The Supervillain and Me

by Danielle Banas

  My dad stood before me and placed his hand on my cheek. It was cold and damp from holding the glass. I wasn’t used to him touching me. When I was a kid, he always gave me hugs, was always really affectionate with both me and Connor. But as the years went on, the hugs and kisses grew few and far between. He became mayor, and it was like he suddenly forgot all about the bear hugs or piggyback rides he used to give me. We both grew up, I guess. But tonight I didn’t know whether to welcome his tender touch or be angry it took my dad this long to remember what we used to have. I wanted my daddy back, but I didn’t know if he was still there.

  “It’s going to get better, Abby,” he said. “You’ll see.” His hand slid from my cheek, and he walked from the room. His bedroom door slid closed with a soft click seconds later.

  Normally after returning home from his superhero life, Connor was in a great mood. He never stopped talking, and he ate everything in sight while laughing loudly at reality television. But today, he fell on the couch and threw the remote at the ground. The TV clicked off. The room darkened.

  “I failed, didn’t I? I never failed before.”

  Here it was. The perfect opening for the question I was dying to ask. If you never failed, then why didn’t you save Mom? But it wouldn’t be right to bring it up. Not now. Not when I was hiding so many secrets from him in return.

  “Connor, that woman never stood a chance. Everything happened too fast.”

  “But if I got there sooner—”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. It was over even before it began.” I remembered Iron Phantom’s hand shaking over the girl’s chest. He could barely save her. Red Comet couldn’t have done a thing.

  “There’s a reason why I work so hard, Abby,” Connor said. “So nobody dies. And I can’t even do that right.”

  I knelt next to him on the floor. Blood still soaked the knees of my jeans, cold against my skin. I waited for him to ask why I was downtown today, but the question never came as Connor met my eyes through the dark. I needed to squint to see his face, but he didn’t have a problem seeing me with his heightened vision. He told me once how clear everything looked through his eyes, like the entire world sparkled in a sea of diamonds and every detail was magnified to the nth degree. Only Connor Hamilton would think of his world as being covered in diamonds.

  I ruffled his hair with my fingers. It fell limp in my hands. “You don’t always have to be Red Comet, you know. Sometimes you can just be Connor.”

  “No, I can’t.” He gestured to his suit. “Connor Hamilton is a nobody. You take away my powers and I have nothing. I’m a C-average student with zero plans for my future. Without my powers, I’m nobody.”

  I shook my head. He couldn’t be further from the truth. “You’re not nobody. You’re my brother.”

  “Since when is that enough?”

  I pried his mask out of his grasp and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and slid behind a cabinet. “It’s always enough.”

  * * *

  When I entered my bedroom later that night, Iron Phantom was sitting on my floor against the wall. He must have washed his suit—it was no longer bloody. He didn’t speak, but I knew he noticed my bloodshot eyes and sweaty hair. He might have cleaned up, but I still looked like a mess.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “No, you aren’t.” He nervously pulled at the fingers of his gloves, but his eyes never left mine. “My parents were in a car crash. Drunk driver ran a light just as they were making a left and smashed into the car. I was there, right in the back seat, and I tried to heal them … but I couldn’t. So they died. It wasn’t nearly as gruesome as what happened to your mom, and I wasn’t ‘fine.’ You don’t ever need to say you’re fine when it’s so obvious you’re hurting. Not everyone gets it, but I do. Please don’t pretend around me.”

  His words touched me, and I tried to hold back sniffles. I was so used to keeping secrets and pretending things were different than the truth. Maybe that’s why I joined the drama club. Faking things had become my forte. “It’s ironic you tell me not to pretend when you’re the one wearing a super suit and won’t even tell me your name.”

  His lips twitched. He motioned at me with his index finger. “Just come here, Abigail.”

  He held me on the floor of my bedroom, and I tried my hardest not to cry. But eventually, I stopped pretending.

