The Supervillain and Me

by Danielle Banas

  But it still stung.

  My shoes squeaked through puddles of water on the sidewalks. This was a chance to show my dad and brother that I didn’t need them. A forty-minute walk from school to home. No problem. I was fine and dandy on my own.

  I hummed a few show tunes to pass the time, occasionally breaking into a little hop, skip, and jump for dramatic effect. Nothing and no one would bring me down after my audition.

  Sneakers crunched on the sidewalk behind me.

  For a minute, I didn’t think anything of it. But when the footsteps continued, never veering off onto another street, my heart began to race. I breathed deeply, mimicking the exercises I usually did before singing. It’s fine, I reassured myself. You’re just paranoid.

  The footsteps quickened.

  I knew what to do in these situations. Connor and my dad drilled it into my head years ago. Keep walking. Don’t panic. Find an open storefront and hide inside and everything will be fine.

  Scanning the street, I cursed under my breath. There were no open storefronts. Most places in Morriston—especially in the suburbs—shut down in the evenings. For good reason.

  Feet pounded against the pavement.

  Okay. Officially time to panic.

  I took off, stumbling in my haste and trying to ignore the angry grunt of my pursuer as his thunderous footsteps gave chase. Fire burned in my throat while I struggled to fill my lungs.

  I chanced a glance over my shoulder. The man was about ten yards away, closing in quickly. He was skeletal in appearance, wearing ripped jeans and a football jersey that hung beneath his worn coat. I reached for my backpack, groping through the outside pocket for the can of pepper spray that my dad had forced on me at the start of the school year. I didn’t even know if it worked. Suddenly I realized how stupid I was for never testing it out.

  Five yards away.

  I rounded a corner at the end of the block, failing to dodge a puddle in the middle of the sidewalk. A splash of water filled my shoes, weighing down my socks. I looked back again. Three yards and …

  The air left my lungs as the man collided with my back. I spun on my heel, firing off the pepper spray. A thin stream made contact with the side of the man’s scruffy face, but most of it just dribbled down my hand.

  The man grabbed the straps of my backpack, slamming me against the doorway of a closed consignment shop. My head ached, my ears were ringing, but when his hand reached for my throat, some type of primal instinct took over. I slammed both hands down on his forearm. His elbow buckled, and he toppled toward me, mouth agape like I’d actually managed to frighten him. Then, winding up, I punched him right in his lousy face.

  The punch wasn’t really part of my dad’s attempt at Self-Defense 101, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Take that, you jerk!” I should have stopped there. I definitely should have run. But I felt rather smug seeing the big dummy crippled by my fist, and so I couldn’t help but drive my point home. Raising my knee, I aimed at his groin. But halfway through my attack, I realized my punch hadn’t harmed him as much as I thought. The man’s hand shot out, yanking hard on my leg, sweeping my feet out from under me.

  I hit the ground hard, my forehead smacking the sidewalk. And this is why Sarah carries a Taser.

  The man recovered quickly. He crouched over me, knees braced on my forearms. My breath came out in quick pants when I noticed the gleam of a knife in his fist.

  “Money. Now,” he growled.

  Fear makes a person do some crazy things. For example, instead of bursting into tears, it made me think that this guy seriously needed a breath mint.

  “Now,” he repeated, voice sharper this time.

  “Oh. Um…” I ticked off the contents of my backpack. Student ID. Half a pack of gum. Fifty cents (three dimes, four nickels). Pretty dismal options if I hoped to make it out with my limbs still intact.

  “I don’t have anything.” My voice came out far less firm than I intended.

  He sneered. “Nice try.” His eyes looked crazed, and I noticed his fingers wouldn’t stop twitching. Drug addict maybe? I started to feel sorry for him, but those feelings disappeared immediately as he brought the knife to my throat.

  Oh no. Oh God. Oh no. I tried bucking him off, but for a skinny guy, he was absurdly heavy.

  “Please,” I whimpered. “Please just…” I didn’t know what. If there was any time for Connor to come to the rescue, it was now. But he was busy being someone else’s hero. He couldn’t possibly know I was in danger too.

