Hey, guys!

It's been quite a while, eh? But now I've finally finished and voila – I present you a new chapter of Break the Law. Not too much Zack/Cody action, but there is another new character – my personal favorite, so grab those cookies and get reading! (And no, Nora's not me, or anyone I know.)

*************************************ZPOV*********************************

The last days had been bad. The next few days were worse.

Cody did not take Sydney out – I was sure of that because he wasn't that good an actor; he couldn't have hidden his guilt from me. We never talked about her after that night, but she was still there. She was there in the way we were determined not to mention her, in the way Cody's eyes would zone out of focus every now and then. She was present in my head all the time because I knew that she was in Cody's, and during the dark hours in our bedroom I felt like I could hear the sound of her annoyingly perfect laughter float ghostly through the room, escaped from his dreams.

Every thought of her came with a bunch of nasty feelings – sadness, anger, bitterness, hatred, and guilt. At first, the hatred was most prominent, but as the days passed, they all got drowned in the guilt that increased every time I looked at my twin.

It was the evening of the fifth day when I finally couldn't take it anymore.

"Just call her, won't you?"

Mom was in the kitchen, working on something that smelled disgustingly healthy. I could almost physically feel her attention stir, although she kept silent. Cody looked up from his homework. I seriously didn't know where he always got all that homework from - I wondered whether he actually asked the teachers to give him extra work.

"Call who?" He asked, with an unwilling, almost unnerved undertone to his voice, and a different question written in his eyes. What are you doing?

I hated having to say her name. "Sydney" I said, trying to sound as indifferent as possible although saying it made me feel a bit sick. Behind me, Mom had now realized her silence was getting rather obvious and went back to making typical cooking noises.

"Hmm…" said Cody, looking back at his homework and scribbling something.

"You didn't ask for her number after all, did you, chicken?"

He ignored me. I frowned, and then decided that a little teasing wouldn't hurt; I had already gone a dangerously long time without teasing him, anyway.

"Or did you ask for it, but she didn't want to give it to you?" His mouth twisted, but he still stayed silent. "That's it, right? Well, can't blame her, I guess; she's already been doing way enough charity work by hanging out with you…" Damn, when had he become so good at this? It used to take way less to piss him off! "I mean, you can't expect her to go out with a dork, especially one with a face like…"

"Zack!" Mom interrupted me. "Stop insulting your brother! He's a fine boy any girl would be lucky to date."

"Thank you, Mom", said Cody. Yeah, thank you very much, Mom. I mean, I might have managed to forget for like a split second. Can't let that happen. "And Zack, I would appreciate it if you left my love life up to me!"

I felt like I had been punched right in the stomach, but I pulled myself together and successfully resisted the temptation to let the matter go. I didn't want to go back to the guilt. I couldn't take it. All the other feelings in my chest were already eating me up; I had to get rid of the only one I could.

"That's my point, brother-dear", I forced myself to say. The involuntarily bitter way the nickname sounded from my lips seemed to remain long after the word itself had faded, leaving a bad taste to the air, like metal. I went on quickly.

"You don't have a love life. You're unable to get a girlfriend on your own!"

Cody opened his mouth, but Mom was faster. "Stop it right now, Zack!" She said, waving her spoon at me. "Cody's right. Plus, your own love life is not too busy, either, is it, so maybe you shouldn't be handing out advice!"

This time, the punch was hard enough to make me throw up. All those pent-up emotions that had been boiling inside me suddenly rose, burning my insides as they went, erasing every reasonable thought in my mind. I wanted to turn around and scream at Mom so loudly she would spill whatever it was she was cooking. I wanted to tell her that she had no idea, that she would never have the faintest idea of just how overstrained my "love life" really was. To be honest, I was tempted to abandon all caution and throw the ugly truth into her face, just for the satisfaction of watching it drop.

What kept me from doing so were Cody's eyes which were burning their way into my head. There was plea in them, sorrow, fear and despair, so intense that it nearly struck me down.

I felt like my head and chest were about to explode. After a minute, I jumped up, stamped towards the door, nearly ripped off the handle in an attempt to open it, and slammed it shut so hard that the bang must have been audible in the entire hotel.

***********************************CPOV**********************************

After Zack's exit, Mom and I were very silent for a few seconds, staring at each other in shock as the bang of the door resounded in our heads. Then, we simultaneously made for the door. I was there first, ripped it open and jumped out into the hallway. There was no sign of my twin.

"Zack!" I called, figuring it was already too late to worry about disturbing the guests. "Zack!"

Behind me, Mom had reached the door. "Come back, Honey!" She cried. "I'm sorry!" No answer.

I stormed towards the stairs while she ran down the hallway and round the corner, knowing it was probably pointless. Whenever Zack had wanted to outrun me, I'd never stood a chance against him. He was just too fast.

