REBORN: Six Saviors Series

by Carly Fall

  But no matter how beautiful Hudson was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he

  was hurting. She had seen it in his eyes.

  And why would someone want to cut him like that? He was tortured, pure and

  simple. Most of the cuts were shallow, as if they were put there to inflict pain, as if someone just cut him enough to not injure him, but to have him bleed out.

  She had always had an aversion to violence, whether it was real as on the nightly news or the Hollywood version, and she guess that was because she had seen the

  consequences of it through her work. It made her uncomfortable and her stomach uneasy.

  And what was a Colonist? Faith had said a murderer. What was Hudson messed

  up in that someone wanted to murder him?

  So many questions. She had a feeling that if she could get Faith and Abby alone,

  maybe she could get some answers. Both of them seemed nice, and they did seem to care about her well-being. Maybe she would get lucky and catch a few minutes with them.

  She slipped under the water and got her hair wet. She didn’t have the energy to

  actually wash it, so she got out of the tub and put on her black sweats that had PINK

  emblazed on the butt and a white t-shirt. She combed out her hair and wrapped it in a bun at the top of her head, then stepped out of the bathroom. She threw her dirty clothes in her suitcase and went to check on her patient.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in a low whisper as she approached the bed.

  She jumped, startled, shut her eyes, and regained her calm before looking at him.

  “Hi, Hudson,” she said in a quiet voice, smiling. “I’m Beverly. I guess you could say I’m your personal physician.”

  He watched as she approached the bed and sat on the edge.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Can you tell me who did this to you?” she asked in a quiet tone.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He tried to roll to his side with no success, bit out another ripe curse, and met her eyes again. “I need some pain medication.”

  She nodded. “They left some Vicodin for you. You can take some now.” She went

  to the bathroom, filled up a glass with water, and brought it back to the bed. Reaching over to the nightstand, she found the pills and gave him one along with the glass of water.

  Looking at the little pills, she remembered the comfort they had given her. Just one won’t hurt you. It will help with the anxiety you’re feeling.

  She watched as he popped the pill in his mouth, and she actually felt her own

  mouth begin to salivate. Closing her eyes, she remembered the first time she had taken a pill while on duty at the hospital.

  It had been her second day back at work after the accident, and a man had been

  brought in by ambulance after suffering injuries during a head-on collision that wasn't his fault. He had been admitted, and Beverly was one of the doctors looking after him. Soon after she reviewed his chart, she went to the waiting room to talk to the family, confident that the patient would make it. As she spoke to them, a code blue came over the

  loudspeaker, and she realized it was for the patient she was assuring was fine to his family. She ran to the room to help with resuscitation efforts, and a half hour later, they pronounced him dead.

  Thinking about having to tell the family that their beloved brother, father, and son was dead hit way to close to home. She remembered the pain that ripped through her when she found out her mother was dead, and she couldn't do it to someone else.

  Running for the bathroom claiming a bad salad at lunch, she had thrown up, and then pulled out one of the pain pills she had brought to work with her that day. As she sat on the bathroom floor, she studied the little white devil, its promises of relaxation beckoning. She swallowed it dry, and fifteen minutes later went back to work, feeling a whole lot better about her job, and herself.

  Soon, she realized that popping the pills had become a habit, like taking her

  vitamins. When she thought about getting through a day without them, her anxiety rose, and it seemed like an impossible task. She wasn’t in physical pain any longer from the accident, but she was in emotional pain from her mother’s death. The pills became a way to soothe that pain, as well as her anxiety.

  She became terrified that someone would find out her secret, and she began

  distancing herself from her colleagues and the few friends she had. After a couple of months, most had learned to leave her alone, and she was in complete isolation with her addiction, pride keeping her for reaching out for help. After all, she was a doctor. Her arrogance told her that she could get a handle on her pill popping when the time was right, and she had convinced herself that she needed the pills to help with the anxiety.

  Looking back, she now realized that the anxiety would have disappeared if she had gotten the help she needed then. The anxiety had been caused by her fears of someone finding out about the addiction, and what would happen if she were found out? Would she be fired? Her colleagues would certainly gossip behind her back, and the thought of hearing the whispers as she passed them in the hallway made her even more anxious.

  It had been a vicious circle.

  Inhaling deeply, she opened her eyes as Hudson tried to sit up, without success.

  “Let me help you,” she said, grateful to have something else to concentrate on.

  She lifted his head while holding the glass. He drank greedily.

  She gently eased his head back on the pillow as he winced, and she pulled the

  sheet and comforter up to his chin. He glanced at her briefly, then closed his eyes.

  They sat for a moment in silence, her taking the time to get a grip on her cravings.

  It had been sixty-two days since she had taken a pain pill, and it would never happen again. Finally, she asked, “What happened, Hudson?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, but he opened his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said in a quiet, low tone.

  She nodded and patted his hand. He closed his eyes again, and she sat with him,

  studying his big hand. Or paw. His hands were huge, yet soft. His fingers reminded her of a piano player’s—long, elegant and graceful.

