Supervillainess (Part One)

Supervillainess

Part One

“It’s Not Easy Being
Evil”

By Lizzy Ford

www.LizzyFord.com

Published by Kettlecorn Press

www.LizzyFord.com

Cover Design ©2016 by Lizzy Ford

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from
the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote
short excerpts in a review.

This novel is a work of fiction. Any
references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or
to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of
reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously and their resemblance, if any, to real-life
counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Special thanks to
Emmanuelle Pensa for naming our heroine,
Keladry

and

Miranda Evan for naming our
hero, Kimber!

General Savage Issues Reward for Insider
Information About New Police Commissioner

Supervillain Promises Quick Retribution for
Anyone Aiding Police

No Superhero Applications Approved During
Last Fiscal Year

Kimber stared at the headlines of the
newspaper in his hands.

Was this code? An inside joke, regional
superstition or obscure vernacular that people like him – born and
raised outside the Pacific Northwest – would never understand?

He read the same few lines over and over,
dumbfounded. His extensive traveling and eight years of medical
school did nothing to help him explain how an entire city existed
in a state of widespread delusion.

“There’s gotta be something in the water,”
he concluded. On nights like this, after a series of brutal double
shifts, he found himself scrutinizing the bizarre headlines longer
than they probably deserved.

“Hey, Doc. Hope you saved a ton of people
today.” The cashier managing the mini-mart at the bottom of
Kimber’s apartment building greeted him the same way each night.
“You hear about the new commissioner coming to town?”

Kimber lifted the newspaper. “Just saw the
headline.”

“They said he’s responsible for bringing
down the Gotti's in New York. How much you wanna bet General Savage
boots him out within a week?”

General Savage was the citywide name given
to the alleged supervillain-mob boss, who was on the front page of
the paper every day. Not just the tabloids, where one expected to
see nonsense, but in the Sand City Daily, the Sand Journal, and
every other major, respectable publication. Why would the local
newspapers facilitate the ongoing glorification of mayhem caused by
the city’s mob boss by comparing his deeds to a comic book
character with superpowers?

Kimber started to ask the cashier this
question and then stopped, recalling the reason behind his
cross-country move in the first place.

I’ve found greater
acceptance among my new peers than I did among my longtime friends
I left behind in Chicago
, he reminded
himself. He had been given the rare chance to start a new life
where no one asked about his past, or why, with his pedigree, he
was working at the publically funded Sand City General instead of
in one of the private hospitals catering to the wealthy, or for the
local, prestigious clinics and research centers.

Life got ugly fast. He couldn’t ruin his
second chance by calling out the people who had welcomed him with
smiles.

“Yeah. Will be interesting,” he replied
blandly instead. Replacing the newspaper, Kimber paid for his bag
of groceries.

“The city’s already crossed the gray,” the
cashier said wisely.

I still don’t know what
that means,
Kimber thought. Whenever he
asked someone, he was laughed at, so he stopped asking. “See you
tomorrow.”

“Hey, Doc, if you have a minute,” the
cashier called.

Kimber paused in the store’s entrance. “Myra
doing all right?” he asked, sensitive to the progress of the
cashier’s daughter, who was in remission.

“Great,” the cashier replied with a snort.
“She saw an injured dog in the alley. She begged me to ask you if
you’d take a look.”

Kimber had rescued a dog once, five months
ago. Since then, he had been entertaining requests by neighbors and
other residents of his apartment building to help their pets and
strays when needed. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll take a look before I go
upstairs.”

He stepped into the quiet night. The sun
never shone for long in Sand City, and the rains and mists rarely
dissipated for more than a few minutes. It had taken him months to
acclimate to the dark and dreary city.

It was close to midnight, and he was due
back at the hospital at seven thirty in the morning. He still
needed to go for a run before tossing some laundry in the washer
and packing his meals for tomorrow. It seemed as if he would never
catch up, let alone get ahead of his schedule. Rather than building
a mental to do list, he found himself dwelling on the absurd news
headlines again.

As the son of a career diplomat, Kimber grew
up in closely knit communities of expats in more countries than he
had fingers. From Saudi Arabia, where he witnessed his first public
beheading at the age of twelve, to rural Nigeria, where he lived
without modern plumbing and spent his off time helping build homes
for the poor. Germany, Pakistan, Russia, Argentina … he and his
mother moved from place to place every couple of years.

After his diverse upbringing, he felt
uniquely qualified to adapt to the local customs of anywhere and
everywhere he would ever live. At least, he did, until he arrived
to Sand City.

What if I told the five million residents of
the city that villains don’t exist?

Shaking his head, he dutifully walked past
the entrance of his apartment building to the alley running
alongside it. Usually, it was too dark to see much of anything,
aside from the shapes of fire escapes and blocky dumpsters.

Tonight, the alley was lit up bright as noon
by lights lining the rooftops. A police officer stood on guard
about a quarter of the way down the alley, and behind him lay a
motionless body in black.

“Good evening,” the officer said. He eyed
Kimber.

