#Herofail

by Lexie Dunne

  “You think this timing is a coincidence?” Scott said. “The minute your niece is given responsibility over even part of the company, Davenport is at the center of the most organized attack from local supervillains that we’ve seen in years!”

  “Maybe we were due,” Eddie said, his voice acidic.

  Whoa. I thought he’d reserved that tone for me.

  “And what about Fearless?” Rodrigo asked. “Were we due for that, too? It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “I assure you, that’s not a coincidence,” Eddie said. “But neither does it have anything directly to do with my niece, who has been a model employee of Davenport Industries since she graduated medical school.”

  Scott spluttered. “She’s the granddaughter of a supervillain—”

  “And I am the son of a supervillain.” I heard the pivot of Eddie’s heels on the tile as he turned to face Scott. “Things might have changed when the world welcomed the superpowered, Mr. Scott, but ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is still the law of the land. We have nothing tying Kristiana to Tamara Diesel or these nanobots. Silence, Calles. Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

  Like Sharkbait would ever shut up. “Are you even looking into it at all?” Rodrigo asked.

  “In the past two days, supervillains have attacked us publicly, shot my sister, blown up the only prison capable of successfully holding most of their population, effectively destroyed our teleportation network, and bombed our secret headquarters. I’ve been a little busy.”

  “They’ll only continue to get away with it if you let this snake in the grass continue to—”

  “Enough,” Eddie said, cutting Rodrigo off.

  Eddie, overall, wasn’t imposing. Sure, he was handsome, and he had the polished air of somebody with an extensive education and grooming. Physically threatening? Not so much. But something on his face or in his stance must have scared Rodrigo, for Sharkbait shut up midsentence.

  “If you did any research into her connections, I’m sure the evidence would be right there,” Scott said. “You can’t trust her.”

  “And yet, I’m going to. Blame nepotism all you like. I don’t care at the moment. I have other priorities, and so do you.” Eddie sighed. “I’ve heard your grievances, and I’ll give them their due. Right now, I need your A game with the science department topside. Get everything under control. Mr. Calles, I’m putting you on a plane back to San Francisco. Running tests on the nanobots infecting your bloodstream will have to wait. You have a city to protect.”

  “Guess I’ll watch my own back, then, the better to see it when your niece sticks her knife in it,” Rodrigo said, and left without another word.

  Asshole.

  Luckily, Eddie and Scott followed him out, leaving me undiscovered. Once I was sure they weren’t coming back, I sat up. So it wasn’t only the various superheroes on the HEX roster that distrusted Kiki—people high up within the Davenport company were concerned as well. At least Eddie appeared to be on Kiki’s side for once, which meant I couldn’t entirely hate him.

  Though how was he so certain Rita’s escape hadn’t been a coincidence? And why was it my fault?

  Spine prickling with annoyance, I tapped my mask to check messages and updates. A couple of texts from Guy apologizing for missing my call and mentioning that he finally had a lead—a lead on what?—and a note from Angélica that Jessie, still in her coma, had been brought into the Nest for extra protection.

  No word on Jeremy.

  I hopped down. It was after midnight, which meant I’d only slept a few hours, but that was apparently enough: I no longer felt like I’d put my body through hell. I was hungry, but I was beginning to suspect this would be my new normal for a while.

  In the main hub of the Nest, things had settled a little. Tables had been set up for teams of people, in costume and out, who typed furiously into their computers or spoke or shouted into phones. Sometimes both at the same time. Take-out containers were peppered among stacks of paperwork and abandoned tablets. Half of the monitors showed excavation teams sifting through the rubble that had once been Davenport Complex. It made my stomach turn over to see the damage.

  The other half of the monitors were set to the twenty-four-hour news channels. The attack on Davenport might have been horrific and demoralizing, but at least it had shoved my #Herofail photo off the front page. Since the general public had no idea that Davenport supported the superhero community, the reports were vague: a bomb had been detonated in the sewers around Davenport Tower. Several of the subway lines nearby were being rerouted, which meant that public transit had to be a giant mess right now.

