38. The Villain
THE VILLAIN
Things were quiet for a couple of months.
I kept working with Whisps; he started to help with the list and the last two labs.
We managed to take out Plowers with his freaky mind tricks.
The judge threw himself off the roof of the courthouse.
His brain spattering all over the sidewalk had made major news headlines.
We went on to take out five more from the list by the beginning of March and the remaining labs.
I was really careful not to leave a shred of icy evidence behind at any of the scenes, but it was hard to hide Whisper’s involvement.
Eva confronted him after news of the labs went public last week—leaked to a local news station after we took out the last one.
He managed to convince her that Violet told him about it and Weave was helping him get information on the labs’ whereabouts—the latter part was completely true, without my usual contacts, he’d turned to Weave for help.
She looked devastated when both Violet and Weave backed up his story and it broke my heart.
I wanted to tell her the whole truth, but I just couldn’t. I had too much to lose now.
Mainly the woman happily humming to herself while she puttered around packing, unpacking, and repacking her suitcase.
Violet always booked off a week at the beginning of March around her mom’s death to get away.
This year, she asked for two weeks and the hospitals said no problem.
After all the shit she got from the police and the work she’d been doing with the villains, they insisted she more than deserved it and gave her three.
For three whole weeks, I’d have my wife all to myself.
I wanted to whisk her away to Bora Bora for a real honeymoon but she insisted she needed to stay close, just in case.
I tried to convince her that everything would be fine, even enlisted Whisp’s help but she absolutely wouldn’t budge, so we were going to the cottage—under the condition that once the list was done she’d let me take her to Bora Bora.
I’d been packed for an hour, but she was still going back and forth on what to bring.
I tried to remind her that if we forgot anything, I could just come back and grab it but she wasn’t hearing it, muttering something about me being a superpowered busybody.
So I sat on the bed, waiting an hour and a half for her to finally be satisfied with her packing job.
Then I brought us to the cottage.
She told everyone that she was staying home for some much needed me time. Amber wasn’t pleased Violet was taking three weeks off and locking herself inside, but she promised to go out with everyone once she was back to work.
Which meant we were shadow traveling so no one would wonder where her car went.
Only Whisper knew we were leaving town. He managed to get everyone on board with two daily check-ins: first thing in the morning and right before bed.
He convinced them that there hadn’t been attempt to kidnap her since my made-up one and now that she was in the public eye so much, no one would be dumb enough to attack her.
He wasn’t able to convince everyone that the calls could stop all together, that would involve outing me. But two was better than four.
We arrived at the cottage late afternoon.
I spent most of the evening chasing her through the woods.
She laid out a no powers rule, which I had to admit did make it more fun.
I still gave her a five-minute head start, considering how bad she was at running, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take long to catch her.
But she did a hell of a job hiding from me. I tried to cheat but my shadows were not having any of it. Fucking traitors went out, found her, and wouldn’t tell me where she was.
But I caught her. I didn’t take as much time as I would have liked—I was worried the three hours we were out here back in December may have contributed to that cold she had. And I definitely didn’t want her in that state ever again.
“You could have picked a different movie,” I said, watching her wipe her eyes and sniffle for the fifth time.
“No, I love this movie.”
Didn’t I know it. She’d made me watch it over five times and she cried like this every single time. I sighed.
“For a kid’s movie, they do make it really sad.”
“He just got his mum back, only to lose his dad and his dragon.” She sniffled again. “It wasn’t Toothless’ fault,” she cried at the TV. “I hate this part.”
I wrapped my arms tighter around her and kissed the top of her head. “We could skip it. You know what happens.”
She whipped her head towards me. “Absolutely not! That ruins the whole point of a marathon, Austin. I can’t believe you would say something like that to me while I’m in my current condition.”
“I—”
I cut myself off when one of my shadows broke off and took the shape of a cat to curl up in Violet’s lap. She grinned, reaching down to run her hand over it.
“See, Niko gets it. I just needed a little comfort.”
I shifted back, looking at her with complete disbelief. “Niko? You named my shadows Niko?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I named this shadow Niko.”
