King Of Bad [Super Villian Academy Book 1] (3 page)

“I’ll be right
back,” the woman said just before disappearing into thin air.

“If this is a
dream, it shouldn’t hurt so much, should it?” Jeff asked himself.

Seconds later
the backdoor of the store opened and the woman stepped out, carrying a large
bag of ice. She plopped it on the ground at Jeff’s feet and tore the top open.
“Here.”

Jeff stared at
her, cradling his shiny red hand.

She rolled her
eyes and huffed at him. Then she grabbed the wrist of the throbbing hand and plunged
it into the bag of ice.

The relief was
instant and ecstatic for Jeff. He plopped onto the ground with a goofy grin on
his face.

“Oh no you don’t,”
the woman said. “We’ve got to get out of
here before the fire department comes.”

“Huh?”

She nodded toward
the dumpster. Ten-foot tall flames shot out of the metal box, blackening the
cinderblock wall behind it. Jeff’s jaw dropped in awe.

“Bring the bag;
let’s go.” The woman disappeared again, but this time in a blur as she ran at
inhuman speed out of the alley. Jeff stared stupidly after her. She blurred
back into the alley and stopped in front of him; her brown hair wind blown and
ratted as if she’d been riding in a convertible. “Let’s go, kid.”

The wail of
sirens approached.

“Oh, right,”
Jeff said and clutched the bag of ice against his stomach, his injured hand
still plunged well within.

They moved so
fast it was hard to follow the woman. She slowed down and ran just in front of
him. Being able to see her clearly while the houses, trees and cars blurred passed
made him nauseous. He concentrated so hard on keeping pace with her he didn’t
pay attention to where they were going.

At last they
came to a stop behind a large warehouse. The woman typed a code onto a keypad
next to a heavy metal door. A loud “
thunk
” echoed
through the dark as the lock clicked open. She held the door for Jeff and
motioned him through. Jeff hesitated. He had no idea where they were, who this
woman was, and no idea
who
else might be inside the
building. Everything was happening too fast. He looked down at the bag of ice
his hand was buried in. She seemed to understand what was happening better than
he did, though. And she had tried to help.

“Um, maybe I
should just go home,” Jeff said.

The woman
smiled and chuckled ironically. “Look. You need help. You have no clue what’s
happening to you. We can help.”

Jeff’s eyes
widened. There were more people in the building as he suspected. He backed up
and turned away. “I don’t think so. It’s late; I
gotta
get going.”

He headed
toward the street light on the corner, hoping he’d recognize where he was by
the street names.

“Jeff, you
can’t do this on your own.”

He froze and
gaped at the woman who still held the door open. “How do you know my name?”

“Let me at
least treat the burns before you go. I’ll explain things to you while I fix up
your hand, okay?”

Jeff looked up
at the nondescript building. He looked around at the other buildings in the
area, but nothing gave him a clue as to where they were. His hand throbbed
despite the ice glove and the melting ice had soaked the front of his shirt and
jeans. Other than her wind-blown hair, nothing about the woman looked other
than normal. But he knew she was just as not normal as he was and she knew what
it was all about.

“Okay, you can
fix my hand and you can tell me what’s going on with me while you do it. And
then you’ll let me go home, right?” Jeff asked.

“If you still
want to, you can go home.”

“If I still want to?”

“This way,
kid.”

Chapter 5

The woman led
him down brightly lit hallways. They passed several closed doors and some
darkened windows, but no people. It was about 11:00 p.m., so Jeff guessed that
the place was probably busier during the day.

They entered a
room that looked like an examining room at a doctor’s office.

“Have a seat,
kid.” She indicated a long padded table covered with white paper, where a
patient could lay down if need be. She walked over to a row of cabinets and
pulled out gauze, salve and a spray bottle and set them on the counter nearest
Jeff.

“Are you a
doctor?” he asked.

“No, but I’ve
been a patient enough times to know how to treat this type of wound.” She slid
Jeff’s hand out of the bag of ice and set the dripping bag into the sink. “Does
it hurt?”

