Helen couldn't have felt more winded if someone had punched her in the stomach, but she finally found her voice, though she hated how thin it sounded.
"What are you doing here?"
Xerek hadn't moved, but he crossed a leg over his knee and leaned his arms along the back of the sofa. It made him seem taller, more imposing, even as he remained sitting.
"No hello? Helen, I'm hurt."
His flippant words jolted Helen from her shock and sent a shot of anger through her midsection. He always had known how to get under her skin, and instead of just standing there, Helen searched for something to do to avoid looking at him. Which wasn't difficult given that the contents of a dozen grocery bags were leaking onto her parquet floors.
She stalked out of the living room, grabbed the garbage can in the kitchen, and returned, refusing to look at the ghost from her past or break the silence. Not that she had to.
"You never did like to mince words, did you?" Xerek's British accent lilted along, almost as if he were singing rather than talking. "Yes, you were always more ... action-oriented than that? A doer, not a talker. I remember that."
She couldn't stand how intimate he was making it sound. She threw the bananas away, then the egg carton, not even bothering to look inside. She tossed the glass pieces that had been a jar of spaghetti sauce before returning to the kitchen to grab a towel to wipe up the red mess. This time, Xerek waited for her to speak.
"Why are you here?"
He swirled the wine in his glass again before gesturing towards her with it. "You can't know how very glad I was to hear that the Superhero Legislation passed, and even more so when I found out that you were instrumental in its success. Well, it didn't take long to figure out that Elastigirl — or is it just Mrs. Incredible now? — was still active in Metroville. It was almost as if you wanted me to find you."
"I didn't think anything of it," she said, calmly. She threw the red and saturated towel in the kitchen sink and replaced the garbage can underneath. "I haven't thought about you in years."
"Oh, I don't believe that," he said, quirking an eyebrow and grinning into the glass. Helen pursed her lips together, refusing to respond. He swallowed a gulp of what was probably Bob's 1948 Bordeaux, and exhaled loudly.
"I've been doing a bit of research."
"What makes you think I care?"
"This concerns you, Helen."
"My concerns are none of yours," she said, but a knot curled uneasily in her stomach.
"You know that's not true." Xerek stood up from the sofa, habitually rebuttoned his suit jacket, and slid toward the fireplace. Reaching up to the mantle, he trailed his slender finger over the frame housing their family photo. It had been taken on a recent trip to visit Helen's parents in Georgia, and she felt sick as he touched it. "Have you told him about us?"
"There's nothing to tell."
"So, you haven't told him." Xerek's lips quirked in triumph, and she hated him for it. He picked up the frame and studied the photograph. "He's never suspected? She doesn't exactly look like him."
"She looks like my grandmother." That's what her mother had always said.
"Is that what you've told yourself all these years?"
"It's the truth."
"And yet that doesn't preclude there being multiple factors at work."
"You're insane."
He shrugged. "Perhaps so. Life's a lot more fun that way." He returned the frame to the mantle, reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver handkerchief. Wiping his fingers, he said in a more pointed voice, "How old is she?"
"Leave her out of this."
"She's the whole reason for this," he said, thrusting the handkerchief back into his pocket and sitting back on the sofa. "She's fifteen, isn't she. Just celebrated a birthday, didn't she."
"She's not yours, Xerek," Helen said forcefully.
"The timeline fits."
"It's just coincidence."
"That's a pathetic attempt to convince yourself."
"She has powers."
She wasn't expecting the sly smile that spread across his face. "Does she now?"
She didn't know how to respond.
"Why are you fighting this?" Xerek continued, his voice smooth and calm, as if he'd won a prize. "As I recall, we spent a very enjoyable evening the last time we saw each other."
Helen felt her heartrate rising. "That's not how I remember it."
"What do you remember?" he asked.
Helen's fingernails dug into her clenched palms, but she had nothing to say.
"You don't remember anything, do you?" Xerek chuckled lowly. "I would be hurt if I took that as a reflection upon me, but you'd had a lot to drink that night."
"I don't remember that either." Helen glared at him, completely dismissing his version of events.
