The Law and the Codas

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dodging behind a dumpster, freshly polished, I spy Jonathan as a few hover lights zip past his body. He's limp, the soles of his sneakers scraping across the asphalt as two Accostas drag him by the arms. Eyes closed, his head lulls, hair falling in front of his face concealing the dot he has attached to his temple. Thankfully, it doesn't look as though the El Accosta have spotted it.

Marava grits her teeth and sounds like she's chewing on rocks.

"If you're any louder, you'll alert them of our presence."

She whips her head around and snarls, but she doesn't speak. Her gaze falls back onto Jonathan and the El Accosta that have him hostage. One of her nails digs further into my flesh.

"You're doing that on purpose," I say as I yank my arm away.

She doesn't relent and instead grips me tighter. Having taken a beating in the explosion, I don't have it in me to fend her off so I let myself fall into her. The sudden thud of my head against her shoulder causes her eyes to burst open.

Pushing me away from her, and straightening her top, Marava says, "You can't walk on your own."

She's not wrong, but everything inside me screams at me to argue the fact. Grimacing, I say, "I don't need your sympathy."

She snorts, the corner of her lip curling upward. "Trust me, I've got no sympathy for you. But," she nods at the tattered remains of my splint. "You'll slow me down if I let you hobble on your own."

I shrug. "Could just leave me behind."

The smile fades from Marava's face, "Jonathan wouldn't approve." She peers out from around the corner, scraping her nails over the house's siding. "He likes you," she grumbles. I blink. "So what's this plan of yours?"

I fumble for words, but eventually I manage to force a sentence from my mouth."The comm."

I reach up, press the smooth, breathable plastic clinging to the flesh behind my ear, Marava watching intently. "Jonathan, you need to hold your breath." Marava's arms cross over her chest. Her eyes narrow and in her expression I can see her estimating the amount of effort she would need to expend to rip me in two. I exhale. I didn't like this either. "Those Blackhole bags monitor respiration so hold your breath, alright?" I continue. "If you can manage long enough, the sensor will register respiratory failure. Slump over, make the El Accostas stop."

Marava arcs an eyebrow as my finger falls away from the comm."He could die."

I nod. "And he will die if we don't do something. That much is guaranteed."

She growls. "So, what'll we do?"

Picking up a nearby rock, I shove it into her hand. "We'll do what we can and try not to get killed." Her fingers wrap around the rock as she nods.

We wait. There's nothing to do but wait and in that time that stretches out before us like unwanted eternity, I wonder if Jonathan had even heard me. If, at some point, his comm had fallen off his temple? If an El Accosta had seen it, ripped it off and crunched it beneath his foot? Could my voice really carry across the chasm that separates us?

Marava's attention is focused on the rock clutched in her hand. She runs a finger over a groove in its gray surface, then tosses it in the air. It slaps back into her palm and she does this a second time, a third. Her brow furrows.

Finally, it happens. Jonathan falls forward, his body slamming onto the concrete. The Blackhole bag releases a frantic series of beeps. The El Accosta look from one to another. Jonathan writhes on the ground and I have to physically pull Marava forward. She blinks at me.