  A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door, and it cracked open.

  “Beverly?” the female voice whispered.

  Beverly got up from the bed and went to the door just as Abby stepped in. “How

  is he?”

  “He woke up a couple of minutes ago and asked for some pain medication, so I

  gave him some Vicodin. I think he may be sleeping again.”

  Abby nodded, looking over at the bed. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you

  for helping him. He’s…he’s very special to us. To me.”

  Beverly studied Abby. Her face looked tired, and her body was almost curling in

  on itself as she held her arms across her chest. It was like they were the only things preventing her from doubling over.

  “I think he’s going to be fine, Abby,” she said softly, placing her hand on the

  woman’s arm.

  Tears sprung into Abby’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Abby nodded and stared at

  Hudson for another moment, then inhaled deeply, wiping her eyes. She smiled at Beverly and asked, “Won’t you come up for dinner?”

  Beverly was about to say yes, but then she looked over at Hudson. For some

  reason she had the distinct impression she should stay with him, that he shouldn’t be left alone.

  “Is there a way for me to get a little food in here?” she asked. “I just think I

  should keep an eye on him.”

  Abby nodded. “Of course. I’ll bring down a plate for you, or I’ll send Noah.”

  Abby left and Beverly returned to the bed. Hudson opened his eyes and looked at

  her.

  “H
ow did you get caught up in this pile of horseshit, Bev?”

  She smiled. No one had called her Bev in years, since college. She always went

  by the formality of Beverly. She liked the way Bev rolled off his tongue.

  She thought about his question for a moment while studying the floor and said, “I guess you could say I sort of volunteered.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment, and Beverly thought Hudson had

  gone back to sleep. She looked at him, only to find him fully awake, staring at her with one open eye and the other one halfway open because it was so swollen.

  “How, exactly, did you volunteer for this?”

  She stared at him for a moment, then patted his hand again, one of the few places that wasn’t cut up. “It’s not your concern, Hudson. You need to rest.”

  She got up to leave, but he grabbed her wrist. “Tell me.”

  Looking into his battered face, his dark eyes…she didn’t want to go into the

  details of how she needed to be needed. “I came when someone in need called,” she said softly.

  He continued to stare at her, and she shifted on the bed, uncomfortable with his

  questioning.

  She shrugged her shoulders, trying to maintain her unreadable doctor face. “Faith found me, you needed me. Rayner didn’t give me much of a choice. I have nowhere to be, no one to answer to, so I came.”

  After a moment, she met his eyes again and realized she was in for more

  questioning.

  “Why don’t you have anyone to answer to? Surely you have family. You’re

  obviously in the medical field. So why don’t you have anywhere to be?”

  She stared at him, and then decided to study the carpet again where there weren’t any answers. “I guess I’m starting over,” she said quietly.

  Chapter 13

  Hudson simply couldn’t believe the woman who had held his thoughts hostage

  was actually sitting in his quarters.

  On his bed.

  She stared at him with bright, green eyes, a look he would call “doctor calm.” He had seen the same look on numerous TV shows, and he wondered if all doctors and those who pretended to be doctors were taught to give that look. It was a mask of detachment and professionalism.

  He guessed she hadn’t come willingly. Or maybe she had with some serious

  persuasion. Any questions on how she got here disappeared as he wrapped his mind

  around what she had said.

  Starting over?

  Starting over as what? What did a beautiful woman like her with a career and

  what he would guess to be a very full life have to start over from?

  A headache slammed into his left frontal lobe, making him close his eyes. Shit, he hoped he didn’t have a concussion.

  He had come to after the Colonist hit him, but how much time had passed, he

  didn’t know. Waking when he heard the door close, he hadn’t been able to open his eyes.

  He hovered in that place between consciousness and having the shit beat out of him, and he heard voices. Recognizing Rayner’s voice right away, he blocked it out. He was here to die, and the asshole simply couldn’t be here to rescue him. It had to be a hallucination.

  Then he had heard Faith’s voice, and he realized it wasn’t a dream. He silently

  cursed, pissed beyond measure that his plans had been screwed up. However, a small part of him felt just a twinge of relief that he had been found, and that twinge blossomed into a small kernel that had, “Hey, fucker, let’s rethink this suicide plan,” stamped all over it.

  There had been a female voice he didn’t recognize, but he felt the presence next to him, and it felt familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Not that he could recognize much at that point. Hell, he wasn’t even quite sure where he was. The female gently dabbed his wounds with a soothing touch.

  He had blacked out and came to consciousness again, realizing he was in a car.

  Whoever had been driving wasn’t sparing any speed, and Hudson was certain the vehicle was in desperate need of some new shocks. Just when he was about to scream, he felt calm hands on him, and sounds that soothed him, like shushing sounds one would say to a baby, from that same female voice he recognized—but couldn’t quite place—from

  before.

