Marcus - Precinct 12

by Chloe Vincent

  He took a seat, but didn't open any of the food. Instead, using his hands elaborately, he replied, "I know that, but you have to know something, right? You made the agency years ago. Do you have any idea if what I'm saying sounds like someone who's changing? Do I have a reason to worry?"

  Adina, too, didn't go for the food. She was entirely too preoccupied with Marcus and what the hell she was supposed to say back. The truth was that yeah, he probably had a serious reason to worry, but she wasn't an expert on it. There was no way in hell that she'd declare her opinion—that he was, in fact, turning into a werewolf. What if she was wrong? She had no real training, and she'd not exactly seen a lot of similar situations. She opened and closed her mouth. "It's not easy to say," she told him truthfully. "You might be, but there's also a chance something else is going on."

  "But should I be worried?"

  She met his truthful eyes. Normally, she'd say, “I don't know. Consult with a doctor.” But with him, she found herself being completely up front, knowing that he might lose it. "I... you shouldn't be worried per se, but you may be transforming. If you are—and I don't know if you are or aren't, so don't panic—there's nothing that can be done to stop it. You'll just have to ride it out." She finished the part with a positive inflection, like any part of it was going to be fun. He might very well come through and be totally fine. Alternatively, his body could reject it and his life would become agonizing and horrible. She'd been hoping, no, praying that someone else would be telling him this, but she'd already made up her mind that the next morning, if nobody else had broken the news, she'd have to do it for him. She just hadn't worked through the logistics of how, so she wasn't eager to say too much. "I'm sorry," she told him genuinely. "I don't know what to say. I'm not good at this sort of thing."

  Marcus didn't panic. He didn't freak out. He didn't start screaming and flip the table over. He just sat there, his mind going a million miles an hour, his face a tapestry of concealed worry. He took a deep breath, forced a weird smile on his face, and met her eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut a moment later. He did it again a second time. The third time, he spoke. "Is it okay if I sit here with you a while? I have a lot to think about and I..." he trailed off. "You're very comforting to me."

  12

  The Truth

  It took Adina five or ten minutes before she started wondering what in the hell she was doing.

  She wasn't known for her stellar choices all the time, like the time that she'd broken her leg and four ribs thinking she was cool enough to drive over a bridge and land on a driving suspect below. She'd gotten him, sure, but she'd limped off with a pretty considerable lesson to remember. Or the time that she'd been bet by Alex that she wouldn't be able to nail a hook shot on a random basketball net half a block away. He'd been right. She'd fucked up the start and ended up hurtling a basketball straight into someone's Lexus. Shattered glass, apologies, and a hefty repair bill later, she swore to never take another one of Alex's dares.

  This topped the cake.

  She wasn't a licensed doctor. She could be telling this guy that he was turning into a werewolf when he just had a cold. Was it likely? Not terribly, but it also wasn't something she wanted to imagine. What if the full moon came around and she was just wrong? Even more terrible, she was just an awful counselor. She didn't really get how people appealed to other people. Maybe it was the tragic, traumatic origin story of her being abducted and getting forcibly infused with demonic blood to open a portal to hell by a group of insane strangers, but she never quite got the hang of being a people person. She could fake it well enough, but Marcus was looking at her in a way that was utterly distracting her, and trying to think of stuff to say was amazingly hard. She might as well be trying to sculpt Mount Rushmore out of water. Every time she tried to form a coherent sentence and explain what he might be expecting next, she came up blank even though she knew what would be coming down the drain for him next. She knew it like the back of her hand. It was her business to know this sort of thing. It was not her business to explain it, which was a good thing because if it was her job, she'd be out on the streets in hours.

