You could give me an infinite number of guesses of where my day would end up, and still, I never would have come up with this… Calum Galloway, aka the Voiceless Warden, aka the cities greatest hero, sitting in my bathtub. Beaten and bloodied, while I riffled through my extensive first aid kit.
He had shown up frantic and pitiful on my doorstep pleading for help. Looking over his shoulder like he was worried someone was chasing him. And I knew I couldn’t give up such a golden opportunity.
“Are you a nurse or something?” Calum asked, adjusting the rag he was holding to his nose.
“Hmm?” I questioned trying to suppress the flinch that ran through me as the question pulled me through my musings.
He chuckled, “Well I’ve just never known anyone to have such a, uh, through first aid kit.”
“Oh. Haha. Yeah, um, yeah, I’m quite accident prone so-” I trailed off shrugging my shoulders praying he would just let it go. Finally finding what I was looking for I turned back towards him taking a seat on the edge of the tub, “Lean your head back.”
He did as I told him, wincing as I dropped the artificial tears into his right eye to flush out the blood. Placing a cold cloth over the top half of his face I got to work cleaning the cuts littering his arms, “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”
He tensed for a second before playing it off, but I caught it, “Well, you know they just caught me off guard. There were like fifty guys.”
“Really? That certainly explains why a six-three man, who can throw bone cracking punches ended up this way,” I scoffed, he had always been a terrible liar.
“How do you know I throw bone breaking punches?”
I froze, scolding myself for being so stupid, “Oh, you know…” I blushed as he lifted the cloth to look at me, “I- I watch the news. Just because you are a little ruffed up doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the great Calum Galloway.”
With a huff he let the cloth fall back into place over his eyes, “Great, now I’m gonna have to make you sign an NDA. So, what’s your name then, it’s only fair seeing how you know mine.”
“Vix. And you don’t have to worry about me telling anyone. I don’t really have anyone to tell,” I admit quietly, my brain screaming at me for being so open with him.
“Really? A kind woman like yourself doesn’t have anyone to talk to?”
I sputter at the words, too shocked to form any type of coherent thoughts. The fact that he could think that about someone like me was jarring. “How could you possibly know what type of person I am?”
“Well, you willingly let a bleeding stranger into your house and offered to fix them up. Something tells me that’s a pretty good indicator of what type of person you are.”
“I wish you were a stranger,” I mumbled under my breath. Unfortunately for me I forgot how great his hearing was.
“What was that, Hun?”
Once again cursing my stupidity I responded, ignoring the endearment, “I just said you aren’t really a stranger, remember?”
“I suppose you’re right. But just because I’m a famous hero doesn’t mean I’m a good person, or safe to be around. Who knows when the Bronz Fox might attack me.”
I swear my heart almost gave out right then. Thank the heavens, he didn’t notice my bronze gilded door knocker when he was franticly banging on my door. “Oh! Wait… what do you mean just because you’re a hero doesn’t make you a good person? You’re like the city’s golden boy.”
He chuckled before wincing in pain as I pressed harder than necessary on a laceration spanning his clavicle, “Obviously I don’t mean me, but in general. Not everyone is as genuine as you. You would be surprised as to what some of the other heroes in this city get up to.”
I narrow my eyes even though he can’t see me, “And exactly what kinds of things do they ‘get up to’?”
“Oh, you know, the usual.”
“No, I don’t know, please feel free share with the class.”
“Drugs, sex, the occasional underground fight. Though those really aren’t fair since they are all trained, and of course are ‘super’,” he added in air quotes. “Though it does get interesting when two hero’s face off.”
“Is that where all this happened?”
“Good heavens. No! I don’t participate in those unruly acts-”
“But you do watch. Since you said it ‘gets interesting’.”
“What can I say I’m nothing if not human.”
“So am I and I don’t partake in those types of things.”
“Yes, well clearly no one is as good as you Hun.”
I swore if he called me ‘good’ one more time I was going to slit his throat. Gritting my teeth I said, “Anyhow, you never finished your sentence about how you ended up like this.”
He clenched his fists groaning as I poured the rubbing alcohol over the large gash across his left ankle. It was a miracle he was even able to walk. Blasted heroes and their unfair resilience.
“My word Hun, I take back what I said, you certainly are no nurse. One would think for someone who is as accident prone as you say, you might’ve learned how to be more gentle.”
“Or maybe I just learned to take it better. So I don’t moan about every time I get a paper cut,” I said scoffing.
“Hmm, it seems Vix has some bite after all.”
A shudder ran through me at the use of my actual name, “You’re avoiding the question.”
“I told you, a hundred guys jumped me.”
“I thought you said fifty.”
“Can you blame me for wanting to impress the pretty woman tending my wounds.”
I gasped at the words, pulling the knot of a bandage around his abdomen, tighter than I meant to in my surprise, causing him to yelp. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, it’s ok, I shouldn’t have been so forward, I have just enjoyed this.”
“Being beaten and left for dead?” I deadpanned. “You heroes sure are strange.”
He chuckled again, “No, Hun, talking to you. Like a normal person. You certainly don’t act like everybody else when they recognize me.”
“Yeah, it must be disconcerting to meet someone who doesn’t worship the ground you walk on.”
“’Disconcerting’ isn’t the word I’d use, more like… captivating,” he says, once again lifting the rag from his face, holding my gaze. That was his tell-tale way of letting someone know he was being serious.
“Would you look at that; I haven’t restocked my bruise cream. I’m sure I just bought some more, let me go check. I’ll be right back,” I’m embarrassed to say I fled, but I that’s exactly what I did.
I went straight to my room locking the door behind me. Looking at my reflection in the vanity, all I could see were my fox orange eyes. I was being dumb. This amazing opportunity fell right into my hands and I was wasting it. The Voiceless Warden two doors down injured and at my mercy and I helped him.
He had left me in far worse conditions in our many times facing off. And he admitted some of the shady thing’s heroes do, but yet their the “heroes”. Where was the justice in that. I may be the most feared villain of the city, as the Bronz Fox but I still had morals, and I use that term loosely. He didn’t even recognize me, granted I wore a mask, but the sharp back-and-forth was achingly familiar.
But no matter how my mind screamed to dawn my bronze claws and tear him apart, something in me just wouldn’t allow it. I felt nauseous even opening the drawer they were safely stored in in my nightstand. Instead, I grabbed the new bottle of bruise cream lying beside them, shutting the drawer more forcefully than necessary.
Taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door, my hand resting on the knob, hesitating. Stealing myself to go back and once again face the greatest hero of our time. In that moment I vowed, the second he was out of my den I would ask the question; why my heart twisted at the thought of my greatest enemy… dead.