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I cross my arms. “I’d think that employee would be honored to hire me.”

His reply is as instant as the finger gun he shoots at me. “Good thing you aren’t paid to think.”

I throw the beanbag chair in his face—a friendly, non-evil gesture that makes him grab my hand and twist it around my back, pinning me to his chest. “Ev-an,” I groan, gasping for breath through the ridiculous smile plastered on my face. I may be trained in villainy, but I know flirting when I see it. “You can’t flirt with me during a lockdown.” My eyes narrow. “It’s unethical.”

He releases me and presses a hand to his forehead, slowly dragging it down so his face pulls into a creepy shape. “Wow. I kind of forgot about the lockdown. I’m a terrible person.”

“You aren’t,” I assure him. “It’s easy to forget about the rest of the world when you’re here. I do feel bad though, having fun with you while everyone else is stuck in their homes wondering what’s going on.”

A sly smile nears me as he takes a step forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ve definitely forgotten about the rest of the world.”

The brightness in Evan’s smile could rival the sun. He’s been working in the lab all morning and he’s wearing his nerd glasses and a lab coat to prove it. He rocks back and forth on his heels, standing just close enough to the television to be an annoying distraction. I slide to the right on the couch, tapping the X button furiously on my game controller. Evan clears his throat. I roll my eyes.

“What is it, Evan? And if those hipster glasses are an attempt to make me fall in love, try again.”

“You should pause the game,” he says with all the jubilant excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. I yank the controller to the right—as if that’ll somehow make my character move in the game—and fire off several shots into enemy territory. “Come on, Maci, I need you to pause the game.”

“I need you to pause
your face
.” The last two words come out in a grunt of panic as an enemy jumps out of nowhere and shoots me in the chest. I duck behind an old school bus to reload my gun, but it’s too late. I’m dead.

I pause the game, place the controller neatly in my lap, and fold my arms across my chest. “You have my full attention, Mr. Letta. I’m dead, by the way. I hope you’re happy.”

He pushes his glasses back up his nose, which is shocking because the smile on his face should hold them up there forever. “I did it,” he says, bending a tiny bit at the knees. “I discovered the evil link in villain blood.”

His face freezes in this open-mouthed state of excitement as he waits my response. “Oh, and you’re not dead. You’ll respawn at your last saved checkpoint.”

My head cocks to the side. “How? Do you have a villain locked in a dungeon that I don’t know about?”

He glances at his feet. “When I washed your Hero suit, I noticed a fair bit of blood on the sleeve,” he says, tugging at his eyebrow. “I … uh … took some and analyzed it.”

I frown. Why didn’t I think of that? Hell, had I been clever enough I could have purposely snatched some villain blood for Evan after that time I ran into him in Central. It’d be a lot easier and quicker than waiting on Central to come through with it.

Evan’s impish grin turns serious. “I’m sorry, I should have asked you.”

“No, are you kidding? This is awesome. I’m excited for you.”

I was a hot mess when I arrived at Evan’s that day, both physically and mentally. There had been a lot of bloodshed that day, so it only makes sense that some got on me.

An uneasiness fills my stomach as I glance at my forearm. Nothing but smooth, unscarred skin. Aurora’s men were injured—not me. Because if I had somehow been bleeding too, then—No. I definitely didn’t bleed.

I shake my head and give him what I can only hope is a sincere smile. “You’re pretty smart with this DNA stuff.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he says with a smile, as he trails off mid-sentence. The look on his face begs me to inquire for more information.

I poke him in the chest. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He closes the gap between us with a step, his hands brushing along my arms. His head leans toward me and his hair falls forward, touching my shoulders.

Hormonal alarms go off in my head. He’s going to kiss me. Oh, my god, he’s going to kiss me. His lips part and I suck in a breath. “If you think this stuff is cool,” he says, lowering his voice, “you haven’t seen my greatest invention.”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit disappointed that kissing me is the last thing on Evan’s mind. I mean, it’s the last thing on my mind. Of course. We’re in lockdown, and my Hero status is on the line, and my friend is dead. So, obviously it’s not the first thing on my mind. However, unlike Evan apparently—the mere inkling of a thought that kissing might possibly be an option, maybe, just kind of, sort of, at some point during this lockdown—is on my mind.

Aren’t boys supposed to be the ones who only think about one thing?

Evan twists a combination lock on a small safe shoved behind a bookshelf on the third floor. I tap my foot as I wait for him to dial to the correct numbers. “Looks like your prized best invention ever is receiving the royal treatment as far as storage solutions go.”

“Actually, it is.” Evan swings open the door. “Smartass.” He holds out a silver thermos with both hands as if it’s the blue diamond from the Titanic movie. “I had to keep it inconspicuous so Felix wouldn’t take it to Central and claim he invented it.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask, before realizing that he’s our prime suspect in the mystery of how Aurora broke into Central.

“You know that super-secret material on the breastplate of your Hero suit? I made that. Felix worked here for decades before I arrived and he was used to being the only inventor. So when I designed a breastplate capable of making our Heroes invincible, he accused me of stealing his idea and he ran off to Central with it.”

“Did you tell them it was really your invention?”

He shakes his head. “Why bother? Central shut it down immediately, saying we didn’t need something like that for Heroes. Which is bullshit if you ask me.”

