The Last Alignment: Cry of the Scorpions (18 page)

“
Cool,” Zander said
throwing his bag on the bed.

“
It’s not cool,” said
Hudson. “There isn’t anything cool about the way that we’ve been
acting.”

“
What do you mean,” asked
Natalye.

“
You know what I mean,”
Hudson said leaning against the door. He wasn’t going to leave or
let any of them leave until they were all on good terms with one
another. “I’m tired of the separation that’s going on. I think its
complete bullshit how you and Androse have been sticking to each
other, and it isn’t right how none of us have really been talking
to Zander.”

“
Actually, I have been
speaking to Zander,” Natalye said setting her bag down. “He and I
are fine.”

“
It’s true, bro,” Zander
confirmed as he sat down on the bed. “Natalye and I are
good.”

“
And as far as Androse and
I ‘sticking’ to each other,” said Natalye, “I think that’s bullshit
that you and Awbrey are guilty of as well. Not just us.”

“
You’re totally right, but
that wasn’t my doing,” Hudson clarified. “I tried to get Awbrey to
talk to all of you. I really did, but she wouldn’t
budge.”

“
That’s all well and good,
but what the hell does that have to do with you,” Androse asked
setting his own suitcase down. Hudson narrowed his eyes, surprised
at Androse’s tone. “Are you saying that whenever Awbrey doesn’t
want to do something, then that means that you can’t do it either
even if you want to? She wasn’t physically stopping you from
speaking to us, was she? I mean, did she take your testicles and
put them in a jar somewhere and threaten to not return them if you
did?”

“
No
, she did not,” Hudson said going red in the face.
But apparently someone just gave you your
testicles back because you sure as hell didn
’
t have this much heart when you let
Zander shit all over you two weeks ago
, he
couldn’t help thinking.

“
Then there is no excuse
for you whether you agreed with her or not,” said Androse. “If
we’re having a clear the air session, then I’m going to be
honest.”

What is your
problem
, Hudson thought. Androse was
acting as if he had a bunch of pent-up animosity toward him and he
didn’t understand why. “By all means,” Hudson said gesturing with
his hand. “Go ahead. Be honest.”

“
Alright,” said Androse.
“You bugged me. You bugged the complete shit out of me when you
just all of a sudden stopped talking to me because of
Awbrey.”
Oh
,
Hudson thought.
Now I get
it
. He pursed his lips, comprehending.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I’m awkward as hell and that you
aren’t someone who I would normally waste my time on, and I thought
that it was the same way for you. But I figured out that it wasn’t,
and I apologize for pre-judging you. You really are a good guy
Hudson, and I know I’m a little ‘different,’ but I thought that you
and I had gotten along pretty well all things
considered.”

“
We did,” Hudson said
feeling dumb for not realizing this before, but the whole time that
they were at Oren’s, he had no idea that Androse was even mad at
him because he didn’t show it. “I never had a problem with you,
Androse, and I definitely didn’t mean to stop talking to you. For
that I really do apologize, but for future reference, and this goes
for all three of you,” he said eyeing Zander and Natalye, “being my
friend means accepting the fact that I can be oblivious as fuck
about certain things a lot of times.” Natalye chuckled.

“
I’m right there with
you,” said Zander.

“
Never expect me to ‘just
know’ something, or to pick up on things right away, or to always
think about how you feel, or to always know how you’re going to
react to something I do or say, or -”

“
Hudson,” Natalye stopped
him, “it’s okay.
Breathe
. The only reason we were mad
at you was because you wouldn’t talk to us. That was
it.”

“
And I apologize,” he said
again.

“
We know. You’ve done that
already and we appreciate it. I suppose I apologize too because I
could’ve taken the initiative to speak to you as well,” said
Natalye. “It’s all good.” The whole time she spoke, Hudson was
still looking at Androse searching for some sign of forgiveness. It
wasn’t until Androse smiled and nodded that he finally exhaled
feeling relieved.