Jeff nodded.
“A lot.”

“People call me
Pyro.” She misted Jeff’s hand with the solution in the spray bottle and an
immediate numbing sensation settled the throbbing.

“I have fire
too,” Pyro continued. “They say it’s unusual, but I have a theory.”

“You mean you
can do what I did?” Jeff noticed little creases around
Pyro’s
eyes and mouth. Her small size had led him to believe she was younger. Now that
he really looked at her, he guessed she was Mother’s age.

“I can. That’s
how I recognized that you were losing control of it. I’m sorry I couldn’t avoid
this.” She indicated his glowing red hand. “You’re strong.
Even
for an S.V.”

He flinched as
she rubbed the salve on the hand. The pain was bearable from the numbing spray,
but it still smarted when she touched it. “What’s an S.V.?”

Pyro paused and
looked Jeff directly in the eyes.
“Super villain.”

Jeff snorted.

Pyro’s
expression didn’t change.

He rolled his
eyes.
“Yeah right.
I’m a super villain.”

Pyro continued
to stare as if willing him to believe what she’d just said.

Jeff thought
about his inhuman speed, his delinquent behavior and his now improved
pyromania. His stomach lurched as the truth hit like a lead weight. “I’m a
super villain.”

Pyro nodded,
but continued to stare intently.

A sudden burst
of anger swelled inside him. “How the hell does that happen? How does someone
like me get so lucky?”

Pyro’s
expression didn’t change by Jeff’s outburst. She
didn’t flinch or back away.

“Wait a
minute,” Jeff glared at Pyro as intently, “why were you watching me? How did
you know my name? How did you know I have special abilities?”

Jeff looked
around the utilitarian room.
An uneasiness
settled in
his stomach. Why was he here with this woman anyway? Pyro looked like a mother
waiting for her two-year-old to stop throwing a tantrum and that stoked his
anger again. He sucked in a deep breath and jammed his eyes closed. Replaying
the events by the dumpster in his head, he remembered the sensation of fire
erupting from his fingers. That is not normal. He needed help and Pyro knew how
to help him. With a slow deep breath, Jeff filled his lungs and expanded his
stomach. He held it for a few calming seconds before letting it out slowly.

Control over
his anger was tenuous, but at least he felt he had some. “So, why were you
watching me?”

Pyro grabbed
the gauze and wrapped Jeff’s hand while she explained that they’d learned about
Jeff when he’d set fire to the trash can at the high school.

“Oh, the guy
chasing me was an S.V. too, huh? That’s why he was wicked fast and leapt over
fences in a single bound.” Jeff winced as she wrapped his tender fingers. He spoke
through gnashed teeth. “But how did you find me again? I lost him that day.”

“We all have
special abilities. Some of us are trackers. S.V.’s have easy to detect energy
sources.
Especially untrained S.V.’s.
Once a tracker
located you, I took over and I’ve been trailing you since.” Pyro finished
wrapping and put everything away. “I have a question for you, kid.”

“’Kay,” Jeff
answered with caution. He wasn’t sure he’d have any answers.

“How long have
you known about your abilities?”

“The only thing
I’ve known about, until today, was my speed.” Jeff shrugged. “I guess I’ve
always known about that. I don’t use it around other people ’cause they freaked
out in the first grade when I zipped across the playground.”

“What do you
mean ‘freaked out’?”

“The kids and
the teachers treated me like a circus act or an alien after that. I don’t even
think the kids remember why they’re afraid of me anymore.” Jeff hung his head
and stared at the floor. “I really am different though? After all these years,
I find out those kids are right? I am a freak of nature.”

Pyro leaned
back against the counter with a far away look on her face. “I didn’t have it
that bad because my first ability didn’t show up until freshman year in high
school. It was the first signs of my fire and it came in handy. Tim Malone and
I were kissing and I heated up more than normal. I didn’t know it, being new at
the whole necking thing, but Tim did. He thought it was cool, until I burned
him of course. After that no guy would get near me.”

“Um, why do you
consider that handy?” Jeff asked.

