City of Poison and Shadows (Rivermount #1)

1. The Volunteer

THE VOLUNTEER

My mum always said that my heart would be my downfall and here I was—making the dumbest mistake of my life. What kind of moron volunteers to track down a supervillain? One of the twenty supervillains running around in this shit show of a city.

He was the one with the strongest moral code, at least. He was probably more of an anti-hero than an actual villain. Still, he was terrifying. Powerful. Ruthless.

Hot as fuck, too. Don’t forget that.

Yes brain, thank you. How could I forget that?

I would love to convince myself that I was doing this because of Scarlett’s sad little face when her doctor said no. That I’d opened my big fat mouth before my brain had caught up because it was her wish.

But the “I will. I’ll get him for you” was selfish. Seven words. Seven potentially-life-ending words. Seven of the stupidest words I had ever uttered. I was doing this for me and I’d been thinking about it for years—ever since my mum died.

I mean, he’d probably kill me either way, but maybe if I managed to get my excuse out first, he’d show some mercy.

There were so many videos of him prancing around the city.

If he wasn’t killing people, he was posing for pictures.

Most of the time it was people pulling out their phones to film him, but every once in a while he would stop running from the police long enough to snap a picture with a kid.

It was adorable—feeding into my crush.

So after my total lapse of judgement, I dove into news stories, social media feeds, and random gossip I heard on the street. Avalanche wasn’t a guy that would take kindly to being accosted in his favourite bar, but it was probably the safest place for me.

Avalanche.

I thought it was a silly villain name. Just because his first act as a villain was an avalanche through City Core in the middle of July. It was the most destructive debut attack, ever. Even though it had been five years, no one had topped it. No one had even dared to try.

But Scarlett loved the snow, and she thought his power was really cool—no pun intended.

“Why Avalanche? What about Superman?” her doctor had asked.

“Superman isn’t real. He’s just on TV. Avalanche can freeze anything, maybe he can freeze my cancer and I can go home,” Scarlett had replied.

I went home and sobbed. She was hands down my favourite kid to work with. We bonded very early on because of our mutual crush on him. She thought he was pretty—true. I thought he was drop dead gorgeous.

One time, my best friend, Amber, caught the two of us whispering about how cute he looked in his costume—black leather pants, blue and white leather jacket, and light-blue mask designed to look like a glacier.

She scolded me for ten minutes about how I shouldn’t be talking to a child about my crush on a supervillain—it was setting a bad example or some shit.

I swiftly reminded her about the time she thought her patient was sleeping and went into medium detail about the book she was reading. Luckily April was a teenager. Still, Amber had been mortified when she came back to work the next day to said book in April’s hands.

That’s not the point. The point is, Scarlett was my favourite patient. She wanted to meet Avalanche, so I made it my mission to find him—partly for her, partly for me.

I already kept up with most of his news stories but I’d never actually tried to find him. He was surprisingly easy to track down when I really started looking. He was spotted quite frequently around the city. The man was not camera shy—nor should he be.

Hundreds upon thousands of videos of the lean-built, blond-haired, blue-eyed, six-foot-two man littered the internet.

There were pictures and videos of him fighting the police all throughout the city. Except ten square blocks. He’d never been spotted anywhere in that vicinity.

Obviously, that was where I started.

Honestly, the police were stupid. Ten square blocks with not so much as a single sighting of Avalanche since he came on the scene just over five years ago. They didn’t think to check? They didn’t think it was suspicious?

Dumb.

Next level dumb.

It was a shitty area—the scariest district in Rivermount. Graffiti covered every inch of the buildings, drug addicts laid passed out in the streets, copious amounts of screaming filled the air.

It was also the place I called home.

Of course a supervillain would choose here to set up his base. It was absolutely riddled with crime. No one would even blink at the amount of leather he walked around in. Not to mention the strong don’t ask, don’t tell philosophy the inhabitants of our block held close.

I found him a week after I began my physical search.

There was a hole-in-the-wall dive bar around the corner from my apartment building.

It looked like the kind of place a supervillain might frequent, so I staked it out for a while.

There was a guy who caught my attention; he looked so familiar—his walk, his build, his height—but I didn’t think it could be him because the hair wasn’t right.

Apparently, Hannah Montana taught me nothing because it was him.

I saw him use his powers up close and personal on a mugger at the end of week one. Using them turned his hair blond, which I thought was really cool. And while I should have been freaked out that he murdered someone right in front of my face, I wasn’t. I read way too much dark romance.

Morally grey was my favourite colour.

I’d been lurking outside Crossroads for the last three weeks, working up the nerve to approach.

He came every night—black hair falling in his face to cover his very distinct ice-blue eyes.

He seemed polite—always tipped well, kicked out the overly drunk for the women tending the bar. He was also way too good at pool.

Maybe he would enjoy meeting Scarlett.

Or maybe he would freeze all my organs from the inside out for daring to go near him.

There was a fifty-fifty chance either way.

No one seemed to know who he was. Yet they still showed a level of fear and/or respect I didn’t expect to see.

We had five supervillains and one regular villain running around in our shithole of a district.

That wasn’t even accounting for the other fourteen running amuck in the rest of the city and the thirty in the surrounding area.

