nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

sixteen.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
SPENCER REID GETS (TECHNICALLY) KIDNAPPED

❖ ❖ ❖

"Look at me, being so chivalrous," Nina says sweetly as she opens the passenger side door for Spencer, and he surprisingly doesn't put up a fight when he stoops and slides into her (stolen earlier that day) Mercedes. She rounds the front of the vehicle, then slips in after him. "Comfortable?"

He purses his lips and fidgets, saying nothing.

"Hey. Come on. Let's diffuse the tension a little, shall we?" she asks, leaning forward and turning on the radio. The Great Pretender, Stone Roses. She whoops as she turns on the engine, the car smoothly rumbling to life. "What a classic!"

She reverses them from their space and starts out of the parking lot, built underground under Spencer's apartment block. He's silent, looking out the window at the flashing street-lamps reflecting brilliantly in the glass; Nina turns and opens her mouth to tease him, but something makes her stop.

He doesn't look scared of her. Aside from the tilt of his body away from her, and the way he isn't looking at her, he looks relatively peaceful. His hands aren't clenched, his jaw isn't tense, his face is set with calm thoughtfulness.

Probably hatching a plan, she realises. But the heavy weight of the gun prodding between her back and the seat is calming enough that she doesn't mind. Let him plan. His company for the next hour or so will be nice, and then Spencer Reid is out of her life for good, and she'll be out of his, too.

Only once the second song has finished and the soothing voice of the radio operator comes on, does he speak. "My team will realise I'm gone," he says lightly, without looking at her. "Just warning you. And the triple life sentence that we'll pin on you, will have kidnapping charges added onto it."

"You're not being kidnapped--"

Glaring, he raises his hands. "Kind of am--"

"-- and I'm not going to prison."

Like he's a mind reader, Spencer looks through the rearview mirror at the bags of money, fake IDs, and clothes in the back seat. Then he turns away again, as if resentfully, returning to his silent consideration of the events currently unfolding.

Nina does the same, holding the wheel tightly and occasionally changing the radio station. In any other circumstance, having Spencer in her car would have been a much more enjoyable experience, but now they're both slightly on edge: her, because she isn't quite sure what she's doing, only that what she's doing has to work; and him, because he has no idea where he is, where he's going, or what's going to happen to him.

Then, as they pull onto the highway leaving DC, he speaks up again, so suddenly that the volume of his voice in contrast to the muted hum of the car and the radio makes her jump. "Are you sure I'm not being kidnapped?" he asks judgementally, glancing in his side mirror at the retreating lights of the city.