Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

Jules glanced up then, hurt in his eyes. Even Delta, who was still pointing a blaster at Jules, grimaced. Izzy shook her head. She had said that to Damar once. But she had been referring to her mother’s frequent absences and the terrible, vivid memory of the day they left.

“You were only half listening, Damar.”

“I know you well enough,” he said. “Like how you’re stalling. I’m starting to think this simple farm boy doesn’t know you at all. The real you that you don’t want anyone else to see. But he’s about to find out.”

Her heart sped up. She knew even before Damar hit play what would be on that disk. Izzy watched Jules’s features harden as he stared at the holo image of her. It was from when she had been with Ana Tolla outside of Cookie’s. Why hadn’t she considered that she’d been baited?

“That farm boy you were with. What’s his story?” Ana asked.

Izzy watched the expression of disgust she’d made. “He’s just a stupid farm boy who’s never going to get off this rock. He’s no one.”

There was a moment when the image flickered and no one moved. Wind moved the willowy leaves. She could feel how hard and frantic her pulse was.

“Jules—” she started.

But he was not looking at her. The tension drained from his shoulders, and he stared at the ground. He was giving up on her. How could he do that so quickly?

She turned her attention back to Damar. “Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. We need your boy. I can’t have him wanting to do anything noble for you. But maybe he’s changed his mind now that he knows how you truly feel. What do you have to say for yourself, farm boy?” Damar asked, still holding the blaster—her blaster—at her back. Delta pulled the gag down from his mouth.

Izzy stepped forward, hands bound. She had nothing with her but the necklace, a relic. The happiness had ebbed away, replaced with helpless anger. There were no stars, no light, no hope. She wanted to say his name, but her words wouldn’t form.

“You know I didn’t mean it,” she finally said. “I wanted her to stay away from you.”

Jules chuckled and shook his head. Why couldn’t he just look at her and see that she was telling the truth? Only he could tell when she was lying. When he finally turned to her, she saw the same intensity as when they fought near the farm right before she’d kissed him.

“Lying is a skill,” he said. “Go home, Izzy. Take your things and go.”

He’d quoted her. She wasn’t sure if that meant he believed her or if he was just calling her a liar.

She shut her eyes and cursed Ana Tolla, herself, everything and everyone. If she lost Jules she—She didn’t let herself finish the thought.

“Unfortunately for you,” Damar said, “Ana likes her toys a little broken before she uses them. Delta, if I don’t arrive safely, you have permission to shoot her.”

She couldn’t see Jules’s face as he climbed into his speeder. Delta shoved Izzy into the second speeder, and they took off side by side.

“That’s not going to work,” Damar told Jules.

As they’d darted down the moonlit road, farther away from the Outpost, Jules had kept trying, and failing, to break free of his bindings. They were magnetized. At least he’d been able to push down the foul-tasting strip of cloth they’d used to gag him.

“You’re new here, pal,” Jules said. “Maybe you should save yourself the trouble because you’re not going to get away with this.”

“I think we already have,” Damar said.

Jules wanted to bash the creep’s face with his metal cuffs. Then he could drive back to the Outpost to get help. But he thought of what Damar had threatened them with. Delta would be angry enough with Izzy to hurt her; of that he was certain.

He wished he’d been paying more attention back at the cenote. They’d been so close to getting through the day.

“What’s that?” Damar asked, moving the wheel from side to side as he tried to regain control of the speeder.

Despite being half naked, freezing from the saltwater drying on his skin, and bound, Jules laughed as his baby, his speeder, came crawling to a stop.

“Don’t worry,” Jules said. “It does this. You have to hit the dash a bit.”

Delta’s speeder slowed to a stop beside them. “What’s happening?”

The blue-haired creep was trying to hit the dash, but he’d clearly never hit anything before. The lights flickered on and his smile brightened before it went dead again.

“Go ahead of us,” Damar ordered. “Tell Ana that we’re on our way.”

Jules took that moment to catch Izzy’s eye. She was clearly terrified. Worst of all, she seemed to have believed his act. They were fools if they thought that was going to be enough to scare him away from her. Didn’t she know that he could tell? Whatever reason she had for saying those things, he believed her. He believed she had to do everything in her power to get help or get away.

But as she wrenched her eyes from his, he wondered if it was enough or if they were both doomed.

Pulsing pain shredded her temples from the tension. Regret was bitter on her tongue. She groaned into a night that did not acknowledge her struggle.

“Quiet!” Delta shouted, clapping a hand on Izzy’s shoulder to keep her in the passenger seat.

“Delta, why are you doing this?” Izzy asked.

“Ana Tolka, or whatever her name is,” she said, “offered me a boon. I get a thousand credits to track you two down and I get to kill you for what you did to me.”

“Really though?”

“Which part?”

“I get that at this point you’d kill me for free,” Izzy said, though she hated that her life was worth so little. “I’m sorry that I stunned you. But I had to get that parcel. People needed it for survival.”

Delta shrugged. “Everyone needs something.”

“I know,” Izzy said, bringing her bound hands to her chest. “But how are you going to spend your thousand credits when you’re being fed to Dok’s dianoga? Or worse, Oga might eat you herself.”

Delta shook her head. “No. This job is sanctioned by Oga—”

“Oh yeah? What’s the job?”

Delta frowned.

Izzy could already see how it had played out. “Let me guess. Ana approached you. Paid you half. Asked you to find Jules and me. Then gave you just enough detail to make you feel like you were part of the crew. I bet Lita even shared her sweets with you.”

“You’re trying to trick me,” Delta growled, but she gripped the wheel tighter.

Izzy nearly beamed when she saw Jules’s retrofitted speeder powered down up ahead. He wasn’t looking at her, but he seemed to be enjoying Damar’s lackluster attempts to get the speeder started again.

When Damar waved them forward, Izzy seized the opportunity to reason with Delta. Self-preservation was the best motivator she’d ever encountered.

“You’re telling me that Oga doesn’t know Ana is working a job here?” Delta asked.

“Have you ever been summoned to Oga’s office?” Izzy paused to let the woman consider this. “Because I have. I know for a fact that Oga is trying to find the woman sniffing around her outpost trying to cut Oga out of a deal.”

Delta didn’t need to know that Oga didn’t know what Ana Tolla looked like. Izzy just needed to make her see that Ana was using her.

“They said it was an easy score over at Kat Saka’s,” Delta said.

It was too dark to see exactly where they were, but they had to be approaching the farm soon. She needed Delta to keep driving.

“Why would Oga hurt her own pocket?” Izzy said, desperate. Reasoning with Delta now was the only way she wouldn’t be outnumbered later. “I’ve been where you are. Ana got me for weeks, and part of me fell for it. But they abandoned me. They’re not going to want to cut into their profits for you .”