  She stumbled through the very basic next steps of the transformation if he was really going down that road, sounding about as intelligent as if she'd been drinking for the past five years. She hadn't slept in more than 40 hours, which normally wasn't a big deal because of her genetics, but it decided to really kick in then and there. All of this, this whole thing, was not even remotely the way she'd pictured her night going. Make a shitty sandwich, curl up, go over some stuff, get a great breakthrough, and solve the case. That was how she imagined it going, but here she was, sitting in her pajamas without makeup and eating terrible take-out with a crush in the middle of the night, with only the occasional car going by to distract from the pauses. Would it be weird to go put on makeup? Was it weird to stay there like that? He didn't say anything about it, so she just ran with it and assumed she was probably going to screw this up anyway, and she didn't particularly feel like going through the whole deal of putting makeup back on.

  It took a solid half hour to go over everything about the potential transformation, largely because he kept asking stuff that she didn't know once he'd calmed down somewhat about the whole notion. How in the hell was she supposed to know if he could still eat chocolate if he turned into a werewolf? She guessed they had to be distantly related to dogs, but why his brain went there wasn't something she thought she could explain. She was many things, but a social person she was not, so she did her best to keep up with his questions, brushing off the thanks when he showered her with them after nearly every answer.

  Finally, the conversation took a pause. She got the feeling that she'd finally gone through all of his questions. She gave him a gentle smile. This was a trying time. She wanted him to know that he wasn't alone. "Any other questions? I don't know if I can answer them, but I'll try."

  He gave her a similar smile, one that warmed her heart in a way that she hadn't anticipated. "I can't think of anything. You're an angel."

  She snorted instinctively. An angel? Yeah, right. The exact opposite. In her veins didn't run human blood. She was a horrifying monster crafted by monsters to bring over more monsters from hell. When he gave her a curious look, she stuttered an explanation. "Not a lot of people have called me that. It's fine, really. I would have—" She almost said she would have done it for anyone, but the truth was, ninety-five percent of people who appeared without any warning at her door in the middle of the night and wanted a chat would have had the door slammed in their face. The other three percent of people would have gotten an appointment the next day or two, and a very, very small two percent would have made it to where he was. She could count on one hand the number of people she'd let come in and talk. She smiled at him again. "I hope I was able to shine some light on it."

  Part of her professionalism came from the awkwardness of the other night, which surprisingly wasn't at all alleviated by an even worse conversation. They both must have sensed it, but neither said anything. Before the responsibility could fall to her to keep it going, Adina took a bite. She'd been explaining stuff the whole time. Time for him to earn his keep and bring it up.

  Bring it up he did not. Instead, he sat at the other end of her table, staring at her with a faraway look in his deep blue eyes, like he was looking at her, but past her at the same time. "Can I ask you a question?"

  The answer was almost certainly no, but for him, she made an exception. "What kind of question?"

  "A personal question."

  She bit down on the food. Fuck. Personal questions, the bane of her existence. Why couldn't they go back to talking about werewolf crap? At least there, she had some semblance of knowledge. About herself? She didn't know why she was so screwed up. "Shoot." At least he didn't say, “You have to promise not to be offended.” She'd never once gotten a question after that which wasn't offensive as hell. The last time someone asked her a "personal question",
it was an unsolicited remark as to whether or not she had a gag reflex. The answer was yes, she did. She could've proven it by choking on her multivitamin like she did every damn day, but she took the other road: telling him to fuck off.

  Marcus's eyes dashed around as he obviously tried to figure out a way to word whatever it was that he was thinking. She wanted, badly, to search his emotions. She held back the urge. It was a violation of his privacy, and he didn't even know she could do that. Finally, just when she was about to give in and check anyway like a kid on Christmas tearing into the presents early, he spoke.

  "Why do you hide who you are?"

  This was the exact point in a normal dinner where she'd yell at him, tell him that she was who she was, and order him to leave. That day, though, maybe it was the wine they'd busted out or the above-average takeout, but she paused and tried to give him fair warning that he was treading on dangerous waters with her. "That's a touchy question, Marcus..."

