breath to plume in front of her face; close enough to smell spicy kebabs, and his cologne, and for her to feel a small, distant chime inside herself, a faint awareness like a struck bell.
“Yes,” she said, tapping the plastic counter, arriving at a sudden, fierce decision. “I’ll take these.”
He snorted.
~*~
When the team reconvened, Rose noted that Gavin was tousled and drowsy and beaming, and that Gallo walked with his head down, his cheeks pink from more than the cold.
“Next time,” Gavin proclaimed, shaking Gallo by the shoulder. “I’m gonna drag you inside.” He laughed, a little drunk and thrilled by his own joke.
Gallo tried to duck down deeper into the collar of his jacket.
Tris showed up last, his expression both more tired, and tighter than it had been before. He’d missed a button on his shirt, Rose noticed.
Gallo finally managed to shake loose from Gavin and put several paces between them. He shot a glance toward Tris, and the way his face fell another fraction told Rose he’d noticed the missed button, too.
“What did you two get up to?” Gavin asked them. “You find a bar fight to throw Greer into?”
Rose stared at him.
Lance chuckled and said, “Nah, did some shopping.” Thankfully, he didn’t elaborate.
~*~
Hardly anyone drove in this city, and no one would have cared about a drunk driver besides. Several stalls sold beer, and heated wine in foam cups. Gavin insisted on getting some, and Lance got a cup of his own. By the time they headed back to the base, Gavin was thoroughly wasted, swaying and trying to convince Tris and Gallo to sing some sort of rowdy drinking song with him.
Lance’s cheeks, Rose saw when she darted him a glance, were stained red from the alcohol and the cold, eyes glittering as he surveyed their surroundings. He didn’t stagger or stumble, but his voice was a little softer and less guarded than usual when he leaned in a little closer and said, “I know you hate us.”
Unexpected. She felt her brows go up. “What? I don’t hate you.” The protest was automatic, and she wished, after, biting her lip, that she hadn’t offered it. She didn’t owe him that kind of reassurance.
His gaze slid over, mouth curving into another of those small, amused smiles he’d been giving her all night, unbothered by her venom. “No, you do. Or, at least, you want to hate us. And that’s alright. But I hope you won’t forever. If you let yourself, you might even like us.”
The nerve of him. She couldn’t find a rational explanation for the white-hot anger that flared in her chest. She faced forward, not wanting to look at him lest he see the furious, stinging tears gathering in her eyes. She managed to choke out, “I like Frankie.”
Lance laughed. The asshole.
When they reached the base, she headed straight to the room she’d been assigned for the night, a dorm no bigger than a closet, just like at their home base. She shut herself inside, threw her shopping bag down on the bunk, and stood leaning back against the door a moment, hands clutching tight in the front of her own jacket, catching her breath.
She hadn’t been this winded on the op – on any op. This wasn’t exertion, but emotion wringing her out like an old dish rag, and she hated it. It was so useless, so childish, so stupid. She wished she hadn’t gone to the market; that she had in fact stayed here and found a treadmill to run the belt off of, rather than be subjected to Lance du Lac’s attempts at friendship.
Not just friendship, an unhelpful voice chimed in the back of her head, and that was even worse.
She couldn’t allow these people to make her feel like a part of something. She couldn’t afford to grow complacent here.
She closed her eyes, and conjured Beck’s voice from memory. Imagined him reading to her, by the firelight in the library, his voice low and velvety and beloved, animating the hearts of the characters on the page.
Her own heart slowed, eventually. When she had herself under control, she pushed off the door and crossed to the half-sized desk against the wall. Rooted around in her bag until she found the little zippered pouch that contained her most valuable possessions.
The two pendants hooked on the single gold chain winked up at her beneath the harsh tube lights. The rose and the crown. She didn’t like to wear them for fear the chain would