"Five minutes," Twister said. "Downstairs. Don't make me come back here."
Easy nodded once. He turned and headed for the stairs. Twister followed.
Fly held Flash's gaze like Luke Skywalker did when there was a disturbance in the Force. “We have to make her talk about it,” he said softly, glancing at her, then back to Flash.
Flash nodded and closed the door.
He set his forehead against the wood for one count and let himself feel exactly how much he'd just lost. He wasn’t going to lose her. He kept telling himself that. Hehadn'tlost her. He'd been inside her chest, and he'd felt her devastating need for him. She washere. She was alive. She was eight feet behind him in her own bedroom, but she might as well be a thousand miles away. She had that stare.
He turned around.
"Babe."
"Don't."
The word came out flat. He wished she were angry, but it was worse.Empty. She still wouldn't lift her head.
"We have to go down. I bought us five minutes."
"I know."
"Killa."
"Don't, Jae." Her voice cracked on his name. She closed her eyes. He watched her work her jaw and pull herself together by force of training. She rose from the bed. She didn't move toward him but past him, toward the closet, her robe belt cinched and her hair falling loose down her back, and she said over her shoulder, "Give me one minute. I'll meet you downstairs."
"I'd rather wait for you."
"I'd rather you didn't."
That impacted. He took it without flinching.
"Okay."
He picked up his shirt from the floor where he'd dropped it earlier in another life, pulling it on, and buttoned his jeans,leaving her room without looking back because if he looked back, he was going to fall apart in front of her. She didn't need to carry that on top of everything else.
He walked down the hall to the stairs.
The team was waiting at her table. The amber light was still on from earlier. Someone, probably Twister, had put coffee on. The smell of it cut through the silence of the tower. Four faces turned to him as he came down the last step.
Easy had pulled out a chair for him. The chair next to it was empty for Lechuza.
Twister set a mug in front of him without asking. Flash wrapped his hands around it and felt the heat through his palms but didn't drink.
Fly leaned forward, his forearms on the table. His voice was low and careful. "Flash. She’s destabilized. She disconnected from you. We can’t have that. Whatever key and lock means, you two have to be aligned. I’m sure of it. This is a dangerous turn of events."
"We were, then weren’t. I don’t know what happened," he said through gritted teeth.
"I’m sorry to have to ask this of your private business but were you…"
The quiet held. Flash watched Fly's face, knowing they already knew what they had been doing in there.
“This isn’t a locker room, and shouldn’t you buy me dinner first?”
Easy laughed softly. “Goddammit, Flash.”
“Yes. We were,” Flash admitted as Fly’s eyes narrowed.
Fly looked away. “Dammit. This is a fucking setback before we even get to the font.”
