Underground Hatred - My Hero Origins (MHO)

8: Hero Practice

Word Count: 2004

(Kat)

 Kat swung the door open and entered quickly, flicking the light switch at the door in the process. The shadow-filled house lit its colors to reveal the little amount of furniture Kat had in her studio-apartment-like house. Her body leaned tiredly against the wall where the light switch was, her amber eyes following Davis's path into the house, his own body shrinking in on itself with the new, unfamiliar surroundings.

The door closed itself behind Davis, Kat slipping behind his moving body to lock the door out of a new, paranoia-inducing habit. A shaky breath escaped her lips once the click echoed in her eardrums; it was as if a weight released itself from her shoulders, pushing her spirit up to ease her pounding heart that never seemed to cease since she and Davis left the scene of the kidnapping. Her mind slowed its racing slightly, allowing her to think with her thoughts not as clutter as they were prior.

Peering over her shoulder, Kat noticed Davis standing there in his normal awkward, inward position, examining the house. The man's back was to her, but she imagined following his gaze around the small area. No one had stepped foot in her house in months, which built the pile of clutter on her counters filled with bills and pieces of trash and receipts. The lights in the ceiling only accentuated the mess, telling the story in dark shadows and pinpointing the piles that sat around. Kat's cheeks lit with color at the sight with her eyes widening; her hope in that moment was that there was no scent she was nose-blind to after months of the inability to hardly clean with her intense schedule.

"S—Sorry about the mess!" Kat squeaked out, pushing her body away from the door. The embarrassment coursing inside her placed an invisible block in front of her feet. One foot tripped over the other, but her core caught her in the fall, passing Davis and standing in front of him in a frantic flurry, hands clasped behind her back. It took everything in her to not cringe. "I... I haven't had company in a while."

"I—It's okay," Davis replied quietly, but echoed in the silent house. His face directed down towards Kat, the once striking blue eyes Kat faced before hidden behind the crimson red visor. The blinding light from above popped the atrocities placed on Davis's face to become more apparent. An empathetic pit opened up in Kat's gut.

Kat's shoulders lifted a tad to hear what little emotion Davis held in his voice towards the state of her house—well, whatever emotion that could be detected. With a motion of her arm to her left, she stated, "Let's sit at the table so we can talk a little more about... yeah."

Kat led Davis over to the small, two-seated table next to the giant, curtained window at the front of Kat's house. Kat swiftly snagged all of the papers off it into a messy pile in her hands and ushered the documents to the kitchen—which was a war zone compared to the table. Her eyes glanced at the top paper before throwing the mess of work onto the counter, finding it to be the overdue water bill. Her mouth formed into a tight line at the sight, the finalized deadline hanging in the back of her head. A punch hit her in the gut.

The water bill was disregarded along with the other paper onto the kitchen counter. Kat rushed back to the table and sat across from Davis, yanking her thoughts away from the finances that dragged her down and to the other piece of doom that was shallow compared to what else she had in the back of her mind. She slid onto the seat across from Davis, shrugging off her brown cardigan and throwing the strap to her small, vintage leather purse away from her shoulder. Once she was settled, she faced herself with the man.

The bruises were growing deeper on his face, a small amount of blood dried just at the opening of his left nostril. The left cheekbone was swollen to twice its size, the visor slightly lopsided. If Davis's face wasn't shrouded in wounds and bruises that resembled the marks of knuckles, a giggle would have escaped Kat with the visor distorted in a crooked way.