Hero Complex

by Quinn D.K.

Summary: A romantic fantasy mystery that defies explanation...

In a windswept Canadian seaside town, young Noah finds a man staggering out of the ocean near his family's old lighthouse. No clothes, no name, no memory. And then he disappears without a trace.

Years later, he returns to Noah, rescuing him from a brutal attack. But it becomes clear that he's someone with extraordinary abilities... and secrets that make Noah question everything he knew about life and love.




Chapter 1: The Lightkeeper's Nephew


Antigone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. 2010.

I suppose this all started with the lighthouse.

When I was a kid I spent summers at Uncle Micah's. He lived in a two-story cottage by the sea, his porch just steps from the rocky shore. A little jog down the beach brought you to the abandoned pier where he used to work as the lighthouse keeper. Yes, he's old. Did I mention that?

It used to be called Devil's Cove Lighthouse. It creeped me out, the name. Especially since it was never sunny on this side of the river. Only overcast and grey like an old movie.

But I digress.

I did love every summer I spent there until I turned 18. I'll admit I was a brat that year. I just hated being shipped away from my life in Toronto. I wanted to spend sunny afternoons by the pool and exhilarating nights with my friends, laughing and drinking and enjoying our last days of freedom before university. My parents didn't agree. I think they just wanted the house to themselves.

Antigone Bay, Nova Scotia has a population of 1,600 and not much in the way of stimulation for a restless teen from the city. A twenty minute walk showed you everything on offer: the pub, the bakery, the post office, the second pub, the hardware store, the third pub.

There are other reasons why I started to hate that town but I don't have to get into them right now.

That summer, I wiled away my days pitching rocks into the great, churning froth of the Atlantic and counting the rare patches of blue that emerged from the clouds.

Every couple of weeks I picked out a bad paperback mystery from the library and took it to the lighthouse to read. I stuck with mysteries because they were about real people. The books with magic and monsters went ignored.

Uncle Micah still had the lighthouse keys and he didn't mind me going by myself now that I was old enough. "You're all grown, Noah," he'd shrug from his tea and crossword puzzle. "Just don't lean too hard on the railing up there."

As grumpy as I may have been I still enjoyed my time in the lighthouse watchroom. The ancient radio equipment I fiddled with endlessly as a kid was now where I put my feet up and enjoyed the peace and quiet. The windows that wrapped around the tower afforded a beautiful view of the ocean. Black and infinite. The vastness of it still awes me.

So the day this all started, I was reading in the lighthouse. And a storm came.

I remember because I felt the mountainous belches of thunder shake the walls and floor. My leg kicked out in surprise at the first boom. My heel flipped a switch or pressed a button or some damn thing and then the radio crackled to life. The nearby lighthouses were also decommissioned so it didn't pick up much whenever I played with it. Just static and the occasional whisper of a folk music station.

But the radio static that day was different. It was high, whiny... agonizing, like fingers clawing desperately against my eardrums. Like frostbite stabbing my arms and legs. I fumbled through the patchwork of knobs and buttons until the volume died.

For the life of me I still can't properly describe that noise. It was wrong. Like something I was never supposed to hear. It had filled with the air with a lingering disturbance, the breath of an invisible stranger on the back of my neck.

Then I looked out of the window and saw a man stumbling out of the water.

I ran to the catwalk, heart racing. I must have seen that wrong.

But, no, a man was indeed emerging from the sea. He walked with some difficulty - drunkenness, confusion, I didn't know - as the grey waves slapped the jagged brown shore at his bare feet. The rest of him was bare, too. Stray bits of seaweed clung to his chest and wet sand smeared his left buttock and thigh. He made no effort to cover himself and didn't seem to be in any rush at all - as if the ocean had birthed a fully grown man and pushed him, disoriented and naked, out of the comfort of its womb.

I made my way down the winding stairs and onto the beach.

"Hey! Mister?" I didn't know how else to get his attention. "Are you okay?"

The uneven, rocky beach was hell on my feet even through my shoes. Still, I walked to him. Did he need my help? I had no idea what I was doing. I was flying by the seat of my pants.

The man stopped at my approaching figure. As he blinked away drops of water his rugged, handsome face regarded me curiously. His dripping hair was flat against his forehead.

"Mister?" I repeated. I stopped, too, and put a friendly hand up. I'd never been this close to naked man before. At my school we didn't shower after gym class. "Do you need help, sir?"

