Chapter Text
Mars had been extremely out of it from the moment that loud bang rang in her tiny ears. Then, when the human fell onto her leg, the pain whited out the rest of her memory. So as she groaned and woke up, she had no idea what she was waking up into. But she had her expectations, assuming she'd wake up on the floor of that cold bathroom she had been on to take care of her leg by herself, most likely in the dark.
She opened her eyes to a dim light and several humans staring directly at her. Her eyes practically popped out of her head in shock and fear and she tried to back away, but found herself sitting in some sort of circular hole in the ground. With her leg like this, she probably couldn't get herself out and not hurt her leg worse. Plus she had a feeling the humans would not be very fond of that, so for the moment she just pulled her legs close and tried not to hyperventilate too much.
"She's awake." One of the humans announced as soon as she moved. She winced at the volume of the humans but kept her hands off her ears. Until she knew these humans' expectations, she wasn't going to chance anything that might piss them off. As she looked around a little more, she finally recognized her surroundings as a car. She'd never been allowed out in the open in a car before, so she soaked it in as much as she could without taking her eyes off the humans.
She gasped as she felt something poke her in the back, and she whirled around as fast as she could to find another human had been behind her. She was completely surrounded by humans she didn't know anything about. This was a borrower horror story, the beginning of a tale parents told kids to keep them in the walls. She was about to die, there was no doubt in her mind.
"How's your leg?" The human who had been behind her asked with a much softer voice than the one on the other side of her.
"Fine." Her mouth lied before she could even take stock of her leg. Her leg was most definitely Not Fine, but it had been worse before, so she didn't pay it too much attention.
"Good, good." The soft voiced human said. After a moment he started reaching for her again, causing her to pull her body together as tight as she could and hold her breath. He stopped suddenly and took his hands back.
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to.." He trailed off. Before Mars could even process that confusion, a new human talked. Her head jolted around to see the one of the two humans in the front turned back around to look at her.
"Hey, are we all good back there?" She asked, just as loud as the first human, who replied to her.
"Yep, all set." He said.
"Can you guys keep your voices down, please?" The guy with the quieter voice piped up.
"Oh shit, yeah." The lady in the front replied. Mars tried not to react to the curse, she didn't want to seem like a wuss. Still, it put her on edge. That plus the confusion of the current events really just made Mars an anxious mess.
The car started up with a loud rumble, making Mars jump. The quiet human's eyes flicked to her for a moment, but then flicked back towards the front of the car. She braced herself on the back of the circle wall thing as the car started. At least that was a sound and feeling she knew, although the bumps hit a little harder when she wasn't in a pocket.
A few times when she was bounced by the car, she saw the quiet human reach for her, but when she turned to watch him and pushed herself away, he put his hands down again.
"Where are we going?" The quiet human asked, in a sort of awkward way. She had a feeling he was more asking to have his attention somewhere other than her and less because he actually wanted an answer.
"We're going back to the police department. This.. development in the case is too important to wait until morning. After we show her to the-"
"NO!" Mars blurted out without thinking.
The silence that followed was terrifying, as everyone, even the driver turned to her with their jaws dropped. The driver man turned quickly back, but she still shrunk back into herself. She tried to keep her eyes on all the humans at once, but only succeeded in making herself even more frantically scared. It didn't help that the human that had been talking was the quiet serious sounding one. Oh gods she was regretting every action in her stupid little life.
"I- I'm sorry, I just-" Mars stuttered, trying to force words out of her frozen mouth. "I won't do it again, I pro-promise."
Why?" The woman in the front asks, luckily still in her quieter voice. Mars stopped, her brain freaking out and barely understanding the question.
"Why can't we show you to the police, I mean." She clarified.
"They can't know that w- that I exist." Mars shakily replied, trying her best to keep from getting too quiet. She sees the two humans in the back make eye contact over her head, and she tensed, her hand leaving nail marks on her leg through her cloth dress thing. If she were still regulating herself, she would notice her rasping breaths that were loud enough for even the humans to hear, but she was far too scared to pay attention to anything other than the humans and any quick movements they might make.
"Okay, how about we go to the hotel instead? We'll make sure nobody else sees you." The scarier human next to her said slowly. Mars considered her options, and nodded. She never liked what happened at hotels but she would take it over outting her people to any more humans every single time.
"Hotch, head to the hotel." The human said to the driver. 'Hotch' nodded and turned the car, making Mars slide into the side of the thing surrounding her, hitting her arm and head a little bit. She recovered and put her hand to the side of her face she had hit. She deserved that, she supposed. Honestly, she was amazed that that was all that happened. But she couldn't test them again. For sure next time she wouldn't walk away.