Reyes fished a cigarette from her pocket with gloved fingers, the metallic click of her lighter echoing sharp under the hospital corridor's merciless fluorescents.
The flame blooming brief and orange as acrid smoke curled lazy upward in lazy spirals, her cedar-steel pheromones sharpening to a knife-edge with barely leashed tension, scarred jaw flexing subtle.
"Give me one too," Hellen demanded rough and immediate, her blonde ponytail twitching irritable like a lashing tail ready to strike, ice-blue eyes flicking ravenous to the crumpled pack bulging Reyes' charcoal jacket pocket.
"I'm not sharing with the likes of you," Reyes shot back cool and cutting, inhaling deep and deliberate—chest expanding under her blazer as smoke filled her lungs, scarred jaw ticking faint rhythm when she exhaled a thick, defiant plume toward the ceiling tiles, gray eyes turning flinty under her tugged-low baseball cap brim.
