Things remained quiet throughout the weekend. No more buildings blew up, so... yay. Rylan and I went ice skating downtown, chugging gallons of hot chocolate to keep warm. Connor binge-watched his way through seven Hallmark Classics. Feeling the increasing guilt on my shoulders, I dialed my dad's cell phone number, staring at the screen. That's as far as I got. As usual, I couldn't call him. Calling would only make him feel worse, and would it even help my brother? I didn't think so.

I was out of options. But I knew Connor needed someone to talk to because God knows he wasn't going to break his streak of sadness and talk to me anymore than he already had. And talking to Hunter or Rylan—forget it. Connor would rather eat a bucket of nails.

No, what Connor needed was a new friend. Someone who could relate to him, maybe mentor him. Someone who had once been on top of the world, but had since fallen down...

Oh. Now there was an idea.

*******

"How many supers do you think live in Morriston?" I whispered to Rylan and Sarah in the back corner of our study hall on Monday afternoon.

"Not a clue." Rylan flipped a page in his anatomy textbook, yawning. "It's not like people run around with a sign on their back advertising, 'Hey, I'm a—'"

Sarah cut him off. "Approximately two hundred and thirty-six." She thought about it for a second. "Well, two hundred and thirty-five, without Red Comet."

Rylan snorted. "There is absolutely no statistical evidence to support that."

"Sure there is. Don't you read message boards? There's one conspiracy theorist online who thinks that every five hours someone in the country is born with superpowers."

"Okay, forgive me. I meant that there is no reliable statistical evidence to support that. And if there are truly that many people running around the city with powers, can someone draft them, please? I have it on good authority that Iron Phantom only got three hours of sleep last night."

"Oh, so that explains why you're so snarky today," Sarah said.

"I'm not snarky," Rylan sputtered. "Abigail, am I being snarky?"

"Not much more than usual. But listen. I have an idea." I motioned for them to scoot their desks closer to mine for privacy, not that it mattered much. Most of our classmates, led by Gary Gunkle, had started a spirited game of Hangman on the whiteboard. Gary was one arm away from losing for the third time and was quickly becoming frustrated.

I lowered my voice anyway. "Of the supposed two hundred Morriston residents with powers—"

"Two hundred and thirty-five," Sarah interrupted.

"Right. Two hundred and thirty-five. How many do you think were actually heroes? As in they put on a dorky costume, gave themselves a dorky name and saved people kind of heroes?"

Rylan stole a highlighter off my desk and started marking a long paragraph in his book. "I feel immensely insulted by that description, but I'll bite. Probably a dozen or so."

"Exactly! A dozen. And I only have to find one person who is willing to help Connor."

"Help him how?" Sarah twisted her pencil around one of her auburn curls.

"I don't know. Just talk to him, maybe? It would be nice if someone could show him that there's more to life than performing death-defying rescues all the time."

"I'll show him," Rylan muttered.

"Not you. Someone who retired of their own free will. Someone older and wiser. I just don't know who. Maybe someone like Dynamo or Static Charge or Poof—"

"I had such a Poof crush when I was a kid." Rylan smiled fondly, flipping his page to outline his next section of notes.

"Really?" Sarah asked. "Why? Everyone thought she was lame."

Rylan's pencil scratched across his notebook. "Because she could become invisible and I was a shy kid who got picked on in elementary school. Invisibility would've been grand. But moving on. Abigail, how do you plan on finding them?"

"That... is exactly my problem." I slumped in my seat while flipping through pages of my English textbook, but I wasn't reading anything. Even if I somehow managed to track down a retired super, one of the most elusive Morriston residents in the city's history, I had no guarantee they would help Connor. And then I would be right back where I was, sitting in study hall with a mound of homework and my brother's agitation weighing me down and no clue how to tackle any of it.