  I was utterly and horrifically alone.

  I should have asked Sarah to drive me home. I shouldn’t have cared that Dad and Connor weren’t around to share in my excitement. A great audition wouldn’t matter if I was dead.

  The knife felt like a bolt of lightning as the man tapped it against my neck. One sharp pain straight through me as I imagined all the hideous things he could do with it. He leaned close, his nose nearly touching mine.

  Run on the count of three.

  A voice echoed in my head. I knew it wasn’t my imagination. My conscience sounded distinctly female and this voice certainly wasn’t.

  One.

  Two.

  The man’s arm moved. I felt the knife twitch.

  Three.

  The man was ripped violently away and a rush of air hit my face. I didn’t think twice. I scrambled to my feet and bolted, ignoring the thuds and groans that signaled that my attacker finally got what he deserved. I knew only one thing.

  My hero had arrived.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I stopped running halfway down the next block and leaned against a streetlamp, waiting patiently until the moans of the man turned to silence. Connor had finally gotten his butt here. According to protocol, he would still need to call the police station for someone to retrieve the man, but then he could fly me home.

  “Comet”—I never called my brother by his real name in public when he was in costume—“do you need my…” I trailed off, staring at the guy standing over the unconscious attacker. “Who are you?”

  The stranger’s green eyes snapped to my own. He wore a black suit, his mask revealing only his eyes, his lips, and a portion of his jawline. Unlike Connor, this guy didn’t have a symbol plastered to his chest. My brother’s suit sported a shiny gold swoosh that looked mysteriously like a Nike symbol (but he insisted it was a comet). This guy didn’t have anything.

  “I thought I told you to run,” he said, crossing his arms. He was about as tall as my brother, easily clearing six feet, and possessed just as many, if not more, muscles bulging under the dark material of his costume.

  “How did you—wait. That was your voice in my head?” I had to admit he had a nice voice—deep and smoky. I wondered if it was real or a disguise.

  The super winked at me and tapped the side of his head with his index finger. I didn’t know mind-to-mind communication was a legitimate superpower. Connor frequently gushed at other supers’ powers and would have told me if someone had such a unique ability.

  “Okay, well…” I didn’t know what else to say. I wished Connor were there to fly me home. I couldn’t ask this guy to escort me. I had no clue who he was. “I’ll just be going now.”

  “Don’t I get a thank-you?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, a guy puts on a tight rubber suit that crushes his manhood to teleport down here and save a beautiful girl from getting mugged by a creep and he doesn’t even get a thank-you? It makes me not want to continue this line of work, to be completely honest.”

  “Oh, uh…” I looked up at the masked stranger. He winked again when he caught my eye, and my stomach somersaulted. “Thanks, I guess.”

  Turning my back on him, I set off in the direction of my house. If I was lucky, maybe I wouldn’t encounter anyone else. I only managed to take a few steps before the stranger began following me, black boots crunching on loose pieces of gravel.

  “All right, so either you’re extremely prone to confrontational si
tuations and frequently need a super to come save you, thus, you’re so used to saying thank you that it’s become too repetitive, so you decided to stop being polite, or this has never happened to you before, you’re rendered completely stupefied by my appearance, and you’re so impressed by my lifesaving abilities that you simply forgot to say thank you. Which one is it?”

  “Who are you?” This guy must have been new in town. Not even Connor was this annoying to civilians after he saved them.

  The man—or boy, rather (I’d determined by his voice he was somewhere around my age)—scoffed. “I can’t tell you that. Rule numero uno and all.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your real name. What’s your superhero name?”

  “Oh, right. I can’t tell you that either.”

  “Is it because you haven’t picked one yet?” This guy was definitely a newbie.

  “Hey, maybe I’m still weighing my options. You know, determining what the public will best respond to.”