  * * *

  “How’s your brother doing?” Sarah asked as the stage crew wheeled our eight-foot-long papier-mâché crocodile onto the stage during rehearsal.

  I shrugged while I glanced over my script. “He’s had better days.”

  That may have been an understatement. Connor was throwing himself into his Red Comet duties harder than ever, spending almost every waking minute up in the sky, but no one was taking notice. All anyone cared about was his failure and what it meant for the safety of the rest of the city. Connor had been a complete stranger to bad publicity, but now he couldn’t escape it. Has Red Comet Finally Burnt Out? was the latest headline in a string of less than positive articles about Morriston’s favorite super, accompanied by a photograph of Connor angrily throwing his hands into the air outside the City Bank. I’d caught him reading it obsessively this morning, and then he immediately threw the newspaper in the trash. And of course it didn’t help that Fish Boy was actually managing to pull off rescues by himself for once. Yesterday he saved a kitten from drowning in a swimming pool. It made the five o’clock news, and the city cooed over the cuteness. Connor’s ego had completely crumbled.

  Sarah started onstage when Rylan pushed a wooden wall of the Delafontaine castle dangerously close to her foot. “Poor guy.” She lowered her voice. “Tell him if he needs a sidekick to help him out, I probably have more Red Comet memorabilia than he does.”

  I snorted. “I don’t doubt that. By the way, how’s your Fish Boy memorabilia coming along?”

  Sarah winked. “Swimmingly.” She jumped offstage, leaving me alone.

  I pressed my palms over my eyes, silently counting the minutes until I could go home. I hadn’t been sleeping well the past few days, ever since Iron Phantom and I witnessed the murder. It came as no surprise that all of Morriston blamed him for the death—someone needed to be accused after all. But if they could have seen him that night, immobile and shaking, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  I hadn’t seen Iron Phantom since that evening. We didn’t talk much in my room, and he disappeared in the middle of the night after I fell asleep on his shoulder. I missed him. I wanted to know if the horror we witnessed affected him as much as it affected me.

  “Stressed out?” a soft voice spoke from backstage. I looked behind the curtain and found Rylan sipping from a water bottle, his lanky body hunched over the wooden podium that Principal Davis used during assemblies. “You look exhausted.”

  “Awesome.” I stifled a yawn. “Do you think I could pass off the rings under my eyes as bruises and tell everyone I got into a fistfight?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Bummer.” Another yawn worked its way out of my mouth. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” My nightmares had been steadily growing worse. I jolted awake almost every night screaming and crying, cold sweat soaking my sheets. “I’m just really tired.”

  “Speaking of tired…” Isaac sauntered out of the wings and took Rylan’s water from him, gulping it down. “I’m so exhausted I can’t even stand up straight. Thanks for the drink, man.” He tossed the bottle back, and Rylan caught it, a scowl on his face.

  Mrs. Miller motioned for us to get into positions to run the final scene of the show. Spoiler alert: Angeline gets bitten by the Delafontaine’s ferocious pet crocodile and dies, and then Prince Arthur feeds her to the reptile before his family eats her first. He then commits suicide by jumping into the crocodile’s mouth. It’s a funny musical … I swear it is.

  Anyway, Isaac was supposed to pick me up bridal style and roll me down the ramp inside the crocodile’s jaw, but because he was so “tired” he could
barely lift me.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked him, though I had a potential idea of what might have been the cause.

  He yawned, then cracked his neck. “I’ve just been, you know, here, there, and everywhere.”

  Like the scene of a murder, perhaps?

  “You’re a very vague person, Isaac Jackson.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. But if you want the truth, I’m so tired because, funny enough, I’ve been having nightmares.”

  I stiffened. “Why is that funny?”

  Isaac winked. “I have dark humor.”

  “Is that so? What are they about?” I took a step closer to him, trying to appear approachable. I was sick of playing a constant guessing game. Sick of the fact that he could spill his heart out one minute, then barely look at me the next.