And then there was the thought that even if I found someone, everything might end horribly anyway. After Wallace and his nanobots, my ability to trust new people was a little on the fritz. Though if there was a chance that taking this risk could help Connor in the long run, then I wanted to try. I really did.

"I could post a flyer on my blog," Sarah suggested brightly. "Like this one." She held up a red and black SADD flyer she was designing for Morriston's PR club. Public relations, apparently, was Sarah's new life calling. Once she figured out there was no such thing as a Professional Fangirl, she'd started exploring other options.

"Instead of Students Against Destructive Decisions, we can call it Superheroes Against Destructive Decisions. Oh! And I can organize a bake sale and a phone-a-thon and—"

"Maybe something slightly quieter," I said. Sarah's face fell a little. "You know, something more secretive, considering the nature of the job and all."

"Oh, right. Secretive. That's good." She made a note in her planner.

"And maybe don't write down notes about it where people can see?"

She scrubbed her eraser across the paper. "Sorry."

Rylan chewed on the end of his pencil, his eyes unfocused. It was the classic Rylan Thinking Face, and I didn't know if I should be nervous or not.

His eyes made a quick sweep of the room before he leaned closer. "I have one idea."

"I'm listening."

"Well, I guess two ideas. The first is that I keep my ears open while I'm working, but I doubt that will amount to anything. I would think that when people retire from being a superhero that they no longer have a desire to be anywhere near current superheroes. But the second idea is sitting in the desk about thirty feet to your left."

Yep. Rylan's classic Thinking Face definitely made me nervous. The three of us glanced across the room. Immediately, I spotted Isaac seated at one of the desks near the window, a pencil tucked behind his ear.

My jaw dropped. "No."

"Why not?" Rylan pretended to gag. "He claims he knows everything around here."

That comment was a little too on the nose. Since moving to Morriston, Isaac had taken a part-time job as a superhero paparazzo and started a photo journal online—which really meant that he'd made it his life's goal to snap a picture of Iron Phantom or Fish Boy picking their nose at a press conference.

Either way, Isaac was becoming far too good at snooping around other people's business for my liking.

"Isaac doesn't know everything," I insisted. "He doesn't know about you."

"Well, of course not," Rylan said. "He spiked a volleyball at my head in PE last week, and he definitely wouldn't have done that if he knew I could teleport him to Antarctica and abandon him there, but he might at least know of someone who can help you."

"I'd feel so indebted to him if I asked though. Besides, the whole paparazzi thing just feels so skeevy."

"I couldn't agree more." He pushed his pencil into his notebook with enough force to stab a hole in the paper. "But it's the only thing I can think of."

"Hey! Hey, everyone!"

Speak of the devil.

Isaac jumped up onto the seat of his chair, ignoring Mrs. Amherst's, our study hall moderator's, halfhearted protests that he needed to sit down. "Ladies and gents, I snagged a shot of Iron Phantom picking his nose at a crime scene last week. I'm asking thirty buckaroos for a high-quality print!"

"Thirty?" Fanboy Kenny yelled, abandoning his game of Hangman with Gary and dashing over to Isaac. "I'll give you forty!"

"Sold! To the handsome gentleman down front!"

"You've got to be joking," Rylan grumbled. "Handsome gentleman? More like giant jerk." Kenny liked to call himself Iron Phantom's biggest devotee, but he also liked to make fun of Rylan every time he stuttered and botched an English presentation.

Isaac pocketed Kenny's money and held out the photograph. "Actually," he said. "This pic sort of makes IP look like Nate Trejo from the boys' lacrosse team. What do you think, Ken?"

Kenny squinted. "Kind of. Maybe. Not like you can see much with the mask."

Isaac hummed. "Different eye color..."

"I can't believe you noticed that."

"Please," Isaac scoffed. "I notice everything." His eyes flickered away from Kenny, landing on our corner of the classroom. "Everything."