  I should probably be grateful I had a literal jet at my disposal. Midtown had to be a nightmare.

  I wove my way through the hub, grabbing an abandoned container of pad see ew as I passed. Wilbur Scott had commandeered a table and was barking orders into his phone. Eddie spoke with three of his underlings in the corner. I didn’t see Rodrigo, which was probably a good thing.

  Eddie glanced up and spotted me standing back. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed at the door: get out.

  Screw you, too. I shrugged back at him and sauntered away.

  It took a little while to find Angélica, who’d apparently had the same idea as me and had set up a cot in the control center above the obstacle course. I crept back out of the room without waking her and took my purloined noodles on a walk about the Nest.

  I found Audra Yi as she closed the door to the family suite. Never looking up from her phone, she beckoned me forward.

  In truth, I’d found Audra intimidating from the moment I’d met her, simply due to how in control she was all the time. She managed Jessie’s life—Raptorial and regular—with such quiet, steely efficiency that I thanked my lucky stars every day she hadn’t chosen to become a supervillain. Rita Detmer would have nothing on her.

  “I’m heading home before my son and my husband forget what I look like,” she said, typing something into her phone. “If you don’t disturb the nurse on duty, you may sit with her. Take the mask off, though. No masks in the family suite.”

  And reveal my identity to the nurse?

  Audra, in the way of all scarily prescient professionals, clicked her tongue. “Anyone who goes beyond this door signs an NDA. It actually might be wise, with Ms. Davenport’s brother on the warpath, to remain in the family suite until things settle down.”

  “It’d be more comfortable than sleeping in the storage closet,” I said.

  Audra sighed at me for that one.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “It’s too soon to tell, but her vitals are promising. I’ve let the nursing staff know to alert me if anything changes.” Audra’s fingers never slowed over her phone screen as she spoke.

  “That’s . . . better than nothing.” Having your boss in a coma was never great, but she also hadn’t died. And she’d been out through the destruction of Detmer, the bombing of Davenport, and her own mother’s siege of fear against Chicago and New York. So maybe it was better off that she stayed unconscious, really. I studied Audra’s face. Even with my enhanced senses, it was impossible to detect any signs of exhaustion or emotional distress. The woman must have an unwavering hand with the mascara stick. “And how are you doing with all of this?”

  Finally, she looked up from her phone. Her expression would have been classified as a neutral look on anybody else, but for her, it was practically a wide smile. “I’m fine, thank you for asking. She’s been through worse. Go on inside.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped past her, a little surprised that the door to the family suite unlocked for me. I’d always assumed that was restricted territory. Every time I’d been inside, Jessie had let me in.

  In a state-of-the-art base filled with every countermeasure against break-ins, the family suite felt like stepping into an alien world. The suite held three bedrooms, a living room, and a small-by-Davenport-standards-so-therefore-pretty-big kitchen. Gone were the sleek lines and smo
oth edges, replaced with a slightly cluttered and homey interior. Though the walls lacked any pictures of Jessie or the kids, there were still notes on the fridge, a biology textbook on the counter that must have belonged to Jessie’s sixteen-year-old son, and signs that teenagers stayed here pretty regularly.

  In the kitchen, I stepped out of the Raptorlet armor and pushed it between the fridge and the pantry, where it would be out of the way. I didn’t hear any signs that the kids were in the suite—Audra had probably sent them home to get some sleep, away from the chaos of the Nest—but I did hear movement. The nurse, I figured. The beeping of the various monitors made it obvious which room was Jessie’s.

  Still digging into my stolen noodles, I stepped over to the partially open door and peeked in. Not the nurse: Kiki. She sat in a chair in the corner of the room, staring at something I couldn’t see.

  “Hey,” I started to say, pushing open the door.

  Two things occurred to me at once: I could hear Kiki’s heartbeat, which was absolutely racing.

  And Rita Detmer stood over Jessie’s bed.

  “Holy—Fearless, Kiki,” I said, scrambling back like Kiki somehow didn’t recognize her own grandmother. “Kiki, that’s Rita.”

