Gods Under The Dome

14.1

《Fight》

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Having to depend on Marava of all people makes me queasy. I'm sure the feeling's mutual what with the way her fingers graze the skin of my upper as though she's touching something contagious. I'm eclipsed in her shadow as she drags me from the shadow of one house to another, slithering along the ground and squatting between dumpsters in true spy fashion. I hate to admit it but she's doing a good job trailing the El Accosta without their noticing.

Overhead, hover lights skirt back and forth across our path. The orbs' internal heat sensors lock on to us and a swarm of them head in our direction. Marava swats them down as though they were the fireflies they'd been modeled after, her nails leaving behind scratches in their fibre glass surfaces. The light they produced was meant to be warm and comforting. On a normal nighttime stroll, I would have welcomed them, but darkness was our ally now, our safeguard to keep us bullethole-free.

Dodging behind a dumpster, freshly polished, I spy Quint 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 Quint 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.

The breeze blows, sending a bit of her scent - salt mixed with a hint of vanilla - into my nostrils. Tendrils of her hair flutter like a hundred bronze-colored ribbons.

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, leaving in its wake a look of intense discomfort. Her eyes, which always affix to her target of choice, flit between two plate-high apartment buildings. Yanking me into the shadow of a nearby home, Marava's frown worsens. "Quint 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. Was this vulnerability from Marava? Noticing me, noticing her, Marava grunts and straightens her back, returning to her haughty, impenetrable self. "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. "Quint, 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."