Phenom

by Kay Cordell

  Erin almost feels sorry for her.

  “At least it’s just butterflies this time,” Erin says. “Not something she could cause any real damage with. Smoke subdues bees. It might have the same effect on butterflies.”

  “But maybe we don’t want to start a fire in the dorm,” Carter suggests.

  “Or maybe we do. If we can set off the fire sprinklers their wings’ll be too wet to fly. You need to get the Bots right up to the sprinklers. As many as possible. Burn their little thrusters as hot as you can. The smoke detectors are set off by heat. You’ll have to get the temperature around them up to 165 degrees.”

  “That’s very specific knowledge”

  “My ninth grade science fair project was titled ‘Can a Lighter Really Set Off a Fire Sprinkler? Parenthesis. Like in the Movies. End parenthesis.’ It can’t by the way.”

  “Bots are in position. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “How do you control them? I always imagined the guy behind TechStorm was sitting in some fancy set up with wall-to-wall screens with the constant whir of computers running in the background.”

  “Stop it!” Camille is yelling, presumably at the Moon Disc. “I said, stop!”

  “My glasses,” Carter says.

  “Your glasses?” Erin repeats.

  “I built them. They have tech inside that lets me control the Bots, and see what they see.”

  “I didn’t see anything when I put on your glasses.”

  “You didn’t push the magic button.”

  She studies his glasses, searching for signs of what he’s built into them. But they look like an ordinary, if not a bit nerdy, pair of glasses.

  “Impossible,” she says.

  “Yeah, it probably should be. But that’s my power. Building impossible stuff.”

  “Why are you slumming it in Kirby Hall? You could be getting rich off this sort of thing.”

  “That’s what Nate says, but I can’t really control what I make, and I haven’t made anything I’d feel comfortable selling to anyone. I could show you my workshop tomorrow.”

  “Interesting location for a second date.”

  “I’ll pack a picnic.”

  “Bring fruit snacks.”

  “I said that’s too many!” Camille shouts at the same time that the sprinklers cut on. The shrill cry of the fire alarm pierces the air.

  Then there’s another flash and the butterflies disappear.

  It’s loud and wet, but an improvement.

  Or so Erin thinks until she lets the coffee table down and comes face to face with black, orb-like eyes and rough, green fur. A long tongue flicks toward her.

  Gasping, Erin startles backwards into Carter. The giant butterfly—the size of a St. Bernard. Flaps away. The water spewing from the ceiling doesn’t slow it down one bit.

  Camille has solved the problem of there being too many butterflies. There are just a handful now. Only these are monstrously huge. So much for not doing any damage with a bunch of fluttery insects.

  “Welp,” Erin says. “Butterflies are ruined for me forever now. Thanks, Common Room Camille.”

  Though they might be ruined for Camille too. If the way she’s climbed up onto the bay seats with her back pressed against the bay windows is any indication. She clutches the Moon Disc to her chest.

  Whatever she’s yelling is lost in the screaming alarm.

  Before Erin can even think at the ancient green disc, the window behind Camille is breaking.

  The giant butterflies are making a break for freedom and dragging Camille—who chose the wrong place to cower—with them. Erin might not be able to hear Camille’s scream, but she sees it on her face, plain as day.

  Erin dives through the window. She falls more than flies after Camille. The fourteen stories between the broken common room window and street zoom by way too fast.

  There’s no time to think about how much harder it is to grab a moving target than the ones nice enough to hold still.

  Erin snatches Camille from her free fall, bringing herself to a hovering stop an instant later.

  “And I’ll take that.” With a superpowered thought, Erin pulls the Moon Disc from Camille’s clenched grip. Camille gives it up without a fight, choosing to cling to Erin instead.

  The silhouettes of the giant butterflies disappear from the skyline with a final, bright flash.

  “Seriously, Camille, do you really think going villain over some guy was really worth it?”

  “Villain? I’m not—I’d never be a villain. I was going to be a hero.”

  “Was that the plan? Girl, you’re going about this all wrong. And by ‘this’ I mean life in general.”

  15

  When Erin returns through the common room window with Camille in tow, there’s a lot of explaining to do. To the RA, to the RD, to campus police, and finally to NYFD. It takes forever for the alarm to be shut off, and even longer for someone from maintenance to venture to the basement to shut off the sprinklers.

  But eventually, the groggy students roused from their dreams by the false alarm are sent back to their beds. And most of them do just that, but a surprising crowd—not all from Kirby Hall—remains gathered on the dorm’s lawn, as Erin, Carter and—ahem—TechStorm go through their final round of explaining with the firemen.

  It’s so obvious now that Erin knows. Like how during their first round of explanations, when they’re talking to the RA, Carter steps away to “answer his cellphone.” Then all of a sudden TechStorm, who’d been noticeably quiet up to that point, gives his account of what happened.

  After that, Carter doesn’t step away to answer another pretend call, but as the three of them give their accounts again and again, TechStorm’s story remains the same. Word for word. Perhaps bits and pieces in different order, but it’s definitely the same recording on repeat.