  “I’m aware,” Kiki said in a strained voice.

  Rita, the world’s first supervillain, the Raptor’s greatest enemy, the reason why everybody in the superhero community had dark circles under their eyes, lifted her gaze from her daughter’s face and flicked an unimpressed look my way. “You,” she said in a mild, almost toneless voice. Like the last time she’d seen me, she hadn’t blithely submitted me to torture.

  I put my fists up, realized I was still holding the take-out container, and hastily put that down. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hush.” Rita turned away from me, dismissing me as insignificant.

  She wore the jewel-toned blue-and-purple outfit of days past, which had hung in a museum since the Raptor and Fearless’s last fight back when I’d been four years old. It didn’t smell particularly dusty, so maybe she’d had a spare somewhere. In the Detmer scrubs, she’d been an unassuming little old lady. With the tiara-like headpiece and the cape swishing about her, I could understand why she’d struck fear into the hearts of every member of the First Five.

  Of course, it all looked a little bit ridiculous by a sickbed like this, but my knees had still jellified and all of the saliva in my mouth had vanished.

  But the longer I stood there, the more anger began to boil through the fear. Jeremy, I thought, was possibly lying dead or dying, buried in rubble because of this woman. On her orders, supervillains had firebombed the Dartmoor way station, killing people I saw daily.

  And here she was, in the middle of the Nest holding Jessie’s hand, like she had any right to be there.

  Gail, don’t, Kiki said, absolutely rigid in her chair. Not here.

  She killed Jeremy!

  And what are you going to do about it? Can you really fight her without hurting Jessie?

  I drew in a sharp breath, finally looking at the woman on the bed. At the sallow skin, the monitors, and the empty expression, fear punched beneath my sternum like an actual fist. Next to her, Rita’s expression didn’t reflect any concern for her daughter. The space was too close to fight without collateral damage. Instead, I began to ease my hand toward the pocket of my yoga pants, where I kept my phone.

  “I wouldn’t,” Rita said mildly without looking away from Jessie’s face.

  My hand stopped in midair.

  Rita finally tilted her head in my direction. “I wasn’t aware that you and Jessica knew each other this well,” she said.

  “They don’t,” Kiki said, her voice shaking a little. “Gail’s my friend. She’s here to see me.”

  Rita studied her granddaughter. “You fear me.”

  “Wonder why,” I said. Kiki mentally nudged me.

  “Gail and I met because of you,” Kiki said to Rita, talking slowly. She’d locked eyes with Rita, and her expression was familiar: she wore it around new recruits to Davenport, ones I’d seen freaking out about their new powers. “Do you remember that?”

  What are you doing? I asked her.

  Trying to give her reasons to give a damn about you so she doesn’t fricassee you. I’m safe, but you aren’t.

  I snapped my mental mouth shut. Rita seemed to have only one weakness: she would do anything to protect her family from others, even if she was willing to fight that family herself. Hell, she was the whole reason I had superpowers. Her convoluted plan to protect Kiki from a dangerous ex with an unbelievable healing factor had involved working with Dr. Mobius and using me as a pawn. Why she hadn’t broken out of prison and killed the dude herself, I still didn’t understand. But Rita Detmer’s mind worked off a series of laws that no mere mortal could understand.

  And just because she’d once seen me as an ally, that didn’t make her any less objectively terrifying. All she was doing was kneeling beside her daughter’s sickbed, and I could still feel waves of scary competency rolling off her. She’d likely bat my attack away like a fly, kill me, and emotionlessly return to her vigil.

  “She served her purpose,” Rita told Kiki. The tone said everything it needed to: I wasn’t part of the Davenport family, or in the sphere of things Rita cared to protect.

  It was worth a shot, Kiki thought at me.

  We were at an impasse. I couldn’t punch Rita because the unconscious Jessie wasn’t collateral damage I was willing to risk. My normal tactic—to stall, and stall hard—was absolutely useless. Nobody was coming to check on us. Audra had gone home, Eddie was busy, and Angélica was sleeping. Rita could stay here all night by Jessie’s bedside and nobody would be the wiser.

