The Supervillain and Me

by Danielle Banas

  “Here, use these.” Rylan reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of binoculars. When I looked at him in surprise, he hunched over his steering wheel. “I was a Cub Scout when I was seven. What do you expect?”

  While I spun the knob to focus the binoculars on Wallace’s front door, I tried to picture Rylan wearing a teeny-tiny uniform with a teeny-tiny tie. I couldn’t do it. Too much black spandex had tainted the image.

  “I still don’t see anything,” I said. I panned the binoculars across the front yard. A raccoon hiding under a shrub near the garage was the only movement I detected. Like all my other ideas, maybe this one was a bust too. What had I really expected us to learn about the nanobots while stalking my dad’s security advisor?

  I made another sweep of the yard with the binoculars, and then back again.

  “Oh! Wait!” A light flicked on above a side door next to the garage, spilling across the grass. The raccoon darted down the street.

  Rylan’s hand made contact with my head. “Get down, get down.” We held our breath, peering over the dashboard while two shadows appeared at the door. The first one stayed put, their body invisible in the dark, but the second grabbed a trash can and dragged it to the edge of the road.

  “That’s it?” I muttered, feeling the irritation creep up the back of my neck. Wallace deposited the trash beside his mailbox, dusted his hands on his jeans, and returned to the house. Both shadows disappeared as the door closed, but the light remained on.

  “Maybe there’s a dead body in it?” Rylan suggested half-heartedly.

  “Or maybe he doesn’t recycle. Wouldn’t that be a scandal.” I dropped the binoculars in a cup holder. “This was pointless. Sorry I dragged you out here.”

  “Okay, that right there is how I know you don’t watch nearly enough crime dramas. Abigail, everyone knows that nothing good happens until hour three of the stakeout.” Rylan reached blindly into the back seat, retrieving the snacks. “Licorice?”

  * * *

  Stakeout, hour one: Rylan and I ran out of napkins to wipe the potato chip grease off our fingers. We had to resort to using Rylan’s floor mats, something he cringed about but eventually got over.

  Stakeout, hour two: I impressed Rylan with my ability to recite the alphabet backward. He reciprocated by reciting every element in the periodic table in under forty seconds, giving me a headache for the next ten minutes.

  Stakeout, hour three: The raccoon returned to Wallace’s shrub … followed by a second raccoon that appeared slightly too … excited, for lack of a better word.

  Stakeout, hour three and a half: I’d officially eaten more fudgy cookies than my stomach could hold. Wallace hadn’t made another appearance.

  “I’m bored.” I nudged Rylan in the shoulder. “Entertain me.”

  He pushed me back—just barely. His eyelids were drooping shut. “You entertain me. You’re the thespian. Tell me a story.”

  “I don’t know any stories.”

  Rylan yawned. “Dirty lies. Tell me the most embarrassing story you have. I promise I won’t laugh.”

  “Now that is a dirty lie.”

  His only response was to recline his chair back, closing his eyes while he waited for me to continue.

  “Fine. Jeez,” I said. “Okay, how about this? Do you remember in seventh grade when we had Miss Gentilli for gym class?” Rylan nodded. “Do you remember how terrifying she was?”

  He chuckled. “Sort of. She was ex-military, wasn’t she? I just remember teleporting in and out of the showers that year so none of the guys had to see me naked. Didn’t want to blind anyone or anything,” he added.

  “Yeah, I’m sure twelve-year-old Rylan was positively horrific.”

  “Horrific wasn’t really what I was implying.”

  “You’re as awful as my brother.” I slapped the console between us. “And this is my story, not yours.”

  “Sorry, sorry. Continue, please.”

  “My pleasure. Anyway, one day in class Gentilli made us play football. And I’m bad at almost all sports, but football was the worst. I couldn’t grasp the concept that you don’t pass the ball once you get it. You just kind of run until someone hits you, which never seemed very team-oriented to me. And so I kept trying to pass the ball, and of course Gentilli just got really angry really fast. So she took me out of the game and made me stand in the corner all alone. That didn’t bother me because I hated gym anyway … but then I needed to use the bathroom.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. I thought Miss Gentilli would yell at me if I asked—she probably would have made me do, like, fifty push-ups or something. And of course I was too young to just say ‘screw it’ and go anyway. So I stood there. And stood there. And stood there. And eventually, I couldn’t hold it anymore, so I just peed all over the gym floor.”

