by T. Cobbin
She spun her head toward Alex about to give him what for when she saw what only could be called a saucy smile on his face. “Ha-ha. Now show me what a pizza is. It smells divine. By the looks of the grease on the box it sure doesn’t look like any hospital food or anything we were given at Eden.”
She gasped as Alex lifted the lid and showed what was underneath. It was a steaming, circular piece of bread with what looked like melted cheese and some kind of meat on it. Her stomach rumbled as she watched Alex take a triangular piece out and raise it to his mouth.
She copied his actions and groaned as the taste flowed over her buds. “Oh my God, this is just... I don’t have a word for it.”
She took another bite. She licked away the small amount of grease and melted cheese that had dripped onto her lips. Looking up, she saw his eyes avidly staring at where her tongue had just been. With raised eyebrows he smiled and went back to eating. She swore she could see a tint of red touch his cheeks.
“So Eve...she’s happy? And does this man she is with love her too?”
“Aye. From what I can make out it he was the one who helped her escape. They hid for a while then came clean and involved the government. A guy by the name of Brewster Stone has created a task force that will be helping you all out and tracking down those who created you. I know he came here once to see you at the very beginning. It was him I had to ask for permission to see and talk to you. I had to go through a strict background check and answer a ton of questions, plus sign a NDA—that’s a piece of paper that says I’ll be in deep shit if I tell anyone anything about you.” A boyish grin covered his face.
“That’s an awful lot to go through for someone you didn’t know.”
“I went through something an average person would never have any idea of, and what I felt afterward helps me understand a little about what you’re feeling, so I was willing to do it.”
She thought back to the kiss they had shared and heat flushed her cheeks. Yes, he had indeed started to get to know her. Did she feel the same? She went through everything they had shared from the beginning. He had sat with her saying nothing for days. He had patiently waited and offered a light to find the end of her dark tunnel. She was glad he had been willing to do it, and she was glad he was there now.
“Oh,” he said, pointing at her arm. “Is that a good thing?”
She looked down at her arm and watched as her tiny raised freckles that lined her skin began to glow. It wasn’t very bright, but it was noticeable.
“What were you just thinking?” he asked.
Briefly stunned, she looked up at him. “I was, umm, glad you are here.”
A smile lit up his face, lifting his eyes. “A good emotion then.”
She smiled back and took another bite of her pizza. Oh wow, she could totally live off of this!
* * * *
Another week had gone by, and Lulu felt even more alive. Alex began taking her into the garden for a couple of hours at a time, then advanced to the hospital cafeteria. It was pretty terrifying being around more people than she had in her entire lifetime. She’d lasted about ten minutes the first time, but as the days went past she stayed longer and longer. Word had gone around the hospital that one of her people was currently there, and once it got around that she would visit the canteen with Alex it seemed to get busier. But thankfully, with Jerry standing not far from both her and Alex, no one approached them.
A few people would openly sit and stare at her. What they thought would be hushed whispers between friends she could hear. Alex told her that they weren’t actually talking to her and only about her, and that she was to ignore it. It was bloody hard not to react to some of the hurtful things she heard, but with gritted teeth at times and a comforting touch from Alex she learned to manage.
The doctors had told her she was doing very well and would be discharged soon. Although she was happy to leave the hospital, the thought of leaving Alex hurt. She had wondered once or twice if she was using Alex as a crutch, but watching the man move or talk or even when they shared tender touches and a kiss every now and again she knew it was more.
“That’s a bad frown. What’s bothering you?” One of his fingers tenderly traced the crease between her eyebrows, moved down her nose, and tapped the end.
“I was just thinking about what the doctors said this morning. Mr. Stone is supposed to be coming in tomorrow to explain about my discharge and moving to the women’s house. I’m not sure I’m ready to go yet.” She picked at the polystyrene cup in her hand, peeling little bits off around the top.
“What if I was to say I’m not ready to let you go yet either?” Alex asked.
“Really?”
“Of course.” He laughed. “I haven’t lied yet, and I’m not going to. I love your company. I like being with you.”
She scooped all the loose pieces into what was left of the cup and stood. Alex followed suit and held his hand out toward her. She grasped it without question. They walked back to her room in a comfortable silence, hand in hand, with Jerry following.
* * * *
That night Lulu lay in bed, running a finger over her lips. Now Alex kissed her each night before he left.
Every day over the last week she had awoken to find Alex sitting in her room with a different breakfast for her to try. She had enjoyed bacon most, but if she was totally honest the chocolate chip muffins were divine, so fluffy against her palate with the added chips of chocolate that melted on her tongue. She’d eaten two this morning, one after the other, and washed them down with a nice apple tea. She’d blushed a very deep red when she’d seen the surprise on Alex’s face. He had laughed so hard he actually fell off the bed. He couldn’t get any words out for almost five minutes. He’d given her a hard hug and told her he loved her.
“It’s like I see everything new through you again. You are amazing. ” With another kiss he added, “You are fucking incredible.”
Her depression seemed to flow through her hard tonight. The thought that Mr. Stone would be taking her away from there and Alex, maybe as early as tomorrow, cut at her heart.