  He sat back, relieving the tension that had built up in a second. "I didn't mean to offend you, and I know it's probably rude to say it, but I have to. I've seen who you are under there when you think nobody is watching. You're kind, and sweet, and genuine. You're intelligent and friendly, and you have so much potential to be loved, but you close yourself off and I just… I just don't know why. It's like you close yourself off and put this big wall up in front of yourself, but why? What are you protecting yourself from?" He held up his hands with a grimace when his speech had finished spilling out. "I'm sorry. You said not to push it, and I did. I shouldn't have."

  Adina felt like someone had just swung a wrecking ball of emotion and shattered her chest with it. People never talked to her like that, ever. The people who knew her the best knew that she didn't do that sort of thing and just learned to leave her alone for the most part. She'd come out when she wanted interaction, but by and large, she was a loner. Having Marcus straight-up ask her like that startled her, startled her and got her mind turning. She tried to come up with a good response, but nothing came. She didn't know the answer, or at least that's what she told herself. Somewhat without authorization from her mind, she spoke.

  "I, um, I lost someone very dear to me once," she replied in a soft voice. "It was my fault, and if I'd just stayed away and he hadn't taken me in, he might still be—" She snapped her jaw shut, feeling waves of emotion wash over her. The Warlock was the only person who ever really seemed to love her for who she was, and look where that had gotten him.

  She looked down, feeling awfully small and alone for such a strong woman. She put out a defensive barrier of anger, the only mechanism she knew for when things got personal. "I said I didn't want to talk about it, for fuck's sake."

  Marcus said nothing. Since she had her vision locked on the window behind him, she came up with her own reasons for why he wasn't talking. Option A, the one her emotional self preferred, was that he was being a dick. Option B, he was so taken aback by her weakness that he didn't even know what to say. Now he knew her secret—under all that toughness was a soft little ball of regret and failure. Dammit, why did he have to ask her that? Why couldn't he have just chatted about the weather tomorrow or go over some stupid scandal in Precinct 12? Wasn't that what all celebrities did?

  "So," she snapped after about two seconds of him not talking. "You just gonna ignore me, huh? That's cool. No reason to respond. That's just fuckin' great. Thank you."

  He interrupted her midway through her sentence with the exact tone she hadn't expected: kind. Caring. Understanding. "I wouldn't have asked if I'd known it would hurt you this much. I really had no idea." He stood up, drawing her attention to him. He spread his arms. "I need a hug."

  "I don't need a hug," she practically growled. "I'm fine."

  "I didn't say you needed one." He wiggled his arms. "I said I needed one. Please? You'd be doing me a favor."

  "Get your own damn hug." God, she wanted to let him comfort her. She could never let that happen, not with all the memories swirling around inside her, memories that a child should never have had to experience.

  He scooted around the table and crouched by her. "Adina." He opened his brawny arms again, just being a wonderful, sweet, muscular asshole. "I really need a hug. I've just learned I'm losing my humanity, that food had way too much pepper for its own good, and it's been a rough week at work. You'd be doing me a favor."

  Adina slowly unclenched herself, like a hermit crab emerging from its shell. "Fine."

  A little awkwardly, she extended her arms to him. It had been a long time since she'd embraced someone. She didn't need people, and they didn't need her. He gently brought her into a hug, rubbing his hand over her lithe back in a soothing, back-and-forth motion that somehow cleared the knot in her throat. "Thank you, Adina."

  She buried her head in his chest. It was nice to be protected. Cared for. He didn't need a hug, and she'd given him all the obvious fuck-off signals, but he'd kept going for some unknown reason when it would have been much easier to just leave. He'd gotten the information he needed. There wasn't anything else he needed from her. The only reason he was still there was out of interest in her, and that, even if it wasn't much, meant a hell of a lot to her. With her head tucked, she found it much easier to speak, and speak she did without knowing why.

  "It was my fault." The words stung.

  His chest rumbled against her as he replied. "Who said that?"