  Isaac studied his fingernails. “They’re about death mostly. Well, sometimes they’re about failing English, but mostly they’re about death. Not hard in a city like this. Oh! Sorry. I heard you were at the bank the other day when those people…” He trailed off, staring at me, his green eyes never blinking. His fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out to me, but he seemed to think better of it and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “How was that?” he asked softly.

  Like he doesn’t know. “Not good, Isaac. Not good.”

  He yawned again, and the sincerity in his voice vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I can imagine. I’m sorry you had to see it. Must have sucked.”

  Isaac’s eyes shifted away from me, and he fiddled with his watch. “Look, I’m too tired to be here today. I need to go home.”

  “What? You can’t just ditch rehearsal. Mrs. Miller will kill you.”

  He rolled his eyes and made a dash for the door when our director wasn’t looking. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Mrs. Miller immediately realized his absence when she turned back around. Her red hair resembled fire, the flames licking up and down the sides of her face. We now had no one to play Prince Arthur, and Mrs. Miller was convinced somebody had to practice rolling me into the crocodile, lest I do it wrong during the show and accidentally puncture its papier-mâché mouth with my foot.

  “You!” Mrs. Miller pointed behind me and snapped her fingers. “Stage crew boy, can you lift her?”

  I turned and caught Rylan looking frantically around himself, hoping Mrs. Miller was talking to anyone but him.

  “Well, can you? You look strong.”

  “I—I mean, yeah. Yeah, I guess. But I don’t…”

  Mrs. Miller either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. She snapped her fingers again. “Pick her up.”

  “N-now?”

  “Of course right now! This is the theater, boy. Time is of the essence. The show must go on!”

  “The show must go on,” Rylan mocked under his breath. He approached me warily, like he expected me to backhand him for touching me. I didn’t really care. Participating in drama club had forced me not to mind who touched me or saw me half-naked as I changed my clothes. It wasn’t like Rylan looping his long arms around my waist and cradling me against his chest meant anything. Strictly professional.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder and tried to relax. His soft cotton shirt brushed against my cheek, and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Poor Rylan. It was obvious from the moment I met him that he was the kind of person who got stage fright. Parading a “lifeless” girl around the stage in front of thirty people certainly wasn’t helping.

  “I’m not cuddling with you or anything,” I whispered, trying to keep my lips still so Mrs. Miller wouldn’t notice. “I’m supposed to be dead, you know.”

  “Yeah.” His breathing sounded labored. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Am I too heavy or something?”

  “Nope.” More hard breathing. “You’re fine.”

  “You’re supposed to drop me now.”

  “Yeah. Okay, right. Yeah.”

  Fortunately for Rylan, his fifteen seconds of fame was coming to an end. But unfortunately for me, he was so nervous that he confused drop with throw, and he chucked me into the crocodile’s mouth so forcefully that I landed in a heap on the reptile’s squishy red tongue (which was actually a bathmat). The top set of its teeth crashed down on my head. Mrs. Miller screamed. The rest of the cast burst out laughing. But at least my foot didn’t break through its mouth.

  Oh. No, wait. It did.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Go away. I’m mad at you.” I fluffed my pillow and forcefully flipped a page in the book I was reading when Iron Phantom appeared in my room later that night.

  “Me?” He threw a hand over his heart. “What did I possibly do?”

  “You mean other than being all sweet and consoling when we’re alone together and then basically acting like a jerk at school? It’s not really fair.” I turned another page without even reading it.

  Iron Phantom sat on the edge of my bed, drumming his fingers on his leg. “I think you’re overreacting.”

  A short laugh ripped through my chest. “Okay, Isaac. Whatever.”

  “Abigail, last time I checked my name’s Steve. I don’t even know an Isaac.”

  I gripped the edge of my book. He was trying to be cute, and I wouldn’t smile. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction—

  “Hey, are you ignoring me?” Iron Phantom lay on his stomach beside me, his black combat boots waving through the air as he kicked his feet. I held my book a bit higher.

  “I’m trying to,” I said.