His forehead gathered in confusion. So did mine. No one in their right mind actually swam in these rough waters. Was he a fisherman who fell off his boat? If so, where were his clothes?

There were no signs of injuries from what I could see. No cuts or wounds or even a bruise. As my gaze swept over the stranger I registered a body that was not just strong, but powerful. His massive, broad shoulders heaved with his labored breathing. They were connected to arms bigger than my thighs. His forearms were covered in thick hair that matched the fur on his pecs and rippling washboard stomach. Noticing anything lower than that seemed indecent.

Those things weren't important at the moment.

This man seemed blank, almost-doll-like. A stranger not only to me but to himself.

"Are you okay? Do you... know where your clothes are?"

I felt bad drawing attention to his nudity but I didn't know what else to say.

The stranger's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed. I tried to catch him as he went down but that was stupid. He was at least a foot taller and had sixty pounds of muscle on me. I tumbled off balance and fell with him, his naked body making a smack sound against the wet sand. His meaty arm had fallen across me in the maelstrom. It took some effort to heave off.

I stared hard at his unconscious face. He had the strongest, squarest jaw I'd ever seen, the kind that could crack a walnut. All his features were like that - sculpted and chiseled. Like a Greek god.

Like a superhero, I remember thinking absently.

My hand caressed his face. I didn't realize I was doing it until I felt the hint of stubble under my fingers. I pulled away immediately, my cheeks burning. His eyes were still closed. The brief intrusion of his privacy thankfully went unnoticed.

It started to rain. Light little pitter-patters hit my neck and arms. It would turn into a downpour soon. I had to get this man indoors.

---

If the stranger hadn't woken by the time I dragged him via toboggan sled to Uncle Micah's front steps, I don't know how I would have gotten him inside the house.

"Please, you have to stand," I whispered gently. His eyes, a clear and startling blue, focused as he took in the sight of me. We stood together and I let him lean on me like a crutch. He was unbalanced and tired but didn't seem to be in any pain. My skinny teenage arm felt strange across the muscular plains of his wide back.

The house was dead silent. Uncle Micah must have been playing bocce at the community center. I led the stranger into the bathroom where I got him to wash off the seaweed and wet sand. While the situation seemed intimate, his flesh was the last thing on my mind. As perfectly sculpted as it was.

I grabbed a quilt in the living room and held it to his waist. He looked confused until I wrapped it around him, toga-like. The Greek god comparison suddenly seemed very apt.

"You can sit," I motioned to the sofa.

He did so like a robot being given an order, still lost in some mysterious fog. The quilt only came down to his legs. I tried not to notice how strong and thick his calves were. His feet were big and a little hairy, but nice and well-maintained. It must have been the first time I noticed a man's legs like that. I averted my eyes to the floor.

"I'll get you some clothes."

"Th... thirsty."

I froze in mid-turn. His first word to me. A deep and manly voice, but with a scratch of dehydration.

"Yes. I'll- yes. Hold on."

In the kitchen I quickly filled a tall glass with the filtered jug from the fridge. I also put on a kettle for tea - he'd need some to warm up and I needed some to calm my shaking nerves. I brought a naked man back to my uncle's house. A man I didn't even know...

I gave him the glass of water - which he drained immediately - before running into Uncle Micah's bedroom for clothes. He was closer to the stranger's size than I was. I fished around until I found a sweater, a pair of jogging pants and socks.

I returned to the living room to find the stranger standing by the window. Rain lashed against the glass. It was really coming down hard.

"I got you some of my uncle's things. He wont mind. He donates a huge bag to the church every year anyway."

As he turned to receive them, part of the quilt fell away and I saw a flash of bare abdomen and pubic hair. Heat rose inside me, followed very quickly by shame.

The man didn't seem to notice. He thumbed the fabric in his hands. "Thank you."

I craned my neck up to meet his eye line. Jesus, he was tall. "My name is Noah. This is my uncle's house. I'm visiting from Toronto. Where do you live?"

He thought and frowned. His hair had dried a little. Thick and somewhere between wavy and curly, it was a dark blond that matched the color of his stubble. It probably had a ginger-y tone in the sunlight. A strand the shape of a letter S fell along his tanned forehead.

"I don't know."

"You don't know where you live?"

His frown deepened and he shook his head.

"Do you remember how you got in the ocean?"

"I don't know."