  Rylan curled up on his seat in a fit of laughter. “No way!” Even in the dark, I caught a tear slide down his cheek. He wiped it away and continued laughing.

  By now, I was laughing too. I hadn’t thought of this story in years—I’d done a fine job of blocking it from memory. But here it was. And somehow, it was hysterical this time around instead of absolutely mortifying.

  We were trying so hard to be quiet as we sat in the car that we just ended up laughing harder. Rylan pounded the seat with his fist, and I started smacking his stomach, and then we were just laughing and hitting each other for no reason at all. I was grateful I didn’t drink much pop. My bladder didn’t want to go for round two.

  “That’s classic,” Rylan said at last. “Everyone has a urine story.”

  “Yeah? What’s yours?”

  “Abigail, that’s between me and Mr. Brown from sixth-grade bio. I’ll never tell,” he said with a wink. “I can’t believe you told me yours, though.”

  I tried to pinch him in the arm, but he dodged me, leaning against the window. “You’re so mean.”

  “I’m a supervillain,” Rylan said. “We’re supposed to be mean.” He moved toward me, reaching for the binoculars and flipping them between his hands. “Hey … Abigail?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You … you’re…” He put the binoculars back down, stalling. “You’re really beautiful, you know.”

  I snorted. “I just told you that I peed on the floor in gym class and that’s what you come up with?”

  Rylan chuckled. “Well, you also have a cookie crumb on your face. Is that better?”

  “Oh, God. Where?” I scrubbed my palm against my left cheek, down my jaw.

  “Other side. Let me.”

  He leaned close enough that I could smell the sugar from the pop on his breath. Fingers brushed down my skin, his hand cupping my jaw as he whispered, “Got it.”

  “Thanks.” For some reason, my heart suddenly felt two sizes too big for my body.

  He was still so close, looking at me in that unblinking way of his. Then finally, he smiled. A wide, bright smile that could extinguish the sun and knock the moon right out of orbit.

  If I was beautiful, then he was radiant.

  “You know,” I said, “nothing very exciting is going on at Wallace’s house.…”

  Rylan’s lips quirked up further. “I’ve noticed.”

  “I doubt we would miss much.…”

  “Highly doubtful,” he agreed.

  “So if we were to…”

  I edged forward. His arm found the curve of my waist, and he met me halfway.

  His lips brushed over my cheeks, nose, eyelids, the corner of my mouth. My stomach felt tight, hot, like something was crawling around inside and needed release. His kisses made me feel warm, loved, truly powerful for once in my life.

  I hesitated.

  Loved?

  I hadn’t acknowledged the extent of my feelings until that moment. They had always been there, I realized, lurking under the surface, but I never thought about how serious this could get. Love. I was inching toward it. That was big, huge. I wasn’t in love with Rylan yet—it was too soon—but I
would be. Maybe in a day. Maybe in a week. Our relationship was moving full steam ahead, and eventually my heart would catch up. And when it did … My God. When it did, there would be no turning back.

  Rylan pulled back, cracking a lazy grin, his eyes hooded from being kissed. “See?” he said. “Beautiful.”

  Crash!

  The sound echoed through the neighborhood, destroying any hope I had of crafting a decent response.

  We reached for the binoculars simultaneously, which resulted in Rylan looking through the left lens while I peered through the right, focusing on Wallace’s house at the end of the street. Glass from two broken headlights glittered on the concrete, and a dark shape was lying on the driveway, its torso beneath what I assumed was Wallace’s car.

  “What are they doing?” Rylan asked. He jostled the binoculars a bit as we leaned forward.

  There were five houses between Rylan’s car and Wallace’s home, just far enough away that I couldn’t make out the identity of the figure. It was wearing dark baggy clothing with a hood pulled over its head. As we watched, the figure picked up a brick and smashed it through the windshield of Wallace’s car.