  “And how’s that working out for you?” His gloved fingers crawled across my mattress and started poking me in the arm.

  I would not smile, I would not smile, I would not …

  “Why is Abigail Hamilton’s face frozen into a look of constant constipation?” Iron Phantom began in a low, dramatic voice. “A shitty story that. She was once a fair maiden, but she frowned so much her lips got stuck that way forevermore.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Oh, I do. And no one would kiss her. And then she died. It was tragic.”

  My book fell to my lap.

  Kiss her.

  The words echoed in my head as they fell off his lips.

  Kiss her.

  I totally caved. I smiled. “This Abigail died just because some guy wouldn’t kiss her? Sounds like a pansy to me.”

  “Definitely. Thank goodness that, although that Abigail shares your name, she isn’t you.” Iron Phantom placed my book on my nightstand and tugged me off the bed. “And now that I’ve distracted you—”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Iron Phantom riffled through a pocket in his suit. “Okay. Fine. I apologize. I know I’m not always as charming in the real world as I am when I’m here.” He pushed something at my chest. “Now, come on. We have work to do.”

  “Huh?” I examined the object he shoved at me. A black mask covered in delicate lace flowers. “What’s this?”

  “Abigail, I know you’re smarter than that question.” He took the mask from me and got to work tying it behind my ears. “I tried to look up that E.D.D. you mentioned, but I didn’t find anything. However, I do know that there’s a shipment of microchips arriving at a warehouse by the river, so we’re off to do a bit of reconnaissance. Do you still have that sweatshirt I gave you?”

  My mind was working overtime as he dug through my closet, eventually tossing me his black sweatshirt and a pair of black cotton gloves. He thought he’d distracted me, but I was still drawn to his identity, puzzled why he wouldn’t just give up and confess already. He was infuriating. If I hadn’t already let myself be dragged into the mystery—of him and of the microchips—then I would have ignored him completely and told him to get lost. But I was already in so deep that I couldn’t crawl out of the hole I’d dug for myself even if I tried.

  “How do you know about the new chips coming in?” I asked as I pulled on the sweatshirt and the gloves. Dressed all in black, we totally matched. We just needed a dorky team name to go along with it.

  He
reached for my hand. “I know things, Abigail. You know, you’d make a pretty cute superhero,” he added, flicking the side of my mask. “Time to go.”

  When I blinked, my room dissolved before my eyes. We were huddled behind two thorny bushes, dirt and tiny stones pressing into my knees. The warehouse at the bottom of the hill was alive with a flurry of activity. It was an old building, rusty, with holes in the roof and graffiti on the walls. Pretty inconspicuous as far as shady warehouses went.

  Under the cover of darkness, an assembly line of men and women passed wooden crates from the hull of a vessel on the river. Flashlights reflected off the water and the steel beams in the building. None of the workers spoke, their movements perfectly choreographed for maximum productivity. Pick up crate. Turn. Hand it off. Pick up another crate. Rinse and repeat. They looked like robots. And that made my heart pound all the more.

  “They’re very efficient.” I felt the overwhelming need to make small talk, anything to reassure me I wasn’t kneeling on the dusty ground alone.

  Iron Phantom chuckled darkly. “Got that right. Do you recognize anyone? Anyone your dad works with?”

  We were far enough away that our whispering couldn’t be heard. But we were also far enough away that I couldn’t see anyone clearly without super vision.

  “We can get closer,” Iron Phantom suggested. He squeezed my hand, and suddenly we stood by a cluster of trees halfway down the hill. I peeked between the branches, aware of the super’s shallow breaths on the back of my neck. From this angle, we could see through an open garage door on the side of the warehouse. Inside, men wearing gloves and surgical masks took objects from the crates, injected them with something in a syringe, then gently replaced them one by one.

  Nothing about this looked right. Why bring a group of people out in the dead of night to unpack boxes and use needles if what you were doing was ethical? You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do that unless you were up to something, unless you were trying to keep a secret from someone.