As Tex worked to avoid her, Erika did her best to dodge Jack. She skipped dinner and did her laundry instead. She sat atop a washing machine and watched her clothes spin around in the drier. At least it was warm which was more than she could say for the rest of the barracks building. She was only slightly warmer sleeping inside the barracks than she’d been on the cold ground.
Erika took the warm laundry back to her room in a ball in her arms and threw it onto the bed. She was tempted to leave it there for extra warmth but she folded the shirts and placed them neatly into her duffle bag. She had no idea how much longer she’d stay, but she figured that if Tex’s plan to shut down the Mocht Bogha didn’t work, they’d all be escorted off the premises sooner rather than later. Maybe that was for the best. She wasn’t sure what she could do to help, but she had been sidelined long enough. If Tex failed, she’d leave the VLA and find some way to help her species survive.
She was balling up a pair of socks and was ready to toss them into the open duffel when she heard someone at the door. Jack stood there, his back resting against the doorframe, his hands across his chest. She hated the brown color of his hair but had to admit he looked better than he had when they first met. He was slimmer and more fit. It suited him.
“Hi Erika.”
‘Hi Erika’? The last time they’d seen each other, Erika had disappeared in the Conexus ship. She had been to hell and back. Both of them had lost their moms and the world was ending around them. Yet all he can say is ‘Hi, Erika’?
She turned her back to him, grabbed another pair of socks, balled them up and threw them toward the duffel. She missed.
Jack sauntered in and grabbed the errant sock ball. He dropped it into the duffel and smiled at her. “Talk to me, Erika. Yell at me. Call me names. Beat me up even but don’t shun me. We’ve all been through too much to ignore each other.”
She wanted to do all those things – to yell at him and pound his chest with her fists. She was mad and not even sure why because as he stood there she knew that she didn’t love him anymore. She probably never did. Not really. Not the way she felt about Tex.
Erika sighed and threw a sock ball at him. “Why’d she have to be so freakin’ pretty? I mean seriously, Jack. I’m not even into girls and I think she’s hot. And she’s a Sturgis. I mean—why? How?”
He began to speak but she cut him off.
“On second thought, don’t answer those questions. I don’t want to know.”
His face lit up with the easy smile that she knew and loved. He was still Jack and he still had a way of bringing the happy out in her despite herself.
“I hate you,” she said. She threw another sock ball at him.
He caught it. “I know. Sometimes I hate me too.” His smile melted and she knew what he said was true. And she knew exactly what he meant. They had all had to do things that they never wanted to do. Things they weren’t proud of. Things they would never talk about.
“If you got to know Anna, I think you might actually like her. Believe it or not, she probably hates the Sturgis clan as much or more than you do.”
He said it with complete sincerity and probably even believed it. But Erika didn’t plan on being besties with Anna. It was petty of her and she knew it. But making nice with her old boy friend’s new lady was not the Erika Holt way. She glared at him and it took about a nano second for him to drop it.
“Are we good?” he asked.
She wanted to throw more socks at him because that had felt good, but she was out of socks. She searched her feelings for reasons to say no but she didn’t have any. They had started out friends and as he stood there she knew that she’d be lying if she told him she didn’t want to be his friend anymore.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Good. Then in classic Jack Wilson style, I’ll now tell you something that will likely make you rethink it throw me out.”
Erika grabbed a pair of jeans to fold and didn’t look up. “Oh no. What now?”
Jack yanked the jeans from her hands forcing her to look at him. His eyes were soft, his lips curled into a warm smile. “Stop being a prideful and stubborn goat and go to him.”
She frowned at him and yanked the jeans back. “No.”
“Why not?”
Erika dropped the unfolded jeans to the bed and tried not to cry. “Because he doesn’t want me, okay. You have Anna and she has you but I’ve got like only half of that equation, Jack. He doesn’t want me.”
Jack laughed so loud and hard they probably heard it two buildings over.
“Stop laughing at me. It’s not funny.”
Jack wiped at his eye with the back of his hand. “Darlin’ I’m not laughing at you. I guess girls sometimes don’t know anything more about guys than we do about you all.”
He knelt on the bed facing her and took her hands in his. “Erika, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy more in love with a girl than Tex is with you. Not want you? Girl, he wants you so bad it scares the shit out of him.”
Erika shook her head. “You don’t know him anymore, Jack. His time with the Conexus changed him. And since his sweat lodge experience, I think he’s taking this messiah thing seriously. I mean look at him. Sometimes even I start to believe he’s a demi-god or something.”
Jack shook his head and smiled at her. “He’s no god. He’s just an eighteen-year-old guy that’s in love with a girl.”
Erika peered up at him and he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You speak from experience?” She may have given him a tacit approval to pursue Anna, but it still made her heart twinge to think about it.
Jack nodded. “Look, everyone has been vague about what exactly he’ll do to shut down that portal. But my guess is that he’s putting himself in danger. He’s probably scared, Erika. Maybe he’s trying not to be with you so he doesn’t hurt so much. But I bet you anything that a part of him is right now wishing he was holding you.” His eyes misted. “I know that if my life was in danger, I’d want to hold her one last time.”
