This is a book that I am trying to write and hopefully one day gets published. Any suggestions or even criticisms would be immensely helpful. I know my grammar kind of sucks; I tried to do the new novel November month and cared more about quantity than quality. I have more that I may upload later, but anything would be helpful at the moment.
Modern Hero Chapter 4
Four hours, four hours of dreamless, uninterrupted sleep was all the world would allow me that night. Around 8 o'clock in the morning my phone went off, loudly, waking me from my slumber. "What," I shouted groggily, and rather annoyed, into the phone when I pick it up. That wouldn't do however, "I mean, yes, who is this?" I ask trying to sound as cordial as possible; manners were always important. I'll admit that one of my many flaws is that I'm not a morning person; it comes with working long night hours and consistently waking up from nightmares for a few thousand years.
"Hector," a voice on the other end asked a bit nervously. "It's Rebecca," a girl said on the other end. Crap, of course it would be Rebecca Law on the calling me now, former lieutenant in the Grand Haven police, former head of the more Abnormal crimes unit, currently a hardboiled private detective who refuses to play by the man's rules, and a young woman who I've known since she had pigtails in her hair.
"Yeah, it's me Rebecca," I say in what I hope could be thought of as an upbeat tone. "What can I do for you this morning," I ask.
"Well it's not really something that I can talk about over the phone, can you meet me at Best Coffee in a half an hour?" she asked. I have seen Rebecca shoot a charging frost giant without flinching, I have personally taught her how to wrestle a full grown man to the ground, but for some reason, unless it was a very good reason, she never whenever she asked for a favor she became that same little girl I helped raise.
It would be annoying to get up this early, but I guess I didn't really need to sleep. "Sure," I said. I was already up before she finished asking, "I'll be there."
"Good, I will see you then," Rebecca said quickly and hung up before I could get a word in. She always tended to be a rather shy girl except when she was on a case, but she seemed particularly shy today. She must be asking for a big favor if she was this mousy over the phone. Well, she was a bride to be, and in little more than a week a full bride so I can excuse her odd behavior. She wouldn't be on the job in a day or so, perhaps it was something that needed to be done quickly, or maybe she just wanted to talk about the wedding with me. I was one of the big players in the planning of the ceremony; I've had to do practically everything for the wedding save giving her away and kissing her under the arches.
After a quick shower I pulled on a jacket and pants, grabbed my keys and got ready to leave. When I decided that I looked as presentable I would be I left my room. When I entered the main living area of which my room was connected to, I saw Colin, shirtless, sitting at the island in our kitchen eating my cereal with milk; there were also three very attractive women with him, in their underwear. I looked at them silently for a moment, and Colin looked back at me also not saying anything. He took another bite of wet cereal and that seemed to break the spell and I walked over to our kitchen and dumped out the rest of the box with a bipedial Finn on it into a bowl. There was barely anything left after Colin and his 'friends,' got their share so I got a smaller bowl for myself, 'greeeeaaaatttt'.
"You should go back to bed Hector. You've been asleep for like three hours, and that's being generous," Colin said through a mouthful of cereal and milk.
I write his advice off of course, other people claimed I was smart in life, I will never claim to be smart in… my eternal life. "Three hours is more than enough. I don't even need to sleep if I don't want to," I say munching down on my breakfast. Food is different from sleep, food is something that even Olympians need, but I guess I'll get a muffin or something at Best's.
Colin just shook his head, "you don't need to sleep you need to rest though. Sleep and rest are completely different and you know it. You're a warrior, same as me; you've experienced the difference first hand."
That was true, but I didn't have to let him know that, so I decided to try and change the topic, "who are your friends."
He introduced the redhead as Misty, the blonde as Miki, and the brunette as Donna. The three of them seemed to be nervous around me for some reason, maybe they didn't do things like this often. "We work together down at the agency with Bal," Colin explained.
"Were they here when I got back home," I asked kind of confused since I don't think three hours was enough time to call these girls up and bring them over.
"No," Colin said completely seriously, "they were busy sleeping off round four when you came home." He had no shame whatsoever, but the girls had the decency to blush at his statement.
"Does your wife know about these young ladies," I asked him.
"Em's overseas," Colin said, obviously annoyed with me for bringing it up. "And like always, she'd be fine with it even if she did know about it."
