Villainous

by Matthew Cody

  “Answers,” said Clay. “I want answers, but instead of talking, you know what I think I’ll do? Beat the answers out of you. More fun that way.”

  Daniel could run. Clay wasn’t super-fast, and he couldn’t fly (in fact, he was scared of heights), but where to run to? Clay had him cornered against a stack of old-fashioned iceboxes. The wood had been eaten away in places, and the holes stared down at Daniel like eyes. They were the only witnesses to what was about to happen. Eric wasn’t here to save him this time.

  “Bud came to us,” said Daniel. “He came to the Supers because Eric stood up for him when you wouldn’t. But it’s not too late to get your friend back. You said it yourself: Drake and his friends think they’re better than you. Bud doesn’t. He’s a real friend.”

  Clay cracked his knuckles, but he didn’t come any closer. His tiny eyes were all scrunched up as if he was struggling with something painful. A thought perhaps.

  “Did you talk to Bud—” Clay started to say, but before he could finish, there was a blue flash, followed by a sound like a whip crack, like lightning. Clay’s whole body went rigid, his eyes opened wide in surprise. Then he collapsed, the air stinking of ozone and burnt hair.

  “Well, well,” said Simon, emerging from the shadow of one of the tall towers of junk. “I always wondered if Clay was vulnerable to electricity. Now we know!”

  Daniel looked from Simon to Clay’s fallen body and back again. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

  “You … you did this?” asked Daniel.

  “Been practicing,” said Simon.

  Simon walked over and carefully nudged Clay with his toe. “He’s out. Good thing too, ’cause after a shock like that, I think I’m gonna need a while to recharge.”

  Despite Simon’s assurances that Clay was out, Daniel stepped carefully past him and quickly put several yards between him and the unconscious bully. He was relieved that Clay wouldn’t be pounding him anytime soon, but on the other hand, Daniel had hoped he could talk his way out of it. And if Daniel had to choose between reasoning with a conscious Clay or running from an unconscious one, he’d always choose the latter.

  “How’d you find us?” asked Daniel.

  “I saw Clay dragging you out of there, and since hanging around didn’t seem like such a good idea, I followed you.”

  “Did you see what happened next?” asked Daniel. “What did … Principal Noble do?”

  “The last thing I saw was Drake hanging his head like a whipped puppy as Noble lectured him. No way was anyone gonna tangle with that guy. It’s like Clay said, you can practically feel that dude’s power. It’s creepy.”

  At this, Daniel allowed himself to breathe a small sigh of relief. He’d been afraid that the Nobles might try to fight Johnny, and heaven only knew how that would go. Not even Daniel was really sure what Johnny was capable of, power-wise.

  “C’mon,” said Simon. “I don’t mind zapping Clay when his back’s turned and can’t prove it was me who did it, but I don’t want to be here when he wakes up.”

  That was the smartest thing Daniel had heard all day. He and Simon walked quickly past the ancient stacks of the old junkyard. For some reason Daniel didn’t feel comfortable talking any more than they had to until they were well clear of it. Just like a cemetery, it felt wrong to disturb the silence.

  “The way out’s through there,” said Simon once they’d reached more familiar ground.

  “I want to go back to the clearing,” said Daniel. “I need to see if my friends are okay.”

  “Are you nuts? If the Nobles catch you there, you’re toast.”

  Daniel wasn’t afraid of the Nobles now that Johnny was on the scene.

  “I’m still going,” Daniel said.

  Simon shook his head. “You’re something else, you know that? Why’d I bother saving your butt in the first place?”

  “I was wondering the same thing, actually. Why did you?”

  “I owed you, remember?”

  Daniel did. “I figured you’d blame me for what happened,” he said. “Because I didn’t save you from the Shroud.”

  “But you tried,” said Simon. “Even though I was kind of a jerk to you, you still tried. Even broke your arm trying, didn’t you?”

  Daniel nodded. He’d fallen out of Simon’s window that night just after catching his first glimpse of the Shroud.