I passed floor after floor, hitting all the elevator buttons I could get my hands on and calling Zack's name. I was afraid. Zack was obviously steamed, and I knew him well enough to know what he was capable of doing in this state. He would get himself hurt. Or arrested.

I was in panic by the time I reached the lobby. I briefly scanned the room, ran to the hotel door, glanced around, then ran back to the middle of the lobby where I came to a halt, gasping, waving my arms and shouting "Zack!".

Maddie was by my side in a matter of seconds. "Cody!" She grabbed my wrists before I could accidentally hit her and shoved me into a chair before she examined me with a worried look on her face. "What happened?"

I was panting so hard I couldn't answer – I really wasn't a sports guy. When I had regained access to human language, I spit out: "Seen Zack?" Maddie frowned. "No, not since you guys came back from school together." Her frown got more intense. "What happened, Cody?"

I shrugged. "Dunno," I lied. "He just got mad. Ran away."

She stared at me. Then she collapsed onto the chair next to mine. "Shit," She said, still staring at me. "Remember what happened last time?"

I grimaced in horror at the memory. "That sure was the angriest nun I've ever seen!" "Lucky you," Maddie stated, "You would not believe the way all that black and white makes a red face glow…" Her eyes started to zone out. "And the stunning variety of curses that consist only of sacred words…"

"Maddie," I said, then louder: "Maddie?" I waved a hand in front of her face. She jumped and looked at me in a somewhat disoriented way. "Huh?" "There is an angry Zack loose in Boston. FOCUS!"

"Okay, okay", She said, raising her hands in surrender. "Well, have you tried ringing his cell phone?" I stared at her, quite puzzled. That thought hadn't even briefly occurred to me. "Um… no?"

Maddie sighed and dug out her cell from under her skirt. When she noticed my bewildered gaze, she smirked. "I've sewed in a few pockets so I can hide stuff from Moseby. Want some gum?" I declined, so she shrugged and put some into her mouth before handing me the cell phone. I typed in Zack's number and put it to my ear – just to drop it seconds later.

"Apparently, 'The big Zack-o is on a mission to save the planet from giant green monkeys and can't afford to waste his valuable time' with me." Despite of the seriousness of our situation, Maddie started to giggle.

"Is that his mailbox message?" I nodded, frowning. "Like, seriously?" The giggling turned into laughter. I gave her my most crushing glare. "How can you be laughing? We have a problem here!"

But Maddie just kept on laughing harder and harder while I sat there in fascination and watched her slowly slide off her chair. When she hit the floor and still didn't stop chuckling, I looked around for help and spotted a large pile of towels that was zig-zag-ing through the lobby.

"Lance!" I called just before he could hit the deserted candy counter. The towels halted and a muffled voice shouted: "I'll save you! – Just wait a second!" As most of the towels were placed on the counter, a curly head appeared above them. He saw us, shouted "Maddie!", ran over and dropped to his knees, getting ready for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

That was when he noticed that she was not actually unconscious but merely giggling uncontrollably, which he watched with a rather bemused expression.

"Dude," He said, "What's up with her?"

"I don't know!" I yelled. "Get her to stop! This isn't funny! Zack ran away and is probably damaging windows or setting free zoo animals or causing a major traffic jam right now, so get her to stop! – Please?" I added after taking a breath.

Lance half-heartedly poked Maddie in the side with his left foot which made her laugh even harder. "Sorry, I don't think we covered this in first-aid-class…" He stopped short. "Do you think she's having an attack? She's asthmatic, right?"

I frowned. "Wouldn't that make her cough, not laugh?" "Right" said Lance. "Good point." He hesitated. "Should I still give her the kiss of life?"

While I was still trying to figure out whether he was being ignorant, desperate, or just stupid, Nia passed by. "Oh, she'll be fine" she said. "That's just Maddie's way of dealing with overstraining situations." When we eyed her somewhat doubtfully, she nodded earnestly to confirm her statement. "I've seen her do that before. Like when Uncle Marion asked her to teach London about cubic parabolas… Or that one time her brother set a tarantula free in their apartment… Ooh, that reminds me, I gotta go feed Harry!"

I stifled a yelp. "You have a tarantula?" Nia shook her head. "Nope, sadly," She said with a look of actual regret. "Harry's a goldfish. Uncle Marion wouldn't let me have so much as a teensy weensy spider. But - I'm not giving up!" And with a last wink, she hurried on.

We looked at each other for a moment. Then, Lance held out his arm. "Towel?"

**********************************ZPOV************************************

I ran.

The cold night wind felt good in my face. I had no idea where I was heading, and I didn't care. I just kept running down street after street, not giving a damn whether I was on the sideway or not.