  The alarm blared. Wallace’s porch light flickered on, and throughout the neighborhood, dogs started yapping uncontrollably. Rylan had just tossed the binoculars in my lap and was about to teleport outside the car when Wallace flung his front door open and barreled into the yard. He fired two shots into the air from a pistol, but the criminal was already running, vaulting over the next-door neighbor’s fence and taking off into the woods behind the house.

  “Come on.” Rylan pulled at my hand, and suddenly we were standing behind a cluster of pine trees, my head spinning. The crack of Wallace’s gun cut through the air once more; then his door slammed shut. We jogged into the woods, trying to listen for footsteps to signal that we weren’t alone, but the night had fallen silent. Whoever the criminal was, they had gotten away.

  “Great.” Rylan spun in a circle, but the woods pressed in on all sides, blinding us. “Iron Phantom will probably get blamed for that one too.”

  “I know. The guy didn’t even steal anything from the—wait a second. Rylan…” I gripped his arm. “What if that was no regular Morriston criminal? What if that was the man who’s been framing you?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Time has a way of flying when you’re most ill equipped to chase after it.

  We were no closer to uncovering the secret of the nanobots or the man who vandalized Wallace’s car, but to the rest of Morriston that didn’t matter. To my father that didn’t matter. When I walked into school, Rylan cornered me and dropped the bomb, effectively turning me into a stuttering, anxious mess. City hall was starting their microchip injections, and they were sending medical representatives to Morriston High School. Today.

  “Rylan, we have to tell somebody.”

  “Who?” He pulled me off to the side of the hall, out of earshot of the students scurrying to class. No one was running, no one was crying, no one realized they were about to get a tube of nanobots shoved inside their body. To them, Iron Phantom was the enemy. If this was the only way to deal with him, then so be it.

  “Abigail, I’d take this to the police if I could, but—”

  “But then they’ll know you stole the nanobots, and they’ll know you’re you-know-who, and then they’ll chain you up somewhere so you can’t teleport away despite being innocent.” Rylan couldn’t teleport if he was attached to something heavier than he could carry, a weakness he had told me about two nights ago when I asked him how it worked.

  “We could talk to Hunter,” I offered.

  Rylan’s lips puckered. “Who the heck is Hunter?”

  Was that a hint of jealousy I detected?

  “Relax. He’s Connor’s friend, uh…” I cupped my hand over my mouth as we huddled in the corner by the elevator. “Fish Boy.” Maybe I should have felt bad about spilling another super’s identity, but I didn’t have the time. I couldn’t stomach keeping secrets any longer.

  I continued. “Hunter’s already suspicious that something isn’t right. Maybe he could help.”

  “I don’t know.… Do you really think we can trust him? Can we trust anyone?”

  I wished I could say that we could trust my dad. He’d spent breakfast reciting all the benefits of using the chips to Connor and me, all the lives we would save by detecting premeditation. Dad’s goal was to keep Morriston safe—the chips would do that. Connor excitedly bounced at the kitchen table as he listened. I just focused on not throwing up my cereal.

  How could my dad lie to us—to the entire city?

  Or was he even lying? I was still holding on to that shred of hope, as delicate as a piece of tissue paper, and praying it wouldn’t tear completely in two.

  “You can’t ask him,” Rylan stressed. The warning bell chimed a few seconds later, leaving the halls nearly deserted. “I really don’t think we should ask anyone. The nanobots need to be activated by an outside source before they can start working. An injection technically won’t hurt anyone. But if your dad thinks we’re suspicious, he can order them to be activated right away—before we figure out what they really are. And then we’re screwed.”

  “So we’re just supposed to let some nurse stick us with a needle?” We headed down the hall.

  “I was stuck with so many needles when I was a kid,” he said, rubbing over the scar on the back of his head. “It barely fazes me anymore.”

  “Um, hello? Nonpowered human over here. It kind of fazes me just a little bit.”

  Rylan pulled me into a hug outside my homeroom. Inside the doorway, Sarah caught my eye and made a kissy face. When I looked back to Rylan, a red tint covered his cheeks.

