(As always, my amazing friend and beta RadCat deserves credit for editing this)

This merchant was smarter than the others. Or maybe Ezra was getting rusty. Either way, he'd been caught stealing this time and he was on the run.

The chubby Sullastan yelled in a language Ezra didn't understand, shaking his fist at Ezra as Stormtroopers mounted speeders.

Ezra hastily shoved the credits and meal packs in his pack, dodging the stun bolts whizzing past his head. One singed his neck and he smelled singed hair.

Come on, don't fail me now. Ezra willed the odd ringing to come back-it had saved his arse plenty of times already. He took a hairpin turn around another stall, the compass in his head spinning. The alley he had slept in last night would be to the west, but it would be harder for the speeders to give chase in the long grass- the one place his stunted growth gave him benefit.

But speederbikes were fast, and he couldn't run for long. He could hear them swinging around the turn he had just taken.

He couldn't outrun him, but hopefully he could outfox them.

He pushed through a crowd of Rodians chatting in their foreign tongue, ignoring their aggravated exclamations. He heard them scream and scatter as the stormtroopers blazed around the corner.

Ezra willed his scrawny legs to jump, launching up to grab a clothesline. It swayed under his weight, and his arms jerked in their sockets, pain like a fire flaring up in his joints.

He looked down below him. Ten feet below, the speeders raced around the corner. "He's up there! Get him!"

The Imperials didn't seem to appreciate that he hadn't eaten for two days. Clearly, a scrawny thirteen year old was of utmost importance. Their blaster fire burned sizzling trails through the air.

The roof was only a few feet away. Ezra tried to move his hands, to shimmy down the line and climb up to the roof. His feet grazed the edge of the roof.

The clothesline snapped, and it rebounded around his left leg like a whip. He couldn't hold on to the ledge. Terror and shame swam in his gut as the cord tightened around his ankle and sent him swinging like a trapped animal, attached to the roof across from the one that would have given him a swift getaway and enough food to keep him going for a week.

The Troopers halted their fire, gazing up at him behind their helmets and chuckling. "Well boys, we caught ourselves a lothrat!" One exclaimed.

Ezra wasn't impressed by his sense of humor, but he wasn't in a position to taunt them. His ankle felt like it was being cut through with a soldering iron.

One Trooper stepped forward until he was helmet-to- upside down face with Ezra. "You are under arrest for thievery. We'll be taking what you stole back to its rightful owner and you'll be sent off to the cell blocks. For your sake I hope your parents bail you out."

His parents were good people. They would love him despite his flaws, right?

But the good people always die.

If they were still alive he wouldn't be in this situation anyway.

Ezra didn't feel like being a good person. In this age, thieves were hardly the worst of the monsters anyway. He spat on the trooper's immaculate shoes. "You're lower than any thief."

"Wha- You have the right to remain silent!"

Silence was a right? His parents told him the opposite.

"Democracy!" Ezra screeched.

Then Ezra hauled himself up with burning abdominal muscles. The ringing was back, and he swung himself onto the roof with unnatural grace. Just in time. He scooted on his but as far away from the ledge as the wire on his leg would allow. The troopers were still whining about "rights" that were really the opposite, as far as he was concerned.

The leash on his leg bit down into his torn clothes. Blood had soaked through his under layer and was staining his orange pants.

Ezra hissed through his teeth, examining the wound and gently prying away the ripped fabric, gingerly prodding his sprained ankle and inflamed flesh.

He checked his pack. The stolen credits and food were still in there. He dumped the contents out. Lock picks, wires, a canteen of water…

Ezra took a drink, swishing the liquid around his dry mouth. It cleared his head, as if washing away some of the pain and head rush from hanging upside down. He set the canteen aside. He would need the rest of it to clean the wound or he'd be dead in a week.

Ezra examined a thin knife he'd swiped from a merchant a few weeks ago. It should be sharp enough to cut through the wire.

Ezra took a deep breath, blocking out the shouts of, "Face the law, thief!" from below.

Ezra peeled the wire away from the sticky, bloody skin. It dug deeper into his calf, but relief flooded in where it had been garroting his shin. He slipped the knife between his prone flesh and the cord. He started sawing through the thick metal cable, each movement making the wire twist through his skin. Black spots danced in his vision.

An agonizing minute later, the cable snapped and he took a deep breath, taking a few moments to calm down before tearing away the rest of the dirty fabric and trickling the water into the raw red wound. The water turned pink and trickled down the gutter in the roof, a gory sight. Ezra hoped it rained down directly onto those kriffing Imps.

Ezra examined the clean wound. A deep channel had been cut into his flesh, and Ezra could feel the bone directly beneath when he touched it. His ankle was definitely sprained and he would need support-and bandages if he ever wanted to walk again.

Ezra tore off strips of fabric from his right pant leg, soaking them in the rest of the water to clean them and ringing them out until they were dry. He wrapped the fabric around his ankle, using a spare wrench to secure the tourniquet. It would have to do until he could rest and find something better to treat his wounds. If he left it on too long, he would lose the leg- but he didn't have access to anyone who could do it professionally and give him one of those fancy expensive cyborg prosthetics. If he couldn't treat it properly, he would die.

First he had to get down and get away from the troopers. If they gave chase, he wouldn't be able to run- he doubted he could even walk. Ezra scooted to the opposite edge of the roof. Below, there was a small patch of grass with a neat little picnic table, no Imps, and a speeder. This must have been someone's house, someone with a family…

But it was also someone that had a handy speeder bike and probably proper bandages. I'll give it back, he swore to himself.

Ezra packed up his things and glanced down at the yard, thirteen feet below. Usually, he could make the jump just fine, but with an injured ankle he doubted the jump would be neat- but he couldn't climb either. The wall was sheer concrete, without any ledges to use as a handhold. Ezra stood up shakily, gathering his equilibrium and standing on one foot. He kept his injured foot cocked, bending his knee and summoning the odd power that had saved him today already.

The landing would hurt, but he would rather leave with a bruised butt that stay on the roof to rot.

Ezra jumped, tucking his knees and wrapping his skinny arms around them.

He landed on a sore bottom on the grass, rolling to a kneel. His ankle screamed in pain, but he was okay.

Ezra hopped over to the lock, nearly keeling over onto his side as he searched in his bag for his lock pick. He braced one hand against the wall, sticking out his tongue in concentration as he picked the lock.

The door opened and Ezra stared straight down a blaster barrel.