  I glanced up at him. Superdork’s green eyes were still trained on me. Was I imagining it, or did he look a little hurt at my jabs to his legitimacy as a hero? It wasn’t my fault I was unimpressed by the supers. Living with Connor removed any coolness factor associated with fighting crime in spandex—not that there was any to begin with.

  “That was a nice punch back there,” he continued. “But you want to keep your thumb on the outside of your fingers next time. You can break it if you clench it inside your fist.”

  “Wow. Thanks for the critique. I didn’t know you were watching. How nice of you to wait to step in until after I had a knife pressed to my throat.” I sped up my pace, but he matched me step for step. “I had it all under control.”

  The hair on the back of my neck bristled when he laughed. “Clearly,” he said. “That’s why you’re bleeding, am I right?”

  “I am not.” I clutched at my neck, remembering only the feel of the knife, so cold that it almost burned. I sighed in relief to find the skin unmarred.

  The super shook his head. “Not there.” He pointed to my forehead. “There.”

  I lightly touched the skin, hissing in pain as I examined the slick blood coating my fingertips.

  Superdork pulled me to a stop next to the entrance of a small playground around the corner from my house. “Here, let me,” he said, crouching to my level to get a closer look. He had long dark eyelashes, leading me to believe the hair hidden beneath his cowl was dark as well. His gloved hand brushed along my hairline, and I twitched away, not wanting another strange man to be anywhere near me again. “Just hold still a second.”

  I held my breath as a strange heat emitted from his hand, seeping into my skin, making it feel warm and pliable like gelatin. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before gently rubbing his thumb over the cut.

  “All better,” he finally said. “Feel free to say thanks for that too.”

  “What did you…?” I dabbed the place where the cut was moments before to find smooth, painless skin and only a few dry crusts of blood. “You healed it?”

  He shrugged. Now I felt kind of bad. I had been a jerk to this guy when all he’d wanted to do was save me, walk me home, and heal my head. I blamed too many nights making fun of Connor in his super suit.

  “Thank you. That was nice of you.” I ran my fingers over my healed skin again. “You can’t read minds by any chance, can you?”

  “No, I can only project thoughts into others’ minds. Why?”

  “No reason.” At least he wouldn’t know how embarrassed I felt. “So … you don’t need to walk me home. It’s only another few minutes.”

  He surveyed the deserted streets. “Are you sure? It’s dark—”

  “No, really, it’s fine. I can make it.”

  “Okay, if you say so. Stay safe, then.”

  He tapped the tip of my nose and stepped back, his silhouette blurring slightly and vanishing before my eyes.

  The streets were finally silent, but as I hurried home, I got the sense that I was never truly alone.

  * * *

  “Connor, you don’t happen to know anyone with a black suit, do you?” I pressed my phone closer to my ear while navigating the pre-homeroom chaos of the hallway the next morning.

  I hadn’t told my dad or brother about my near mugging or the mysterious super who saved me. I’d thrown my dirty clothes in the hamper, made sure to wash the remaining blood from my forehead, then hid in my room the rest of the night. Though I was still curious if Connor knew of a hero with a similar description. Odds were he would have crossed paths with the guy at a crime scene at some point—or at least heard about him through the rumor mill. There was nothing—well, nothing except my brush with danger—that happened in Morriston that Connor didn’t know about.

  “What, like a super suit?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you?”

  “School. Homeroom hasn’t started yet. Where are you?”

  Faint honks of car horns carried through the speaker, mixing with a loud screech of what sounded like a very large bird. “I’m downtown on top of the Steel Building.” Of course he was. Because where else would he go at 7:30 in the morning? The bird screeched again, and Connor muttered a string of profanities.

  “The guy didn’t have a symbol on his chest if that helps,” I said, trying to stay quiet so I wasn’t overheard.

  “Damn bird! Go pick on someone your own size. Just ’cause I know how to fly—” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I really haven’t heard of anyone who wears a suit without a symbol. Why are you asking?”

