Hello! So sorry this is late, I've been super busy. But I'm back and will return to regular updates. I jsut want to say that this is my favorite chapter, and I hope you will like it as much as I do! Enjoy!

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Chapter 6 - Secrets

The bell rang, and for the second time, Ezra shot out of his seat, avoiding the bully. Ezra raced down the hallways and through the cafeteria, heading towards the basement door. He was glad that Sabine had apologized to him earlier, and glad that he would not have to stick around the school long enough for the detention he had gotten. He couldn't help it when his sarcasm snuck out of his mouth; it was in his nature.

He turned the corner and saw Sabine standing by the door in her school uniform. When she saw him, she spoke up.

"You ready?"

"Yeah. Let's do this and get out of here."

Sabine stepped to the side, and Ezra pulled out his screwdriver from his pants pocket. He was surprised at how large they were when he first tried them on. Someone could fit a whole data-pad in them.

The click of the now unlocked door drew Ezra from his thoughts. Sabine rushed in first, but before Ezra followed, he glanced down the hall. The same feeling came to him; something did not feel right.

"Hurry up," Sabine said, in a hushed voice. Shaking off his feeling, Ezra turned and started descending into the basement, closing the door behind him.

The dim red lights hanging from the ceiling gave off an eerie glow as the two teens snuck down the stairs. Ezra could see filing cabinets all around the walls, and rows upon rows of metal shelves were filled with boxes.

"The data chip should be in the back room." Sabine pointed to a door on the opposite wall of the room. Ezra nodded, and they began walking through the rows of files. The silence was not kept by the sound of a bell being rung. Startled, the two teens looked back towards the stairs. They were running out of time. Someone would notice their absence and try to find them. Sabine continued walking at a faster pace, making it to the door and turning the knob.

Inside the small room stood a metal desk with stacked data pads tossed carelessly on top. The room looked older, with papers scattered around the floor and filing cabinets scattered in awkward positions. Sabine took a step, but a small rat scurried out of the room. Sabine and Ezra jumped back, surprised that they were not alone.

After watching the rat race away, they stepped inside the small room and closed the door behind them.

"Quick, it should be about the size of your palm." Sabine started opening filing cabinets as Ezra walked over to the desk. Shifting the data tables around, nothing seemed to be that small.

"What is this place? It looks like it hasn't been used in years." Ezra crouched down and began to open the desk drawers.

"This was where the files were kept on the students a long time ago. I'm actually surprised they still kept the room."

"Wait, how long ago?"

"Around seven, eight years ago." Ezra froze.

"Hey, Sabine, could you help me open this drawer? It's stuck." Sabine turned and looked at Ezra. She had a confused look on her face, but came over none the less. The drawer was stuck, but Ezra did not notice. He just needed a diversion.

He quickly walked over to the file cabinet marked with a 'B'. He pulled it open and began rooting through the files until he came upon the one he needed.

'E. Bridger.' Emotions hit Ezra, but he quickly waved them off. He could not let Sabine see. He grabbed the few papers that were inside and shoved them into his pocket. He replaced the folder, closing the cabinet drawer.

"Man, this is stuck." Ezra turned and looked at Sabine, who was still struggling to open the cabinet. Sabine reached for her back, right where her shirt overlapped her skirt, and pulled out one of her guns.

"Sabine! How did you… Why did you…What?"

"Hey, don't blame me. I felt like I was missing something without the weight." Sabine switched the safety on the gun to off.

"Do you know how dangerous that is? What if you got caught?" Ezra was now yelling in a hushed whisper at Sabine's carelessness.

"I didn't get caught. Besides, it's about to come in handy. Let's just hope it's in here."

"Sabi-" The blaster shot echoed through the room, and the drawer smoked a bit from the blast. "Are you insane?"

"Keep your voice down!"

"I don't think it matters anymore since you just fired a shot."

"Well, would you rather it be an explosion?"

"Wait, are you saying you brought bombs with you to school?" Sabine paused, looking up at Ezra.

"I neither deny nor confirm that statement."

"Sabine! Where did you even keep them?"

"Hey, a girl's got to have her secrets." Sabine smiled at Ezra briefly, before returning to the mission. "Keep looking through the cabinets." Sabine slid open the drawer with ease, and Ezra sighed. There was no point in arguing about it now, anyway. He walked over to the drawer with the letter 'H' marked on the top. Opening it, he shifted through the files, until he came across one that made him freeze.

'R. Hayes'

The file was Roth's.

Quickly, he opened it up, but found that nothing was inside. It did not make sense to Ezra. All the other files had plenty of papers in them, but not this one. Oddly enough, there was a small piece of paper wedged in, with the words 'See File X.' written on it. Curious, Ezra quickly replaced the file and went to the file cabinet marked with an 'X'. He opened the first drawer, but it was empty.

Completely empty.

Something was wrong. Why was Roth's file in the basement? Wouldn't they have moved it with the new files? And why was this entire cabinet empty?

Ezra crouched down, reaching for the last drawer, when he saw something odd on the wall. There was a sort of gap in between the floor and the wall. It spanned a little more than one meter. Ezra stood up and noticed that the same thing was true at the top. There was a small indent before this section of the wall hit the ceiling. Pushing a filing cabinet out of the way, he came closer to the section of wall.

"What are you doing?" Sabine's voice startled Ezra, having forgotten he was not alone.

"There's something wrong with this part of the wall. See?" He pointed to the floor and ceiling where the wall did not touch. Sabine looked at it, but continued her search.

"We need to keep looking. We're almost out of time. And there's something off with this drawer. There was nothing in it." Ezra turned and looked at Sabine, who held the drawer up for him to see.

"Try checking if there's a secret compartment. In the principal's office yesterday, the secretary had the same drawer with nothing in it."

"Wait, how do you know this?" Sabine looked up from the drawer as Ezra shrugged.

"I got bored." Ezra turned back around to face the wall. He began knocking on it, and leaned his head on it to see if he could hear anything.

"Found it!" Sabine shouted in a hushed tone, as she held the information card in her hand. "You were right. Now come on, let's get out of here." Sabine opened the door and shot out. Ezra was about to follow when a voice struck panic through him.

"And what do you think you're doing here?"

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(Note: For all of you Not the Only One readers, the next chapter will come out tomorrow)

Thanks for reading!

R & R

~ Kavella ~