  “Look, it’s not like we’re best buds now,” said Simon. “You and Eric and all that do-gooder nonsense still make me want to puke, okay? But I owed you one for that night, and now I don’t. We’re even.”

  “So all that stuff you said back there,” said Daniel. “All that stuff about not being a Super anymore, that was just talk?”

  “Nope,” said Simon. “I meant every word of it. Being a Super is worthless now. Drake showed everyone that. And you should still take my advice: This isn’t your problem anymore. Leave it to the academy. Johnny will straighten those kids out. You just need to go home.”

  With that, Simon waved goodbye and headed for Clay’s back door, the giant hole in the fence. Daniel walked in the opposite direction, picking his way through the stacks until he reached the clearing. As he went, he listened carefully for any sounds of movement. Who knew when Clay would wake up, and if he’d been mad before, he’d be furious now.

  Daniel didn’t want to think too hard about that possibility. He needed to check on his friends and get out of there as quickly as he could. But he knew even before he reached the clearing that he was too late. It was quiet—only the whistle of the wind blowing through the junk stacks. As he rounded the corner, the exact spot where Clay had grabbed him, he saw that it was empty. Whatever had taken place here after Johnny arrived, Daniel had missed it.

  Footprints crisscrossed everywhere in the garbage-strewn mud, but eventually they all led off in the same direction, toward the front gate. The air here still smelled faintly of smoke, but all of Drake’s fires had been put out. A few charred scraps of paper floated on the wind. There was no other sign of what had become of his friends, but Daniel suspected that if he followed those footprints, they’d lead him all the way back to the academy.

  There was nothing more to be done here, and it was getting late. There was a trail near Clay’s back-door entrance that would take Daniel on a shortcut through the woods and to home. He’d just started for it when he heard a new sound that could not be mistaken for the wind. He heard a girl, crying.

  It was soft and muffled, like the sound you make when you cry into your hand or your pillow at night, and it was close by. But Daniel was alone. Unless …

  “Rose?” Daniel asked cautiously. He didn’t want to risk calling out any louder than he had to.

  “Yeah,” answered a small, sniffly voice from nowhere.

  He was right. “What are you doing here?”

  “They all left. After the fighting was over, they all left and they forgot about me.”

  “And were you invisible? Like you are now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Daniel sighed. Of course she’d been left behind; no one had even been aware she was there. “You know, Rose, it would be really great if I could, you know, see you when I talk to you.”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t wanna.”

  Daniel sighed again. It was pointless to argue. “Then can you at least tell me where you’re standing? So I could face you?”

  He nearly jumped when he felt a tiny hand give his arm a tug. She was right next to him.

  “Great, thanks,” said Daniel.

  Rose was quiet for a moment. Daniel listened for the sounds of anyone approaching. It wasn’t safe to stay there for much longer, but he didn’t want to scare off Rose again. If she got lost while invisible, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to find her.

  “Daniel,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why was everyone fighting?”

  Daniel opened his mouth to say that Eric was standing up to bullies and that his friends were helping him. That the Supe
rs were helping people like they always did.

  In the end all he could say was “I don’t know.”

  “I saw Johnny Noble, Daniel,” she said. “I saw Johnny, and he took everyone back to the academy.”

  Daniel remembered that Rose had seen Johnny once before, back in the Old Quarry when Johnny had secretly healed Eric after his fight with the Shroud.

  “Johnny looked real mad,” she said. “He made that one kid bring Eric back from wherever he’d disappeared him to. Iowa, I think he said.”

  Well, at least Eric was back unharmed. Not like he had been in any immediate peril, apparently. Hunter might have been able to teleport him anywhere—over a live volcano, Antarctica. Iowa wasn’t so bad.

  “What’s Johnny doing here?” asked Rose.

  “He’s … he’s the principal.”

  “Huh?”

  “C’mon, I’ll explain everything to you, but we need to get going. It’s not a good idea to hang around here, even for invisible girls.”