  When the vehicle came to a halt and the door opened, he recognized the hot air of the desert and he knew he was home, the place he had been so desperate to escape.

  He heard Rayner and Noah arguing outside the car.

  “What the fuck?” Noah had asked, and Hudson had passed out again, only to

  awaken when they carried him from the car to the silo.

  “We need to change the fact that we don’t have a back-up plan for when Cohen’s

  gone,” Noah said. “Make a memo.”

  “I’ll pencil you in on my Blackberry,” Rayner had retorted.

  Hudson felt the urge to laugh at the joke that went completely over Noah’s head.

  Pencil him on his Blackberry.

  Funny shit.

  The pain as those two had carried him from the car to the silo had been almost

  unbearable. He felt the cool air of the inside of the silo, and he was pretty certain that two angry black bears carrying him would have been gentler than Noah and Rayner.

  “Relax, man. We’ve got you. You’re solid,” Rayner had said.

  Hudson remembered thinking, “No, no, I’m not,” but whether he spoke it out

  loud, he didn’t know.

  The pain in his head eased, and he thanked the Vicodin gods that were inducing

  him with their numbness. He opened his eyes and met Beverly’s. Holy Heaven, she was pretty.

  “You need to rest, Hudson,” she said.

  She got up went to sit on the big, overstuffed chair in the corner. As he watched her walk away, he couldn’t help but admire the sway of her thin hips, the grace of a ballerina in her step. When she got to the chair, he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t get busted staring. One thing he was absolutely certain about: he would get all the particulars of the why’s, where’s, and when’s of Bev starting-over routine.

  As for him, well, hadn’t he just fucked up everything. Goddammit, he couldn’t

  even commit suicide right. And now he was way too weak to even try again, and he still had that little kernel within telling him it was okay to want to live. He cursed himself some more.

  A few minutes later, just as the Vicodin was taking full effect and the outside pain began to disappear, there was a loud knock on the door. He knew it wasn’t Abby, as she would have had more tact. No, one of his fellow Warriors was on the other side of that door. He thought that if he ignored it long enough, they would go away, but the knock sounded again, this time louder. With tenacity like that, he could narrow it down to Noah.

  He was as pigheaded and stubborn as a winter cloud was white.

  He heard light footsteps across the rug as Bev made her way over to the door. She opened it quietly and spoke in hushed tones.

  “Thank you, Noah. This looks wonderful.” Hudson smelled garlic and tomatoes,

  so he was guessing Italian. “I love lasagna.”

  Hudson kept his eyes shut, wondering who had taken over his duties in the

  kitchen.

  “I brought some down for Hudson as well,” Noah said. “Are you awake,

  Hudson?” he asked quietly.

  Hudson thought about ignoring him and feigning sleep, but he knew this talk

  would come sooner or later. Might as well just get it over with.

  He opened his eyes and met Noah’s. He glanced over at the clock. There were

  some things that Hudson was still very old school about, and the clock was one of them.

  No blaring red digital numbers for him. His clock was one that he had wind up each day, and didn’t give any indication of morning or night. The hands read close to six, and Hudson’s internal clock, as well as the days ev
ents he remembered, told him he was in the p.m. zone of the day. In another two hours, his eyes would be glowing, as would all the other Warriors, and he was glad he still had in his contacts that dimmed the color of his eyes when the sun went down.

  They needed to be careful around Beverly. She couldn’t see that. It would open up a whole can of worms that no one would want to deal with. In fact, they just needed her to get out of here A.S.A.P.

  “What’s up, Noah?”

  “How you feeling, my man?”

  Hudson sighed. “Like I’ve been tied to a chair and sliced up.”

  Noah chuckled.

  “Help me sit up, Noah.” The pain wasn’t quite as bad as it had been.

  God bless Vicodin.

  Once Hudson was in an upright position, Noah asked, “What happened?”

  Hudson glanced over at Beverly, who was seated in the overstuffed chair across

  the room and seemed to be engrossed in the lasagna.

  “What can I tell you,” he said in a low tone, “the fucker got the best of me.

  Tasered me when I opened the door. The rest is history.”

  Hudson watched Noah’s face, hoping he had sold him on the story. He felt like he

  had told a partial truth, leaving out the minor detail of how he had become so fucked up that he was going to kill himself, as well as the part about hoping the Colonist would kill him. Living a lie for as long as he had, he thought this would be easy. But he didn’t outwardly lie to others. He was truthful to his rotten, broken core. That Colonist might as well have carved LIAR across his forehead.

  It was especially hard lying to Noah, because he considered him more of a brother than Stretch ever was. Flashes of his brother’s swirling brown form came to him, and memories of a time when they were innocent children dislodged themselves from his brain. There was nothing innocent about Noah, or Hudson for that matter, but Hudson often thought of Noah as his brother, and he didn’t lie to him. He might have withheld information in the past, but he had never outright lied. There was a difference, as far as Hudson was concerned.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed, as if he were judging Hudson for truthfulness. “Must have