HUDSON
FOURTEEN
Iwas worried that eating dinner with Lailah would be strained after our encounter with Mallory.
Surprisingly, it turned out to be the highlight of my day.
Conversation seemed to flow smoothly between us after a few halting steps in the beginning.
I was amazed to see that she had any interest in hearing about the thesis project I was working on.
Most people’s eyes glazed over, but she was willing to try and follow, even if she didn’t understand half of what I was talking about.
“So, you’re telling me that you’re working on a solution that can be used to help detect pancreatic cancer?”
“That is the simplest way to explain it, yes. This is one of the few forms of cancer that we can’t test for with early detection. Most cases are found when it’s too late, and there’s no chance of survival,” I answered, smiling, pleased that she was getting the gist of what I was doing.
She shook her head, sending her golden curls wild around her shoulders. “That is crazy ambitious for a thesis project.”
“My parents own one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the eastern hemisphere. Compared to what they work on, this project is small time. I grew up with dinner topics that would make the average kid cry from the complexity.”
“Man, holiday gatherings with your family must be something else. Do you have siblings? Are they joining in on the family business too?”
“I’m the oldest of three, my brother and sister are still in high school.
My sister Grace is projected to graduate a year early and will also be going to school to work in the medical world.
She wants to work with patients, though.
She is probably the most social out of the whole family.
Ben, my brother, is a senior and wants to study biomedical engineering when he graduates.
” I paused, hating the uncomfortable feeling I get when I have to share about my parents.
“Three years ago, my parents separated, they still own the business together, but they work separately. It was not an amicable divorce, but they knew if they split the company, they would lose too many clients.”
“Wow, that must have been hard on you,” Lailah said, her soul-penetrating eyes filled with concern for me.
I was glad to see her gaze wasn’t filled with pity like most people when they heard. I’d known for years before they split that my parents didn’t like each other. They no longer hid their fights from us.
“Enough on that topic,” I said, waving a hand trying to move on from the subject. “I’ve taken up far too much of your evening. I’m sure you have better things to do than sit here with me.”
She looked down at her watch, and I saw her eyebrows shoot up. “Shit! It can’t be this late already.” Looking back up, she gave me a guilty smile. “I do need to head back and get some work done, I have a paper to finish for my English class tomorrow.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want to hold you back from your schoolwork. What kind of tutor would I be doing that?” I said.
I was surprised when she laughed at my words. I hadn’t meant them to be funny, but when I played them over in my head, I understood where she could see the humor in them.
“I know we said to meet up Thursdays for lab work together, but I already have an obligation tomorrow,” Lailah said as we walked our trays to the drop off area.
“Not a problem, we will just plan to meet up next Tuesday. Feel free to reach out if you get stuck on something; I might be able to talk you through it,” I said, not wanting her to think she had to wait a whole week.
“You’re awesome, Hudson,” she said as she gave me a quick side hug as we exited the cafeteria. Then she took off toward her dorm.
My arm tingled with electricity where she’d touched me.
It was stronger than when I’d first made contact with her as I shook her hand in greeting.
I first thought this was a reaction of my power to my anger at being cornered by Mallory.
Now I knew that it was Lailah who was giving off the energy, but I couldn’t figure out why.
“Thanks for helping her,” Jay said at my left, making me jump.
“God, Jay, stop doing that shit to me,” I growled. I hate when he sneaks up on me..
Jay just gave me a disapproving side-eye but didn’t say anything more.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Check your phone,” Jay commented.
I pulled my cell out of my backpack, and sure enough, I had a few missed calls and texts. I unlocked it and scrolled through what I had missed.
The first one was from Beth an hour ago.
Beth:
Hudson, I need you and Jay to assist in patrolling. The demons are getting worse and only two of you a night isn’t working.
Beth:
Hudson, I need you to answer that you got my message. It’s unlike you to be unresponsive.
Followed by another twenty minutes later.
Beth:
I am sending Jalen to find you if you don’t answer this text in the next five minutes and he has my full permission to stop you from doing whatever is causing you to ignore me.
Jay:
location?
Jay’s simple demand for my whereabouts. Though I never got to answer it, seeing as he was standing next to me.
“What’s got Beth so worked up?” I asked, looking up from my phone.
Jay signaled for me to follow him, not wanting to talk around so many people.
I trailed after him until we made it to the parking lot, and I saw his Jeep, which was more like a tank than a car, waiting at the curb.
I jumped into the passenger side while he started the engine, causing the car to rumble with its diesel engine.
“There was a flare of demonic energy on the school grounds. They think something is trying to create a portal,” Jay informed me.
“That can’t happen while we have the wards up.”
“They’re failing faster, too much demon activity.”
“What are we supposed to do about it?”
“Beth wants us to do recon and get more information before we do anything.”
“Ah brains and brawn at it again,” I said, using Parker’s nickname for us.
We rode in silence for a while before I couldn’t let the question that I’d wanted to ask him wait any longer. “Why did you give her my number?”
“Fuck if I know.” Jay sighed.
For Jay, this response was the equivalent of freaking out. Jay didn’t do unknowns, he dealt in strategy, calculated responses, and practicality. The fact that he had no idea why he did what he did must have been throwing him for a loop.
“I needed to help her. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t just walk away from her when I could help,” Jay finally said after I didn’t press the matter.
I didn’t have a chance to question him further about that since we had reached the area where our sensors had picked up the demon activity.
Jay handed me a tablet with a beacon flashing on it once we got out of the Jeep.
I looked around and found that we were in the same field where Micah and Brayden had dispatched a lesser demon last week.
I headed off in the direction the map was showing, with Jay’s silent presence at my side.
It didn’t take us long to find the spot we were looking for.
The ground was scorched where the demon had tried to get the portal to open and had failed, as evidenced by the charred husk of remains.
I squatted down and examined the ground, looking for the portal marking that would tell us where the other side of this was.
Unfortunately, the body was sitting on top of it, and I was loath to move it myself.
I looked up at Jay with a raised eyebrow.
Jay grunted, and with a flick of his hand, a small dust devil of wind wrapped around the remains and lifted it up and away.
“Thank you,” I said absently as I worked on deciphering the runes that were now visible.
I took the stylus out of the tablet and started to copy down what I saw so I could send it back to Beth and the others.
I knew the typical symbols we studied, but I found a few that I had never seen before.
I frowned as I noticed that the spell almost worked—if the almost complete circle was anything to go by.
Our wards were barely able to prevent this portal from being opened.
What kept bothering me was that the body of the demon that had been left behind wouldn’t have been strong enough to make this kind of portal.
“Jay, you haven’t seen anything close to a mid-level demon show up on your patrols, have you?”
“No, they’ve all been lesser demons, but way more than ever before,” Jay said.
“We need to head back. I’ll need Mr. Creed’s help to decipher these new runes.” I stood up and sent a text to make sure both Beth and Mr. Creed would be there when we got back.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Jay asked.
I looked up at him in surprise. He was never one to be all doom and gloom, that was Micah’s department.
“If we can’t figure out how the demons are breaching our wards, they will fail, and we’ll have no defense against them,” I answered.