Superheroes Anonymous (Book 2): Supervillains Anonymous

by Dunne, Lexie

  If even one person recognized me, it was all over.

  I couldn’t hear anybody coming. Quickly, but not running, I stepped into the hallway. Sweat coated my entire torso and the back of my neck, but I reached the closet without anybody seeing me. I slipped inside, cringing at the way the hinges creaked.

  My first stroke of luck hit when I glanced around the closet. I’d found the medical supplies. Right there on the top shelf were several unopened sets of scrubs. Grimacing, I climbed the shelves (they groaned under my weight) to grab a size small. The pants were a little big, but that was honestly the least of my worries. I yanked the top over my black T-shirt and stuffed my old pants on the shelf, out of the way.

  As I reached for my shoes, I heard the access card reader beep.

  Oh god.

  I looked around for a place to hide, but the closet really wasn’t that big, and I was right out in the open, barefoot and obviously out of place.

  And also a wanted fugitive.

  The door handle turned. By instinct, I grabbed the shelf and hauled myself up with all of my strength. It rocketed me over the top and nearly into the ceiling. I didn’t stick the landing at all. Instead, I fell in an uncoordinated heap on top of a pile of scrubs wrapped in plastic.

  The shelf squeaked in protest as the door opened, and every part of me went still in terror. I didn’t dare breathe as somebody stepped in. I couldn’t see whoever it was, but I heard them pause, like they weren’t sure they had heard something.

  I closed my eyes and prayed the shelf wouldn’t creak again. A single twitch would set off another squeak, and the jig really would be up.

  Millenniums passed while the person stood there, probably looking around. Finally, I heard him or her grab something off a shelf on the other side of the closet. The door opened again, and I was alone. Sweating bullets, but alone.

  I slipped my shoes back on and clipped the access card to the collar of the shirt so that I would look at least somewhat official. A peek into the hallway showed that it was mercifully empty. I stepped out, ducked my head, and started to walk. After being shielded by Portia’s powers, every echoing step made it just how obvious and out in the open I was now. The first time I heard somebody approach, I stepped to the side of the hallway and ducked down to tie my shoe, hoping they wouldn’t linger and see the sweat on the back of my neck.

  They didn’t. I pushed out a breath and forged on. Every person I passed gave me a tiny panic attack but none of them really looked at me. They only saw the scrubs. I made it all the way to the lobby, worn-out and terrified, where I encountered my next problem: I would have to pass the guard. Which wouldn’t be easy. Security guards were trained to recognize everybody in this kind of office environment, and I definitely did not belong.

  Luckily, a woman in a messenger delivery cap leaned indolently over the desk, taking up the guard’s attention. I could just sneak out, and everything would be okay.

  The woman turned, and my vision telescoped right onto her face. Every cell of my body went abruptly, horrifically cold with rage.

  I hadn’t seen Chelsea since the mall, when she’d grabbed me by the throat and tossed me headfirst into a fountain three stories below. But I’d daydreamed about seeing her again. The answers I’d demand, the pain I’d inflict.

  I never imagined that I would be completely immobilized, thoroughly unable to move. Rage and sickness welled up in my throat. She looked healthy, which was the worst part. I’d had the worst week of my life, and Chelsea was as tall and slim and put together as ever.

  She glanced idly over her shoulder to case the lobby and must have noticed me, for she turned to give me a second look. Our eyes locked. Recognition flashed in hers. She straightened up and stepped toward me.

  It broke through the paralysis. I slapped the emergency button on the wall to my right.

  Chelsea stopped, eyes going wide. Alarms began to blare.

  The guard, who’d jumped to his feet, looked around and pointed. Not at Chelsea. At me. “Intruder! Godwin’s here!”

  And he rushed past Chelsea and straight at me.

  Oh, shit.

  I kicked off the wall to avoid the taser prongs he shot at me. I ran for the nearest door, but I wasn’t quick enough. It slammed in my face, blocking that escape route. When I whipped around, I saw two things: the guard rushing at me, and Chelsea standing smugly in the middle of the lobby, arms crossed over her chest.

