“But, Rylan, we still don’t know what they do.”
He scratched at the back of his neck. “I know. I’m working on it. There’s nothing in my grandfather’s e-mails to indicate that he knows anything about the nanobots. He just signed off on the microchips.” Shuffling through a stack of papers on the table, he located one of the many chips we had stolen and held it up to the light. “Maybe they do have something to do with the supers’ powers.”
“But it wouldn’t make sense for my dad to do that. He already knows about Connor. If he wanted more information, he could just ask.” I swallowed hard, looking away. Since we took the microchips at the warehouse, I’d thought about my dad’s involvement a million times, but actually believing it made my stomach sour. If I was being completely honest with myself, I’d thought it could be possible ever since Iron Phantom first showed me the empty microchip in my bedroom. But he was my dad. The mayor. He just wanted to keep Morriston safe.
Rylan looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He wouldn’t say it, but I knew what he was thinking. He thought I was being naive.
Rylan dropped the chip into the pocket of his shirt, right above his heart. “We’re getting closer, Abigail. I know it. And I have a feeling we won’t like what we find.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rylan didn’t act much differently toward me the next day at school. We met up in the library during study hall, where we sat at two adjoining computer stations and did our homework in comfortable silence. But he did surprise me when he briefly held my hand as we walked back to class, our palms lightly touching. Sarah caught us in the act, and although she didn’t pester me about my feelings for Rylan, I could tell she wanted to by the way her lips pursed like she was holding in her last breath of air. I think she knew something was going on when Rylan gave me a timid, one-armed hug and a small smile as he asked if I needed a ride home from school. I knew ride home was Rylan’s code for teleport, and even though I wasn’t crazy about entering the Black Vortex of Terror, I obliged. It was either that or ride in the Red Comet–mobile. The exaggerated wink Sarah gave me as I exited the building behind Rylan told me that she didn’t mind riding home alone.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I was starting to get used to teleporting. My body felt much more tummy-dropping-on-a-roller-coaster and much less need-to-excessively-hurl when Rylan and I arrived in my bedroom.
Rylan was all smiles as he took me by the hand and sat with me on the squashy armchair by my window. I’d expected him to act serious, still pondering the purpose of the nanobots, but he didn’t mention it once. I couldn’t say that I minded.
Rylan brought my face close to his, our lips stopping just short of meeting. His brown eyes were alight with something that looked suspiciously like mischief.
The tip of his nose brushed against mine. “I really want to kiss you right now,” he began, “but I don’t know if that will be frowned upon.”
My mouth popped open in surprise. We hadn’t kissed since before I found out Rylan was Iron Phantom, and I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t craving everything about him. “Why don’t you try it out and see?”
“You know, I thought of that, but I’d rather not get slapped across the face if something goes wrong.”
“Why would I slap you?” I laughed, taking a moment to tangle my fingers in his hair.
“Because you’re quiet,” he said. “It’s always the quiet ones you need to watch out for. You never know what they expect from you or what you should expect from them. They have the power to turn the world right on its head.”
I ran my nails along his scalp, and his eyelids fluttered shut. “Yeah, well, you’re pretty quiet yourself, you know.”
Rylan smirked and tugged my chin down to meet his mouth. “Exactly,” he whispered against my lips.
* * *
“Knock, knock. Your brother wants you downstairs.” Hunter popped his head around my doorframe after Rylan left. We’d been trying to keep quiet the past two hours in case Connor came home, and once we heard my brother and Fish Boy loudly barge into the house, shouting about football and the new taco joint that opened downtown, Rylan thought it would be best to make himself scarce. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I would have to go downstairs and force myself to socialize. My dad was making a “very important speech on the local news this evening, Abby.” I was forbidden from missing it.
“Your room is more … beige than I imagined.” Hunter turned in a circle, studying my walls and curtains.
“Did you expect pink?” I got up from my desk, being sure to stuff a note from Rylan in the top drawer, out of sight. As a joke he’d written, Do you like me? Check yes or no, and drew two large boxes underneath. Much to his amusement, I’d drawn a third box and wrote, Only when you bring me chocolate.
Hunter trailed his fingers over the photographs on my walls. “I expected there to be, like, a dollhouse in the corner or something.”
“Seriously?”
Hunter laughed. “I guess Connor always makes you sound really young whenever he talks about you. Not in a bad way, though.”
I huffed. It wasn’t like I’d proven I could take care of myself or anything. This was just more of Connor’s Iron Phantom bullshit. He thought I was too young to realize what was going on. If he only knew.
“I’m not five,” I told Hunter. “I’m perfectly self-sufficient.”
Hunter pushed a few scales through the skin on his forearms and started picking at them. “I know you are, Abby.”
“Right. Yeah.” I nodded, like I needed to convince myself. “Well, tell that to Connor. Tell him I’m not a total idiot. That I’m smart and … and mature…”
“Abby, he knows that. He trusts you. He’s just worried about the Iron Phantom thing. Everyone is.” Hunter ruffled his curly hair and gave me a look like he knew there was more going on. More than I was willing to share.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, the press conference is on soon, so…” He jerked his thumb toward the door.
