Supervillain Soulmate

Chapter Twelve

In the days following the incident with Cataclysm, Nora barely saw hide nor hair of him. She heard him moving about the apartment in the wee hours, grunting in pain when he did something that must have jostled his arm but he didn't come to her and ask for more pain relief.

It was almost as if he was pretending that she didn't exist. Well, so much for wanting to get to know each other as soulmates and seeing whether it would have any effect on their powers.

Two could play at that game. Nora may as well have been living alone for all she knew. She cooked and ate meals by herself, slowly worked her way through Cataclysm's collection of books and even ended up doing some housework.

She also surreptitiously started looking for her phone but wherever Cataclysm had put that was currently somewhere beyond Nora's reach. Perhaps it was in his lair - as she'd taken to calling his hidden room - because despite having had her biometrics added to the system, there was still no way of entering the room without the code. And she didn't know it.

On the fifth day of the charade, Nora headed out from her bedroom into the lounge. There, right in front of the door was one of Cataclysm's portals. The splint she'd made for him lay on the arm of her favourite chair looking every bit as discarded as she felt.

The portal started to move, the clouds on the very edge of it starting to swirl and fade into nothingness. Nora had no idea whether Cataclysm was going somewhere or returning from being out, but this was her chance.

If he didn't want her around anymore then she would just leave. There was nothing stopping her with a portal right here ready for her.

Crossing the room to the front door where she'd left her shoes on her arrival... god, she didn't even know how long she had been trapped here in his apartment. She didn't bother to undo them, not wanting to waste precious seconds fiddling with laces and have the portal close in her face, taking her escape route and her choice to leave away from her.

With her shoes on, she was ready to go. There was no time for her to scoop up her meager supply of belongings into her bag, but it only amounted to a few clothes and three books anyway.

The portal was still fading, and she assumed this meant that Cataclysm had gone through it rather than coming back since she couldn't hear him moving around the apartment at all.

It seemed a little careless to her that he left his portals open like this for anyone to wander through, but his mistake was her gain.

Taking a deep breath, she braced herself and stepped forwards into the swirling cloud. It consumed her immediately, feeling cold against her skin as she passed between the apartment and wherever it let out.

She'd been in such a rush to leave that she hadn't even stopped to consider that it might let her out somewhere dangerous. Loose stones crunched beneath her feet and in the few seconds it took for Nora to realise that she was on the roof of a very tall building, the portal disappeared.

Maybe that was why he wasn't that bothered about closing them behind himself, because who in their right mind would be up here to stumble across one?

Great. Just great. Well done Nora.

The wind was cold as it whipped around her, tugging at her hair and her clothing. In her loose tshirt and leggings, Nora was absolutely freezing within seconds of being on the roof.

Crossing to the edge, she carefully leaned on the chest-high wall and tried to figure out where in the city she was so that she could get her bearings.

The wind hurt her eyes, but she quickly recognised where she was. The southside bridge was over to the left, and the news station tower was dead ahead which meant that if she turned to her right - Heroes Plaza.

She was somewhere downtown, not far from her apartment and from the hospital. From freedom. She just had to find a way off this roof first.

Usually for a building like this, there didn't seem to be any roof access. She would have expected a door leading to some stairs but there was nothing at all. She even turned in circles a few times to make absolutely sure that she wasn't imagining it or being stupid. There was definitely no door. Great stuff.

After a few more minutes of investigating, she realised that the only way down from the roof was a fire escape attached to the side of the building.

Thankfully she didn't have to try and heave herself over the wall because there were two metal steps to help her get up and over the wall, but they shifted slightly when she put her weight on them which filled her with the fear that she was going to get half way down the side of the building and the whole staircase was going to peel away from it like an old banana skin.

That's not what happened. The metal staircase creaked and groaned with every step that Nora took, and she went carefully but quickly, making each step count.

Some of the platforms were connected to the next one by a proper set of stairs, but every now and then there was a section that was connected by a descending ladder. So far all of the ladders had moved when Nora had pushed on them.

But not this one. Four flights up from the ground, this ladder was well and truly stuck. No matter how hard Nora pushed on it, she couldn't get it to budge. She even went so far as to kick it, but only succeeded in hurting her foot. The noise of her kick working it's way up and down the staircase a few times, rails vibrating in her hands.

There was no way that Nora was going to be able to jump down without seriously injuring herself, and considering that her numbing power didn't even work on her own injuries that wasn't even an option.

Kicking the ladder one more time, Nora let out a scream of frustration that startled a bird away from a nearby windowsill.

"Can I help you?" A voice asked from behind, making her jump out of her skin and nearly scream again.

She turned, finding a man standing by an open window, concern painted on his features.

"I'm trying to get down, but the ladder is stuck." She explained.

"Why are you out here in the first place?" He asked, but opened the window wider so that she would be able to fit through it.

"I was on the roof."

"How'd you get up there?" The man's concern changed to suspicion, and although he moved out of the way to let Nora in through the window, Nora suddenly didn't want to go in there. "And dressed like that?"

Ultimately, though, she had no choice. Going to the ledge, she ducked under the window and stepped inside, glad to find herself in an office full of other people.

"Thank you." She smiled at the man, stepping around him and trying to ignore the twinge in her toe from where she'd kicked the ladder. "I'll just... go."

She prayed that the crowd effect would help her to just slip out of the building. The last thing she wanted was for them to call security on her. She just wanted to go and check on her apartment.

Whispers followed in her wake as she practically ran out of the office and as the door closed behind her, she thought she heard someone say 'isn't that the girl who was kidnapped by that villain?'

Bashing the button for the lift, she paced back and forth in front of the metal doors, waiting for it to arrive. She'd had enough of stairs for one day, but when it hadn't arrived after a few minutes she cursed and headed for the stairwell.

Twenty minutes later she found herself standing outside her apartment building looking up at what, last time she had been here, had been a gaping hole. It had been filled now, but the patch job stood out against the older brickwork surrounding it. At least her belongings hadn't been getting attacked by the weather this whole time. That was a plus at least.

It wasn't until she reached her front door that Nora realised she didn't have her door key. Not only that, but there was an eviction notice on her door.

Nora sighed, reaching up to rip the notice right off the door but her hand went straight through both it and the wood.

From the other side of her door, something grabbed her hand and pulled.