“Come on,” Everest wheedles. “One bite.”
“I will not ingest your poisonous treats,” Rathyn growls.
Cielo quickly stiffens and rips the popcorn out of my hands. “No.”
I groan. “Baby, no. It’s not actually poison. It’s just, you know, not super healthy to have all the time. But I promise it’s fine. It’s delicious…or at least I think so.”
Cielo glowers down at the popcorn as though it’s trying to actively kill me, so I reach into the bucket and take a handful, throwing it into my mouth before he can stop me. He watches with wide eyes as I chew and swallow, chasing it down with a thick swallow of Diet Coke. “Crispy,” I say, a little breathless from the bubbles.
I think about offering him some pop, but I don’t think he’ll like the carbonation.
“Anyway, look. I’m fine.” I lean over toward Rathyn when Cielo seems unmoved. “Please tell him it’s not actually poison.”
He doesn’t move until Everest elbows him, and then he sighs and says something in their language. Cielo stiffens, then relaxes and relinquishes the popcorn bucket back to me.
“Baby, I promise I would never feed you poison,” I vow, then hold up a popped kernel to his lips.
He sniffs it, and then the tip of his forked tongue darts out, licking it before making a face and quickly shaking his head.“That is not of the earth,”he tells me in my head.
I burst into laughter. “I mean, technically it’s a plant, but yeah. It’s pretty processed. I think?—”
“Are you going to be talking for the entire movie? Seriously, this is so fucking dumb,” a guy in front of us says loudly, twisting around to look at us. He’s big, thick, and muscled. Looks a lot like the bullies I had in high school.
I flick a kernel near him. “Hey, calm down, alright? It’s just the previews.”
The guy stares at me, then looks over at Everest, and then his gaze fixes on Rathyn. He scoffs, “Whatever. I guess I can’t expect manners from monster-fuckers.”
Everest immediately goes red. “Uh, fuckyou, dude. What is wrong with you? Or is your mind mush from the brain worm you’ve got up there.” Everest taps his temple. “Hard to think straight when it’s eating all those coherent thoughts, huh?”
The guy goes even redder and stands up, leaning over his seat. “You wanna take this outside?”
Everest grins. “Fuck yeah, I do…”
He stops when Rathyn stands, his massive height looming over the man. “You wish to take my Everest outside?”
The guy swallows, but I can tell he isn’t going back down. He has that crazed look of the over-inflated ego held by mediocremen. Maybe Everest is onto something. Maybe he does have a brain worm.
“Yeah, I do. I’m going to fuck him up.”
“You wish…tofuckmy Everest?” Rathyn demands, his voice booming. Heads turn, and I slink down in my seat, the popcorn bucket at my chin, shoveling bits into my mouth as a chew.
This is even better than the movie.
“What? Hell no, you piece of shit monster?—”
Rathyn begins to growl low in his chest. “Good, because I would never allow that. You are disgusting. You smell of human piss and disease. You are like the public toilets that are uncleaned.”
The guy’s eyes go wide as he assesses Rathyn, and it’s only a split second when I see it. He’s going to take a swing, but not at the Vyastil that pissed him off. At Everest.
I open my mouth just as the guy cocks his arm back, but before I can make a sound, Rathyn catches him by the curled fist and squeezes. Hard.
Not enough to break bones, but I can tell it’s close. The guy makes a whimpering sound, and two of his friends, who were oddly quiet, immediately stand up and race down the aisle, disappearing around the corner as Rathyn brings the guy to his knees.
“You will not commit violence against my human.”
“You c-can’t do this,” the guy gasps.
Everest glances at me, his eyes panicked, then he lays a hand on Rathyn’s arm. “Sweetheart, let him go.”