“Damn, you really love her, don’t you?”
“Nearly as much as Tex loves you.”
Jack’s words echoed like a gong in a vast empty hall. Tex loves you. She recalled the kiss Tex had planted on her before he ran from her again. His actions were certainly confusing to her, but she had never been kissed that way before. Her cheeks flushed thinking about it.
Jack planted a light kiss on her warm cheek and let loose her hands. “After all we’ve been through, I feel like I know less than nothing these days. But I know this. If you don’t go to him tonight, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”
Regret was a word you used when bad things happened. “Why? Do you think he won’t survive this?” As she said it she realized she wasn’t sure what the “this” truly was. Tex had done a good job of keeping her out of the loop of exactly what he was going to do.
Jack looked away. “Hell, I don’t know if any of us will survive this.”
That was a truth they had all avoided speaking out loud as of late. But Erika’s feet remained planted.
“What’s stopping you?”
She didn’t know. Fear of rejection? Maybe. But more than that, she feared he’d allow her entry. She had a history of avoiding intimacy. And being with Tex was more than just intimate. He could get inside of her mind and manipulate her in a way that horrified her.
“I’ve got reasons.”
Jack went to the door and was about through it when he stopped. “It’s time to allow yourself to feel, Erika.” He gave her a weak smile before he walked away.
44
tEX
Tex had curled himself into an egg-shaped mass on his bed, resting his head on his thighs, his arms at his sides. It was a position that he found restful.
He tried not to think about what would happen to him tomorrow. Each time a worry came to his mind, he refocused instead on the technical aspects of how he would achieve the energetic resonance he needed to close the portal that the M’Uktah had
referred to as the Mocht Bogha.
He was in deep meditation, his conscious mind left behind as his sub-conscious swirled in the heady quantum realm. But a light touch on his back pulled his attention back to the physical world around him.
At first he ignored the touch. It was likely a breeze.
There it was again. The touch warmed his skin. He became aware of scent and his nostrils involuntarily flared from the heady aroma that filled the air. It was a scent he found intoxicating. His meditation was at an end, his concentration shattered.
Her hand traced a line down his naked back, touching on each vertebra. Shivers ran up his spine.
His attention was fully in the room with her now. In one swift motion he unwound himself and turned over to face her. Her hair was free of its usual band holding it back and she wore a loose-fitting black T-shirt and jeans. Her face was finally free of bruises and cuts. Her eyes clear and bright. Erika looked clean and rested and more refreshed than he had probably ever seen her. And she looked at him expectantly.
His voice came out low and hoarse, a side effect of the deep relaxation he had just experienced. “What do you want, Erika?” The words came out more biting than he had intended. He wanted to touch her. To wind himself up in her and never let go. But Tex didn’t think he could take any more hurt or rejection. Not now. Not when his life—and the life of everyone he cared about—depended on his ability to believe in himself.
She jerked her hand back. “I’m sorry.” She bit her lip. “I just – I wanted to say—wanted to know—”
“What do you want to know?”
She sighed. “I don’t know why I came. Jack said I should.”
“Jack?” She still cares about him. “Did he send you here to distract me? To finally have me out of the picture. He always hated me.”
Erika rolled her eyes and set her jaw. “Dammit, I’m tired of you acting like a toddler, jealous over someone else getting a bigger piece of the cookie. You make it all so complicated, but it’s not. Do you want to be with me or not?”
As usual, whenever they spoke, he managed to make her angry with him. It seemed that words were useless. If he could only speak directly to her mind. With telepathic communication, he didn’t have to rely on only twenty-six letters to speak of all that welled inside him.
He closed his eyes and tried to regain the composure he had felt before she walked into the room. “I do not want to anger you. I never want to anger you.”
“Jack doesn’t hate you, Tex. He told me to come here because—well, he seems to think that you may feel about me the way he feels about Anna. He seems to think that maybe you’d want to spend what may be your last night on Earth with me.” She stared at the floor. “Is he wrong?”
Tex hated to admit, even if only to himself, that Jack Wilson was right about anything. But Jack was right.
He took her hand in his. It was warm, soft and dry. So small. Erika’s personality made her seem bigger than she actually was.
He held her hand up and inspected it. Tex had never had the opportunity to look closely at her before. He put his hand up to hers and marveled at how his—a hand he had always considered small—was so much larger than hers.
He took her other hand and did the same with it. Erika watched their hands and he felt the tension in her muscles ease. As he held her hands up to his, he pulled her into his arms.
“I want to know you,” he said.
Her breath was ragged and warm against his cheek. He bent his head and kissed her deeply. Tex felt her legs give way beneath her so he pulled her closer into him and held her at the small of her back.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Tex wiped the tear with his thumb. He reached out to her mind. It was something she had never wanted him to do, but he had to. He had to know if she truly wanted what she said she did.
But if he searched her mind without permission, she would be furious with him and it would wreck everything he wanted. “I want to know all of you. Words seem to get me into trouble. May I interface directly with your mind? I promise I won’t hurt you.”
