Arkin took interest in the fact that she chose to volunteer her name, but not the last. Perhaps simply mirroring his own answer, but if it was that simply he’d hardly be this interested. The near constant pulsing in his head from the erratic pull of his power due to the residual alcohol in his system seeming to ease with her as a distraction. The lines of probability surrounding her overbright, electric and haloed with fried ozone. The fact that she seemed to find him attractive was amusing consider she looked to be just over half his age. But whether it was attraction, fear, or awe Arkin knew how to wield it. The only question that remained was in which direction he’d would pull her. The threat of Elijah and his suspicion should he come to find out about this encounter a pale thread that could easily be cut off with manipulation. It helped that the man had once been his friend before he toed the line of their justice and failed to cross it with Arkin. But now maybe he could cultivate a connection in the next generation and if that made his old friend do a violent spit take when that little revelation came to light it was just an added incentive.
“That man over there,” Arkin indicated to a man still in line in the cafe that could be seen over Felix’s left shoulder. Deciding on a practical demonstration instead of simple words that could limit her appreciation of what he could do. The blond, slim built 30 something year old’s face practically glued to his cellphone. Thumbs working over the keypad at an astounding rate, but aside from that there was nothing apparently special about him. Around him Arkin could see the lines of probability zig and zag in certain patterns leading the human in various, yet less than astounding directions. Except one. Arkin using Felix’s distraction as she superstitiously glanced of her shoulder to slip one hand into his pocket and pull out a penny. Thumb quickly flipping it up and over his shoulder while Felix’s back was still turned. Not needing to look to know that it had landed in a woman’s empty cup none the wiser.
“He’s going to save a life in the next five minutes,” Arkin said in something of a staged whisper, getting Felix’s attention back on him as the woman who’d been busy plugging in her earphones and bopping her head to some unknown beat got up from her chair. Heading back in for a refill on whatever had been in her cup and offering it to the same incompetent barista from earlier. Arkin pulling apart his pastry and taking a bite from his sugar coated fingers, ignoring the obvious question in his companion’s gaze as the woman behind them in the cafe took a sip of her new refilled drink and then began choking. Coffee spilling across the floor of the cafe like a blood splatter as her hands reach for her throat. The man that Arkin indicated earlier stepping forward as most people gawked and proceeded to perform the heimlich maneuver until she spit the blockage out and Arkin’s penny rolled harmlessly under a counter. The woman alive to jam to her music another day as opposed to the 3 other strings of probability where the man had failed and she’d died. The odds were obviously in her favor.