by Carly Fall
studied Hudson. “Jesus, you got beat with the ugly stick,” he said.
“Fuck off,” Hudson said, pushing past Cohen into his quarters. “You asleep? Not
that I care much.”
“Yeah, I’m asleep. Jetlag’s a whore and a half. Maybe even two of ‘em. It’s nice
to see you, too.”
Hudson looked around the room. Done in black and rust colors, it was dark, yet
comforting in a way.
Turning to Cohen, he said, “I am glad to see you, Cohen. Glad you’re home safe,
man.”
They did a quick guy hug, a slap on the back, and knocked fists.
Cohen nodded. “Heard what you did for us. That this,” he glanced at Hudson’s
face and bare chest, “was protecting us. We owe you.”
Hudson stared at Cohen, who was in a pair of boxers and a black silk robe. He
hated the fact that his fellow Warriors thought they owed him, but for some reason he hated it a little bit less now that he had when Rayner, Talin, and Noah had said it.
“Yeah, you owe me,” he said with a grin. “So fix me, Cohen.”
Cohen eyed him a moment, nodded, then told him to lie down on the bed.
Hudson lay down and got ready. He had been on the receiving end of Cohen’s
special ability many, many times throughout the years. Knife wounds, gunshots, broken bones, concussions, and a truckload of bumps and bruises. So, yeah, he knew the drill better than he knew the English language.
Rule number one: focus. Rule number two: do what Cohen said. Hudson wasn’t
big on rules, but Cohen’s rules were pretty easy to follow, especially since he knew he would be on the bonus end of it all.
“All right, Hudson. You know what to do because we've sure as shit done this
enough. Do what I tell you, and you’ll be out of here in no time, and I can go back to sleep.”
Cohen kneeled on the floor by the bed and put his hands on Hudson’s abdomen.
With a slight warming and a mild jolt, Hudson felt Cohen’s spirit enter him. He took a deep breath to relax and focused on Cohen’s words.
“No organs damaged,” Cohen said. “That’s good. We’ve just got to repair the
cuts. Focus on your stomach,” he said, gently placing his hand over Hudson’s belly button.
Hudson felt the skin knitting from the inside out.
A few minutes later, Cohen said, “Now your chest,” as he moved his hand over
Hudson’s heart.
Hudson remembered Beverly’s hand there the previous night. Well, there and a lot
of other places. God, she felt so good against him.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking about, and I don’t care. But whatever it is,
toss it, because I need you focused here.”
Right.
The healing.
Not sex, not Beverly. He knew which one he would like to think about, but he had
to get healed.
He redirected his thoughts to Cohen’s hand.
About twenty minutes later, Cohen pronounced them done.
Hudson looked down at his torso. Gone were the angry welts and stiches. All
that was left were slightly pink scars, and those would be gone in a couple of days.
Sitting up, he rolled his neck, and Hudson noted how tired Cohen looked. Well,
the guy had only been back a couple of hours, and Hudson had barged in interrupting his sleep.
“I’m sorry for waking you, man,” Hudson said.
“It’s okay. As my buddy John Lennon said, ‘you get tired for fighting for peace, or you die.’ I’ve been fighting a long time. But anyway, just get out of here now.”
Hudson nodded. “I’ll tell everyone you’re off limits until you say otherwise.”
“Thanks, Hudson,” he said with a smile. “I love you like a brother from a
different mother, but get the hell out of my room.”
Hudson chuckled and went back down to his floor. He decided since he was ahead
of the whole how-much-pain-can-Hudson-withstand-game, he would go workout. He
grabbed his Nikes, slipped into a pair of running shorts and a tank top, and hit the gym at the bottom floor.
When the elevator opened, he heard AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”
blaring, and he thought about how Beverly had done exactly that to him all night long.
Based on the music, he fully expected to see one or more of his fellow Warriors in the gym, although it was a little early for any of them. He opened the doors and was
surprised to see Beverly working out when he walked in. He had thought that maybe she had gone back to her room or something, and this was the last place he expected to see her.
Dressed in a spandex workout shorts, a tank top, and some running shoes, he felt
his cock twitch as he admired the way her body moved. She might be too thin, but she was strong. Watching as she went through a routine of squats, weights, push-ups, and knee raises, he realized she was doing the tried and true ten, eight, six, four circuit. That entailed doing ten of each exercise without a break, resting for a short period of time, then starting all over to eight and doing it all again. It was tough, and he admired her as she pushed through it.
He watched for a few minutes and moved into the room. Out of the corner of his
eye he saw Noah. The male was doing bench presses exceeding three-hundred-and-fifty pounds, and judging by the excursion, he was doing it to let off steam. Hudson guessed that Noah had pissed off Abby, and walked over to find out.
“So what did you do?” he asked.
“None. Of. Your. Business,” Noah said, pushing the weight up with each word.
“Okay. Is she going to forgive you, or did you fuck it up completely?”