As we headed down the hall, my brother’s voice floated up the stairs. “You guys aren’t making out, are you? Because I just ate a plate of nachos and they were too tasty to puke back up.”
“Actually we’re dating now,” Hunter called back, joking. We stumbled into the living room to find my brother flipping through television channels, searching for the press conference.
Connor choked on a sip of pop and crumpled on the couch in a coughing fit. “Wait, what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s being stupid. He’s too old. You’re, like, what? Thirty?” I asked Hunter.
“Ouch. I’m only twenty-three.”
“Close enough.”
Connor continued coughing, his face looking like a giant beet with blond hair.
“God, Connor, stop choking!” I yelled.
“I’m a certified lifeguard,” Hunter chimed in, puffing out his chest. “I’m a pro at the Heimlich.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I bet you are.”
“I’m fine—I’m good! Don’t touch me!” Connor pushed Hunter away as his coughing ceased and our father appeared on the television screen. “It’s on! It’s on!”
I felt light-headed from my nerves. My dad never demanded that Connor and I watch one of his press conferences. It was suggested but never mandatory. The news he was about to deliver was either very, very good, or horribly, horribly bad. I didn’t have to guess to believe it would be the latter.
Dad straightened his red-and-gold tie, stepping up to the glossy wooden podium bearing the Morriston crest—a bald eagle spreading its wings over a skyscraper.
Connor scooted to the edge of the couch. Hunter kicked up his legs on the table, relaxed as could be. I felt like I was about to throw up.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Morriston, good evening,” my father began. His voice was clear and strong, never wavering. “I come to you tonight to make an announcement—an announcement that, with your full support, will radically change our fine city for the be
tter. In the past month, the already disturbingly high crime rates in Morriston have skyrocketed. The death toll has risen. Fear has plagued our city. Our heroes can only do so much to protect us from evil, from the villainous acts committed by the criminal known as Iron Phantom.” I held my breath. Poor Rylan. I knew he was at home, watching.
“Fortunately, after much deliberation, city hall has reached a solution to better equip citizens against any further felonies by Iron Phantom and his associates. Effective immediately, with approval from the governor, all Morriston residents will receive an emotion detection device from their primary health care provider.” He held up one of the chips from the warehouse, the silver glinting in the flash of the cameras.
“These devices recognize chemical changes in the brain associated with premeditation, high levels of malice, and the intent to commit a heinous crime. They then transmit a signal to the authorities, who will alert the nearest superpowered citizen, causing them to come to the rescue quicker and more efficiently. With emotion detection devices, we save lives otherwise threatened by Iron Phantom and criminals like him. We protect our beloved city from evil. We win.
“On behalf of city hall and those families affected by violence in Morriston, I truly appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”
Benjamin Hamilton stepped away from the microphone to thunderous applause. I clenched my fingers in my lap until I surely thought they would break. Emotion detection devices.
E.D.D.
Cold sweat broke across my hairline. The file I’d found in Dad’s desk drawer—this was it. He did know about the microchips. He was behind it all.
As soon as my dad mentioned them, I thought at least one person in his audience would object. I guess my father was right about one thing. People were afraid of criminals, and after the mall explosion, they were especially afraid of supervillains—of Iron Phantom. If this magic chip would keep them safe from violence, they would surely be on board.
And yet I could just imagine Rylan pacing in his lab, inspecting the nanobots through his dozens of microscopes, suspicious of everything. Spending so much time with him had made me suspicious too. If the nanobots could do anything, then how did we know they were solely limited to stopping crime?
“Those chips aren’t going to work,” Hunter said. I’d forgotten he was sitting next to me, his arm draped casually over the back of the couch behind my head.
“What do you mean?”
He raised an eyebrow, and it got lost amid the tangle of his tousled hair. “Connor and I—all the supers—we use instinct to save people. By the time the police alert us, we’ll already know someone’s in trouble and be on our way. And think of the logistics. If someone is contacting us all the time, they run the risk of finding out who we are. And isn’t that the point? No one knows who we are. No offense, but your dad’s just wasting time and money by making everyone get injected with those things. I’m not even sure he can do that anyway.”
“Of course he can,” Connor cut in. “The state signed off on it. If people don’t like it, they can move out of Morriston. Everyone knows we’re all going to turn into cyborgs anyway, haven’t you been watching the SyFy channel? Inject me with a microchip, I don’t care. Even without Iron Phantom running around, the crime around here is out of control.” Connor stood, walking to the kitchen to grab another can of Coke and a bag of chips. “I bet Dad’s going to tell us more about it when he gets home. It sounds cool to me.”
Hunter leaned close to my ear, whispering, “There’s still no way in hell it’s going to work.”
* * *
“So I guess we know what E.D.D. stands for,” Rylan said as soon as he appeared in my room.
I looked up from the poem I was reading for English class, propping my head in my hand as I lay on my side in bed. “Rylan, isn’t it creepy to keep showing up in a girl’s bedroom at night? I could’ve been naked for all you knew.”
He tugged on his mask. Dressed as Iron Phantom, he approached the bed, climbing on top of me and holding himself up with his elbows. My textbook fell to the carpet with a thump.