  Eventually, Rose slipped her invisible hand into Daniel’s, and the two of them snuck out through the back of the junkyard. There wasn’t any sign of Clay, although whether this was because he was still unconscious or because he’d already fled himself, Daniel didn’t know.

  What he did know was that it had been a long day full of confusion and frustration, and that the only clear thing to do right now was to make sure Rose got home safe and sound.

  The rest could wait.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Heartbreak

  Daniel did make sure that Rose got home safely, but his courage nearly failed him when they reached her house. After all he’d been through that day already, the thought of facing Louisa again was almost more than he could handle. In the end, he figured it would be worse to have Louisa know that he’d walked her little sister home but had been too cowardly to actually see her to the front door. And maybe Louisa wasn’t even there. Maybe Rose would just say goodbye and Daniel could slink away, pretending that his dignity was still intact.

  But it was not to be. As soon as Rose opened the door, she shouted, “Mom, I’m home!” followed quickly by, “Louisa, come see who I brought with me!”

  Rose’s mom appeared in the hallway, clutching a phone to her ear, her face pale with concern. “Rose!” she cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

  She had thrown her arms around her youngest daughter before remembering that she still had a phone to her ear, and said, in a considerably lower voice, “Oh, sorry, Sheriff Simmons. No, she’s just walked in now. Yes, yes, I will. Thank you.”

  “Hi, Mom,” said Rose.

  Daniel saw Louisa hanging back at the end of the hallway, watching.

  “Where have you been?” said Rose’s mom, her relief swiftly turning to anger.

  “Everyone left without me,” said Rose.

  “Rose, were you invisible?”

  Rose nodded.

  “Oh, Rose. How many times do I need to tell you—no one can help you if they can’t see you, sweetheart.”

  “Daniel found me,” said Rose. “He walked me home.”

  Rose’s mom looked up at Daniel as if noticing him for the first time. “Daniel! Oh well, thank goodness for that! I feel like I should offer you a reward.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, Mrs. Rodriguez,” said Daniel. “It was on my way.”

  “Come on, then, Rose,” said Rose’s mom, shooing her into the kitchen. “Let’s get you something to eat. You must be starving.”

  Rose and her mother disappeared and left Daniel with Louisa. It was the first time they’d actually been alone together since the infamous kiss.

  “Thanks for bringing Rose home,” she said. “Mom was really worried. I’m in loads of trouble for coming home without her.”

  “No problem,” said Daniel.

  “Do you want to take a walk?” she asked.

  “Oh, why?” Daniel said, feeling a warmth rise to his cheeks. “I mean if you want to.”

  Louisa made a face, and brought her hand up to her nose. “It’s just … Have you been rummaging through garbage or …”

  “Huh? Oh! We were in the junkyard!” After a day spent with Bud, and being tossed around the junkyard, Daniel could only imagine how he smelled. Actually, he didn’t have to imagine; all he had to do was lift his shirt to his nose to get a whiff.

  “Sure, let’s walk,” said Daniel, anxious now to get outside. No wonder Mrs. Rodriguez had taken Rose away so fast.

  They stepped outside as Daniel apologized for the stink.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Louisa. “But I guess you probably should be getting home.”

  “Yeah. My parents kind of freak out these days if I’m even a minute late.”

  “I know the feeling. C’mon, I’ll walk you down the block.”

  They crossed the Rodriguezes’ immaculately manicured lawn in silence and turned onto the street. The street lights would be buzzing to life soon.

  “So, did they fight?” asked Louisa. “Eric and Drake?”

  “Sort of,” said Daniel. “In the end it was Supers versus Nobles, thanks to Mollie leaping into it.”

  Daniel saw Louisa stiffen at the mention of Mollie’s name. What was going on between those two?

  “But Drake and his Nobles, they kind of kicked the Supers’ butts.”

  Louisa looked shocked. “Is everyone okay?”

  “I think so. Johnny showed up and put an end to it before it got too serious, I think.”