“
Now, Zander,” Hudson said
turning to the bed.

“
Ah, shit,” he
sighed.

“
Don’t be like that. I’m
sorry for being so hard on you in the beginning. It’s just, you
came in and you-”

“
Acted like a jerk-off? I
know,” Zander said sitting up straight. “And now that I can do this
without being interrupted, Androse, I’m sorry, bro.”

“
I told
you
,” Natalye exclaimed as she punched
Androse on the arm before leaning against a dresser.

“
Told him what,” asked
Hudson.

“
Zander tried to apologize
that very first day when we were all standing in the hallway by the
stairs after we first met Andrew. But, even though Awbrey talked
over him, I still noticed it,” she said winking at Zander who
winked right back at her.

“
Well, why didn’t you
apologize at any point after that,” Hudson asked.

“
It didn’t feel right.
Everyone was doing their own thing, so I figured I would just let
him hate me until I did get around to apologizing. I don’t know if
y’all noticed, but I’m perfectly okay with people not being too
fond of me.” Both Hudson and Natalye laughed. “In all seriousness,
though,” Zander continued talking to Androse, “I didn’t mean to act
like that toward you. It’s just like you said. You’re different and
I didn’t know how to read you, so I just reacted. You’re a
weird-ass guy with weird-ass hair, and-”

“
Zander,” Androse said
closing his eyes. There wasn’t a hint of emotion on his face. “I’m
going to accept your apology now because I feel like if I let you
keep going, it’ll only get worse.” Hudson smiled; was this really
happening? “But, I’m not going to stand here and lie to you.
Everything still isn’t okay between us. It’s going to take me a
while before I warm up to you. Honestly, I wouldn’t have even
accepted your apology if it weren’t for the situation.”

“
That’s fair enough, I
guess,” Zander nodded. “I can deal with that.”

“
And that’s just it,”
Hudson said standing up off of the door. “Our situation should be
reason enough for all of us to get along. All of that dumb stuff
that happened over the past two weeks was pretty much over nothing
and it was stupid. We were all stressed out and shocked to say the
least, but we were just being teenagers. We judged each other, we
made assumptions, but who the fuck cares? I don’t want us to be
like our parents. They have a lot of deep ties and have been
through so much together, but then they don’t even speak to one
another for years on end.”

“
Hey,” said Zander, “don’t
put that on my mom. You and Awbrey’s dads are the ones that won’t
communicate with her.”

“
Yeah…well...my dad is a
prick in general because he doesn’t even communicate with me, and
Awbrey’s dad is the same way,” said Hudson. “I guess what I’m
trying to do here is bury the hatchet between us. After we found
out about being Wielders, we should’ve approached this whole thing
differently. Instead of scoping each other out and judging, we each
should have looked at it like we were gaining four new lifelong
friends. Three, in my case,” he said coolly. “So, are we all good,
then?”

They all exchanged glances.

“
Yeah,” Natalye smiled.
“I’m good. With everyone in this room, that is. I want that to be
clear.”

“
If y’all are good with
me, then I’m good with you guys too,” Zander said kicking off his
shoes while Androse simply nodded again. Hudson gave a sigh of
relief mainly because he didn’t feel as if someone was compressing
his chest anymore.

“
What about Awbrey,” asked
Zander.

“
What about her,” asked
Hudson. “I’ve already told her that I thought she needed to make
peace, and that’s all that can be done. You can’t really make
Awbrey do anything. Give her time and she’ll come around, but until
then, just try and give her space and ignore her, I
guess.”

“
That won’t be a problem
at all,” Natalye said picking up her bag.

“
Oh, and one more thing,”
Hudson said before he unlocked the guestroom door and opened it.
“Zander, I’ve been meaning to say this to you since the very first
day that we met.”

“
And what’s that,” he
asked.

