Superheroes Anonymous (Book 2): Supervillains Anonymous

by Dunne, Lexie

“Cooper! I think Cooper is dead, not Jeremy. God, I’m sorry. I mean—it worked.” Kiki shook her head, looking as dazed as I felt. “He’s not moving, and when I just looked in, he wasn’t breathing. I think it worked.” She took a deep breath and looked at each of us in turn. “I think we really did it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  They had two doctors declare Lemuel Cooper dead.

  I was still in the factory when Zaptastic arrived to undo the work Jeremy had electrocuted himself for. From where I sat, back resting against a column and head throbbing in time with the “William Tell Overture,” I watched the electric superhero disable the generator so that medics in gas masks could break open the windows to the control room.

  They carried Cooper’s body away on a stretcher with a sheet over it. My entire throat felt coated with sickness. I’d helped kill a man. Even though I knew he had been trying to kill me, he was still a man. He and the Lodi Corporation had destroyed lives in their pursuit of creating superheroes from scratch, but I couldn’t quite call myself a good guy in that moment, not while I watched them cart a dead man away.

  They carried Brook off, unconscious and cuffed. Taking her down didn’t make me feel like a hero, either. She was a victim, too. A twisted one, but a victim nonetheless.

  When the paramedics came for me, I was bundled off into an ambulance. Guy had flown back to Davenport with Sam to get him medical attention, so I only had Angélica with me. She nagged the paramedics about me while I lay on the stretcher with my eyes closed. My torso hurt from the bullets my armor had stopped, but none of that had anything on my headache.

  Kiki stayed behind to handle the scene, I figured. At some point, I also suspected Naomi would emerge from the ether and start questioning everybody. Once a journalist, as she liked to say.

  I started laughing when they took us to Dartmoor Incorporated, right there in the Willis Tower. The paramedics gave me weird looks as they carried us past the still-destroyed lobby, but I didn’t bother to explain. They gave me my own room, prescribed me painkillers for the headache and rest for the exhaustion. Angélica was also given a full checkup, though they had to drag her away from me. She returned even grouchier than she’d been before.

  “Long day, huh?” she asked as she dropped into the chair by my hospital bed.

  I squeezed one eye open, even though light still felt like a personal affront to my corneas. I’d spent years in and out of the hospital, but it was a little disquieting how soothing I found the beep and hum of the monitors all around me. Like an old, forgotten lullaby.

  “How is everybody?” I asked, closing my eye again.

  “Sam will need some time to recover.” I felt the bed move as she propped her feet up on the edge.

  “And Jeremy?” I asked, my voice cracking a little.

  “He’s—he’s not responding to anything. It was a miracle he survived at all. That much electricity should have killed him right away.”

  “I know.” I was too hollow and tired to cry. I understood Jeremy and how impotent he must have felt for months, trapped in an underground superhero complex and surrounded by people more powerful than him. His life had been taken away by Guy’s decision to let people think Blaze was Jeremy Collins rather than giving up his identity. And he’d been a general pain in the ass over it, but I was still fond of Jeremy. We’d been through too much together for me to hate him. “He’s not going to make it, is he?”

  “It’s too soon to be sure. I’ve seen people come back from worse.”

  I could only nod.

  “But you should sleep while you can.” Angélica shifted in her chair. A second later, I heard a curse from all the way across the room.

  I didn’t bother to open my eyes. “You’re really never going to get that under control, are you?”

  “It has been less than a day, idiota.” I heard her annoyed huff of breath as she dropped back into her chair.

  When I opened eyes again, the headache was gone, the room was dark, and Angélica was nowhere to be found. Instead, Guy had taken up residence in her seat. From the angle of his neck and shoulders, he was going to wake up with a cramp. I sat up and stretched, slowly.

  The bed creaked, which made Guy jolt.

  “Just me,” I said when he went tense.

  “Good morning,” he said. His hair was sticking up in the back. He yawned and peered at me. “Doing okay? You were sleeping like the dead.”