  “Well, I saw that video this morning.…” The video in question had been circulating around school like wildfire. Security camera footage time-stamped early this morning showed a guy who looked suspiciously like the super from last night, crouching in front of a homeless man on a sidewalk downtown. There was no audio, but the super could be seen gesturing animatedly to the man before disappearing and reappearing a minute later with two large bags of takeout and a few mugs of coffee. The wide grin on the elderly man’s face as he tore into his meal was enough to warm even the coldest of hearts.

  It looked like Morriston had a new hero in town. If he kept it up, he could have his own fan club by lunchtime.

  “Oh, him,” Connor said. “I saw that too. My competition.” He gagged loudly.

  “Be nice,” I scolded. “I saw him yesterday after school. It looked like he was helping … someone.” Twisting the truth never hurt anyone, right?

  “We’ll see,” Connor grumbled. Then he swore so loudly I flinched. “Oh my God! Get off my roof, you ugly little—sorry, Sis, I’m having a crow crisis, a herd of them.”

  “It’s fine.” I walked farther down the hall and stopped in the doorway of my homeroom, squinting at the news coverage playing on the TV in the corner. “And, Connor, it’s a murder of crows, not a herd.”

  “Who got murdered? Sorry, there’s another one attacking me. It nearly shit on my suit.”

  “I said it’s a—”

  I was interrupted from telling him the difference between a murder and a herd by the “breaking news” chime on the television.

  The screen flashed to a shot of city hall downtown. A helicopter filmed overhead, and massive orange flames engulfed the building’s left side. Thick black smoke swirled into the air. As I watched, the flames transferred to the building next door, sprouting along the awning over the doorway, and the fire grew, spreading its germs like a disease.

  “Connor—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I see it. I have to go.” The line clicked and was dead.

  I felt a pair of hands brush my shoulders. “Morning, Abby.” Sarah smiled, but her grin slipped away when she saw the morning news. “Is that city hall?”

  I nodded mutely. Half the students in the room were watching diligently to see if city hall would really burn to the ground before the supers could save it, but the other half were staring at me, waiting to see how I would handle the news that my father’s workplace wa
s crumbling to ash.

  I looked at the clock hanging crooked above the whiteboard. It wasn’t even eight, so logically I knew my dad wasn’t in the building. But then I started second-guessing myself. What if he had to go in early today and I didn’t know? What if he died before Connor could save him? What if someone else in there died before Connor could save them? What if Connor died?

  My stomach twisted violently. My heart weighed a million pounds.

  I couldn’t lose another family member. I wouldn’t.

  I was halfway through dialing my dad’s number, fingers shaking, when a reporter on the television began to speak.

  “We have a new development in the act of arson at city hall,” the female reporter explained to the camera. She stood downtown, about a block from the building. I caught a glimpse of red flash through the air, and the knot in my stomach lessened knowing my brother was still okay.

  The television screen changed to a shaky cell phone video taken from an apartment across the street. “We have obtained video evidence of the criminal traipsing through Mayor Hamilton’s office before lighting the building on fire. Thankfully, the mayor and his staff were not in the building at the time—”

  I slipped my phone into my backpack, relief flooding through me. I leaned against Sarah, and she wrapped her arms tightly around my shoulders.

  The reporter continued. “The man committing the act of arson was dressed head to toe in some type of black suit, and authorities believe that a super is, in fact, the one to blame for the destruction.”

  The video zoomed in, and even though the footage was grainy, I could still make out the familiar plain black suit and mask. It was clear he was the one standing in front of my father’s desk with his hands clasped tightly behind his back. The bright orange fire reflected off his dark clothes. He didn’t try to quell the flames; he didn’t do a thing. The super spent a few seconds admiring his work before disappearing, just as he had last night.

  “The criminal is being called Iron Phantom due to the armored sheen of his suit and his ability to materialize and vanish at will, much like a ghost,” the reporter continued. “We are urging citizens to stay alert for any other suspicious activity possibly connected to Iron Phantom, and not to approach this dangerous man if encountered. Developments in this story will be brought to you as soon as they are available, until our supers are able to apprehend this threatening fugitive. Now, back to Robert in the studio.”