“I. Don’t. Know.” On the last word, Hudson watched as Noah’s arms began to
shake, and he moved behind Noah to spot him.
The up-and-down routine with the barbell went on a couple more times, and Noah
finally could do no more. Closing his eyes, his arms gave up on a big push, and Hudson grabbed the bar to put it back into its holder.
Noah sat up, breathing hard, sweat rolling off of him in buckets. “I’m done down
here,” he said, his words barely audible above the music.
“Go make up with Abby,” Hudson said.
Noah nodded, staring at the floor. “You set?”
Hudson didn’t know what he was supposed to be set for, but whatever. “Yep. I’m
good.”
Noah nodded again and slowly walked to the door, never meeting Hudson’s eyes.
Whatever he had done was weighing on him heavily.
Hudson turned and caught Beverly’s stare in the glass across the expanse of the
room. She gave him a small smile, but then he watched her eyes get darker.
He knew that look. And based on that look, he knew she was thinking about last
night, such a short few hours ago.
Turning her back to him, she hit the floor for more push-ups. As he walked over,
he admired her ass as it moved up and down from the floor. When she pushed herself to the top of the push-up, he wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her up off the floor, and pulled her back to his chest. She fought him for a moment, and then went limp against him, laughing.
“Good morning,” he said into her neck.
She threw her head back and laughed. “Morning? Just because you slept all day
doesn’t mean it’s morning to the rest of us.”
Hudson felt ice form in his veins. Oh, shit. If his clock didn’t say 7 a.m. that
meant it was seven in the evening when he woke, which meant it was terribly close to the summer sundown. He quickly tried to do the math of how long he had been with Cohen, and how long he had spent helping Noah. He remembered Noah had asked him if he was set. At the time, Hudson hadn’
t understood or cared, but now he realized Noah was asking him if he had his contacts in that would mute the blazing yellow of his eyes when the sun went down.
“What’s wrong, Hudson?”
He turned to the mirror the same time Beverly did. Both watched his eyes slowly
turn to a bright, vibrant yellow.
Chapter 29
Beverly couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Hudson’s eyes were slowly turning
a bright yellow. A little voice commented that it might have been one of the most beautiful colors she had ever seen. Dismissing that, her mind went into physician mode, trying to come up with all of the reasons a person’s eyes would turn yellow, and most of them revolved around the liver. Jaundice. Hepatitis. In some cases gallstones.
But somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knew that what she was seeing
didn’t have a damn thing to do with anything medical.
He gently put her down, and when her feet touched the floor, she turned to him so that she could study his face. She noticed the bruises were almost gone, the cut on his lip nothing but a small scab. He wouldn’t look at her.
An inkling of fear traveled up and down her spine and settled in her gut, and her fight or flight instinct switched to “get the hell out of here” mode.
She took off across the gym heading for the door. Flying through it, she headed
for the staircase instead of stopping to see if the elevator was available. As she hit the concrete steps, she heard footsteps behind her.
Her mind was a blank, all logical thought and reasoning gone. She just knew she
had to get away.
“Beverly! Come on, stop!”
No! She pushed her legs harder, her thighs burning. The footsteps behind her were getting closer, and tears welled in her eyes, but she pushed on.
“Beverly, please!”
She didn’t answer, just kept running up the stairs, not thinking about her
destination or how many stairs there were in nine stories.
Then she heard a low curse behind her, and an arm circled her waist. She let out a scream, and then began kicking and pounding on the arm that held her.
“Let go of me!” she yelled, hearing him grunt as her foot connected with his shin.
“Beverly,” he said in a low voice into her ear, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She struggled some more, kicking and hitting him, but quickly realized she was in a losing battle, and stopped her onslaught, her breathing heavy.
He gently put her down and she turned to look at him again, not believing what
she was seeing.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again.
The thing about being a doctor was that your mind was trained to think
scientifically and factually. You worked to get a diagnosis by studying symptoms, running tests, and talking to the patient. Once the diagnosis was determined, there was a set course of treatment to be recommended.
A cold was a cold. Bronchitis was Bronchitis. Cancer was cancer. Everything was
what it seemed.
This huge man in front of her with the most beautiful glowing eyes was not what
he seemed.
He wasn’t human.
“I’m part human, Beverly.”
She hadn’t realized she had said her thoughts out loud.
Anxiety ripped through her, and she let herself fall down onto a step, and put her head in her hands, rocking back and forth while trying to make sense of it all, trying to calm her breathing and racing heart.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated after a moment.
She nodded and looked up at him, remembering the previous evening. Hudson
wasn’t some monster, he was…Hudson. Big, beautiful, kind, selfless Hudson.
Okay, now that was established, he had just told her he wasn’t human.
She supposed she should continue her with her flight response, but she was too
tired. Reminding herself that he had had ample opportunities to hurt her, and he hadn’t, she decided get some answers on what the hell all of…this was.
Besides, what was she going to do? Outrun him? Beat him up? Tried that and
failed. He had over a hundred pounds on her, and both thoughts were utterly ridiculous considering the circumstances.
