The Supervillain and Me

by Danielle Banas

  I almost threw the butter knife at him. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that if I let it out of my grasp, I would officially be weaponless. The memory of the flames flitted through my mind. The fluorescent orange that turned city hall completely black. The smoke. The tears dripping from the freshman girl’s eyes as she entered the library this afternoon. Forget the knife. Maybe I would try punching him instead.

  “You are no hero,” I spit out, my voice wavering in anger.

  Iron Phantom looked down at his suit, full lips curling into a smirk. “Is that so? The costume begs to differ.”

  I clenched my fists as a surge of annoyance bubbled through me. Heroes didn’t destroy things—they helped. Connor was a hero. Not this guy. “A hero wouldn’t have burned down city hall. You’re a villain.”

  He rolled his eyes and quickly disappeared into the breeze of the air conditioner. I slumped against the wall in relief. He was gone; he’d had enough of me.

  “Listen to me.” Before I could blink, he was back, one hand holding my shoulder against the wall while the other clamped over my mouth. So this was how it would end. I would die in my bedroom at the hands of the world’s most annoying supervillain.

  “Abigail,” he whispered, his voice so low it nearly got lost amid the hum of the AC unit. “I’m not the bad guy. I’m not a villain. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already.”

  I didn’t register much after his use of my full name. No one called me Abigail. Not because I didn’t like my name, but because everyone thought my fair hair and soft bone structure made me look younger—more like an Abby. I guess I wasn’t beautiful or sophisticated enough to be an Abigail.

  Eventually, he realized I wasn’t going to fight him and removed his hand from my mouth, resting it on my shoulder.

  “Someone in city hall is clearly up to something.” He paused, sighing. “I need you to help me.”

  “Absolutely not.” I couldn’t believe that after he set my father’s workplace ablaze he still had the audacity to ask for my help.

  “Please.” His fingers dug into my shoulders but lessened their grip when I flinched. “Please, I need you to see if you can find out anything about the microchips. I’ll be back again in a few days.”

  “Why should I help you? You could have killed somebody today.”

  “You should help me,” he said, “because as much as you hate to admit it, you already trust me.”

  I seethed. “I do not—”

  “You do.” His words were tentative and quiet, even in the deafening silence of my bedroom, not cocky like he often came across. “You haven’t stabbed me with that knife yet.” He chuckled. “You didn’t run for help or try to force me to leave. Instead, you listened to what I had to say. You trust me.” He nodded toward my nightstand. “You should try the chocolate. I’ve had, like, three bars today. It’s really good.”

  With those final parting words, he vanished before my eyes for a third time, leaving me with a knot of rage in my chest and more questions than answers.

  * * *

  Despite the media frenzy surrounding the city hall fire, I managed to block Iron Phantom from my thoughts almost all weekend. However, in the brief, though irritating, moments he crossed my mind, I couldn’t help wondering if he told me the truth when he snuck into my room. Was someone really causing problems inside city hall? Did they put the microchip on my dad’s desk and Iron Phantom just happened to find it first, or did my dad know about it? Was it really a tracking device? I wanted to ask, but my tongue felt useless in my mouth. Dad was already so stressed, and for all I knew, Iron Phantom—whoever he was—was just plain crazy and that microchip wasn’t even real.

  Even though I walked into school on Monday ignoring all traces of Iron Phantom’s existence, my nerves were still raging. Sure, I had both a test in statistics and an essay due in English, but my biggest concern was for the sheet of paper tacked up on the theater arts bulletin board.

  “I made the chorus!” Sarah elbowed her way past the crowd of students reading the Hall of Horrors cast list to reach me when I came through the door. She threw her arms around me, a curl of her hair momentarily getting stuck in my mouth while she squeezed my shoulders. “If my singing managed to get me in the chorus, you definitely got the lead.”

  “You didn’t look to see my name?” Now free from Sarah’s iron grip, I eyed the crowd swarming the cast list with trepidation. If Sarah didn’t see my name, did that mean I didn’t make it? I didn’t want to be doomed to spend the next few weeks working in the costume closet.

