Superheroes Anonymous (Book 2): Supervillains Anonymous

by Dunne, Lexie

  “We, like, just covered that. God. Thank you, Sal.” Portia took the Old Fashioned from the bartender with a nod and sipped daintily. “Mm, that’s good. Perfect for a long day of dealing with Angus.”

  I looked at the anchor-shaped clock over the bar. “It’s not even five o’clock.”

  “So?”

  “So, I used to be there until ten o’clock most nights and—you know what? Not the point. The point is, you can turn invisible. Can you fool security cameras?”

  “I guess. I mean, it’s not that hard.”

  “And can you turn another person invisible with you?”

  “Well, of cour—oh no. I see that look. And the answer is no. I don’t even want to know what it is you want me to do.” Portia knocked back the rest of her drink. “Just because I saved your ass from a couple of villains, that does not make us friends. I only do those kind of favors for friends.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It was just a couple times.” Portia checked her manicure. “Walking back to the office, maybe I turned you invisible for a second or two so a villain wouldn’t see you. It’s not a big deal. Like, we had important meetings on those days. Couldn’t it wait?”

  “With them, hardly ever.” How had I not noticed turning invisible? Yet another thing to wrap my mind around. One of my most selfish coworkers not only had some of the coolest powers I’d ever seen—or rather, hadn’t seen—but she’d also protected me in my true Hostage Girl days? “Portia, my boyfriend is in real danger from a villain, and if I don’t get this woman out of where she’s being held, I can’t help him.”

  Instantly, Portia’s entire demeanor changed. She sat up, eyes bright. “You’ve got a new boyfriend?”

  I started to say that yes, I did, but another idea occurred to me. Sending a silent apology to Jeremy, I shook my head. “More like an old one. Blaze is in trouble. I have to help him.”

  Portia stared at me with an unreadable expression for a full half minute before: “Yes! I knew it! I knew Blaze was Jeremy. Girl, you little sneak, that’s excellent news. So you two made up? Damn, you’ve been busy. You got these now”—she squeezed my upper arm through the jacket—“and you made up with the man. I want details. But not, like, boring ones.”

  “You always thought Jeremy was a jerk,” I said, squinting at her.

  “But he’s hot. So he’s in trouble?” Portia turned on the barstool to give me her full attention. “I thought he was always helping you out, not the other way around.”

  This time my silent apology was to both Guy and Jeremy. “Completely in trouble. And I need so much help. I would be willing to . . . trade? You help me, I help you.”

  Portia’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

  “Weren’t you just saying you need to learn PowerPoint?”

  “You want me to help you break somebody out of a secure building in exchange for teaching me PowerPoint?”

  “And whipping up a couple presentations. I know what Angus likes.”

  “Hmm.” Portia tilted her head as she considered this. “You’ll be back at work in a couple of weeks. I can just wait and make you do the PowerPoint then. Really, I see no benefit in this for me.”

  “Portia.” I folded my arms over my chest. I’d quit—well, had been let go from—my old job, but Portia was eternally convinced that I was coming back. “I am on the run from Detmer Prison.”

  “The supervillain prison?” Portia asked. “That’s weird, you’re a Class D.”

  I pulled off the leather jacket and flexed. “Look at me. I got these in under two weeks. Does that say Class D to you?”

  “I guess not. Why would they throw you in prison? You don’t do anything. Like, ever.”

  The reminder of my past passivity burned. “It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, in that case, I’m not interested.”

  “Portia,” I said.

  “What? I’m not.”

  “So you’re not gonna help me? At all?”

  “Probably not.” Portia waved at Sal the bartender. “I’m going to need another round.”

  “It’s that reporter,” I said, blurting it out. “The one you thought sounded really cute on the phone.”

  Portia swiveled to face me. “Go on.”

  “Just saying, um, she would be really grateful to anybody who rescues her. And maybe you’ll get her number.”

  “Is she cute, though?”