  "I did."

  "Did he blame you?"

  She bit her lip, hard. "No." That was the maximum of her vocabulary. The rest was blocked off by the knot in her throat that made it a little hard to breathe. She didn't pull away from the hug, and neither did he.

  There was a pause. He continued to stroke her back for a few moments, not in a sexual way but in a wholesome “I will protect you” way. "What color are your eyes?"

  More than a little jarred by the sudden change in topic, she hesitated. "What?"

  "What color are your eyes?"

  "...Blue?"

  "No," he replied instantly. "They're green."

  "What are you even talking about?" Was there something here she was missing? She forced herself to release the embrace and pulled away to see Marcus looking at her with a frustrating but endearing gaze. She leaned back up. "There's your hug. And I have blue eyes."

  "Green," he argued.

  "What the hell, I literally..." She opened her eyes wide to demonstrate it. "I have blue eyes. And what does this even—"

  "Green. And you know what else? I could tell you every day that you had green eyes. I could sit here for years and tell you that you had green eyes. Hell, I could even hire other people to say it. You might even tell yourself that you have green eyes if you thought it enough." He smiled at her. "You don't have green eyes. And no matter how much you may have told yourself that it was your fault, that doesn't mean it's true. I've lost people, and it sucks. Big time. It hurts so bad you feel like puking and all you can do is cling to the last memories you have of them and it feels like if you let go of the hurt, you let go of them, but they're not gone. They're still with us in our hearts, in our minds, and in our actions. I don't know what happened with you. But I can tell you one thing—if he were here with you now, he'd tell you the same thing he already did: you aren't to blame."

  The next hug was for her.

  13

  Evolution

  Adina's evolution from tough badass to emotional tornado took a few minutes. She thought she was pretty well situated to just handle herself, but thinking about the Warlock, combined with the presence of Marcus and the odd timing, proved her painfully wrong.

  Out everything came, like a waterfall of bad memories and secrets. They talked about friends, both friends that they'd lost in years past and ones that they still cherished to that day. They talked about their childhoods, though even broaching the topic of hers was too off-limits, so she mostly heard him explain his country upbringing, the close relationship he'd had with his parents, and how much he missed them after the
y'd passed, but how he'd learned to cope with it and remember them without suffering. They shared stories from their youths, stories of which Adina only had a few, but she enjoyed telling the very few that she had. It was a special night, full of a strange energy and an electricity between the two of them, a perfect understanding and a bare vulnerability that they both showed to each other. She felt as though she were inside his mind, reliving his memories with him, and sensed that she could trust him enough to tell him anything. She didn't know why. Normally, her trust maxed out at telling people her Netflix password, but for him, she felt sure that she could be genuine—a feeling she wasn't used to.

  As the night went on, she was reminded of how attractive he was. It was admittedly distracting, but it was nice that he just sat there and flirted with her like a perfect human being, knowing the exact time to laugh and the right time to sympathize, but not in a fake way. He wasn't trying to trick her. They were just on the same wavelength, and she wasn't eager to change channels. They finished the food and, since neither one of them felt particularly sleepy, they moved to the couches and carried on there. Her brain decided to mention the fact that she should probably be less messy, something that she hadn't noticed beforehand but now the slightest blemish screamed at her. It was okay. All of it was okay. For one, perfect night, everything. Was. Okay. She caught her eyes straying across his toned, muscular body time and time again, imagining what it would be like to be with him. He'd be in charge. Sure, he put off this nice-guy vibe and he was certainly caring, but she suspected that in the bedroom, he was fierce. He'd call the shots. He'd be a real manly man and take charge, not someone who'd need guidance. He knew what he wanted, and he'd take it. It was a turn-on for her. Sure, there was something to be said about the allure of teaching an inexperienced man, but there was also something to be said about having to just sit back and enjoy the show. The ease, the confidence, the smoothness in his motions caught her attention and kept it.