Beloved Weapon

by Jonathan A. Price

  Hudson staggered around the room, each blow sending him in a different direction like a punch-drunk boxer.

  She continued to hit Hudson, her bloodied fists leaving prints all over him. She sprung in the air and smashed her elbow into his chin, blood squirting from between his clenched teeth.

  Hudson slipped backward. He thrust his heel into the floor, his leg bracing him like a pillar. It was as if he adamantly refused to fall.

  “Enough!” he roared like a bear. He swung out his arm as Nia charged forward again, the back of his hand colliding into her face. She was sent spinning in the air before collapsing to the floor once again.

  Pushing herself from the floor, Nia glanced at her father, who was still in chains. He’d come around again, and started lurching toward her at a snail’s pace.

  “N-Nia…” Alexander grumbled. “Hold onto it…!”

  Nia gasped. Her muscles were relaxing. The Breach had subsided. The pain she’d already endured was too great—she lost her focus.

  Hudson suddenly reached out and took hold of Nia’s face and lifted her whole body by her head, her legs swaying wildly in the air. He held her away from him, her diminutive limbs unable to do more than meaninglessly slap his forearm.

  Hudson walked toward the window behind his dilapidated desk. He took a deep breath and thrust his left hand—and Nia’s back—through the Plexiglas pane, breaking the panel from the frame. It flip-flopped through the wind and fell from sight.

  Hudson held Nia dangling in the air outside his penthouse office. The wind moaned all around her as the clouds grayed and the air grew moist.

  Alexander Black flashed teeth, calling upon every ounce of strength he could, fighting the sedative coursing through his veins and the chains that bonded him.

  Nia grabbed Hudson’s wrist, pulling herself up, until her eyes peeked above his palm, struggling to break his grip. She stared into Hudson’s dark red pupils as he cracked a smile.

  “It’s been a good meeting, Miss Black. Good day to you, now.”

  Hudson arched his arm back, ready to hurl Nia into the heavens like a baseball pitch. Nia wriggled in Hudson’s grasp, desperately trying to escape her fate. But it was no use. Hudson’s grip was like a steel clamp, locked in place. Nothing would stop him from sending Nia Black’s small body hurtling through the sky…

  The sound of a metallic pop snatched Hudson’s attention. Then the floor shook, then a massive force hit him in the small of his back.

  Hudson stumbled forward, flashed teeth and looked down behind him. A pair of dark, hulking arms with bulging muscles, beads of sweat, and engorged veins coiled around his waist. Alexander Black glared at Hudson from behind, with insane eyes, the metal cuffs still latched to his wrist—connected to broken chain links.

  Nia’s fight against Hudson gave Alexander the time he needed to recover his strength. He overcame the sedative and broke the chains. He initiated the Breach. And he pushed against Hudson with all his might.

  Nia slipped free of Hudson’s grip and crashed on the floor inside the office, her legs dangling outside the building as she clutched the window’s edge.

  Maxwell Hudson felt his equilibrium shifting. The force that struck him from behind had also robbed him of his balance. He saw nothing but the open sky before him. Hudson outstretched his arms and reached to grasp the edges of the window opening, but only grazed them with his fingertips as he fell forward.

  He found himself surrounded on all sides by open sky.

  Nia bellowed out to her father at the top of her lungs, her eyes awash with tears. She reached out of the window with no regard for her own safety, grasping nothing but air as she watched the two figures vanish into the gray mist of the clouds that surrounded the Hudson Tower’s peak.

  A pair of hands wrapped around Nia’s forearm at the last second and she found herself being yanked back into the building. She flopped on the floor, safe.

  Paying no attention to what just happened, she scrambled on all fours, looked back through the opening, and saw Alexander Black hanging by one hand penetrating a lower level window.

  Hudson was gone.

  “Nia…” Alexander muttered. “You did pretty good.”

