22. The Volunteer
THE VOLUNTEER
I couldn’t breathe. A news chopper had been circling Steelview’s private airstrip for ten minutes. The news anchor was talking about reports of gunfire—an unknown group of armed men and women were locked in a battle with Avalanche.
Five minutes ago he was on screen—his leg bleeding, still standing tall like he didn’t even notice. He was throwing all kinds of frozen things at the soldiers and they were throwing bullets in return. I watched five shots hit him before he disappeared.
I was a mess; pacing back and forth, picking up my phone to call him only to panic and put it back down, staring out my balcony door as if that would make him appear.
What the hell was he thinking? Who was he going after? Why was he alone? How did he get cornered like that? Did he really weasel his way back into my life just for him to leave—permanently?
Two knocks sounded at the door. I placed Frosty on my glass coffee table and cleared the apartment in a few steps. I tried to look through the peephole but it was pitch-black. I almost didn’t open the door, considering I was only wearing an oversized t-shirt and underwear, until—
“Violet, please.” Avalanche’s voice was weak, shaky.
I flung it open. The hallway was dark, I couldn’t see him anywhere, until he literally fell out of the darkness and into my arms. He was still in costume but his hair was black, someone could still recognize him like this.
I dragged him into my apartment and closed the door.
“Av? Oh my god.”
He looked so much worse than that last moment before the tornado. Dried blood smudged his face, fresh blood was still seeping out of his leg, stomach, and shoulder. I kneeled over him as he lay on the tiled floor in the entryway. His eyes were unfocused, but he still tried to meet my gaze.
“I’m sorry, I had nowhere else to go. I need your help.” He sounded so vulnerable, like he was in so much pain. Of course he was, he’d just been shot at least five times.
“What do you mean? What about Eva? Don’t you have doctors and things like that you use as villains.”
“You’re the only person I trust right now.” He hissed out a breath, trying to get to his elbows. “I think Eva set me up.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why—”
“Please, Violet, I need you to get the bullets out. My body can’t heal itself. I just need them out, you don’t need to do anything else.”
“You say that like it’s easy! Avalanche, I’m just a volunteer, you need a doctor. I can call Amber or Maddy, they—”
“Violet.” He grabbed my arm. “I just need them out. There’s already a hole, you just need a long pair of tweezers and something to clean it out. None of them hit anything major; I was super lucky it only hit tissue.”
“I can’t—”
“V, look at me.”
I met his gaze. He looked so calm, like he wasn’t asking me to do amateur surgery on him.
“I trust you. I know you can, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Please.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. Can you make it to the couch?”
“Help me up.”
I regretted asking him the moment he started to move. He was breathing so heavy, every little movement looked like it caused him more and more agony. But I got him to the couch and adjusted him so he was more comfortable.
“Okay, now what?”
He chuckled before breathing in sharply.
“There’s a backpack on the roof, it’s full of clothes and medical supplies. It’ll have everything you need.”
I felt my eyebrow raise but this wasn’t the time to ask. Once he was bullet free, I’d be following up on that one.
“Where?”
“It was attached to the water tank with a block of ice to stay hidden, but I melted it when I arrived. It should be on the ground somewhere around there.”
I was back less than five minutes later.
Avalanche had his eyes closed, breathing heavy, but steady.
I kneeled on the floor next to him as I rummaged through the backpack.
He wasn’t kidding about having everything I would need.
There was a suture kit, one of those medical clamp things, long tweezers, gauze, fabric scissors, and medical tape, along with a couple changes of clothes.
“You still awake?”
His eyes fluttered open. His lips twitched into a small smile.
“You try sleeping with three bullet holes.”
I chuckled.
“I was just making sure you didn’t pass out from blood loss. All my medical knowledge comes from TV, because I can’t stand to hear my friends talk about it in real life. Sorry for asking a dumb question.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Do you have any alcohol?”
“Yeah. One sec.”
I headed for the bathroom and went straight for the rubbing alcohol I kept under the sink. I grabbed it from the cabinet and went back for Avalanche.
His eyebrow rose.
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”
I was confused for a second. When I realized, I glared at him.