  I didn’t tell him that the beep of the monitors felt more like home than my apartment really ever had. “I’m feeling better. You can go back to sleep, if you want.”

  He pushed at his hair, yawning again. “No, I’m up, I’m up. I’m—I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier. I had to stick with Sam, and then somebody had to hold Vicki back when Jeremy flatlined—”

  “What?” I asked, rolling immediately to my feet.

  “They brought him back,” Guy said. “But Vicki didn’t handle it well. He’s in a coma, Gail. I’m sorry. You saved his life, but the doctors don’t think . . .”

  “He wanted to be a damn hero, just like everybody else,” I said, my voice rough.

  “It’s a problem in our line of work,” Guy said.

  And Jeremy had been a hero. Without his bravery, Cooper would have probably taken us all out. But I was tired of my having my friends make the sacrifice play. The last time that had happened, it had been Angélica, and I’d spent over a week thinking she was dead. Now it was Jeremy. “Are we sure Kiki’s not faking it, and he’s secretly fine thanks to some giant conspiracy?” I asked, weakly.

  Guy’s smile was tinged with sadness. “We only get that lucky once. Do you want to see him?”

  “Please.”

  It was worse than even I feared. I’d been in some bad spots before, but Jeremy looked like a pale, faded facsimile of himself. He was strapped to a breather, and there were so many different diagnostic machines poking out of his arms and his chest that he looked like some kind of cyborg. I stopped in his doorway and stared, my breath hitching.

  It didn’t look like Jeremy at all. Not the man who had spent hours in the gym or was not-so-secretly vain about his looks.

  “Hey,” Guy said from behind me. He put his hands on my shoulders. “He’s still alive. There’s still hope.”

  I tried to reply, but my words stuck in my throat. Dread mounting, I stepped forward and around to the side of Jeremy’s bed, which wasn’t easy to do with all of the machines clustered around him. I looked hard at his face, like I could bring his sarcasm and life back by sheer willpower. There was absolutely no change.

  “Gail,” Guy said.

  “I could have survived it, you asshole,” I said, glaring at Jeremy’s face. I felt my hands clench into fists. “I could have—” My breath hitched. “I could have made it, you didn’t have to do that, you utter, insufferable bastard—”

  “Gail.” Guy grabbed my arm. He looked at the door and at the nurses beyond, but I didn’t care. I wanted to reach past all of the tubes and wires and shake Jeremy so that he came back so I could yell at him properly. “Gail, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but please don’t punch the coma patient.”

  “He didn’t have to do it,” I said. My cheeks were wet. When had that happened? “He pushed me off the damn catwalk, and I could have—I could have—”

  “Shh.” Guy shifted his grip on my arm and pulled me in for a hug, wrapping his arms around me. “Gail, it’s not your fault.”

  A sob broke through, catching me off guard. I pushed my face into the rough fabric of Guy’s uniform, letting the rest of the tears flood. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. We were supposed to defeat the bad guy, I was supposed to be the one on the bed, and everybody was supposed to be okay.

  Not flatlining, not in a coma. Awake, healthy, maybe a little scarred from the experience, but overall fine.

  When the tears had slowed to a tric
kle, Guy rubbed my back one last time and took a step back. “He’d be lapping up all this attention now,” he said, and I laughed because there wasn’t anything else I could do. “He’s going to tease you forever when I tell him about this.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, wiping at my cheeks. “Do you mind if we . . .”

  “Sure.” Guy pulled over chairs for both of us. I immediately curled up in mine. It was foolish, but I felt like if I looked away from Jeremy for even one minute, he might slip away. “If the nurses try to kick us both out, I’ll distract them and let you make a run for it.”

  “Isn’t that defeating the point?” I asked.

  He smiled and draped an arm across the back of my chair. “Shut up.”