Tears flowed, landing on the pillow beneath her head. For the first time in her life she actually had something that gave her hope. And now she was going to lose it.
Her pillow glowed that night with her tears.
Chapter 5
Lulu woke feeling like the empty shell she had been a few months ago when she had first become aware of things around her. The darkness and horror of her life flooded back, and for the first time in a month she wished she was dead. This time, however, she felt a little in limbo; she wanted to die but felt unable to do it herself. She hung onto a little thin wisp of hope.
After going to the bathroom and doing all her morning stuff she realized that Alex wasn’t there with breakfast. Standing in the middle of her room, she closed her eyes and sent her senses out. She could smell someone’s leftover cup of coffee from the corridor. She could also smell the perfume belonging to someone at the nurse’s station. The patient across the hall from her was eating her breakfast. Ugh, porridge. That stuff is just wrong. She smiled as she reached the supply cupboard. That place sure was used for plenty of things besides items. She reached the ward doors and breathed a sigh of relief when she smelled Alex. His manly scent washed through her. He had a coffee in his hand, and he was also carrying some kind of bag that smelled delicious. Jerry wasn’t far behind him. Another overweight man walked beside him, trying to keep up with his long strides.
Opening her eyes, she smiled as Alex entered her room followed by the portly man. She gathered this was Mr. Stone, and again, her depression hit her hard.
“I don’t think I’m ready to leave.” She began to cry. “Please don’t make me leave yet, please,” she begged. Her heart thundered in her chest as tears streamed down her face.
She pulled the belt on her robe so tight around her waist it hurt. She collapsed into a pile on the floor, her knees hitting the hard surface with a thud. She couldn’t breathe.
She felt like she was dying, and a part of her wanted to welcome it, give into the fight. The man beside Alex paled, and then Alex dropped the bag and coffee he’d been carrying onto her table and ran toward her.
“Hey, honey.” He wrapped one arm around her waist and the other around the nape of her neck, pulling her against his chest while smothering kisses over the top of her head.
“Shall I call a doctor?” the man asked.
“No!” Alex snapped. “No,” he repeated, more calmly. “I don’t want the doctors seeing her like this. It could set her back and she has come so far. She’ll be okay.” With his arm around her shoulders and another under her legs, he picked her up, walked to one of the chairs, and sat down with her in his lap.
“I don’t want to be without you,” she sobbed and began rambling, “I feel like my heart is breaking again. They wanted to test my baby, they said they were going to take it away when I had it, I couldn’t let them do it. They said...”
“Hey, hey,” Alex crooned.
She continued sobbing, feeling like her heart was breaking into tiny pieces, but gradually, with the scent and feel of Alex so close, she began to relax a little.
“You’re here with me now. I sorted it, honey, we were coming to talk to you. I was coming to ask you a question.”
“Huh?”
“That’s why I was late this morning, I waited to chat with Brewster and organize some details before we came to talk to you.”
Her mouth opened and her eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Calm down first. Let’s get you some breakfast and chat, all right?” He lifted her chin off his chest and grinned down at her. “I brought you something greasy.” He winked at her.
Lulu had been brought up eating healthy, non-fat meals. Even the hospital had healthy meals. She hadn’t known any different until one day Alex had brought in something called pancakes—a light and fluffy disk with syrup dribbled over them. Her eyes had rolled back in her head when she’d first tasted them. After that Alex had promised to bring her some new non-healthy or bad-for-you food every day.
She nodded and scooted off his lap and went to wash her face in the bathroom. A tiny spark of hope began flaring in her chest.
“Holy crap, woman, your tears do glow.”
She poked her head from around the bathroom door and watched Alex, who was standing next to her bed, pull off his t-shirt. But it wasn’t the glowing, circular patch on the shirt that held her attention, it was the tanned bit of skin with a light dusting of dark hair leading down into his jeans. Tiny butterflies flew around her stomach and her body heated in response. She blushed, but her embarrassment didn’t stop her from thinking about running her hands over all that fine skin and finding out just where the hair stopped.
“Breakfast?” Alex asked, tossing his shirt on the bed.
Nodding, she walked toward the table and sat on her bed. She saw round cakes of some kind with a sugary smell coming from them. They had a coating of brown stuff that she assumed was sticky from its texture. There was orange juice in a glass and a thick bacon sandwich waiting for her also. Picking up the juice, she moaned as she drank it down. She grinned at Alex as she picked up half of the bacon sandwich and took a huge bite, moaning again as it hit her taste buds.
“What are they?” She pointed at the cake things.
“Caramel doughnuts,” Alex answered.
“Fried pieces of sweetened dough that are very bad and fattening but very, very enjoyable.” The man—Brewster Stone—chewed on a huge bite of his own doughnut with relish.
Tucking into the other half of the bacon sandwich, she looked up at Alex and lifted her eyebrows.