  In that suspended moment, her eyebrow went up. Good one, idiot, it seemed to say.

  I dodged around the guard and ran at her instead. Her hand came up. I prepared for one of her stinging rays, for the agony of the bee stings crawling all over my skin. It would be worth it for one shot at her.

  I’d go through much worse to plant my fist in her face.

  At the last second, she faltered. Instead of blasting me with a ray, she dropped her hand and screamed. An instant later, my opening punch caught her on the side of the jaw, snapping her head back.

  She didn’t fight back. She just kept screaming and cowering, tears streaming down her face before she broke into sobs. About to punch her again, I hesitated, and she shouted, “Stop her! This psycho’s hurting me!”

  It caught me off guard. She was Chelsea. She was supposed to try and kick my ass, so what was she doing? I tried to hit her again, but a guard tackled me from behind. As we crashed to the floor, I saw a smirk cross Chelsea’s face for a split second.

  “You don’t understand!” I struggled to kick the guard off me and get back to my feet. “That’s Chelsea—she’s the villain, not me!”

  “Ma’am, stop struggling, or we will be forced to subdue you!”

  I broke free and ducked forward sharply, throwing a second guard over my shoulder. They’d swarmed in when the alarms had started blaring. When a third guard tried to tackle me, I elbowed him in the face. A fourth hit me from behind like a linebacker. I stayed on my feet, but only just. Chelsea, nearly at the exit, looked over her shoulder and blew me a kiss. Another guard piled on, right as the door from inside the facility burst open and Plain Jane waded into the chaos. I saw her mask sweep sideways, tracking the running people, the pile of guards, and me.

  I didn’t need to see Vicki’s face to understand her confused look.

  I pointed, not the easiest with a guard actively trying to force my hands into handcuffs. “Chelsea’s here!”

  Vicki turned.

  Chelsea let loose.

  The blast caught Vicki right in the face, yellow-and-green sparks exploding in a shower around her mask. The guards trying to hold me down shouted, and everybody who’d been trying to run for the exit began to scream.

  “No!” I shouted as a guard broke free from my pack and charged at Chelsea.

  Chelsea hit him with a tiny puff of yellow and green. He dropped to the ground, unconscious.

  I broke free, vaulted over the man, and jumped at Chelsea. I had to distract her, I saw. She would overpower any of the guards, so I needed to give them time to get away. When she tried to hit me in the chest, I dodged to the side, leapt for a chair, and used it as a springboard to launch myself. This time when I punched her, she tried to hit back. I’d anticipated that. I twisted to the right, grabbed her wrist, and yanked it behind her. I dove forward in a roll, using my body to flip Chelsea over my back.

  She hit the ground face-first, hand extended to level another blast at me. I rolled and leapfrogged at her. I stomped my foot down on her wrist to pin that hand, stretching to grab the other one. If I could hold her down, that would give everybody a chance to clear the room. Most everyone had; when I chanced a look back, the guards were dragging their unconscious fellow toward the door.

  The yellow-and-green beam missed my ear by an inch, so bright it left an afterimage.

  I tried to stun her with my elbow. We grappled, her trying to force her free hand up, me trying to pin it to the flo
or.

  “Gail!” Guy’s voice filled my ear. I jerked back, and Chelsea freed her arm and grabbed my face with her palm. Her fingernails dug into my cheek.

  This was, I realized, how I was going to die.

  “Gail, there are reports of alarms—”

  Chelsea snarled at me, teeth bloody, and let loose. I opened my mouth to scream, closing my eyes.

  A second later, I stopped. Nothing hurt. I felt a sensation against the side of my head, but it was like being brushed with something soft and fuzzy. I opened my eyes, wondering if death really had been that instantaneous and the tickling sensation was St. Peter finally welcoming me to the pearly gates.

  But no. I was still in the lobby. Everything in my vision undulated with green and yellow, but I could see Chelsea underneath me, through the fog.

  Not heaven, then. Closer to hell, actually, but why didn’t it hurt?

  “Gail—are you okay? I’m on my way.” Guy’s voice cut out when I didn’t answer.