A normal dude who beat up drunk assholes in a dive bar wasn’t someone that warranted that kind of reaction.

Still, I didn’t think they knew who he was. They weren’t trembling with fear as one would expect when in the presence of evil. (Not that I thought he was evil.)

It was midnight. I was standing just inside the mouth of the alleyway across from the bar.

I’d been staring at the red metal door for an hour, fiddling with my nails, chewing on the strings of my sweater, and trying not to pace.

The music was so loud I could feel it—even through the closed door, it filled every inch of open air, changing the beat of my heart.

A part of me wanted to dance, the rest of me was screaming absolutely not.

This was not the time or the place to be drawing attention to myself.

While the alleyway was dark, there were enough streetlights lining the road that moving from this spot could prove deadly.

Especially with all the hazards I could barely see behind me—broken bottles, trash bags surrounding four large dumpsters, empty cardboard boxes littering the ground.

Instead, I adjusted the headband that warmed my ears and kept my hair from falling into my face.

I leaned on the wall beside me and sunk my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket.

It was a cool night even though it was only mid-September, but I was fine with it.

I’d never done well in the heat; I thrived in the cold.

I wished Avalanche would hurry up already. He’d gone after a high-powered—more than likely corrupt—judge and had barely gotten away. This was his favourite place to come after a fight. Especially after a loss.

I was pretty sure I could talk to him tonight.

I’d walk in, order a drink—or three—say his name quietly, ask if I could pull him aside, tell him about Scarlett, see if he’d come by the hospital on 49th. Maybe saying his name was a dumb idea. Maybe everything was a dumb idea. It—

My back hit the wall to my right, a hand wrapped around my throat.

“Who are you?” a deep male voice rumbled in my eardrums. Smooth, sexy, low.

“Violet,” I choked out.

Yes Violet, let’s tell the scary man trying to choke you to death your real name. That wasn’t dumb at all.

“Why are you following me, Violet?” Did I imagine it or did his voice soften when he said my name?

“I work for Heroes for Sick Kids.”

“What?” His grip loosened but his body stayed pressed against mine. He was warm—weird for a guy whose entire niche was freezing things. Unless I was being assaulted by a different patron of Crossroads. I couldn’t see his face.

“I work for Heroes for Sick Kids.” I took a deep breath now that my airway was clear.

Along with oxygen, I ended up inhaling him.

Shit, just my luck to be accosted by someone who smelled like coming home.

The scent of whisky, ice, and cinnamon made me want to lean in closer before I got control of myself.

“I’m looking for Avalanche. One of the kids wanted to meet him. ”

“You’re joking.” My assailant stepped back.

Oh, fuck.

He was gorgeous.

And definitely Avalanche.

He leaned back against the opposite wall from me with an amused look on his perfect face and crossed his arms.

“I… Um… Ah… Av—Mr. Av—Um.”

His amusement grew at my stutter. Just kill me. Put me out of my misery.

“You’re not going to cut in?”

“You’ll get there eventually, I’m sure.”

“You could enjoy my stutter a little less.”

“You’re not stuttering anymore. See, I just had to wait.”

I glared. Oh god, I just glared at a supervillain. He didn’t seem bothered by it, just amused. Thank whatever gods were out there.

“I… Um… Look, there’s this kid and she idolizes you. She’s dying and her wish is to meet you.”

“I’m not Avalanche. Do I look blond? Plus, all of that leather—” he cringed. “I could never pull that off.”

“Then why were you so touchy about me following you?”

“It’s a rough neighbourhood.” He shrugged.

“Yes, all five foot three of me—so intimidating,” I said sarcastically, waving to myself.

“You’ve been following me all week—”

“Three weeks. I found you three weeks ago, Blondie.”

One of his—not blond—perfectly sculped eyebrows rose. “I say again, do I look blond?”

“Look, dude, I spent the last two months watching every video of you, ever. You can change your hair colour, but you can’t change your build, your walk, or your height. So stop treating me like an idiot and come meet a dying child.”

He peeled himself off the wall—his eyes locked on me like I was prey. Yup, stupid. So stupid. I was a dead girl walking. Playing my hand in a secluded alleyway? Dumb. What the hell was I thinking?

That you could turn your life into one of your dark romance books.

Yes, as always, thank you brain for your input.

“If I was Avalanche, why would I let you live? If you really had discovered my secret, what makes you think that I would let you walk out of here?” he asked.

“It was a risk I was willing to take. That little girl’s dying wish is ten minutes with you. I couldn’t not try. It’s not in my nature.” I held my ground, but my heart was pounding in my chest.

“I don’t know if that makes you brave or stupid.”

Definitely the latter.

“Will you come?”

“If I was Avalanche—”

I rolled my eyes.

“You can cut the hypotheticals. I’m not here to turn you in or trap you or whatever. I’m here because a little girl with lung cancer wants you to visit her. The hospital on 49th. You don’t have to tell me when. Just be there sometime this week. Room 408.”

His breath tickled my ear as he leaned over me.

“If this is a trap, I’ll find you. Violet.”

The way he said my name made me shiver. His tone didn’t sound threatening. In fact, he said it so softly—like we’d known each other for years and he was greeting an old love.

He was gone before I could get a word out—vanished into the shadows.