  “Pop!” Nia screamed. Just hold on! I’ll find a ladder or something…”

  “Do yourself a favor, Nia,” Alexander went on, looking down. “Find your twin sister.”

  “What?”

  “You’re incomplete! You need balance! You gotta close that hole in your heart. My way was to seal it all off—how I felt about you, your sister, even your mother—and go cold. You’re not like me. You need somebody in your life. I get that now; that’s why you have so much trouble committing. You need something…someone to fight for. Find Shauntia!”

  “All right, whatever, I’ll do it, but let me go get something to pull you in with!” Nia stammered.

  “Just do what I told you, and everything will be cool,” Alexander said. “See you.”

  Alexander Black thrust his other hand into the building, as easily as a hammer drove a nail. Taking hold with both hands, he kicked off and swung his feet away outward. He brought his feet together and barreled them into the Plexiglas, crashing through the window and swinging himself inside the Tower on a lower level.

  Nia jumped up and darted past the man who saved her, still paying him no heed.

  “Nia!” shouted Vincent. “Wait!”

  She raced through the penthouse, leaping over the shards of the oak desk, the still-collapsed Security Soldiers and broken statues. Nia reached the elevator and hammered the lone button that controlled it to the point of flattening it into the panel. The door chimed open after what felt like ages and Nia darted in. The doors started to close and a hand grasped the door, forcing it back open.

  “Get off the door!” Nia screamed. “I have to go!”

  Vincent pulled himself into the elevator. “Forget it, Nia. It’s over. He’s gone.”

  “I have to find him,” she said. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Look,” Vincent pointed to the monitors inside of the elevator. “See? These monitors show views all over the building. There’s no sign of your father anymore. You know how fast and strong he is—we all do. You’ll never catch up to him.”

  “Yes I can,” Nia said. “I’m fast and strong too. I’m—”

  Her vision started to blur as her voice broke. Nia pressed both hands on the wall, trying to hold her balance, but her knees wouldn’t cooperate. She slumped down and Vincent put his arms around her back just in time.

  She fainted.

  Vincent looked at Nia’s peaceful, soft face, and couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yeah…that’s what I thought. You’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  He took the bruised, battered and blood-covered Nia in his arms and pressed the button inside the elevator. The doors closed with a chime and the elevator descended.

  Forty

  Nia rolled over, squirming under in a thick comforter with a smile on her face. It was like being wrapped up in cotton candy. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept so comfortably.

  And then she did remember. It hit her like a magnum load. She was somewhere familiar.

  She forced herself up from the queen-sized bed, looking through the nearby window. She saw the array of identical windows across from hers, the brick construction and the lush green grass of the courtyard below, and the tall gate that sealed the high-class condominiums from the outside world.

  Nia sighed. I can’t believe him.

  She threw the comforter off and swung her legs out of the bed, and that was when she noticed she was only wearing her panties. Her skin was healed of all marks and wounds. Even the hole Billy Casey’s knife made in her belly was closed up; only a scar remained.

  Her eyes darted around the room. It was a square room with plain décor; some posters of rock stars and movies that had long since been out of the theaters were tacked to the walls, but little decoration aside from that. There was
a soft, oval-shaped rug in the center of the room covering a small part of the wood floor, and a pair of dressers, one tall with a T-shirt and a pair of boxers left hanging out of the top drawer as if beckoning her, and a shorter, wider dresser sitting across the room with a prominently-placed photo in a frame.

  Nothing’s changed at all, she thought.

  But one thing did catch her attention. Her golden pendant with the opal charm was dangling on a post at the foot of the bed. It looked like someone had cleaned it and restored its luster.

  Nia couldn’t help but chuckle as she retrieved the necklace and clasped it around her neck. That’s exactly where I would leave it when I used to spend the night here. He was the only one who could get me to take it off. He thinks he’s slick.

  With no sign of her own clothes, Nia grabbed the shirt and boxers and dressed. She remembered the fit; her hips stretched them out. She approached the dresser and picked up the photo frame.