  Chelsea pulled her hand back. “What the hell?” she asked. I was still crouched over her, one foot holding her hand down, scrabbling to push her arm back. “How did you do that?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, and something exploded to my left.

  “Gail, duck!”

  I fell sideways, rolling behind a couch. Vicki, mask burned so badly that it was almost entirely black, rushed at my archnemesis, who wasted no time scurrying to safety and firing a blast of green-yellow back.

  I tried to push myself to my feet, but suddenly the world tilted right on its axis. The ceiling and walls switched places. I thought not again, and started to pass out.

  Somebody caught me from behind. I heard Jeremy’s voice. “Just me. Please don’t hit me. I don’t think my pride can take that.”

  I staggered and tried to remain upright, which wasn’t easy since the lobby of the checkpoint now felt like the deck of a storm-tossed ship. I groped for Jeremy’s arm, squeezing my eyes shut. It didn’t help. And a second later, I felt Jeremy try to pick me up. “No, wait, don’t—”

  “Oof!” Jeremy cursed. “How much do you weigh?”

  “You know not to ask me that.” I risked seasickness to open my eyes as he dragged me behind a couch. Green-and-yellow blasts flew overhead, warring with the fiery bolts I never saw Plain Jane use much. Thick smoke began to cloud the air. “What is she doing? I had her.”

  “I don’t think she saw your little display.” Jeremy peered over the couch. “What was that, anyway? It looked like it didn’t even hurt you.”

  “It didn’t.”

  “But it killed Angélica.” Jeremy flinched as one of Vicki’s bolts went wide, blowing a smoking hole in the wall behind us. “Wasn’t she like a superaccelerated healer? How come you can handle that, and she couldn’t?”

  “I don’t know.” I was starting to feel like what I didn’t know would fill entire galaxies. “You need to get to safety.”

  “So do you. You’re a wanted fugitive, remember?” Jeremy gave me a look, like he couldn’t believe I had ever forgotten that. “They’re distracted by Miss Sparks-a-Lot over there, but I figure it’s only a matter of time before the guards come back for you, too. And you don’t look so hot.”

  “Yeah, I don’t feel so hot, either.”

  “This way.” It was difficult to crawl when I felt like the floor was about to tilt up and smack me in the face, but Jeremy kept an arm around my middle, half dragging, half helping me as we headed for the exit. Above us, Chelsea and Vicki did their best to kill each other.

  Why hadn’t Chelsea’s powers affected me the way they always had? They hadn’t hurt, but now I was discombobulated and sick. Why was it different?

  Later, I told myself, and kept shuffling for the exit. Just add that question to the pile.

  We’d nearly reached the door when something singed the air over my back, nearly blistering my skin through the scrub top. It hit the doors in front of us, splashing liquid flame everywhere. I stared at the molten hot patch in the middle of the doors, the metal glowing red.

  Jeremy cursed again. “Vicki’s aim is especially terrible today.”

  We hit the deck again. This time the blast that missed us was yellow and green.

  “Chelsea’s isn’t great, either,” I said. I put my hand to my head, hoping that would stabilize things. It did absolutely nothing. “How are we getting out of here?”

  “They didn’t teach you how to fly in prison, by any chance?”

  “That would be too convenient,” I said. “Guy’s on his way. Maybe he can get us out of here.”

  Jeremy winced as another beam cut into the wall over our heads. He hadn’t really been close to any big fights, I remembered. My villains had always attacked when he was elsewhere. For somebody whom I’d always viewed as incredibly close to this world, he was new to all of this.

  “Hey.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I’ll be better if we get out of here without getting our faces melted off.”

  “Goes without saying.” We hid behind the front desk, since it seemed to be the sturdiest piece of furniture in the room. Though it made my vision swam, I reached up and grabbed a paperweight. “Is your aim as good as I remember?”

  “I’m insulted you even have to ask.”

  I tossed him the paperweight, which had a Bears logo in the middle. “Hit the one without the mask, please.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Be ready to run. She’s not real fond of things being thrown at her.”