  My best friend shook her head and began towing me toward the list. No. Now I didn’t want to see. I tried to dig my heels into the floor, which only resulted in a loud screeeech alerting my (possible) castmates of my presence as my shoes skidded along the tile.

  “It’s not that I didn’t see your name,” Sarah said. “I was just too busy looking for my own. Here you go!”

  Sarah and I came to a halt before the bulletin board. It was decorated with yellow and pink paper and music notes, as if happy colors would somehow make the list showing which part would claim my soul for the next six weeks any less daunting.

  “I can read it to you if you want.” Sarah laughed and I groaned. Might as well just get it over with. Except … Courtney McGuire’s audition was just as good as mine. Not to mention her feet fit the extra pair of character shoes backstage whereas mine were much too small. Surely she got the female lead.

  All because of her damn huge feet.

  But Courtney didn’t get it. Her name jumped out to me instantly, and she was in the chorus with Sarah. Which meant …

  Abby Hamilton.….….…… Angeline

  I couldn’t believe it. I actually got a lead role in the musical.

  Sarah screamed, because that’s what Sarah does best, while I stared dumbstruck at the piece of paper fluttering on the board. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so frightening. I actually did it. For once I was actually good enough to shine.

  Take that, Connor.

  “I’m so happy for you!” Sarah twirled me around the hall. “I’m so happy! Wait, why aren’t you happy, Abby?”

  “What? I am happy.” And I was. The news just hadn’t hit me yet. I felt like I was walking through a fog.

  “You are?” she asked. I nodded. Sarah sighed and began reading more names on the cast list. “Well, then we need to work on your acting skills. You look like I did that time I realized I would never see Red Comet without his mask.”

  “Hey, that’s hardly fair.” Sarah moped for days when she reached that not-so-true conclusion. She even whined to Connor. He laughed in her face, then walked away.

  The great Red Comet, everyone.

  “Fine, maybe you don’t look that sad, but you look sad. Cheer up, buttercup. Who’s your sexy leading man going to be?”

  I squinted at the fine print under the fluorescent lights and glanced at the name directly above mine. Isaac Jackson. The voice of God’s most heavenly angel.

  “Ooooh! New kid!” Sarah squealed. “He might just become my new fan fiction project. I mean, that voice and that hair and those eyes.” She tilted her head to the ceiling. “Is it just me, or is it getting a little toasty in here?”

  I scanned the remainder of the list, but my eyes were drawn to the top of the page again and again, landing always on the same name. Isaac Jackson. Thinking about how incredible his performance was at auditions was making my palms sweat and my toes curl and … I just wouldn’t think about him. That was the key. I wouldn’t think about him until rehearsals started. I had enough on my mind anyway.

  * * *

  My plan was foiled almost immediately.

  As much as I tried to ignore Isaac Jackson until our first rehearsal, he managed to track me down during study hall later that afternoon. He approached me and Sarah at our usual table in the cafeteria—the one closest to the window and civilization—his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, looking wary.

  “Abby Hamilton, r
ight?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Isaac Jackson.” Good Lord. His voice could melt butter. Isaac held out a hand, and I shook it, his fingers cool against my skin. “Nice to officially meet you. I guess I’ll be playing the Arthur to your Angeline this fall.”

  Sarah’s classic Fangirl Squeal of Excitement escaped her lips, and she immediately ran toward the bathrooms, a few girls in our study hall snickering at her unbridled enthusiasm. Sarah was a hopeless romantic. In her mind, because Isaac and I were now starring in a musical, we would obviously end up married with tons of babies and she needed to give us some privacy.

  “She’s more excited about cannibalistic royals than I am,” Isaac said. He took a seat in the chair Sarah had vacated, glancing at her “homework” spread out on the table.

  Sarah wasn’t doing homework. She was in the process of making a new Red Comet collage for her locker shrine because she claimed the old one was “dated.” “Dated” in Sarah’s mind meant the pictures of Connor in her locker were from July, and it was now the end of September. Not that anything changed when the public couldn’t see Connor’s face under his mask. Red Comet could look old and gray as far as anyone knew.