  I thought about Naomi Gunn. I wasn’t really into women at all, not like Portia, but if I had to rate Naomi, I’d call her hipster cute, I supposed. “Yes,” I said. “Very cute.”

  “I know this is manipulation, but hey, I didn’t have any plans tonight.” Portia tossed back the next drink that Sal brought over. “So, what are we breaking into? I hope it’s interesting.”

  “Just how much do you know about superheroes?” I asked her.

  Luckily, the facility where they were keeping Naomi was actually in the Willis Tower. I had no idea why, not when Guy had originally taken her to New York, but after everything that had happened to me, I wasn’t about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Vicki had given me the blueprints of the floor layout and a copy of the guards’ schedule. How she’d gotten a hold of those, I didn’t even want to know.

  There were lots of gift-horse mouths I was planning to avoid checking, actually.

  We took the car I’d borrowed from Sam’s garage because Portia didn’t want hers anywhere near the scene of the crime. While I drove, she fixed her makeup in the visor mirror. “Why are you even doing that?” I asked as I switched lanes. “The point is that nobody is going to see you.”

  “Now you understand why my powers suck!”

  We parked a couple of blocks away. Luckily, the area was crowded with tourists on their way to see the SkyDeck, so nobody really paid attention to us. Hopefully, we could slip in, snatch Naomi, and get out without anybody being the wiser. I ditched the leather jacket in the backseat of the car and led the way.

  “So how does this work?” I asked, as we walked along.

  She heaved a gusty sigh, like I had just asked her for the largest favor ever—and technically, I kind of had—and wrapped her bony fingers around my wrist. “Ta-dah,” she said.

  I looked at her. “You didn’t do anything.”

  Portia gave me her “you’re an idiot” look, one I knew for a fact she’d practiced. Wordlessly, she pointed at the mirrored windows on the building behind us. When I turned to look, I jumped. The space where we were standing was empty in the reflection. Not even a shadow was present. Portia let go of my wrist, and I reappeared in the mirror. I couldn’t see her anymore, though, not until she wrapped her fingers around my wrist again.

  “So that’s how it works. Satisfied?” she said, sounding bored.

  “We’ll have to carry our shoes when we get inside,” I said, frowning. “They’ll hear your heels.”

  Portia sighed again. “I should have just stayed at work.”

  Now there were words I would never hear her say ever again.

  They were keeping Naomi in one of the Davenport checkpoints, a set of offices that theoretically belonged to a company called Dartmoor Incorporated. Davenport had several of these areas, Guy had told me earlier. Dalloway International Hospital, where they’d taken Angélica and me after our fight at the mall, that was another checkpoint. These areas had quick access to a ’porting station, medical equipment for a good number of different hero types, and emergency supplies for supervillain attacks on the city. They weren’t typically used to hold civilians like Naomi, which was why Vicki had been called in as an extra guard.

  “It works out in your favor,” Guy had said as he pulled on the War Hammer costume. “This isn’t a fortress. It could be easier to break into.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ in your voice,” I’d said.

  “It�
�s a slim chance, but it could be a trap. Either for you or for Chelsea.” He’d frowned.

  “I promise to do my best to stay out of any traps.”

  “Good.” He’d handed me a little earwig. “I’ll be as nearby as I can be without being suspicious. If there’s trouble, shout.”

  I fiddled with this earwig. It felt strange, nestled in my ear canal. My headache had returned and was only growing stronger, but I focused past it. Portia kept her grip on my wrist as we walked up to the front doors of the building, though she seemed to be fiddling with something in her bag.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as softly as I could.

  “I’m tired of holding your hand. Ah, here we go,” she said. She pulled out a little travel container of dental floss.

  “Seriously?”

  “Have I questioned how your powers work?” She looped the floss around my wrist several times. When she was done, we were connected by several lengths of floss, which seemed both perilous and oddly funny. “Now we’re good.”