"Yeah, they actually have a lovely, if open, marriage," I assured the girls who looked terrified that they may have broken up a home.
"We all have needs and Em understands that," Colin said, "it's fine with her if I lay with other women, as long as it's only physical," he told the girls. I knew that Colin wouldn't promise anything more than a single night; in the terms of the heart he was completely faithful to his wife. I don't know how they do it, but they are still in love after all these years. "Maybe you should try it out sometime," he told me and even though I knew it was coming I let out a sigh. "Wait, don't just right me off," he said grabbing my wrist when I started to walk away. "Listen, I know plenty of nice girls, sweet girls, who aren't looking for something serious and would love to spend a night with a nice guy like you."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm up for that Colin," I said kind of frustrated, but I tried my best not to let it slip into my voice. "I've tried it before, a couple times," he managed to slip in a 'not recently,' in a cheeky tone, "and it didn't end well," I practically growled, "it didn't feel right."
"That's because you didn't let it," Colin said practically pleading now. "You want love, I get it, love's great, but at the end of the day, you can't let it stop yourself from living. You find these girls, who are willing to lay with you even with your mask on. It's just a night and just the physical act of sex, but you don't let yourself enjoy the feeling of a girl below you. You never let yourself enjoy it, because they aren't ever the woman you want them to be."
He might have had something else to say, but I'll never know. I can't even remember getting up or grabbing him by the throat, but there we were. I was holding him up by his throat after I slammed him against one of our walls. "You go too far Colin," I snarled like a beast, not even sounding like me.
But Colin wasn't at all frightened; he had known me too long and see so much worse to be scared of me when I'm a bit cranky. "Hector, you're scaring them," he said in a gentle steady voice as he nudged his head in the direction of the girls. The three, of what I assumed were, Normal girls who were huddled together with each other in fright, of me.
I took a deep breath to clear my head and slowly put him down, I mumbled a muffled apology with a weak explanation behind it, but he just shook his head. "Hey girls," Colin called over to the girls with the same tone he had been using before with a nice gentle smile on his face, "why don't you go back into my room and get dressed, I'll walk the three of you home after I'm done with my pal here." The three girls silently moved walked together into Colin's room every now and then they glanced at me with fear in their eyes. Those looks simply added to the guilt that was already piling all over me. I walked out of the kitchen and collapsed into my chair and I felt just how exhausted I really was already, this morning was not getting off to a good start.
Colin got out our water filter from the fridge and poured me a glass along with one for him before sitting down on the couch next to me. "I get it Hector, and to be honest, I did go too far, and I'm sorry for doing so, but I worry about you. You and Bal are my best friends, and I only want to do what I can for you guys, you especially worry me sometimes Hector. You don't act like yourself anymore, you get a new name, and you become that person leaving the man you were buried deep within you.
This conversation was getting too… much for me right now, "I know, I know you just want to help, but my happiness is a small price to pay than the shear amount of shit I will have to go through if I live like any other Abnormal. So I appreciate it, but I can take care of myself, and as frustrating the way I've lived all these years has been, it's been a safe life," I say grabbing my keys and starting for the door.
"Alright, just think about it though aright," he made me promise and I gave a slight nod. Which thinking about it, was probably stupid of me, promises were too important to break, I never broke one. now I really would have to actually think about standing up for myself. This sucks. "Where are you heading so early anyway," he asked noticing that I was already dressed for the day.
"Rebecca called me asking if I could meet her at Best's. I think she has a case that she wants my help on, one that deals with our type of problems." This wasn't a normal occurrence, but it was by no means rare either so Colin already knew what I meant by 'our problems.'
"Hmm, and here I thought you weren't going to follow my advice," he said with a cheeky grin that he loved to give everyone.
It took my sleep addled brain a moment to realize what he was talking about, "no," I practically shrieked. "I helped deliver her when she was born, Colin. We do not make jokes about this, about her," I commanded more than said. We might have both been warrior kings in another life, but I had a couple thousand years on him so I had more practice with the tone. I've been rusty with it since I haven't used it in a long time, but experience won out in the end and he backed down.
"Alright, alright, Becca's is not someone we joke about, got it," but he got to me and he knew it.
"I'll be back in a few hours," I say leaving finally, I was starving and I really wanted my muffin.
"When you come back can you stop by the store and pick up some more cereal," Colin called as I closed the door to meet Rebecca at Best's.