"Really," Xerek said, his brows furrowed as if in confusion. "You must have been further gone than I thought."
"I agreed to one drink," she said. "One."
Xerek shrugged. "You always were a lightweight."
"I don't think so. You drugged me. You must have." It was the only explanation for what had happened.
Xerek stood again at the accusation. "Now, Helen, I'm surprised at you." His voice was soft, placating, as if speaking to a child. He began moving around the coffee table toward her, but Helen refused to move. "I invited you to have a drink so that we could toast your recent nuptials. My intentions were pure; I admit I was surprised to find that your intentions were less so."
He was close enough now that she had to look up to maintain eye contact. "That's a lie. I was always completely committed to my marriage."
"Well, no one's perfect, my dear. We all have our weaknesses."
He reached out and touched her arm, and Helen wrenched herself away. "I'm done, Xerek. I don't know what happened that night, but I will not let you come into my house and insult me or my marriage."
His pale blue eyes bore into her, seemed to pierce through her. The wine glass was still in his hand, and Xerek downed the rest of its contents before placing it gently on the coffee table.
"I'm not here to berate you, Helen." He brushed an invisible piece of lint from his suit jacket and began moving toward the door. "I'll leave. But you cannot hide from the truth. And I don't know why you'd want to."
He reached for the door handle just as it opened, and the knot in Helen's stomach twisted as her husband sang out, "Honey, I'm home!"
"Bob!" That meant the kids ...
"Whoa!" Bob stumbled, nearly colliding with Xerek, and reached over to protect Jack-Jack, whom he carried in one arm. Jack-Jack giggled happily at the unexpected vertigo, but when he caught sight of Xerek he pulled away apprehensively, brows furrowing and his smile transforming into an exaggerated frown.
Her husband recovered quickly. "Oh! Hello. I don't think we've met." He extended a large hand toward the other man, who waved it away with his rail-thin hand, managing to appear somehow polite and disinterested at the same time. "I'm Bob."
"Xerek."
"Xerek," Bob said, pulling back his hand. "That's an interesting name."
"I'm an interesting person."
Helen tried not to show her discomfort as Bob looked her way and then back at the intruder in their house. "And you know Helen, how?"
"He's an old acquaintance," she said quickly, moving forward to stand near Bob. But she knew Xerek wouldn't leave it alone.
"Helen, don't be ridiculous. We're old friends." And he walked over to her and wrapped his arm around her back. "In fact, you could say I'm more like family."
This time Helen did wince, at Xerek's words as much as at Bob's shocked expression at his arm around her. Bob studied her face, and when he noticed her distress, he straightened up to his full height and cast suspicious eyes on the other man. "Funny that Helen's never mentioned you."
He moved out of the entryway to ensure that he wasn't blocked in, that he had room to move, but his eyes never left Xerek.
"Indeed," Xerek said, as if he couldn't believe it. "That was silly of her. There's really no reason to be keeping secrets, is there, Helen?"
She didn't have a chance to respond — and wouldn't have known what to say even if she did — because the door opened again, and Helen's eyes widened in fear.
"Mo-om! Dash ate the chocolate bar I was saving for Tony!" Violet's shrill voice drew everyone's attention.
"He owes me a quarter any—!"
Helen didn't let Dash finish. Sensing something was about to happen, she dove for Violet just as Xerek moved next to her. He leapt at her daughter, but Helen was there instead, and suddenly, she felt herself sucked into a void, falling and spinning at breakneck speed through darkness, faster and faster, until she slammed on her back into a hard, concrete floor.
She couldn't draw in a breath. For the second time that afternoon, she was utterly winded, and she gasped and coughed violently as her body struggled for air.
"You bitch!"
Even in her oxygen deprived mind, the crude epithet stung. Xerek was next to her, breathing heavily but looking less disoriented. He stood, towering over her, as she struggled to speak.
"You have powers?" Helen gasped, unable to move from the floor. Her vision was darkening, pushing in on her.
"Surprise," Xerek intoned darkly. "Does that convince you yet?"
"No," whispered Helen, but it was in more denial than disbelief and she welcomed the blissful darkness that overtook her.