“Hudson, look at me,” she said quietly.
He slowly lifted his gaze. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quickly.
No, she didn’t think that he would hurt her.
“Okay,” she said, listening to her gut. “I get that. But what is… this, Hudson?
What’s going on with your eyes? And how did your face heal so quickly?”
Hudson took a deep breath, sat down on the stair landing with his back against the wall, and stared at the floor. The glow from his eyes cast the small landing in a warm yellow light.
Beverly had the distinct feeling she was about to be let in on a huge secret.
Hudson would have to tell the truth, because he was already knee deep in this tale.
“Hudson?” she asked, “what’s going on?”
***
Hudson planted his ass on the concrete landing and stared at the floor, amazed at
his own stupidity. He felt like banging his head against the wall until the damn thing crumbled. He thought for a minute about which one he would like to see crumble, and decided his head.
Hell, maybe just a couple of taps against the wall and he would get some sense
knocked into him.
What in all that resided in Heaven and Hell was wrong with him? Why didn’t he
think about Beverly noticing his wounds, cuts, and bruises gone when he went to Cohen for a healing? Of course she was going to notice that hey, he looked like he had been put through a wood chipper the day before, but now, surprise! All cleaned up. Just a couple of scratches. Move along, nothing to see here.
What-fucking-ever.
The truth of the matter was that he hadn’t been thinking, because he’d been so
preoccupied by how good he felt, how the pain was barely even a hum within his system.
That had been his focus, not keeping things hidden from Beverly. Hell, she knew his darkest secret, his biggest shame. He felt like there was nothing that he should be hiding from Beverly because she knew him inside and out. She knew about Iris, she knew about his suicide attempt. She knew about his family, and even his twisted brother—something he hadn’t even shared with Noah. Never had there been a human—or an SR44 being for that matter—who knew him the way Beverly did. His mind had simply forgotten that
minor detail of him not being human, that he could lay down for a few minutes with Cohen and erase bodily damage that would take weeks or months for a human to heal.
And how in God’s name had he slept all day? He had honestly thought it was
seven in the morning. Bacon and eggs territory, not steak and mashed potatoes. He had never slept all day before in his life. With the silo not having windows, it was impossible to tell day from night unless the Warriors’ eyes lit up.
Ah, man. This was a fuck-up of epic proportions. He tried to remember when one
of the other Warriors had screwed something up so badly. Sure, Talin had messed some stuff up on the computer, Rayner had broken a rule or two. Or ten. So had Noah. Cohen had accidently set the silo on fire. Even that didn’t come close to this. But something to this degree? Nope, he couldn’t think of anything else. Congrats, asshole, you just won some type of Boy Scout badge for epic fuck ups.
That was something to write home about.
“Hudson?” she asked, “What’s going on?”
He looked up at Beverly. She sat a couple of feet away, her cheeks flushed from
her workout and her attempted escape, a shimmer of sweat on her skin and her arms across her chest. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a few stragglers hanging around her face that refused to be tied down. At least she wasn’t
running and screaming from him anymore.
He tried to think of some lie, like maybe he had in practical joke contacts. That didn’t explain his miraculous recovery though, and it was a stupid, weak lie to begin with. Not that him telling her that he wasn’t fully human wasn’t a tell-tell sign as well.
Not seeing any other way but to plow forward with the truth, he took a deep
breath and began talking.
Chapter 30
Beverly sat in stunned silence, staring at Hudson, shocked at what he had told her, and any fear she had left slowly trickled away.
“So, even though you know this, Beverly, you can’t say anything to anyone when
you settled in a new place. It’s so dangerous for you, and for us as well. I would hate to see anything happen to your pretty little self. So please, promise me.”
She nodded her head, and she had a thought. “Faith and Abby? Are they from…
SR44 as well?”
Hudson shook his head. “Faith isn’t. Faith is human. For her story, you can go ask her. And Abby…” he took a huge breath, “Abby is my daughter.”
Could this get any weirder?
“Your daughter?”
Hudson nodded.
“But you two are practically the same age!”
Hudson gave her the little smile she loved so much, the one with the dimple. “Not really. There’s actually quite an age gap between us.”
“How old are you? And where’s Abby’s mother?” she whispered.
“We’ve been here on Earth for two hundred and twelve years. I’m somewhere
between eleven hundred and twelve hundred years old, although I actually quit keeping track of that long ago. I’m supposed to live until around two thousand, give or take a century or two. And Iris was Abby’s mother.”
She looked him over from head to toe. Eleven hundred years old had never, ever
looked so good.
And to think she had been worried about how she would look at forty.
Abby was Hudson and Iris’s daughter. The way they spoke to each other made so
much sense now, it was crystal clear.
So she was sitting here having a chat with a being from another planet. An alien.
An extraterrestrial. Who had a daughter who looked and seemed so…normal.
She had never given much thought on whether she believed in such things, but