I guess I wasn’t too far off the mark when I was twelve and told Evan to make useful things for Heroes. He’d more than proved he could do that. It doesn’t make sense for Central to shut down these good ideas just for the sake of keeping things the way they’ve always been. Evil isn’t stagnant. Heroes should do whatever it takes to not only keep up with them but to stay one step ahead.

“I’m going to talk to my dad about this.” I place my hands on my hips to demonstrate how serious I am about this but it only gets a quizzical eyebrow lift from Evan. “What you’re inventing could change the world. They need to embrace your ideas. So, yeah, stop looking at me like I’m insane. I’m serious. You kick ass and you need to be acknowledged for it.”

His smile is genuine. I know this because his left cheek dimples when he smiles for real. The other smile, the,
I’m too cool to actually laugh so I’m going to make this coy smirk,
smile doesn’t show his dimple. The fact that he only has one dimple and not two just makes him even more adorable.

And here I am thinking about adorableness when I should be focusing on the silver liquid that Evan pulls out of the thermos with a syringe and
oh my god he’s going to inject it into himself!

“Evan!” My mouth falls open as he squints and stabs the needle into the inside of his elbow. “What the hell are you doing?”

He drains the inch of liquid into his arm while gesturing for me to chill out with his other hand. “I don’t have a cool name for this yet, but trust me, every Hero will want some. Also, it has to be injected. It’s gross, I know.”

Instincts make me take a step backward as I wait with bated breath for the liquid to do something to him. But he doesn’t morph into a gigantic green monster. He doesn’t do anything. Well, he does do one thing. He gives me that,
I’m too cool to actually laugh at you so I’m going to make this coy smirk,
look.

Guess he’s going to make me ask. “What does it do?” I fold my arms in front of my chest. “If it’s supposed to make you invisible, then I have bad news because I can still see you.” I look him from head to toe. “Unfortunately.”

“Ah,” he chuckles loudly. “Banter. Two can play that game.”

“Two could play that game, but I’m afraid the other person doesn’t know how to, seeing as how he’s currently standing here like an idiot and not partaking in any sort of banter.”

“Fine, I’ll banter.” He looks me dead in the eyes. “You’re ugly. And stupid.”

“That’s just insulting me. That isn’t banter at all. You fail.”

He puts a hand on his chest in mock innocence. “I’m sorry, you are correct. For it to count as banter I must insult you in a cleverly disguised way. Let’s see …” He snaps his fingers and points at me while I try, and fail, to refrain from smiling. When he speaks, he uses what is probably the world’s worst fake British accent. “Maci, are you wearing an invisible suit? Because I’m afraid it isn’t working. Which I find rather unfortunate … because you are ugly.”

“I have an invention,” I say. “It’s called Stop Procrastinating. It’s where you stop procrastinating and tell me what happens with that juice you injected.”

He motions for me to follow him to the other side of the room where he pulls out a dusty padded floor mat and props it against the wall. “Ready?” he says. I shrug. “This invention is for Heroes,” he says, taking a few steps back and flexing his fingers. He moves to where the padded wall is to my left and he’s to my right. I tap my foot.

“Patience, grasshopper!” He widens his stance. If it weren’t for the cargo shorts and plain black t-shirt, he’d look exactly like a Hero with the way his legs are apart, hands in a fighting position. “The ‘juice’ as you call it, is actually a powerful ferromagnetic mixture that lasts about an hour in our bodies before the substance is absorbed into our power and the effects wear off.”

Curiosity overwhelms me and his fighter stance has me aching to spar. I haven’t trained in days and I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until now. If the juice gives him super strength or lightning fast speed, then bring it on. I lick my lips and crouch in the ready position. “Do your worst.”

Evan brings his hands to his chest, palms facing each other but not touching. He smirks.

And then my body slams against the padded wall.

I’m stuck for a moment, my head squeezed against the padding, arms and legs sprawled out like a flattened bug on a windshield. Evan lowers his hands and I sink to the floor. I’m not in pain exactly, but my whole body feels weakened. He must have moved so quickly I couldn’t see him? Or maybe it’s an invisible force field? Rising to my hands and knees, I say, “What sort of fresh hell was that?”

“Cool, huh?” He smiles and pretends to pop the collar on his collarless shirt. I hold up one finger for him to wait as I drag my body back into a standing position. I shake it off, regain my focus, and glare at him. Surely I can stop this. “Try it again.”

He sighs as if bored and raises his hand again. Again, my body moves against its own will, and I find myself plastered to the wall, stuck there with some invisible force. When he releases me, I jump to my feet so as not to fall on the floor again like a loser. It takes a lot of strength not to let my weakened muscles slump onto the granite tiles, but I manage. Either his special injection juice is incredibly powerful, or my body is seriously suffering from a week of not training.

“What,” I say between panting, “is that?”

Evan grabs a lemon-lime Gatorade from the mini fridge and tosses it to me. Despite it being lemon lime, I’m so thirsty now I could drink a bottle of booger-flavor Gatorade if I had to. (Not that lemon lime is too far off from that.) When my hands are too weak to twist open the lid, Evan does it for me without so much as a mocking gesture on his part.

“It’s the Juice,” he says. “My invention, not what you’re drinking, obviously.” I nod and tilt my head back, draining the gross yellow liquid in a few gulps. Evan circles around me, poking at my shoulder and lifting my arm, twisting it at the elbow. “You seem to be okay. How are you feeling?”