Rylan didn't seem to believe that. He muttered something about "idiots" as he shuffled through his anatomy notes. Sarah returned to her homework, and I watched Mrs. Amherst grade papers, frowning as she scribbled with a red pen. I grew bored after a minute and eventually turned my attention back to Sarah. She had pulled an obnoxiously thick book out of her bag and was looking at it with such terror in her eyes that I thought she might start crying.

"Um... what on earth is that?"

Sarah's focus snapped to me. "Oh. It's The Big Book of Colleges. My mom gave it to me." She opened the cover slowly, using only her thumb and index finger, like the book might bite her. "It's too soon for acceptance letters and stuff, but I'm supposed to narrow my choices down anyway. I applied to twelve schools over Christmas break."

As I watched her turn the pages, my stomach twisted into knots. Violent, vomit-producing, anxiety-inducing knots. Twelve schools? Already? I knew I hadn't been thinking about post-high school stuff as much as I should have been, but I had a good reason. I was too busy trying to stop the nanobots from hurting everyone. And then trying to stop my brother from hurting himself.

Sarah was oblivious to the giant foggy cloud of doom that was spreading over my thoughts. "I'm totally second-guessing myself. Some days I feel like maybe I should have applied to fifteen schools, just to be safe."

Fifteen?

"Like, look at this." Sarah shoved the book in my face. "The preface includes seven pages of definitions. Like I'm too dumb to know what 'freshman admission statistics' means."

Admission statistics. Crap. Admission statistics. The more Sarah talked, the more freaked out I got. I had taken my SATs last year and they were pretty good, but I was so behind. All my focus had been on stopping jewelry thieves and finding ancient superheroes. College was the literal last thing on my mind... until right now.

"It's such a big decision," she went on. "It's our whole future, you know?"

My brain was buzzing, like a hive of angry bees were trapped in there and they wouldn't stop until she shut up. College was something I used to always think about, something I worked toward relentlessly. But that was before Iron Phantom, before the nanobots, before I got tangled up in something that felt so much bigger than just sitting in a classroom.

I had been so ridiculous. I didn't have powers. What were my options except going to college?

"Hey." I slapped my hand on Rylan's desk. His head was falling toward his chest, but he jerked awake suddenly.

"Did you miss the part of the story where I said I only got three hours of sleep last night?" A pencil slipped off his notebook and plummeted to the floor. He dove after it with a scowl.

"Sorry. Really sorry. Hey, um, how much college researching have you done?"

He settled into his chair, about to fall asleep again. "I've done some late-night Google searches. That's about it. How much have you... oh no."

"What?"

As discreetly as possible, Rylan pulled his phone from his back pocket. His jaw ticked as he read over a text message. Then he rubbed the back of head and huffed, watching the television above Mrs. Amherst's desk.

"Rylan, what?"

"Nothing."

"Rylan—"

The room fell silent as the program on the TV cut out with a loud squeal. Static filled the screen. When the picture cleared, a traffic camera mounted on a building downtown showed crowds of people frantically sprinting down the street. They moved like a school of fish, pushing and hopping over each other to get far away from whatever disaster had frightened them.

No voice-over accompanied the video, leading me to believe Morriston's news crews didn't intend for anyone to see this. And this, I figured out seconds later, came in the form of a giant robot overturning cars along Fifth Avenue.

The robot—or perhaps just a person wearing a robotic suit—smashed a fist through the side of a mail truck, ripping out the driver and tossing him into a fountain with ease. Diners on a nearby terrace flipped over tables as they rushed for cover.

Mrs. Amherst stopped grading papers and stared at the screen, bewildered. Car chases and fires were the norm in Morriston. Vengeful robots were not.

I hissed in Rylan's ear, "Why aren't you there?"

"Hunter texted me. He said he was handling it."

We watched the figure onscreen lift a Cadillac and throw it through the window of the nearest building. "Doesn't look like it."

"Goddammit." Rylan hardly swore, so I knew he was furious. "Cover me, please." He swung his backpack over his shoulder, quietly edging from the room. No one paid him any attention.