Pyro looked at
him and smiled.
“Because it was easy to say goodbye to the
place when the time came.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Follow me.”

Pyro led Jeff
down another series of bright hallways with closed doors. The building seemed a
never-ending maze to Jeff and it unnerved him that he wouldn’t be able to find
his way to an exit. At last Pyro stopped with her hand on the knob of a door.
She turned back toward Jeff and said, “You aren’t alone, kid.”

She swung the
door open with a flourish and indicated for Jeff to go inside. He stepped into
the doorway and stopped. They were in some sort of gymnasium. Kids ranging from
about 12 to 18 years old were hard at work testing their athleticism in a freak
show sort of way. A girl did chin-ups at twice the speed of a top Olympian. A
boy ran across a high wire. The most beautiful girl Jeff had ever laid eyes on
leaned against the wall across the room. Jeff tore his eyes from her when an
oddly shaped ball soared over the heads of the kids. Two boys enjoyed a game of
catch. At least Jeff thought the sneers on their faces indicated enjoyment. Suddenly
a head popped out of the ball.

“Come on, you
wimps, get further apart.”

Jeff’s stomach
lurched when he realized the ball was a contorted girl.

In the far
corner of the gym a couple of kids were involved in extreme wresting. Jeff
watched one kid leap six feet off the ground and pile drive the other kid into
the thick stack of mats. He thought they’d have a future in WWE if the super
villain thing didn’t pan out for them. Jeff’s gaze wandered back to the
beautiful redhead. She smiled at him and his stomach fluttered.

Pyro nudged
Jeff into the gym and let the door close. “Each S.V. has
at
least one prominent ability
. Most of us are faster and stronger than the
average human, but there are a few that are faster or stronger than the average
S.V. There are also those of us who have fire as well as those who have ice.
You can usually find an S.V. with a complementary ability to yours.” Pyro
pointed at a dark haired girl standing in the center of the room.

The girl had a
large bucket in front of her. Her face was contorted with concentration, but
Jeff couldn’t see anything happening. Then all at once a geyser of water burst
toward the ceiling and it fell back down on the assemblage in a misty rain. The
girl’s face broke into an exultant smile as the dripping kids groaned and
grumbled around her.

“Wow, that’s
really hard to do,” Pyro said, “
break
an element into
so many little particles. She’ll have a headache later.”

A nondescript
boy, tall and lanky with hair the same sandy color as his skin, approached the
girl. He smiled at her as they talked, but the girl stood stiff with a forced
smile. All the dripping kids eyed him nervously. A puddle on the floor near the
boy gradually receded. The kids’ clothes stiffened as though dried on a
clothesline. When everything around him was dry, the sand-colored boy clapped
the girl on the back and returned to sit alone, on the bleachers.

“Who’s that?”
Jeff asked.

“They call him
Desert Storm. Besides his evaporation skills, he can also create a wicked sand
storm.
When he’s near sand, of course.”

“Why is he all
alone?”

“He doesn’t
have reliable control over his power yet. If he gets too excited, he’ll drain
someone’s body of its moisture and leave a shriveled corpse behind. He’s loads
better than when he first got here. We used to have to keep him sequestered and
teach him through a loud speaker.” Pyro indicated a girl who stood away from
the pandemonium. “Hush, over there, has the ability to shut people up. She
seals all orifices at once, rendering those around her not only silent, but
blind and unable to breathe as well. Dangerous.”

“Why is she
here at all?” Jeff was horrified that they were all put in such danger.

“She used to panic
and forget how to ‘open’ people back up again. Now she has a better
understanding of the ‘undo’ process than she used to. So, she can at least be
in the same room, just can’t interact yet. It distracts her and she might
unwillingly seal everybody up.”

Pyro pointed to
a boy who sat on the edge of a chair, tapping his feet and drumming his fingers
on his thighs. “Beat Feet, I suspect, is ADHD. He can’t concentrate long enough
to hold off his ability either.”

“What can he
do?” Jeff asked.

“He can make
you dance or run. He controls feet. When he gets a handle on his ability it
will come in handy out on the streets.”