  I don’t know how I fell asleep again. I shouldn’t have been able to, not with all the nurses coming in and out of Jeremy’s room, but curled up in my chair, I caught a couple more naps. Sometimes when I opened my eyes, it was Vicki sitting in the chair, pretending to read a fashion magazine. Sometimes it was Guy, or Angélica, and even Kiki once. She gave me a sad, fearful look, like she wasn’t sure what my reaction to her being there would be.

  I closed my eyes and decided not to deal with any of it.

  Finally, I woke up and I was on my own. Guy had likely gone off to sit by Sam’s bedside, Kiki was gone, and Angélica, I imagined, probably was dealing with one of the hundreds of tasks required to get being legally declared dead overturned. I stretched and rose to my feet. Jeremy’s face hadn’t changed at all.

  “You need to wake up soon,” I said, squeezing his hand once. “You’re seriously missing out on Vicki fawning over you.”

  There wasn’t any change. I felt my lip tremble and ducked out of the room before I could start leaking again.

  I went back to my own room and took a shower, standing under the too-hot spray for so long that I felt like boiling my skin off. Rather than changing into another hospital gown, I traced my steps back to the closet where I’d once hidden while breaking Naomi out of the same building, and helped myself to some scrubs. Feeling better about that and pretty much nothing else, I went back to my room

  The man standing in the middle of it made me stop in my tracks.

  “Ah, there you are,” Eddie Davenport said as he turned. He wore a pressed suit with creases sharp enough to cut. “The nurses were unable to locate you, so I told them I’d just wait here for you.”

  If I had hackles, they would have risen at the mere sight of him. I wanted to fly at him and tear his eyes out, but I kept my cool, stepping inside and closing the door behind me. The stolen scrubs felt rough against my skin all of a sudden. The last time I’d seen this man, he’d been declaring me guilty of murder.

  “What do you want?” I asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

  “Miss Godwin.” His smile had probably graced hundreds of gossip sites and Forbes magazine spreads. It only sent a cold chill through me. All I could see was him in that wood-paneled court chamber, lit by that weird yellow light. “I’m happy to see that you’re well and not too injured by your recent experience with Dr. Cooper.”

  Tell that to my friend in the coma, you jackass, I thought.

  “I’m here,” Eddie went on, “to offer you an apology.”

  “You sent me to prison based on a bullshit trial,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “Would you like a diagram of where exactly you can shove that apology, or would me telling you straight up suffice?”

  “A little anger is to be expected,” Eddie said.

  “A little? Your mother spent over a week beating me senseless because you couldn’t be bothered with things like ‘evidence,’ your sister used me as bait for a sociopath, and you couldn’t be bothered to listen to your own niece when she told you Cooper was bad news, a price that I and several of my friends paid for.” My hands were in fists again, but I kept my arms tightly folded. If he so much as moved wrong, I was going to go for his throat. And I knew precisely where that would lead me.

  Eddie’s face twitched, but that was the only sign he gave of any guilt. “Be that as it may,” he said in a voice I imagined he’d used in boardroom meetings over the years, “I am here to offer you a pardon for the charge of accessory to murder, seeing as Angélica Rocha is indeed alive and well.”

  “You don’t care that you ruin lives, do you?” I said.

  “Contrary to popular opinion, Miss Godwin, I care very much.” Eddie inclined his head. “Davenport Industries is fully prepared to make full reparations for your pain and suffering. Should you ever need anything, you have only to ask, and, of course, you always have a place within the company if you wish to return to your training and transition. The Mobium—”

  “I’ll pass, thanks,” I said in the coldest voice I’d ever heard myself use. “I’ve had my fill with Davenport’s particular brand of ‘charity.’ ”

  I could sense from his body language that Eddie was growing annoyed, but he only smiled.

  It made my blood want to boil.

  “No wonder Jessie likes you so much,” Eddie said. “My offer still stands, whether or not you take it. If you choose not to, well, I wish you luck in all your future endeavors, Miss Godwin. And on behalf of Davenport Industries, my sincerest apologies about any mistreatment you’ve suffered at the hands of my family.”

