A Mother's Touch

Chapter 8 Part 1

Hawks sauntered over to the hospital room's only window and raised the flimsy blinds all the way up. He easily broke the locked latch and opened the window. A breeze passed through his ruffled hair and caressed Aylee's exposed skin beneath her stark white gown. Shivers ran down her spine and goosebumps travelled up her forearms from the cold. The blond man turned around to face Aylee with a mischievous glint alight in his golden eyes.

Aylee immediately backed away slightly from him and eyed the window warily.

"Absolutely not. I'm going to change and then leave. On foot." With that final tone, she spun around and made her way to the room's small and cramped bathroom. The door closed shut with a soft click and Aylee released an anxious breath that shook her lungs from the effort it took in her damaged state.

The woman quickly changed out of her hospital gown in the bathroom, being mindful of her still sore partially healed limbs. She put back on her blood-stained clothes with a grimace and sighed at her rough appearance. But she had no other options with her to wear, it would have to do for now, at least until she got back to the dorms.

Aylee sent a text to Aizawa and let him know that she was leaving before she exited the bathroom. She was greeted by a now empty room with her bodyguard nowhere to be seen. A large gust of wind chilled her face and chapped her dry lips even more.

Before her teeth started to chatter, Aylee speed walked over to the open window to close it. She painfully reached up a hand to grab the top of the window and felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her waist from behind. A muscled chest pressed firmly against her back and she felt warm breaths slightly stirring her brown hair.

The woman was frozen from the close and intimate contact and couldn't even move an inch in her shocked mindset. Hawks' head tilted down towards her ear and his lips turned up at the corners as he whispered, "hold on tight to me, baby bird."

That was the only warning she was given before the winged hero propelled both of them out of the window and into the cold night air.

They were falling together with the wind sharply whipping at their hair and ruffling their clothes. Aylee let out a quiet whimper in fear and scrunched her green eyes shut, too afraid to see how high up they really were. She couldn't hear anything besides the whistling wind and occasional honking from the cars stuck in city traffic below.

Hawks noticed her obvious but somewhat expected fear of heights and decided to fix that. He shifted her body and placed his arms underneath to support her knees and back before pulling her close into his chest. The hero fully stretched out his red wings and flew them higher into the sky. The loud sounds began to fade out of reach until it was just the two of them in the clouds. Not a sound or living thing for miles around.

Hawks looked back down at her fear-filled face and gently said, "You can open your eyes now." Aylee frantically shook her head in denial and pressed her eyelids together even tighter now.

"I got you. You can trust me." He pleaded to the frightened woman held tightly in his arms. He studied her lips which she gnawed on nervously before she slowly began to open her eyes.

She looked up and was met with Hawks' gently smiling face. Hesitantly, Aylee looked around at her new surroundings. Her green eyes traced along the ink-black sky and her hand reached out to touch the clouds. Amazement and glee were just a few words Hawks would describe what her expression was at that moment. He remembered having that feeling, what felt like a lifetime ago. His heart stuttered a few beats when she brought her eyes back to meet his. They never took their eyes off of each other for a moment as they flew by the luminescent full moon. Its light reflected off of the pair, making them akin to gods dancing across the night sky.