“Evening,” Kimber replied with a tired
smile. “I’m not rubbernecking. I heard there was a stray dog in
need of medical attention. But maybe someone else needs a
doctor?”

The police officer glanced over his
shoulder. “Hospital refused this one.”

Startled, Kimber’s tired brain was slow to
respond. Sand City General, the nearest medical center, was a
publically supported non-profit. In his year working there, he had
never seen the hospital refuse anyone, regardless of insurance
coverage, legal residency or condition.

“He’s a criminal, one of General Savage’s
henchman,” the officer explained. “He won’t come get the body, and
the police and hospital won’t treat this kind of lawbreaker.”

“So the solution is to let someone die?”
Kimber asked, frowning.

“Yeah. Then the coroner will take the body.
He’ll pick up anyone.” The officer grinned.

“I work at Sand City General. If I call it
in, they’ll take him,” Kimber stated, not at all amused.

“Nah. They’ll toss him back out in the
alley.” The officer’s eyes narrowed. “You got a soft spot for
villains?”

“I have a
human
spot for those in
need, criminal or otherwise,” Kimber replied firmly. He shifted to
see past the officer. The body was clad all in black and surrounded
by a pool of blood. The injured man’s head was encased in a black
hood tied at the neck. No footprints marred the blood surrounding
the injured person. “How can you tell he’s a criminal?”

The police officer’s eyebrows went up. “You
fucking with me?” he growled. “Of course it’s a criminal.”

“You’re telling me you can identify him
without removing his hood?”

“You don’t sound like you’re from around
here.”

When Kimber was tired, his accent was
audible. “I’m from Chicago.”

“Ah. So you don’t know the rules.”

Did he mean
laws
?

The police officer waved his hand in the
general direction of the wounded man. “Villains wear all
black.”

“Villains,” Kimber
repeated.
Because an entire city living
under the thumb of a mafia kingpin isn’t weird
enough
. “Whatever. I’m a doctor,” he said,
not about to acknowledge the absurdity of the statement. “Let me
take a look.”

“Treating General Savage’s henchmen will put
you on our list of potential sympathizers to watch,” the officer
warned.

“Last I heard, it’s not illegal to tend to
the wounded,” Kimber challenged.

The officer didn’t answer.

“Your job is to protect people and help
those who need it,” he added. “If you’re just going to watch
someone bleed out, then why are you even here?”

“To make sure no one messes with the body
and the coroner picks it up before someone else does.”

What was Kimber missing? Aside from the
crazy gene everyone else in the city possessed?

“I can’t, in good conscience, leave someone
to bleed to death in the middle of an alley, even if he is a
criminal,” he said. “If that means you arrest me, fine. But I’m
going to examine him either way.”

The officer studied him for a long moment.
“You sound like a good guy, Doc. Not sure why you moved to Sand
City. Everyone knows this is one of the many rings of hell.”

“We’re all sinners,” Kimber replied quietly.
“The least I can do is help someone else who is suffering.”

The cop smiled. “All right, Doc. But I’m not
sticking around to witness the aftermath. Whatever you do, you do
without my knowledge.” He started forward. “Call me when you
realize you’re in over your head, and I’ll get you out of town.” He
flipped a business card out of his pocket and dropped it in
Kimber’s bag. “Good luck.”

Kimber turned to watch him walk down the
street. As if on cue, the lights in the alley extinguished. He
blinked until he could see in the dark and tugged off his backpack.
Tucking his groceries in it, he then walked carefully towards the
body.

“You alive?” he called quietly.

No response.

Kimber nearly tripped over the injured
person. He smelled blood, wet clothing and gunpowder, leaving him
no doubt as to how this person came to be bleeding in the alley.
Pulling out his phone, he turned on the flashlight app and
evaluated the body before him critically.

Black clothing was soaked with blood
originating from too many different wounds for Kimber to identify
which of them might be life threatening. It was impossible to gauge
how badly the person was hurt or how long he had been lying
there.

He debated internally for a moment, unable
to believe the hospital would refuse to pick up anyone for any
reason. His phone went off, and with it, his source of light. The
battery had been slowly dying the past few weeks. Too busy to pick
up a new one, he had resigned himself to using the device when it
felt like working.

“Looks like I’ll have to go
upstairs to call the police anyway. Or … more police,” he said,
thoughts on the officer who had been guarding the alley.
“
Different
police
who don’t believe this supervillain bullshit.” He sighed. “So
basically no one in this city.”

In the end, he did what came naturally to
him. Kimber strapped his bag on securely then bent down and gently
maneuvered the person into his arms.

“I’ve carried injured stray dogs to my
apartment. Why not alleged villains?” he grunted as he balanced the
wounded criminal in his arms.

He entered the quiet lobby of his apartment
building. The elevators, equally as finicky as his phone, had
chosen this night to be out of order. Unfazed, Kimber went to the
stairwell.

Thirty minutes and fifteen flights of stairs
later, he carefully lowered the bloodied mess of a human into his
bathtub.

“That’s my workout for tonight,” he murmured
and wiped sweat from his forehead.