“Oh my god, this isn’t TV! I don’t have a bottle of hard liquor lying around. And if I did, I’m not wasting a $200 bottle of whisky by letting you pour it on yourself. This is more sanitary, and it didn’t cost me a full day’s pay.”
He laughed then grimaced.
“Don’t make me laugh right now.”
“Sorry.” I kneeled back beside him. “If you want a drink, I can grab you one, but I’m not pouring anything but this on you.”
“You’re the boss, Nightshade.” He closed his eyes again and rested his head back on the arm rest. “Just make it quick.”
“Sure.” I moved a bit closer to get a better look at his wounds. “I’ll…um…start with your leg, if that’s okay.” He nodded. “I’m…ah… I’ll have to…um…cut these.”
He nodded again while I grabbed the fabric scissors. I started at his ankle, cutting to an inch above the bullet hole, halfway up his thigh. He hissed as I pealed the leather off his leg. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s okay,” he breathed. “It’s going to hurt either way, ignore me.”
A sassy response almost slipped out, but I knew it would make him laugh and he asked me not to do that. Instead, I nodded and focused on the task at hand. His pants were out of the way now. I put the scissors down and picked up the tweezers.
“Are you ready?”
He nodded. I wasn’t sure that I was, but it was good to know he had faith in me.
Taking a deep breath, I dug in. He was white-knuckle gripping the couch, breathing deep.
Luckily, the bullet was near the surface and was out in less than thirty seconds.
I grabbed a piece of gauze and placed it under the wound before flushing it with the rubbing alcohol.
I looked up to study his face. His eyes were squeezed shut, sweating dripping down his forehead, cheeks pale.
“Do you need a minute before I do the next one?”
“Just one.”
“Can I… Can I get your jacket unzipped so I can get to your shirt? Or did you want me to wait on that too?”
“Jacket is okay, give me a minute for the shirt.”
“Let me know if you need me to stop.”
I shifted closer, pulled the zipper down, revealing a plain white t-shirt, and opened the left side first. He sucked in extra air between his teeth as the jacket pulled away from the hole in his shoulder.
I leaned away, giving him some time before I tried the other side.
The shot to his abdomen looked worse, I was worried it did hit something important and he’d lied.
“It’s okay. Do the other side.”
I looked up to find him watching me.
“I’m feeling better. You can do the shirt too.”
I worked the right side of his jacket open, then grabbed the scissors again. I cut all the way to the collar before setting them back down.
“Which one should I do first?”
“Shoulder, please.”
“You got it, Av.”
I started pulling the shirt out of the way. Good god, he was pure muscle. My imagination hadn’t been far off with the shower dream. Actually, it was spot on—
“Austin,” he whispered.
My hands froze. It— But that— How could…
“Sorry, what?” I asked, sure I hadn’t heard him right.
“My name is Austin. Well, it’s Matthew, but I prefer my middle name, which is Austin.”
I did hear him right. But what the hell did it mean? I looked up at him, he was still watching me. I realized I hadn’t moved for at least ten seconds, so I gave him a light smile.
“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Austin.”
He smiled in return. “It’s nice to finally tell you that. Now there are no more secrets.”
I huffed a laugh while I focused my attention back on my hands, moving the shirt out of my way.
“Speaking of secrets, you have two powers?”
“Technically. I can’t use them at the same time, though.”
I picked the tweezers back up.
“Is that why the tornado stopped immediately?”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah, I… I have alerts on my phone. As soon as it pinged, I turned on the news. You made quite the spectacle. Impressive.”
“You think I’m impressive?”
I didn’t have to look at him to know he was sporting a cocky grin. I sighed, rolling my eyes.
“Yes, Austin. I think you’re quite impressive. You can literally create snow and ice from nothing and now I learn you can also…hide in darkness? It’s a never-ending list of impressive things.”
He laughed then winced. “I told you to stop doing that.”
“Sorry.”
“Also, it’s not hiding in darkness. I can control shadows, blend in, use them as spies. When I’m not harnessing my freezing powers it actually takes a lot of effort to keep my shadows from…hovering.”
“So you’re using your energy to keep them at bay right now?”