She looked back at the cat-shaped shadow and rubbed under its chin. The fucker purred. I didn’t even know they could materialize like that. What the fuck was happening?
“You have seven of them. I gave each of them their own names.”
My mouth fell open. “Seven? No, that can’t be right.”
“Look at your shadows coiling around you. How many do you see?”
Holy shit. There were six, plus the cat. I looked back at her. “But…how…”
They did so many things for me. Acting out past scenes, bringing me conversations, keeping tabs on so many people. How could they do that much when there was only seven of them?
Violet laughed softly. “You look so cute while you have an existential crisis.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. When did you figure this out?”
She shifted cat shadow into her arms and it nuzzled into her neck. “Pretty much right away. They each have their own personalities, so it’s easy to tell them apart. By the end of January, I figured out the jobs they usually do, too.”
“Did you give them all names?”
She nodded with a grin. She pointed to the one hovering over my left shoulder.
“Carson and Landon—” she pointed at my right shoulder “—are your spies. They’re always whispering in your ear.
” She gestured around my head. “Then there’s Bridget, she’s the one that does the scene replays.
Carden and Evie—” the two hovering around my mid-section “—are the ones that engulf you, whether it’s travel or hiding.
Last but not least, Niko and Lily are your chameleons.
They’ll fill whatever role you need at the time. ”
The sixth shadow—Lily—slid from my hip and moved closer to Violet—who reached out her hand. Niko didn’t seem to like that much because he swatted at her, as if to say she’s mine. I narrowed my eyes at the not-cat. No shadow, she’s fucking mine.
Violet tsked. “Niko, that wasn’t nice.” She put him back on her lap and turned her attention back to me.
“I also noticed they interact with other shadows. You need a conversation relayed? Carson or Landon will disappear into shadows cast by something, like a door for example, and come back with the conversation. It truly is incredible to watch.”
“You noticed all this in a month? And you’re just telling me now?”
She grinned. “I thought you knew. It’s not my fault you take your powers for granted.” She looked back at Niko, scratching behind his ears. “Speaking of which, we should take advantage of our time away and work on training. I was a little distracted after the holidays but we should get back to it.”
“Next week. This week, I want your undivided attention.” I narrowed my eyes at the cat-like shadow currently keeping me from pulling my wife into my arms. “I’m starting to regret this freedom I’ve been giving them. It’s like they’re trying to steal you from me.”
She laughed, swatting at my arm. “Stop being a caveman.”
“No.” I scooped her up—much to the dismay of that cuddly fucker Niko—and tossed her over my shoulder. “Never.”
She erupted in giggles, trying to wiggle out of my hold. She knew it wouldn’t work but she always tried. “But my movie! We weren’t done yet.”
“Too bad. I need to teach my wife a lesson about pissing me off and not paying attention to me.”
“I think, dear husband, you need a lesson on sharing.”
“Nope. I don’t share. It’s time you learned that.”
I spent the next five days keeping her in bed as much as I could.
I had my shadows keeping track of the property so they were away and not taking up all of her time.
The one she named Niko was always coming back and pissing me off.
Turning into different animals and shit for her to cuddle with.
Even turned into a fucking dragon. She was giddy for hours.
Traitorous bastard.
When we started to roll into week two, I almost didn’t want to train. Using my ice power was the only thing giving me any peace and quiet from those fuckers. But Violet insisted it was important—and she wasn’t wrong—so we started training.
She was right. I was thinking too much about using them at the same time. By the end of week two, she’d so thoroughly distracted me, I had no issues summoning snowballs and hearing reports from my shadows.
We celebrated—a lot.
As we rolled into week three, I tried to trigger her powers.
There were a couple moments when, I swear to god, I saw sparks.
Genuine sparks out of her fingertips. I did everything I could to get them to ignite, but it just wasn’t happening.
The more we tried with nothing, the more frustrated Violet got so we ended up calling it quits after a couple of days.
We’d get back to it, but I didn’t want to push her too hard.
After all, we had all the time in the world to figure it out. Together.