After a while, I couldn't have told whether it had been minutes or hours, my sides started to ache, but I was terrified to stop or slow down. Something was chasing me, but I figured that as long as I was fast enough, I wouldn't have to face it. It felt like I was running through a tunnel with walls of blurred colors and nothing in it but my pounding heart and my feet hitting the floor in a frantic rhythm. Yet somehow I knew it was a fragile condition that could protect me only as long as I was running and would shatter the moment I stopped, leaving me to deal with whatever it was that I was fleeing from. So I ran, and ran, and ran.

Time started to blur just like the world around me. Even the pain in my body didn't bother me anymore, although I could feel it clearly. It simply seemed unimportant, distant, like it belonged to a stranger. I guess that was as close as I ever got to understanding Einstein's theory of relativity.

As you can imagine, I was pretty damn caught off guard when my foot hit something hard and I fell, being pulled out of my dream-like state violently.

When I collided with the ground, the shock of it went through my entire body, leaving every part of it aching equally. I couldn't tell up from down, couldn't think or wonder or care. It was as if I had no brain, as if I were all body, hurting, throbbing body, that is.

It took a few moments for the shock and most of the pain to fade, making room for other things – breathing, for instance. There was new pain when my lungs demanded the air they had been deprived of.

As the oxygen came flowing in, my brain jumped into work mode again. I could now distinguish different degrees of pain in different body parts. My right arm and leg hurt the most, followed by the other leg and the right half of my face, which suggested that I had tried to shield my body with my arms and was now lying on my right side.

I was a little afraid to move in case something was broken, but I figured that not moving would hardly help, so I might as well find out.

I had just come to this conclusion when yet another sensation was added to the mess that my brain was still struggling to make sense of: there was a light pressure on my left side and shoulder. It was not painful, though, but warm and gentle… comforting.

"Oh gosh, are you okay?" The words were coming from behind… no, above me. There was a great deal of emotion in the voice speaking, but my overstrained mind was too busy to read it.

Wanting to see who was talking to me, I braced myself and started to roll over, ignoring my protesting limbs. The hands supported my efforts until I was raised in a half-sitting position. Here I stopped, because a wave of nausea washed through me and it took all the will power I could scrape up not to puke. Only when I had managed to regain control over my stomach, I finally dared to look up.

A girl was kneeling on the sidewalk, probably a little older than me. She was pretty, I mused – not exactly beautiful, but still pretty. She had dark blonde, short hair and grey eyes that were wide with worry. This reminded me of her question. I wondered what I should tell her. Was I okay? I wriggled my arms and legs carefully. They were hurting badly, but at least I could move them, so that was good, right?

"I think so…" I finally said.

The girl ran her eyes quickly down my body before looking back at my face with her eyebrows pulled together and one of them slightly raised. "Well, you look awful", she told me forthrightly. For some reason, this made me want to laugh. I wasn't taking any risks, though, so I just gave a weak smile and started to tug at my right trouser leg, which was ripped and blood-stained.

What became visible underneath was not pretty. My knee and the upper half of my shin were covered in blood and dirt. "Ouch!" The girl drew a sharp breath. "Okay, you stay here. Don't move; I'll be right back." She got up and walked away, giving me the opportunity to do a quick check-up.

My left leg looked better than the right one; it had only a scratch and bruise on it. The sleeves of my sweater were torn, though, showing more bleeding, filthy scratches. The rest of me was just dirty… oh, and apparently, I was becoming my usual self again, because I chuckled quietly at the double-entendre. All things considered, it could've been worse.

It could definitely have been better, though, I decided when I tried to get up and my head and stomach revolted furiously, forcing me to slump right back down while taking deep, slow breaths until the world stopped spinning.

That's when the girl came back. She was holding a bunch of pads in one hand and a bottle of water in the other which she held out to me. I didn't understand, so I simply stared at it and then at the girl's face cluelessly.

Despite my idiocy, she smiled at me. Something about that smile distracted me, but it took me a moment to figure out: She was actually smiling with her whole face, every single muscle in it participating to create an expression that was purely kind and friendly.

Man, I must be really messed up, I realized. I had never reflected on an expression for so long in all my life. I was so distracted that I completely missed her explanation; by the time I realized I was supposed to listen and started to pay attention, she was done.

However, from the way she was gesturing in the direction of my bad leg, I guessed she wanted me to wash it, which seemed like some pretty good thinking. I took the water bottle from her hand and opened it, then I moved it toward the leg, glancing at her face to see if I had guessed right.

She mistook my hesitation for fear. "That's still water", she said reassuringly. "It won't hurt too much." There it was again, the smile that was so perfectly kind that it totally kept me from feeling ashamed for making her think I was afraid.