  It was a photo of herself and Vincent Marks, arms around each other. They were smiling and embracing in a park on a bright, sunny day not different from this one.

  Then the door creaked open and Vincent stepped in carrying a bag from a designer clothier.

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry. I know this is probably the last place you’d want to be, but I didn’t know where else to take you.”

  “That’s okay, I understand. But…”

  “Your clothes? Well, they were torn up and covered in blood and dirt, so I had to get rid of them.”

  Nia twisted her lips. “Don’t go acting like you got special privileges or anything just because you were my first boyfriend. You better not have been all touching me.”

  Vincent laughed. “You know me better than that, Nia. But the way you were sleeping, you wouldn’t have known the difference. Haven’t you noticed? You were out for a whole day.”

  Nia gasped. She remembered…it was raining when she saw her father tackle Maxwell Hudson through his penthouse window. It was afternoon when everything ended. But now it was early morning.

  “I slept that much?”

  “You’re lucky you woke up at all after what you went through. But I’m glad you did. Hungry?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “I’ll warm something up. And here,” Vincent said, handing Nia the designer bag. “I bought you an outfit. Pretty sure I got the right size. I read the tags on your old clothes before I threw them out.”

  Nia took the bag, opened it and glanced inside. “Oh uh-uh…you done lost your mind if you think I’m wearing this.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you then. I kind of need my underwear back and I don’t keep a lot of women’s clothes in my drawer these days,” Vincent shrugged, turning toward the door. “Come out into the living room when you’re ready.”

  Nia rolled her eyes and pulled the outfit out of the bag, laying it out neatly on the bed.

  Vincent stood by his electric stove, stirring the contents of a large, steaming pot. Then he heard his bedroom door creak open and he spun around. He dropped his ladle inside the pot and smiled.

  Nia stood in the hallway wearing a black and white dress that flared out from her waist and fell down to just above the knees. It was a far cry from her usual attire, and based on Vincent’s expression, a pleasant sight indeed.

  At least for him.

  “What kind of mess you got me wearing?” Nia griped. “One strong wind and this dress will be all up around my neck and I’ll be giving the world a show.”

  “It’s not windy today. I figured something a little more loose-fitting would be more comfortable than a vinyl skirt and a tube top, since you’re recovering and all.”

  “Stop trying to be funny. The stuff I normally wear isn’t that skimpy.”

  Vincent scoffed. “It’s a hell of a lot tighter and more revealing than what you’d wear when we were dating. Or were you just putting on another act for me, just like the whole story about you being a bartender instead of a criminal?”

  Nia quickly changed the subject. “So, what smells so good?”

  “Oh, this?” Vincent turned back to the pot on the stove and retrieved the ladle. “It’s just some beef stew my mom dropped off the other night. She’s always cooking for me because she thinks I can’t take care of myself. Problem is she always makes enough to feed an army. I used to have Jason and the other security guys come over for dinner every now and then, but…well, I have a lot of leftovers now.”

  Nia grabbed a spoon and tasted the stew. “It’s good.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  Nia took two more sips, then put the spoon down. She looked into Vincent’s bright blue eyes.

  “So what did I miss?”

  “Needless to say, I left Corp Hudson,” Vincent replied. “I got lucky. Hudson never officially fired me or anything; I guess he didn’t have time, or maybe he was waiting until he was sure I was dead. I had time to go around and do what I could to clean up the mess. The Board of Directors doesn’t know anything outside of a story I managed to concoct about the Security Soldiers going haywire. I told them that Rachel Jones, Maxwell Hudson and other employees died in the carnage, and that I didn’t want to stay with the company under those conditions, so I left.”

  “I’ll bet the Corp’s still going to be trying to mess with me, huh?”