“
If we are going to be
friends, then don’t
ever
look at my grandma the way that you did that day
in the kitchen when she asked us to come in the living room. I was
two seconds away from digging your eyes out with a
spoon.”

~*~*~

By the end of the day, Hudson’s mood had
improved tremendously. He went out of his way to make sure that he
hung out with the others and he even got a chance to have some
one-on-one time with Natalye after dinner. They had both
volunteered to wash the dishes and while it didn’t last very long,
the time spent was still enough to satisfy his want. Afterwards,
the four of them watched a movie in the den with Andrew, Hallie,
and Emma before turning in for the night, and Hudson found that he
couldn’t stop smiling.

For as long as he could remember, his
father’s house had never actually felt like a home. Most of the
time he was there by himself unless Sarah was over doing her job,
and Tyler never stayed at home for more than a week at a time.
Hudson was so used to it being quiet and cold, but now it was warm
and full of movement and life. Now that he had made good with
Zander, Androse, and Natalye, the house had also been filled with a
good bit of laughter all evening and it was a nice change. He
hadn’t given much attention to Awbrey whom he hadn’t seen at all
except at dinner. Hudson hadn’t even thought about her until he
walked into his bedroom and saw her at his computer desk typing and
looking stony.

“
Hey,” he greeted, his
smile slowly fading.

“
Whatever, dude. Having
fun with your new buddies,” she asked.

“
Yeah, I am actually,” he
said closing his door. “It’s made being stuck together not feel so
much like torture.”

“
Oh? Well, good for you,
then,” Awbrey said clicking away. “I’m happy you’re
happy.”

Here we
go
, he thought. “Awbrey, I-”

“
Hudson, I’m not mad at
you,” she said closing his laptop and turning around.

“
Bullshit. Yes, you
are.”

“
Okay, you’re right. I
am,” she said crawling over onto his bed. “At first, I was furious,
but then, I had a nice long talk with my grandmother.”

“
Really now,” he
asked.

“
I’m sorry.”

Hudson sat down on the bed next to her,
disbelieving. It was a very infrequent statement to hear Awbrey
make, so he wasn’t sure that she said it. “She didn’t give me any
of the specifics, but she told me that you and Kate had a talk
earlier, and then Kate spoke to her about it and-”

“
Dammit, Grandma,” Hudson
snapped lying back. “That woman can’t keep her mouth closed to save
her life.”

“
I’m
sorry, Hudson,” Awbrey repeated. “I didn’t realize that I was
putting you in that position. And, I think it’s cool that you are
on good terms with the others.”

“
No, you
don’t.”

“
You’re right, I don’t,
but you could at least let me try to lie to you.”

“
Do you have any plans to
apologize or talk to them,” he asked.

“
Nope. I have to stop
hating them first. That could take a while,” Awbrey said drawing
her knees into her chest, “but I will be civil, at least. And
speaking of being civil, our fathers will be here tomorrow night.
Kate told me.” Hudson didn’t respond. “And speaking of apologizing,
I need to talk to you about Amanda.”

Hudson sighed. “What are you thinking?”

“
Tomorrow morning, I say
that we get up and sneak off to Vancent.” She was clearly expecting
opposition, but when Awbrey didn’t meet any she continued. “I just
want to go, find her, talk to her and apologize even if she doesn’t
accept it, and then get right back here before anyone notices that
we even left. I think that we owe it to her to put forth that
effort.”

Hudson sighed again, thinking. He was in the
same boat as Awbrey; he too wanted to talk to Amanda and set things
right. “Have you tried calling her?”

“
Yes. Thirteen times. No
reply. I thought about sneaking over to her house tonight, but then
I thought that would be dangerous. Plus, Sylvia would probably
Sense me before I got any more than two feet away. So, I decided
that going tomorrow during the day to a crowded place was a better
option.”

“
That makes sense,” said
Hudson.

“
Will you come with
me?”

“
Of course.”