  “Right,” I said under my breath, trying to still the nerves in my midsection. It occurred to me that I was about to break into a facility owned by the company hunting for me. And I was doing it armed with little more than a flaky blonde and some dental floss. No weapons. Just my wits, which weren’t exactly the sharpest after the week I’d had.

  We had to wait for someone to exit, so we could both squeeze through the door. Shoes in our hands, we moved past security, into an elevator, and disembarked on the proper floor. We entered a lobby, which was a lush, carpeted affair done up in turquoises and maroons. A receptionist and a security guard sat behind a wide desk, both looking remarkably alert as they studied the computer screens in front of them. I held my breath, waiting for the guard to spot some anomaly on the screen, for the alarms to start.

  Portia strolled through without looking at the guard. When we made it past the lobby, she tilted her head imperiously at me.

  Remembering the blueprints, I jerked my head to the left.

  Past the lobby, the checkpoint reminded me more of a hospital. DARTMOOR INCORPORATED signs were posted everywhere on the walls and on the shirts and badges of the workers walking by. Carpeting gave way to polished linoleum, doors became bland gray metal. Observation windows were cut into the wall, and through them I could see examination rooms. We passed a patient with pretty gnarly burns covering most of his exposed skin, and both Portia and I flinched.

  “You brought me to a hospital?” she whispered. “Is this revenge for all the times I refused to visit you in one?”

  “Oh, I wish,” I whispered back.

  Workers in scrubs that I recognized from Davenport Medical strolled past us as we inched along, careful not to make a sound. Every time one came anywhere close to us, I had to fight off a miniature heart attack.

  Down the hall, I heard a familiar voice.

  I grabbed Portia and yanked her so that we were flush against a wall right as two people came around the corner. If we hadn’t moved, they would have crashed into us.

  “I mean, I could’ve gotten it checked out back at the Tower,” Jeremy was saying to Vicki in her Plain Jane gear as he walked along, holding up his injured hand. “But I wanted to say hi. You said these guard posts are really boring.”

  “Isn’t that—” Portia whispered.

  I elbowed her hard, but not in time.

  Vicki quit walking abruptly. “What is it?” Jeremy asked, stopping a couple of steps later.

  She held up a hand. The mask moved in our direction. I could see her eyes behind it, but I couldn’t deny that right then, that mask was the creepiest thing I had ever seen. Every scratch on its surface seemed to glint in the fluorescent light. Battle scars. A stark reminder that Plain Jane was one of the biggest badasses to ever badass.

  Portia and I held still, not even daring to breathe.

  “What are you looking at?” Jeremy asked, unaware that Plain Jane’s mask was less than a foot away from my face. She had her eyes pointed right at my forehead, which lessened the creepiness somewhat. But still.

  “It’s Gail,” I whispered as softly as I possibly could.

  Because I was so close, I saw Vicki’s shoulders stiffen. The mask tilted downward the tiniest fraction of an inch. “Duck,” she said, voice almost inaudible. I barely pulled Portia down in time. Vicki’s arm sailed right over our heads, and I caught the access card that dropped from her fingers.

  “What was that?” Jeremy asked when Vicki danced back a couple of steps.

  She shrugged. “Just thought I heard something. My ears are still ringing a bit from that fight with the Shockwave Sisters last week.”

  “Weird. I got some eardrops back at headquarters if you need ’em,” Jeremy said, and the two set off again.

  The minute they were out of range, Portia rounded on me. “You know Plain Jane? What’s she like?”

  “She’ll surprise you,” I said, as I really didn’t want to confess that Plain Jane was also one of Portia’s personal heroes. She always bought a magazine if Victoria Burroughs was on the cover though she claimed not to be a fan.

  “Do you know what she looks like under the mask?”

  I looked back. Vicki had ears like a cat, but I couldn’t tell if she could still hear us. “No,” I lied.

  “I bet she’s hideous. Like, probably covered in burns like that guy we saw back there.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said. Right before Vicki and Jeremy turned the corner, she scratched the back of the black covering her hair, middle finger sticking out prominently. It made me grin. I lifted my hand to study the proximity card Vicki had passed to me. She really was amazing. “Let’s get moving.”