  “Are you into superheroes?” I asked, noticing Isaac shuffle through Sarah’s Red Comet pictures.

  Isaac shrugged. “I don’t know much about them. We don’t have them where I come from.”

  I eyed him incredulously. “Where are you from?” I found it difficult to believe there were places in the United States without supers.

  “Small town,” Isaac said. “Idaho.”

  “That’s far. Why come to Pennsylvania?”

  “Oh, uh.” He suddenly looked nervous. Isaac played with the corner of a picture of Connor flying over the city. I noticed his fingernails were bitten down to the quick. “I came to live with my uncle,” was all he said.

  “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” The last thing I wanted was to make him uncomfortable if we were going to spend hours together in rehearsals.

  Isaac ran a hand through his dark hair, causing it to stick straight up from his forehead. “No, don’t worry about it. It’s no problem.” He didn’t elaborate on his living situation or hometown any further. “So … do you like superheroes?” He gestured to Sarah’s Red Comet photos.

  The award for World’s Most Unladylike Sound in a Cafeteria went to me as a snort erupted from my nose. Isaac raised an eyebrow while my face turned red. “Sure, I guess you could say that. They have their moments.” All I could think about was the five bucks Connor gave me to get a mustard stain out of his super suit last night.

  “You must meet a lot of them with your dad being the mayor and all.” Isaac leaned closer in his chair. None of my classmates ever bothered to ask about my connection with Morriston’s supers. Rightly so because I had never met any of them besides Red Comet.

  “I haven’t, actually,” I said. “Only Red Comet the other week during the school assembly.”

  “Huh. Interesting.” Isaac stared at me intently, his bright green eyes barely blinking. Almost as if he was egging me on to express more about my super encounters and was disappointed by my lack of information.

  Realizing I had nothing interesting to contribute to our conversation, Isaac stood. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in rehearsals, Abigail.”

  No one called me Abigail except …

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight as Isaac walked away, strengthening my resolve not to think about his dark brown hair or bright green eyes if I could help it. Because if I thought too much, I would start to wonder if it was more than a coincidence that Morriston got a new student right before the first appearance of Iron Phantom. But many guys had brown hair and green eyes, and I reminded myself I had never even seen Iron Phantom’s hair—only his eyelashes.

  His dark lashes meant nothing.

  “How did it go, Abby?” Sarah bounded back to her seat after Isaac left, a fresh glue stick in hand for her collage. She applied a generous amount to the back of Connor’s head and smoothed it down with her thumb.

  How did it go? was a loaded question. Isaac was more inquisitive than most Morriston citizens, who had grown up around supers. He seemed harmless, but I wasn’t sure. I had known most of my classmates since we were five. I knew who dated who, who had food allergies, who was afraid of butterflies. I knew virtually nothing about Isaac Jackson, and considering everything that happened over the past few days, that made me incredibly uneasy.

  “I’m not sure,” I said as I watched Sarah glue cutouts of her and Red Comet atop a skyscraper beneath the sunset. The answer to her question depended on how much I believed in coincidence.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The subway was packed to capacity as Sarah and I hopped on the express line from the suburbs into the city center. A new chick-flick was opening at the theater, and Sarah had managed to score us the last two tickets for the evening showtime. There was also an indie rock band playing at the newest venue on Morriston’s north shore and a celebrity chef opening a new restaurant in the cultural district. Despite Iron Phantom’s recent appearance, it felt like the entire city was out tonight.

  The train lurched as it took off from the platform. Sarah nudged me in the back, pointing to a few empty seats in the rear corner of the car. We squeezed through the crowd, collapsing on the plastic bench.

  “Is it just me,” Sarah asked, “or does this thing smell like BO more and more every time we ride it?”

  A group of tourists armed with brochures and thick foreign accents stopped speaking to stare down their noses at us.

  “Sorry,” said Sarah. “I didn’t mean you.”

  They grunted something unintelligible and moved to the opposite end of the car.