Cautiously, I poured some of the water over the wounds. It sent a surge of pain through the whole leg, but I was prepared. Using the tabs that she had handed me, I wiped blood and dirt off my skin so we could examine the actual damage.

Bruises were beginning to form pretty much everywhere, and the top skin layer on my knee was almost completely scraped off. Bright red blood was already oozing out of the wounds again, running over the bruises. So, basically, it was kind of like my usual post-fight condition.

My remaining limbs turned out to look quite similar, except with less blood and more bruises. Everything still hurt like hell, but I felt a lot better now that I knew it was nothing serious.

When I was done washing, I wanted to give the near-empty bottle and what was left of the tabs back to the girl, but she shook her head. "You need to clean your face", she said. "You look pretty scary, you know."

Obediently, I began to wipe my forehead. When I checked the pad after a few wipes, I was all but black with filth. I briefly wondered where it all came from – after all, I hadn't landed in anything… or had I?

Slightly panicked, I stared at the girl. "What is that on my face?" I asked, as calmly as possible. She merely smiled in a mysterious fashion and reached out to take bottle and tabs from me. She started pouring water on a fresh tab and I realized what she was doing. I felt revulsion at such a gesture, even though I knew that there was nothing intimate about the situation.

Either way, when she half-raised her hand and asked "May I?", I could hardly have said No, now could I? So I shrugged and allowed her to lean over and remove the … whatever-it-was from my face.

When I was not the one doing the job, the sharp pain that occurred whenever the water came in touch with even a small scratch was much harder to ignore. I clenched my teeth and of course, I did not make a sound, but was very glad when she put down the last pad and declared that I was now acceptably clean.

"I'm Nora, by the way", she said when she was done. Again, her words were accompanied by her signature ultra-friendly smile. "I'm Zack", I answered, carefully raising my right arm to shake her hand. I was talking slowly and minimizing my body language to keep the nausea out. "I'd smile at you but my face won't quite cooperate". She grinned.

"So… Thanks a lot for stopping and helping and… you know…" I wasn't happy with the way those the words came out. Apparently, my speech department was still a little shaken. I felt like I needed to say something more. "Hey… Can I like, buy you a drink or something in return?" I glanced down the street, thinking that this plan might be hard to put into action: We were clearly in a residential area; there was no sign of a pub or a bar or even a restaurant.

However, I needn't have worried. "Thanks, but No Thanks", the girl – Nora – said apologetically. "I've only had my driver's license for half a year and I'd like to keep it for a little longer. I appreciate the gesture, though." And again with the smiling! There was no way I could have felt rejected or taken her decline personally.

A small silence grew between us as I took another glance at our surroundings which I had only now begun to take in. I also began to feel a little queasy as I had to admit to myself that I didn't have a clue were we were. I could have sworn I'd never seen any of these buildings before.

"Um… Where are we?" I asked, aware of how stupid and cliché I sounded. Nora's expression became a bit worried. "Dwarson Lane", she told me. Only that didn't help me at all. "Boston?" she added, now more than just a bit worried. This name I recognized, but it wasn't exactly helpful either. I bit my lip.

Nora frowned. "Okay… So, do you remember where you live?" Gosh, I felt so incredibly stupid! Like a child that had gone missing and couldn't find his way back to Mommy. "At the Tipton Hotel," I answered and noticed with relief that recognition flashed across her face before being replaced by an even deeper frown. "How did you get here? Do you remember?"

"I ran," I said plainly. Nora's eyebrows went up her forehead. "That's more than five miles from here!" I shrugged. "I must have run further than I thought". She looked at me doubtfully but didn't question my answer. Instead, she asked: "Do you think you can even walk?"

That was a very good question, and although I wasn't keen on another attempt of getting up and having my stomach perform a break-dance routine, I knew I had to give it a try. So I took Nora's hands that she was holding out to me and allowed her to pull to me up.

As soon as I was standing, legs far apart for some stability, I wanted nothing more but to sit down again. My head and stomach were being nasty little assholes and the rest of the world wasn't much better: It was blurred and fuzzy and the ground was moving as if determined to throw me over.

It took a few moments to get used to all this since I was actually quite busy not doing things, like fall or throw up. When I had successfully suppressed those urges, I took a step, and then another. I felt insecure, like I'd had too many drinks even though I was perfectly sober. But I was walking. I might make it home – if only I knew the way…

"Forget it, man," Nora's voice said behind me. "No way are you going to make it to the Tipton." I would have contradicted her, but I knew she was right and I also knew that it was obvious. So I turned around – slowly and carefully.

But before I could even ask, she had already said "I'll give you a lift," and rushed forward to take my arm and guide me the few yards back to her car. This bothered me a little, but I was also grateful for the support because my legs were still not very happy with having to carry my weight.