She nodded slowly.
As he probed her thoughts, the sensation of his touch at her back reflected back to him. He felt her warmth beneath his fingers, but he also felt the tingling sensation of her back being touched by him. He kissed her again and found that he experienced the kiss also as a double sensation. He felt his own feelings, but hers as well.
And oh what she felt. Her mind was singly focused on want. Her desire was whole and pure and white-hot.
Tex did not think he had asked a question out loud, but she answered him as though he had. “I want only you.”
And he knew it was true. There were no thoughts of Jack. No lingering longing for the guy that she’d once been with or anyone else for that matter.
Tex ended the interface both to save his energy but also to ensure that he did not harm Erika.
“You don’t have to read my mind to know what’s in my heart,” she whispered. “Feel it.”
Erika kissed him deeply as she had in the dream they’d shared during his sweat. Her hands found his waist and she ran her fingers over his back.
He deftly pulled her T-shirt over her head and drank in the vision of the moonlight against her pale skin. His fingers shook as he touched her collarbone then traced the line of her shoulder. Erika gasped at his touch, her head fell back, her mouth open.
He caressed her waist and arms, her shoulders and back. He felt the wounds U’Vol had given her and the stitches that had sewn her flesh back together. It took only a few seconds to heal her completely. She moaned at the warmth of his fingers as he erased evidence of the razorsharp claws that had sliced her. Tex’s moved his fingers over her as if he read braille, memorizing every line and curve, every nuance of her form.
Erika’s fingers shook but she smiled as she reached out to his face. She traced lines over his cheeks and lips. It was as if she, too, wanted to remember each detail of his face; as if she soaked in memories to last her a lifetime. “Isn’t this better than a dream?” Her voice was throaty and deep.
Tex had lived much of his life in a dream. Lulled into a slumber during his time at A.H.D.N.A. by the sedation of the humidity. Maintained in a dreamlike trance while with the Conexus, experiencing only what the Regina allowed him to know. He had thought that his time there was full. He had thought he had known love with Xenos because of the synthetic memories the Regina planted in his mind.
But in the moment that he and Erika became one, he knew that he had never truly lived before. Her lips were soft beneath his. Her breath was hot and ragged against his neck. Her skin was smooth and warm under his fingers. This—Erika—was real.
She loved him. And he gave himself to her wholly.
____________________
Erika’s head rested on his chest and she snored lightly. Tex stroked her hair. The silky feel of it stirred him so he stopped. She was tired and needed rest.
Tex should have rested but he could not find the path to an easy mind. Each time he tried to focus on what he must do in the morning, his thoughts wandered to the newly created memories he had made with Erika.
He wanted to scoop her into his arms and carry her away. They could run to the farthest corner of Earth, away from scientists and military brass and M’Uktah ships. There had to be some remote place where the M’Uktah would not bother to go.
Tex had lived for years wanting nothing more than to be free of A.H.D.N.A. and control. He had not considered having a relationship with a human.
But as soon as he’d met Erika and observed the relationships between Ian, Jack and Erika, a desire to be loved had welled him.
As he looked down at her sleeping face, he knew that love was all that he had ever wanted. She was there in his arms and it was all he desired.
Erika shifted and her head rolled into the crook of his arm. Her small face was upturned to him. The beauty of her peaceful face drew tears from his eyes.
If only I could keep her life this way for her forever.
But he couldn’t. She was going to know hurt. One way or another.
Tex rose about an hour before dawn. He gently let her head fall to the pillow. Erika began to rouse but Tex put his hand on her head and bid her mind to rest easy.
He dressed in loose fitting cotton pants. They were black, not puke green, but otherwise they were similar to what he’d always worn at A.H.D.N.A. He put on a black T-shirt as well and a pair of flip-flops. He laughed to himself. For years he had hated what he was required to wear at A.H.D.N.A. but when given a choice he ended up in essentially the same outfit.
The barest hint of the first light lit up Erika’s face. She wore a content look, even in her sleep.
He bent to her, kissed her forehead and drank in her scent. It took every ounce of strength in his being to remove his lips from her cool forehead. He placed his hand at her temple and entered her mind with his.
As she dreamed, the memories they had just created were woven into the folds of her gray matter like new threads added to the weave of a sweater. Tex saw himself but through Erika’s eyes and it brought water to his eyes. In his original form, he had imagined himself as a hideous monster in the eyes of humans. But within Erika’s mind, as she had kissed him, she had seem him not as he currently was but in his original form. She saw his true nature yet loved him anyway. To Erika, Tex was H.A.L.F. 9 and he was beautiful.
Tex wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and set about rewiring her memories as he had done to Smith. He took from her the beautiful memories they had just created with one simple word. “Forget.”
45
TEX
After leaving Erika in his bed chamber, Tex sought out Alecto and Commander Sturgis. Drs. Lewis and Randall had filled them in on what he needed Alecto to do. The professional stuff had been attended to. This visit was personal.
H.A.L.F.: ORIGINS Page 35