  “Everything’s going to be okay.” He quickly kissed my cheek. “I promise.” He jogged up the stairwell, chased away by Sarah’s catcalls.

  * * *

  My legs felt like jelly when Principal Davis called my history class down to the cafeteria in the afternoon to receive our microchips. Most other students lined up in the hall without complaint, busy chattering about their weekend plans and who was hooking up with whom, happy for the ten-minute reprieve from class. I, however, had spent the morning biting my nails down to nubs and struggling to swallow the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat.

  “Just relax.” Rylan sidled up to me, cutting in front of a giggling group of underclassmen. “Just pretend like nothing is wrong.”

  The people in front of me took a small step forward. I craned my neck, looking over the long line zigzagging through the hall into the cafeteria. Multiple chairs were set up inside the doors, but I couldn’t tell what was happening.

  Being almost a head taller than me, Rylan could see no problem. “There’s a woman and man in there. It looks like they’re injecting people in the forearm.”

  “Rylan, we need to go home.” I clutched at his hand, hoping if I squeezed hard enough I could will him to disappear.

  “Maybe you could get away with it, but I can’t,” Rylan said. “If I leave, they’ll just come to my house and inject me there. Principal Davis said city hall isn’t letting anyone avoid them. They’re treating these chips like seat belts. They’re ‘for safety.’” He rolled his eyes, leaning against a row of lockers. “If someone refuses an injection, they can get arrested. And besides, I can’t just hide at home. That’s not very heroic,” he muttered.

  “We can’t get those things shoved inside us either,” I protested.

  “We’ll figure something out. We’ll take them out.”

  “But—”

  “Miss Hamilton!” Principal Davis appeared behind Rylan and me, clapping us on the shoulders. I jolted, but Rylan remained completely still, lips turned into a frown. “You’re holding up the line. Kindly move forward.” Grinning, he gestured to the ten-foot gap in front of me that I’d been too busy freaking out to notice.

  I couldn’t go through with this. It wasn’t safe. We didn’t know what the chips would do to us. Before Ryl
an or Principal Davis could take another step, I shouted, “Rylan has a fear of needles!”

  “What?” Davis asked.

  Rylan hung his head. When he looked up for a second, I caught a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

  Principal Davis studied Rylan. “You’re afraid of needles?”

  “Yes!” I interjected. Davis looked from me to Rylan like he was watching a game of Ping-Pong. Rylan—shrugging, hands stuffed in his pockets—and me, waving frantically like a madman.

  “He has a very bad fear,” I continued. “Horribly, horribly terrified. In fact, he might pass out.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Just fall to the ground. Just hit the deck like that!” I smacked my hands together. By now, half the student body had turned to watch the spectacle. “Splat! Like a—a bug! Just down on the ground like a—like a dead man. Just dead.” I clapped my hands again, half-heartedly this time, when I realized my argument was losing steam and didn’t seem to be changing the principal’s mind. With hands crossed over his chest and lips pursed tightly together, he looked about two seconds away from bursting into laughter.

  “Just … gone,” I said quietly, realizing how stupid I sounded. I had an A-plus in my speech and debate class, but the only time I really needed to craft an excellent argument to save myself and my maybe-boyfriend from potential destruction, I couldn’t come up with anything better than an amateur attempt at sketch comedy. Failure, Abby. What a complete joke.

  “I should take him home,” I mumbled to no one in particular. “Just to make sure he’s okay.”

  Principal Davis shook with silent laughter. Glancing at Rylan, he asked, “Mr. Sloan, do you have a paralyzing fear of needles that may cause injury or death?”

  Yes! Yes, you do! I thought. But I seriously lacked Rylan’s superpower of mental communication. Of course, my idiot brother got superpowers even though I was the one who obviously needed them.

  Rylan knew I was trying (and failing) to perform telepathy. Don’t worry, Abigail. I got this. Then to Principal Davis, he said, “No. I’m not afraid of needles.”

  The students still eavesdropping on our conversation laughed. For a moment, I thought of smashing my hand in the door of the nearest open locker to create another distraction.