  This time, I did tell him where he could shove that apology. His smile only tightened, the lines around his eyes and mouth growing whiter, but it never dropped away from his face. “I see,” was all he said. He nodded like I’d made a compelling argument and headed for the door. “Good-bye, Miss Godwin.”

  “Here’s to never meeting again,” I said.

  He inclined his head. At the door, he paused. “There’s just one more thing,” he said, turning back. “About your escape from Detmer . . .”

  I was still shaking with rage twenty minutes later when Angélica found me sitting by Jeremy’s bedside again. “Is it true?” she asked without preamble. “You told Eddie Davenport to have sex with a goat?”

  “More or less,” I said. “Davenport and I are done. The minute I’m discharged from this place, we have no official ties to each other.”

  “Without finishing your training?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Despite my fury, guilt did seep through the cracks. Angélica was as innocent in all of this as I was. I winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think—”

  “Gail, I’m messing with you.” She bumped her shoulder against mine, smiling. “Even if you’d stayed, our training relationship would be over anyway.”

  “What do you mean? The Mobium, it’s still evolving.”

  “Yeah, it is. But I handed in my resignation half an hour ago when I also told the CEO of Davenport Industries to have sex with a farm animal.” Angélica gave me a proud look when I gawked at her. “I believe your boyfriend is in the middle of doing the same thing as we speak.”

  “Are you sure about this? I mean, it’s fine for me to quit. I still have my job at Mirror Reality, which will probably handle my grocery bill if I don’t worry about luxuries like paying the rent and electricity bills. But you, that was your entire life.”

  Angélica shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “But you love training superheroes.”

  “Maybe I’ll start a superhero gym.”

  I shook my head, boggling. For me to cut ties with Davenport was one thing: they’d screwed me over almost from the beginning. But Guy had found his community there, and Angélica, she’d been so entrenched in the very fabric of the place. And for them to just up and leave like that, it made my stomach sink.

  “Hey,” Angélica said, and I realized I hadn’t hidden my expression as well as I thought. “This is my choice. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my personal beliefs. You don’t need to worry about me. I worry about you, that’s the way it goes.”
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br />   “You’re not my trainer anymore,” I said. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  She grinned and cuffed me on the shoulder. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Impulsively, I hugged her, holding on for dear life. “Thank you,” was all I said. “And if I didn’t say it before, I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  She hugged me back. “That makes two of us.”

  On the other side of the room, something made a loud buzzing noise and promptly exploded in a shower of sparks. Angélica and I broke apart. I looked around in confusion, but we hadn’t been attacked. There was only us, Jeremy, and the smoking machine in the room.

  “What the?” I asked, craning my neck as nurses raced in. Every machine was going crazy, screens blinking on and off. The beeping sounded like a chorus of angry alley cats. Jeremy’s body arched up, which made both of us jump. “What’s going on?”

  “Stay back.” Angélica yanked me out of the way of the incoming nurses.

  “But . . .” My protest died on my lips as Jeremy’s body suddenly sagged back onto the mattress. All beeping stopped. The machines returned to normal in the blink of an eye (except for the one that was still smoking). Nurses raced around, chattering at each other too fast for me to follow. “What just happened?”

  “No idea. But we need to get out of here since we’re underfoot.”

  “But Jeremy—” He hadn’t woken. His face was still slack and ashen.

  Angélica dragged me bodily out of the room and held on to my arm as we stood by the observation window. When Vicki raced up, out of breath and holding her mask, Angélica tilted her head. “What took you so long?”

  “Has there been a change?”

  “You owe me ten bucks,” Angélica only said to Vicki.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at his hands,” she said. It took me a second for my brain to process what I was seeing. There, in the space between Jeremy’s fingers, were tiny blue flickers of electricity. They weren’t coming from the machines. They sparked onto the bedsheets, burning tiny holes in the fabric.