Less than a minute later, there he was—standing in the street, super suit intact.

"Holy shit! Look!" Fanboy Kenny yelled, voice cracking. "Iron Phantom!"

All of our classmates started shouting, leaping from their desks and shoving to get a prime viewing spot while Isaac whined about missing a great photo opportunity. I pushed my desk closer to Sarah's for cover, pulling out my phone and a wireless earbud, jiggling my feet impatiently as I waited for my headset to connect to Rylan's. I hoped there wasn't too much of a lag on the traffic cams. I helped Rylan all the time using the security footage in his basement, but we'd never done it via a television before. The advantage was that I had a bird's-eye view on the cameras and could warn him about any potential danger that he couldn't see from the ground, but it only worked if the footage was synched to real time.

"I'm waving my hand," Rylan's voice came through my earpiece. "Do you see it?"

"Sure do." Iron Phantom looked tiny on screen, at least two feet shorter than the figure in the blue and silver exoskeleton. The robot was so huge that it could undoubtedly eat Rylan for breakfast, washing him down with a couple pedestrians and a crossing guard, easy-peasy.

I scanned the video footage, looking for a prime spot for Rylan to take cover if needed without putting anyone else in harm's way. "Okay, there's a restaurant behind you to the left. Just at the intersection. The building has flower boxes in the windows." I cupped my hand over my mouth so no one would notice me talking, but the room's attention was on Mrs. Amherst's television. "There are one, two, three floors. No one's dining out front."

"I would hope not. Thanks, Abigail."

The robot charged, its metal feet punching holes in the asphalt. Rylan stood motionless as it neared. Sarah gasped, as did most of the class, and I lurched forward in my seat. What is he doing? Then I noticed the smirk on his face—he was playing chicken. Just before the robot crushed him, Rylan teleported to the roof of the restaurant and Mrs. Amherst's classroom erupted in cheers.

Rylan jumped locations again when the robot—he or she or it—starting shooting electric currents from their hands. The bolts of lightning shattered windows, creating office fires, sending fresh waves of people flooding the streets to escape buildings they naively believed were safe.

"Move!" I whispered harshly when a bolt of lightning ricocheted off the surface of a parking meter, sending it up in flames, and sped toward Rylan's back. He teleported, landing in a small park across the street where he rolled to a stop face down in the grass.

"Up! Up! Get up!" The robot had noticed him again and was closing in. It ripped a tree from the ground, swinging the trunk like a baseball bat at Iron Phantom's head. He disappeared, and the tree made contact with the windshield of a bus instead.

"You're letting it destroy everything," I said to Rylan. "This is getting sloppy."

"Ouch. Harsh much?"

"Well, forgive me for not sparing your feelings when I'm trying to help you stay alive." I scanned the TV, looking for Rylan. I found him crouched at the back tire of a delivery van on the corner, but the robot hadn't spotted him yet.

"Let's see you do it," he said.

"Sure thing. We can do a reenactment at your house. I'll bring refreshments. Would you like chips and dip or cheese and crackers?"

The robot turned in a circle, finally locating Iron Phantom half a block away on the sidewalk. I knew Rylan had no clue how to go about getting rid of this thing or he would have done more than jump around, and I wasn't exactly a wealth of ideas myself. Rylan picked himself up and leaned against a bus stop with his hands on his head. Too much teleporting in such a short time would wear him down if he wasn't careful.

"I think I'd rather have chicken nuggets," he said.

My classmates screamed again, only this time in fear. In a blur of light, the robot picked up a black SUV and hurled it in Iron Phantom's direction. The vehicle was about to connect to its target when Rylan teleported inside behind the wheel. Bad move. The SUV and Rylan soared through the air, crashing through the wall of a parking garage. Broken concrete rained down and filled the hole they left behind.

The screen went still.

