PROMPT : SHAKEN
“I swear, if you say shaken and not stirred, one more time, I’ll wring your fat little neck,” Lynette seethed. “You don’t understand a thing!”
Arica perked a brow, leaning around her friend to get a better look at their mutual friend, a certain, sweet-cheeked, slightly plump and adorable visitor—a half-avian-human hybrid.
Giant black eyes blinked in slow disbelief at Lynette. “But, Lynn,” he chirped. “It was funny!”
“Not the first twenty-five times.” Lynette snapped. “You said you wanted to get out, so I brought you out. Congratulations. Now I can never come back here again,” she turned away, mortified.
Arica shook her head and nodded to the bartender. He was subtly eavesdropping and she didn’t care for it. She ordered another drink for herself, picking something that would send him to the end of the counter.
Then she nudged Lynette under the counter. They were waiting for a contact who had yet to actually approach them. The line that their friend, Damien, had been repeating, had leapt from his lips nearly a dozen times in the space of fifteen minutes.
Almost as if a telepath were prompting him on what to say.
Something that shouldn’t have been possible at all.
Because everyone knew that avians had impeccable metal gates and that even a half-avian was lightyears ahead of a typical human.
Except for Damien.
Who had a natural telepathic gift. Who had sworn there wasn’t anything or anyone sending any signals in the bar.
Except…Arica slipped her hand into Lynette’s open one. She could feel the fingers shaking, quivering, right along with the hand.
Ah. Good. So she wasn’t the only one terrified that this situation was about to go pear-shaped on them. Great. Even better.
She tugged on Lynette’s hand. “Need the restroom? I gotta go.” She flapped a hand at Damien and handed over a few bills. “Pay our tab, so he doesn’t keep lingering on our end of the table.”
Lynette stumbled blindly into the public restroom after her. She sagged back against the dented, old door, fumbling for the long transporter necklace hidden beneath her shirt.
Her fingers shook too much to grasp it properly.
Arica yanked it free. “Stop it. You’re—just stop,” she muttered, looping the necklace around her own neck as well. “I’m going to port us somewhere—“
The door banged and heaved.
The girls clutched at each other.
Lynette muttered the coordinates beneath her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t hear the angry yells or shouts as the portal swallowed them whole, yanking them out from one unpleasant situation and into the unknown.
She didn’t want to know.
Arica shivered, feeling the portal close over them, fully. “We are never doing that again,” she said, lightly. Carefully. “Never.”
“Never is good,” Lynette said, quietly. “Never is perfectly fine with me.”
(c) S. Harricharan