  “The whole Hercules thing was Hudson’s private deal. With him gone, it’s not really a profitable venture according to the Board. From what I heard they decided to shelve it all indefinitely. Since they have to restructure everything including executive security, not to mention deal with investigations and injunctions, I’m sure the Board has bigger fish to fry than worrying about you, especially since you’re not the one who killed Maxwell Hudson. As far as they’re concerned, he brought it on himself. Who knows…maybe they were looking for the chance to get him out of the way.”

  “And what about Chelsea?”

  “Yeah…I don’t know,” Vincent said with a sigh. “Last I heard, she confined herself to the island facility. She’s still working for the Corp, but there’s been no word from her at all. She’s got to be pretty messed up about all this.”

  “Damn,” Nia grunted, standing up. “So I guess I really will have to be watching my back some more. She ain’t gonna let this go.”

  “You’ve made some enemies, Nia, no mistaking that,” Vincent said with a shrug. “But you can change your path for the better if you want to.”

  “Tell that to everybody else,” she said. “Turning around and being a good girl ain’t gonna get that bulls-eye off my back.”

  “Well, you never know,” Vincent went on, filling a bowl with stew and setting it on a table. “So, where do you go from here?”

  “I’m going home. I do have my own place now,” Nia retorted. “I’m not that immature little girl you used to date anymore, you know. I can take care of myself.”

  “I see that. But you know what I mean. What are you going to do next?”

  “Where are my guns…my bike…?”

  Vincent raised his hands to reassure her. “I took care of all that. I had your bike towed here. Speaking of, why did you have to be so careless with the bike I bought you? Do you know how pissed off I was when I heard it got blown up while you were out there fighting Hudson’s private security the other day? Do you have any idea how much I paid for that bike?”

  Nia shrugged. “You should have taken the keys from me when you threw me out if you cared about the bike so much. You gave it to me; it was mine to lose, so get over it.”

  “Whatever you say. Just don’t expect me to buy you another one if you lose the one you’ve got now.”

  Nia fell quiet. The bike was the only thing she had of her father’s, the only thing he’d ever given her. It was quite a present; although it didn’t make up for what he’d put her through, it would have to do.

  “Nia?”

  She sighed. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of my bike. You ain’t even gotta worry about it. So what about my Babies?”<
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  Vincent slid open a drawer in the kitchen and Nia’s pistols sat there waiting, the chambers still empty. The keys to her bike were also there.

  Nia looked at the guns with a slow smile. “I remember when you caught me holding them for the first time. That’s when you put two and two together and figured out that I was that crook messing with your boss’ company, the young female thief with the dual Magnum Baby Eagles. I tried to creep back in here but you were up late and caught me. We broke up that night. I’m surprised you ain’t throw them away.”

  “Believe me, I wanted to,” Vincent muttered. “Those things don’t just represent how we ended. I think they represent all the bad choices you ever made. You hold those guns and you act like you can do anything you want. But the world doesn’t work like that, not even for someone as strong as you are.”

  “Yeah, I know that now,” Nia sighed. “I thought I was so badass, but I ended up losing so much…and I ain’t got nothing to show for it except these two guns.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Nia. What are you going to do next? Back to the streets? Back to working for others like Charlie? The same old, same old?”

  “I guess; I mean, I’m not sure I even want to go calling around looking for jobs anymore. That life…it just doesn’t seem like it means anything—but I do still need to eat, and I lost every dime I had in Kim’s place.”

  “If you don’t have any ideas…well, I do. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I was thinking the two of us could make the most of this situation. I don’t work for Hudson anymore, and if you’re done being who you used to be, maybe the two of us could go into business together?”

  Nia looked confused. “What kind of business? I mean, look. We’re cool and all, Vince, but really…the past is over. I’m not trying to go backward.”

  “That’s not what I meant…” Vincent’s voice trailed off. He walked toward a cupboard and pulled out a manila folder. Laying it out on the table, he spread out several photos and papers with all kinds of statistics and data before Nia’s eyes.