  “Whoopsies.” Sarah shrugged. She pointed to the spot where the tourists had disappeared. “Ooooh! Abby, hottie alert nine o’clock!”

  I couldn’t tell if it was his presence that made my stomach lurch or if it was just the ancient subway tracks. I sat quietly as Sarah bounced in her seat and Isaac Jackson edged his way through the crowd, a small group of senior boys laughing and following behind him.

  Isaac spun his baseball cap around backward as he turned to clap one of the other guys on the shoulder. His straight white teeth gleamed as he laughed. Sarah sighed.

  “I knew joining the musical was a good idea.”

  “Maybe you should stick to Red Comet,” I muttered, but I didn’t think she heard me. I still couldn’t decide if Isaac was someone I wanted to trust or not.

  I hadn’t spoken to him since he tracked me down in study hall, and I was trying to forget the resemblance he held to Iron Phantom. They each had green eyes and a similar build, and called me Abigail at least once. Those were the only similarities I had to go by—not a lot. I wouldn’t unmask Iron Phantom with those bland observations.

  I was irritated at myself for even thinking I might know the supervillain’s true identity. He could be anyone in Morriston. It was far-fetched that I personally knew one super in the city, let alone two.

  I pushed all thoughts of Iron Phantom from my mind as Isaac approached us, his friends trailing behind him. The subway lurched, and he stumbled into a map of Morriston that was hanging on the wall behind a sheet of glass.

  “Dammit. I’m not used to these things at all.” He tried to steady himself as the subway jolted quickly in the opposite direction. “Hi, Abigail. Hi, Abigail’s friend.”

  “It’s Sarah.” She grinned. “Sarah with an h.”

  Isaac nodded. The group of boys he was with passed by us. They unlatched the door that separated our car from the next and ran across the narrow platform. A big no-no in subway safety, but it was also the easiest way to win a game of Morriston truth or dare. Not that I’d ever tried it.

  Isaac wobbled as he clutched the handrails above his head. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into by jumping cars. Unless, of course, he really could teleport.

  Stupid, Abby. I shook myself back into reality as I watched
Sarah talk Isaac’s ear off. She was trying to get his help with learning lyrics for the musical. Sarah could hardly sing melodies of songs; she was having a disastrous time learning the harmonies.

  “Okay, so,” Sarah said, sitting up straight and taking a deep breath, “it’s little servant girrrrrrrl.” She pushed her voice as deep as it would go, but the result was less show-tuney-melodic and far more pregnant-moose-about-to-give-birth.

  Isaac hacked up a cough. “Ummm…” His eyes searched the subway car, landing on the door leading to the outside platform. I could make out his friends on the other side of the glass, waving him forward. His face paled. “I have to go. Nice talking to you, ladies.”

  He shimmied across the platform, arms spread out wide to brace himself; then he disappeared into the next car.

  Sarah huffed. “Was it really that bad? I didn’t think it was really that bad.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to shatter her musical dreams. “It was … really, really close.”

  “See? That’s what I thought.” Sarah looked smugly around the train car, practically daring a young couple reading newspapers beside us to try and outsing her.

  “You know, Abby…,” she said. “I think I get why you like this whole musical thing. It’s fun, and we get to wear costumes—almost like we’re superheroes!”

  I nearly choked. Superheroes. Right. I didn’t enjoy musicals because of the thunderous applause, the sense of accomplishment when nailing a high note or difficult dance step, or the sensation of genuinely feeling alive.

  No. Clearly I only did it for the costumes.

  I didn’t bother to correct her. Instead, I glanced at my phone when it buzzed in my lap. Another self-defense video from my dad. Not surprising considering Sarah and I were venturing out at night, but he could have at least sent a text along with it. A nice How’s your day? would have been fantastic. Rolling my eyes, I dropped my phone in my purse out of sight and stared out the window.

  The train tracks flashed by at a dizzying speed, running parallel to the freeway before beginning their descent into Morriston’s famous floating tunnel that traveled under the river and emerged downtown. The pinkish hue of twilight disappeared as the dark hole swallowed us up.