He drove them to an open bar, landed, and reopened the doors.
“Get out.”
“What? Why? Where are we?”
“Safe. Now get out.”
They didn’t move and he made a show of eying Marsha’s new and very expensive gun. His gaze screamed: I’ll break it too if you annoy me. He’d crush it and leave them weaponless before she ever had the chance to fire it.
“We’re not moving until you tell us what’s happening. We could’ve waited longer, the night has barely begun, there’s hours left to go! You made us fucking leave and owe us something for standing there lamely for nothing. What the hell, Cyborg? Do you even know how to deal with humans?”
Reid sighed, holding back his annoyance. “Plan B doesn’t involve you.”
“Like hell it does! Santino takes Natalie,” her hand came down on her girlfriend’s shoulder, “and it’s not personal for us because you say so? What has he done to you?” she hissed. “A woman’s revenge is one of the only things she has left in this god-forsaken universe.”
He held back the flinch her words spurred, hitting home where his thoughts had previously been. His palms ran down his thighs as his body caught up to his tech to stop the pounding that built in his temples. When he commanded people, they listened; when he ordered, questions weren’t asked. When problems like Clara arose, like Marsha and Natalie, it made him annoyingly vulnerable.
“Look. Cop. Get a drink. Get several on me.” He searched for the right words. “But what’s about to happen—with me—won’t be pretty or safe.”
“I’m trained, Reid. Back up. Ever heard of it? I’ll be back-up,” Marsha’s voice lowered and he knew she noticed the change in him.
The pounding in his head intensified. His canines unlocked in his jaw, demanding to be released.
“I’ve killed before, I’ll kill again. And for a lot less,” Marsha said.
“You can’t die!”
The silence after his admonishment only ratcheted up the tension coursing through him. The aroma of berries clawed at the back of his senses. The whistle of wind flowing through his flyer, only to escape again, hounded a barely buried need to shift and join its journey. The berries left him and were replaced by the smells of the two women in his vehicle.
“Why?” Natalie broke the silence quietly at his side.
“Because...” Reid glanced at her then at Marsha through the mirror. “Because I know you now.” He didn’t know how to explain it. How to relay what the canine inside him demanded, what it wanted, what it needed. How to put into words how hard it was to know someone then lose them during war.
The silence was deafening again until Natalie turned away from him, his knuckles turning white over his knee. He watched as she stepped out, as Marsha glared at him through the front window’s reflection while she followed her girlfriend. The doors closed and he could breathe again. A knock sounded on the glass next to his head.
Reid lowered it. “What?”
“Money? Drinks are on you, right?” Natalie asked.
For the first time that night, Reid smiled.