“I’ve been holding them back for so long, it’s just a subconscious thing at this point. But yes, I am.”
“Do they fully engulf you?” I was using the talking as a distraction, he hadn’t even noticed I pulled the bullet in his shoulder loose.
“No.”
“Stop.” I placed the tweezers down, switching it out for the gauze and rubbing alcohol again.
“What?”
“Stop holding them back, let them free. As long as I can still work on you, there’s no reason you should be wasting your energy.”
“Okay.”
At first nothing happened. I almost thought he was messing with me until the shadows started to take form; little glimpses materializing, moving like they were living, breathing entities.
They coiled around him, not venturing too far, moving close to me then pulling away. They almost seemed…curious.
“They’re incredible.”
I reached out to see if I could touch one—if it would let me. It shied away from my hand, so I pulled back. But it was still curious, following my movements as I put the alcohol and gauze on the coffee table, then worked the other side of his shirt open.
He hissed as the fabric pulled away.
“I told you to do my shoulder first.”
“I did.”
“But—” He cut himself off when he looked down and saw the hole in his shoulder already starting to close. “Shit, I didn’t even feel it.”
“You were distracted.” I smiled.
“Keep talking, it helps.”
“Well, now I don’t know what to talk about, this is far too much pressure.”
He chuckled; this time he didn’t wince. An improvement.
“I overheard you in the bar, the day you met Eva. You’ve been here for six years?”
I shrugged, picking up the tweezers for the last time.
“Not exactly. I grew up in Mountainside, but when I moved out at twenty, I found this place. It was a long commute from my house to the hospital, being so close to work felt like a miracle. Then the incident happened and this whole area went to shit. Luckily, my parents had put me in self-defence classes from a very young age.”
“Do you see them often? You were visiting them when the incident happened, right?”
I nibbled my lip. He trusted me with two of his secrets, I could trust him with one of mine.
“I lied. I was supposed to but they cancelled because the pipes burst at our cottage. I stayed locked in my apartment through the whole thing. I found out when I tried to go back to work. They were just getting the water cleaned out, the quarantines weren’t lifted, the bodies were still being cleared out of the streets.
After I heard that everyone either got superpowers or dead, I decided to keep my mouth shut. I got neither.”
He was listening so intensely; he hadn’t flinched as I pulled the final bullet loose. I traded the tweezers for the gauze and rubbing alcohol one last time before I continued.
“As for my parents… My dad died in a car accident just over four years ago and my mum was killed six months after that. She…” I trailed off, debating telling him the truth. “She was shot by police during… She was a clerk at city hall when you went after Counselman Killigen.”
I kept my eyes on my task as a heavy silence filled the room. He broke it after a minute, his voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear him.
“I got your mom killed.”
I shook my head.
“No. That idiot officer got my mum killed. I’ve never blamed you.
Not once. Killigen deserved worse than what he got, and I’m glad you went after him—honestly, most of the city was.
Plus, watching the officer turn into a human icicle and explode was pretty cool.
” I gave him a lighthearted smile but he wouldn’t meet my eye.
“I remember that day. I… I tried to save her. I could have if…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“That fucking guy should have known better. A whole clip? I was so angry, and I felt so guilty that I hadn’t made it in time.
One or two I could have saved her, but seventeen? That was really your mom?”
I nodded as I began cleaning up the medical supplies off my coffee table. He exhaled aggressively before digging his palms into his eyes.
“She’s haunted me for years. I’ve killed 337 people since this started, every single one was guilty of something, except her.”
I paused what I was doing.
“You didn’t kill her. He did. I looked up his record after, it was spotless. No complaints, no pattern of an itchy trigger finger or excessive force. I still can’t wrap my head around why he would lose it like that. But it’s not your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t attacked that day—”
“Then Killigen would still be harassing and abusing women. His kid might be dead, his wife, too. Austin, look at me.”
He dropped his hands from his face and met my gaze.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Eva told me that. Over and over she tried, but it didn’t sink in then.”
“Is it sinking in now?”
He chuckled. “Yes.”
“Good. Now tell me what the hell happened tonight.”