A worried look came over his face as he answered her silent question. “Instead of going to the other women’s place, would you like to try staying with me and my parents first? I can’t take you to my place until it’s more secure. My parents have a beach house, but although it’s near a quiet beach the place is nothing but windows so you wouldn’t get much privacy. The only place left, besides a new place, would be my parents’ apartment slap bang in the center of the city. Of course, if you don’t like it, you can always go to the house with the other women. Although I wouldn’t be allowed to visit you there, Brewster has promised they will arrange for you to meet me somewhere once a week, and we can always use the phone or Skype between visits.”
She could hear the quiet plea in his voice. That combined with the puppy dog eyes let her know what he really wanted, and it just so happened she wanted the same thing. With a smile she knew lit up her face, because her freckles also lit up brightly, she nodded, leaping off the bed and into his arms.
“I would love to stay with you.” She paused and stilled her face an inch away from his. “But you said that Eve has all those people outside of her house, what if they find out about me and begin to plague you? You hate the press!”
He gently pushed her back onto the bed and stood between her open legs, placing his arms on either side of her. “First off, I am so glad you said yes.” He kissed the end of her nose, making it twitch. “Second, the press still follows me around like a pack of dogs, so that’s nothing new.” He kissed her again, making her giggle. “Thirdly, the press already knows about you and have been camped outside the hospital for months.”
She paled at the thought that so many people who wanted to get to her were so close.
“Hey, slow it down, breathe.” She could hear his soothing voice over her thundering heartbeat and increased breathing. “Listen to me,” he ordered. “Close your eyes and breathe, Send your senses out, but further than you normally do. Reach out to the outskirts of the hospital. Can you do that?”
Doing as he asked, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Everything heightened around her. Three nurses were outside on the ward chatting. The room opposite her was empty now. Jerry sat in his usual chair outside her door.
Through the ward doors she discovered a pair of men with shoulder holsters under their jackets. She knew the scent of gun grease from the times she ran the mazes in Eden. Going further out than normal, she came across several wards and various rooms. Patients, doctors, and nurses walked around heading toward their destinations or sat eating or waiting. At the very edge of the hospital walls she smelled and saw more men and women at various entrances and exits with gun holsters. Just beyond them she felt the wall of people, huge amounts of people, their voices and scents so intense she had to withdraw and bring herself back.
“Wow, were those men and women always there?” she asked breathlessly. “I didn’t even think about extending that far out to see what was going on.” She’d been freed from her prison after twenty-one years and she was still keeping herself there. She promised herself there and then to make sure she extended herself a little each day to see and feel more. She was free!
“If you’re talking about the guards, the ones outside the ward, no. The ones outside the hospital, yes. If you’re asking about the press and other people, then yes, they have been outside since it was leaked you were here.”
Brewster, who had been patiently waiting, stepped forward and held his hand out. “Brewster Stone, Miss Lulu.” He smiled. “I am fully aware of what you can do and think you’re pretty special.”
Taking his hand firmly into hers, she shook it and smiled back.
“The ones outside of your ward were placed there after a small incident last night, but no worries, no one has yet come any closer. Now, shall we discuss more about where you will be going over these wonderful doughnuts?”
Chapter 6
Brewster had a plan ready to go into action. Three identical vehicles were going to be driven into the underground car park and then leave after each had a person sitting inside it, but Alex questioned this.
“Any one of the cars can be followed. Some lucky bastard will get the right car and they will know where she is in a matter of hours. I won’t risk her!”
“Do you have any other ideas, Mr. Darby? If we come across a good idea between
us all, then we can try putting it into action. But you realize that no matter what they will find out where Miss Lulu is at some point.”
Alex glanced at her with an apologetic look on his face. “I know, but at least we can give her some time before they do.”
He hugged her close to his body, and she breathed in his manly scent. It was driving her mad not to get close to him on her own. Her body tingled with sexual frustration, and she’d felt on edge for the last few hours. She wanted to run her hands over his soft skin, to trace the light hair on his chest that she could feel through his shirt.
“You okay?” he asked when she wriggled about.
She smiled at him with a blush heating her cheeks and nodded. “Just excited,” she murmured.
They spent the rest of the day putting a new plan into action. After both males made several calls Mr. Stone shook her hand and promised he would visit her. He handed a business card to both her and Alex, and told her if she ever needed anything to let him know. He also told her that the government had deposited some money into a bank account for anything she needed and gave her a small black credit card with her name on it.
“I’m sure Mr. Darby will explain how to use it.” He smiled and left.
“Can I use this to get some clothes to wear when I leave here tomorrow? I don’t really want to go out in these,” she said, pulling the green scrubs from her body. It would be a novelty to wear anything but scrubs. She had seen dresses in fairy tale books as a child and dreamed of wearing a flowing dress one day; she was finally going to get her wish.
* * * *
The next morning the doctors came and went after signing the papers to say she was being released from the hospital. Alex had arrived that morning carrying several white boxes with ribbons tied around them. Opening them was a dream. Clothes. And not just white top and shorts, which was all she’d been given to wear in Eden. Now that she was out and free she made a vow to herself never to wear anything like that again. She smiled as she played with the different material. She was filled with so much excitement her heart beat faster than a drum.