  If the RD, cops or firemen ask TechStorm a question that he doesn’t have a prepackaged reply for, Carter jumps in with an answer while the techform nods in agreement. Erin catches on pretty quickly and takes a few turns covering for him. Keeping a straight face is just this side of impossible for her and she refuses to meet Carter’s eye. She’d definitely burst out laughing it she did.

  Honestly, having a secret identity seems exhausting. Erin just might stop feeling sorry for herself about being famous.

  She had never been in the same place as Carter and TechStorm at the same time before. But if she had, she would definitely have put two and two together. Probably.

  Like everyone else, Jos, Toya, and Nate are driven from their rooms by the alarm. Jos, bleary eyed and surly, retreats back to Erin’s room first chance she gets. But Toya and Nate hang out. The moment Erin catches ten seconds alone with Nate, she punches him in the arm.

  “That’s for not telling me,” Erin says.

  “Ow! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  She casts a significant look between Carter and TechStorm.

  Nate laughs and holds up his hands. “Wasn’t my business to tell. You leave a bruise on his arm too?” He rubs the spot where she hit him.

  “No. Somehow it feels like you’re the one who deserves to be punched.”

  “Typical.”

  When all the authority figures run out of questions and with Camille handed off to the campus police, Techstorm makes his exit. The students who thought to grab cameras, snap photos of him soaring into the sky. If only they knew that the Bots would be sneaking back into the dorm in stealth mode through Carter’s window.

  “You gotta wonder what kind of stuff Camille would have conjured up if you weren’t such a geek,” Erin says as she watches TechStorm fade into the dark sky. It’s just her and Carter again.

  “Just be glad I’m not a war history buff.”

  “Right?” She starts toward the entrance of the dorm. “All this trouble because some girl was trying to get your attention.”

  He slips his hand in hers and pulls her to him, catching her off guard. She falls against his chest with a soft, “U
mph.”

  “Jealous?” he asks.

  “You wish.”

  “What? Am I really so repulsive you think no woman could possibly be jealous over me?”

  She recognizes her own words from just two days earlier. Only, she’d said them to a face made of metal. A man she trusted with her life, even though she thought he was a complete stranger.

  “Haha. You’re not as funny as you think you are.” Her smile says otherwise.

  He’s smiling too, but has the good sense to also look sheepish and apologetic.

  “You’re really not mad?” he says quietly. “Nate said you’d kill me for keeping it from you this whole time.”

  Laughter that had been waiting to bubble up for the past hour finally escapes her. Everything about this day has been utterly ridiculous. Of course it would end with Carter revealing he’s TechStorm.

  “I’m not mad,” she says when she regains some of her composure. “Loopy and obviously in need of sleep, but not mad.”

  Toya, who’s been talking up a guy from the sixth floor that she’s had her eye on all semester, finally notices the intimate pose Erin and Carter strike together. She whistles a catcall.

  “Get it! Oow!”

  And this is followed by an, “It’s about damn time!” from Nate.

  Erin glances around at the small crowd lingering on the lawn. There’s more than one camera flashing. Even her usually unimpressed peers can’t resist this new development. Or maybe a few of them are just thinking about how much the tabloids will pay for a photo of Phenom and the new special guy in her life.

  She really, really wishes she could jump back in time and tell herself to put on any pajamas but these.

  “Carter. Everyone’s staring.”

  “I don’t care.” He dips his forehead toward hers, whispers, “Well, I kinda do, but I’ll deal with it.”

  “Are you sure?” Her lips brush his.

  He answers with a front-page worthy kiss.

  But wait, there’s more!

  Was Phenom over too soon?

  You’re in luck! I have a little more to give you:

  Find out what was going on in Carter’s head after that soul-crushingly bad first date. Experience what Erin must endure every time she calls home. Meet the hero who was almost Carter’s romantic rival.

  Click below to read three awesome and exclusive scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut. They may have been edited out before they had a chance to shine, but it’s not because they weren’t amazing!

  Read the deleted scenes today!

  (And sign up receive updates about the next books

  in the Yesterday’s Heroes series while you’re at it!)

  ODDITY

  More than friendship is at stake, when shy high school freshman Jos, aka Oddity, learns that her best friend comes from a long line of supervillains. Jos must finally come out of her shell if she hopes to save her friend from being lost to the family business.

  Coming Summer 2019

  BTDubs…

  Who Wrote This Book Anyway?

  L.A. native Kay Cordell likes writing about aliens, monsters and superpowers. She attempted to write her first novel when she was nine. She didn’t finish it, but it’s still floating around. She read it recently. It’s pretty good.

  She likes reading and watching junk about aliens, monsters and superpowers too. Some of her favorite books and shows from the 90s include Animorphs, Ella Enchanted, Gargoyles, Spiderman: The Animated Series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These inspired her to pick up a pen and their influence can still be seen in the writing she does today.

  She hopes to one day own a t-shirt with an alpaca wearing an afro on it. If she ever got a puppy, she would name him Kiba. Thanks to her young nephew, she’s pretty good at pronouncing dinosaur names. Her favorite to say is pachycephalosaurus.

  “Pachycephalosaurus.”

  Nice!

  But she totally had to look up how to spell it.

  Connect with Kay on IG: @KC_theWriter