"Rylan?" I asked. My earpiece beeped in response, signaling the call had dropped. "Rylan?"

His earpiece probably malfunctioned, I told myself adamantly. Or maybe his phone shattered. Just because his phone was broken didn't mean that Rylan was broken too.

He's okay. Because some part of me would know if he wasn't. And yet I couldn't speak or think or breathe. I was frozen.

The robot had just finished dusting off its hands when a motorcycle barreled down the center of Fifth Avenue. It caught the thing behind the knees, toppling it over. The figure on the motorcycle swerved, tires screeching, leaving skid marks on the road. A blue flipper flapped in the breeze. Fish Boy—better late than never.

Hunter made five quick circles around the robot. I doubted making it dizzy would work. With each loop, Hunter looked toward the ruined parking garage. Did he know Rylan was in there? At that moment, I didn't care about the creature terrorizing the city. If Hunter knew where Rylan was, he needed to help him. Rylan was strong, but not invincible.

The robot stumbled as it got to its feet. Hunter's motorcycle sped away with a roar, narrowly missing the pickup truck lobbed in his direction.

Sarah nudged me and pointed at the TV with a shaky finger.

With a thunderous BOOM, the SUV smashed through the wreckage and drove off the second floor of the garage. A little dented, missing a door and both mirrors, but perfectly usable with Rylan at the wheel. Airborne, it seemed to float for a second—a weightless deathtrap. The robot didn't move. Its big silver head turned toward the sun as the SUV came closer, closer, close enough to...

A ball of fire burst from the SUV's engine when it impacted. The robot somersaulted backward, colliding with the side of a nightclub and disappearing from sight in the onslaught of bricks and smoke as the building crumbled. Less than a minute later, it returned, checked the SUV to find Iron Phantom had vanished, and flew into the air with a rush of flames from a jetpack on its back.

Our classroom exploded into another round of ear-piercing applause. Similar noises came from the room next door, and I knew we weren't the only ones who witnessed what would likely go down in history as the greatest Morriston superhero battle of all time.

"Do you think Rylan will ever stop breaking buildings?" Sarah whispered.

"Doubtful." As long as bad guys existed, Rylan would always try to stop them—regardless of collateral damage.

I yanked out my earbud and we waited out the rest of study hall in silence despite our classmates' chatter. Even though everyone watched the fight, they felt the need to reiterate the story to their friends. One girl claimed the robot shot fireballs at Fish Boy's motorcycle. Another boy swore on his life that he saw Iron Phantom's head spin all the way around as the SUV flew toward him. I had to fight to keep from laughing in his face.

Two minutes before the bell rang, Rylan hobbled through the door, his face damp with sweat and a few streaks of dirt. He limped to his desk, holding his ribs with one hand and the back of his skull with the other, lips lifting in a weak smile once he saw me.

"Well," he said, "that could have gone better."

"I'll say," Sarah snorted.

I scanned the room surreptitiously. Our classmates were busy recounting the fight; Mrs. Amherst was still angrily slashing papers with her red pen. No one gave us a second look.

Rylan collapsed in his seat, trembling all over. "It's starting again, Abigail. And this time, it's not Wallace who's behind the attacks."

I glanced away, swallowing hard, blood rushing in my ears. Across the room, Isaac met my gaze for barely a second before turning his face back to his notebook. 

*******

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Also, here's a friendly reminder that hardcover, paperback, and ebook copies of the first book in this series, The Supervillain and Me, are available for purchase through the links on my profile. If you're not financially able to buy the book (totally understandable!) remember that you can always request a copy for free at your local library. Additionally, copies of my BRAND NEW BOOK, The Good for Nothings, are also available for purchase and library requests. The Good for Nothings is full of space heists, snark (basically Guardians of the Galaxy meets Pirates of the Caribbean), grumpy aliens, and baking robots, and I hope you love it as much as I do. Visit the links in my profile to learn more!