  “I hate villains,” Jeremy said under his breath. He held up three fingers and put them down one at a time. On three, he rose to his full height and chucked the paperweight. I grabbed his arm, pulling us away from the desk.

  Just in time, too. There was an “Ow!” right before Chelsea’s sting-ray powers blew a hole clean through the desk. Jeremy yelped as we hit the ground.

  “See?” I said.

  “I didn’t actually disbelieve you.”

  We stayed there as Chelsea and Vicki continued to battle. Chelsea’s fists glowed green and yellow as she swung again and again, trying to hit Vicki. Vicki occasionally shot bolts of blue fire, but for the most part she seemed to want to keep it to a fistfight. They both flew and jumped, usually crashing into the ceiling tiles or floor in their haste to get away from each other.

  “Time for another distraction,” I said when Chelsea landed a punch on Vicki’s shoulder that knocked my mentor back a good ten feet.

  “We’re out of paperweights,” Jeremy said, peeking over the couch. He flinched. “How do you all tolerate that kind of pain? That looks like it hurts.”

  I crawled over to one of the end tables covered in magazines. “It doesn’t hurt them,” I said.

  Jeremy looked over at the magazines. “I can guarantee that’s not going to, either.”

  “No.” I picked up a coffee table book on Chicago architecture and hoped my dizziness wouldn’t throw off my aim terribly. “But it’s distracting.”

  “Wait for my signal.” Jeremy checked over the couch “Now!”

  I jumped up and winged the book like a frisbee. It struck Chelsea’s jaw, spinning her around in the air. She turned and zapped it right out of existence. Her other hand, she aimed at me.

  Something burst through the wall to my left, sending rubble flying. War Hammer exploded into the room in bronze-and-purple glory. Guy flew at Chelsea, driving her back with both fists. He landed by skidding to a stop and stood there, tall and defiant in the War Hammer uniform. I expected him to hit her again, to finish the fight right then and there.

  Instead, he stumbled. “Br—Brook?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Chelsea’s face contorted into a mask of sheer, ugly hatred. “You,” she said, and her voice plunged the temperature in the room down several hundred degrees.
r />   Guy took a step back. “H—How?” he asked.

  Chelsea raised both hands and opened fire, straight at Guy’s chest. The double blast hit him right on the front of his breastplate.

  “No!” I lunged forward, but Jeremy grabbed my arm. At the same time, Guy dodged a second ray, dropping into a zigzag pattern. Chelsea’s sting rays chewed through the wall and floor as she tried to obliterate Guy. The entire time she screamed like a vengeful fury, her face twisted up in something between rage and sorrow.

  Vicki tried to tackle her from behind. Chelsea merely swung around, turning both of those blasts on her. Vicki cried out, crashing to the ground.

  “Vicki!” Jeremy let go of me and started running. Luckily, Chelsea’s fury seemed to be directed at Guy—or Sam, I realized, she thought he was Sam—for she continued to try and hit him while he flew and dodged. Jeremy raced for Vicki. I followed unsteadily, tripping whenever my vision made the floor tremor and tilt.

  Vicki clutched her shoulder and coughed. Fear made me stumble. When I blinked, I saw Angélica in front of me, not Vicki, her face still and bloodless.

  Vicki coughed again, and I blinked away the image. She put her hand over the smoking hole in her uniform. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m good. She just clipped me. Damn, she’s pissed. I need to help Sam.”

  “Guy,” I said.

  Vicki shook her head, which made her sway a little. “Right. Uniform threw me off.”

  She leapt into the air. Guy hit the window in a flurry of glass shards, and just like that, all three of the fliers were out of the room, leaving Jeremy and me to be soaked by the sprinkler system that inexplicably and belatedly sprang to life several minutes after the fact.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jeremy said. We stumbled over the rubble from Guy’s entrance and out the exit together. “Backup’s on its way, and if they see you here—”

  “I’m not sure how fast I can go,” I said. The dizziness was beginning to subside, but the world sat at a forty-five-degree angle if I moved my head wrong. What the hell was wrong with me? We ran for the exit, and I kicked the door several times, until it broke off its hinges. Jeremy ignored the elevator and pulled me to the stairs instead.