  So now what?

  “What’s your goal here?” I asked Rita.

  “Why would I tell you a thing like that?”

  Villain Syndrome, I’d been hoping. But apparently not. “You had your goons looking for something in Davenport Tower. What was it?”

  Rita merely smiled. “Aha, did we have a spy in our midst?”

  “I’m guessing it was jewelry,” I told Kiki. “Your grandpa was, what, a billionaire? Bet he probably gave some good apology gifts after those big battles. Sorry about leveling Crown Heights, honey, here’s a diamond as big as a baby’s fist.”

  Kiki gave me a baffled look. The goal is not to piss off the super scary murderess, Gail.

  Rita didn’t even blink. Damn. Apparently her big showy battles with Kurt Davenport weren’t a trigger for the Villain Syndrome monologue issues. “I sold that jewelry years ago.”

  “So a doomsday device, then?” I asked.

  Rita’s smile finally turned feline, but she didn’t answer.

  Gotcha.

  “What’s it do? Threaten the politicians? Because somebody already beat you to the punch there. You guys are terrible at coordinating crises,” I said.

  Rita rose to her feet. I tensed, but she only placed Jessie’s hand on the covers, patting it once. Such fussiness and consideration from a woman who’d thrown capsaicin powder in my face. Rita turned toward me, smoothing out the front of her uniform. “I can assure you, there was no coordination between other parties and myself.”

  “Because, what, you’re out of prison, so you’re taking over?” I asked.

  Rita smiled. “Of course not. Organizations are the downfall of our society, and must be stopped.”

  It was said so pleasantly, so calmly, that chills raced from my shoulders to my toes. From the way Kiki squirmed, I wasn’t alone. Rita wholeheartedly believed what she was saying.

  “But . . .” I trailed off and actually scratched my head. “You organized the prison escape. You organized the strike against Davenport. That makes you and your group an organization by default.”

  Rita’s smile turned serene. “A necessary evil. Like my entire existence.”

  Without thinking, I took a step toward her, perplexed. “What do you mean—”

  I didn’t see her move
. Not until it was too late. Rita stood by the bedside in one instant and the next, her fist wrapped around my throat and she lifted me clear off the ground.

  “Rita, no! Don’t kill her!” Kiki leapt to her feet.

  I clawed at Rita’s hand, which circled my throat like a crushing vise. Panic surged, but I shoved it away and made my body relax. I’d been in this position before, and no doubt it would happen again. Instead of kicking out and attacking, I gurgled and glared down into the stony countenance of the supervillain hovering off of the ground and lifting me into the air. Do it, I thought at her, though she didn’t have psychic abilities like Kiki. Give me an excuse to fight you. You’re the reason I haven’t heard from Jeremy.

  Kiki stomped her foot at her grandmother. “Put her down.”

  “She asks too many questions. I don’t appreciate the insubordination.”

  Why not? In prison, it had always made her laugh. When she hadn’t been beating the hell out of me over it.

  “Do it for me,” Kiki said.

  Rita shot the mildest of glances at her grandchild. “You test my limits.”

  Kiki didn’t budge. Rita’s grip tightened fractionally.

  I gurgled a little harder. Spots appeared before my eyes.

  “Grandma,” Kiki said.

  I’d have to attack soon or I’d be too weak to fight. I clawed a little harder at the hand around my throat and looked toward Jessie’s still figure on the bed.

  And finally, Rita let out a sigh and dropped me. I landed on my ass, waving Kiki away before she could step over to help me out.

  As for the supervillain, she shot her granddaughter a final annoyed look. “Don’t follow me,” she said to the both of us, and walked right out of the bedroom.

  Kiki dropped to her knees beside me, mentally probing even as she touched my chin to get a look at my neck. “Angélica’s right,” she said with a sigh. “You really do have the survival instincts of a drunk acrobat.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “She’d have left on her own if you hadn’t questioned her like that.”