The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 25 - The Fine Print

I had nothing to say to her. No words to exchange with the wife of the blind, no questions, no arguments – for no matter what I had wished to tell her, I knew that she wouldn't take my complaints to heart. And so I remained silent.

My phone didn't - The happy tune went on and on before the caller had finally hung up. And then – then hers rang.

"It's funny," Tanya began as she viewed the display of her phone, "how my husband chooses to call you before he calls me."

She knew (and so did I) who had been trying to reach me for the past ten minutes before even trying to reach his own wife. Adam had been expecting me to arrive by now. I wished to pick up, to explain and to find out the location of the others.

I had wished to answer, to speak to him, to speak to anyone at this point.

Yet she didn't pick up; of course she didn't pick up.

"The Detective has the watch." She said. "He is also dangerously close to figuring out how to reverse our plans."

The Detective... She called her own husband 'The Detective'.

"Does it not bother you?" I asked. "Lying to the one person who you should appreciate the most?"

She let out a chuckle, yet her smirk didn't match her glazed eyes. Disbelief of a question she had ducked for so long.

"Adam is the one who should appreciate me, not the other way around." She eventually said. "I pay his bills after all."

Numb. I wished to hate her but couldn't, wish to cry but wouldn't.

I hadn't understood it - The reason I had been brought there in the first place, I hadn't understood it. Johnson had left and his two Hollywood wives had followed, much like how ducklings would often tail their mother (and what a quack he was).

Now only he remained.

The one lettered man with the strange fascination for dead mice – M.

A small box rested in his hand and he caressed it with his gloved thumb. Over and over, letting the minutes pass us by. My bottom lip had begun to bleed from my constant biting. The rope clung onto my wrists like a starving boa chafing against my skin - leaving tiny but merciless blisters; itchy little devils.

"Help me." I finally huffed, a plea between foes.

Like an alluring squeak of a thought-to-be-dead mouse, my voice had reached him. Not for the sake of good, mind you – for the man now turned on his heels, forgetting how to move oh-so-elegantly as before and nearly tripping over his own feet.

"Stop!" He suddenly called out; his voice was much deeper than before and his words were no longer chosen with the same care. "Stop calling for help when help isn't going to come your way!"

There was and had never been anything good about the man who had offed the mayor, but he had always carried his character with such grace. Until now, until then; until he stumbled up to me, grabbed onto my shoulders and shook both me and the chair that I was seated in. For a second I feared tipping over.

"You're no damsel in distress!" He exclaimed, then stopped, knelt down and gazed up at me. "You're a soldier."

Itchy little devils - the blisters. Yet they didn't bother me as much as his stare did. I averted my gaze, so did he. Sighed. He only sighed.

The door up the stairs opened with a creak. Duckling Red, also known to us as the Server of Poisonous Tea, stuck her head inside.

"We got him, you're next." She uttered before leaving once more.