  When we reached the door to Naomi’s room, I took a deep breath and swiped the card, praying.

  Alarms didn’t immediately start blaring, so I took that as a positive sign.

  Less positive was that the room appeared to be empty. I stepped inside, stomach sinking as I took in the vacant, tousled bed. And if I hadn’t had the Mobium enhancing my hearing, Naomi truly would have gotten the drop on me.

  She leapt blindly out of the corner from behind the door, swinging at empty air. I easily stepped to the side, letting her charge right past.

  She whipped around, faltering. “The hell? Is somebody in here?”

  “Yes,” I said, and she shrieked.

  “Wow, she really is hot,” Portia whispered.

  “Shh,” I said, and I wasn’t sure which one of them I was addressing.

  “Who is that? Who’s talking? I can’t see you, but I know I’m not crazy. I know I’m not.” In the time we’d been apart, Naomi had lost the caged, on-the-run-from-a-supervillain look. She wore a white polo shirt and navy blue trousers. It was an outfit I recognized: I’d worn the same thing during my days as an official trainee at Davenport. I could see the corner of a patch of gauze sticking out from under the collar of the polo shirt. She no longer had her hair in braids, either. It was pulled back into a bushy ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  “Naomi, it’s me. Gail,” I said. I reached out and grabbed her arm since that would let her see Portia and me perfectly.

  She only shrieked and jumped back, arms windmilling.

  “What? You should have been able to see us just now,” I said.

  “Yeah, it only works on two people,” Portia said.

  I rounded on her. “What?”

  “Wait—Gail? Hostage Girl?” Naomi looked in confusion at the air to the left of my head. “That Gail?”

  “Yes. Hold, please,” I told her, and I turned back to Portia. “You can only keep two people invisible at one time?”

  “Didn’t I tell you about this before?”

  “I think I would remember if you had!”

  “What is going on?” Naomi asked.

  “We’re breaking you out of here. Or we
will once I figure this out.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Of course Portia would wait until we were deep in a Davenport facility to let me know there was no way to get three people out at once with her powers. I thought about it, about Vicki’s plan. We needed to move quickly, but the priority had to be Naomi. So I sighed. “Okay, I need to get a worker’s uniform.”

  “What?”

  “Naomi, I know you can’t see her, but this is Portia, a friend of mine. Portia, Naomi. She’s going to get you out of here.” I looked at Portia. “Is that okay with you, or is there something else you’re neglecting to tell me?”

  “Nah, that’s pretty much it. How are you going to get a uniform?”

  “I’ll come up with something. Naomi, is there somewhere the cameras can’t see?”

  “This corner, I think,” she said, nodding at where she’d been hiding.

  I stepped into the corner and removed the dental floss from my wrist. When I popped back into view, Naomi jumped. “Sorry,” I said, massaging my wrist. “Portia, you take her and get out of here as fast as you can. Go back to the car. If I’m not back in ten minutes, take her to your place. I’ll come find you.”

  “Ugh,” Portia said.

  But Naomi rounded on me. “Tell me what’s going on right now, or I’ll scream.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re staging a prison break.” I had a split second of looking into Naomi’s stunned face before she vanished. It really was startling to watch it in action. “I’ll explain after we get out of here. If we get out of here.”

  “You’d better,” Naomi said.

  I reached over and swiped the card at the access reader and the door opened as if on its own accord, which was honestly a little eerie. They walked off, leaving me alone.

  Out in the open.

  Deep in the heart of a Davenport facility.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I didn’t run though I wanted to. After Portia took off with Naomi, I braced myself in the blind spot for a necessary ten seconds, breathing in deep gulps of oxygen. I needed to find a closet, ambush a worker who was about my size, and steal their uniform. At least I had the blueprints memorized. They listed a storage closet not too far from Naomi’s cell. I slipped my shoes back on, eased Naomi’s door open, and listened.