  “Wow,” said Louisa. “How old is he now?”

  “Gotta be nearly a hundred. But you’d never know it.”

  “Where’s he been all this time?” said Louisa. “And why’d he come back now?”

  “He’s not what we thought,” Daniel said. “He’s trying to do some good, I think. At least I hope he is. But Johnny’s no superhero. He’s not a villain either. He’s just a guy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Johnny had said almost those exact words to Daniel once before, and Daniel supposed he was finally coming to accept it. Johnny had been a real hero the night of the St. Alban’s fire. He’d rushed into a burning building to save those kids, but did that mean he had to be a hero forever? Daniel wondered if anyone had what it takes to live up to that kind of expectation their whole life, especially when they lived to be a hundred.

  But Johnny wasn’t what either one of them wanted to be talking about. Not really. They walked together for a while longer before Daniel finally worked up the courage to apologize. In some ways, it was harder than facing down the Shroud.

  “Louisa, I’m sorry I … haven’t been around. Haven’t called or anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just that, we’re such great friends, and I don’t know if being more than that is a good idea.”

  Louisa surprised him with a laugh. “You are something else, Daniel Corrigan.”

  “Wha— Huh?”

  “All this time, you’ve been avoiding me because you didn’t want to be my boyfriend?”

  “Well … Uh.”

  “Did I ever ask you to be my boyfriend?”

  “No. I guess not.”

  “You’re cute, Daniel. Cuter than you think, but here you are walking around telling everyone you’re the world’s greatest detective and you don’t have a clue.”

  “Hey, I never said I was the world’s greatest anything!” said Daniel. Then, “You really think I’m cute?”

  Louisa took Daniel’s hand in hers. “We, all of us, all the Supers, owe you so much. You stuck your neck out for us again and again, and I will always be thankful. But I gave up on the idea of us being more than friends months ago. I moved on, Daniel.”

  “But …” Although Daniel tried to catch up with what Louisa was saying, it wasn’t working. His brain had gone sluggish on him. “But then why have you been acting all mad at me?”

  Louisa let go of his hand, and did a very Mollie thing. She punched him. In the arm, and
a lot more playfully than Mollie would’ve, but it still smarted.

  “Hey!”

  “I’ve been mad at you because you will barely look at me! We were friends before we kissed, and I was hoping we would be friends after, Daniel.”

  “Of course! No, Louisa, of course I want to be friends. That was exactly my point, I just—”

  “—walked around for the last six months thinking I was pining away for you? Afraid to talk to me because you didn’t want to break my fragile heart?”

  “Eh, when you put it like that …”

  “Promise me you won’t be this thickheaded again, Daniel. Promise me that we are still friends, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  “And promise me that you won’t act like a wood post with the next girl you kiss.”

  “Okay. I guess.”

  Louisa took Daniel’s hand again in hers, and this time, she shook it. “Settled,” she said. “We’re friends. Now I better get back.”

  “Okay.”

  Louisa smiled and began walking toward her perfect white house. She hadn’t gone very far, though, before she called over her shoulder. “I hope you two know what you’re getting into,” she said. “You’re both bordering on hopeless!”

  You two? What was she talking about?

  She left Daniel standing on the side of the street, happy that they were friends again, but more confused than ever.

  Rohan had been right, and the fight in the junkyard had earned two weeks of detentions, plus probation, for every academy student present. Days passed and there were no more attacks, and Daniel began to think Simon might have been right about the Nobles—he should just let Johnny sort them out. For once, it looked like someone else would end up saving the day.

  Meanwhile, if there was a soul left in Noble’s Green who didn’t know by now that Johnny Noble was the academy’s principal, that person had to be living in a cave. After Johnny’s flashy appearance at the junkyard, plenty of parents heard about Principal Noble, and it didn’t take long for people to put two and two together. Every day the papers were filled with wild speculations about Johnny: Was this the original Johnny Noble, and if so, where had he been all these years? Why was he here now? Did he even have a degree in education?