you are.”

I glance at his board. “We’re not using your board, right?”

He looks at it over his shoulder, leaned up against the wall. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“I don’t want to mess it up…”

He chuckles. “You won’t mess it up, Aelia.”

“Alright, if you say so. I’m going to go change real quick.”

He nods, and I feel his eyes on me the whole time as I go to my suitcase and fish out a swimsuit that should stay in place because I’ll biff it multiple times, and I don’t need to be flashing the entire beach.

After I change, I glance at the computer. I must have bumped the mouse because it’s awake, and out of the corner of my eye I see something I haven’t seen before. I’ve seen smoke one too many times, but this is different. It’s a cluster of what looks like multiple smoke clouds. I sit down and zoom in with my mouse over and over again to get the best bird’s eye view. There’s a road that’s roughly cut through the trees, and I can see ruts in the ground from…trucks.

“Aelia? What’s—” Liam cuts off and I hear the door close as I stare at what I think I found. Sure, it could be some kind of encampment, but there are a lot of tents, and what appear to be permanent buildings. I haven’t seen that before, and it all looks organized. The satellite image updates again, and it catches a truck on the road.

“No way,” he mumbles, looking over my shoulder. He reaches around me and types something, and then the image changes to what looks like a heat or infrared filter.

The image is all orange and red. There are small orange dots, and then there are larger red dots mixed with orange.

“Those are heat signatures,” Liam says, pointing to the dots. “That one is likely a fire, and these are people,” he says, pointing to the small orange dots. “I think you found it, princess, you found the needle.”