The kettle shrieked from the kitchen.

"You should get changed," I said quickly. I was grateful for the distraction.

In the the kitchen I took the kettle off and opened the nice Irish breakfast tea my uncle only took out for company. I made it strong with milk and sugar in both cups. I didn't know at the time that you were supposed to ask someone how they liked their tea. Hey, I was barely out of high school. I'd never entertained a guest before.

He was dressed by the time I returned to the living room. It was queer seeing my old uncle's clothes on a man so broad-chested and well built. I gave him a cup of hot tea. My hands were shaking. His weren't.

The tea made my mouth tingle from the sugar. Nice and warm. Down my throat and into my stomach. It was the only thing that made sense in that moment. The stranger was staring at me again, so piercing and immediate I thought he could see through me to my bones.

I dared to meet his gaze. "Who are you?"

"I don't know."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"The water."

He was too distracted to drink his tea. He clenched the fist of one mighty hand, released, clenched, released. Over and over. The muscles of his forearm - I didn't know forearms could have muscles - rippled and relaxed accordingly. Fascination flashed in the cobalt blue of his eyes, followed by something darker. Worry? Fear?

I was starting to wonder when Uncle Micah would get home. Surely he'd know what to do. Surely he'd be helpful and decisive instead of standing around all slackjawed and anxious.

"Are you hungry?" I didn't know what else to say.

"Where am I?"

"Antigone Bay, Nova Scotia. The people here like to say it's east of the east coast."

The answer didn't seem to offer him anything other than a new layer of confusion.

"I don't belong here."

"How do you know that?"

The stranger gave me his untouched mug of tea, now lukewarm. He started for the front door. God, he was huge. It was like watching a tree walk away. 

I followed him to the porch where he stood watching the storm. It had gotten worse, the rain slashing and wind screaming like they were angry at the earth.

"When my uncle gets back he can help you. He trained to be an EMT after the lighthouse up the way closed. And he knows the sheriff."

He started for the first porch step. I grabbed his arm. He could have easily kept going - hell, he looked like he could have thrown me back into the house with one hand - but instead he paused at my touch.

"I might not know what to do right now but I know it's not safe for you out there. You're confused, you lost your memory. And these summer storms can last all day. Please, stay inside."

The hardness around his eyes softened. He brought a hand to my face. The contact sent ripples of heat through my chest and down my stomach. I'd never been touched like this by a man.

And then the stranger wrapped his arms around my slim body and held me close. Being enveloped by him... it was a warmth I never thought was possible.

"Thank you," he whispered into my hair.

I breathed in his chest. He smelled like a man, like the sea, like something familiar and brand new all at once. I know what the situation must have looked like but I wasn't scared. At no point did I feel like he would harm or take advantage of me. I can't even explain it now, but something about his touch reminded me of finding home.

"Thank you," he repeated. "But I can't stay."

"Please," I whispered back. This was crazy. Who was he? What was this sudden rush of desire that had supercharged every vein in my body? I didn't want him to leave. Now that I knew how safe and secure his presence made me feel, how could I?

Gently, he pulled away.

"You can't know that I was here. You can't tell anyone."

"But you need help. I can try to..."

He was already down the porch steps and back in the storm. My uncle's clothes were instantly soaked. He went around the east corner of the house. I followed him, desperation pounding in my chest.

"Wait!"

I turned the very same corner he did. He was gone.

Beyond one side of Uncle Micah's house was a road leading to our neighbors a kilometer or so away. Beyond another side, farmland, low and flat. And beyond another, the shoreline.

There was nowhere for the stranger to hide or disappear to. But he'd vanished without a trace.

In the years following, I would think a lot about that moment. For the longest time I convinced myself he had simply run back into the ocean and drowned. Or dissolved. I've never told anyone about what happened that day, not my uncle, my parents, boyfriends, no one. It was my little secret. My not-so-imaginary imaginary friend.

That was the last summer I spent in Antigone Bay. I moved on with my life in Toronto, went to university, and got a job. For a while I fantasized about the stranger coming back into my life. But those little day dreams stopped as I grew up. I didn't want to become delusional. I settled into a new reality - the stormy day in 2010 was where the story began and ended.

Oh, I was so wrong.




End of Chapter 1
To Be Continued



Hi all! Thanks for the reading start of my first romantic fantasy mystery. Please send all comments and feedback to: neworderinthesun@gmail.com

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