Free Strikers by Ann Christy Page A

“No. That’s not someplace you want to go. Let’s get him up.”

Chapter Eleven
    The choice is made and I can do nothing except make sure he doesn’t die in the process of moving him around. Jovan isn’t a small person. He towers over me when he’s standing and he’s like a long floppy burden right now. We grab him, my father at Jovan’s shoulders and I at his feet, and do a clumsy job of maneuvering him out of the cell and into reception.
    Maddix and Connor are going through the duty desks and the shelves behind the big counter that splits the room. There are growing piles of stuff on the counter and the floor. They stop and gape at us when we huff our way out of the cell block with a groaning Jovan between us. This isn’t what we had planned out, so clearly something has gone wrong. My father gets Jovan’s head onto the pile of uniforms and eases him down as I settle his feet.
    Jovan immediately tries to get up, uncoordinated and confused. My father presses him gently back down and tells me, “Keep him still, Karas. We have to get moving.”
    Inside, I feel like a thousand bees are boiling out of a hive that’s inexplicably become lodged in my stomach. Panic is building and I know what will happen when it gets to be too much. I’ll make a mess of things by running or fighting or just creating general havoc. We can’t afford for that to happen now so I stroke Jovan’s forehead to keep him still, close my eyes and count slowly. It helps to bring me out of my frantic emotions and puts me back in the moment. I feel better by the time I get to twenty.
    Around me, the steady activity continues. My father is like the calm center of a storm, comfortable despite the fact that time is passing dangerously quickly. He even seems to know where everything would logically be, opening and closing drawers or calling out something that should be searched for.
    When I hear the sound of a successful find, I open my eyes to see him bouncing a handful of keys in his hand and smiling. He’s got a nice smile, very genuine, not at all the smile of a hardened criminal. Not that I would know what that looks like, really.
    Maddix stops cramming things into bags as my father dangles several sets of keys in his hand. “Yes!” he exclaims. “That will get us out of here.”
    That’s when I realize the keys must be for the Army vehicles here at the Courthouse. They’re probably all charging in the garage we passed less than an hour ago.
    My father tosses the keys and Maddix snatches them out of the air. He says, “Go find out what kinds of vehicles they have and check the charges on every vehicle. Hurry.”
    Maddix dashes through the door and is gone like a shot into the dark night. My father goes back to his searching, disappearing into the break room that the soldiers came out of.
    Under my hand Jovan moves differently, his movements with less aimless agitation and more purpose. His eyes are open and steady now, no longer roaming around and unable to focus. He winces when I touch the side of his head but smiles to take the sting out of it.
    He grabs my hand when I pull away and asks, “This didn’t go exactly as planned, did it?”
    I shake my head, not sure how I’m going to break the news to him that his privileged life as a Foley has probably just ended. Unless he wants to go in and kill a couple of soldiers and blame it on the escapees, that is.
    “I’m sorry,” I say and rest my free hand in my lap, letting him keep the other. I’m not sure why he has my hand since he’s not really doing anything with it. He’s simply holding it like he might hold a pencil or a piece of chalk, absently. Even so, I can feel how hot his hand is against my stress-cold skin.
    He sighs and says, “It was bound to happen, one way or another.” He tucks in his chin, puts on a deep and very cultured voice and says, “There is the right way to do things, the wrong way to do things, and then there is the Jovan way of doing things.”
    He