“But you weren’t naked,” Rylan stressed. “And it’s only creepy if the girl doesn’t want me here, but you aren’t exactly telling me to go away, Abigail.”
He was right, of course. I wasn’t telling him to leave. What I was doing was tugging the satiny mask over his head and dropping it on the floor. Rylan shook out his hair and smirked at me. Seeing Rylan wear his super suit without his mask was weird. Actually, it was more than weird. It blew my mind—like he was revealing his secret identity all over again while lounging on my purple sheets.
“Your hair is a mess.” I patted his head, trying to fix his hair, but static electricity from his mask kept it sticking straight up. He looked like he had an unfortunate run-in with a light socket and lost.
Rylan shrugged. “Occupational hazard. Oh, and FYI, I know for a fact that those”—he made a face—“emotion detection devices don’t do what your dad says they do.”
I sat up so fast that Rylan rolled off me, nearly falling to the floor. He stood, leaning against my windowsill. “What did you find out?”
“Well,” he said, “three things. The nanobots don’t paralyze people, they unfortunately don’t cure cancer, and most important … premeditation my ass.” He scoffed. “They can’t sense that either.”
“So my dad lied? Why?” My heart sped up.
“Maybe he truly doesn’t know. Why was Wallace at the warehouse instead of your dad? If I was in charge of something like this, I would want to be there. I wouldn’t have sent my security guard.”
“Security advisor,” I corrected.
“Same thing.”
I swallowed hard. I needed to believe my dad was doing the right thing. My daddy, who used to build sand castles on the beach and braid my hair after I took baths when I was six. I knew I had to keep the option open, but right now Wallace was the only person we could truly blame. Considering he almost shot me and everything.
“Rylan…” I got out of bed and stood before him, struck with a brilliant idea that I hoped would end better than some of my previous ones. “Indulge me for a second.”
“I’m indulging.” He scrubbed his hand over the back of his head. “I’m a little nervous, but I’m indulging.”
“Have you ever gone on a stakeout?”
“No, but I watch a lot of cop dramas. I’m familiar with the concept. Whose place do you want to stake out? Wallace’s?”
I nodded.
Rylan rubbed his chin. “Interesting. I’m assuming you know where it is?”
“I haven’t been there since I was little, but I think I could find it.”
“Good enough for me.” He pulled his mask back on. “Let’s go back to my place first. I want to grab snacks.”
“Snacks?”
“Abigail.” He pulled me close, and I felt my limbs turn to jelly as we disappeared. “All stakeouts have snacks.”
I didn’t realize that when Rylan said snacks, holy cow he meant snacks. He had a greater variety of junk food in his house than you could find in a convenience store. I stood in his driveway, leaning against the back bumper of his small black sedan while he changed out of his suit and gathered our food.
“I got you fudgy cookies.” Rylan tossed a box at me. “I also have pretzels, extra-crispy potato chips, both regular and diet pop, red licorice, blue licorice—which sounds weird but I’m willing to give it a shot—three varieties of bubble gum … and carrot sticks.”
“Carrot sticks? Who’s going to eat carrot sticks?”
“I don’t know. We might have to lure a wild animal or something. I was trying to think outside the box.”
We climbed in the car, and I lined up our snack options across the back seat while Rylan studied the directions to Wallace’s house that I attempted to write from memory. They were pretty vague. One of the lines included the phrase Turn at the big tree by the mini-mart.
“Franklin won’t wonder where your food
went, will he?” I looked back at the expansive front yard of Rylan’s house as he drove through his neighborhood.
“Franklin actually isn’t home. It’s knitting night.”
“Knitting night?”
Rylan nodded. “Franklin likes to challenge gender norms.” He started to laugh. “He also likes to makes scarves, so it’s a twofer.”
I turned sideways in my seat so I could see him better. “You smile a lot when you talk about him.”
Rylan flicked on his blinker and we cruised onto the interstate. “Do I?” And now he was blushing. “I guess he’s been like my dad for the past few years. We have a lot of fun together. Oh, like this one time last year, we built one of those papier-mâché volcanoes and I put some diet pop and Mentos inside and the whole thing blew up. It got everywhere. All over the walls and the ceiling.” He chuckled as he pulled off the highway, turning onto a back road. “My grandfather got so mad. So mad,” he repeated, frowning a bit.
“He’s not around a lot, is he?”
“My grandfather?” Rylan shook his head. “Not particularly. He likes his privacy. He likes his work too.”
The silent echo of my house crossed my mind. “I know the feeling.”
Rylan reached for my hand, and we stayed that way, our fingers tangled like vines, our palms warm and touching, all the way to Wallace’s house.
When Rylan cut the engine at the corner of a tree-lined street south of the city, I had to squint through the dark to make sure we had the right place. A two-story brick monstrosity stared at us from the end of a cul-de-sac, each of its white shuttered windows blacked out. A large SUV was parked in the driveway, the engine off.
“Do you think anyone’s home?” Rylan asked.
“There’s a car in the driveway. I don’t see anything, though.”
The Supervillain and Me Page 20
